This is probably the most common question I am asked. Tantra is often connected with sexuality and relationships because this is one of the main applications where we need the most healing and help.

However, many of us feel drawn to study tantra, when we are on our own.

This is perfect; our tantric journey must begin with ourselves. In fact, when we try to apply tantra to our relationships without doing our own work first, it will be quite challenging since we often have hard feelings and issues swept under the rug within the relationship.

If we don’t address our own issues and brokenness, how can we create something whole with another? So, even within a relationship, it’s important to do your own work first.

The real goal of tantra is to experience our true essence, our true divinity, right here in our lives. This asks us to learn different philosophies about what life is all about, apply them to our lives, and then experience what happens. This is a very personal experience.

When we become tantric, we are effortlessly this way in all aspects of our lives – in all of our relationships, at work, with our children and friends, and definitely in our sexual intimacy.

The answer depends on why you want to study tantra.

If your goal is personal growth and the desire to become tantric in all aspects of your life, then the answer is definitely “yes,” because tantra is always a personal journey to begin with. The goal is to become tantric. It isn’t something we do or require anyone else for. Our personal journey is our richest journey. This is where we find ourselves, expand, and experience life in whole, new, and wonderful ways.

However, if you want to study tantra because you want to experience something different with your partner, then we have to look at some other questions.

Does your partner know what tantra is?

What is your partner not interested in? Most people have no idea what tantra is, and the very fact that it sounds foreign means it must be weird, strange and not “normal.” Of course, tantra is the most natural thing for all of us regardless of culture, but this needs to be explained because it isn’t obvious.

There is also a lot of misinformation out there about tantra. There are many services, teachings, and events that are called tantric but have nothing to do with tantra. For some, tantra means kinky sex, orgies, naked retreats, polyamory, etc. These things are not tantra. Kink is kink. Polyamory is polyamory. Nudity is nudity. These are personal choices that have nothing to do with tantra.

Tantric Intimacy is about the quality of the connectedness between you. It’s about journeying together to drop the walls, release the expectations and explore what is possible between two people.

Are you looking for different things in your relationship?

If your partner understands all of this and they are still not interested, it might be a sign of something you already know – it’s not that they aren’t interested in tantra. They aren’t interested in connecting in a deeper way with you.

Tantric intimacy asks us to drop our guards and become very close. This is not everyone’s path. Your partner might genuinely like your relationship exactly as it is right now and not want to go any deeper.

Your partner might not want to try anything different sexually, either. They might be satisfied with your sex life and don’t want to change a thing, or they might be intimidated by trying something new.

The challenge is that sex is more than something you do together in the bedroom. You are the same people with the same relationship, regardless of which room you are in. If they are satisfied sexually but you are not, this might be telling you even more about your relationship.

Tantra looks at our relationships through a different lens than many types of counselling. It gets to the core of who we are and teaches us how to connect in deep and nourishing ways. Whether this will work for you depends on where you are in your relationship.

And so, the answer is “maybe yes” and “maybe no.”

If both of you want to grow personally and heal, and you both want to explore a deeper connection, then tantra is a beautiful structure to help you on this journey together.

Tantra gives us a new understanding of love and connection. We can learn how to be safe and trusting with each other. We can learn how to love each other in ways that perhaps we’ve never even seen before.

Introducing the discipline of 100% kindness into your communications and actions will draw you closer in every moment.

When each of you do your personal work, your relationship will change. This will give you a lot of insight as to where each of you have contributed to the distance that you now feel. The intimacy exercises will allow you to connect in a deep and meaningful way that will create an entirely new foundation for your relationship.

When you are able to let go of all expectations and reactions, you can embrace the infinite possibilities that tantra has to offer. Yes, tantra can definitely help.

However, you might already know that the answer is “no.” If you are the only one who wants to fix your relationship, then no, tantra cannot help. We must work within what is real.

However, tantra might help you see your relationship for what it truly is. Maybe you won’t ever have intense passion, but maybe you can have a friendlier and kinder companionship. Tantra redefines love in a way that we can apply it to all depths and kinds of connection. If you are both happy with a friendly, loving companionship, then tantra can help you happily live together.

