Abstract
This article examines women’s tantric retreats in Northwest Europe aimed at developing female sexual subjectivity. Based on ethnographic study and in-depth interviews, it argues that the retreats induced among participants critical distancing from socially dominant representations of (self-)objectified femininity and pornified female sexuality. It highlights how, through foregrounding a view of the female sex as sacred, the workshops fostered experiences of embodying the divine as grounds for female worthiness. It further illustrates how intimate touch among women and self-touch were encouraged as ways to establish an erotic connection with a vital flow beyond a narrow focus on sexual activity.
Keywords
According to influential sociologist Anthony Giddens (1991), the main characteristic of late modernity is the internal referentiality of its systems. This reflexivity is not limited to an institutional level, but extends into the core of the self. Like the broader institutional contexts in which it exists, the modern self has to be reflexively made. Within this logic, the body is increasingly perceived less as an intrinsic given, instead becoming reflexively mobilized as a visible carrier of one’s identity. Concomitantly, sexuality today has been ‘discovered’ and, reconfigured as a property of the individual, has become a major medium for self-realization and self-fashioning (Giddens, 1992). As Stevi Jackson (2007: 12) aptly summarizes, ‘Heightened reflexive self-awareness has converged with the growth in the significance of sexuality, creating the conditions for a highly self-conscious sense of sexual subjectivity’. The idea of the self as reflexive project has been linked with the emergence and institutionalization of ‘psy’ professions and the rise of modes of therapy and counselling of all kinds (Giddens, 1991: 34; 1992: 29; Rose, 1990). This therapeutic outlook has come to constitute one of the major codes with which to express, shape and guide selfhood, of which sexuality has increasingly become a central aspect (Illouz, 2008).
This article deals with women’s retreats in Northwest Europe situated within the realm of spirituality and personal growth and targeting the development of female sexual subjectivity. The rise of new spiritualities in the Western world since the 1960s has to be situated within the expressivist strand of late modernity, which aims to enhance self-development and the expression of ‘the authentic self’ (Heelas, 1996; Taylor, 1991). Psy language and a focus on the self are pervasive in new spiritualities (Heelas, 1996), which have developed as closely linked with the Human Potential Movement (Hanegraaff, 1996: 514). A distinctive characteristic of this kind of psychologized spirituality involves the consideration given to the body, bodywork and body care (Sointu and Woodhead, 2008). Sexuality and the erotic are one of the prevailing points of attention, with tantra used as the primary source of inspiration (Van Otterloo, 1999: 199). This is also the case for the workshops studied here, which mainly drew on tantra in combination with specifically therapeutic techniques such as Reichian emotional bodywork and Gestalt.
From a Foucauldian perspective, the dominance of therapy and psychological theories and practices in contemporary Western culture has been interpreted as a form of governmentality that intends to shape and channel subjectivity through self-inspection and self-examination (Rose, 1990). Feminist scholars have especially demystified the claim to women’s empowerment advocated by psy professionals (Becker, 2005). Eva Illouz (2008), while recognizing the value of these critical approaches, underscores the need to analyse therapeutic discourse from within its own horizon of presuppositions and claims. She seeks to understand how counselling has come to be so successful and what makes it a cultural resource for certain actors, notably women. She observes (Illouz, 2008: 115ff) that therapy and feminism merged out of a single cultural matrix and share several aspects, including the importance of self-examination as a way to gain self-consciousness, the legitimation given to emotional expression and talk about feelings, a focus on the contradictory values of care and autonomy and a view of sex and sexuality as a positive locus that needs to be investigated.
