Can tantric massage boost sexual confidence? First one needs to understand what sexual confidence really is.
We could all start by asking ourself the question: ‘Am I a sexually confident person?’
Following is a pertinent quote from Osho, who was a popular guru, sometimes known as the ‘sex’ guru’ of the seventies:
“ All religions have turned man against his own energies. Sex is man’s whole energy, his life energy. So through condemning sex…. and preventing the orgasmic experience, religions have made men and women slaves. And the basic strategy is :’because sex is the most powerful energy in you, sex should be condemned, a guilt should be created. Then the individual has a split….. his nature is sensuous, sexual and his mind is full of garbage against it. So man is afraid of sex as far as the mind is concerned, but his biology has nothing to do with the mind.The biology has its own way of functioning, so it will draw him towards sex and his mind will be standing there continuously condemning him. So he makes love, but in a hurry. He is hurrying because he feels he is doing something wrong. The only compromise is to be quick. That avoids the orgasm.
Because of his hurry, he cannot manage the orgasm. Sex has become equivalent to ejaculation. That is not true as far as nature is concerned. Ejaculation is only a part, which you can manage without orgasm. You can reproduce children, but you have become deprived. Man is deprived and because he is so quick in making love, the woman is also deprived. The woman needs time to warm up. Her whole body is erotic and unless her whole body is throbbing with joy, she will not be able to experience orgasm. So for millions of years, women have been denied their birthright. So they become bitchy… nagging… ready to fight…
Then you go for therapy . But without meditation you can go on painting on the surface, but the inner reality remains the same. My therapists have to introduce meditation as the very center of therapy. Then we have made therapy something really valuable Our therapy should give a person his individuality back. We give him his childhood and innocence back We have to teach people how to live totally and wholly…… Then orgasm will give you your roots, which have been taken away from you. It is immensely important for meditation that a person has the experience of orgasm……. Then you can make him understand what meditation is. It is an orgasmic experience with the whole existence.”
I have included this long quote from Osho, because even though it was written in the 1970’s, it is still applicable to us in many ways today.
You may be thinking that these things do not apply to the majority of people in the 21st century. There is so much open communication nowadays,knowledge and techniques are freely available, and we are no longer affected by guilt and secrecy. But the fundamental body/mind/spirit disconnection has simply taken other forms.Society and advertising exert different but equally powerful pressures. People may look confident but here, at Tantric Massage London, we experience every day that underneath the surface, there is a fundamental of lack of sexual confidence. Our connection with ourself as a sexual being is very often impaired.
We have allowed our culture to de-sensitise us and we no longer feel with the entirety of our being. We tend to be in our heads. As the inner disconnection between mind, body and spirit becomes habitual, men and women are no longer able to feel turned on in the usual ways. So they resort to fantasising all kinds of situations, or they can only have sex in a particular way, or they watch porn before they are able to have sex. Our society also encourages this type of behaviour. And this makes people even more out of touch with themselves and more insecure, because they compare their bodies and performance to those of porn stars.
Women develop anorexia and bulimia, because of lack of self-esteem. They worry about how they look. Their body can never be beautiful enough, so they diet, wax it everywhere ( as do men nowadays too) – they undergo all kinds of procedures like anal bleaching, breast enlargement, men worry about the size of their penis and have surgery to enlarge it….. all because of fundamental insecurity and over-identification with the body and its physical appearance and lack of connection with the true self inside.
So let us take a look at how this fundamental insecurity affects women, men and couples and the ways in which tantric massage and tuition can help. All of this can be helpful, whether one is single or in a relationship.
Our tantric tuiton process can be broken down into the following:
1. Learning to feel – Begin to feel one’s own body and senses, learn to slow down the mind and integrate body-mind-spirit
2. Education – provide information on what to touch, how to touch, what turns you on, what turns your partner on.
3. Communication – how to communicate honestly without hurting your partner.
4. Connection – Feeling the connection within, which leads to feeling the connection with our partner.
WOMEN
Women often have the idea, sometimes sub-consciously, that the main thing is to keep their man pleased. So they concentrate on their partner rather than on themselves. When a couple come and see us and each want to receive a tantric massage, we advise them to have the massage in separate rooms at first, so that the woman can concentrate on her own pleasure.
Very often it is the male partner who initiates the idea of having a tantric massage together and he asks for the massage to be in the same room, so that he can enjoy watching his partner being turned on and also learn how to turn her on. And often, the woman will agree with him because she has become conditioned to wanting to please him and is unaware of how out of touch she is with herself.
So we need to explain to both of them that a woman needs privacy to discover what turns her, on before she can then show her partner. She needs to become familiar with her own vagina, to masturbate, use sex toys and generally be aware of and in touch with her own sensual responses. For this, she needs privacy and will be much more free, uninhibited and comfortable on her own.
We often recommend women to take a look at the website of Betty Dodson: http://dodsonandross.com, who is a pioneer of sex education for women. She was one of the first therapists to encourage women to get a mirror and actually look at their own vagina. As she says in her website: ‘ Our Bodysex workshops teach women how to overcome negative body image and pleasure anxiety.’ She encourages women to masturbate together in a group and to share their experiences with one another. Women soon realise that they are not alone, and that their issues are shared by most other women.
We explain all this to women who come to us for tantric massage. It is of special help to women who lack sexual experience. In today’s world, men increasingly expect women to be sexually confident and to know how to please them sexually. Gone are the days when women were supposed to be innocent. But we have found that many women who have been married for a long time, or have had several lovers, are still often disconnected from their own bodies and really do not know how to give pleasure to themselves or to their partner either.
