Saturday, January 7, 2012

A poor experience

This is a post from a (professional, it seems) tantrika, about a session gone sour... I believe it is good to keep an eye out - just because it's "tantra", that does not imply that it is all good and fine, roses and wine, all the time...

http://tantrictouch.blogspot.com/2011/11/several-of-my-clients-have-asked-me-my.html

Two specific points of interest:

"When I practice massage, I am the giver and my own sexual feelings have no role in the room. " 

Hmmm... I'm not sure about that. If "have no role" means that they shouldn't drive the action, I wholeheartedly agree. The fact that they're there... well, if tantra is about accepting things as they truly are, then the presence of sexual feelings shouldn't be denied.

Of course, that kind of acceptance can only arise (pun intended) in an emotional and physical safe-place. Both parties have to feel completely at ease for this to be possible. Given that the receiver was a woman, and the practitioner was a total stranger, well - I can certainly understand her unease about the situation. Sad as it is, women have to take additional precautions in that case. I'm afraid that receiving a tantric massage from a stranger is simply a no-go for a woman. Of course, everyone has to decide that for themselves, but as much as I enjoy the fantasy of practicing my skills on a strange woman I picked up from the street, I very much doubt that it's ever going to happen. Of course, I wouldn't dream of doing anything bad - but how would the woman in question know it?

This also raises the question of whether the roles can be switched. My impression is that for most tantrikas, you're either the giver or the receiver in one given session. Well, I haven't experienced it enough, but as it is, this seems like an incredibly inflexible model to me. Assuming the right circumstances of course, then if the "receiver" starts "giving", it ends up being not-quite-tantra? No, doesn't feel right. Or rather, well then so be it, who cares about the labels anyway.

"Assuming that I had suffered some negative sexual experiences, he said past sexual abuse was blocking me from moving forward in the massage."

That one kinda reminds me of my first encounter with tantra enthusiasts. At some point, one of the guys told me that I "have lots of blockages that need to be loosened." I think it was because I had doubted that tantra was anything but a thinly veiled attempt at group sex, or something.

This kind of ideological hogwash drives me up the wall. That one comment kept me from looking into tantra for years.

As a practitioner of anything - ANYTHING, from psychoanalysis to christianity to NLP or tantra - you never, never, EVER blame the recipient/client/convertee. If they're not open to whatever you're doing, then that is their frakkin' right. It's not your job to theorize about their inner processes. Doing so is rude, it's a form of violence, and on top of that it's mostly ineffective - it won't get you one step closer to your goal. Except, perhaps, if the person in question is highly insecure about themselves. (Which might just be the assumption behind the attempt, and if that is the case, it doesn't make it any better. At all.)

Quite apart from all that - even assuming that she suffered abuse and is blocked by it - then it is still not that guy's frakkin' job to decide when it's time for her to work on that blockage. Or whether she's ever up to it.

Did that guy have a degree in clinical psychology? Duh.
By the way, that kind of blaming is a technique frequently employed by cults. When that guy said that, it made tantra look like a cult to me. All the talk about lingams and yonis, the soft voices, and the excited spark in their eyes didn't help a lot, either.

See? It drives me up the wall, and into writing walls of text.

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