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I am so excited. CrashPad Series is sponsoring the Explore More Summit: Bodies Edition AND they sent me an exclusive audio clip of April Flores and Milcah filming a recent scene. You can hear the juicy details in the show this week. HEAR THE PORN!
If you want to hear more from April about porn and fat sex, she’s speaking at the summit which starts December 4th. It’s free and online, so sign-up today! We’ll spend 5 days going super deep into body politics, self acceptance, fat activism, diet culture, weight stigma, and shedding body shame so we can center our pleasure.
To see the line-up for the summit and to enroll, pop over to exploremoresummit.com. And if you want to see the VERY HOT scene with April and Milcah, head to CrashPadSeries.com and join today.
This week, Barbara Carrellas joins me to talk all about tantra. Her incredible, inclusive book, “Urban Tantra” just celebrated it’s 10 year anniversary by releasing an updated 2nd edition. The new edition includes tantra for asexual/aromantic folks and an entire chapter on erotic massage for trans and gender non-conformity bodies.
If you’ve listened to the show for any amount of time, you know that I adore this book and Barbara’s approach to tantra. And, this week’s episode gives you a delicious idea of why – it’s so inclusive, so open, so welcoming, and absolutely designed for you to customize it to fit your needs, desires, and life.
Tantra shouldn’t be about certain positions, heterosexual bodies, masculinity or femininity and certain genders because it’s a spiritual practice. And spiritual practices need to include everybody in every body.
Grab the 2nd edition of Urban Tantra RIGHT NOW.
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In this episode, Barbara and I talk about:
- The ten year anniversary of her incredible, inclusive book, “Urban Tantra.” It was ground breaking 10 years ago and the updates to the 2nd edition keep it in that ground-breaking category, still.
- What tantra is and how Barbara defines it based on her experiences and knowledge of it.
- Why Barbara thinks a critical question is, “Why do you do sex?” What is your why? Is it something a bit deeper than just because it’s fun?
- Actively cultivating moments of connection to self, to other, to God/god, to transcendence through sex and tantra.
- Why tantra doesn’t have to take hours and days, but can be something done in small moments and short bits of time in our every day lives. It’s about a sexual practice and mindful conscious choices more than 8 hour orgies.
- What happens when we take genitals off the table and explore sex without them? Barbara talks about full energy orgasms.
- Why Barbara created Urban Tantra and what it has to do with the AIDS crisis in the 80’s. When sex equals death, where do you turn?
- Sharing and learning from each other, especially when sexuality spaces have every kind of body, race, age, sexuality, and gender present.
- Cultural appropriation and the conscious sexuality movements, and how Barbara has reconciled the use of the word “tantra” as a Western white person.
- Why Urban Tantra is about creating your OWN version of tantra that serves you and your sexuality. Barbara’s vision is so inviting and inclusive.
- We dive into the newest chapter of Urban Tantra all about massage for trans and non-binary/gender non-conforming folks. We geek out about how she created erotic touch rituals for this rich variety of bodies and genders.
- What it looks like to experiment with erotic touch and massage – this part tickles me deeply. I want ALL of us to have this!!!!
- The 2nd edition of Urban Tantra now includes tips and updates for asexual and aromantic folks, which is wildly exciting.
- How to create your own sexual and erotic rituals, as well as where to look to find groups that might offer what you’re looking for.
- Breathgasms, angergasms, and energetic release – what is it and how do you do it? Barbara is an expert in this space and talks about it at length in Urban Tantra. Also, why focusing on your breath can be confronting and emotional.
About Barbara Carrellas:
Barbara Carrellas is celebrating the brand new second edition of her bestselling book, Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty First Century—the world’s first LGBTQ- and BDSM-inclusive Tantric sex book. She has also written Ecstasy is Necessary: A Practical Guide To Sex, Relationships and Oh So Much More, and Luxurious Loving. Barbara is the founder of Urban Tantra® — a philosophy, an international community, and an inclusive conscious sexuality practice—and the Urban Tantra® Professional Training Program, a comprehensive training program in the practice and application of conscious sexuality, supporting both personal and professional goals. She was named Best Tantric Sex Seminar Leader in New York City by Time Out/NY Magazine for her Urban Tantra® workshops, and was awarded a 2016 Sexual Freedom Award for Lifetime Achievement.