Our aim is to provide a safe space for women to air their concerns, and to discover their own bodies – to learn what turns them on, at their own pace, without worrying about having to please anyone else at the same time. And maybe to experience an orgasm for the first time in their lives. We also tell them that orgasm is not the goal. There is no goal. We need to feel our feelings in the moment, in their totality, without the mind coming in, without extraneous thoughts, without expectations and without blocking the feeling. In this way, we learn what real pleasure is. And women also discover that once they actually feel intense bodily arousal and pleasure, this , in itself, is a turn- on for their partner. There is no greater turn-off for a man when he is trying to please his partner, than to see her just lying there and to feel that whatever he does is not having much of an effect. But men are not mind-readers. Women need to be able to show their partner what they like and don’t like. In order to do this, they must first know themselves what they like, and then have the confidence to show their partner, and to also have the confidence and tact to tell him if he is doing things that are uncomfortable and do not feel good. Both partners also need to be relaxed and not be in a hurry.
These are the skills we teach women in our tantric massage/tuition sessions. We also offer tuition to couples, so that they can practice on each other, with the guidance of a tantric therapist, so that they can learn in a practical way, what pleases their partner, and also to be entirely honest about what they like and don’t like. This process of self-exploration and learning to communicate in an honest way sounds so simple, but we have found it to be lacking in many people’s lives, and we have also found that once the initial hurdles of shyness and embarrassment are overcome, sexual confidence is the natural result.
MEN
In our practice, we have found that many men, especially from India and Arab countries, suffer from premature ejaculation because sex before marriage is still often taboo there, and so when they are young, they masturbate secretly and in a hurry. And after getting married, they find they have premature ejaculation and don’t know what to do about it. Their wives cannot help because they are similarly lacking in experience, and we find that when they come to us and learn to give one another a tantric massage, and learn to slow down and savour the moment, they experience it as a total revelation.
Premature ejaculation is often a habitual, psychological pattern, and so men need to be encouraged to last longer. We teach them a deep breathing technique which helps them remain more in their bodies, and less in their thoughts. And then we give them a slightly arousing sensual massage,and ask them to tell us when they think they are on the brink…. We then slow down and slowly bring them up to the brink again. We do this several times, and gradually a man begins to become more confident in himself as he sees his old patterns breaking up, and he lasts longer, almost effortlessly. It is helpful if his partner can watch this process, or be aware of it, so that they can practice in this way at home.
Also nowadays, in our heavily materialistic culture, men work so hard and are under so much pressure, that many more are now experiencing an inability to get an erection, or to maintain one, or they have very weak erections – they then drink too much coffee, alcohol, or take drugs, which makes things even worse, and by the time they come to us, they are often unable to relax at all. Many are on anti-depressants, which make it difficult to orgasm, and this perpetuates a self-fulfilling cycle of lack of sexual confidence. All the more so because they have an expectation that they should be the perfect lover and to be able to stay hard for hours and be able to give their partner a mind-blowing orgasm.
Men need to take time off, away from work and meetings, to relax totally. That is why we consider it important that they receive a real massage and not just a soft feathery type massage. When someone is really stressed, they need a deeper massage to get rid of the physical knots in the body. We also teach them to breathe properly, from the diaphragm, and this deep breathing automatically helps the mind to calm down. We encourage them to watch their thoughts and not to identify with them. This is basic meditation practice, which helps to stop circular thinking, or the repetition of the same thoughts over and over again, which is what happens when someone is too stressed.
In this way, the individual can begin to feel his feelings again, without thoughts getting in the way. He can begin to feel turned on and to discover that there is, in fact, absolutely nothing wrong with him. He was just too stressed. It is a real relief for a man to discover that he has not lost his sexual potency, and that everything is working as it did before.
Some men are also able to experience an internal orgasm without ejaculation, which is a very powerful experience, and leaves the body shaking with pleasure and total relaxation as the energy flows unimpeded throughout the inner channels of the body. Women can also experience this type of whole body orgasm and it can give someone an immense feeling of of peace , bliss and sexual confidence.
INTIMACY, CONNECTION AND THE QUALITY OF CONSCIOUS TOUCH
When we become too wrapped up in our thoughts, we can act in unconscious ways. We become led by the mind, instead of by our true intuition and feeling. And so there may be a tendency to touch one another in an uncomfortable , unpleasant or insensitive way. Many people need to be taught how to touch one another with awareness, consciousness and subtlety. They also need to be taught where to touch and what the opposite sex actually enjoys. When we are touched in this way, our heart tends to open and we feel that the other person really cares for us, that there is a true connection and a feeling of intimacy and oneness arises between us.
Our therapists often need to take the hand of a male client and show him how to touch, and tell him what feels good and what doesn’t, because he himself often does not know. A woman’s vagina can be a source of mystery to men. The same applies to female clients We are often amazed to see beautiful women and men, who appear so confident on the outside, but who really don’t know how and where to touch one another.. We encourage them to practice on their partner, to give one another a tantric massage, we show them how to touch and what strokes to use, and we encourage them to give each other truthful feedback. We have found that couples can sometimes be more honest with one another in this kind of situation, than throughout many years of marriage.
SEXUAL CONFIDENCE
Ultimately, as these tools are used and practiced, men and women experience their inner feelings in a more total way. They learn to trust them more and develop the courage to become more deeply themelves. That confidence encourages them to experiment and to try out new things, because variety is also important in our sex life. As we become more conscious, total, alive and integrated, we set clearer boundaries in our relationship with others. We learn to communicate honestly, without offending the other, and it becomes easier to relate, and to actually feel not only arousal, but also intimacy, love and connection in our heart. This is how sexual confidence gradually develops . And that confidence can then be integrated into a healthy, conscious and mindful way of being. We hope that this will be the benefit of receiving a tantric massage.