I love Tantra and I love elements of kink. The two combined are what I call Sensual Kink, and I don't think it gets much better than that. So, with the current interest in kink that's been generated by the overwhelming popularity of the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy, I thought I might share my thoughts.
 
 To me, Tantra and Kink are at one end of a spectrum; and the alcohol-fuelled model of sex, along with porn and raunch culture, are at the other. The former are about depth and connection, resulting in ecstatic and altered states of consciousness; and the latter is about superficiality and a performance-style sexuality that has little if any positive outcome from what I can see.

I know my kinky side has been there since I was a five-year old getting turned on by a cartoon of Donald Duck pegging his nephews by their tails to a rotating clothesline and spanking their bottoms as it turned. I didn’t even know what that feeling was, but it’s etched into my memory. You could also claim that my years of martial arts training, spending hour upon hour being belted into the floor and feeling elated from it, was a form of sadomasochism. But I didn’t truly discover my kinky side until I first explored Tantra.
 
 Many people would assume that Tantra is all about goodness and light and spirituality, and Kink is dark and evil, so the two would be opposites. That’s not my experience. Through Tantra I discovered the ability to go places sexually, without even genital touch, just with sexual energy, in the presence of a highly-energetically developed person and open myself up to extraordinary experiences. It was great.
 
 Then I heard that people had similar experiences in Kink - that they could be tied up, for instance, and go into orgasm or blissful states without genital touch. That caught my fancy, so I started to investigate. Well! What I discovered was that the energetic presence between two people engaged in many Kink activities is the same energy as that between Tantric practitioners - and you get to dress up in outrageous clothes as you do it!
 
So I said to the universe: “Queen of Tantra would like to meet King of Kink, to explore the realm where Tantra and Kink meet.” Now, when you’re clear about what you want, the universe delivers. And it did. I had an amazing next twelve months, where I took my explorations into the outer reaches of human sexual potential even further.
 
 I’m sure I could have got lost in those wonderful places, but my calling is here on earth, helping others move closer to their own sexual potential. So that relationship ended and since then I’ve been with my current wonderful partner who shares my own love of Tantra and Kink and mutually exploring all the exquisite possibilities of sexuality and sensuality.
 
 The work I do with people applies to any form of sexuality - as long as it’s real and connected. I am simply not interested in the superficial approach to sexuality that abounds in this society. In fact, I spend a lot of my time helping people get over the negative impacts of that approach.
 
 Fortunately, there are enough of you out there realising that there’s more to life than being either a would-be porn star or a prude (I say you, because you wouldn’t be reading my work if you didn’t feel at least an inkling of this). To you I say: develop your ability to connect; heighten your sensuality; follow your instinct; and explore wherever your sexuality leads you.
 
Kinky, spiritual, lustful, intense or subtle - it’s all good - as long as it’s real.

So much of my work revolves around enabling people to come together with real intimacy. I’m blessed to be able to see this in private sessions and in the workshops and retreats that I run. Seeing couples sharing their love and intimacy so beautifully is an awe-inspiring experience, but it’s also sadly rare in our society. 

It’s not that smooth and easy for all couples though. For very many people intimacy is bewildering and perplexing, and it’s very often extraordinarily confronting to ‘meet’ each other in this way. The barriers have to come down. You have to meet each other with deep, calm, slow tenderness. There needs to be a slow dissolving of the edges. The woman needs to get a place where she can welcome her man into her, invite him to enter. That entering is a place of beauty and relaxation and letting go for the man. She needs to be able to allow that. He needs to be able to hold her so well that she can get to that place, so that he can enter her and the entering becomes a coming together, a merging into unity.
 
 When a couple come together in this way, they are exploring the exquisiteness of the “valleys” of sex - a place where altered consciousness is possible, where you can enter orgasmic states. This is a very different experience to the “peaks” of sex, which is about intense genital stimulation leading to genital orgasm.
 
 I believe that many people lose interest in sex, or become obsessed with sex, because focusing on the “peaks” of sex is not sustainable in the way that a “valley” approach to sex is. Sex that is predominantly genital and orgasm-focused gets empty over time. The women feel like receptacles and the men have performance problems due to the over-focus on the penis. Without the emotional and energetic connection sex becomes just an empty physical act that doesn’t really satisfy either person.
 
 The starting point for real sex, true lovemaking, is tenderness. Tenderness is coming together with softness and strength. Tenderness is deep, calm and beautiful. This is how your love-making needs to be to get to that place of true connection, true yielding and opening to each other. This is where your love-making becomes alchemy, creating a life-enhancing and sustaining energy for each of you.
 
 Tenderness.
 
 Try it.

What is the difference between erotic and sleazy or sordid? What is the difference between when something is positive and life-enhancing sexually and when it’s not, when it detracts from life?
 
 I once had a conversation with my 18-year-old son pointing out that telling ribald jokes in front of his 10-year-old sister is not good. “Oh yeah, but Mum, you’ve got dildos in your office,” he replied, implying: “You’re not one to talk”. I pointed out that the work I do is not about dildos per se, it’s about the energy and the emotion behind its use. So, you can take a dildo and turn it into something smutty and disgusting, something that makes the users feel bad about themselves and sex in general, or you can use it a way which makes them feel good about themselves and sex.