You can stay in touch with Barbara on Facebook and also on Twitter @UrbanTantrika.
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Episode Transcript
Dawn Serra: You’re listening to (You’re listening) (You’re listening) You’re listening to Sex Gets Real (Sex Get Real) (Sex Gets Real) Sex Gets Real with Dawn Serra (with Dawn Serra). Thanks, bye!
Hey, you. I am so excited for this week’s episode. Oh my god, so excited. Not only am I talking with Barbara Carrellas all about Tantra and you know if you’ve been listening to the show for any length of time how much I adore Barbara Carrellas and her approach to Urban Tantra. We talk about Tantra for trans and gender non-conforming bodies. We talk about Tantra for asexual and aromantic folks. We talk about what it’s been like since the book was first published 10 years ago. It is so fun. I share a little story about a masturbation circle. But, in addition to that, Crash Pad Series, which is one of those amazing feminist ethical porn companies that I’m constantly telling all of you to pay and buy your porn from, is sponsoring the Explore More Summit: Bodies Edition. As part of that sponsorship, they have given me an exclusive behind the scenes clip that includes part interview, part behind the scenes directing, part actual sex of April Flores and her partner, Milkha. They did a scene for Crash Pad that is so hot and so they’ve sent me this little behind the scenes clip that I’m going to play during this episode.
Dawn Serra: It’s hot and wonderful, and I love Crash Pad. So that clip is going to be in the middle of this episode, so you have to listen in for it. Of course, the reason they’re doing this is because they want more people who are in a variety of bodies to feel like the world is for them. They have fat performers and trans performers and disabled performers doing hot as fuck queer porn at the crashpadseries.com. So, of course, the Explore More Summit: Bodies Edition which starts December 4, is all about that – stopping with the diets and stopping with the shame and actually living delicious, sexual, beautiful, pleasure-based lives in the bodies that we’re in. So if you want to join the summit, it’s free. You go to exploremoresummit.com to sign up. If you want to see more from Crash Pad, you just go to crashpadseries.com. It was created and everything is directed by Shine Louise Houston, who’s the owner and founder of Pink and White Productions. I talked about Shine all the time too.
It’s based on this 2005 dyke porn cold classic called The Crash Pad which my girlfriend had back in the day. And it was the first time I’d ever seen queer porn that was real queer porn. So the series that you can join now online continues this story of a secret apartment in San Francisco that’s exclusively dedicated to hot queer sex. You get this voyeuristic supervision of what’s happening. So it’s through the eyes of the key master which is played by Shine Louise Houston. Basically, there’s all this lube and all these toys and it’s super hot. I will tell you more about the scene that you’ll hear from April and Milka later on in the episode, but you can go to crashpadseries.com.
Dawn Serra: So let me tell you about Barbara and then we will jump in. Barbara Carrellas is celebrating the brand new second edition of her best selling book Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for The 21st Century. The world’s first LGBTQ and BDSM inclusive tantric sex book. She’s also written Ecstasy is Necessary: A Practical Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Oh so much more, and Luxurious Living.” Barbara is the founder of Urban Tantra, a philosophy and international community and an inclusive conscious sexuality practice; and the Urban Tantra Professional Training Program, a comprehensive training program in the practice and application of conscious sexuality, supporting both personal and professional goals.
She was named Best Tantric Sex Seminar Leader in New York City by Timeout New York magazine for her Urban Tantra workshops, and was awarded a 2016 sexual freedom award for Lifetime Achievement. Barbara is a powerhouse of ideas and experiences, and I’m super excited. Stay tuned for that very hot exclusive behind the scenes clip later in this episode with April and Milka.
Dawn Serra: Welcome to Sex Gets Real, Barbara. I am so delighted to have you here today. Everyone has definitely heard me talk about your book. So this will be fun.
Barbara Carrellas: Hi there, Dawn. I am so excited to be here and be talking to you.
