The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability (30 page)

For many of us, our bodies seem like the enemy some (or all) of the time. Yoga can give us the sense of a body that is a help, not a hindrance. It can bring us a feeling of control. We may like our bodies more after a yoga practice. It may eventually lead us to a place where we are not composed of different parts, such as mind, spirit, and body, but where our feet or our arms or our genitalia are as much a part of "us" as our thoughts. When we reach this state, we don't think about what to add to the shopping list while having sex. We don't even necessarily think about sex, we are sex and sexuality, we are sexual beings experiencing something with all parts of ourselves. Yoga helps us merge consciousness and movement in practices that incorporate postures, breathing, thinking, and feeling, which can have a powerful impact on our sexual expression.

Yoga practices give us time for ourselves, time that becomes increasingly free of distracting thoughts. The practices increase the sense of well-being and self-awareness, both things that can also improve our sense of ourselves as sexual beings.

Most important in this interaction of yoga and sex is the principle that openness to the experience is vital to both realms. Openness involves an acknowledgment that we need to know more, and that we don't always act in ways that assure we will get what we want. In sex, openness may lead to recognizing what we don't want and learning to say no, but also to acknowledging needs and learning to say yes, to ourselves and to others.

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Tantra

Sex isn't some new thing that was invented in recent history. We all know this, but we tend to imagine that until recent times sex has been mainly about procreation and not about enjoyment. There are different ways of thinking about sex that are radically different from the current North American approach, and some of these have been practiced for a very long time. One of the oldest approaches is Tantra.

One translation of the word Tantra is "tools for expansion." Tantra is over 1,500 years old, and like yoga it originated in India. It consists of a set of teachings and practices that are specifically designed to help us feel more, to increase our awareness of our own energy as well as the energy around us. The path that Tantra uses to these ends is the exploration of sexual energy.

Tantric teachings state that by more fully experiencing our own sexual energy and potential, we are bringing ourselves closer to being one with a universal energy or higher power. These teachings are not about adhering to specific rules or beliefs. Even if we aren't interested in taking on the religious, "higher power" aspects of Tantra, we can take what we like and leave the rest.

Many of the teachings are about desire and the experience of sexual energy. Unlike Western approaches to improving your sex life, these teachings do not revolve around external evaluations of what our body looks like, what kind of car we drive or how we wear our hair. Instead the focus is on our tuning in, to evaluate our minds, spirit, and breath. This focus not only makes a refreshing change from the sorts of pressures we all face, it also offers a centuries-old tradition to consider as a replacement for the standards against which we currently measure ourselves.

Like other kinds of yoga, Tantra is taught by many teachers around the world who have their own take on it, influenced by the cultures they grew up in.

The goal of Tantric sex is to allow us to experience more depth and breadth in our sexuality. The goal is not necessarily orgasm, but rather an

enriching of the whole sexual experience. The practice of Tantric sex requires a shift away from thinking about the body as the most important part of who we are.

Tantra explores the distinction made between our physical body and what is sometimes called our "energy body/' although it aims to integrate the two. It sees our physical body as what keeps us alive, but our energy body as what gives us life. This does not have to be a religious idea, although the closest thing we have in Western thought to the energy body is the soul.

One of the most radical ideas in Tantra is that our energy body is more important than our physical body when it comes to expanding our sexual experience. It is our energy body that can provide us with constantly new and boundless possibilities of sexual feelings. Our energy body is not judged based on nondisabled norms. Tantra does not require a particular kind of physical body, and truly breaks all the mainstream rules about what sex is all about and how to have it.

Tantra distinguishes many different energy systems within us. One of these that you might have read about already is chakras: energy centers in the body between the pelvis and the top of the head. In this system of thought, there is the idea that the smooth flow of energy in our bodies can get stuck somewhere in the system, having been blocked from moving freely or depleted for a variety of reasons. Tantric practice works toward keeping energy flowing through our energy centers smoothly and naturally.

Tantra is different from Western ideas about sex in some other important ways. The Western concept of sex is like a story with a clear beginning (sexual excitement), middle (penetration), and end (orgasm). Sex without penetration is often viewed as being "not real" or "merely" foreplay. Sex without orgasm means that someone has failed, either in not attaining it or not providing it in some way for their partner. In Tantric sex the point of sex is not orgasm, the point is to feel. There is no clear-cut beginning, middle, or end. Most of the exercises related to Tantric sex involve slowing things down, trying not to focus on our external body, or orgasm, or anything outside of our experience of the moment.

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Tantra moves us away from a medical model of sexuality and sexual response.

Without a focus on orgasm, Tantra's goal becomes increased awareness, leading to greater understanding of ourselves, which eventually leads to enlightenment. There is no pressure to "get over the top." This doesn't mean that orgasm doesn't exist in Tantra, it just isn't the be-all and end-all. The spiritual practice and the good sexual feelings are interrelated, each leading back to and improving the other.

Another key aspect of Tantra is nonattachment. In our culture we are constantly attaching ourselves to things, objects, people, even rigidly held beliefs. Tantra teaches that these attachments keep us closed to many possible experiences, and to experience deeper knowing we need to gently release our grasp on these things. This doesn't mean we have to give up our favorite boots, or stop believing in things that are important to us, but rather giving things up in the moment, examining what is truly essential to us and what we are holding on to out of anxiety, habit, frustration, or self-doubt. A perfect example of an attachment that can get in the way is our culture's attachment to orgasm. By thinking that there is one goal to sex, and keeping our mind on only that goal, we often miss all the beautiful moments along the way, and sometimes find we are unable to reach that goal anyway.

