Sex is incredible; or so it should be. Many people find themselves limited in the pleasure they are able to receive during sex with a partner or even during solo exploration. What many people don’t realise is how our energy connects to our sexual response and can impact our pleasure, our orgasm and our connection with ourselves and in our relationships.
Tantra and tantric energy is an intimacy practice used to learn to connect, and explore our true selves and sexual energy to find magic and pleasure. It can be used to not only reach multiple or full body orgasms (for both men and women), but also expand our relationships and connections with ourselves and others, and find our true sensual nature.
What is tantric energy?
Tantra is the expansion of consciousness leading us to connect to our real divine self and liberation from illusion. It is esoteric yet scientific, widely celebrated throughout the world for its power to one's sexual energy and ability to connect us to our higher energy centres.
The true nature of tantra is very misunderstood, particularly in Western society. It has become synonymous with sex, but goes far beyond this, bringing us closer to our Divine Self and our sacred sexuality. Tantra uses many practices to release our tantric energy, from art and symbology to meditations, yoga, breathwork, ritual and more. It breaks down the boundaries to our pleasure, the limits to what we believe we can experience, opening the floodgates to unbounding levels of intimacy and pleasure.
5 Tantric Practices to Your Lovemaking
1. Slowing down.
Slow down physically in your lovemaking with yourself and with others. Take your time with each kind of touch and drawing out the types of touch you are giving or receiving.
Slowing down also means taking your time to explore each phase of arousal, starting with connection, such as looking into each other’s eyes, holding hands and embracing touch , like long strokes up and down the limbs. It is also important to explore touch if you are just with yourself, taking the time to make and enjoy the feeling of the movement of your hands stroking your body, just the way you like it. H4: Why slowing down is important during sex.
Tantric sex and sacred sexuality is all about slowing down and being present to the energies in the moment.
Cuddling is the cosy, easy comfort zone we often experience in sex. However, let’s not default to going straight to cuddling all the time, missing out on the new kinds of pleasure. Cuddling is of course very important to us as mammals, but can stop the arousal process in long-term couples as there is no frisson, no spark of energy
Take your time to touch each other’s (or your own) head, hair, faces, neck, arms, torso, buttocks and legs before you start on the more ‘sexual’ kinds of touch, holding off from just zooming in on the genitals straight away.
It sounds glib, but really, when it comes down to it, many times we just snog a bit and go straight for the genitals, which limits the amount of arousal and desire we can build. Just because you are horny/feel like sex, doesn’t mean you are already aroused! Again, take your time. The longer the arousal time, the better the sensation, especially for pussy owners. Once again, this is also for solo play.
And also, just because you’re not horny doesn’t mean you don’t want to be and won’t be so very soon with the right kind of touch to bring you into focus and settle your nervous system.
So, take your time. Then, of course, after a while, when the connection and the heat is building, go for the deep kissing, genital stimulation and all that good stuff. But, keep it slow, present and keep taking your time.
2. Breathe towards sensation.
I want you to try this. Imagine there is a conduit from your nose that brings your breath in and right down to where you are feeling pleasure. Breathe down into sensation. Over and over. Where your focus is directed, energy will flow and build intensity. This is how the simple practice of mindfulness is a powerful tool in love making and self-love.
As you focus on the experience and the sensations of pleasure in your body, these sensations themselves become more tangible, more powerful and reveal subtleties you easily miss when you let your mind wander elsewhere. Let the breath lead you back to sensation, every moment.
Why is breathing important during sex?
Breathing is absolutely critical to an expanded orgasmic experience. This is a practice that builds in time as your mind becomes more efficient at concentrating on sensation.Where attention goes, energy flows…if anything this is the key to Tantric sex.
Sensation is an experience of the present moment as it is right now in the body. This is an excellent way to get out of the head during sex, which is a very common habit and sexual response killer.
3. Expand sensation.
At first, you will need to use your imagination to use the technique of expanding sensation. Visualise or imagine you feel your sensation physically expanding, with your breath, breathing into the sensation, as above, if that helps. Or, you can imagine or feel the energy building with whatever movements or actions you are receiving or giving.
If you are feeling a delicious sensation in your pelvis somewhere, see if you can expand and direct that down your inner thighs, or all the way to your feet. Or perhaps, if you are alone or in a relationship where loving connection is appropriate and encouraged, see if you can expand and move that pleasure sensation up to your heart area.
This is all done with imagination at first until you have trained your brain to just feel the energy by default, and are able to connect the movement of the energy with intent. This is brain plasticity at work!
4. Make sound on the out breath.
Making noise is a beautiful, natural part of sex that we have had to repress so often. There is so much shame in our culture of being heard experiencing pleasure. To twist this further, we are fed the fake noises of pleasure in porn and often we can feel judged if our natural sound making is different or if we are not making enough sound.
