** Warning: naughty anguage ahead!

This time last year, my idea of a good time was a cheese omelette and a quiet night to myself.

I’d been divorced for eight years, had single-parented three boys and held our lives together by working part time as an ER physician. My romantic life was at an all-time low.

After work one evening, I walked up the hill at our farm and looked out over the ocean. “That’s it!” I sobbed to the Universe. “I’m not looking any more. Let him find me, I’m done searching!”

Two weeks later, I went on a qigong retreat. The angel cards I’d pulled for it consistently came up as “New Love” and “Soulmate.” I chucked them over my shoulder in disgust. What a load of crap.

But there he was. Built like a marauding Viking with wild blond curls, I gazed at him, my tongue suddenly thick in my mouth. “I love you,” I mumbled. He looked into me with inquisitive blue eyes and laughed. “I love you too,” he said.

It got better—he was not only single and prolifically creative like me, but he was passionate about Tantra too. It turned out that my man was a musician, a writer—and a sex guru.

Exploring my sexual nature has been a life-long mission. From fervent humping of the swing set in early childhood to many and varied sexual encounters as an adult, I’d tried to comprehend this mysterious part of myself for years.

Despite a lot of experience and learning, I’ve been left dissatisfied and hollow-hearted. I’d even had dreams in the past that my womb was dead—grey, lifeless and abandoned. Years of qigong, meditation, therapy and, yes, sex, have helped, but that part of me still felt like uncharted territory.

Meeting the Viking was a colossal turning point in so many ways. It wasn’t just the physical chemistry, it was a whole-being recognition for both of us. Our vibrational “notes” simply resonated in deeply enriching harmony and my sense of self was amplified by his presence, not diminished. I’d finally found my mate.

He moved in after six months and seamlessly joined our little family unit. Within four more months, we were married.

One of my girlfriends was flipping through our wedding photos last week. “So, what’s it like?” she asked, “being married to, you know, a sex coach? Does he take notes on your performance or something?”

I choked on my burrito. “No, but I’m learning from him all the time.”

She tipped her head expectantly to one side.

1. An end to orgasm-focused sex.

“So he never comes?” she asked incredulously.

No, he doesn’t, apart from the few occasions we timed it around my ovulation because we want to make a baby. When guys—and gals—orgasm, especially with their penis or clitoris, there is a huge expenditure of energy. The Chinese call it Jing, or prenatal life force. And it takes forever to build it up again (some say around a month). In the meantime, we’re operating with a jangly nervous system on low-battery mode.

It means that he can go for hours—days, sometimes. No more feeling like a wank-receptacle for a man who wants to jerk off to release some tension. Nope. Finally, he holds the space for me to melt into the deep state that I’ve always craved.

The focus is less on climax, and more on connection. Our love-making has become a spiritual practice that is developing all the time.

2. You gotta fuck men!

“Sweet baby Jesus.” My friend clutched her chest. “You do him? Like, in the ass?”

Yes, I do. It’s new territory for me, but buckling on a strap-on has fast become second nature. It’s about restoring balance: both of us have male and female aspects with needs to be met.

When I take the male, penetrative lead, he is able to fully relax into his feminine essence and replenish his more receptive, Yin energy. At the other end, I’m fulfilling that wildish male Yang drive in me that doesn’t get much of a look-in the rest of the time.

The result: harmony. It’s working for both of us.

3. De-armouring is the way to go.

We lock trauma away in our body and the genitals are especially burdened, bless them. My personal sex guru applies pressure to various internal points in my pelvis to help release this old information, including putting his finger into my cervix.

This is excruciating, by the way, but it was through this that I experienced a catharsis unparalleled in my spiritual work to date.

Although my husband is trained in this—he is a student of The New Tantra, a school based in Holland—you could start off with simple relaxation techniques, regular massage and internal vaginal massage with loads of lubrication, feeling around for tight points in the pelvic floor.

4. There’s nothing to be ashamed of.

The pudendal nerve—the one that we orgasm with most readily—got its name from the Latin word pudendum, which is roughly translated as “parts to be ashamed of.” How sad it is that shame stalks us even in these anatomical terms.

Meeting someone whose life and work is deeply focused on sexuality has been a potent salve for my wounds and shame. It really helps to be able to trust someone enough to tell them everything: not the edited version, but the full-frontal shockers that I’ve squirreled away over the years.

You don’t need a sex-guru to begin the work. Sharing deeply with another—daring to expose vulnerability, even when your toes are curling—is a rapid way to start shifting the most entrenched patterns.

In fact, I’ve started to see sex is so goddam normal that a lot of the shame and stress around it has fallen away quite spontaneously. Play and curiosity have flooded back into my daily life: I’m more present in my body, happier and lighter.

Since I married a sex guru, my entire life took a turn for the better. My friends and family might think I’ve lost the plot, but in my heart, I know it’s the best thing I ever did.

~

Author: Clare Frances Halford

Image: aeneastudio/Flickr

Editor: Katarina Tavčar