Moving On When Love Isn’t There

When love is disappearing, when happiness has gone, then it might be time to say thank you and move on. For many of us, this is a radical thought. Historically, we were committed to the institution of marriage. We made a promise and we have to keep it. Within that promise there is no requirement that you are happy or fulfilled or passionate, or that love is even there. Sometimes marriage is a business agreement, and love has little to do with it.

The idea of “till death do you part” is a man-made creation. Staying together for life is not a sign of success. It says nothing about happiness or the fullness of your life. Sometimes it works, and there is great love the whole time. But when it’s not like that, there is no reason to be together.

If this is your situation, you will have to look at what is really happening. Has your relationship simply run its course? Perhaps you can look at each other with love, honour your relationship, and take different roads.

Sometimes, there is love in the beginning, but we don’t know how to love each other. We know how to lust after each other. We know how to live together.

We can have children and pay the bills together, but keeping true love alive takes a different set of skills. This is where we tend to harm the relationship and the love dies.

Instead, we often treat our loved ones – partners and children – worse than friends, colleagues, and even strangers on the street. We “let our hair down” and are “just ourselves” at home because we know that no matter how we act, they won’t go anywhere. We act more like fighting siblings than lovers.

True love is not unkind. It isn’t moody. It doesn’t take out a bad day on another person. It never wants the other person to feel badly. It protects the other person from anything that might upset them.

If you find yourself in a place where you have not been loving toward each other and there are all kinds of hurt feelings and trust issues, but you both want to heal the relationship, then tantra can help. You will have to take it very slow and focus on being kind 100% of the time with each other.

If you are treating your partner with anything except kindness and love, it is likely because you are used to this pattern from your childhood and most relationships in your life. Being impeccable with others will be a new skill to develop. It will take thoughtful discipline in the beginning. But it’s definitely worth it.

Yes. Definitely. We often imagine it only applies to the heterosexual world, since that has been the dominant culture for a long time. Regardless of orientation, tantra is first a way of being. It is about integrating our spiritual and physical lives. This is true for all genders and orientations.

Our tantric journey shifts our philosophy so we can heal all of the parts of us we have hidden away. Most people in the LGBTQ community have been forced to hide a lot of who they are and still have to in many cultures. This process of healing is fundamentally important.

How we create loving connection is about how souls connect. Our souls have no gender. We just love. We can have full body orgasms through complete presence and touch. We can be fully clothed, doing nothing sexual at all. What matters is that when we are complete, infinite possibilities can happen.

Truthfully, all couples need this foundation within each person, regardless of orientation.

There is a lot of discussion about the interaction of the masculine and feminine in tantra, which can seem heterosexist. This refers to the masculine and feminine balance within each of us. We all interact in masculine and feminine ways with each other, regardless of orientation. This isn’t about sex.

It’s about the natural magnetism between the two aspects of each of us and how we interact with each other.

It is true that there is much more information and focus on heterosexuality in tantra mostly because historically, we have not been able to discuss same-sex couples, let alone the people who make up the LGBTQ community today.

We live in a time where we can not only talk openly about how everyone loves and connects with each other, but we can study the wisdom of tantra and learn (perhaps for the first time) how this ancient wisdom applies to everyone of all genders and orientations.

The world is ready for it now.

This is a common question for anyone who feels like they aren’t feeling everything they could be, lacks libido, or aren’t as excited to be sexual and intimate as they once were.

Feeling sexual and sensitive again is part of our healing process. We are naturally sensitive to touch, we feel pleasure, and we have life energy to share with others. When we don’t feel this, we have some clues as to what we need to heal on our tantric journey.

Emotional Scarring During Sex

We are incredibly vulnerable when we are sexually intimate. Physically and energetically, our most vulnerable parts are exposed and mingling with another. If we are intimate with someone and they say or do something careless, this can do real damage and stay with us for a long time.

