Reflections on our tantra massage retreat by Eva Hanson / see also sexuelle-kultur.org

So, here I am now: lying naked in the sun under an apple tree by the pool. Thinking about sex and revolution. All I hear is the wind in the trees and birdsong; occasionally a donkey or a peacock announces its presence. And here comes the happy puppy, enthusiastically biting my nipple—again. This is much nicer than I thought.

I was invited to this “Tantra Massage Retreat”—the kind of thing I never thought I’d take part in. It seems bizarre and entirely inappropriate to me to just hop on a plane to become a tourist in another country, then drive for hours to get to a remote place where other people work to ensure my comfort, then swim in a pool and shower three times a day on average... all for the purpose of practicing forms of advanced sexuality and enjoying myself.

Don’t get me wrong: I highly value beauty, relaxation, and well-being. It’s my job. You might even consider me a sophisticated hedonist or even a pleasure activist. But I can’t help but question this kind of activity.

Well, I’m anything but comfortable staying in random places with random people and being told what to do for several days.

& that’s exactly why I went, despite all the mixed feelings, criticism, and discomfort.

I went because this is the only tantric massage training event I know of that questions the very act it is performing while doing it, along with the associated mindsets and attitudes. I went because I finally get to discuss with like-minded people some things I really care about, namely:

why, from a certain perspective, this is all bullshit—a symptom (or a product) of an ignorant, naive, narcissistic culture of the self. the sense of self upon which our entire corrupt society is based, and which capitalism and consumer culture are happily and extensively feeding on. how it has emerged from a century-long process of spiritual stultification and stupefying hedonism.

& why, at the same time, it is wonderful & sublime. Perhaps even subversive & revolutionary.

It’s also my first time in this kind of setting where I’m not expected to participate in everything that’s offered, having to get up too early just to be subjected to intense experiences all day long with too few breaks, well into the night. I’m not given creepy, long hugs by people I barely know without my permission. I’m not being told that my resistance to certain exercises is just intellectual evasion that I need to overcome. No endless sharing circles (thank God!). I’m not considered cold and distant because I feel no need to bare my soul at any given moment; on the contrary: I’m explicitly invited not to be authentic all the time, but to act and play instead.

Well. But what are we doing here?

We practice touch and sensual exploration with minimal input and guidance, play with a variety of different metaphors for what we’re doing, and enjoy endless new ways of touch and pleasure.

We question our need and strategies for pleasure and pleasing others. We grapple with our own freedom and responsibility.

we think of names for our genitals (my favorites: The Wet Curls & The Venerable Monosyllable).

We hug, kiss, caress, tickle, slap, tie up, squeeze, and move each other.

We take a lot of notes.

We hold cherry pit spitting contests.

We knock on heaven's door.

We stretch, sweat, and explore different breathing techniques for different purposes.

We share three meals a day.

We get inspired by puppies (“This is how life should be!”).

Giggling, we take pleasure in our own embarrassment.

We say "ohhh yeah" a lot .

We are treated to sex-political manifestos or improvised soundscapes created with our bodies by our facilitators while we massage each other.

We treat anuses like mouths and mouths like anuses.

We dance in the moonlight.

We braid each other's hair and paint each other's nails.

We communicate our boundaries very clearly.

We find our center. Lose it again. Find it again.

We share each other's stories and wisdom.

We mess up sometimes and practice how to stumble more (or less) gracefully.

Sometimes we look like angels, blissful and serene.

We’ve created a sex-positive water ballet ritual.

we turn into fantastical animals for a while.

We’re getting used to the peacocks responding from afar to our squeaking, moaning, chuckling, barking, cackling, screaming, sighing, and all the other funny sounds we make.

We do weightlifting with very heavy weights.

We talk about cultural appropriation, gender and queerness, inclusivity, power imbalances (including those between practitioners and clients, and facilitators and participants), sex work, and what it’s like to offer tantric massage as a service to strangers.

We ask ourselves what the rebellious aspect of this practice is (to be continued!).

We have long conversations about truth and doubt, about what we know and what we don’t know, about ambivalence and uncertainty.

We grapple with the concepts of spirituality and sexuality and how they are related.

we discuss the human condition while getting pleasantly tipsy on wine.

This is called TWAPOS. Tantra – With a Pinch of Salt

The idea: to declutter this sensual, luxurious practice—to dust it off and remove everything that has become outdated and redundant.

First: the jumble of vague New Age concepts like chakras, energy, and gender polarities, as well as annoying practices like excessively intimate or intimidating eye contact and spiritually intrusive attempts at “healing.”

Second: the pervasive psychological mindset that tries to define who we are (a collection of traumas, trigger points, shadows, mirrors, blockages, processes, ...) & what to do (heal, grow, expand, develop our full potential, find our true self, ...) finally: the conservative way of teaching it in the form of precomposed massage structures, the dogmas surrounding rules, principles, and dynamics of touch, and the contemporary, somewhat timid attempt to make tantric massage as safe and harmless as possible.

