In the section of chapter three titled ‘A Western Scientific Explanation for Sacred Sex’, I mention Dr. Lilly’s work on the different pleasure-parts of the brain. The fact that the portions of the brain that are responsible for orgasm and ejaculation are not one and the same was a well-known fact to Taoists and Tantrics. The implications of this are, of course, quite an eye-opener for many men. Imagine being able to have multiple orgasms and not ejaculate! The good news is that this is not only possible but, in fact, is not all that difficult to learn. It just needs a willingness to cast aside some old beliefs as well as some dedicat- ed practice.
So, should a man ejaculate at all if he loses so much energy from it? This is, not surprisingly, one of the most hotly-discussed topics when it comes to the practice of Dual Cultivation. Some of the most detailed advice in the Taoist 94 Beyond Tantra – Healing Through Taoist Sacred Sex
literature does suggest reducing ejaculation frequency during the winter and allowing it to increase in the summer when there is more energy available in our environment. There are also guidelines which state that the older a man gets, the less he should ejaculate. However, I recently read an article from a (living) Chinese Taoist adept who explained that semen retention is no longer as impor- tant as it was. His explanation was that our diet has improved so much in the last hundred years that we no longer need to be as worried about losing vital life- energy since we have access to all of the nutrition we need now. This does assume that people are eating a healthy diet, of course!
My own experience is that, if you delay your ejaculation and raise the ener- gy level of your Sexual Qi by circulating your energy, when you do finally ejac- ulate, you feel much less depleted. At the end of the day, each man can experi- ment to discover exactly what works for him. The important thing is that it is very useful to be able to make conscious choices about when, or if, to ejaculate.
Mieke’s Story
So now it was time for the Jade Stalk Massage! We had been focusing a lot of our attention on me in our sessions, but now it was time for Stephan to be on the receiving end.
I read the instructions for the Jade Stalk Massage carefully. I tried to memo- rize it, as I did not want to sit there with the book next to me. It would take the flow out of it. The first time I tried, the massage did not flow very well, partly because it was new for me and partly because Stephan reached out to touch my nipples and my clitoris. It distracted me and I couldn’t give him my full atten- tion, which was necessary to make a success out of this exercise to give Stephan the experience of receiving, of allowing the energy to rise, of relaxing into it and letting it rise again.
I suppose men are different, but I still wanted him to have the experience I had had in many sessions before. It did not work out very well this time, but I told myself, ‘we’re learning, and there is always another opportunity to try again!’.
So, one night I told Stephan: ‘Tonight I’m in charge. You just make yourself comfortable. Lie here; you are not allowed to do anything! It seems to me that when you are busy ‘doing’ you can’t be with yourself in full awareness’. The game was for me to give a Jade Stalk Massage and then test Stephan on his ability to refrain from ejaculating, but in a playful way. He does like a challenge once in a while so he said ‘yes’ to my idea and it turned out to be great fun.
95 Jade Stalk Massage – The Background
The Jade Stalk Massage flowed much better this time. I reminded Stephan regularly to breath deeply, to relax his pelvis, to do his circulation, etc. I found I could work better when I wasn’t being fondled; I could pay better attention to Stephan. It took my full awareness to feel when to stimulate and when to slow down a bit. The aim of the exercise was to stimulate close to the point of no return and to delay ejaculation. I stopped worrying about following the book and tried all the things that I knew have stimulated Stephan in the past. I needed to watch his reactions very carefully. One of the signs I could rely on was that his eyes would widen when the excitement got strong. After a while, I noticed that Stephan was becoming a bit stiff since he was working hard on keeping himself from touching me. I told him to move his arms and legs a bit to loosen up again. Of course, it was all right for Stephan to touch me without stimulating me. Touch was important to maintain the contact between us.
It turned out to be one of the wilder sessions. But, fascinatingly enough, Stephan experienced several orgasms and managed not to ejaculate until much later. I was really proud of him, and pleased with myself too.
Stephan’s Story
As I mentioned in my story in the Circulate Sexual Qi chapter, ejaculation control was definitely on the agenda when Mieke and I started doing Dual Cultivation exercises. I honestly don’t think I lasted more than about five min- utes in the beginning, which was quite disappointing for both of us. Learning to draw Sexual Qi up the spine helped a great deal but I soon realized that there was more work to be done. So, as usual, I went back to the books. This time I read about the Neo-Tantric Jade Stalk Massage which, in theory, was an opportunity to learn how to manage the ejaculation impulse and also separate orgasm from ejaculation. I was sceptical. I mean, I thought ejaculation was orgasm! But it sounded like a brilliant concept and I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it.
So Mieke went ahead and arranged an evening when we would give it a try. She set up our Sacred Space with nice music, a fire and some incense.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘Now it’s your turn.’
We started with a nice, relaxing back massage for me. ‘Now it’s time to turn over,’ she said.
I did and reached out to touch her. I really like touching Mieke and I can get quite excited when I do.
‘Uh-uh,’ she said. ‘Tonight I do the touching. You just lie down and relax.’ 96 Beyond Tantra – Healing Through Taoist Sacred Sex
Whoops. This was something new. I was used to being able to do what I wanted, when I wanted and I wasn’t at all used to this situation. It wasn’t that I had any objections to the idea, it’s just that it felt really strange.
Mieke started the Jade Stalk Massage. It was lovely and after a while I start- ed to feel excited, especially when I got an erection. I reached out and touched her leg.
‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘Relax. Keep breathing!’
Wow. I didn’t even realize what I had done. I suddenly saw that during my whole life what had happened when I got excited was that I always ‘did’ some- thing. I literally did not know how to simply relax and be excited.
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘If I just relax I’ll probably lose my erection.’ ‘That’s OK,’ she answered. ‘I don’t mind at all.’
Well, that was something new as well. All of a sudden I realized that I had a deeply-held belief that once I had an erection, I had to keep it. I believed that otherwise the woman would feel like I had lost interest and that she would go away or not want to have sex anymore or something like that. My arms that refused to stay still demonstrated this clearly to me. I had a very enjoyable Jade Stalk Massage that evening and did my best to relax and keep breathing.
The next week we had one of our normal Sacred Sex sessions scheduled, which usually followed a pattern of Yoni Massage, Jade Stalk Massage and a love- making session that might also contain some experimentation with anything new we had read about lately. As we started to get ready, Mieke said:
‘I’d like to do things differently this evening.’ ‘Really?’ I replied. ‘How?’
‘Well, I noticed last week that it was really difficult for you to keep your hands to yourself when I was working on Jade Stalk. It seems like you always have to do something or you don’t stay excited.’
‘Hmmm. That’s probably true,’ I said.
‘Well, let’s do something very different tonight. Tonight you aren’t allowed to do anything, and I mean anything, at all. I’m in total control and you just lie there and relax,’ she said.
I can honestly say that that was one of the most memorable Sacred Sex ses- sions that I’ve ever had. It totally turned my view of myself upside down as I real- ized that I, too, could receive. I also realized that Mieke loves to give, which is something I had completely missed all those years when I was so busy ‘doing’.
97 Jade Stalk Massage – Stephan’s Story