mindfulness &amp; sex

on practice

Christine Estima, Blisstree: So we now know that women can think themselves to orgasm without any physical stimulation. (And may I just say to all you Blisstree readers with this ability – PLEASE SWITCH LIVES WITH ME.) But for Nicole Daedone, founder of the OneTaste Organization and author of new book “Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm,” it’s not just about achieving orgasm, it’s about achieving better orgasms.

At OneTaste, Daedone has been teaching people how to have better sex and relationships since 2004 with a technique called OM — Orgasmic Meditation — which seeks to slow down the process and connect emotionally, spiritually, and physically with the act to prolong it as long as possible. Maybe Orgasmic Meditation isn’t something you’ve ever really considered, but chances are, you’d cheerfully welcome the challenge (wink wink, nudge nudge).

According to Daedone, the problem isn’t that women aren’t craving sex. The problem is that women want a different kind of sex… Here’s what she had to tell us about the

In Slow Sex, you write that “in just 15 minutes every woman can become orgasmic” but this seems to be contradictory with the whole idea of “slow” sex. Why is that a part of your practice if you’re trying to teach women to slow down?

The title “Slow Sex” is borrowed from the Slow Movement, which started with slow food and has expanded out to slow cities, slow education, slow money and more. In this context, the word “slow” refers not to literal speed but to a different way of relating to our world.By contrast to fast food, where you have no idea the provenance of your hamburger, slow food focuses on local and sustainable farming, community dining, and cooking with unprocessed foods fresh from the earth.Slow Sex means applying similar principles to our connection with our partner.

In OM we strip away everything extra, returning to the basic experience of two people coming together and connecting through touch. We pay attention to the details of sensation in our bodies, rather than focusing on an end goal of climax. And we ask for what we want, so our relationships can be more nourishing and satisfying. The fact that all of this can happen in just 15 minutes is sort of an added bonus.

What do you think about the new study which says that women can think themselves to orgasm? Do you think it’s relatable to OM?

My first thought is—wow! It’s pretty amazing what a woman’s mind can do.

What this study is focusing on is climax. In OM, climax may be part of the experience but most often it is not. The orgasm you can access through OM is an expanded definition—one that includes every sensation you feel in your body, from the tiniest tingle to the most potent peaks. This kind of orgasm is more natural to a female body, and it’s the result of being taken out of control.

When someone is stroking you during an OM, you’re no longer in the driver’s seat. It’s this experience we so crave from orgasm as a whole: the experience of being in an involuntary state, where orgasm moves through you and all you can do is feel it. So while thinking yourself to orgasm reveals an impressive capacity for concentration and control, it’s not the kind of orgasmic experience I teach.

Do you draw on the tenets of Tantric sex, or is your method inherently different?

Many people ask this question! So first I will say that I did not study tantra, and this practice in its original form was not drawn from a tantric background.

But I can understand why people would associate OM with tantra. Tantric sex practice is the closest thing to OM that most people have heard of. Basically, it’s a practice that has to do with the genitals, so there’s this sense of, “that’s close enough!” But that’s really where the similarities end.

In tantra, there is a goal of experiencing different states, including bliss states and experiences of oneness with your partner. In OM, we let go of any expectations and simply feel. In tantra, there are all sorts of cultural and religious associations. Tantric practice often includes visualization, chanting, and the redirection of sexual energy. OM has no cultural overlays, and the instructions for OM are far more basic: Pay attention to sensations you can feel in your body.

You write that Slow Sex will reveal the five unmistakable signs of a woman in orgasm. Without revealing all five, can you tell us what perhaps one or two of the signs are?

Yes! I’ll tell you two signs that have an impact far outside of the bedroom: The first is the darkening of the area around the eyes; the second is the swelling of the lips. I say they have an unexpected impact because they are the precise effects that our modern-day makeup is designed to replicate!

What has been the response from the women in your workshops?

Every woman is different, of course. But most women leave our workshops excited, surprised, turned-on, and ready for more.

