Women, Sex and Evolution

It’s said that the feminine is rising.  While having developed their 'masculine' capacities over the past 50 years since the onset of the women’s movement, women are re-connecting with their 'feminine' essence.  However, women are often still socialized to be ashamed of their sexuality.  So what can a woman do to fully balance her whole being?  What is her role in the planet’s conscious evolution of the sexual-spiritual integrated human?

Deborah Sundahl points out in her book, Female Ejaculation and the G-Spot, “Society considers it ‘not okay’ for women to be sexual in their own right.  Despite a national media that talks about every conceivable aspect of sex, most American woman over the age of forty were raised with the belief that ‘good girls are not sexual.’  Younger women, raised with the influence of cable TV’s new explicitness… have taken the notion of ‘bad girl’ and made a public display of it, yet still the legacy of the good girl lingers, and it inhibits most women’s ability to let go and enjoy.”

How can the 21st Century woman reclaim and embrace her sexual self, discovering its extraordinary power, while being integrated in her feminine and masculine nature.  Here are some tips to get started:

1.    Become the witness to your beliefs

No change can happen without awareness, so looking at your long held beliefs is an important first step to reclaiming your sexuality.  Begin to witness the unconscious negative beliefs you hold, whether it be from childhood, religion, media, or etc.  Notice that many of these beliefs were passed down generation to generation for millennia. You can choose to create new, supportive beliefs about yourself, your body, and your sexuality.

What separates us from the beasts is our ability to be self-reflective or aware of our own existence, what we call “the witness state of mind.” This uniquely human capacity allows us to rise above the biological miracle of ourselves and recognize that we are at choice in how we live, feel, and act, including our sexual beingness.

2.    Embrace passion and desire

All of us have a current of sexual life force energy – also referred to as “chi” – running through our bodies at all times.  In The Multi-Orgasmic Woman, Mantak Chia & Rachel Carlton Abrams, MD explain:

“Desire is a rich and potent part of our human experience… To be passionate is to be full of chi.  The English words ‘desire’ or ‘passion’ connote a feeling of yearning and fervor that includes sex, but they also reflect our strongest feelings about life.  When we are passionate about anything – our family, our work, our spirituality, an important social cause – we are investing our chi in this experience.  Our passion is what moves us to action and ultimately is what gives us joy.  We are passionate about the things that matter most to us.”

To embrace this energy is to embrace life itself.  As we learn to honor our sexuality, we also can draw on that sexual energy to enrich our lives as a whole.  By learning to embrace passion and desire, we can bring more fulfillment and joy into our entire lives.

3.    Know your “parts”

Many women expect their partner to know how to please them without knowing for themselves!  Knowing yourself and your anatomy is an important step towards embracing your sexuality.

Female sexual anatomy has been a bit of a mystery throughout history, especially in terms of how women experience pleasure and orgasm.  For example, it is widely accepted that the clitoris is an external organ only.  In Eve’s Secrets, Josephine Lowndes Sevely examines this history and reveals “…the female clitoris has deeper structures under the skin.  These deeper structures are the organ’s two legs like parts that run along the lower part of the pubic bones at either side of the lower vagina between the inner thighs.”

The G-Spot is another area of the female body that is still the source of some confusion.  In Female Ejaculation and the G-Spot, Deborah Sundahl explains, “The G-Spot is defined as both the prostate and a network of erectile tissue similar to that found in a male penis.”  She goes on to say, “The G-spot, not the clitoris, is center stage as the area of a woman’s genitals in which she can experience the greatest and most diverse amount of erotic pleasure.”

In addition to the above resources, experimenting with yourself to see what feels good is another great way to get to know your “parts!”

4.    Exercise your love muscle

The pubococcygeus muscle, or the “PC” muscle, is the muscle group that makes up and supports the pelvic floor of the body.  Mantak Chia and Maneewan Chia explain in Healing Love Through the Tao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy, “…With the exception of sexual intercourse, few exercises strengthen the crucial pelvic muscles.  Pelvic exercises do exist which can increase CHI in these areas, thereby greatly strengthening the reproductive organs and the complex network of tendons surrounding them.”  

In both men and women, the PC muscle serves important functions in supporting the inner organs including preventing incontinence, maintaining reproductive health, enhancing pleasurable sexual experiences, and increasing aliveness for the woman.

Make it a daily habit to exercise your love muscle and learn to coordinate it with your inhale and exhale. If you’d like to be guided through this practice get our Foundational Practices CD.

5.    Transform desire into rocket fuel

Once you’ve connected to and embraced your sexuality, learn to use this energy to fuel all parts of your life.  In The Multi-Orgasmic Woman, Mantak Chia & Rachel Carlton Abrams, MD lay out many healing techniques and  meditation and breathing practices that can help draw your precious energy up through your body instead of losing it through menstruation or intercourse.  These techniques include becoming aware of the “Microcosmic Orbit” which is a “basic energetic pathway of the body…. “When you circulate sexual energy through the Microcosmic Orbit, you transform your desire into your energetic ‘rocket fuel’ and enhance your vitality.”

Other techniques can be found in our book, Sexual Enlightenment.  These practices include an array of solo and partner exercises such as Yin Yang: Balancing Feminine and Masculine Energy and Heart-to-Heart connection:  Partner Spooning.

This is an exciting time for women to honor and hone their feminine essence and play an instrumental part in shifting the planet’s evolution towards balancing the feminine and masculine in all spheres of life.

Sexual Enlightenment - The Prologue

It was the summer of 1969. Freddy, an African-American in his early teens, was sprawled across the deck of the family houseboat in Sausalito, California, the sun beating against his dark skin as he idly discussed the interwoven notions of love, sex, and the sacred with family and friends. He was delighted as somebody began playing the drums at a distance as he indulged in another warm grape, smiling with pleasure. It was the Summer of Love, and he felt safe and passionate. 

