As a tantra masseur, I often meet women that have some emotional baggage, for example painful sexual encounters, abortions, or men that just haven’t understood what ‘no’ means. The good news for these women is that tantra has the methods to heal the negative energy which stays behind after such experiences. Through tantra massage, I’ve beared witness to many beautiful healing processes and the release of negative energy. But the past few years, I’ve begun to meet women who’ve had bad experiences with tantra—which is a paradox, as it invites so much love, beauty, and harmony.

Some have had bad experiences, to say the least, with men they’ve met online who offered free tantra massage (which they learned from a video). Such a massage typically focuses on getting the woman as aroused as possible so that it’s difficult for her to say no to sex. I’ve spoken with many who have left such an experience with a bad taste in their mouth—the feeling that they’ve had their boundaries breached, but couldn’t say no. Others have sought a ‘so called’ tantra partner in the hopes of meeting a man that can lift their sexuality to new spiritual dimensions, but often find that the focus is in between the legs. One went on a date at the Botanical Gardens to meet a potential ‘tantra partner’ and was asked to go into the bathroom to see how their chemistry was.

But the worst experiences, in my eyes, are those where women have gone to what they thought was a professional tantra masseur. A beautiful homepage with beautiful words and pictures describing healing and ecstatic bliss. But unfortunately what they meet up for does not reflect the homepage. A man who has taken a few quick weekend courses to learn techniques but doesn’t have any human understanding. Or maybe he has taken a longer course, but still doesn’t have any control over his own sexual energy and is therefore unsuited to guide the energy of others.

One woman experienced suddenly, during the massage, and without any warning, a finger up her anus (“it releases blockages”). Another experienced that a man was masturbating while he was giving her a yoni massage. A third was held down while she had her uterus twisted until it bled (“Dearmoring is good for you. If it hurts, it’s just your ego.”). Some websites are at least honest: ‘I don’t have any training in yoni massage, but I’ve seen a video about it and I haven’t had any complaints about my treatment”.

Essential tools

Some of the most important tools that we use as tantra masseurs are empathy and intuition. The capability to clearly feel how a woman is doing and the ability to feel precisely what she needs in her process right now. This also includes putting my ego completely to the side so that it doesn’t bother and block the energy that is being channeled through me. And these qualities you cannot learn in a couple weekends—it takes years of training.

The ability to get a woman to relax as soon as she steps through the door is not something that comes naturally to most, in the beginning. In order to do this I have to be completely in the present moment. I open my heart and understand where the woman is in her life at this present moment. I let her feel that there is no hidden agenda – that there is nothing that I want from her. I make her understand that the massage is a safe space for her to be exactly who she is – she doesn’t have to be in a certain way to make me happy. At any point, she can ask me to stop if there’s something she doesn’t feel comfortable with. I’m not trying to ‘fix’ her problems, but am there to support her in her own process.

At the Tantra Temple, we insist that our masseurs already have multiple years of experience working with their own energy, through yoga, meditation, and tantric love making, before we teach them massage. You can’t expect to be able to move another person’s energy around if you don’t know your own energy in an intimate way and through daily energy work. Therefore, new masseurs start with a course which lasts a bit over a year and deals with awakening and balancing the 7 chakras.

For the men, we expect that they consciously train in sexual continence – the ability to perfectly master their sexual energy. This means no ejaculation, but the possibility to orgasm without an ejaculation. When a man can do this he is no longer a slave to his own desire. This means that, for example, at no point during a massage is in danger of being ‘sucked in’ by the energy, even though the woman is opening her sexual energy completely. This is something that I’ve achieved with sustained effort – it has been an intense journey of, up till now, 17 years of daily training.

My advice to women:

If you’re intrigued by an add about Tantra Massage at half price, then consider why the masseur is choosing to make their massage so cheap. And beautiful words on a homepage are not a guarantee that you’ll find what you’re looking for, it could easily just be a copy/paste.

Never go to a tantra masseur that you can’t find multiple testimonials for and from respectable sources. If you don’t have friends that can recommend a masseur to you, then look online and see what the women’s magazines and sex therapists recommend. And if you’ve had your own experiences with tantra massage, then share them with anyone who’s open to hearing about it.
In tantra, we say that the whole outer universe is reflected in our inner universe. So imagine that you want to go on a round-the-world adventure through forests, mountains, valleys, deserts, rivers, and seas – and that you choose one person to guide you. Tantra massage can be a fantastic journey through your inner universe with the goal of coming ‘back home to yourself’ – ecstatic, healing, releasing, joyful, freeing. All in all, one of the greatest experiences that you’ve had in your life. So make sure you choose the right guide for the journey.