By Suzie Heumann

On a scale of 1 to 10, where do you put your self-knowledge about sex? If you were lucky, someone more knowledgeable than you taught you a little bit about it. But if you were not, like most of us, you may not rate yourself very high on this scale. And how do we KNOW we're good at loving? Most of us haven't had many lovers, or maybe none yet, so how do we learn the finer points of Love and Sex?

The ancient societies of China, Japan, India and the Middle East were very well versed in sexuality. They considered it a science and delved deeply into the meaning and practices surrounding many aspects of sensuality, sexuality and love. As long ago as 2000 BC, the Love Arts became firmly established as an integral component of a healthy lifestyle.

Enter modern woman and man. Each of us has to re-invent the wheel, so to speak, when it comes to love and sexuality. Magazines, books, videos, friends, and sometimes family, help us learn the basics. But in many ways our culture still hinders us from having an ecstatic, vibrant love life. Yet, pleasure is your birthright.

Many books have been written on this subject but there is a set of 'Keys' that will help you right now to transform your sexual experience. You can experiment with and practice these keys for your own personal pleasure. Each of us is different, and yet each of us is the same in many ways, so your unique sexploration with these keys will depend on you and the experience you want.

Learn To Breathe Correctly
You may not think breathing is very sexy, but you couldn't be further from the truth. The benefits are extraordinary and have direct health benefits, too. Learning to breathe deeply into your belly increases relaxation, decreases tension and stress, and puts more oxygen into your blood stream. Oxygen is what delivers the 'O' in Orgasm.

Deeply Relax Your Whole Body
Tightening the pelvic region shuts down the body's capacity for full-bodied orgasmic pleasure. It is almost impossible to tighten the pelvic region while breathing deeply into the belly, which in turn, relaxes you completely. Many women get to about a 7 or 8 level of arousal (based on a 1 to 10 scale) during sexual activity and then something happens. The feeling slips away! They struggle to get it back only to have it slip again.

When arousal is building, the natural inclination is to start to tighten the pelvis and vaginal region and stop breathing. This constricts the blood vessels, decreases blood flow (and hence the oxygen flow) and begins to shut your body down to sexual stimuli. By relaxing your body completely and focusing your mind on deep breathing (instead of worrying about why you aren't orgasming quickly) you not only gain all of this back, but you begin to build your arousal levels quickly again. With a little practice you can quicken your sexual responsiveness and smooth out the ride to orgasm.

Getting Present with Each Other
Before you begin making love, sit on the bed, facing each other, and eye gaze and breathe deeply together. Eye gazing is easy - simply soften your eyes and look into your partner's eyes without "doing anything." The eyes are the windows to the soul. The next time you are making love look deeply into your lover's eyes. Stay immersed in them and focused. Experience the whole event from that perspective, if possible. Come back to your breath if your attention lapses.

Become a Virtuoso
Learn the right way to do Kegel or PC muscle sexercises and DO them. You thought they were only for sprucing up your muscle tone after childbirth or fixing your bladder control, but their real importance is in sexual response. Your orgasms will be stronger and longer and more satisfying if you have strong PC muscles. You will want sex more often, and you'll be turned-on more. Work up to 200 a day. This won't take you longer than 5 or 6 minutes once you've learned them. You'll like these if you want to up the ante on your sex drive. Avoid over-doing your sexercises when you start. These are muscles and they need to be grown, not blown.

Give Quality Touch
Pay close attention to how you are touching. Be very deliberate in the touch quality you offer. Put your attention on what you are doing. Notice if your own fingers feel exquisite to you. If they do, then your lover will be feeling it too!

Create a Sensual Spirit in the Bedroom
A deep sense of spirit and sensuality is easy to create, especially in your bedroom. Your bedroom can be a sanctuary and a hide-a-way where you start and end your day. To help create your best "set and setting," design a space that is sensual, cozy, and restful. Throughout most high cultures of the past, the art of decoration and placement was an important aspect of how life was conducted. Combining the sensual with the spiritual can birth a fresh essence in your relationship.

