Ecstatic sex is not possible without intimacy and commitment. As tantric sex has been exported to the Western world it has frequently been distorted. Here's how.
Just as many people plunge into instant sex and end up having sex for all the wrong reasons, people dive into the pool of instant intimacy and end up in deep waters before they really know how to swim. Especially in the realm of tantra where sex, body work, and emotions are tied more deeply together, the waters can not only get deep, but rather murky really fast.
Why Tantra Once Required Commitment and Intimacy
To avoid throwing non-swimmers into deep waters, tantra, as it was orignally practiced in the East, ironically required a long period of time where the tantric partners got to know each other without any sexual contact whatsoever. An example of this might even include lying side by side next to each other in bed fully clothed for months. Why? Because giving into junk food sex and sex for all the wrong reasons is extremely easy and not much of a discipline at all. Learning to develop a deep bond of love, intimacy, integrity, honesty, and respect before having a sexual encounter, that is quite another matter.
How Tanta Becomes Junk Food Sex
As tantra was exported to the West many of the sexual techniques involved in tantra were divorced from the prerequistes of love, intimacy, respect and commitment. In short, tantra turned into junk food sex and at the same time encouraged people to have instant intimacy without really being prepared to know what they were in for.
Examples of Instant Intimacy Included
- Getting naked right away with one or more strangers in such a way an individual might not have time to feel fully at choice or have enough time to process effectively any discomfort created in doing so.
- Immediately touching each other in sexual ways without knowing much more than your sexual partner's first name (if that).
- Being encouraged along sexual lines that individuals might feel uncomfortable with and simply being told to override these uncomfortable feelings in the name of being "hip." (See sex for all the wrong reasons to learn more).
- Having strangers touch sensitive areas in the body (such as a woman's G spot) where intense emotions of both a positive and negative nature could be triggerd off without having a qualified sex therapist (or truly enlightened tantra teacher) there to help process those emotions in a safe, loving, non-overwhelmed and healing way.
- Acting as if teaching men how to sustain an erection for a long period of time is equivelent to showing them how to be more intimate (with himself or his partner). Though sustained erections do allow a man to take his time in pleasuring his partner, they do not necessarily go hand in hand with creating a deeper ecstatic connection. In short, though, ecstasy always contains pleasure, pleasure does not always contain ecstasy.
Read Part Two of this article.