Recently we had a woman who came with a new boyfriend. She’d recently ended a 20-year marriage to her high school sweetheart, and all that time she thought she “just wasn’t sexual.” But then she and her new beau tried OM, and when she came back to class she had this look of total disbelief on her face. I asked her how it was, and she said, “I had no idea I could get so turned on. I didn’t know that woman was inside of me all this time.” We get that kind of response a lot.

Women who have been suppressing their hunger for sex for so long they don’t even know why they would want to come to a workshop about orgasm. But then they come, and suddenly a whole new world opens up.

What do you hope readers will take away from your book?

I have one hope, really: I want them to try OM. Just try it, and see how they like it. This little practice completely changed my life. It has made me into the woman I am today, and she’s the woman I always wanted to be. If I could give that experience to everyone who picks up the book, I would have succeeded.

Nicole Daedone has appeared on Nightline; her work has been featured in the New York Times, the New York Post, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She writes, teaches, and lectures in San Francisco. You can find out more about her and Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm from www.nicoledaedone.com and www.onetaste.us

For better sex, meditate!

November 16, 2011

Maureen Salamon: “Am I pretty enough? Am I doing this right? Should I be going to yoga?”

These kinds of anxious, self-judgmental thoughts often run through some women’s minds as they have sex, experts say.

But a new study says “mindfulness meditation” training — which teaches how to bring one’s thoughts into the present moment — can quiet the mental chatter that prevents these women from fully feeling sexual stimuli.

“Rather than feeling it, they get caught up in their heads,” said the study’s lead author, Gina Silverstein, who was a student at Brown University in Rhode Island at the time of the study …

Click to read more »

Breathe in, breathe out, fall in love

November 12, 2010

Read the rest of the article…

A New York Times article about the phenomenon of “Vipassana Romance” (falling in love on retreat):

At that point in my life I had never attempted a full day of meditation. I was chain-smoking my way through a series of boyfriends because I had no idea how to be alone. I hated the cold spot in the bed and the empty hangers that rattled in the closet. Which is why I started meditating. I thought I’d try wading into loneliness the way you enter the sea, easing myself into the bone-chilling cold a bit at a time — first toes, then calves, then legs.
Today would be the first time I’d plunge in all the way. I was terrified. But after meditating Vipassana-style for a few months, I also knew how to handle that terror: I would place my fear in a display case, as if it were a diamond, and shine a spotlight on it. Breath in. Breath out. And so this is what I did for hours, until I itched with boredom.
Eventually, I allowed myself to spy on the other people in the room, their shoulders wrapped in blankets, hands fallen open, faces drained of expression. That’s when I noticed him several pillows away: a lanky man in a button-down shirt, his blond hair dangling over a delicate ear. It was hard to make out his face — I was sitting behind him — but I could see that he wore wire-frame glasses that were Scotch-taped at the joint. His corduroy pants had gone bald at the knee. His wrist peeped out of the sleeve, endearingly bony and frail.

A cult turned commercial: my revealing experience in a meditation resort

November 11, 2010

Original article no longer available…

Phil Pascua, The DePauw, DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana: I decided to join a cult – but I assure you that I still speak to family and friends, attend work daily and militantly discourage the practice of Dianetics.

Though I made the impulsive decision on a bored Saturday morning rickshaw ride around Pune, I had always been interested in visiting the Osho International Meditation Resort. Founded by the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, an Indian mystic known as Osho, the meditation camp has earned a worldwide reputation as the free-spirited sex commune for those trying to awaken their true spiritual nature.

I have a membership to the resort – complete with identity card, maroon robe and empty wallet – and let me tell you, it is not a sex commune for free-spirited individuals; it is a Disneyland for rich American, European, Japanese and Indian tourists experiencing mid-life crises. I was certain the common thread linking every other member was a nice pension plan, a Porsche and the desire to reinvent oneself before it was too late. After meditation sequences filled with exhaustive laughing, dancing, screaming and the complete disbanding of social inhibitions, you could sit silently in a giant, metallic, overly air-conditioned pyramid – or you could sit by the pool and contemplate your life’s misdirection. As ridiculous as the activities may sound, sitting among hundreds of upper-class societal renegades from the class of ’75 made me evaluate my situation and realize its absurdity.