The studied workshops, which were designed for women, all exhibited the features mentioned by Illouz. They especially endeavoured to help women relate to their sexuality in a positive, self-enhancing way perceived as respectful to the female body and female desire. It is to this end that tantra was resorted to: in line with feminist scholarship (Biernacki, 2007; Shaw, 1994; Sherma, 2000) and popular writing (Odier, 2001; Osho, 2015 [1975]), it was regarded as a form of spirituality that highly values femininity and allows for the integration of sexuality as a means for self-development and reconnection with one’s ‘authentic femininity’. The tantric idea of divinity as present in all elements and in all persons was particularly underscored, foremost in the trope that each woman is a goddess and a manifestation of shakti – creative, life-giving energy. Healing and finding one’s ‘true’ self and ‘deep’ femininity was said to rely on the awakening of this energy, which was considered to be powerfully present in sexuality. A specific means of highlighting the sacred dimension of female sexuality, which was recurrent throughout the workshops, was the use of the Sanskrit word yoni, with a primary meaning of ‘womb, vulva, vagina’ (Marglin, 1987: 530).
The celebration of female sexual difference in new spiritualities has been considered by feminist academics as a problematic revival of essentialist notions of gender (Crowley, 2011: 7). Karlyn Crowley subscribes to this view, but her book on the topic also uncovers a genuine mode of spirituality that can foster agency and support for women, even as it rests on suspect logics (Crowley, 2011: 21). In a recent ethnographic study of women’s circles in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, Chia Longman (2018) similarly foregrounds the personal empowerment women gain from participating in these initiatives. However, she denies that the concept of femininity used in these settings falls into biological essentialist paradigms. While the discourse on the return to the female body might sound essentializing, according to Longman the trope of female embodiment is often used in an abstract and open sense at the experiential, ritual and symbolic levels (Longman, 2018: 9).
This article is concerned with women’s tantric retreats in Belgium and the Netherlands, 1 which are situated in the same field as the circles studied by Longman. It is based on ethnographic research augmented by in-depth interviews. In line with the participants’ accounts, I highlight the empowering dimension of women’s experiences in re-imagining and re-appropriating female embodiment. I argue that the retreats led participants to a distancing from socially dominant representations of femininity and female sexuality. In particular, I show how participants developed a relation to their bodies and to sexuality that was felt to be positive and respectful and that was perceived to differ from the objectification of the female body and concomitant self-objectification by women as is currently portrayed in advertising and pornography (Gill, 2003, 2009a, 2009b). I argue that the sacralization of the female sex was the main operator used for inducing this change. I will present in detail one specific retreat I was able to attend four times between 2013 and 2016, for which I interviewed 28 participants in addition to its leaders.
Case study of a women’s tantric retreat
The workshop presented as a case study was a three-day retreat that took place in a residential spiritual centre in Belgium that holds a variety of retreats, mostly inspired by Eastern traditions. The group consisted of two workshop conveners and 10 to 15 participants: all cisgender women, 2 mostly middle class and predominantly but not exclusively white and heterosexual, with ages ranging between 25 and 65, although most were between 35 and 50. The workshop conveners, An and Nathalie, 3 were both active in the wellbeing counselling sector for individuals and groups in Flanders. An had set up a ‘tantric-inspired’ organization and regularly organized workshops for both mixed and women-only groups. She had completed her training in the Netherlands and was also a bioenergetics and encountering coach. Nathalie was a foot reflexologist and therapeutic body coach who had trained in tantric techniques with An. The workshop’s activities took place in the communal space of the centre, where a small altar had been erected for the occasion that included an Indian goddess statue, flowers and goddess cards in addition to the regular Buddha statue and paintings of Hindu divinities. The room was further decorated with candles and reddish-coloured textiles.
On the first day of the workshop after everyone had arrived, a welcome ritual was held. Each woman entered the space in succession and walked towards An and Nathalie, who placed their hands a few centimetres above her head. Then, while breathing audibly and deeply, they slowly lowered both hands close to each woman’s body until they reached her feet, then wished her welcome while envisioning her internally as an embodiment of the goddess. After some free dancing, a meditation for body awareness followed, which started and ended with a gong sound. In a cross-legged position, An invited us to breathe deeply, feel the connection with Mother Earth and bring our awareness successively to our face, throat, breasts, belly, womb and yoni as a way to get into contact with our femininity. Then, seated in a circle, Nathalie invited us each to say our name and why we had decided to come.