Some men who struggle with erectile dysfunction can trace it back to a partner who made a derogatory comment about them during a sexual encounter. One woman told me she remembers a certain lover making fun of something she did and after that, she was always a little shy about lovemaking. She held back more. She became afraid to let go and enjoy.

Tantra helps us heal these inner wounds through self-love, acknowledging what happened, knowing it wasn’t true, or reframing the experience. We never know exactly how these wounds get healed, but somehow in the process of becoming whole and re-integrating all of our lost parts, we gain a new confidence. Those experiences are still part of our memories, but we are now stronger and more sensual because of them.

Mental Stress

When we are stressed out, we are fully engaged in our brains. We are locked into our churning and twisting thoughts about some topic. When we are like this, we cannot be sensual.

To be sensual is to be in our bodies, to feel touch and emotion. It is to connect with another person. None of this is possible if we are lost in our minds.

Taking the time to meditate and get to the bottom of our mental stress is helpful if we are ever to become sexual, sensual, and tantric.

De-Sensitization to Touch and Pleasure:

There is a connection between our emotional walls in life and our ability to experience touch with another. Our ability to feel touch can also be diminished through painful past experiences, whether they were sexual experiences, medical procedures, accidents, etc.

Both of these topics are covered in depth in Tantric Intimacy in Chapter 5 and Chapter 12: “Letting Down Our Walls” and “Tantric Touch.”

Medication & Recreational Drugs & Alcohol

Modern society has turned to medicating all unpleasant emotions. There are instances where medication truly saves someone’s life and makes it possible for them to live in society, but many medications are prescribed to simply “take the edge off.”

We might feel stuck in situations we can’t change, or we are still hurting from past pain and trauma we haven’t been able to heal. We take medications from the doctors to feel better, or we take recreational drugs or drink alcohol. We self-medicate because we don’t want to feel bad any longer.

However, when we “take the edge off” of life, we decrease our virility. We are “taking the edge off” of the life force running through us. We are choosing not to feel everything we are feeling. This is going to have a direct effect on our sex drives.

Our sexual desires are directly linked to our excitement to be alive. They are connected to our emotions and how we feel about everything. It is our happiness, sadness, grief, low times, high times, anger and everything in between that makes us feel alive, dynamic, and real. This is what stokes our inner fire – living in each moment.

The anger or sadness inside may be just what you need to make necessary changes. But if you’re afraid or feel unable to make those changes, then you might turn to other options to repress what you are feeling. This will affect your ability to feel all over.

If you are on medication, ask your doctor whether it may affect your sex drive and see what other options you have. If you self-medicate with natural or recreational drugs and alcohol, be compassionate with yourself and look at what’s really going on.

Once we find a way to self-medicate when we are feeling low, we will never go into those painful feelings. The path of tantra asks us to find our way through these challenges. It gives us the divine courage to dig deep and step into the fire, knowing we will come out the other side.

When we can go into those dark parts of our psyches and heal them, we will start to feel alive again. When we can feel the life force flowing through us, we will feel sexual again.

For Women

For many women, sex is quite unsatisfying. Because the primal goal of “regular sex” is for the man to ejaculate, a woman’s satisfaction tends to be secondary. (This does not apply to everyone. The goal of many men is to make sure their partner is satisfied.)

It wasn’t until the late twentieth century that it was widely accepted women were able to have orgasms at all. Prior to this, you simply had sex until the man ejaculated. Period.

Of course, women did have sexual desires. They had intimate needs. They desired connection, but this wasn’t necessarily happening. They would become emotional and frustrated. The medical system even created a diagnosis for this called “hysteria.” This condition had nearly every possible symptom, including depression, anxiety, nervousness, excessive vaginal lubrication, and sexual thoughts… Hmmm.

When this happened, the most common treatment was a “hysterectomy,” the removal of the female organs. The other common treatment was much more enjoyable. She would go to the doctor to have a “vulva massage,” which would result in a “paroxysm.” In other words, she would be masturbated until orgasm and then she would feel wonderful. Her symptoms would vanish. And so, she would simply go for weekly “treatments.”