I had known about Osho and his meditation resort for years and admired his philosophy on spirituality – concepts like the importance of awareness, the dissolution of social conditionings and the practice of meditation in order to attain a higher state of consciousness have always resonated with me. However, I hadn’t known about the resort’s restrictive entrance fees and policies. Club initiation fees for internationals included a down payment of 1500 rupees (approximately $30), another payment of 1500 rupees for the required meditation attire and robes, daily activity fees of 700 rupees, and the daily cost of food at 200 rupees. Even though locals enjoyed a reduced fare, you could easily count the number of local Indians on one hand. In addition to this, the resort requires a negative HIV test result for entrance – something a freethinking individualist wouldn’t condone even if it were a sex joint. The resort perturbed me more than it had enlightened me.

“Sex, Sin and Zen,” by Brad Warner

November 1, 2010

Kim Bülow Bonfils

reviews

Zen teacher and writer Brad Warner tells a story about the origins of this book. When Warner was visiting Montreal to deliver a talk on Zen, a rather eccentric member of the audience asked him: “Are Buddhists allowed to jack off?” He swiftly gave the short answer: “They’re encouraged to.”

The book “Sex, Sin and Zen” could be seen as the long answer to the same question. Or rather, to all the questions about Buddhism and its attitudes toward sex – if indeed such specific Buddhist attitudes exist.

Brad Warner has acquired a certain reputation as the “punk Buddhist” – a rock bass player turned Zen Buddhist and teacher – who sometimes writes about Zen-related topics on the punk/goth themed softcore porn site Suicide Girls (you know, naked girls with tattoos and piercings). If this makes him sound like some superficial self-styled “bad boy” of Zen, think again. Reading this book I was reassured that not only does Warner know his way around Buddhism – he also writes about it as plainly and intelligibly as any author I’ve read.

Title: Sex, Sin and Zen
Author: Brad Warner
Publisher: New World Library
ISBN: 978-1-57731-910-8
Available from: New World Library, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.com.

Not only that, but the book is a fun read – although it definitely helps if you enjoy silly double entendres and hard rock references. So if you don’t get why a mention of the Buddhist state of Nirvana obviously leads to praise for the rock band Them Crooked Vultures you may need to pick up a copy of Rolling Stone magazine.

Warner spends a lot of time delightfully debunking popular misconceptions about Buddhism, giving his personal (and very thoughtful) takes on concepts such as “suffering” and “non-attachment”. And while he’s at it, he pokes fun at other pet peeves such as touchy-feely new age-ism, mindfulness and guided meditation. And while I may not agree with all his conclusions, at least his arguments are provocative enough to make you reconsider your own positions once more.

As for the sex part, first of all he clarifies that there is no concept of “sin” in Buddhism, focusing instead on the precept against “misuse of sexuality” – while making it very clear that there is no common consensus on what this means. Warner instead refers to historical evidence – what little there actually is – and carefully considers possible interpretations: Is celibacy helpful? Is sex a distraction – or do strict rules against sex do more harm than good? In other words, what kind of sexual practices are compatible with a Buddhist lifestyle?

Also see:

Sadly, this is where the book goes slightly astray. Warner doesn’t deny that he enjoys sex – a lot – to the extent that I suspect he wrote this book to come to terms with his own sex drive. But he also reveals a surprisingly prudish streak, leading him to issue strange and rather unfounded warnings against certain sexual practices – like polyamory and BDSM.

Luckily, though, porn star, sex therapist and Zen Buddhist Nina Hartley comes to the rescue – as Warner quotes extensively from an interview he did with her. And not only does Ms. Hartley offer some sharp insights of her own – Mr. Warner also happily allows her to relate her own positive experiences of a polyamorous BDSM relationship.

While the book is largely undogmatic (some practising Buddhists may find it positively anti-dogmatic), Warner’s American Zen background shines through occasionally. To a Scandinavian, not-particularly-Buddhist, sometimes-meditator such as this reviewer, the stories of sanghas and zazen are merely interesting – though slightly alien. But Warner’s attitude towards authority is a bit baffling. One minute he praises the anti-authoritarian stance of Zen – while the next he’s asking his Roshi for advice – and accepting it at face value. Warner (who’s clearly more of a Zen master than a logic major) even defends a rather anti-gay statement from said roshi with the weakest defence I ever read: “But he only said this because I asked him.”