In the afternoon, after a moment of dancing, some grounding exercises were done in an upright position, followed by some simple hip movements in order to liberate the pelvic area. Rather than demanding correct execution, An encouraged us to pay exploratory and self-reflective attention to possible sensations and emotions. We were then asked to lie down on a mattress, breathe deeply and audibly and bring full awareness to our body sensations through self-touch. Particular attention was given to the breasts, belly, womb and yoni, always with the aim of self-inquiry into how these parts felt. After this, we could express our feelings tangibly by moulding a piece of clay, letting something be born without conscious intention to create a specific object or symbol. Finally, Nathalie invited us to form small groups of three and share our feelings on the workshop theme and the preceding exercises in a non-judgemental mode. In the evening, an intuitive massage was proposed for those who felt like it and were not too tired.
The second day started with a tantric meditative exercise called ‘The Inner Flute’. We lay down on a mattress with our feet flat on the floor and knees bent underneath a blanket. We were also invited to take off some or all of our clothes if this helped us to feel more free. The guided exercise, which was led by An, consisted of breathing deeply while imagining that the breath was entering through the yoni and moving up the body through the heart until it reached the head, then coming down again along the spine on the exhalation. After a while, An invited us to add pelvic tilting movements in rhythm with our inhalation and exhalation, as well as a hand gesture that followed the up-and-down movement of the breath. She explained that the exercise was meant to help free the flow of sexual energy, which could express itself in a shaking of the body. After breakfast was the kundalini meditation, modelled on Osho’s active meditations (Puttick, 2009: 216). The kundalini refers to the vital energy, shakti, that resides at the base of the spine and, when awakened, moves up the body in an undulating movement like a snake. In this meditation, a woman sat on a cushion with her legs to each side. She started with linked breathing – i.e. without a break between inhalation and exhalation – and added a pelvic movement followed by spine undulations, freely expressing sounds as they emerged. Two other women exerted pressure on her body – mainly on the spine – with their hands where they felt energy blockages. The exercise led to a range of emotionally laden body expressions, from moaning and crying to choking sounds and screaming. Sometimes feelings were expressed in words. The morning session ended with a talking circle for sharing our experiences.
The afternoon and evening were reserved for the most important part of the workshop, which An and Nathalie referred to as an ‘initiation ritual’. In one of the workshops, a preparatory exercise was done first in groups of three. One woman looked at her sex in a mirror and relayed her feelings to the two other women, who listened without judgement. The ritual itself consisted of a ritualized massage intended to sacralize the female sex and venerate women as goddesses. The room was specially prepared for the occasion: the curtains were closed and extra candles were lit. An and Nathalie suggested that we put on a lungi and, with the partner we had chosen for the exercise, decorate a mattress with cloth we had been told to bring for the occasion. Two bowls, one containing hot water and the other massage oil, were placed near each mattress and kept warm in a holder on top of candles. The ritual, which was guided throughout by An, started with a namaste – a gesture of pressing the palms of the hands together in front of the heart – towards one another. One woman lay down naked covered by a cloth, and the other woman intuitively put her hand on different places of the first woman’s body to establish contact. Then, if the woman lying down agreed, the second woman removed the cloth and, while seated in a cross-legged position at her feet, drew the supine woman towards herself, putting both legs around her waist. She then started a very soft, slow and meditative massage of the body, progressively centring on the breasts, belly, womb and ovaries and then moving to the inner thighs. If the supine woman agreed, the seated woman put a small cloth soaked in hot water on the pubic mound and the genital area while exerting a slight pressure. Then – again after having asked for agreement and after having put on latex gloves – she slowly and delicately touched the sexual organs themselves and introduced a finger into the first woman’s vagina while making slow circles with it. She then removed her finger and took her place again at the woman’s side; the ritual ended with another namaste, and the women then switched roles.