I think this is important, because we're so mired in the Male Adolescent Masturbatory Attitude which prevails in our society. Because we’ve suppressed sex for so long, the type of sex that has grown from the 1970s is based on an immature form of male sexuality, which is much more about overt sleaze and less about the internal erotic.
 
 To me, the erotic is something that is deeply moving. It moves you from within; it’s something that turns you on, makes you desire sex, desire love-making - something that makes you want to open to your partner. The erotic is something that takes you places. This is only possible if it comes from a very positive place, if the emotions and feelings that it generates are deep.
 
 Eroticism is not about limiting sexuality; it’s solely about positive sexually. If that eroticism is simple, great; if it’s wild and wicked, great! The only question is: what is the impact on you as a person, on your personal growth and your relationship growth? Is it something that enhances life?
 
 Don’t avoid or cut things out because you think that they’re bad. It’s not the act that’s bad, only where it’s coming from that might be bad. BDSM, anal sex, same sex, insert-your-choice-of-wrong-sex-even-when-it’s-between-consenting-informed-adults-sex can all come from very positive places - just as mainstream under-the-covers sex can be awful if it’s not generating something good. Obligation sex of any kind falls into the bad category.
 
 It’s so important to tap into our eroticism and allow ourselves to become free and open to the sublime potential of our sexuality.

What is the number one thing that makes a man a great lover?

His sensuality.

Without sensuality, when a man makes love to his partner, there can be no real connection. Without that connection, the sex becomes uninteresting, even a turn-off for the woman, and the sex dies.

With sensuality, a man can be both tender and commanding, that wonderful combination of the Yin and Yang of a man. This enables a woman to be both yielding and strong, that wonderful combination of the Yin and Yang of a woman.

What that simply means is that when a man is in touch with his sensuality he can really connect with his woman. This enables her to let go with trust and with desire. She can truly open herself to him. She feels his desire as strong without being aggressive and she can yield and open herself up to it.

With sensuality a man can enable his partner’s “energy” to heat her up to boiling point, so that her sexual response is powerful and ecstatic - way more than just a physical response to genital stimulation . You see, when a man tunes into his sensuality his skill as a lover goes way past his physical “technique”. It becomes much less about his “doing” than his “being”. He doesn’t become a great lover by “doing” the right thing with clever tricks and techniques, he becomes a great lover by “being” sensual, by being in tune with himself and his partner at all levels of physicality, as well as emotionally, energetically and spiritually.

Becoming a sensual man is not about becoming an insipid New Age Wimp - far from it. To be truly sensual, a man needs to be strong, he needs to be able to hold his woman with exquisite tenderness and take her to magical places. Not that it needs be all soft. A man in tune with the sensuality of connection can get into rough play or BDSM (Bondage, Discipline and Sado-Masochism), but because he is in tune, because he is coming from a sensual place, he holds his partner safe as they together explore these “darker” areas of sexuality.

What’s more, he will be in tune enough to know how far to go.

A sensual man is a complete man, one capable of making extraordinary love with his partner. And the best news of all - a man can become more sensual with age, and thereby become a better lover with age!

To learn to be a great lover, enrol in my online course for men - Black Belt in the Bedroom!

Think about how you use your senses as you make love. Do you use all your senses? Do you engage with the whole of your partner’s body, or just a few bits?
 
 As you become more sensual in your lovemaking, sex becomes less ‘sexual’, focused on ‘getting your rocks off’, and becomes more ‘sensual’, more loving. Although paradoxically, sensuality also feeds sexuality: the more in tune you are with your senses and the more you use them and enjoy the sensual nature of lovemaking, the more intensely you’ll experience sex.
 
 You need to reawaken your senses, to re-engage with life. The sensual realm is the physical realm, but it’s a lot more than just superficial appearances. Embrace the sensual and you’ll connect with your body at a deep level and increase your energy, both of which will heighten your desire for sex and your enjoyment of it.

This shift to sensuality is doubly important when you apply it to your own body image - this is a message particularly important to women. The media brainwashes us to believe that “sexy” equals the type of body that most women only have in their youth, if even then. That’s why I advocate letting go of the “sexy” stuff and embracing the sensual. “Sexy” does have this image of a perfect, young body that’s horny and lusty and ready to go. Not the way most women generally feel.
 
 Now consider the concept of “sensual”. It’s softer, rounder, gentler, full of depth and warmth – rather like the bodies of women! Sex between long-term lovers is like this too, less raunchy and a whole lot more loving and gorgeous (not to imply that it can’t be incredibly raunchy too, it just doesn’t have to conform to raunchy stereotypes). It’s the type of sex you can only have with a long-term partner, and the type of sex you can only have if you appreciate your gorgeous, sensual body.
 
 You’re not going to absorb this message from the mass media, so you’re going to have make the mind-shift yourself. Think sensual: 

• Think sensual in the shower: rub soap over yourself and love the softness and the roundness; 
• Think sensual as you move through the day: feel your hips swaying, your breasts moving (picture how full-figured African or Latin American women move, it’s poetry); 
• Think sensual as your partner caresses your curves; 
• Think sensual as you caress your own curves when you make love. 