Dawn Serra: Okay, longtime listeners of the show will know that anytime someone writes in with a question about Tantra, the one and only book recommendation I make is for your Urban Tantra. I think it’s groundbreaking and amazing. And you’re getting ready to celebrate a second edition because it’s been out for 10 years.
Barbara Carrellas: It’s been out for 10 years, going on 11. I can’t believe it. Many people can’t, but it’s true. People are still so enthusiastic about it and it’s selling so well that it just screamed – I would look at it and go, “Oh my God, this was always a book that was supposed to be a bit ahead of its time and people have very happily caught up. It’s time to send it out further, dream more possibilities.” So that’s what I did and hence the second edition.
Dawn Serra: Well, for people who are new – I tend to get a lot of questions from people who go something like, “So I’m not really happy with my sex life. It’s gotten boring or dull. I’m thinking Tantra might be the way to go. How can I learn about it? How can I get started?” So for people who are maybe questioning, can we do a quick definition of Tantra as you know it?
Barbara Carrellas: Sure. Tantra is this humongously big ancient practice philosophy. It’s so vast, I don’t think you could find any two people with the same definition of Tantra. And that’s actually a good thing. I like unexplainable things. But for our purposes and for the people asking the question you just asked, it’s not very helpful and it’s why people get confused. For our purposes and in the Western world and today, I think of Tantra as a conscious spiritual practice that includes sexuality as one way of getting conscious, of becoming more mindful, of getting some practical down home in enlightenment. It’s a sexual practice with a strongly spiritual component. Spiritual to be defined in any way you think of spirituality, including for the atheist, as something that’s bigger than you. Maybe that could be collective consciousness or nature. It doesn’t have to be a deity. It’s that part of us that strives for a higher purpose, a self-actualization. Back to the sex.
Most of us have had many or most of us have had some – those of us who are sexual anyway – have had an experience with sex that took us to this expanded place of possibility, that was bigger than our earthly life, bigger than our everyday life. An aha moment. One of those moments that happens somewhere beyond the body, somewhere even beyond the mind where you are gifted with an insight or perhaps just a feeling of inner peace. Many of us have had moments connected with orgasm or post orgasmic states that take us there. And we would like more of those times and spaces. We particularly like to go there with someone else.
Barbara Carrellas: Tantra is a path to get there. The only path? No, because sex in itself is a path to get there. But it is a time-honored path to achieve these… Well, I call them connections. It doesn’t have to be connection to another person. Although, most people like that. I asked – this is only a slight digression – I like to ask the question, why do you do sex? Because first people look at me and go, “What do you mean, why do I do sex? What a dumb question.” Until they realize they can’t answer it all that fast. In listening to the “Why do people like sex?” or “What’s the one reason you do it? The one biggest overriding reason you do it?” People might say, “Well, I feel my most natural that way” or “I feel the most connected to another person that way,” or “I feel connected to spirit that way.” Or, “It’s absolutely great fun.” But most people go beyond the great fun to something a bit deeper, something a bit more meaningful, if you say. But what’s the biggie? Not just the fun, but what’s the biggie?
When I compile the hundreds and hundreds of answers I got to that question, over time, I realized that it did all boil down to connection – what differed was what people wanted to be connected to. Some people wanted to be connected to other people or another person. Some people wanted to be connected to whatever they termed God. Some people wanted to be connected to nature. Some people wanted to be connected to their inner selves, and this went on. So connection is a theme, but we all have a slightly different take on what we want to be connected to. But the bottom line is the practices of Tantra, which are incredibly simple, although it could obviously get esoteric and expanded. But the basic simple Tantra practices will take us to another state of being, someplace that is even beyond pleasure.
Dawn Serra: I love the “Another state of being.” I think so many of us stumble into those moments. So, this is an opportunity to actively cultivate those moments and to find ways to experience them…
Barbara Carrellas: On a regular basis.
Dawn Serra: Yeah.
