Tantric Sex and Menopause

ldquo;Tantric Sex and Menopause opens the door and introduces a new way of being sexual that is nurturing to the feminine body. I was struck by the empathy for the journey of women and felt a deep sense of support and connection within this book. It offers a recalibration of a woman’s sexuality, emotional health, and understanding of menopause. This book is full of hormone and body knowledge and practices that empower. I love this book.”

Autorentext

Diana Richardson is the author of Tantric Sex for Men, The Heart of Tantric Sex and Tantric Orgasm for Women and is a teacher and practitioner of holistic body therapies. Born in South Africa, she became the disciple of tantric Master Osho in India in 1979. She is now based in Europe and travels extensively with her partner, hosting weeklong retreats for couples in tantric lovemaking.

Klappentext

A tantric guide to discovering the hidden gifts of menopause

Shining the light of tantric intelligence on menopause, the authors reveal how to explore and experience menopause in a radically positive fashion, suffused with a sense of vital awakening and “re-wilding” of a woman’s sexuality, creativity, and spirituality. Explaining what to expect physically, emotionally, and spiritually, as well as what it means for relationships, they detail tantric practices and tools to connect with the body’s inner intuitive wisdom and heart energies, remove the “performance pressure” of conventional sex, and set the stage for passion and pleasure to thrive both in the bedroom and beyond. They explain why Tantra works for menopausal women and how their bodies are naturally entering a more tantric phase focused on creative, spiritual energy. They explore how, in Tantra, sex is practiced not for the sake of sex itself but as an instrument for going “beyond” sex, for better health, improved relationships, enhanced self-control and emotional balance, and even higher states of consciousness. They also offer many self-help practices, exercises, and meditations to reinforce a positive attitude toward menopause and overcome many of the physical and sexual problems, such as pain, dryness, loss of interest, and loss of libido.

Providing a guide for women who are approaching, experiencing, or have gone through menopause, the authors show how a more informed, tantric approach to menopause allows each woman to deepen her trust in the perfect functioning of the female body, embrace her natural sexual response, and reconnect with her inner self.

Previous titles: Tantric Orgasm for Women 9780892811335, Tantric Sex for Men 9781594773112,  Slow Sex 9781594773679

Zusammenfassung
A tantric guide to discovering the hidden gifts of menopause

Leseprobe
Chapter 8

Tantric Journey: Going Deep, Going Slow, Going Wild

Many perimenopausal and menopausal women report feeling such a lack of desire for sex that they feel totally disheartened that they are not living up to the image of what a sexy alive woman should be. This image is not something they can relate to. However, such views only hold true as long as we see ourselves from the outside in an external way. Reclaiming your body and becoming “embodied” implies seeing, feeling, and experiencing yourself from the inside out.

Lack of Desire as Spiritual Gateway

Menopause clears the pathway from the distraction of “old-fashioned” desire. Because for more than half of women at this time, desire seems to no longer be there, it asks us then to go deeper, to look deeper, to feel deeper. The body often won’t take fast and unconscious anymore, won’t take mechanical friction anymore, it won’t take what has been before, which clears and opens up an alternative path that is more restful for the menopausal body and her lover. Many think there is no way to have sex anymore, that something is wrong with them, and that’s where women become disheartened and give up on their marriage or relationship or their own sex life.

For in fact, for around 75% of women (and not only menopausal women), her body cannot take the mechanical friction in her vagina of conventional sex anymore, without the consequences of pain, discontent, or closure (www.theothered.com). Yet this time is a gateway, a gift, a shift. Menopause begs her body to become more “tantric” if it hasn’t already. It invites her to go deeper, go slower in her whole life, to be free and wild, as a more authentic, more natural, and a truer expression of who she is in essence. The good thing about feeling a lack of desire is that if women participate in stepping over that threshold of whether there is desire there or not, and following the guidelines we have given, she will find that she has no trouble eventuallyfeeling aroused and certainly may even orgasm in a way that involves no effort at all. Or move into the expanded “orgasmic” state, which is very different to the event of orgasm, over after a few seconds.

Wild Is Pure Presence

Almost like a call from the wild, another way emerges from deep within. But it challenges the female conditioning that is about pleasing and says you must be everything a man wants--and also be immediately ready. To make love in relaxation and awareness, and particularly with awareness on your breasts, is in unison with this call from the wild, where you must deeply listen to your own body, as well as your psyche, and trust its call and its timing. If you think of a wild animal and its characteristics, “wild” is pure presence, spontaneous, natural, and instinctive rather than out of control, unconscious, and sensation seeking.

Wild is sensitive, aware of its surroundings. It has composure. Wild moves the body on impulse, in the moment, without preconceived thought. Wild rests when rest arrives. Wild is naturally playful. It’s this level of truly open, unbridled wildness that you can bring to your loving. Wildness in the conventional sense may imply getting out of control with heat and passion, expelling the energy with a climactic peak. The wildness we refer to here can be much softer, simpler, and more relaxing. Think of a lion lazing in the sun.

Diana says, “As far as wildness is concerned, it’s a matter for redefinition. What we know as ‘wild’ in sex is usually pretty unconscious, lust driven, tense, and mechanical. So in this sense the experience is desensitizing, because there is a tendency to contract at a deep level and there will little room for expansion. As I understand and experience it, lust and passion are two different states. Lust will have a direction, a buildup, some climax. Passion on the other hand is pure presence and going nowhere, relaxed, senses totally open, nothing forced. ‘True wildness’ is to be at one with nature, utterly sensitive and conscious, opening to the moment through the body. Wildness has no pattern, the bodies spontaneously flow and form amazing configurations.”

Passionately Undemonstrative

Barry Long, the Australian spiritual teacher, recommends that a woman be “passionately undemonstrative.” These two words seem to oppose each other, yet if you contemplate them, you can start to get a feel for their incredible meaning. It does not mean that she is passive or inactive in lovemaking; it is more that she is totally present and not “doing” anything special other than being fully anchored in her own body. She is not moving outward with her attention but is poised with the awareness resting inwardly. This makes her available, receptive, and spontaneous.

This body connection makes her powerfully passionate in a very unconventional sense of the word. She is pure presence itself-- pure passion. You are vital yet stillness i…