I swear to you I can feel a beam of energy up the inside of my vagina as if someone has switched on a light gun or something.
‘What is THAT?’ No trouble focusing my energy on this sensation. Wow. It feels like rich deep-red velvet, but made of light. It feels like chocolate. It feels as if the centre of me contains some kind of magnetic force. Now maybe you’re all way ahead of me and you’ve all felt this a million times. But I haven’t. Maybe you know that your yoni is an energy field but, although I would have told you that I know that I’m an energy field, I have no experience of feeling a force field inside myself. This is something new.
And then he does another thing I’m not expecting. He leans over and puts his head on my stomach. This feels like – well, it feels like love. And I’m only saying that it feels, ‘like love’. Because I know that you will be sceptical. After all this is a body treatment that I’m paying for. So I don’t feel that I can say that it is love – because maybe – just maybe he is a very skilled professional. He is skilled and experienced enough to use real love (which is not so hard to locate) and give unconditionally to all the women that come to him. As Mooji the Advaita teacher says, ‘Love loves to love. It’s nothing personal.’
Then I remember what he’d said to do. And I take the sensation I’m feeling and breathe and do my best to draw it up to my own heart centre. I do my best to breathe and visualize this.
It’s hard not to wrap my arms around him and say, ‘Who are you? Where have you been all my life? Can I clone you? I have about a hundred girlfriends that need one of you.’
Then I start to feel the much sought-after waves that I know can rise and become a deep involuntary orgasm. I pounce on the feeling immediately with 100% of my mind demanding, ‘Were you a wave? Are you going to grow in intensity? Oh PLEEESE.’ I looked around internally hoping for more waves. Unsurprisingly they have vanished from wherever it was they came from.
By this time he has inserted his finger into what is feeling pretty well like some strange force field by now. But instead of massaging it in a purely physical way he’s keeping surprisingly still. Just moving a fraction. Each time he moves I feel an unfamiliar vibration, just a little bit of energy going from somewhere to somewhere else. His head is resting on my pubic bone. How strange.
The sensation Isabel – listen to the sensation.
Then another wave. ‘Yes! A wave.’ I am like someone with a butterfly net – trying to catch an ocean.
Another sensation. Oh no – I need a pee. Damn coffee. Damn tea. This sensation rises quickly. He moves his head slightly.
Inside my head I’m shouting, ‘Don’t put your head there – I need a pee.’ I start to argue with myself.
‘Tell him, you stupid woman. He said to say immediately if you need to stop.’
‘But it’s so beautiful. You can’t stop now. Look for waves instead.’
‘Yes – focus on the waves.’
‘There are no waves.’
‘I need to pee.’
Oh, God – now I don’t just have noise in my head, I have a debate.
‘This feels too good to stop. Maybe that twinge isn’t really the bladder – just ride it – maybe you can convert the bladder twinge into a wave.’
‘It’s hopeless, you just need to pee.’
He moves his head slightly and places it lovingly on my hip bone.
He moves his hand ever so gently. This should feel extraordinary. It does feel extraordinary. But the beam is gone. The waves are gone and the desire to pee is taking over the whole of the lower half of my body. I hate my bladder. It ruins everything.
Five minutes later, I finally speak.
‘I’m sorry – I need to pee.’
‘A couple more seconds and we’re finished. We just have to close.’
‘OK, I’ll wait,’ I say cheerily. As if I’m in a queue outside a public toilet.
Damn, damn. My waves all ruined. My light ray all put out.
He withdraws his finger with infinite gentleness and cups me for a minute or two. Less time, I’m guessing than he would normally. He smiles, ‘Go on then. I’ll change my clothes.’
I leap up. Have a pee. Put my clothes on and then sit cosily back down on his sofa. He switches off the heater and pours water for us to drink.
I wait for him to say something like, ‘So, how was it for you?’ But he just waits.
‘I had a problem with thoughts in my head.’
‘This is a very common problem for women. Men have a higher charge so they find it easier to get out of their heads. It comes with practice. If you are listening to sensation then you can’t be in your head. The two cancel each other out.’
‘Listening to sensation? That’s a good way to describe it. I can do that. I can listen. That’s really helpful.’
‘What else?’ I tell him about the vibrations and the light ray.
‘It was very moving when you put your head on my stomach and held me. I wasn’t expecting to feel loved here.’
‘I did that with a woman once and she immediately started to cry. She told me afterwards that no man had ever held her like that or hugged her in that way. She said she’d had lots of lovers.’
‘It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’
‘What’s wrong with men? Yes, it does,’ he said sadly.
I asked about the waves and me leaping on them.
‘Often the whole premise of what people practice as sex is about tension. Couples that row a lot, for example, just use sex as a release of tension. This is not the tantric way.’
Hooray. I still maintain that rowing is not part of a healthy relationship.
‘I understand that there are two different types of orgasm – the ones that you force and the ones that happen on their own?’