Barbara Carrellas: I wanted to write down a way that people could do it in the time they had in their lives. Everything you hear about Tantra is stings, 8-hour lovemaking sessions, which are fabulous. But it implies that you need 8-hour to hit those states and you actually don’t. You can choose to spend 8-hour in that ether. Absolutely, but you don’t need that kind of time by any means to start appreciating the richness available from Tantra right away.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, I find that so many of the people who write to me with questions are struggling because they have trouble being present when they’re being intimate or when they’re getting into their erotic selves. And, I think so much of that is because we’re kind of mindless in all aspects of our lives. So it’s very difficult to be rushing through our days and not tending to our bodies and our sensations, and being present in little ways and then to suddenly expect that presence when we’re naked.
Barbara Carrellas: Exactly. Precisely. Yes.
Dawn Serra: So I love when you talk about this being a sexual practice, one of the things I love so much about your approach to all of this is how clear it is that this isn’t about having massive 8-hour orgies, which is fabulous if you can swing that. But the act of having a sexual practice is more about presence and energy and less about naked and genitals – unless that’s what feels right for you.
Barbara Carrellas: And if that’s where you want to concentrate and focus – absolutely. While you’re focusing there, with tantric practices, mindfulness, specific ways to be mindful, by the way, awareness of how energy moves in the body, use of breath – Even if you are the most genitally-focused person in the world, and that’s wonderful, you will discover that more and more of your body, of your being, starts to feel like a genital. It goes beyond genitals. So much of what we love about sex is not actually genitally-focused. We think that’s where all the action is.
In my workshops, many of them, certainly the introductory ones, I deliberately take the genitals out of the picture. Check them at the door, we won’t be using them. Make sure to pick up your own on your way out. And let’s look at all the things about sexuality that aren’t genitally-related. If we were to focus only on those, what would happen? Basically what happens is full body energy orgasms. The body is programmed. It’s in the wiring to have ecstatic and orgasmic experiences, whether or not genitals are involved. It’s the way we’re wired.
Barbara Carrellas: Wilhelm Reich suggested that orgasm was the body’s natural tension release system – more effective than any other human activity. Other people have seen it, of course, as a spiritual practice. Other people have seen it as a sport, frankly. But, the human body itself, even without its genitals, is capable of expanded orgasmic states. So, it just makes sense if you’re looking for something deeper, bigger, more intense, or anything else, really, or even quieter – that if you take your sexuality beyond your genitals, you will discover something magical. It’s just a fact.
Dawn Serra: One of the things that I love so much about what you just said, our bodies are inherently built for this kind of ecstatic pleasure. So much of our culture teaches us that you have to be a certain type of person that does a certain type of thing in order to deserve pleasure. So, you have to have worked really hard and you have to be in a certain kind of body, and you have to have a certain amount of wealth and success in order to deserve the luxury that is extended amounts of pleasure. So much of this is, not only accessible because of how you frame it all, but there’s this defiance and this liberation in saying, “No matter who I am or what I am or what I have access to, my body is ultimately built for this and I can explore that if I want to and I can center myself in that even if the whole world tells me I don’t deserve it.”
Barbara Carrellas: Oh, you’re on it. This is one of the main reasons I wrote the book. You’ve got it. Exactly. When I first started practicing Tantra, it wasn’t to have a better relationship with a beloved. It was because I was a theater professional in New York City in the middle of the AIDS crisis and everyone was dying, and sex equals death. I went to a support group where I met Annie Sprinkle and Joseph Kramer. Our combined question – our common question was, “What are we going to do about sex?” Tantra at that time, seeing the viable path. Jo was exploring Daoist sexuality, and Annie and I went off to explore Tantra. We were looking at Eastern forms of sexuality, because there seemed to be a lot more focus on energy and a lot less focus on the genitals. We couldn’t focus on the genitals without risking passing a deadly virus. So what was this energy stuff about? When Annie and I would go as a couple, we were lovers briefly, but mostly, we were co-explorers.
In traditional Tantra workshops of the day, facilitators will try to split this up because Tantra wouldn’t work unless it was a man and a woman. And everybody in these groups was very white. They all tended to be of a middle-ish class and there was– I couldn’t find people of color. I couldn’t find people of size. I couldn’t find queer people. I’m like, “What’s going on?” My passion became, as I started to see the immense benefits: healing, spiritual, physical, relational, of Tantra – my passion became, how can we expand this so that it’s available to everyone? I liked the idea of everybody recognizing each other’s innate hotness, each other’s innate beauty, and learning from each other. My dream early on was to get people of all sexual preferences, all genders, all colors in the room. I have to tell you, the first time it really was obvious in the room that this was starting to happen, was in London about – I don’t know, probably 8 years, 7-8 years ago, and I burst into tears. It was like, “Oh my god, when you dream it and it can happen.”