We think this sounds crazy today, but the diagnosis of “hysteria” existed in diagnostic manuals until the 1980s. It isn’t ancient history. Historically, the idea of women enjoying sex is relatively new.

If you are older, you may have had many years of mechanical sex. Sex was an expectation and duty within marriage, whether we felt loving connection or not. Being entered sexually when we didn’t want it set up emotional walls within us. This will drastically affect our desire for more of the same. Of course, the other common diagnosis for women was “frigidity.” It’s not really a surprise.

If you are a younger woman, we have to look at the effects of porn on today’s generation. Many boys start watching porn as early as 12 years old. Many girls watch it so they know what to do. This heavily influences what we think is “normal” sexually and therefore what we expect from each other.

One of my students chose to be celibate in his late 20s for a time because he didn’t know which sexual desires were his and which ones were from all the videos he had watched for so long. Because so much porn is focused on what pleases men (despite the fact that the women act like they are having great pleasure), the men learn nothing about what pleases a woman. There is often no kissing or intimacy at all. Yet these are the acts that create the loving experiences that make women happy.

Both of these situations can cause sexuality to be mechanical and painful for women. I’ve spoken to women of all ages who believe intercourse is painful, sometimes or at least most of the time. We have to realize that our vaginas hold memories. When we have been hurt, our bodies react with armour. Our bodies learn “when this happens,” I need to protect myself. We become less sensitive. But when we become less sensitive to pain, we also feel less pleasure.

When we come into our divine feminine and understand the incredible pleasure our bodies are capable of, we can release all of this armour and explore the infinite wonder of the feminine body.

Sexual abuse affects our ability to physically respond; our bodies are traumatized and on high-alert, waiting for the next event.

Sexual abuse has been so common that we sweep it under the rug. In many societies, it historically wasn’t even considered abuse. It was normal. Even if it was considered wrong, there was so much shame around it on the parts of both the abuser and the abused that no one talked about it. We have been expected to continue being sexually active, regardless of being abused in the past.

It’s like asking a soldier who has been traumatized by war to go back into the field over and over again, without healing. They would either become hardened (out of necessity), or they would break down.

This is how we must treat the effects of sexual abuse. We must recognize there is trauma stored in the body. This must be healed. It is natural to lack desire for more sexual experiences in the same way that a soldier won’t want to go back to war. This is the natural response to trauma and fear.

Tantra can help us here, but it is also important to get more help from people experienced in releasing trauma. This must be given the proper attention it needs. It’s no small thing. We deserve to heal and desire sexual attention in a healthy and pleasurable way again.

Here are some ways that tantra can help.

Enjoying Touch Again:

We want to be able to experience “Original Touch” again. This is the kind of touch that stirs us deep inside and gives us a complete, human, divine experience.

Our mind, emotions and body are all one, so when we experience physical or emotional trauma, it is stored in the tissues. When we are touched, old, painful emotions can rise, which block us from being present to what is happening now. The wounds are like a sinkhole and we disappear into them when the trigger is touched.

Plus, when there has been sexual abuse, the emotions experienced are often around shame, fear, and survival. It is especially important not to ignore the depth of the pain. We don’t want to stay here. We want to heal, and it is possible. We are incredible beings.

One of the most powerful aspects of tantra is that we integrate the spiritual with the physical. We integrate the divine into our lives. When we imagine trying to recover from sexual abuse all on our own, we are only working through the body and mind. But when we integrate spirit into our being and we learn to trust that part of ourselves, we find we have strength and courage to face what we couldn’t before.

Trusting Another:

This is often a deeper wound to heal than the physical wound. As a baby, we learn to trust those around us. We are completely dependent, and if those around us are not trustworthy, we will learn to put up walls to protect ourselves. As we continue to grow in that environment, our walls will get higher and higher.

When there is sexual abuse, we put up even higher walls. Sexual abuse affects our feelings around personal safety, survival, and relating to others. We build these walls out of protection and self-preservation. These walls have been important. They are what have kept you alive and sane up until this point.