Natural sex sounds are a physiological response to exertion, and while these are great and shouldn’t be stifled, they are not so much what I am talking about here in this guide towards a more Tantric style of sex.
The sounds I mean here are more your long, drawn out sounds, deep in register, guttural, nasal or breathy sounds that extend the out breath to be a lot longer than the in breath. Often, especially when they are coming from the space of deep vaginal pleasure, they are not ‘pretty’ sounds, they can, at times, be likened to a cow giving birth!
The sounds can be ‘allowed’ to happen spontaneously or made with intent, but either way, they help us, and once again, focus and get into what is happening in our bodies in the present moment.
How making sound during sex can help you experience more pleasure.
Sounding truly helps the nervous system settle and gets us out of the cortical or thinking mind; that part of our brain that endlessly loops our thoughts, whether interesting, useful or not. This is why making sounds in sex helps our attention move towards our pleasure and to amplify sensation.
As I said above, breathing is absolutely critical to an expanded orgasmic experience. Breathing fuels the sounds and amplifies the sexual energy. If you use breath with sound as a more intentional breathing practice, such as breathing deeply in and then sound out with a long hum, over and over, after some time, the cortical mind will take the backseat and our unconscious mind is allowed in.
Although, you do need to be careful as this can be a type of hyperventilation. There are some contraindications, which you’re more than welcome to contact me about.
When the thinking-mind checks out, it can make for some pretty powerful and intense love making where you feel like you are fusing your energy with your partner, your own pleasure or both. You may even connect with something much bigger; universal, divine or perhaps even the Goddess herself, if that’s where it takes you.
5. Explore movement.
Did you know orgasm happens in the brain, not the genitals?
Our spine is a huge part of our sexual response. Many of the nerves through which sensory information from the genitals is transmitted to the brain run through the spine. It is in the brain where this ‘data’ is felt as pleasure.
Electrical energy runs through our spinal cord through the cerebrospinal fluids. The nervous system is both electric and chemical, and is a conduit for sexual energy.
In yoga and Tantra, the energy of the spine is a potential, sacred life force of energy. The locus of this Kundalini energy is the sacrum, the lowest part of the spine. It can be released by breath work, yoga and meditation and the pumping action of the sacrum, amongst other things.
The pumping motion of the sacrum is, obviously, quite a common movement in sex, especially for men. However, it is also a common position for women in many sexual positions such as straddling or squatting on top of a prone man, penis or penis-shaped object. Undulating your hips or spine in this position directly affects the sexual energy housed in the pelvis
They say the penis is actually three feet long as it connects via nerves to the whole spine! Penis owners can try penetrating deepling, feeling as if the whole of your spine is connected to your penis. Experiment with slowing down the pumping movement and be really aware of the undulating movement of your spine and see what you feel!
Movements for women during sex to increase pleasure.
For women and pussy owners especially, hip movements can enhance sensation and build arousal in a really significant way. When there is a penis, sex toy or jade egg resting quite still, without movement, inside the vagina, a slight wiggle of the hip bones, back and forth can be quite sensational — literally.
Larger hip movements, like seen in belly dancing, can build the heat and intensity of sexual energy, especially when practised for some time. As can spinal undulations standing, sitting or on your hands and knees. Pre-sex dance party, anyone?
Lastly, the muscles of the pelvic floor, in all genders, can be accessed for greater pleasure to direct and build energy to help with edging and to assist not finishing too quickly for penis owners. The longer the love making, the more the sexual energy is activated, and a greater depth of pleasure can be accessed.
In yoga, bandhas is the term for energy locks. The lowest lock is known as mula bandha, the root seal.
Squeezing and releasing the vaginal walls in pussy owners can enhance sensation, energy and, in time, help with becoming multi-orgasmic. Squeezing just below the cervix is super effective, but to start with, any squeeze is good progress. It takes time and specific exercises to build this connection to your brain and is something I teach my pre-orgasmic clients on their journey towards their first orgasm
How pelvic floor control can help men during sex.
Similarly, in penis owners, the perineum can build and direct sexual energy upwards in an immediate way. See if you can feel the energy rise up the spine or move from one energetic area to another. If a penis owner learns to wiggle his penis side to side using his pelvic muscles, he is on his way to mastering multiple, non-ejaculatory orgasms.
Having control over your pelvic floor muscles and being able to release them is key to the pleasure of all genders. And YAY for that bit of magic!
How to Learn More About Tantric Energy & Tantric Sex
While these are 5 of my tips to get you started on a more energy-based kind of lovemaking, there is far more you can explore. Much of this can be adapted for sex that is not PIV (or penis in vagina) based pleasure for those who won’t, won’t or can’t. Pleasure is for all.
If you don’t know how to adapt some of the above to the way you have sex, just ask me. I teach couples and individuals how to access greater energy, pleasure, enjoyment, arousal, intimacy, desire for and connection through sex, which has a fabulous side effect of making you feel more vital, energised and present in your own body.