Dawn Serra: That can mean so many things.
Barbara Carrellas: I know. Isn’t that fun? And it was true. It was like, people who would otherwise never be in the room together around anything vaguely related to sexuality or eroticism were appreciating each other. Not necessarily doing anything with each other. There might be, at that time, the gay couple was over there and lesbian couple was over there, and the kinky couple was over there, and the witchy couple was over there and blah blah, blah, blah, blah. But, everybody was in the same circle and everybody was sharing.
Now, I mean, in my last professional training workshop in Sweden, it was so delightfully– By the end, by our last celebratory party ritual that we do, there wasn’t a cis heterosexual man that wasn’t wearing some feminine article of clothing, and there wasn’t a cis heterosexual woman who didn’t have something delightful strapped on. It was so completely cross-pollinated and I went, “Okay, this was my dream. A place for everybody to be fabulous and feel wonderful.”
Dawn Serra: Yeah, the updated introduction to Urban Tantra, you mentioned that in your most recent Urban Tantra Training Program who was in that group and it’s such an incredible list of a third of the group were people of color, ages from 20s to 60s, that there were trans, professional dominatrix, and cis male medical doctor, and a gay male sacred intimate, and an escort, and relationship coach, and social workers who work with indigenous folks, an ordained minister, a performance artist. I mean, it sounds like you’ve managed to create something that makes everyone feel like maybe there’s something, not only in this for me, but something that I can take back out into the world with this rich variety of professions.
Barbara Carrellas: The Professional Training Program is completely geared for that. It was my dream and it is my dream program. You and I were talking before we started recording this about the days in which we are recording this. We’re well aware that this is going to be heard in rerun for years, perhaps, replay. That we’re in a time where sexual consent, where sexual justice is about as up and out there as it has ever been. It’s my belief that there is no one answer. There is no one person, there’s no one revelation that is the answer. There may be a tipping point, but even tipping points, to define briefly that overused term – A tipping point is really where we come to a collective awareness that goes beyond the smaller group in which it had been known and discussed, and realized and taken, for granted into a much, much larger global awareness. We’re certainly that way in the Western world, I’ll qualify, that with sexual justice and issues of sexual harassment and sexual assault right now. It’s my belief that we need people in all our communities.
For instance, one of the reasons I wanted people from the differently abled-communities, people of color communities, people of size communities, and all the many other communities or communities that have been othered. The reason I wanted them in my community, as well as their own, is that even if I could get into all these other communities, to say what I’d like to say, to change things the way I’d like to see them change for the health and happiness of everybody – I’m not the best one to do it. Somebody from that community should be doing that. So, I would like to help inform, train, support people to go out and make the world a sexually and spiritually safer, happier, and healthier place. I am thrilled that my professional colleagues, my graduates of the Urban Tantra Professional Training Program are out in the world doing that. They inspire me every single day.
Dawn Serra: Gosh, I love Barbara. So I am interrupting this episode to now bring you this amazing behind the scenes clip from the Crash Pad series featuring April Flores and Milkha Healy. It’s Episode 234. So if you know Crash Pad series, all of their scenes and clips or episode numbers, so this is 234. And basically, April and her in real life, sweetie Milkha have this very hot scene and the key master tells us that April has brought us a bag full of her favorite toys. But her number one desire is to wrap her lips upon Milkha’s tender, raw, messy and sweet. They lose themselves in each other’s bodies with constant kissing, mixed in with slapping, spitting, and fisting. Milkha worships every inch of April, eventually making her squirt after playing with a few different toys. So what you’re about to hear is a behind the scenes clip, you’re going to hear some of the directors talking about camera angles. You’re going to hear some interview clips between April and Milkha. Then you’re also going to hear some moments of them kissing and fucking. So let’s listen in and be a little voyeurs to Crash Pad series. P.S., you will hear fucking and a magic wand vibrator, so be sure you’re using earbuds for this.