Communicate
Use your brain, your heart and your voice during sex. Communicate! Men actually don't like being mind readers, and neither do women. Each person knows they aren't getting it right sometimes. Your partner wants you to tell them but they want you to tell them the right way. Here's a simple 3-step lesson to use when you aren't getting what you want:

1. Make a small compliment about something that is right. "Honey, I like the light touch you're using on my..."
2. Make a single request: "Could you try doing the same thing but faster?"
3. Make a comment: "Wow, I thought that would be great but it doesn't work." Or "Yes, that's it. Oh my!"

Get the picture? It's called a sandwich: Say something that is working, ask for a single change, make an acknowledgement of the change, whether it worked or not. With this kind of a feedback cycle you'll both be more empowered to learn so much more about each other. You'll notice that you may start using this simple process with others in your life, too. It is one of the easiest and best communication techniques available.

 We invite you to visit Tantra.com, the Internet's premier web site devoted to helping people discover a more exciting and pleasurable sex life. 24 hours of explicit educational video, hundreds of articles, free books, podcasts and much more available in Tantra.com Premium Membership.

By Suzie Heumann

Have you ever seen the movie Dangerous Beauty? If you haven't, well, I highly recommend it. But here is my point: one of the best quotes ever about sexuality comes from the heroine in this film. She's a sacred prostitute or courtesan. She's brilliant and versatile and a connoisseur of passion and of life. She says: "I confess I find more ecstasy in passion than in prayer. Such passion is prayer."

What does that mean exactly? Western culture sees ecstasy as a result of prayer, faith and pure living. It has a difficult time with the concept of ecstasy coming from, and through, sexuality, intimacy and bodily pleasure. Yet many cultures, from the past and even the present, hold sexual expression as divinely inspired. The passion of sexuality is a form of prayer, especially when you discover the ways to make it even more like a prayer.

Erotic cultures of the past, many of these from the East, brought us great books like the Kama Sutra and the Ananga Ranga. These books have withstood the test of time and continue to inform us today in ways that work hand-in-hand with modern science and cutting-edge cultural interests. Sex is all the rage. Great sex is even more on-topic today. Couples everywhere are looking for information and adventurous practices to up the ante on their bedroom antics. While magazines like Cosmopolitan give a tease (and some really silly positions!) and Men's Health might have an occasional article on sex tips, none of it is very - well - passionate.

Hot, erotic, passionate, intimate, slow, deep, hot sex is prayer. And you can make your 'worship' a lot more soulful and lasting by increasing your knowledge of all things sexual.

Men: learning to master your ejaculation, so that you can climax when you choose to, is not only fun. It is an exciting and a valuable technique for enhancing your sexual experience, not just your lover's. You'll 'feel' more. And so will your lover.

Women: increasing your capacity for orgasm, pleasure and intimacy has many benefits, even beyond the bedroom. Learning some of the simple techniques to expand your pleasure quotient is empowering and healthy as well as erotically stimulating.

There are many things to learn that mainstream media can't or won't teach you. Why? Because our puritan heritage still influences us to this day. And, even when people are willing to learn, most people haven't had the fortune to learn from sexual masters or haven't ever delved into the ancient manuals on sex.

It's not too late. But make sure you seek out real information with the hands-on, how-to that really discloses the secrets-not just material designed to titillate you.

We invite you to visit Tantra.com, the Internet's premier web site devoted to helping people discover a more exciting and pleasurable sex life. 24 hours of explicit educational video, hundreds of articles, free books, podcasts and much more available in Tantra.com Premium Membership.

By Suzie Heumann

Here is a question that, in some form or another, I get asked quite often. I'm sure it will look familiar to many of you: "My problem is quite personal. My height is 6 ft., but the size of my penis is only 4 inches after erection. I am very tense about this. Can you help me?"