However, if you are wanting to study tantra, then perhaps you want to take these walls down now. They have done their job and now you are finished with them. You would like to deeply connect with someone. You don’t want to feel so alone.

This is why tantra is such a personal journey. We must heal ourselves. We must integrate the divine parts of ourselves into our lives. Because when we are centred and happy and we feel guided by our highest self/God/Spirit, we feel much safer opening up.

When we are already complete and whole, opening up won’t be so scary because our emotional state, self-worth, or happiness is not dependent on the other person’s thoughts or actions. We are tantric ourselves. We are whole.

We are open to deeply connecting with another.

This is the most common question I am asked by men around the world. The messages are all nearly the same. If the man is between 18 and 25, he has been watching porn since he was 12 years old and is now struggling to have a relationship with a real person. If they are older, they started watching porn later in life and it is harming their relationships, they are having trouble getting an erection with a real woman, or they are ejaculating too quickly.

Studying tantra can definitely help.

First of all, I don’t think watching porn is bad. There is something exciting and titillating about watching people have sex. We just have to be clear about what porn is.

Porn is entertainment. It isn’t about love-making or even having sex. It focuses on the most titillating aspects of various situations. They play out our fantasies – things that we couldn’t do ourselves, and maybe wouldn’t even want to do in real life. But our minds will hold fantasies like they are real, so it can be difficult to be clear about what is real and what is fantasy.

The people in porn are actors. Even if they are amateurs filming at home on their cameras, they are still playing to a screen and their possible viewers. Whether they are enjoying themselves or not, they are going to act like they are. They are going to make sounds like they are, but it is no more real than a TV show. Real intimacy can seem like a lot of work, and can get quite messy.

Porn is so much easier.

If you are addicted to porn right now, you have choices.

The first step is to expand our ideas about what is possible in a sexual encounter.

When we believe all that there is is the “procreative sex” model, which is basically “get in, get off, get out.” No matter how we dress it up, we will inevitably get bored at some point. The porn industry is also based on this model. This is why they have to make it so edgy. This model is boring, so we bring in bigger boobs, bigger penises, different colours, toys, locations, multiple partners, bondage, rape, animals, you name it. We have to dress it up because at its very core, there’s not much going on.

Tantra is a different experience altogether. When we experience this tantric touch, closeness, and intercourse, the multi-faceted pleasure that is possible doesn’t even compare to porn. It is the difference between flying a spacecraft to Mars and driving a souped-up bicycle to the corner store.

When we truly understand this, it can create a new desire inside of us. From this desire, we start to crave something else. Something more fulfilling and pleasurable than watching porn. When the desire for something else comes from inside, the pull of addictions disappear.

Yes, this is something that tantric intimacy definitely provides… Mostly because tantra is the path to being whole… in all of our life, including sexually. In our primal, procreative model of sex, all that matters is that our sexual organs are excited and so we focus on the genital orgasms – this ensures the likelihood of pregnancy (whether that is what we are going for and regardless of orientation). 

However, when we move beyond the primal desires sexually, we discover that we are truly whole, complete beings… and our entire beings are capable of this orgasmic, blissful state. This is actually very natural for us… 

But this is why our tantric journey is to become whole – the blending of the physical and spiritual. The only reason that we do not have full-body-and-mind orgasms now, is because we don’t live in a full-body-and-mind state in every minute of our day…

As we travel along the journey of tantra, we will take small steps towards this every day… And one day, having full-body-and-mind orgasms in and out of the bedroom will be as natural as enjoying a beautiful sunset.

Many men email me asking if tantra will help them with premature ejaculation. The answer is yes!

(I have written a mini-book called "Overcoming PE" which is available on Amazon where I share some wonderful success stories from my personal and professional life.)

Learn How To Relax in Life:

It is important that we relax all day long. Becoming tantric brings us to a place where we have a peaceful, still centre within us that we can tap into anytime when we need to slow down, relax, and come to centre. The more we can be relaxed and centred in life, the easier it will become when we are being sexual.