[Plays Audio of Crash Pad Series featuring April and Milka]
Milkha: April.
April Flores: Milkha.
Milkha: How was the scene today? How did you enjoy it?
April Flores: I enjoyed the scene very much because it was our first shoot together. That was really fun. I think exploring this dynamic – we’re new couples. So exploring our dynamic off camera has been fun, but also on camera. I feel like it’s going to always be evolving. So that was fun for me.
Milkha: Cool.
[Audio of Crash Pad Series featuring April and Milkha]
April Flores: What was most challenging about the shoot for you?
Milkha: What was the most challenging? I think at first I was like oh other people here. I’m so used to just being us. But otherwise, I forgot about the camera really quickly. I didn’t have a hard time opening up the lube bottles, but it seemed like you did.
April Flores: Well. I did because I had lube on my hands. It was a little challenging and trying to figure out. I guess that’s a good point. My challenging part was opening the lube while my hands are lubed.
Milkha: But yeah, I don’t think it was too challenging.
April Flores: No, I’m feeling super lucky right now.
[Audio of Crash Pad Series featuring April and Milkha]
April Flores: Milkha, what are your safe sex practices and why?
Milkha: My safe sex practices – I like to tell all my partners – Well, you. I have one partner. I like to tell you what kind of jobs I’m doing if I’m doing them. I always ask you if things are okay. If I’m trying something new, I check in more often. What about you?
April Flores: Safe sex practices – communication, barriers, condoms. That type of thing.
Milkha: Getting tested.
April Flores: Getting tested.
[Audio of Crash Pad Series featuring April and Milkha]
Milkha: Why do you continue to do porn?
April Flores: I continue to do porn, because I love expressing myself on camera. I also want to represent for people who might not feel like they’re visible on screen.
Milkha: Like who?
April Flores: Femmeboys and trans dudes who have not yet transitioned physically.
Milkha: I continue to do porn because it feels like it’s an extension of who I am. I do express my sexuality and express myself. It’s my artistic medium. I’ve been in it a long time, I shoot less frequently. But it’s just fun. It’s like my happy place. This is my happy place so I will never stop.
[Audio of Crash Pad Series featuring April and Milkha]
April Flores: Is there anything else you would like to say that we haven’t addressed today?
Milkha: I don’t know. I think we addressed everything.
April Flores: Yeah, I had fun. It was awesome to be here.
Milkha: Yes, lots of fun.
April Flores: Thank you Crash Pad.
Milkha: Thank you!
Dawn Serra: So there you have it – a behind the scenes clip of what it’s like to make a crashpadseries.com video featuring April and Milkha. Of course, you can go to crashpadseries.com and join their site if you want to see that very hot video featuring an Njoy and a magic wand among other things.
Also, if you’re looking for ways to learn more about how to ethically consume porn, how to introduce porn to a relationship, how to talk about the porn that you like with a partner, and how to use it to increase desire and flirting – I have a new porn workshop. It drops on December 1 and it’s pre-enrolling now. So if you head to dawnserra.com/porn, you can read all about the course, see a little video trailer that I made, and sign up. If you sign up before December 1 2017, you will get a bonus product with the class, some extended resources and questions to help you unpack and name all of your porn goodness. So I hope you will do that. Let’s get back to Barbara.
Dawn Serra: Because you’ve had this opportunity from when you first wrote the book to now releasing this new edition 10 years later, and you’ve had multiple professional trainings, and impacted so many people who are then going out into the communities and impacting people – having this beautiful butterfly effect. What has really changed for you and how you relate to this practice and this philosophy that you’ve cultivated around Urban Tantra? How has it grown or shifted in ways that surprised you?
