Beyond Tantra: Healing Through Taoist Sacred Sex (11 page)

Humans differ from the rest of nature in one key respect, however. We have free will. We can learn to be conscious of our sexual energy and choose how to express it. Unfortunately, the way most people are taught to handle their sexual energy is to control and suppress it. When we finally feel that we are in situation where it is safe to be sexual, we are often disappointed to discover that the energy does not flow very well. It’s sort of like spending a great deal of time blocking up a stream and then being surprised that there is not much water left to swim in when the time comes.

So why is there all this control and suppression around sexual energy? One answer is that it’s just not acceptable, at least in most societies and in most situations, to approach an unknown person on the street and simply engage in sexual activity with them. We feel, quite correctly, that this is part of what defines civilized behaviour. There is an elaborate set of rules, both spoken and unspoken, that regulate who can have sex with whom and under what circumstances.

Figuring out and applying this complicated set of rules and regulations takes up a surprising amount of humankind’s energy.

‘Hold on!’ you may say. ‘This book is about Sacred Sex and we’re a couple that has decided to work with sexual energy. Surely all of these rules and regulations are not an issue since we’re in an agreed sexual relationship between consenting adults?’ Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that. The reality is that we create tremendous tension and blockages in our bodies and minds by trying to follow all these rules and regulations and those blockages don’t disappear just because we happen to be naked in the bedroom with a sexually attractive partner. Sure, the sheer raw power of sexual energy can overcome many blockages (‘I just couldn’t help myself.’) but what does that lead to? A rush of energy that is wonderful at the time but afterwards can leave you with a curious feeling of regret and emptiness. To go back to the stream analogy, it’s almost as if the stream finally bursts through the dam holding it back and then completely floods the garden leaving a right old mess afterwards. A far cry from the steady, nourishing flow of Sexual Qi we need to keep ourselves growing and thriving.

Sacred Sex practitioners recognized this and saw that many of these blockages were based on previous unhappy experiences and that the memories of these are ‘stored’ in our bodies. You can see how this works with this simple experiment: just try and put your finger in the flame of a candle. Notice the hesitation?

You learned at an early age that fire hurts and now you exercise great caution. So how does this work in regards to sexual energy? An example could be if your

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Practising Sacred Touch – The Background

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mother (or primary carer) did not like touching your genitals. As a result, you would have been given a message very early on that ‘genitals are bad’. How many people have had their hands slapped as a small child when they touched their

‘private parts’? Negative body experiences such as these leave their marks deep in the psyche and our body memory and are a powerful part of who we think we are and what we believe about our sexuality and ourselves.

To work successfully with Sacred Sex you need to undo this conditioning.

This is where having a willing partner comes into its own. It’s much, much easier to work with another person to peel away the layers of the onion of negative body conditioning than it is to do it by yourself. The good news is that our bodies are longing to be freed from the tension and stress that this negative conditioning has created. For most people it’s simply a matter of slowly and gently healing the wounds by replacing those old, unhappy experiences with new, wonderful ones.

Stephan’s Story

I’ll be honest. Our sex life wasn’t great when we started off with Sacred Sex.

I was pretty frustrated both with Mieke and myself. I found out later that she was just as unhappy. It seemed that, no matter how hard I tried, I really couldn’t get much energy going between us. I didn’t know how to talk about it with her and I guess I just sort of hoped that somehow the sparks might fly again like they had when we met. We did have a good time once in a blue moon, as I used to say, but I could never figure out why. I certainly had no sure-fire method I could use to get the sexual energy going between us. I knew Mieke felt as bad about this as I did, but we just didn’t have any way to move out of the rut we were in.

To top it off, we were stuck in what I now realize is called a ‘negative feedback loop’: I would show sexual interest without checking to see if she was interested first; she would not want to disappoint me and tried hard; I saw that it wasn’t working and felt bad about it; she saw that I felt bad and felt worse.

Great, eh? From what I’ve heard and read, I now understand that this sort of situation is not at all uncommon, but that’s not a lot of help when you’re stuck in it.

So when we started off with some of the massage and relaxation exercises, it was tough going for me. I’d never done much massage and approached it pretty much the way I approached everything; in other words, read the instructions, do the best I could and hopefully Mieke would enjoy it. It didn’t help that, as usual, part of me was afraid that I would do something wrong and I was, as often, hypersensitive to anything that might sound like a whiff of criticism.