Personal Control:

Many men struggle with the idea that ideally, they don’t ejaculate at all during tantric intimacy. This is a challenge for most men, regardless of whether they struggle with being premature or not. You can if you want, but there are huge benefits when you choose not to. Men can develop a different connection with their vajra (penis). Instead of being at the whim of what it wants to do, they develop control over when or whether or not they ejaculate at all. It is totally within your control. You could have intercourse for hours. You could choose to come whenever you want. This is actually part of your design.

Whether a man is accustomed to ejaculating after 10 minutes, 1 minute, or 20 minutes, there is a certain training required to be in control.

When I was first experimenting with tantra with my husband, he couldn’t wrap his mind around not ejaculating or having that kind of control. Then one day, we were making love and I noticed something was different about him. There was this confidence emanating from him. I realized that he was no longer afraid of coming. I asked him what happened, and he said, “I don’t know. I decided that I was in control. And now it’s up to me. It’s that simple.”

Releasing Guilt and Shame

It’s important to release any guilt or shame around it because you will never be able to be present and focused if there is fear and shame. I remember one man telling me that lots of guys suffer with this. They spent their teenage years masturbating in the shower. They had to do it quickly and in private so no one knew. Speed and shame combined! Those two things need to be released.

Sets of Nine:

This is an exercise that is in the sexuality chapter and is super fun to practise with a partner. Through counted slow and then deep penetration, you can practise breathing and being present, and you get to see which number you get to each time. When you get all the way to nine deep penetrations, you will want to keep on going.

Much of modern “regular sex” is based in the procreative model, where the fundamental goal is ejaculation and creating children. In this scenario, erections, speed, and physical vigour are important.

When the goal is intimate, sexual union, the penis is an energetic instrument, not a “ramming rod.” Within tantric sexuality, we learn how to have beautiful, pleasurable intercourse whether the penis is hard or soft. We can fully connect with another through connective intimacy, love, attention, touch, and other creative physical ways. We can be orgasmic and still lose ourselves in each other. It’s all about the quality of our connection.

If we can be orgasmic fully dressed, simply touching hands, imagine what can happen if we are naked.

The important point here is to understand that tantra is a way of being. Between partners, it is a way of connecting, a depth and quality of relationship.

Your Presence:

Your tantra studies and practice must bring you to a place where you simply are tantric. You are present. You are open. You are loving. You are kind. You are connected to spirit in every moment. When you bring this to the relationship, the other person will reflect this. If they are closed down, your openness will make them feel safe. If they are distracted, your presence will bring them to the moment. If things are challenging and you listen inwards for guidance instead of reacting, this will take the relationship in a new direction.

The Quality of Your Connection:

We often feel the need to explain tantric sex if we are going to jump to sex right away, but it won’t work this way. Tantric intimacy isn’t a set of practices that you just add to sex. You could know all about tantric intimacy, but if there is no love and true connection with the other person, the magic will always elude you anyway.

In order to create this connection, it is often good to refrain from being sexual for a while. If we begin a relationship having sex without deep connection, this can easily create a precedent which is harder to change later. You will naturally default to “regular, procreative” sex. Whereas if you take the time to cultivate and deepen the connection between you, you will become accustomed to having an incredible magnetic charge between you. By the time you are sexually intimate with each other, you will be used to it always being incredible and exciting.

If this is a challenge, it is important to look at why that is. Are you really looking for a tantric, intimate connection? It’s OK if you aren’t. It’s just important to be clear with yourself and your partner what your hopes are.

Talk about what tantra REALLY is:

When we study and practise tantra, it’s natural to want to share this with a new, potential partner. Share with them what tantra is at its core. How has it changed your life? How does it bring you peace? Do you act differently in life now? How have your relationships changed? The proof is always in your day-to-day life. Sharing how it has transformed you is the most interesting and important aspect of tantra to share with anyone.

If these ideas scare them off, this is a good sign that perhaps they aren’t a great match on a very foundational level. If they desire truth, emotional connection, love, passion, playfulness, and a sense of adventure, once you have a wonderful foundation, introducing them to the more intimate side of tantra will be natural.

