VL: What culture in the world has the healthiest attitude about sex?

MA: Bhutan. It is the only tantra culture left in the world. It is the only culture where women are openly allowed to have many lovers without being chastised or judged in any way. A man is happy when a woman comes to him and asks for a wonderful night of lovemaking, because they believe that an orgasmic woman is a happy woman who will serve the community better. It is his goal and duty to make her happy. It’s not the other way around like it is in our culture, where the woman is expected to serve the needs of the man. Raising the children is taken on by the whole village, not just by an individual person. And it is a matrilineal society where property and wealth can be transferred equally to men and to women.

VL: What do you think of people who exchange sex for money?

MA: Not good, except in certain circumstances. I can accept the role of a mistress to a high-level leader, who is there to enjoy her life in the feminine, cultivate her beauty, be available to him when he wants and be taken care of. On the more mundane level of masturbating someone for a few hundred dollars (especially where it’s illegal) it’s very dangerous. Most of the sex workers in our culture who I’ve seen are in great denial. Those who believe they are doing good healing work (which in some cases they do) are actually deadening their souls by selling themselves. After five or ten clients, they are hooked on the money. I believe that they lose the capacity to separate their personal love life from their professional life. That professional life has an immense impact on their spiritual being, which they usually deny. Sex work is a very delicate issue.

VL: What is the source of your inspiration?

MA: My yoni! That is the source of my inspiration. I just spent seven months doing a fast with no lovemaking — to intensively explore enlightenment, zen meditation and consciousness without sex. I was in silent retreat for weeks at a time. I just broke my fast a few weeks ago. And I find my yoni as responsive and happy as she ever was before. I was worried that she would atrophy.
There is a deep connection between my yoni and my brain, so when my yoni has an orgasm, I feel empowered to write books, give workshops and be playful in the feminine. For many years, my yoni was my teacher and whatever she was telling me, I would listen.

VL: Please describe your work with Deepak Chopra.

MA: It all started when Deepak and I met at a party in L.A. at a mutual friend’s house. We were both working on the question of magic; he was writing his book Merlin the Magician and I was working on my book The Art of Sexual Magic. After a very nice conversation we had together, he called and asked me if I would be a guest speaker at one of his seminars. We have been friends ever since.
The last thing I did with him was teaching in India at the Taj Mahal for 500 VIPs who came from all over the world. He taught in the morning and I taught in the afternoon. It was a wonderful experience. What I appreciate about Deepak’s perspective is that he grew up in a culture where the divine presence took a feminine form. As a result, he is more in touch with the goddess aspect of the divine than we are in the West. As a result, he has a very playful attitude toward life. And we both love meditation. He gave me a platform within his work to honor what I teach.
One of the greatest stories I have about Deepak was one time when I had just finished the most ridiculous interview with a redneck, idiotic radio interviewer calling me from some station in Boston about The Art of Everyday Ecstasy. And I was so depressed about his low-life intellect that I sat at my altar and called on the universe saying, “I deserve better than that! I am calling for a person who understands my work and has intelligence.” The next morning at 9 A.M., the phone rang and it was Deepak Chopra.

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