Tantra: Where's My Orgy?

by L. J. Williamson

What I've heard about Tantra is tittilating. Extended orgasms that last five hours! Spiritual connection! Orgies! Sexual energy moving up all the chakras! Total immersion and union! Oh, and did I mention the orgasms? Really good orgasms.

You mean I don't have to be a celibate monk to be enlightened? Sign me up! I'm on the spiritual path and I'm coming!!

Sounds like the perfect way to reconcile sexuality and spirituality, right? The textbooks have great names too, like The Art of Sexual Magic. I'll never be tardy to this class! Slap a few of the right words on sex -- "bliss," "ecstatic union," "chakra," "weekend intensive" -- and I'll say "It's a Visa, and the account number is 4052..."

Oh, how I wish it were that easy. But Margot Anand set me straight:

"Many so-called tantra teachers and so-called tantra movements think that you just need to tickle your G-spot for four hours and take a few drugs and then you reach enlightenment and that's what tantra is about. No, it isn't. There has been a great misunderstanding, a feeling that after such a long time of sexual repression, now we are entering into the garden of delight, and we can basically do whatever we want—cavort and fuck and suck and do all these things—albeit more consciously than before. This is still not tantra. So I think it's very important to really make the distinction that tantric spirituality is not about just indulging in sexual orgies."

Damn.

| 11/29/06 | Love and Sex