To this end, we explore the history of tantra from medieval India and the initial reception of tantric texts in the 19th century, through a bizarre and twisted process of reinterpretation heavily influenced by Aleister Crowley, Wilhelm Reich, and Osho, all the way to the invention of tantric massage in the 1970s, presumably by Andro. We trace the underlying ideas of “sacred sexuality,” “sexual revolution,” and “happiness,” which is to be achieved through self-actualization and pleasure.

& then, we take a physical and practical approach to this thing—which doesn’t even seem to have the right name anymore—using a highly experimental and free-flowing method...

But what are we left with then?

an advanced form of ritualized sexuality—an empty vessel that we can fill with whatever we want. In fact, even the shape of the vessel is up to us. We can choose the rules, boundaries, and form of the ritual. Its purpose is not to make the massage spiritual, but to set our activity apart from normal everyday life and sexual routines, and to help us enter the mindset we need to do what we want to do.

What mindset?

I’ve thought about this a great deal during my nearly 10 years of professional tantric massage practice. What I’ve come up with are long lists of values and attitudes: to me, tantric massage is the embodied expression of a life philosophy and a way to practice and incorporate it. I thought of it as a form of intimate anarchism, a way to find that place within us from which we can reverse all brainwashing and find true sovereignty. I was pretty sure I had figured it all out.

& I took it very seriously.

To me, tantric massage used to be a highly sophisticated and elaborate art form, a composition of skillful touch, like a piece of music. It’s something you have to learn and practice for a long time in order for it to be as graceful, pleasurable, and safe an experience as possible.

This experimental approach is completely new to me, and at first it felt very wrong: what about symmetry? What about the waves of arousal? What about all the subtle techniques and choreographies I’ve learned and developed? What about harmony, balance, and flow? How can that work if I never know what I’m going to do next?

& this whole idea of exploring what I’m interested in instead of trying to please—what the hell? I can’t wrap my head around it. It feels like I’m unlearning a language in just a few days. But it feels so good—both when I’m giving and when I’m receiving.

Then, a few days into the retreat, I watched our collective attempt to reimagine tantric massage with awe: the idea was to infuse this sweetest form of manipulation with new meaning by inventing new stories about how it evolved, what myth it recreates, or how it functions as a magical ritual. But instead of stoned minds and deep philosophical discussions, I mostly saw colorful images and heard a lot of laughter. The results were spontaneous, creative, and humorous to the point of nonsense. And I asked myself: Is this, in fact, the whole point? That we don’t have to figure this out at all?

& how do we—how do I—deal with this immense freedom—the freedom not to know what I’m doing?

It slowly dawns on me that I’m resisting the one thing I can be certain of: that I have no fucking clue anyway. Not what I’m doing here. Not what happens next. Not how it will all come together in the end, or what consequences it will have.

& that’s fine.

& if I still consider tantric massage a microcosm that represents the whole, this also means that we can learn to be comfortable with the big open questions as well: what the human condition is, what this life is all about, how we deal with our biological as well as spiritual nature ... with the reality that human existence is tragic, comic, and magical—all at the same time.

So—why not find joy in walking on ever-shifting ground?

Human beings are, by nature, deeply uncomfortable with uncertainty, ambivalence, and contradiction. Hence our endless, inventive, and utterly futile attempts at control and systematization.

& hence the value of practicing in such a concrete, physical way in order to then, perhaps, develop a new way of life from it.

That’s it: the way of the toddler ( or the puppy):

a way of strolling or wandering around with the understanding that life is all about play and curiosity, about trial and error, about spontaneous and inventive solutions, about stumbling and getting back up again. When we manage to stop taking ourselves too seriously, self-doubt, fear of failure, and frustration become easier to bear. We might develop a whole new kind of confidence through the repeated experience that we can handle so much more than we thought if we stay flexible and learn to improvise. if we learn to trust our innate intuition and competence.

We can allow ourselves to let go of the ambition to do it “right,” or gracefully, or in a way that makes sense. Accepting our own emergent nature means that we have more freedom than we can make use of at any given moment: if we give ourselves permission to be expressive, we can decide how we want to approach and respond to the world: as a dancer? as a sculptor? as a magician? as a cat? as an alien?

Yes, it might be awkward sometimes. It might look like a slapstick comedy. But so what?

There would be so much more to say... There are so many more layers to it.

It’s no coincidence that we care so much about tantric massage and find it so fascinating, even after many years of practice.

but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is. The more we think about it, the more mysterious and complex it seems to be.

Eva Hanson giving a lecture at TWAPOS. Photo: Matís d’Arc

For now, I choose to be content with a profound and unexpected sense of approval and satisfaction:

Despite myself and despite my ever-questioning nature, I’m sitting here soaking in moment after moment of extraordinary beauty ( for lack of a better word). You know—the kind of experience where you have an indescribable feeling of “Oh yeah. This is good, right, meaningful, important.” I see intelligence and creativity combined, bubbling up from people in all sorts of ways. Moments of innocent playfulness, rawness, and tenderness. Pure joy.

I don't know why, but this is how life should be—at least some of the time.

The next Tantra – With a Pinch of Salt will take place in >> July 2023

Tantric Massage: Decluttering, Recluttering & Beyond – A TWAPOS Experience

Workshop on Sexuality. Part IV

Salt with a Dash of Tantra