Here I am, surrounded by the smell of sage. I find myself in a room covered in mattresses and filled with people dressed in lingerie.
The facilitator, clad in white robes, welcomes us to a ‘Tantric Temple’. They speak about the divine, how sexual energy is holy and how it will heal the world.
A few connection exercises later (think eye-gazing and practising saying “yes” and “no”) and the space is opened for people to connect sexually with each other.
This, I am told, is Tantra. Today, everything is called a Temple.
What used to be called sex-positive or conscious sexuality events are now termed “Tantra” or “Tantric Temples”, and this poses a real and present threat to Tantra itself. Let me explain why:
What is Tantra? And why is it under threat?
“What is Here is Everywhere. What is not Here is Nowhere.” This line from the Vishvasara Tantra encapsulates the essence of Tantra.
Tantra is a spiritual path that believes everything in the universe exists within our body, and if we cannot experience something through the body, then it doesn’t exist anywhere in the universe.
Sexual energy is understood as the life force that births all forms, from cells to stars.
The path teaches embodied practices to circulate this powerful energy around the body so that we may dissolve our ego, connect with the greater intelligence we are part of, direct the energy to manifest material forms (it is capable of creating far more than babies), and heal ourselves and others. Tantra understands repressed emotions, trauma, and tension as obstacles to the healthy circulation of life energy and offers powerful methods to remove these ‘blocks’ from the body.
Tantra can be understood as the teaching of something beyond language through the body. A good Tantra teacher says only what is necessary for participants to enter a practice with the correct attitude and technique. The lesson is always through the technique itself.
Why is Tantra under threat?
Tantra is increasingly confused with Sex Positivity, a philosophy that views sex as an intrinsic and necessary good, much like food, and Conscious Sexuality, an approach to one’s sexuality that supports a healthy relationship with one’s sexual pleasure.
One significant reason for this confusion, in my view, is the cultural shame that our society holds regarding sex. In an attempt to ‘broaden’ their market, those who facilitate sex-positive and conscious sexuality events appropriate spiritual language to differentiate themselves from being seen as ‘mere sex parties.’
This is having a terrible effect.
It undermines the importance of Sex Positivity and Conscious Sexuality, which create vital, valuable spaces in which people learn to connect with their desires in healthy ways and to experience HEALTHY pleasure without shame.
Even more worryingly, the effect of this confusion is to associate Tantra with sex, which obscures the true power of Tantra as a spiritual path and as a healing modality, particularly in relation to trauma.
Moreover, as the term Tantra loses its meaning and is assimilated into our Western worldview, key tantric concepts become corrupted.
Take the tantric teaching of polarity: the idea that there is always ‘form’ (for example, these words) and ‘awareness’ (an ever-present consciousness within which these forms exist). This concept has now been widely assimilated into our toxic patriarchal notions of gender. Shockingly, this powerful teaching has been twisted and robbed of its meaning to such a degree that, unfortunately, if you attend a ‘tantric’ event, you are likely to hear a nonsensical definition of polarity that goes something like this: “There is ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ energy”. Masculine energy represents leadership, direction, and strength—all the qualities that supposedly give men the right to rule the world. Feminine energy, on the other hand, is emotional, chaotic, and unstable—all the reasons we are told leave women unsuitable for power.
The assimilation of Tantra into Western culture and its association with sex has, of course, led to increased interest in the term. This then leads to its commodification. If a ‘product’ is labelled ‘tantra’ or ‘tantric,’ it can command a higher price. This has led the cost of so-called ‘tantric’ events to spiral to truly shocking levels. The effect is disastrous. Access to sex-positive, conscious sexuality and genuinely tantric events is now so extraordinarily expensive that only the rich and privileged can attend. This has turned such important modalities—modalities that should be widely accessible—into playgrounds for the wealthy.
It is my hope that we can stand up for the importance and beauty of Sex Positivity and Conscious Sexuality rather than hide them away under pseudo-spiritual language. It is my hope that Tantra can extract itself from the spiral of commodification and assimilation it seems caught in and be seen for the powerful, healing spiritual path that it is.
Thank you for reading this month’s reflections.