‘There are many different types of orgasm. For women, the paradox is that for the best kind to happen you have to forget about it completely. It’s not about forcing yourself to deny yourself an orgasm but you learn to make sexual energy so enjoyable in each moment that you don’t even look for or care about an orgasm.’
‘Being goal-less.’ That again.
‘Yes. This obsession with irritating the nerve to obtain release from tension is way below what sex can really be. Men need to learn how to love a woman through the body. Women don’t need orgasm; they need to feel loved.’
I didn’t say, ‘And orgasms are nice too.’ I just said …
‘Yes.’
‘There are men who will do anything for the woman in their lives – they’ll work a boring job ten hours a day, they’d give up their lives for her to bring home the money but then they take her to bed at night and just “fuck” her.’
‘Not that there is anything wrong with good strong sex, as long as it’s not the only thing on the agenda.’
‘This here is fun sex and no more than that. It’s good for what it’s good for – when no more than fun is important to you. For more meaningful sex one has to have love. In our culture no one learns how to love in sex and men simply don’t know, practically speaking, how to do it – or even that this is the kind of sex that is good for a woman. I teach both men and women to empower the energy in the yoni and by doing that many healings have taken place.’
‘This very old distinction – between making love and having a fuck. I remember a man once said to me, “That expression ‘Making love’, it’s just a stupid soppy expression for ‘fucking’.” I can hear his words still, echoing down the years. I’d wanted to make love with this man who thought there was only fucking, so it’s good to hear you saying the opposite.’
‘Of course.’
‘So how do you learn to experience the energy that you showed me today?’
‘You slow down, become very present inside, listen to the slightest movement and feel your connection as a loving interaction.’
‘OK. You know, Alexey, you are a really extraordinary person. There are not many men like you.’
‘I’m afraid it’s up to women to take the l
ead in love. It always has been.’
‘Yes – well, what I can do – I will do. May I give you a hug?’
‘It’s a requirement. Yes.’ He smiled. I hug him. I put on my boots and I walk out from his eternal evening to the sunny afternoon of an autumn day in North London. And I go home to T to explain everything.
• • •
Two weeks later and I find myself kicking freshly fallen autumn leaves as I walk down the road toward my second session with Alexey. I don’t know where it’s all leading but I do know that it’s an uncomplicated way to learn.
In a relationship with someone you love there are always difficulties and T and I don’t even live together. We don’t argue and are never mean or unkind to each other but even with the greatest consideration, his needs, wants and desires are different from mine. How can it not be so in a relationship? I remember a joke about a newly married couple that, spending their first night together, discover that one of them can’t sleep with the window open and the other can’t sleep with it closed. Some days the difficulties of a relationship feel overwhelming.
As I walk down the hill I’m revising what he told me. I’ve been practising with T, using the active concept of ‘listening to’ rather than just ‘being aware of’ sensation both during OMs and during sex – active ‘listening’ helps.
I go in and sit down and tell him this immediately.
‘The idea you gave me last time, that listening to sensation is a good way to still the noise in the head has been useful. Can you say more about that please?’
‘If you are having sex and thinking of other things, it’s as if, while you’re with me, I was talking to someone else on the phone. It’s having a different conversation. If I’m touching your back and you’re thinking about something that happened last week – you’re not listening. It’s kind of rude.’
‘Rude?’
‘It’s very common and a difficult habit to break sometimes but it’s like having another conversation with someone. It’s just not relevant.’
‘You speak a lot about sexual energy. How would you define it?’
‘However you like. It’s whatever you want to believe in.’
‘What?’
‘Some people say that it’s simply the hormone system of the body, a physical tension that builds, leads to a swelling of the vaginal lips, etc. But sexual energy certainly seems to be more than just pressing on the nerve.’
‘Something is being exchanged other than bodily fluids.’
‘Many men don’t understand about sexual energy. They watch porn and they try to please women with intensity. I’ve seen women who have been left bleeding. This man – the last time this happened – was horrified because he was doing what he honestly thought the woman wanted. The “I’m the shit because I can do it so hard and so fast” thinking. I see it all the time.’
We sat in silence for a few minutes.
‘Thank God for you, Alexey. The energy that you work with is so gentle and loving. And er, speaking of love – I’m trained not to do projection, but aren’t you afraid I’ll fall for you a little?’
‘Oh, you might do. But you’ll find it doesn’t matter.’
I laugh at his wise experience.
‘And you might fall for me a little?’
‘Oh yes, but I fall in love with all the women.’
Ha ha ha ha ha. Oh well, that’s OK then.
‘Would you like your massage then? And please listen to the sensations. All the sensations. Don’t just look out for magic moments, OK?’
I took off my clothes and climbed onto his massage table.
And this time I do manage to shut my mind up and just listen to sensations. They are louder and softer. Thoughts, feelings and sensations rise and fall. When he reaches the yoni, I don’t make it any different from the rest of the experience. I’m still listening. He said, ‘If the sensations are intense then just breathe them up to your heart,’ but I’m not feeling any intense sensations. I notice that some areas seem more receptive to touch than others. Some parts he presses a finger on and it does feel almost numb.