Mitch Tepper, the founder of sexualhealth.com, wrote a wonderful article about Tantric sex and disability. In it he points to research conducted by Beverley Whipple and her colleagues at Rutgers University. Their work clearly documents cases where women who have complete spinal cord injuries had orgasms from fantasy stimulation alone, orgasms that were not connected to genital contractions. This fact flies in the face of medical understanding of sexual response and points to the variety of other ways to experience sexual pleasure that are open to any of us.

Tantra is about essence. To practice Tantra means you are willing to think about life beyond all that which we normally hold near and dear. It means no longer thinking in terms of body/mind/spirit as three separate parts of ourselves, but rather experiencing them as a whole.

Exercises

In his book The Essential Tantra, author and teacher Kenneth Ray Stubbs writes about four common psychological obstacles to Tantric practice.

The first is the idea that in sex we are either a spectator or a performer. If our attention is focused on watching what is going on, what our partner is doing, or how our body is looking or responding, we are taken out of an awareness of the moment.

The second is about judgment. We need to begin to actively stop ourselves when we are judging appearances during intimate moments. It's not that any of us can be wholly nonjudgmental, or that we shouldn't have personal tastes. But if we're doing this judgment either with ourselves when we are alone, or with a partner, during a sexual moment, it is likely that we're doing it as a way of keeping ourselves separate from the experience.

The third obstacle is comparing our current experience with past experiences. We all do this to some extent. But when we focus on this, we are unable to experience things in a new way, to see new possibilities.

The last obstacle Stubbs writes about is having specific expectations of the future. Tantra is about the journey, not the destination. Having our mind fixed on a final goal means we can't focus our energy on what it's like on the path to get there.

Tantra is about receptivity, relaxation, staying in the present and awareness. The breathing techniques and awareness exercises in chapter 3 are essentially yoga and Tantric exercises. If you skipped them before, you may want to go back and give them a try now. As you use your breathing to focus on parts of your body, try to be aware of the ways that your feelings change as you focus your awareness on a particular part of your body. As you are breathing and concentrating on your ears, for example, pay attention to physical feelings, like sensations of heat or cold, vibration, lightness or heaviness, as well as emotions that ebb and flow.

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1. Self-Massage

Tantric self-massage involves putting pressure on a point and releasing. If you can do this, pick a part of your body you can apply pressure to. You don't need to do any special breathing with this exercise, but be aware of your breath as you concentrate on the spot on your body you are pressing on. Feel the air passing over the area. Experience the difference between no pressure, then pressure, then release of pressure. If you can't apply physical pressure, use your mind and imagination to concentrate on a point, then release. Imagine the air passing over that point. Do you experience that point differently when you are concentrating on it as opposed to when you aren't focusing? These may seem like simple exercises and in fact they are, but they are good for slowly changing our awareness of our bodies. Be aware of your thoughts as you do the above exercise. If you find yourself losing focus, thinking about other things you need to get done, stop and try to let those thoughts drift out of your mind and shift your focus back to the experience of pressure, no pressure, release of pressure.

2. Separating Orgasm and Ejaculation for Men

In chapter 3 we talked about the fact that orgasm and ejaculation are two separate events in men and women. This is something many men are unaware of if they usually experience both orgasm and ejaculation simultaneously. A great exercise to increase your awareness, which also helps men delay ejaculation, is learning the difference between the two events. This exercise only applies to men who regularly ejaculate and experience orgasm. If you don't usually do one or the other, you probably already know that they are different.

Start by pleasuring yourself in whatever way you like to best, but while you are doing this use the breathing techniques described in chapter 3.

The first couple of times you do this, don't try too hard to focus on a goal, just try to pay attention to what happens to your body as you get more aroused and nearer to orgasm. The reason most men don't realize there is a difference between ejaculation and orgasm is that the signs in

the body are very subtle. In most men's sexual response they reach what's called the "point of no return." This refers to the physical state where they are so aroused that they are going to ejaculate, and nothing will prevent that. The goal of this exercise is to recognize that point, and slow yourself down so that you don't go over that point. Begin by paying attention to how your body moves as you masturbate. Do your hips or legs move more, or do they move less, as you get nearer to climax? If you feel tension or stress related to spasms, does that change as you come closer to climax? How does your breathing alter? Some men feel a slight tingling at the base of their penis just before orgasm. You may also notice that the head of your penis gets bigger just before orgasm. Whatever the signs are, spend a few sessions masturbating and paying particular attention to the moments just before you come.

The next step is to stop stimulating yourself as soon as you notice the signs that orgasm is coming. Again, think about it as playing with the "point of no return," getting yourself turned on enough that you're almost there, and then breathing yourself back from it a little bit. At this stage you can try a few things to stop yourself from going over the point. You can physically stop stimulating yourself. You can use your breath to focus the energy flowing in your body; try to imagine it flowing up your body rather than down and out through your penis. You can also flex your PC muscle (if you've forgotten how this works, go back to the exercises in chapter 3) and you can massage your perineum. All of these things will shift your energy slightly and should eventually prevent you from ejaculating. The first couple of times may not work. Don't worry about this. This is one form of practice that you can never do too much of (and even when you don't succeed, it's still a lot of fun!).

As you learn to stop yourself from ejaculating, you may notice that the rise in pleasure, the breathing, the physical sensations, don't go away—because you haven't ejaculated yet. This experience is called, by some, nonejaculatory orgasms. The great thing about these kinds of orgasms is that if you have one, you can have many, and you don't need to wait for a period of time between them. These orgasms are not accompanied by the same feelings of release that happen when you