The last day started with tandava, a tantric dance meditation set to meditative music from India. Seated cross-legged or on our knees, we were invited to breathe deeply and follow the movement arising naturally from the movement of our breath, then move our arms and let it become a dance of fluid gestures without a predefined goal. As a visual aid, An gave us the image of a trail of incense smoke that remains unpredictable. She also made reference to the Hindu goddess Chamundi, who makes skin turn to pearl wherever she touches it with her tongue, the invitation being to move towards the places where her touch was imaginally felt. After breakfast, and after some more dancing and a talking circle, a final integration exercise, borrowed from Gestalt technique, was conducted. One woman sat alternatively on a cushion symbolizing the ‘me’ and on another cushion symbolizing the yoni. She was invited to let her voice speak – alternately the voices of ‘me’ and of the yoni – and then to create a dialogue between the two. Her partner in the exercise listened without judgement. Then, roles were switched. In the afternoon, a final sharing circle was held, followed by a last moment of dance.
Countering sexual (self-)objectification
Current research on the sexualization of contemporary Western culture highlights how it entails women’s self-chosen objectifying attitudes towards their bodies. The term ‘sexualization of culture’ (Attwood, 2006) – what others have called ‘pornified’ (Paul, 2005) or ‘striptease culture’ (McNair, 2002) – refers to the media’s mainstreaming of sexually explicit images and a ‘porno-chic’ style for young women. This goes alongside a portrayal of women as knowing, active and desiring subjects, who have a similar sexual appetite to their male counterparts, are always ‘up for it’ and love to play with their sexual power. While this seems to involve a shift from sexual objectification to sexual subjectification, Rosalind Gill (2003: 105) discerns objectification instead in a ‘new and even more pernicious guise’. She notes how the status of sexual subject is only accorded to some women – heterosexual, young, slim and beautiful – and how the self-chosen look is surprisingly similar to the ‘porn look’ that corresponds to male sexual fantasy. An external male policing gaze seems to have been transformed into a ‘self-policing narcissistic gaze’ (Gill, 2003: 107). Moreover, when sexiness and a constant urge for sex, conceived of as a climax-driven performance, become constitutive of normative femininity, any possible conflict seems miraculously resolved between women’s desires and the porn fantasy of an always-available female partner who never fails to respond to the man’s sexual needs.
During the workshop and subsequent interviews, it was apparent that women were impacted by a self-imposed policing gaze and an overly sexualized and pornified view of femininity. Some women experienced obvious difficulty in revealing their nakedness, since they felt and expressed that they did not conform (or no longer conformed) to the norms of female beauty. During my interview with one participant, Anneleen, she confided to me that she had decided to sign up for tantric workshops after discovering that her husband regularly watched porn videos, since it had depleted her self-image as a woman. Throughout the course of the workshop, she repeatedly depreciated herself as not being feminine and lacking sensuality.
For Rosa, the image of a sexually assertive woman who is always ‘up for it’ proved to be equally detrimental for her self-image. After divorcing in her late forties, a female friend had convinced her to go on a dating site, telling her that, as a woman who was still attractive, she should not remain single. The experiences she had through this site were narrowly focused on sex and left her, as she described it, with ‘a feeling of dirtiness’. One man, after having taken advantage of her care and support, abandoned her for another woman. A second man left her with a sexually transmitted disease she had a hard time curing. A third man complained that her vagina was too narrow to penetrate, which gave her self-doubts about her body and caused her to visit a gynaecologist. Her decision to sign up for the retreat was motivated, as she explained to me, ‘by the desire to let it flow again, to purify it and re-estimate myself in this matter and to be able to see sex again as something beautiful’. Accordingly, she evoked the notion of respect as the key experience she had gained from the retreat: I could feel the way An and Nathalie approached the theme with so much love. This is something I will always take with me. The space they left for each woman, without imposing anything at all – just ‘feel what you feel’. That has deeply touched me, that such a thing is possible in this world. Everywhere there is talk, ‘You have to have sex so many times’, but respect – what is respect? That is what I have felt there. [Starts to cry] I also feel that respect for myself now. When we were looking at our vagina in the mirror, I opened my lips a bit and I saw a very beautiful rose, a red heart. I found that so beautiful; I also said that then. Christine, with whom I did the exercise, said, ‘Oh yes, so beautiful’. I had never looked at it in that way. And I said, ‘It must be nice to slide in there – that is a nice place’. I thought, ‘Oh, now I am in the masculine role that is strange that I imagine how it must be for a man’. That image is still with me. It gave me a feeling of being connected to my heart. [My partner] agreed, ‘Yes, you can enter’, but I felt that the tissue was not yet yielding. Marijke, who works with jade eggs, always says, ‘If your yoni does not take it, don’t force it, don’t do it’. I remembered that, but she asked it and so I went with that. She came into a feeling of pain. Then I realised that we have to be very alert of that as women. That limit – that limit is there. Maybe I should have said no. I really felt we should not have done that. Afterwards, I felt a bit like a perpetrator. […] Oh, what do we do to ourselves? She did it to herself by feeling pressure, and I recognize that. ‘Yes, enter. I want it to succeed here’. In contact with a man, to please him, or because it is him and sooner or later it has to happen. […] We live in a society where everything has to go fast, even that.