It’s not surprising, I tell myself, babies come out of there after all. Then I stop thinking and listen and he touches a different area and a beautiful sensation like a flash of orange passes through me. He’s also talking to me sometimes and somehow he creates, or I create (I have no idea which), a strong magnetic pull deep inside me that feels as if it would like to pull him, or him and T, or him and T and the whole planet inside this universe to heal everyone and everything. OK – that sounds a bit dramatic but the best way I can describe a physical sensation with words is to say that it feels like a sensation created to make life well – a deep rich magnetic energy inside a woman.
I was thinking again. There was one place he touched that hurt a little bit and even though he has specifically told me to tell him immediately if anything hurt, I didn’t. I just experienced the sensation and had another conversation with myself.
‘Ow, that hurts.’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘Are you sure it’s not just discomfort?’
‘What’s the difference between pain and discomfort?’
‘Doesn’t matter ... it will pass.’
‘Ow, it definitely hurts in that area.’
‘Then ask him to stop.’
‘I’m just feeling the sensation.’
‘Did he tell you to just “feel the sensation” if it hurt? No – he didn’t. He told you to ask him to stop immediately.’
‘OK, he’s moved on now. That feels good.’
‘Yes, but why didn’t you ask him to stop just then?’
‘Shut up and listen to the present moment.’
‘Now she says this.’
And so on …
Then slowly back, through images of colour, into sensation. ‘That feels a bit like the colour ochre,’ then just ‘mmmm’ and words are gone.
Afterwards, he waits again for me to speak.
‘Less noise this time,’ I say. Not so much less. A little bit less.
‘That’s good.’
For some reason I don’t tell him about the sensation of pain or that I didn’t stop him. I feel stupid. He’s doing everything to please me. I’m experiencing discomfort and saying nothing. Honestly – don’t you feel sorry for men everywhere? How common is this? I just decide that I’ll take a note myself and never do this again.
I have never done this with T. In the almost one year that I’ve now been with T, I have experienced some discomfort maybe twice and said ‘Ow’ and instantly he’s stopped. I know how to do this. Maybe it’s because of everything I’ve heard about the need for vaginal massage to be painful – as if something can be released in this way. Am I brainwashed? But it was maybe a second or two of the entire experience. The massage as a whole was, well …
‘It was beautiful, Alexey. I can see how strong my habit of not listening fully is.’
‘Yes, you need to learn to listen for the most subtle of sensations.’
‘I’m incredibly moved by your gentleness – it doesn’t feel like yoni massage at all. Or not as I’ve known it. It feels more like love.’
‘Anything to do with the yoni is about love. That’s the energy of the yoni in a woman.’
‘It’s incredible how just you resting your hand on the outside seems to create a feeling like a deep well. A magnetic field in the base of me.’
I don’t feel this with T. I’m too focused on him and his sensation. But here I am forced to understand that it isn’t about Alexey so no such cop out is available.
‘I can’t say it often enough to women or men. It’s about listening to the most subtle sensations. Not dismissing them but enjoying them.’
‘Yes. I can see that, even in OMing, which they describe as a goal-less practice, I’ve ended up wanting more. I know in every other area of my life that less is more. I don’t want a larger house, or larger car or a more expensive handbag. I kn
ow this in every other area so why have I forgotten it in sexuality?’
‘It’s something that it seems everyone has forgotten. I’m always hearing that people just want “sensational sex” and they want it every time.’
‘But we don’t always want art that is glaring or music that is deafening. We enjoy subtlety in other areas of life?’
‘The nuances have become overlooked in sex. It’s more variation on the bigger, harder, faster, “more more more” school of thought.’
‘Porn to blame again?’
‘Yes. I ask what’s wrong with sensational sex SOMETIMES and subtle, gentle sex on others? Even bad sex sometimes. That could be OK too.’
‘Yeh, nothing wrong with pizza sometimes. We have been brainwashed into thinking that we want a feast every time.’
‘Somehow. Yes.’
I hope this is obvious to you. I hope you haven’t been aiming at ‘sensational sex’. But I suppose even the premise of this book – which is about making sex as good as we can make it in our relationships – means that we want a different definition of ‘good’. Good doesn’t mean ‘red hot’ every day. Good means sometimes light blue sex with a little green. Maybe orange. Sometimes the sensation maybe a far-off yellow like a distant sunrise that turns to a glowing light orange and then subsides into sleepy velvet night. Sometimes maybe even white. Think of the infinite variety of art, of music, of flavour.
‘Surely good sex can be more varied than art or music or great foods?’
‘Yes, much more.’
‘Goodness Alexey, I want so much less. And women can feel more with less stimulation?’
‘Sometimes, yes. Often, when people are training their hearing,’ Alexey says, ‘they have to learn how to hear quieter and quieter sounds. It’s like that.’
I want to rush home and say to T. ‘Move less or better still – don’t move at all.’
‘So, are there lots of couples out there who, because they are not having “sensational sex”, end up having no sex because they think that it isn’t working?’
Sensation Page 17
