Like astral travel and meditation, I started using tantric elements during sex without knowing that’s exactly what I was doing.

All I knew is how to guide my partner into a place of pure, all-encompassing feeling and pleasure.

I started to realize the benefits of slowing down and relaxing into a place of stillness where I could feel every slightest movement, tightening sacral muscles while releasing every other muscle in my body.

You can think of it like a Pilates or yoga pose that requires a lot of muscle engagement while simultaneously, effortlessly maintaining a pose. It’s the feeling you relax into before, during, and after sex, rather than an intense climax of breath and movement in the middle.

And while that might make it sound less pleasurable, you can actually feel more deeply and more intensely when you keep your energy calm and your breath steady and slow.

Again I’ll relate it to Pilates, because even if you have never tried Pilates in your life, you could try this right now: raise your arm (or leg to really feel it) at a normal speed—and then slow it down as much as possible while raising it again.

If you raise it without slowing down the movement, you don’t really feel the individual muscles in your arm or leg, or even really feel the muscles working unless you do a lot of repetitions (sound familiar?). When you raise it slowly though, it actually becomes more difficult, and you really feel the engagement of every muscle. Besides the more difficult part, this is exactly what happens when you explore tantra in sex.

You feel everything.

When I’ve done this practice of really slowing down, allowing the deepest penetration possible, and then holding it there—and it should go without saying that the kegel muscles are tightened even before your partner is inside you—and the tightening increases as they push in as deep as they can go until you practically feel a “click” or a “locking” sensation of them inside you. This is detailed, but that’s because most descriptions of tantric sex are watered down fluffy sex tips designed to entice Westerners who just like to get freaky.

If you want to really understand meditation or yoga, you focus on the feelings you relax into, or become aware of, and the breath and energy movement within the body. Understanding the principles of tantra are the same. So put aside sly smiles and giggle reflexes to see how you can truly follow a guide to tantric sex instead of abstract sexy tips geared to sell magazines or clickbait you.

So you really do feel a click or a locking sensation—and that part is key (no pun intended. Really, I hate puns)—because at this point you want to maintain that level of penetration. So instead of your partner pulling out, they stay as deep as possible inside of you while you “lock” them in with your kegels—and then they push deeper with each thrust.

And while this might sound like it would be hard to maintain for too long (okay, that pun was intended), you have to remember that your body and your breath are almost in a state of frozen-time stillness so you end up being focused on every sensation you feel, instead of quickly building up energy for a release.

You might already know what I mean if you’ve ever reached this point without thinking about it or intentionally practicing tantra. Slow and extended foreplay usually brings people into this state naturally, because breathing is slowed, even almost synchronized…or one of you breathing in as you feel their breath on your neck—another key here.

While foreplay might include exploring the whole body before you’re on top of each other, skin to skin—this is where you want to end up—there can be lots of kissing and breathing (and maybe licking) on your partner’s neck. So if you are on top sitting on their lap, you want to be as close as possible to their pelvis and chest all the way up to your face and neck—imagine yab yum position, as this is one of the best poses to connect and unify energies (and you will feel that).

Or if you’re lying down and your partner is on top, they will be close to your chest and their head stays by yours the whole time–and the constant breath, kisses, and sensations on the neck will come naturally from there. And then every slightest phallic movement or kegel tightening will be felt with so much more intensity than is possible with “rabbit sex,” and the sensations become more than purely physical too, as the intense pleasure and connection is felt on more of a soul and energetic level. This is because you are both actually focused on controlling the movement of energy between and created by your physical connection.

Pulsing the kegel muscles and even creating sacral vibrations is possible at this point too—as simply thrusting deeper isn’t the only way to allow yourself to feel the intensity. Every movement, muscle contraction, and energetic pulse will create waves of pleasure down to the soul level. And it is here that visualizations (think LSD-like visuals), astral travel, and intense energetic/spiritual experiences, epiphanies, and sensations can happen.

But all of this only happens when a certain level of energy is created which causes this state and frequency to be reached. So while this is a detailed guide, it is that way so that there can be true understanding of how to create this energy and reach a tantric state. To actually do so means you need to be fully focused on everything I described and fully feeling and relaxing into every sensation of your breath and movement—and not on following any steps or directions.

Any sort of “directions” are simply a guide so you can become aware of the state you need to be in to experience tantra—how to get there and remain there. 
And to remain there all you need to do is maintain that same level of relaxation and stillness in your body as you and your partner stay connected as deeply as possible with bodies still enough so that only the sacral sensations are felt and focused on—although they will become all encompassing and felt throughout your body and even beyond to your auric field.

This is the state you reach naturally if you build up slowly and sensually with foreplay, so that is really the only way to reach it. It’s something you create by fully focusing on and feeling into your partner. And not just feeling how your partner feels to you, but becoming aware of how you feel to your partner by noticing their breath and their body’s reaction to you as you feel them, kiss them, and lick them.

And this is how you create that energy—you explore each other until you have moved into the sensations and pleasure you create within your partner, and until it becomes so intense that thoughts cease and everything ceases except the feeling of pleasure in their body and yours. This is where you find the stillness…and a portal to infinite pleasure. 
Because after this, it’s up to you and your partner when the pleasure and experience of spirit and energy ends.

You can maintain this state for as long as you like really (to an extent, as we all need to sleep and eat and maybe go out and do stuff sometimes), and it only ends when you “speed up” the energy, because that is what creates its release. So think faster breathing, thrusting, breaking the deep penetration to go out and back in—these are ways you can either intentionally or unintentionally end your tantric session (if you choose to climax/release, but I’m old school, and I like orgasms).

Although, after an extended tantric session, your perception of the level of pleasure that is actually possible in an orgasm is likely to change, as all that energy you created is felt with a new level of intensity because of your level of awareness of each sensation.

You. feel. it. all.

But only if you actually feel at all. So read this guide until you don’t have to think about it, and you understand what I’m saying, and then focus on feeling and creating sensations until you can really feel this energy with your partner—and then have fun exploring it!

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Author: Sarah Owen
Image: Author’s Own
Editor: Travis May
Copy & Social Editor: Callie Rushton