As women, there are many aspects of our sexual lives to look at after we have been through menopause. The body changes in menopause. Our hormone levels are different. Our bodies don’t respond in the same ways they did when our bodies were being prepared to have children. That doesn’t mean we can’t be sensual, intimate, feminine beings.

In fact, tantra brings us into our deepest feminine experience. If you are going through or have passed menopause at the time of this book’s writing (2017), then the feminine has not been honoured much in your life. Tantra awakens what is within us.

There are other factors we need to look at, too.

Women’s Non-Orgasmic History:

Up until the 1960s, it was widely believed that women couldn’t have orgasms. A woman’s pleasure in bed was not only unimportant, it was a non-issue. Yet it has always mattered that the man ejaculated. In fact, the sex act typically wasn’t complete until this happened. Obviously, there are situations where this isn’t true, but it is a persistent pattern even today in our younger generation.

By the time we go through menopause, we likely have over 30 years of sexual experiences under our belt. There might have been a few great moments, lots of so-so sex, and perhaps lots of obligatory, “marital” sex.

None of this leads to a continuing desire for more.

Many men of this age were brought up in the same era and ideas about sex. My widowed aunt once told me she didn’t want to ever date again because she didn’t want to have to bother washing a man’s socks and having to make him feel good about himself. I’m not saying that everyone feels like that, but it’s definitely common.

Past Sexual Trauma:

Not only did many women have so-so or bad sex, a lot of women have had a lot of sex they didn’t want. Every time a man enters us when we didn’t want it or we weren’t ready, it leaves a physical and psychic effect on us.

The effects are obvious and intuitive when it is rape. If someone obviously forces themselves onto us and we are entered against our will, it’s easy to understand the long-term damage and the healing required for this. However, it is within long-term relationships that we tend to have the most sex that we don’t want. We have sex because our partner wants it and we don’t want to upset them or “make” them moody. Or maybe we want to fix their mood. Plus, we promised that we would only be sexual with each other, so we easily felt “If I don’t have sex with him, he will go elsewhere.”

This training runs deep. Only a few decades ago, women couldn’t work, vote, or support themselves and care for their children without a man. The importance of “keeping the man happy” was well-bred into us for good reason.

Lubrication:

After menopause, ample lubrication can be more challenging than it was before due to hormonal changes, medications, or surgeries.

It’s important to know that women often do not have enough foreplay and pleasure to become lubricated enough – postmenopausal or not! Tantric intimacy teaches us what excites our whole beings and helps us become naturally lubricated. The feminine is fed through her heart. Most of our sexual stimulus isn’t even physical. Do we feel loved? Do we feel seen and respected? Do we feel honoured and adored? Is our partner taking initiative (being masculine)? Are we being swept off our feet?

This puts us into the deep feminine. When our heart is stimulated, our yoni (vagina, etc) naturally opens to connect more deeply. However, this is a new concept for most of us.

Medication:

Many medications have side-effects that will affect our sex drive and our body’s ability to respond sexually. For many medications, it isn’t the side effects that are the challenge; it is the primary intention of the drug that will dull our responses.

For example, when we are on antidepressants, think about what these do. They are intentionally dulling our responses to painful emotional states. This isn’t a judgement about whether you should be on them, but it is important to connect the right dots.

True intimacy happens when we are wide open and feel everything. If we have deep issues that we can’t face and we rely on medication to give us a different set-point, this can interfere with a great sex-drive.

Being Feminine:

Are you very feminine? Have you been able to be feminine? What has stifled your femininity? Do you trust to receive? Have you ever experienced this? Will you allow yourself to receive?

We have become independent and strong, which is good. However, in many ways, we have only become more like men. We have increased our masculinity and lost our femininity.

In tantra we learn the beautiful balance of masculine and feminine within us and in relationships. Suddenly, there is great value to feminine wisdom, wildness, introspection, emotions, and intuition. We learn receiving is as much of a gift as giving.

We learn what it is to be truly women – strong in both our feminine and masculine.

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