VL: Is there a right way and a wrong way to make love?

MA: Yes. Usually the wrong way happens because physiologically speaking, there is a different psychology and timing in the way the body responds in the woman compared to the man. When the man is excited or stimulated, when he sees the beauty of a certain type of woman, his penis responds automatically. It is a brain/sex reflex that he has very little control over, and it’s something that happens within a few seconds to a few minutes. Once he is inside the woman, then he can relax and that’s when he opens his heart. This may take all of ten minutes. The erect penis just wants to be in the garden.
However, the woman is very different. Where the man starts with sex and moves to the heart, the woman starts from the heart. She needs a lot more time. She needs to feel safe and pro-tected. She needs to be touched in her heart and held as a little girl so that she can relax and trust the man. When all of that is given, then something relaxes in her, her juices flow, her sex opens and she is ready. All this takes about half an hour at least, so he is ready way before she is.
Confusion arises if she just lets him have his way without telling him what she needs, and he ends up landing before she has time to take off. Maybe she doesn’t really have an orgasm and she’s frustrated. Maybe she doesn’t even talk about it, and expresses her feeling toward him as anger. The whole situation can escalate because there hasn’t been honest communication about what each partner needs.
That’s why I say in my workshops that truth is erotic. When you tell the truth you take a risk, but at least you put yourself on the same page. If love is there and you’re willing to grow together, you can explore beyond your imits. So the wrong way is to have sex is without awareness and communication. The right way is to have sex the tantra way in a sacred space, which is explained thoroughly in my first book, The Art of Sexual Ecstasy.

VL: What is the role of seduction in high sex?

MA: Seduction is very misunderstood in this country. People think of seduction as manipulation. Actually, I believe that seduction begins the moment you close your eyes and go deep within to get in touch with yourself. It’s what happens when you awaken your in-ner lover and fall in love with yourself. In a sense, you are seduced by the beau-ty of your own essence. At that moment, there is such joy to feel the divine dancing through you. It’s natural to want to share this loving energy with your partner and the world around you. You become seductive when you radiate this divine beauty and love for yourself.

VL: What is the role of surrender in high sex?

MA: The root of the word surrender means to melt into that which is the highest. In terms of tantra, surrender means seeing and feeling the highest potential of the divine in your partner and melting into that energy, trusting that it is the same energy you have discovered within yourself. When you open to that reality, there is no longer a difference between you. You are both divine.

VL: How can sex induce healing?

MA: You cannot have good sex unless you drop the past and the future, and become totally present. That’s why so often when lovers get excited, they have to have a quarrel first, because they are about to drop their defenses. When those defenses drop, all the little demons of frustration and resentment that haven’t been dealt with suddenly emerge and there’s a fight. Actually, the fight is a catharsis to release all the charged energy that has accumulated. When the lovers are able to navigate through this negative energy, forgive and focus on the real goal of having an orgasm together, then they arrive at a place where the energy can be healed and transformed.

VL: Can you help those who want to heal from sexual trauma and abuse?

MA: Those people come to us all the time. We teach the Love and Ecstasy training on five-day retreats with different topics. In The Art of Sexual Ecstasy, there is a chapter on “Healing the Yoni” in which I explain what trauma does. Trauma, especially sexual trauma, leaves such a violent impact on the tissues of the body that it goes numb and consciousness leaves the body. The place that was violated becomes numb to protect the person’s psyche. It is as if the body is saying, “I will help you not to feel there anymore, so it won’t be so painful.”
So, people wonder why they don’t feel anything in their genitals and don’t have orgasms. It’s because they need to release sensation back into that place. To feel sensation again, they need to be touched and massaged the way that I explain in the book, so that the memory of that trauma can come back and be healed as an adult in a safe situation with a loving partner.
Osho once said, “You can’t be orgasmic in love if you can’t be orgasmic in anger.” In many ways, anger holds the key to our vital power and life force.

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