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 thought I’d never 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 an average of three times a day… 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 somewhat random places with somewhat random people, being told what to do and when 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 thing it’s doing 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 on which our entire corrupt society is based—and which capitalism and consumer culture are happily and extensively feeding on. How it stems 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 experience in this kind of setting where I’m not expected to participate in everything that’s offered, where I don’t have to get up too early just to be subjected to intense experiences all day long with breaks that are way too short, lasting 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 multitude of different metaphors for what we're doing, and enjoy endless new ways of touch and pleasure.

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

We think of names for our genitals (my favorites: “The Wet Curls” and “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 ways of breathing 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 .

Our facilitators delight us with sex-political manifestos or improvised soundscapes created by our bodies as we massage one another.

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 well.

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

We share each other's stories and wisdom.

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

Sometimes we look like angels, blissful and serene.

We invent a sex-positive water ballet ritual.

We turn into fantastical animals for a while.

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

We do weightlifting with very heavy cocks.

We talk about cultural appropriation, gender and queerness, inclusivity, power imbalances (including those between practitioners and clients, 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 suitably drunk 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 excessive and redundant.

First: the cluster 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 abusive attempts at “healing.”

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

To this end, we discuss the history of tantra from medieval India and the initial reception of tantric texts in the 19th century, all the way through a bizarre and twisted process of reinterpretation heavily influenced by Aleister Crowley, Wilhelm Reich, and Osho, 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 container that we can fill with whatever we want. In fact, even the shape of the container 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 get into the right frame of mind 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 philosophy of life 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 discover 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 completely wrong: what about symmetry?? What about the waves of arousal? What about all the subtle techniques and choreography 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—WTF? 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 “re-clutter” 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 absurdity. 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's slowly dawning on me that I'm resisting the one fact I can be certain of: that I have absolutely 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 effects 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-ended 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, very 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 assumption 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 interesting, 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 gathering moment after moment of extraordinary beauty ( for lack of a better word). You know—the kind of experience where you have an indisputable feeling of “Oh yeah. This is good, right, meaningful, important.” I see intelligence and creativity combined, bubbling up from people in all kinds 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