Tantra is a meditative practice using the sex between two people as a transcendence, a way of blurring the self/other boundary. It’s an infectious idea that slithered it’s way, cross colonial style, along with the Tao-ist sexual practices it blends into. When I talk about integrating tantric massage into my bedroom life, it is first important to acknowledge that it is a spice, like cumin and chili and cinnamon, imported and used in ways that the people who discovered it probably never intended.
But sex between humans is a beautiful perversion of a simple bodily function, more than just the raw exchange of genetic information. Leave the instinctual simplicity to fish and cows, even if you are about as spiritual as a rock, we are all deviants. Even the vanillas. You can’t talk about orgasm or romantic love without shades of something bigger than you behind it- it’s the doorway through the profane to the same divine chased with supplication and worship. The same enveloping bigness of Jesu, our Hearts Desiring or Hare Krishna ecstasy spring from a genital, venal root. Why wear robes of priests and clergy and sit in drafty temples, when you can open yourself in the naked comfort of your bedroom? Touch. Taste. Kiss. Torment. Fuck. This is the way we pray.
And D/s, and BDSM play are very much about energy and connection, and even the most materialist and rational kinkster still feels that rawness, exchanging power in a hierarchy of our own construction. The principles of tantra are particularly alive in the tease, that key component to briefly obliterating the anxious, busy, distracted self into the erotic.
I make things ready.
The first thing, as in an scene at home, I clean. I strip the bed and change the sheets, fluff the covers flat, and knowing that I’m about to get messy, I take a smooth, clean, wide top sheet and stretch it out over everything. I do things topsy turvy, because I am me. Some couples, the sub does the setting of the place. Either way, the foreplay begins long before we first touch, in thoughts and plans and this preparation.
A lot is said about achieving a submissive mindset. There’s a knack to it, tricks and shortcuts through those everyday fetishes, power symbols and ritual. But when you take on the lofty perch above someone, you take those same tools to elevate yourself. If I am to feel myself and in control, I want the space to be perfect. I want to prepare myself with a shower beating down on my naked skin, washed and fresh, dried with care. The first secret to feeling attractive is to treat yourself like you love yourself, and this is where I start.
In dominance, I bring the comfort I have in my own skin to my partner. I am, when I dominate, beautiful, and I share that beauty with him or with the room. How could I not be, when I am my most happy self? With an audience, I can make them into my tools, adding them to the pull and push on the submissive, or I can block the eyes from my mind, cloaking myself in confidence.
You can see why I speak of seemingly fuzzy concepts like tantra when I talk about my sex life, because the ability to do that is a magic trick that mystifies people. I’ll tell you a secret, my secret of how the trick is performed: bring an utter openness to the moment and be prepared to take what your bottom or sub can give or reject it as suit you.
I started this time a day early, telling him I wanted to give him a proper massage.
I mixed fresh herbs from my window boxes, mint and rosemary, with warm sweet almond oil. I laid out cloths, and my tools: a knobbly thing for working tough spots and glass marbles for the rolling pinpoint sensations. I started early because I wanted to avoid surprises, and have things flow.
We had a conversation through my fingers, finding him locked up, tensing at any stimulation. Nothing was wrong, per say, but everything was a little askew We connected through touch, him touching me in return, finding places in my hip that when pressed loosened and turned to pleasure. Rosemary is a wonderful scent, mellow, ungendered, almost musky without being cloying. It suffuses us both, making sure we are on the same page for tomorrow.