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Beyond Tantra – Healing Through Taoist Sacred Sex We’d reserved an evening and I started by arranging a mattress with a nice cloth on it in front of the open fire. I then put on some soft music that I had especially bought for the occasion. Mieke lay down on the mattress and I picked up the bottle of massage oil. I gently poured a bit on her back.

‘Aargh!’ she cried and jerked away from me. ‘That’s cold!’

Right, cold massage oil on a warm back is not such a great feeling.

Unfortunately, I immediately went into my ‘I can never do anything right’ state and Mieke, noticing this, shut up completely and said precious little that evening. Oh well, so much for the relaxation and communication exercise.

The next week we tried again. Mieke, who had done quite a bit of massage and attended a course or two, chatted with me as I lit the fire. I asked her what we might have learned from last week and what we might do differently. I really was trying to learn this communication stuff. She looked at me as if to see whether I was really serious in wanting to know, and whether I would be upset if she said something. I guess I must have looked approachable and she ventured:

‘You know, I learned in my course that, when you give a massage, you pour the oil into the palm of your hand and let it warm up a bit first. That way it feels really nice when you then put your hands on someone.’

Since this was not a criticism directed at me, I had no trouble hearing her and thought, ‘now that’s a clever idea!’ This time, when I applied the oil, I got to hear ‘mmmm’ instead of ‘aargh’. Things went much better that evening.

That probably sounds like a really simple story. But within it lay the seeds of a complete transformation in our relationship. I started to listen, and Mieke started to talk. For the previous twenty years it had usually been the other way around. Once we learned how to do this, i.e. take turns speaking and listening and really hear each other, we found that there was absolutely no problem, small or large, that we couldn’t sooner our later find our way through.

So what was the difference? Instead of saying ‘last week you poured cold oil on me and it was awful’ she shared some information with me to help make the experience pleasant. That made all the difference in the world to me and gave me a chance to relax and realize that she, too, wanted to have a nice time and was very willing to help make the evening a success. No, this wasn’t a blinding flash of transformation or inspiration, just a small shift in the way we were interacting with each other. But it did set the stage for unblocking and releasing large amounts of tension and mistrust that had accumulated over our years together.

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Practising Sacred Touch – Mieke’s Story

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Mieke’s Story

New challenges present themselves at regular intervals during our sessions.

This time the problem is with touching myself in a sexual way in front of Stephan. I have always been very shy; even as a child and teenager I would blush at the slightest look from someone I did not know very well, let alone a man! I thought I had got over this in my thirties and forties, but now I realize I am still very shy, even in front of my partner of so many years! One night we were preparing ourselves in front of the fire. I found it really difficult to touch my nipples, or any other sensitive part of myself, while Stephan was watching. Of course I had done all this before, in the privacy of my bed, or my room, when I was alone. I wondered why I felt so shy now? I don’t have anything to hide! I felt really naked, vulnerable, scared even, to show this part of myself I had hidden for so long. Then I realized something important: how can I be comfortable being touched by another when I can’t openly touch myself? Many thoughts and feelings go through my head! Why am I so shy to show my partner that I get sexually excited? Perhaps one explanation is that I was brought up to be a good Catholic girl, and good girls don’t do such things! I thought I had grown out of all this but it just goes to show how hard it is to get rid of these old thought-forms and patterns! I decided this was silly; I don’t need this childhood stuff anymore, I told myself: let it go! We are both here to learn and experiment, and have fun.

I did not change over night. Slowly I allowed myself to stimulate my nipples while Stephan was watching. Then I noticed that he became even more aroused when he was watching me, especially when I stroked my pubic area, and clitoris.

I in turn became more excited, and so a dance was created between us. I had always known that men were more visually-oriented, but to experience this and play with it was new for me! I liked it; it was fun!

After this insight, our sessions changed. I often started off with stimulating myself, watching Stephan getting more aroused. It also helped him to relax more, as he no longer felt he had to do all the hard work to ‘warm me up’, at least in his mind.

What was happening with me? I was slowly changing the image I had of myself: I was slowly accepting that I was a sexy woman, and enjoyed myself, that I allowed myself to show this, that it gave me pleasure. Yes, I’m responsible for my own sexuality. I’m in charge; I don’t always need to wait for someone else to give me pleasure!