Living in today's world can really be hard on us. We're inundated and bombarded with messages comparing us to, well, everybody else. You just can't be too thin or have too much money or, well, you know the scenario. It makes us forget that there are 6.5 billion people out there and each of us is the unique individual that we are blessed to be. That doesn't mean, though, we have to go blindly through life without being our own best advocate!

Modern science has confirmed that the mind, our brain, is our biggest erogenous zone. Eastern philosophy has known for many centuries how deep the mind/body connection is, too. In other words, it's not what you've got but how you feel about yourself and how you use what you've got that counts. When we feel great about ourselves and have confidence and self-love, our world is more generous in the love and care that comes back to us. Accepting who you are and consciously learning the love arts will put you miles ahead of even the most generously endowed man, any day!

What will be key for you is to know that you are fine the way you are. You can become a great lover by learning to last a long time, to love tenderly and deeply and to give to the woman you love as if she were the Goddess in her earthly manifestation! But if you have a little doubt left, here is some great information.

Fact: The G-spot is about 1 to 1.5 inches inside any woman's vagina. It is one of the two essential spots in the woman that lead to vaginal orgasms and the possibility of multiple orgasms. The well-endowed man will often miss the mark! It's only on the in and out that he may chance to come in contact with the right spot! You have an actual advantage, if you learn to use it.

It is best that a woman you would partner with have well-developed PC muscles. They're the ones that you notice are working when you stop and start the urination process. They are called 'Kegels'. She'll be able to grab you better, to heighten the sensation for both of you. This makes the 'fit' much better. You will want to strengthen yours too. The sexercises are easy and fun and they have a whole lot of benefits that I'm not even mentioning here!

Certain positions will be better for you than others. Generally, frontal positions with the woman's legs up over your shoulders are great. There is lots of friction on the G-spot in this type of position. These positions will give you easy access and will give her a lot of maneuverability in her hips. The woman on top positions, along with some unique variations, will also be good for you to master. Another tip: Go really slowly on the out-stroke! The head of the penis catches in the G-spot area on the out - this is to your advantage.

You just don't need a big penis to have great sex. That is a myth. While the size of your penis is what it is, there are many ways to satisfaction if you and your lover are open, curious and willing to experiment. Thrusting patterns should be shallow for good G-spot contact. Find positions in which your partner can move her hips in subtle ways to help facilitate her pleasure.

There's so much to say and not enough space here to even begin to mentor you in the subtle, yet incredible, tools and techniques available to you. My best suggestion is that you get your hands on high quality instructional material designed to show you how it's done. With the right video, audio, e-courses and e-books, articles and practices you can learn outrageous sexual techniques that will make you a God in her eyes. I guarantee it!

We invite you to visit Tantra.com, the Internet's premier web site devoted to helping people discover a more exciting and pleasurable sex life. 24 hours of explicit educational video, hundreds of articles, free books, podcasts and much more available in Tantra.com Premium Membership.

By Suzie Heumann

Situation and questions: "I'd been married for 17 years to a wonderful woman. We are both 39 years old, but after having excellent sex with my wife, I become very, very tired...almost exhausted...the rest of the day. It's like after sex I don't have energy for anything else. I feel really bad about this because my wife does not feel the same way. She says it gives her more energy!

Because of the way I feel after sex, I have been trying not to have sex as often as we used to, but my wife is not satisfied. She says she needs to have sex more often - at least three times a week. I can't keep up with her. I've already gone to the doctor, and he prescribed a hormone patch. I've been with this treatment for a year, and it does not seem to help me. What can I do?"
Please help me, R. S.

Dear R. S., The hormone patch may not be sufficient. You should see your doctor again to be re-evaluated. There are also over-the-counter libido enhancers you can try. Some of them are pretty good and work well for certain people.

In the big picture, ejaculating does in fact cause a loss of what the Chinese Taoists call chi. Chi is the life force energy that gives us our passionate nature in life-passion for everything that we do. Men and women are born with varying amounts, according to their personal nature. Not knowing you personally and your day-to-day life situation, you may be on the slightly lower end of the scale when it comes to chi. Whatever the case is, you may have a win-win situation here.