Barbara Carrellas: I have finally– Tantra as a word and a concept, god, I’ve been so conflicted about it. Because it is, in fact, it began in India – 800 years ago and I have long felt a bit uncomfortable as a white Western woman of… Not trying to say, “We’re unilaterally changing Tantra to,” or “We’re doing traditional Tantra,” or that whole conundrum of cultural appropriation and trying to put a particular stamp on an ancient culture specific philosophy and practice. But recently, and because of everything that’s happened, I’ve just come to own Urban Tantra as its own invention, which is all it ever was. I took what I had learned of traditional Tantra, which is offshoots of a lot of different tantric practices that I’d learned from a lot of different teachers and said, “How is this applicable to the modern world?” There is now something that exists as Urban Tantra – as a community, as a practice, as a sacred sexuality or conscious sexuality umbrella under which a whole lot of other people feel comfortable sitting. I like that.
I like that we’ve been at the forefront of gender, of using tantric principles, and adapting tantric principles so that they’re available to support – Not only the transition, but also the being of people of all different genders. Being part of that revolution has been such an honor and so deeply exciting.
Barbara Carrellas: The other one is being part of the conscious, sacred spiritual BDSM revolution. When I first wrote Urban Tantra, putting BDSM in a Tantra book, was like, “What? What?” Only a handful of serious explorers – people like Dossie Easton were writing about that Nexus, that intersection. Now there’s Dark Tantra and conscious BDSM, and all these different groups with all these juicy names, and different permutations of those two conscious arts coming together. I’m super proud for being able to hold up the parasol under which those communities could find some space. I’m pleased that we can call something Tantra – with a modifier. I’m serious that Urban Tantra doesn’t have to be… It’s a different branch of Tantra. Let’s call it that.
It isn’t purporting and no longer has to purport to apologize for not being Indian guru-based. In fact, recently I got a call from some people in India, who wanted me to come and teach over 200 workshops. I said, “Are you getting the irony of this? I’m feeling a little weird about it. How are you doing with it?” Were like, “No, no. We want your brand.” The people who are calling me were modern – one of the modern Indian professional class. Urban Tantra had far more resonance for them than their traditional Tantra. So great. It’s something different.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. For years, I steered clear of Tantra because I had a variety of connections to it through others and felt… I don’t know, seven years, I was in a partnership with a trans person. And Tantra just didn’t seem like a place where I partnered to a trans person could possibly explore. That always made me angry and like, “Well, that’s ridiculous.” I’m also realizing BDSM is an important part of my mindfulness. It’s one of the places I go when I need to drop into my body. When I picked up your book, I don’t know, four or five years ago, and I realized, there’s space for all of these things. There’s words for some of the feelings I’ve had and knowing I don’t have to leave kink behind to explore this kind of mindfulness and consciousness. In fact, I’m already doing it and that your genitals and the size of your body – as someone in a fat body, there are definitely some books and guides out there that require positions that I just can’t do either comfortably or or mindfully for any period of time. Knowing I can modify and make myself comfortable so I can surrender. I mean, it just felt like I can land here and make it my own.
Barbara Carrellas: Exactly. Oh, perfect. Yes. Urban Tantra is an invitation to create your own individualized Tantra practice, and hopefully gives you the tools to change it up later when things change. That’s exactly what I was going for. It’s a principle for everything. All of us do in Urban Tantra, which is: the principles remain the same, the circumstances may change.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. Yes. I think that’s so important. Because so many of us are in bodies that are aging or acquire disability or just feel different because we had a kid – who knows what it is. Our relationships are constantly shifting because our lives are shifting so to have a practice that you can massage into whatever phase of your body and life you’re in, that feels so much more… I don’t know organic rather than just trying to force myself into a box which then, of course, gets me in my head and cuts me off from my pleasure.
Barbara Carrellas: Yeah, yeah. Or any hope of mindfulness or meditation or anything else you might have been going for.
Dawn Serra: Right. So you have a new chapter in the new edition that’s on erotic massage for trans and gender non-conforming folks that I am so excited exists.
Barbara Carrellas: There’s a video too.
Dawn Serra: Oh! Awesome!