Meanwhile, across the world in Germany, a young woman sat nervously in a utilitarian doctor’s office waiting for the gynecologist’s explanation of why her first intercourse had been so excruciatingly painful. As a young child she had enjoyed a sense of freedom in her body while often frolicking completely nude in the hot, German summers with her nine siblings; that feeling of freedom changed drastically when she entered puberty. Elsbeth had nobody to ask about why her first act of intercourse had hurt so much. Conversations about sex beyond the basics or how babies were made were not at all customary in her household. When she was sixteen, her father had called her a whore for wearing makeup after she returned one evening from a ballroom dance class with her first boyfriend.

The gynecologist interrupted her thoughts with his determination that a small medical procedure was needed to ease Elsbeth’s pain, and he completed it that day in the office.

For his part, eight-year-old Freddy’s life was changing as he went to live with his dad and new white stepmom, while his three siblings stayed with his birth mother after their parent’s separation. He always felt loved by his father, a psychiatrist and student of Tantra, and was often surrounded by a supportive and open-minded community of family friends. 

One day, Freddy, by now in his mid-teens, set on the home boat in a circle comprised of a blend of Tantric-curious individuals who had attended his father’s workshops, as well as friends, colleagues, and his father and stepmother.  When a silence briefly passed over the group, Freddy took the opportunity to ask his Dad some questions about things that had happened during his recent first sexual experience. His father and some of the group members freely advised and educated him without inhibitions.

Later that day a package was sitting on the dining room table. “Son, I want you to read this,” his father said warmly. Freddy unwrapped his first book about sacred sexuality, and after graciously thanking his father, retreated to his bedroom to read and learn more.

Back in Germany, days after the gynecological procedure, Elsbeth’s boyfriend announced his intention to leave the relationship. Heartbroken, she went home, where she found her father sitting at the kitchen table, a letter in his hands, his face livid.

“What have you done?” he shouted, and she realized in that moment the letter was the bill from the gynecologist. Her father now knew what she had been up to. After being subjected to a harsh reprimand and lecture, Elsbeth retreated to her bedroom feeling alone and dejected, as if the world had turned against her. 

Thirty years later Elsbeth, now a US citizen residing in Chicago, had developed into a successful management consultant who traveled the world. One evening, while on assignment for a multinational power company in Europe, she went back to her corporate apartment  and paused for a moment, resting her head against the inside of the  apartment door, keys still in the lock. She shut her eyes and breathed deeply. This moment of reflection brought back the deep despair she felt over a relationship with a married man she could not free herself from. She scanned her apartment, heart heavy. She felt trapped in a cycle of attraction to unavailable men and lacked hope of ever finding fulfillment and sustaining love. 

Confronted with the futility of her love situation, she went to a Buddhist meditation retreat at Plum Village in the south of France. Ten days in silent meditation had her face her feelings, actions, and illusions. It was excruciating! Yet those days helped her to connect with her spirit and turn around her life.

In her soul searching, Elsbeth immersed herself in the study of the ancient practice of Tantra that opened her up to her sexual-spiritual Self. Deep healing and clearing allowed her to see her unconscious programming around love and intimacy. She came to experience deeper trust in herself and see that she no longer needed to look for love outside—she had discovered love within as a state of being.

To Freddy, Chicago was a new city bustling with possibilities and potential. He had led a life of moving between corporate jobs and relationships with ease during the previous two decades when living in San Francisco. His true passion lay in creative pursuits, but fear of a loss of stability drove him to stay in unfulfilling professional situations and pursue the performing arts only as a hobby. Everything had been shaken up by this move to Chicago looking for newness, diversion, and a new direction for his life. Faced with the opportunity of creating anew, Freddy found room to breathe and to reconnect with his creative self. He grinned, imagining again the standup comedian’s stage that had once been so familiar to him from his early days in San Francisco and the Djembe drumming that used to delight his spirit. 

A desire for deeper self-expression and authentically sharing his gift brought resolve to bringing focus to his life. How to channel creativity and pleasure became a pursuit inspired by his tantric practice and ongoing learning.

Then he met a woman. He didn’t know much about her yet, just what her profile on a tantric dating website had detailed and what small stories they had traded over a week of e-mail contact. Standing on her doorstep, he composed himself, feeling good about meeting this woman he wanted to know more about. 

She had learned from his profile that he had grown up in a tantric household, an interesting life detail that immediately had caught her attention and curiosity. Smoothing her hands over her dress once more, she felt a flutter of pleasant anticipation when the doorbell rang.

As Freddy looked up the steps and Elsbeth looked back at him, they sensed that this encounter had the potential for a new future for the two of them. That night they shared wine and food, laughter and conversation, hopes and aspirations, and tantric connection. Indeed this budding relationship was born of a desire to create love versus unconsciously falling into it and bringing forth a higher purpose together beyond playing out the romantic drama.

This was the beginning of discovering joint purpose and direction in their personal and professional lives. A few months into the relationship, they birthed TantraNova, their transformational company. Integrating sex, love, and consciousness had opened a door to wholeness within each of them and in their relationship. They have come to coin this evolved state of being sexual enlightenment. How to share this opportunity to heal, transform, and consciously create fulfillment in life and relationships became their inquiry and mission for years to come. 

After leading hundreds of workshops and assisting thousands of couples and singles since that first auspicious rendezvous, Elsbeth and Freddy are sharing with you in this book how you can also enter the world of sexual enlightenment and travel the road of creative joy and sexual, emotional, and spiritual wholeness.

Enjoy the journey!

Here you can learn more about sexual enlightenment!