I have just come back from a 9 days tantra retreat in Glastonbury (UK). I was with my mentors from T4GM Jason and Ingo and fifteen other amazing men who have answered to a call of becoming tantra teachers.
I could not have imagined that my journey with Tantra would become a journey into healing. A journey of moving from thinking I had it all worked out to accepting that I hardly know anything. I got into tantra hoping that it was going to give me a set of techniques to turn me into a stud in bed. The reality is that what it has taught me is to be ok with having no expectation. Having no expectation creates a sense of freedom. With no expectation everything is possible.
SEX AND SEPARATION
As other gay men I have been carrying wounds from the many years of feeling ‘less than’: as a kid being bullied at school and feeling weak and scared ; as a teenager knowing I was different and not being able to find my own tribe; and as an adult trying to navigate my own voice and standing to the heteronormative narratives that I found so oppressive.
Sex is supposed to be a fun and playful game, however in reality I did not realise how much those wounds were imprinting on my sex life: the insecurities of not being good enough, the projection of wanting to be seen as ‘total top’ -as I felt that was what it meant to be ‘truly masculine’-, my inability to bottom because I could not relax into it. Still I thought my sex life was great.
Now I realised how much the sex was suffering from a compartimentalised life. In reality who you think you are, how anxious you have been in your day, your self-esteeem and the love for the person next to you, how much judgemental you are, all of those things end up showing in the bedroom.
TANTRA AND ONENESS
Tantra pointed the finger out to how much to reach beautiful intimacy you have to be at ease with yourself, not only superficially but also throughout the whole of your being. That means truly happy in your own skin, happy from a place of love, kindness and care for yourself and the ones around you.
That idea, which I could understand in principle, used to bring me lots of struggles: feelings such as envy, jealousy, greed, judgement could visit me fairly often. I used to think they were part of my character, until I started to question where do they come from.
Jealousy often was my fear of being abandoned. Envy was about feeling ‘less than’. ‘Greed’ came from having felt I was not deserving love and attention. ‘Judgement’ was a way to protect myself from not actually feeling so great about myself. When those feelings come in, love goes out. Said that, when you just invite love back even when those feelings come, something really interesting happens, and it is the possibility that with self-love and kindness things can change.
Tantra takes love as its currency. When love is operating, the real truth of who we really are can manifest. We become more whole, less compartmented… and this is when true magic can happen.
SEX AS A HEALING ENERGY
Aligning yourself into that idea of love for yourself and for others brings the potential for wonderful healing. If you can arrive into sex with a true intention of connection, of connection with yourself and your lover, with the intention of using your genitals to heal, big things can happen.
Over those 9 days in the retreat, there was plenty of magic. Through tantra we drop the masks and become more real, the more real we become, the closer we are to our truth and our wounds have an opportunity to heal. Bringing that positive sexual energy to the scars of our past allows us to move away from having to constantly hold the pain. It can take sometime and change can be scary, but the other option is already tried and tested, and the result has got us living, but missing out on really enjoying life.
Today I stand in full realisation of the healing potential of sex, intimacy and connection. That has become my main interest when holding group workshops with other men.
Healing and empowerment is the focus of my one-to-one work also. In order to support those men into their journeys to a more integrated sexual being, I have to be in that space of oneness myself, a space in which love and connection is the only currency.
I firmly believe that if you embody love, the effects will ripple out. This world certainly needs more loving men.
Tantric Freedom 
Dear Pep
Thank you for your general and personal reflections on the topic of “Tantric Freedom”. When you are on a tantric path together with other men, you have a similar understanding of sex and intimacy, you have already reached a level that is hidden from most men.
In the Tantra Love Festivals I have always developed a great sense of togetherness. I never had sex there (because I didn’t want to), but a lot of intimacy. This included disappointments because of too high expectations as well as surprises about my emotions or openness where I would not have expected it. Unfortunately, for many, including me, this world is quickly lost again when you are back in everyday life. For me, it is clear why this is so. In my environment, I can’t just approach men and ask them about their tantric understanding. I could, but I would hardly want to, because I would probably meet with incomprehension. But they do exist, these wonderful experiences that one encounters without intention. A few days ago I met a man at my nudist place who resembled you in many ways from the exterior. He was lying near me and when I saw that he was rubbing himself with sun lotion, I asked him if I should put some on his back. I was surprised at my courage and he happily accepted. Of course, it did not stop at the back, I also thoroughly rubbed his two firm ass cheeks. Then we discussed over an hour standing about many things and we both noticed that we tick quite similar. He then asked if he could come to my place – actually from him a sign that he was comfortable with my proximity. At first we both just lay there and only with time it came to “accidental” touches. I thought this will probably just end up in the usual sex and I may be overwhelmed with it. But it came differently. He lay down the other way around from me and at some point he put his thighs over mine and I started giving him a lingam massage without us talking about it beforehand. To my surprise I had a hard erection and we were so close that he felt it between his ass cheeks, which made him even hornier. He enjoyed my touches and in between he also played with my cock and testicles and I thought I could slide into him at any moment. This did not happen, but we were both very close. Although we both did not cum, there was so much love and intimacy between us that we exchanged our contact information and we wanted to meet again. Since my 2019 festival, I have never felt so much closeness, although I had sex many times. I still can’t quite believe that happened to me. It certainly helped that he told me that for him (44) men my age are the most attractive. For me, this was a tantric encounter like I would wish for again and again. Tomorrow I’m going on vacation with my partner to Lake Geneva and I have planned that I would like to give my partner a tantric massage. Yesterday Sunday was 30 years since we came together.
I look forward to meeting you in August at the Tantra Love Festival.
With a loving hug,
Hans
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