The Taoists say that, for every 10 years of a man's life, he should refrain from ejaculating to an appropriate amount of times during any given month. For a forty-year-old man it's around twice a month. This means you can have sex, even have orgasms, but you don't necessarily have to ejaculate. If you didn't know this, already orgasm and ejaculation aren't the same thing and don't necessarily have to happen at the same time. You can have lots of orgasms and not ejaculate.

Regardless of whether or not you want to become a Taoist Master, you can learn a few Taoist techniques for circulating the orgasmic chi energy and mastering the techniques involved in having orgasms without ejaculating. It is pretty easy to learn, and it sounds like your wife will be very willing to help you learn, too. A dedicated lover can be essential to learning these techniques. A partner who is not willing to help can actually be detrimental. By the way, you will probably see results in as little as two weeks.

The technique involves self-stimulation or partner stimulation to the point of noticing that you are in a zone near the point of no return. On a scale of 1 to 10 that might be a 7, initially. But each time you practice, that 7 will get closer to an 8 or even a 9.9. This can occur fairly rapidly for many men trying these sexercises. At this point you'll learn how to expand the orgasmic feeling so fully that you will begin to have orgasms without going over the top. Your wife will be happy and you'll be very happy. Oh, did I forget to tell you that you will now last as long as you like. She'll be very happy!

It's best if you and your lover have a plan. You may want to get some quality instructional videos, e-courses, books and audio instruction that will make your journey to being The-Incredible-Lovemaking-Man a whole lot easier. It would be good for your wife, too, because it is a little harder for the woman to recognize what your body will be doing. If she can actually see a man in orgasm, without ejaculating, then she'll have a better understanding of what to expect during your sexploration training. Good luck! It's going to be awesome, I just know it.

We invite you to visit Tantra.com, the Internet's premier web site devoted to helping people discover a more exciting and pleasurable sex life. 24 hours of explicit educational video, hundreds of articles, free books, podcasts and much more available in Tantra.com Premium Membership.

By Suzie Heumann, Founder of Tantra.com

How do you become the initiator of more adventurous sex? So many women and sometimes men have to get their arms twisted before they get intimate. Their submissive roles in the bedroom never change. Why is it important to break out of this role sometimes, and how can you do it?

Ancient Eastern philosophy understands that the woman embodies the Shakti energy or creative force that 'makes the world go around.' The only problem is women are rarely taught to access it. We live in a world that teaches women to be passive (feminine) and men to be active (masculine). In truth, both sexes need to embody both the feminine and the masculine to be in true balance with nature. The Yin/Yang symbol represents this concept beautifully.

In most world cultures men carry the responsibility of being the macho, sexy guy who is just supposed to 'get it up.' Men have had to give up a tender side of themselves in order to fit this stereotype. Women then complain that their men aren't soft, considerate and emotionally available. It's confusing, isn't it? In reality men need touch, desire, and attention to feel turned on as much as women do. Preconceived notions of male sexuality can actually hinder a man's full sexual response.

Conversely, a woman is often caught in her role of the soft, passive, non-aggressor who expects to put little or no energy into her orgasms, pleasure, and creativeness around sex. Her partner is supposed to know what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Not being a woman, or a mind reader, most men fail at this super-human task.

So, how do we bring more balance, adventure and spontaneity into the bedroom? Here are some helpful hints:

1. Understand that it is your birthright to have as much pleasure as you can handle! Few people feel that they ever deserve that much. We were given so many nerve endings, in just the right places, how could we ever think we weren't meant to have lots of pleasure?
2. Learn to ask for what you need and desire in a mindful, positive manner. This kind of communication will help you get ahead in all the areas of your life, including the bedroom. Compassionately help your partner learn to ask for what they want.
3. Women - get your hands on some explicit instructional materials. Your lover will think it's sexy. You can take turns viewing videos, practicing new techniques together, trying new positions from the sex positions guide or even reading a sexy novel to each other. Design two nights a week as your 'study group' time. Plan to set aside time for a quickie and a longer lovemaking session each week. Your erotic quotient will go up exponentially!

