Part 2: Day-to-Day Tantra

      ‘Woman is the creator of the universe, the universe is her form; woman is the foundation of the world, she is the true form of the body. Whatever form she takes, whether of a man or of a woman, is the superior form.’

       From the Shakti Sangama Tantra

       Female and male in Tantra

      Dorothy, 39: Getting involved with Tantra has been life-changing for me. I always thought I was very open and liberal, but having been educated at a private Catholic school where there was lots of shame about our bodies and stigma about touching them, I hadn’t realized I had so many issues that have been covered up for years. In a workshop for women, we undressed and looked at each others’ bodies, which was absolutely amazing. I realized that all women are exactly the same – as well as being so different.

      I feel much more in touch with my own body and my own sexuality. I’m not frightened of my sexuality now. I realize it’s an incredibly powerful, beautiful thing I’ve been given. All those powerful experiences I had as a teenager – they were all my own. I’m really happy with my body and my sexuality now. I’m happy with understanding the energy that runs through my body, and I feel more in tune with the universe.

      Tantra honours the feminine in both men and women, and acknowledges the creative power represented by women. Women’s sexuality is extremely powerful – cultures like those of the Middle East have always known this, and hence attempt to constrain or regulate women. As a result of sexual repression over thousands of years, many women have lost touch with our sexual confidence. For many of us, sexuality is an area fraught with taboos, and many of us get through our early years of ambivalent sexual experiences by splitting this area off from the rest of our lives.

      For men, first intercourse is connected with entering manhood, and is wrapped up with complex feelings about power. Men learn about sex through masturbation, and from books and films – especially porn films – all of which represent men as doing things to women, setting up a correlation between masculine sexuality and activity, feminine sexuality and passivity.

      In this culture, men generally initiate women into love-making. Most women’s early experiences are not about sharing our bodies in a state of love – but are about being penetrated, and discovering how to please our partners. We don’t learn about love-making from other women, but from our early lovers, from books and films. Then we tend to repeat this learned behaviour, rather than wondrously exploring our bodies anew each time we make love, or with each new lover. Sex has become limited and genitally based, so that many of us continue to make love in the unsatisfying ways that our first lovers taught us. Men feel stuck with the connection between phallic proficiency and power – or grapple with feelings of inadequacy.

      Mark, 41: It’s always been excruciating for me having a small penis. When I was in my thirties a new lover told me she couldn’t bear to carry on because my penis was too small for her. I felt utterly diminished and humiliated. All the awful feelings I’d struggled with in my teens came back to haunt me, and it took me a while to risk taking my clothes off with a lover.

      When my partner created a ritual honouring my lingam, it took me ages to relax and let go of my fear of it all going wrong. She was very playful and garlanded my penis with a daisy chain, singing little poems she made up on the spot, which helped relax me. I started to enjoy it, and even found my fears funny. The laughter was healing, and she helped me to appreciate the different moods of my lingam. It doesn’t just have to give sexual pleasure, because we can create pleasure between us in so many ways.

      Both women and men tend to bring just our genitals into bed, leaving outside our capacity for whole-body sensuality, as well as our intense emotions and our spirituality.

      We can compensate for sexual boredom and frustration in several ways – most often by giving up on love-making altogether, or sometimes by getting into a continuous search for greater and greater stimulus, in whatever form we can find it. Whatever our sexual histories, there is often much healing that needs to happen before we can fully explore a Tantric perspective. Much of the new Tantra training currently available in the West addresses this area of sexual healing, as a preparation for Tantra (see here – yoni healing and lingam healing).

      Arleen, 49: One of the themes of the women’s workshop was unravelling the messages our mothers gave us. I realized that my mother had told me by word and deed that being a woman was all about looking after men – well, not just men in general, but a very special man. For her, it was my father, and I’d translated that to mean that a woman’s role in life was to look after a special man. She hardly wore any make-up and wore sensible clothes, she never told me or showed me that it was fun being a woman. When I had my first period, she was insistent that I shouldn’t tell anyone else about it, that it was a secret.

      Hilary gave us the opportunity to re-invent the past. Taking the idea that it was never too late to have a happy childhood, I re-invented my first period, with my make-believe mother and aunt making a fuss over me, painting my nails and mouth red, saying that this would show the whole world that I was now a woman. OK, this was only make-believe, like a positive form of psychodrama – but it has had a lasting effect on me. A few days after the workshop I went on a shopping spree, treating myself to new makeup for the first time in years. As I speak, my nails are shimmering with purple nail varnish with gold glitter and I can taste the luscious red lipstick I bought, just for me, just for the fun of it.

      Tantra is unique in celebrating female sexuality, and making it central to the most advanced spiritual practices. Women have always been pivotal in the history of Tantra – as teachers, initiators and fellow searchers with men. Women often initiated men into Tantric knowledge and the art of transforming sexual pleasure into spiritual ecstasy. Nineteenth century travellers to Tibet described Tantric monks as hermits, living in caves except for visits from their teacher. They meditated on sexual union with her, as a manifestation of the goddess, when she was absent.

      While all humans are divine, in Tantric cosmology the feminine principle of creation is considered primary. In love-making she is the active parry, who invites her lover to pleasure her, and to enter her, when the time is right for her. The ability to perceive divinity is a mark of progress for both men and women on the Tantric path. The willingness of male practitioners to honour women as the means to their own enlightenment is thought to be particularly crucial to their spiritual progress. According to academic Miranda Shaw, men were expected to worship and serve their Tantric companions.