Diana Richardson - Tantric Orgasm for Women

Dedicated to Love in Women

Acknowledgments

I sincerely thank the many women who have shared their experiences with me over the years, and from whom I have learned an inestimable amount. In particular I am grateful to the women who have given me permission to use their personal words of experience, which have helped enormously in conveying the true map of female sexuality, and thereby of love. In addition, I am thankful to the male partners of those same women, because their mutual experiences in love made this direct contribution possible. I have also included a few sharings by men and I am grateful to them for giving me permission to do so. I vouch for the absolute authenticity of all the personal experiences I have quoted. I have, for simplicitys sake, elected not to identify the individual contributors by name or initial.

Contents

Introduction

I n Sanskrit, the ancient religious and classical literary language of India, the word tantra can be likened to such concepts as capacity for expansion and that which goes on expanding, and the words continuum, web, context, and transformation. Tantra teaches an acceptance of who we are as a whole, from the solid density of our physical body to the refined layers of our spirit. It is concerned with the transmutation of energy, liberation of the mind, attainment of ones full potential. The balanced union of opposites is considered the way of achieving liberation of mind and body, a liberation from the supposedly endless cycle of unconscious rebirth. Tantra understood over five thousand years ago what modern science has since proven to be true through chromosome study: that woman is half man and man is half woman. The balancing of inner opposites is the way to achieve full potential. Falling fully into feminine mode in sexual union transforms woman through an inner alchemical process.

This, my second book on tantra, essentially explores tantra from the female perspective. In the pages ahead I endeavor to convey the significant role that receptive feminine energy plays in the male-female sexual exchange. It wouldnt be realistic to draw a distinct line between woman and man when talking about sex because sex is the most intimate meeting of the male and female elements. However, there are aspects of sexuality that apply exclusively to women, and these can be used to distinct advantage in influencing and strengthening the sexual experiencefor both women and men. A woman who is without a partner can still benefit from this knowledge. It can give her a new feeling about herself and her body, and often through this new awareness she will draw the right partner to herself.

As a researcher, teacher, and writer on sex, I have been encouraged by both women and men to address sexuality from the female point of view. Women have suggested this directly; and though no men have exactly verbalized it, I have been encouraged indirectly by mens actions and what they have demonstrated, unknowingly, to me in the last twenty years.

In this time many couples have attended the Making Love workshops for couples that I colead with my partner, Raja. During the workshops, truly touching miracles take place every day. Many of the couples reexperience the dynamic love that brought them together in the first place, and have been able to continue into the future in loving harmony. However, not all partnerships are equally successful and sometimes couples have separated. In time, naturally, those who have separated have formed new relationships. As these new relationships begin to take hold, Ive noticed something quite phenomenal and unexpected happening in the groups. The men who had attended my workshops before are returning to the workshops. It is the men who have been coming back to share this alternative approach to sexuality with their new female partners because they have experienced how the tantric approach can enhance love. To my greatest surprise, women (though they found the first workshops as uplifting as their partners did) have been much slower on the rebound. Only in the very recent past have women participants come back to repeat the workshop with new loved ones.

The fact that many men but few women return to the workshops with their new lovers offers two important insights. The first is that we women are afraid to talk to men about sex and are reluctant to share with men what pleases our bodies most. We hesitate to introduce our male partners to any alternative sexual approaches. The main fear for a woman is that of losing her man, of ceasing to be sexually attractive to him if she changes. Sadly, when women choose to stay with conventional sexwhich is a distorted form of male sexualitywe give away our unique feminine magic and power.

The second insight is much more encouraging, and I hope it will give women the confidence to be more authoritative in the sexual sphere. The fact that men are bringing women back to the workshops clearly demonstrates that men develop a liking for another form of sexual expression once they have tasted it. How can a man have a taste for something he has never experienced? Often tantric sexuality has to be experienced before the longing for it can arise.

From both men and women who have no personal experience with tantra I repeatedly hear the comment, Tantra seems to be for women, not for men. Based on my own exploration and on the encouraging response of the men who attend my workshops, I can say with all certainty, No, tantra is not only for women. It is definitely for men too. Tantra is not simply something designed to make women happy (and men not so happy), a way of giving women the reins for a while. When a man has had one taste of the delicious depths and heights of expanded sexual energy, invariably he wantsit again. But unless women make available their true femininity to men, how and where and when can men develop a taste for it?

Here and there you might find a woman who naturally has the knack of receiving and channeling masculine sexual energy upward during intercourse and can lift sex to another dimension for herself and her man. The truth is that a woman can consciously develop this art and guide her man into an expanded sexual sphereand thereby create for herself more satisfying sexual experiences. A woman has the natural capacity to enter this realm simply by virtue of being a woman. She who is the receptive aspect in the male-female dynamic can move inward and draw or pull man along with her. This is her intrinsic power. Through receptivity, through giving way and yielding, inherent movement is possible. The opposite does not hold quite so true: generally speaking, man cannot easily initiate the experience of opening a doorway and absorbing woman into him. To do so requires great stillness and the clarity of true male authority. When the receptive (feminine) aspect gives way, actually receiving what is coming to it, its very receptivity enables the dynamic (masculine) energy to move and flow. In this way man easily and naturally follows woman; he can even wordlessly flow into exalted realms with woman if he is fortunate enough to encounter receptive feminine energy.

Woman is the real starting point for the necessary reeducation in sex. This movement has to take root in women and spread from them out into societythrough lovers, friends, one-night stands, through mothers teaching daughters and fathers teaching sons. It requires that women begin to speak up for themselves, expressing their needs and sensitivities, and that men take urgent heed of these messages. The greatest potential for true sexual fulfillment and love lies in a woman and a man joined together on a mutual journey of sexual self-discovery.