Tantra

 

This is a section about spa treatments and massage.  Sad to say, as I was exploring keywords for my website and books on Google, when I turned the safe search on it excluded the basic search for massage.  One of the many reasons I offer advice on spas and massage is that sadly sometimes these can get seedy, but to exclude massage as a whole is as heavy handed as condemning dance as a pastime because of the seedier areas of dance.  (That's a whole other story, I believe they made it into a film starring Kevin Bacon; "Footloose", if you're wondering.)

 

By giving you safe places to go to try massage I hope that I can help people who might be nervous about the seedier side of spas.  Some countries have taken steps to legislate massage practices, which has perhaps helped spa goers in Thailand (see Thai Massage) to find safe places to go, whereas in Hawaii (see Lomi Lomi) some people feel it has had an extremely negative impact on traditional healers.

 

Coming back to tantra, there are at least three main colours of tantric energy.

 

White tantra is normally understood to be a pure healing energy and many yoga practitioners will study this as part of their basic training.

 

Red tantra is normally understood to relate to sex and sexual energy, and this is what this page is all about.

 

Black tantra is often thought to be the use of energy to control other people, which is, generally speaking not a very healthy use of energy.

 

Most people who study the practice of tantric sex will also learn about the chakras; different energy centres which run down the centre of the body, one of which is understood to relate to sexual energy.  However when you start to understand chakras you will also understand that most practices are about balancing the energy between them, and healing is often about calming chakras with too much energy and reinvigorating "underactive" chakras, so overall, healing can result in you feeling a reduction or a surge in sexual energy.

 

For me, I find the idea of exploring tantra in a spa or group a little too adventurous, and I enjoy reading and learning at a distance and I highly recommend Val Sampson's book: "Tantra, the Art of Mind-Blowing Sex".

 

When I first found this book, it took me about 30 seconds to decide to buy it, and about 30 minutes for it to start to improve my sex life.

 

Sex is everywhere, on billboards, in magazines; you can’t walk into supermarkets without seeing some kind of weird entanglement barely hidden on the cover of a man’s magazine.  (Yes, this bothers me!)  As a society, we’re obsessed with sex.  I think maybe we’re so obsessed because we don’t really understand it.  This book is the real sex education.

 

Val Sampson explains how tantra embraces the fact that sex is holistic; not just physical or mental or spiritual, but all of these things.

 

She explodes one of the biggest myths that causes unhappiness with our sex lives; that our sexiness is derived from our desirability - that we need another person (or people) to feel sexy.  No, it comes from within.  Whether you are in a relationship or single, all you need is within you right now.

 

Val also offers many exercises that allow you to enjoy every aspect of sex, to use all of your senses, to enjoy every moment, to relax and let go.

 

She also explains how certain tantric exercises can help heal many issues surrounding sex; including previous painful emotional and physical experiences.

 

The most important thing that I learned from the book is that it is impossible to really love another person, or have a great sexual relationship, until you truly learn to love and respect yourself.

 

I feel, although I have never experienced a professional tantric massage, and I normally only advise on experiences I have tried, that I should also offer a word of caution on these.  Don't ask me how these are legal (or if they truly are) but some services offered under the banner of tantric massage are, in my view, questionable.  (Funnily enough, as I'm writing this, sitting in Starbucks, twenty policemen just walked in.  So I asked them… and according to them, if you are concerned, Trading Standards are the people to talk to!)