(Mind you, I’m not poking fun at Warner’s roshi – he likes the Suicide Girls website, so he can’t be all bad)

So no, I don’t agree with everything said in this book – but frankly, I don’t think Brad Warner would want his readers to simply agree. The point is rather to throw some ideas around, voice his own arguments and leave it to you to make up your own mind.

Most of the time the book made me both laugh (well, snicker or groan, mostly) as well as think. There were times when I’d wish Warner had hired Nina Hartley to write it instead – she comes across as that eloquent. But most of all it made me wish that I could have the author over for a chat. And surely, that should be a recommendation in itself?

Tiger Woods finds his mantra again: Meditate (and be nice to fans)

April 6, 2010

Evidently, we’re more like Tiger Woods than we realized. No, not profligate sexual tom cats or historically accomplished athletes or control freaks micromanaging our lives (well, maybe the latter…)

But lots of people, just like Woods, have drifted from the faith of their childhood. In his case, it’s Buddhist meditation. The Ommmm apparently lost its ooomph.

In his pre-Masters tourney press conference today, he reiterated that recent therapy has forced him to see “how far astray from the core morals my mom and dad taught me” he had traveled. Now he has resumed daily meditation, “the roots of Buddhism” as him mom taught him.

But how different is that, really, from what other 34-year-olds might say: They drifted away from their Catholic or Baptist or Methodist or whatever upbringing and now, gee, maybe they’re missing something.

See also: Top Ten Celebrity Buddhists

A 2008 study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that among 16% of U.S. adults who now say they have no religious affiliation, most didn’t leave in a huff. Instead, about 70% say they “just gradually drifted away.”

I haven’t found (yet) statistics on people who quit meditation. But from perusing a few sites, it appears fairly common for people to drift in — and out — of spiritual practices.

A site for Tai Chi, a martial art that “encourages a calm mind and composed emotions” and nurtures “tranquility, harmony and balance,” points out that “many people quit. In fact most people quit.” It’s hard. It’s about losing control. And, of course, “A lot of people are just downright lazy…”

Meditation teacher Brenda Stephenson on her web site, acknowledges that a survey of past students found most quitters “simply lost their interest in meditating.”

And commentator John Pappas observed after the last time Woods said the same back-to-meditation line last month that it’s not magic.

It isn’t something that is outside of you that causes your actions and arbitrarily donning a magic bracelet or bemoaning that you didn’t sit facing a wall more will not help you look inward and is not going to solve your problem. It takes striving, faith and doubt. The realization is dawning on Tiger and I hope that he keeps working at it but approaching your practice (or any religion for that matter) as a crutch will never solve the problem.
It isn’t a magic elixir to be swallowed or special words to be chanted or super-mega prayers to be sent to big globular masses in the sky. It is work and it is humility. An extra hour of meditation a day is like a band-aid for a split jugular.

[via USA Today]

How sex addiction is treated

February 23, 2010

Golfer Tiger Woods is believed to be undergoing therapy for sex addiction at a Mississippi clinic called Gentle Path. But what, exactly, does treatment involve?

In today’s Science Times, Donald G. McNeil Jr. explores the world of sex addiction therapy and explains how some clinics operate. He writes:

Bart Mandell, a New York sex-addiction therapist and chairman emeritus of the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals, who trained at Gentle Path, said Woods’s daily schedule presumably included morning meditation, exercise — including obstacle courses to build trust with other patients and eye movement exercises to “get through his defenses.”
It would also have included interviews probing for childhood trauma or abandonment, several daily rounds of group therapy, art therapy — in which he would draw stories about himself, and “a tremendous amount of writing his sexual history,” including his first memories of sexual arousal and first encounter with pornography, all the way up through the present. Mavis Humes Baird, another therapist familiar with Gentle Path, said he would have been separated from family contact for weeks and forbidden masturbation, pornography, contact with female fans or anything else that might engage his sex drive.

“Sitting Practice,” by Caroline Adderson

September 17, 2009

Hazel Colditz

reviews