First question:
Hormones are huge. As men experience a drop in testosterone, they may ‘soften’ their masculine drive and become more interested in the emotional, inner realm. At midlife, women step off the 28-day fertility cycle and often discover a deep well of creative energy that can be channeled into projects that we never got around to while raising children and building careers. This phase of life is a wonderful opportunity to redefine our sexuality. But sadly, because the hormonal support is lessening, it’s easy to just give up, especially if there has been discord in our intimate relationships, or sexual wounding at some point.

I’ve been learning lately about the ‘inner marriage.’ This is about reconciling the imbalances that we have carried in our own masculine/ feminine energies. For a woman, it’s about finding her internal feminine power that is untouched by the ancient oppressions and includes empowered sexuality as a creative and healing component. This is more likely to happen as we enter middle age and disengage from the baby-making crazies (whether we want babies or not, our bodies are biochemically and emotionally preparing for a pregnancy, once a month, for about 30 years).

Second question:
Both men and women can make lovemaking more creative by taking out the agenda of attaining orgasm, and for men, ejaculation. There is the whole body - a sensual playground to explore - not just the genitals. Role and fantasy play, practicing restraint for a few days, but staying heart connected and charged, finding new places, positions, toys, food…there are endless possibilities. If a couple is bored in their sex life, it’s because they have a narrow interpretation of what sex is, and are probably limiting their encounters to a pattern that may work for bringing both to orgasm, but is not particularly intimate or heart-connected, especially for the woman. I have a series of sessions that focus on bringing the passion and magic back into long term partnership.

Jade,

The creative lovemaking bit reminds me of the concept of 'presence'. Like anything else, unless you give time and attention to something, in other words, you're present with it, it isn't going to flourish. Creativity and 'charged' sexual intimacy takes nurturing like anything else. It's so easy to get busy and distracted and leave it to chance. Not exactly conducive to that connection.

And, I hadn't thought of the biology going on with men's hormones causing a softening of their masculine side.Very interesting. Could that be why so many men in their 50s seem to be 'slowing down' with regard to life in general? More so than women anyway.

A thought occurred to me that for us women, as our ability to pro-create is on the wane, maybe some of that creative energy is also freed up to turn to other things. Maybe why we often feel the need for new creative outlets perhaps?

"Wilhelm Reich was right that if we can bring orgasm back to humanity almost 90% of diseases will immediately disappear...like dewdrops in the morning sun." Osho

Sexual energy is the same as Life Force. It’s what gets us all here. Because of the shame, confusion and guilt about our sexuality, we have relegated it to a little compartment that we peek into on occasion. Tantra teaches how to develop awareness of sexual energy in the entire body, not just the genitals, and methods for moving it and using it for healing purposes. This healing can happen at all levels: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.

The sexual act is sacred. It is two people coming together to join their creative juices. Birth, death and sex are all sacred ground. They are key events that walk us into out-of-the-ordinary reality. They are dark, mysterious and often full of potential danger. The possibilities of bringing the presence of the Divine into intimate encounter are so big that the practices of sacred sex can end war. If people are at peace in their personal relationships, then they don’t project their conflicts onto the world at large. This is what keeps me working in this field of healing, even though it is very hard at times. I can’t avoid my own deep work, and this arena of healing is very charged for people, so they often avoid the work.

There is tremendous misunderstanding about what tantra is about. The true purpose of tantra is to give people a way to access ‘oneness’ through the merging of masculine/ feminine energies: a healing of duality, in a way. This allows us to lose our sense of self as separate from all that exists - all very esoteric, until you actually experience a full-body orgasm and have love-making sessions that open into an expanded sense of freedom, joy and connection. Then you can see what’s possible.

Yes, things need time and attention to flourish. This is one of the biggest obstacles that I see in my work with couples: not enough time. But the truth is, we all have the same amount of time in a day. It’s really a matter of priorities. When I ask couples what the most important thing is in their lives they will usually reply, “My family,” or “My relationship with my wife/ husband.” Then we look at how much time is dedicated to being with that person (running errands and grabbing fast food together doesn’t count!) and it is usually near the bottom of the list.

