Excerpt from "Tantric Sex & Menopause"

Many perimenopausal and menopausal women report feeling such a lack of desire for sex that they feel totally disheartened that they are not living up to the image of what a sexy alive woman should be. This image is not something they can relate to. However, such views only hold true as long as we see ourselves from the outside in an external way. Reclaiming your body and becoming “embodied” implies seeing, feeling, and experiencing yourself from the inside out.

Lack of Desire as Spiritual Gateway

Menopause clears the pathway from the distraction of “old-fashioned” desire. Because for more than half of women at this time, desire seems to no longer be there, it asks us then to go deeper, to look deeper, to feel deeper. The body often won’t take fast and unconscious anymore, won’t take mechanical friction anymore, it won’t take what has been before, which clears and opens up an alternative path that is more restful for the menopausal body and her lover. Many think there is no way to have sex anymore, that something is wrong with them, and that’s where women become disheartened and give up on their marriage or relationship or their own sex life.

For in fact, for around 75% of women (and not only menopausal women), her body cannot take the mechanical friction in her vagina of conventional sex anymore, without the consequences of pain, discontent, or closure (www.theothered.com). Yet this time is a gateway, a gift, a shift. Menopause begs her body to become more “tantric” if it hasn’t already. It invites her to go deeper, go slower in her whole life, to be free and wild, as a more authentic, more natural, and a truer expression of who she is in essence. The good thing about feeling a lack of desire is that if women participate in stepping over that threshold of whether there is desire there or not, and following the guidelines we have given, she will find that she has no trouble eventuallyfeeling aroused and certainly may even orgasm in a way that involves no effort at all. Or move into the expanded “orgasmic” state, which is very different to the event of orgasm, over after a few seconds.

Wild Is Pure Presence

Almost like a call from the wild, another way emerges from deep within. But it challenges the female conditioning that is about pleasing and says you must be everything a man wants--and also be immediately ready. To make love in relaxation and awareness, and particularly with awareness on your breasts, is in unison with this call from the wild, where you must deeply listen to your own body, as well as your psyche, and trust its call and its timing. If you think of a wild animal and its characteristics, “wild” is pure presence, spontaneous, natural, and instinctive rather than out of control, unconscious, and sensation seeking.

Wild is sensitive, aware of its surroundings. It has composure. Wild moves the body on impulse, in the moment, without preconceived thought. Wild rests when rest arrives. Wild is naturally playful. It’s this level of truly open, unbridled wildness that you can bring to your loving. Wildness in the conventional sense may imply getting out of control with heat and passion, expelling the energy with a climactic peak. The wildness we refer to here can be much softer, simpler, and more relaxing. Think of a lion lazing in the sun.

Diana says, “As far as wildness is concerned, it’s a matter for redefinition. What we know as ‘wild’ in sex is usually pretty unconscious, lust driven, tense, and mechanical. So in this sense the experience is desensitizing, because there is a tendency to contract at a deep level and there will little room for expansion. As I understand and experience it, lust and passion are two different states. Lust will have a direction, a buildup, some climax. Passion on the other hand is pure presence and going nowhere, relaxed, senses totally open, nothing forced. ‘True wildness’ is to be at one with nature, utterly sensitive and conscious, opening to the moment through the body. Wildness has no pattern, the bodies spontaneously flow and form amazing configurations.”

Passionately Undemonstrative

Barry Long, the Australian spiritual teacher, recommends that a woman be “passionately undemonstrative.” These two words seem to oppose each other, yet if you contemplate them, you can start to get a feel for their incredible meaning. It does not mean that she is passive or inactive in lovemaking; it is more that she is totally present and not “doing” anything special other than being fully anchored in her own body. She is not moving outward with her attention but is poised with the awareness resting inwardly. This makes her available, receptive, and spontaneous.

This body connection makes her powerfully passionate in a very unconventional sense of the word. She is pure presence itself-- pure passion. You are vital yet stillness is residing in your being. The passion is not outward going, directed on someone else or on releasing energy; rather it is contained and transforms into a rising vital and revitalizing force. Passion is pure presence. The by-product of being passionately undemonstrative allows the life force to move through you. The by-product of being outwardly demonstrative is usually excitement and a dispersing of energy. Nothing wrong with it, but if you want to transform your sexual experience into love, and to harness the aliveness and depth of your femininity, then contemplating the meaning of these words, and practicing with them, is a worthwhile adventure.

Diana Richardson is the author of several books, including Tantric Orgasm for Women and Slow Sex. Along with her partner, Michael, she has been teaching weeklong “Making Love Retreats” for couples since 1993. She lives in Switzerland. http://www.loveforcouples.com/

Janet McGeever is a psychotherapist, writer, and speaker who has been teaching “Making Love Retreats” for couples in Australia since 2012. She lives on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. http://janetmcgeever.com/

Tantric Sex and Menopause by Diana Richardson and Janet McGeever © 2018 Destiny Books. Printed with permission from the publisher Inner Traditions International. www.InnerTraditions.com

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