Reclaiming female sexual divinity
Feminist scholar Jane Caputi (2003) suggests that pornography appropriates and distorts rituals, icons and themes that formerly signified female potency and divinity. It contains characteristic features of goddess-centred spiritualities, such as nakedness, sensual, sexual or naked dance and the spread legs of a woman or goddess, then abuses and degrades them (Caputi, 2003: 183). For Caputi, ‘stepping out of the power of pornography’ includes ‘taking back gynocentric holy sites, languages and divinities’ (Caputi, 2003: 186). She claims that the idea of ‘goddess’ is a way to give cultural expression to women’s capacity to be what pornography is intent on destroying. While the workshops discussed here did not situate themselves within the goddess spirituality movement, which deliberately aims to reinstate goddess worship in contemporary Western culture, they were clearly influenced by its themes and main ideas, such as the sacralization of nature and sexuality as well as the conception of the divine as immanent – present in nature, but also in each person (Eller, 1993: 136, 141ff). A goddess altar was set up in the workshop room, with lighted candles and goddess cards that could be consulted during breaks. In addition to these material aspects, the notion of the ‘goddess’ was repeatedly invoked. In the welcome ritual, women were approached as an incarnation of the goddess, and the explicit aim of the final ritual was to worship each woman and her sex as sacred, an embodiment of the goddess.
Some of the practices explicitly engaged with the previously mentioned features of goddess spiritualities. Women were invited to remove some or all of their clothes for practices such as ‘The Inner Flute’, the tandava meditation and the final ritual. When this was done, the first two exercises, especially the tandava meditation, led to a naked, fluid and possibly sensual dance. For the final ritual, involving looking at a mirror and a massage, a woman sat or lay down with spread legs, exposed the vulva and looked at it or had someone else look at and touch it. These practices were meant to express worship of the vulva, or yoni. When discussing this ritual scheme of spread legs, Caputi explicitly mentions yoni worship (Caputi, 2003: 183). As in Caputi’s interpretation of these rituals of worship, the aim of these practices was to empower women through approaching female sexuality in a positive way, as something sacred that needs to be revered. This was particularly well voiced by Maria. Having already worked extensively with women on topics related to the body, she nevertheless remarked how powerful and unusual the ritual was to her because of this strong sacred dimension. When I asked her how she experienced the ritual, she said, ‘Oh yes, the sanctification of the yoni’, and continued: I remember especially the moment you enter the yoni with your finger. That was a very special moment, especially when doing even more than when receiving it. You really have a feeling of ‘Wow, I can enter someone’s body, so very, very intimate’. […] The feeling, it is really something when you are allowed to enter someone’s body. It gave me a feeling of sacredness, that it was really something sacred. That moment was very strong. But it was built up in such a way that it did not feel like ‘What is happening now?’. It was embedded in a very natural flow; at least, that is how it felt for me. For me it was really intimate. Sacred. I don’t have a better word for it. Oh yes, the yoni–me exercise. It was an exercise I thought of as, ‘Will this bring me anything?’. But it was really nice to do, very powerful. The feeling, the feeling of becoming the yoni. At that moment, I felt. Yeah, it is funny, that experience. Yeah, it is very… The moment we did that exercise with the mirror, for me it was like all these different lips were curtains. It became like an entrance of a temple. And when we were sitting on that cushion, I could really feel myself sitting in my temple. That was a very nice experience. Like, ‘Here it is. Wow’. I felt like the goddess in her temple. To speak from there was really beautiful. It brought me … maybe not so much to a power in myself, but to a certain dignity, a feeling of worthiness of myself.