Presence is a wonderful thing to learn, and difficult to even describe. It takes slowing down and breathing into the present moment in a way that our culture does not support. There are always a dozen things trying to snag our attention. We are constantly projecting into the future or accessing the past in ways that burden us. The task of accepting all that exists in this moment and simply being with it is a real challenge for most of us. We are constantly placing our attention on what’s next, or what happened yesterday.

Tantric practices cultivate our ability to be present in the moment. A man who learns to accomplish this is especially attractive to women. There is a part of every one of us that craves this sort of attention. Part of the task is to let go of our own mind chatter, thinking about how we’ll respond to someone as they talk. Deep listening skills can be cultivated by studying mediation (conflict resolution), non-violent communication, and also, for listening to our internal voice, meditation.

I made a spiritual commitment over 30 years ago to fall in love with everyone I meet. This is a cultivation of full presence in each encounter, whether it’s with a lover, a friend, or the guy taking my money at the grocery store. It happens with non-judgmental eye contact and being open to that person’s essence. This consciousness does not need to be returned, but sometimes it ‘awakens’ people in a way that they may never have experienced before. During the years that I taught in prison, many murderers passed through my classes. Some of them had never been looked at with non-judgment. It’s not that I approved of their crime, behavior, personality, but I could separate who they are from what they had done, and always see that spark of the divine in their eyes.

Men in their 50’s do experience a decline in testosterone, and often they are burned out from so many years of constant pushing and struggle, to get ahead, compete, achieve, accomplish. If a man has not taken care of himself, eats bad food, doesn’t exercise, works hard and rarely plays, he can have a major crash and many health concerns by his 50’s. This is a time when women are learning to say “No,” and monitor their energy levels (we have to, so that we get through menopause without complete collapse). So women are at a place where they can begin to practice more self-care, and men generally don’t have a clue about how to nurture themselves.

It's a shame we've created such mixed messages about sex in our culture. Anyone should be able to see what a mysterious, magical aspect of human experience it is. We create with it, we take great pleasure in it, we join with someone else not possible in any other way. And, as you point out, join with the Divine through it.

I've noticed that men in their 50s seem to be gearing down...and thought it made sense since they've been slugging it out to make a living etc for a long time. I know so many midlife women though who are gearing up, big time. It's an interesting contrast, and a hard one for those of us women who are still vital, growing exponentially, and definitely gearing up for take off :)

You've given a high level view of tantric practice, but can you tell us some specifics? Talk about mysterious, I have only the vaguest sense of what it is. I always think different sexual positions, but it sounds like much more than that.

As men get older and their testosterone levels are no longer blazing, the biological imperative to plant seed is less of a motivation. They begin to need another kind of connection, a passion that is born of intimacy. Some of them don't understand what is going on and they think their "dick is broken." Others realize they need to be more deeply emotionally involved and begin to try to understand women and relate more from a woman's perspective. It is at this point that men can become profound lovers.

If, however, they are experiencing erectile dysfunction, that problem must be corrected. And in most cases during middle age, systemic toxicity and malnutrition are the primary contributing factors. The first sacrifice a man makes when his health is suffering is his sex drive. When essential organs like the heart and lungs are suffering, they borrow energy from the gonads and it affects the sex drive.

In order to restore youthful sexual functioning, you have to restore vibrant health. The best place to start treating the epidemic of hormonal deficiency due to toxemia and malnutrition is by taking Iodine. Iodine specialists start people at four drops in a glass of water twice daily. It will cause systemic detox and companion nutrients may be needed to alleviate herxheimer reaction.

In addition to being a sexologist, I am a Naturopath. I have helped many men restore their erectile function by therapeutic supplementation with Iodine. The side effects are better health, greater vitality, higher energy levels, enthusiasm for life, etc.