   That's what the famous 'pillow books' like the Kama Sutra, from the Far East, were for. They showed couples new positions, kissing techniques, touch techniques, and much more. If you get bold enough to try a few new positions, you'll find they tend to break up old patterns and introduce fun, too.

4. Women - learn and practice your Kegel sexercises. They will help with increasing libido, tightening love muscles for more friction, G-spot sensitivity, continence, and you'll impress your partner, too, with your amazing squeezing strength. (Guys - you too can have amazing PC muscles - and they'll help you have stronger, longer lasting erections too!)
5. Don't be afraid of your Wild Woman (this goes for the Wild Man too!) What have you got to lose, anyway? Life is too short to be on-guard all of the time. Let go. Dress up in something a little outrageous. Do something that brings a little shock value to the bedroom.

There are many, many ideas, practices and activities that can help you create the intimacy you desire and deserve. A little adventurous spirit may be required to take risks that will open you up to each other. You'll be more fully your real selves if you do. Take charge once and awhile and see what happens. You've got nothing to lose and everything to gain!

 To really get the most out of your loving, consider some advanced training. Tantra.com Premium is your 24 hour a day guide to the skills that will take you to new heights of pleasure and intimacy.

I came across this beatutiful movie today with two woman discussing a massage experience they had while preparing for a documentary they were shooting.

From the Sexualshamanseminars website it says

"Forthcoming Documentary Path of the Sexual Shaman

This is raw footage from an interview of two practitioners who were involved in a video and book production on energetic, erotic massage. In preparation for the shoot, they had been doing shamanic ceremonies to build and intensify their energies so the viewer would be energetically engaged in addition to learning the massage strokes."

I found this video on youtube a while back. It's music only but a wonderful piece to chill out to and deepen the connection ....

by Suzie Heumann

"Whatever thoughts are in their minds, they vanish completely with the onslaught of passionate embrace. When a man and woman are all in oneness, thus clasped together, there is nothing in the whole world to surpass the superb joy of that moment." --The Kama Sutra

Ah, in a perfect world this is the way it would be. We would be so in love that we couldn't wait to see each other; to smother each other in kisses and caresses; to tell each other of our day with all its intimate hurts and little glories.

The reality is that sometimes long-term relationships begin to develop into more of a basic support system than a loving, growing, vital partnership. We begin to discount touch, care, clear communication, trust, truth telling and sensual and sexual activity. The daily grind runs our lives and relationships.

When we can step back and vision another set of possibilities, though, we can bring about profound transformation to our marriages and relationships. The Kama Sutra and the tenets of Tantric philosophy taught that love is a profound vehicle to conscious, ecstatic living. Practices included not only a complete set of positions but elaborate techniques for kissing, hugging, holding, speaking and conducting one's self in an honorable manor, according to the times.

If you find yourself in this situation with your lover, it often feels impossible to create a new vision and possibility in which to build your loving connection. Try spending five minutes every morning and every evening in the Spoon Position. Place the woman in the front, on her side, and her partner just behind her, in a lying down position. The person behind then places their hand over the heart area of the front person. The front person sets the pace of breathing slowly and consciously.

This practice aids in putting us into a common space and rhythm from which to relate. Practice telling the truth! When we say what is in our hearts in a vulnerable, non-blaming way, our partner will have compassion and caring show up in place of hurt. Introduce a new playful experience into your lovemaking.

Perhaps you might want to blindfold your partner and treat them to an hour of sensual pleasuring. Tantric philosophy has us take risks to explore the realms of conscious growing. Risk something with your partner - tell a truth, try something new, give where you haven't before, make an unreasonable request that will actually delight your partner.

We invite you to visit Tantra.com, the Internet's premier web site devoted to helping people discover a more exciting and pleasurable sex life. 24 hours of explicit educational video, hundreds of articles, free books, podcasts and much more available in Tantra.com Premium Membership.