The aim of the Gestalt exercise of creating a dialogue between the ‘me’ and the yoni was precisely to allow a reconnection with the part of the body that had (ideally) been experienced as sacred during the ritual and to literally give it a voice. This recalls Caputi’s article and her claim for the need to take back a gynocentric language. In this regard, Caputi (2003: 191) refers to Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues, which consists of a series of vignettes shaped from stories Ensler collected from women whom she had asked to think about – and with – their vaginas. During my interview with Marjorie, she particularly stressed the importance of finding out that her sex had a voice and allowing this voice to speak. She also highlighted the spiritual wisdom linked to expressing this connection: I have for the first time felt my body really well, that my yoni goes to my heart and my mouth and that I can speak like that; that it comes here [indicates her throat and mouth] and that my heart is in between. I also felt that that is often closed off, that I don’t get here, that it is cut off. I have really felt that connection very strongly at the end of the retreat. […] When I let my yoni speak like that, then a very sensitive woman speaks who is very attuned. Much wisdom awakens then that I usually keep hidden. […] Now I can speak those words. They don’t need any approval anymore. I said to my yoni, ‘You are allowed to speak’. […] When my yoni speaks, it is very much linked to the world as a whole; you could call it spiritual. It is like saying a prayer.
Autoeroticism and female intimacy beyond the sexual
In the cultural shift towards sexual subjectification, the increasing sexualization of women in contemporary Western culture entails a focus on self-pleasing. Women are presented not as seeking men’s approval, but as pleasing and sometimes also pleasuring themselves. However, since men consume similar images in porn, their gaze of, and pleasure in gazing at, such representations remains the determinant (Gill, 2009a: 101ff). Something similar happens with the sexualized depictions of woman–woman relations – showing a woman kissing, touching or locked in an embrace with another woman – which are also increasingly seen in media representations. Since the women depicted in this way are notable for their conventionally feminine appearance, again the figure appears to be constructed primarily for a straight male gaze (Gill, 2009b: 151ff). Besides self-objectification in line with male sexual fantasy, these representations also convey a vision of touch and bodily intimacy as something that is entirely sexualized and pornified. Self-touch is considered masturbatory, and touch between women suggests lesbianism.
Most of the workshop exercises entailed touch – either self-touch or (intimate) touch – by other women. However, this touch was not sexual in a strict sense. The notion of the erotic in its difference from the pornographic is useful in this respect. Eileen O’Neil (1989) uses the term ‘pornography’ to refer to sexually explicit representations that have arousal as an aim. Drawing on Audre Lorde (1984), she defines the erotic as what ‘expresses’ sexual arousal and desire rather than what causes it: ‘It is what suggests it, puts me in touch with its possibility, by making me aware of myself as a physical, sexual being’ (O’Neill, 1989: 70). In this view, sexual excitement or orgasm is not essential to the erotic (O’Neill, 1989: 70), which is considered a life force, a creative energy that is deeply spiritual (Lorde, 1984: 55–56). The exercises in the workshops specifically aimed to give women awareness of – and access to – this kind of creative, sexual life energy that far exceeds its use in sexual acts and connects beyond the self. 4 ‘The Inner Flute’ and tandava exercises sought to awaken this flow of energy through meditative breathing and movement techniques, but also through self-touch. More broadly, these exercises appealed to a heightened sensitivity to sensations of touch coming from both outside and within. In the tandava dance, for instance, An invited us to feel the air touching our skin and to be aware of how breath flowed in our bodies. Being touched by exterior and interior sensations and movements merged with the sensations caused by the physical touch of the body.