 Loving your body is a challenge for most people, men as well as women, and the challenge is harder as we age and become less like the media-generated idealised image of sexy. But if you can let go of that unrealistic ideal and embrace your body for what it is in all its sensuous gorgeousness, you will in fact feel sexy, naturally sexy, just as you are. 

Have you been practicing eating a peach? Savouring its juicy lushness…?

Have you found within you the ability to lose yourself in that peach, to taste, suck, lick and devour it with full sensory awareness and heightened arousal?

Well, hold that space and let’s take that a step further. We’re going to add some technique and look at how to consume an ice-cream.

(If you haven’t read my post on how to eat a peach, go back and read that first, you want to be in that space before continuing.)

The thing about enjoying a peach in that way is that it is all about you receiving the pleasure and sensation of the peach. This is what making love with someone should be like. Rather than focusing on what you’re doing to them, simply allow yourself to lose yourself in the pleasure you are receiving from being with them.

It’s pretty easy to do with a peach. You feel no obligation to the peach, you don’t care how the peach feels about you consuming it. It’s trickier to do with a person, most of us are concerned about how the other person is feeling about what we’re doing to or with them.

Strangely enough though, they’d enjoy themselves more if you got of your head and stopped thinking about them and instead simply let yourself go into the pleasure of the moment.

That’s why we started with a peach. Now, let’s add some technique, and see if you can still lose yourself.

We’re going to focus on your tongue. This part of your body is both fantastic at giving pleasure to another as well as transmitting pleasure back to you.

When applied to the body of another, your tongue provides exquisite pleasure to them, and in the touch of your tongue on your lover it transmits exquisite pleasure back to you. It does this best if you lose yourself in your tongue and the two-way transmission of pleasure.

So let’s practice this with an ice-cream.

Choose one that’s covered in hard chocolate.

Hold the ice-cream; look at the ice-cream; approach the ice-cream. Breathe on it gently. Savour the anticipation of the first touch of your tongue on the ice-cream.

Now practice the first of three strokes. The first is The Slurp. Run your tongue up the side of the ice-cream. Then up and up again over all sides of the ice-cream. Do it slowly, do it rapidly, do it firmly, do it barely touching.

Then practice The Swirl. Run your tongue around and around the ice-cream. Do it with the ice-cream in your mouth, do it with the ice-cream outside your mouth.

Combine the Slurp with the Swirl. Lose yourself in it. If it feels good, moan. Don’t worry if you sound like a bad actor in a porn movie. If it feels good do it.

Then practice Kitty Licks, little lapping moments with your tongue. Run your tongue up and down the ice-cream, flicking lightly, making little circles. Keep going over the top, combining with Swirls and Slurps.

Then, in the centre at the top of the ice-cream, enjoy kitty licking in one spot until you break through the chocolate to the ice-cream below. Keep going as the chocolate breaks further and you can lick and suck up the ice-cream beneath. Lose yourself even further as slabs of chocolate come off and you can lick, suck and bite. Let the ice-cream melt and drip and lick the drips as they fall off the end and run over your fingers and hands…

This is not as easy as it might sound. I’ve given this exercise to many clients and workshop participants, and it’s evident how hard people find it to lose themselves in pleasure, completely unself-consciouslessly. If it’s that hard with just an ice-cream, how much harder with an actual person.

So practice with an ice-cream, or a peach or a mango or a lolly-pop, until you can lose yourself, completely and utterly. Because that is what you’re aiming for in sex. Way before you worry about technique.

Sensuality is without a doubt a key element to great sex. Sensuality, intimacy, surrender, eroticism – all essential elements that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the genitals.
 
 We have five senses which can constantly bring us delectable, luscious sensuous experiences. If we’re open to them.
 
 Once we are, we can bring that awareness into our love-making – and make magic.
 
 Let’s practice. Choose a peach, or any other other suitably juicy fruit such as a mango.

Pick up the fruit.-
 
 First, look at it….then listen to it…..then smell it….touch it against your skin, cheek, forearm…then bite into it and taste it.
 
 Really taste it.
 
 Then bite again:
 
 - feeling the peach flesh give as you bite down into it,
 
 - feeling the juices release into your mouth,
 
 - hearing the sound of the flesh give way,
 
 - smelling the scent of the peach beneath your nose,
 
 - tasting the sweet flavor of the peach consuming your mouth,
 
 - seeing the pinkish orange of the raw peach flesh….
 
 Now that's eating a peach!
 
 Try the exercise together. Have a peach each and take it in turns to watch your partner completely consume the peach. Then expose your own sensuality as you bite and lick and devour your peach.
 
 Or share the peach. Look into each other’s eyes as you suck, nibble, chew and swallow the peach flesh and juice. Taste it on each other’s lips, follow the dribble of juice down your partner’s body, suck it off their fingers.
 
 Why would you put up with lacklustre sex when you can really, and truly, eat a peach...?