The erotic and autoerotic character of this exercise, as distinct from actual sexual activity, was clearly expressed in the following two interview excerpts from Maria and Antoinette respectively: I have a very strong memory of it, the feeling of ‘Wow’. A very intense experience. I had the feeling that I had made love the whole morning. I was totally fulfilled, shining and vibrating with the desire to live. It was a very, very strong experience. It felt like one flow. […] I was totally satiated and happy. It was very strange to have such an experience with myself without being touched sexually. It was very special to experience that. The tandava was blissful, really blissful. I have already done it a few times – once outside. That was really great. […] That taboo on making love to yourself. I felt how easy it is, how it is written on my body. This is making love to myself. You touch yourself in every part of your body. […] Also An’s suggestions, when we were outside: the wind you could feel, or hearing rustling leaves, it all became part of the meditation. That was blissful – everything, the little insects you could feel, I really loved that.
Besides self-touch, the workshop also featured intimate touch between women, most notably during the ritualized massage. As with the self-touch exercises, it was not part of a sexual act. Jolien was particularly outspoken on the importance of this possibility of touch between women beyond something sexual: For me it was really strong that I could touch a woman without it having to be sexual. I had a period in my life where I was strongly searching for my sexual orientation and where I experimented with what it was like to kiss and make love to a woman. It was so nice that [in the workshop] this could just be there, this curiosity, without having to fall in love or having to look for the intentions behind it. […] I just look for that touch, that hunger for the skin, to be touched, to touch; it is a way of getting contact, of connecting. I used to look at it in such a sexual way, like it is strange if you feel attracted to a woman. […] Now, for me it was, ‘Aha, it is a natural thing to want to be with women, also in intimate moments, and to be able to touch, to go into that softness’.
Conclusion
Research on the process of transmission of tantra to the West has highlighted how, from a spiritual, esoteric tradition understood in terms of energy and power, tantra has progressively transformed into a widely popularized phenomenon concerned primarily with sex and physical pleasure (Urban, 2006: 14, 93ff). This is easily confirmed by a quick online search of the term, where a focus on improved, more pleasurable sex is omnipresent and where crossovers with pornographic material are not absent. This was also echoed in my interviews: some women were initially hesitant to get involved with the retreats because they associated tantra with sex orgies. One woman had issues with her husband, who said she might as well become a prostitute. Several women opted for the women-only group due to the safety it offered, which they felt prevented them from sliding into unwanted sexual impostures.
This article was based on a case study of one particular women’s tantric workshop, which foregrounded the spiritual dimension of tantra. It argued that such an approach, in addition to offering a safe space for women to explore their sexuality, induced distancing from mainstream views of femininity and sexuality as revealed in current media. However, in line with the aforementioned sexualization of tantra in the West, the focus on sex as a goal-oriented performance of pleasure – even flirting with the pornographic – is definitely not absent from this kind of women’s retreat. During one of the evening sessions of a workshop I attended in the Netherlands, we were invited to put on ‘sexy’ clothing (a collection of which had been brought by the convener, of which some had S&M attributes) and dance in order to experiment with this view of femininity. An intimate massage, which was also part of the workshop, was mainly and quite directly presented as a way of freeing sexual blockages with the ultimate aim of experiencing a ‘valley orgasm’, a demonstration of which was given by one of the assistants. According to my observations, the mindset in which these exercises were carried out led mostly to an affirmation of the ‘porn look’ as the desired appearance for women and to a strengthening of the current assimilation of femininity with sexiness and a constant readiness for sexual activity and orgasmic pleasure. This counter-example shows the diversity that can be found within the field of tantric spirituality and highlights the need for, and relevance of, in-depth ethnographic research.