Barbara Carrellas: I made a video. It’s called Transcendent Bodies. In partnership with my My dear friend, Joseph Kramer, who has the School of Erotic Massage and Orgasmic Yoga and a bunch of online online teachings. He encouraged me to do a video on massage for trans and gender non-conforming people. I can’t turn down a request from Joseph Kramer. So it exists and it’s on my website, barbaracarrellas.com. Just go to online classes. It’s an illustration, pretty much, of the chapter I wrote, which is… Erotic awakening massage had always been back in its days as we practiced it for some decades. There was one for people with penises and one for people with pussies. I like the alliteration, that’s why there’s Ps there. Although I was able, in my first edition, to say not men and women, but people with pussies and people with penises – I went that far with gender. Ten years later, there was a huge need to go further. What about bodies that are neither?
I had done a survey on how trans and gender non-conforming people feel about their genitals and we’re still working through – it was a big survey, some 900 people took it. And we’re still working through the results of that survey. But suffice it to say that there was a fair percentage of people who were struggling, trying to find a path back to sexuality in bodies that were experiencing a gender change of whatever kind. So in my professional training program and with the help of my trans colleagues in those programs, we had the space to experiment. Through those experiments, we devised an approach to touch and erotic touch, that invited trans and gender non-conforming people to rediscover or discover for the first time in some cases, where their eroticism was and how it moved in their current bodies; whether those bodies were in a gender that they were now happy with, or whether those bodies were in transition to a gender that they would be happy with. And it was so exciting and so moving. I don’t think I’ve ever cried as many– Oh my god, all emotions coming at once kind of tears as I did, than in the development of that massage. It was so beautiful. I’m so grateful to the trans colleagues who contributed so much to that. But yes, you can read it in the new edition, you can see it on the video, whichever appeals to you most.
Dawn Serra: I think it’s important for all of us to have that permission too. For trauma survivors, there might be some words that are really triggering about your own genitals and about your own pleasure. So being able to distance ourselves a little bit from the supposed tos around language, to really focus on how does your body work and what feels good and how can we maximize pleasure and maximize energy. That’s really the feeling I get from that chapter of like, “Here’s some basics. Let’s kind of talk about how it’s all the same.”
Barbara Carrellas: We’ll tell the listeners who haven’t read it yet what it’s like. We take away all the traditional names for genitals and we focus on what’s the tissue and what sensations does the tissue enjoy. That’s one basic, and we don’t make any assumptions about what the bits like, because we’ve touched bits that might look like those before. We start with what I call an intentional naivete. And we ask and we experiment, and we get, to some extent, very four years old, “What does this do?” about it. We have no expectation for a given response, whether that’s orgasm or anything else. We just experiment and if it feels good, we do more and if it doesn’t we stop immediately. We honor the emotions that come up.
You know what it turned into? I know you know this but for everybody else listening, Dawn. It turned into the erotic awakening massage for absolutely everybody. It’s like, we don’t need the first two. But technically, I realized, the one that taught pussy strokes and cock strokes are valuable because they teach you how to be precise in your approach and your touch with genitals. Because many of us had early sexual experiences where no one was being precise, to say the least. It teaches a precision, and then when we get to the erotic awakening massage for trans, gender non-conforming, and everybody people – you’re asked to to to unlearn them. Of course, you can’t unlearn what you already know. The knowledge is in your hands and it’s good that it is. you just
Barbara Carrellas: Unlearning is an actual educational phrase. Unlearning is, “Okay, I learned that but now I’m forgetting it and I’m moving into a new headspace.” It’s a delightful thing even if you are not trans or gender non-conforming. You might find this massage deeply, deeply instructive, healing, and fun.
Dawn Serra: As you are talking, the thing that I can’t let go of is, what if from the youngest of ages that formula was what we were offered for how to approach our own bodies and the bodies of others?
Barbara Carrellas: Wouldn’t that be cool?
Dawn Serra: Yeah. What if we didn’t expect that our cocks would be raging hard cocks or a certain size? Or that our pussies would get certain levels of wet or that our partners would have certain kinds of orgasms from certain positions? I mean, what if we just approached each and every moment like this, “What might happen today?” “What would feel good?” And let’s create from there.
Barbara Carrellas: Maybe, those of us who are sex educators, and I know they listened to this podcast, what if we all made a little commitment in the back of our minds, that we would find spaces however small or short in life where we could do that? Where even in our work, we could model that, that that might be a very cool thing to start doing – to have erotic spaces where we could approach touch, and relationships with that genuine naivete. That would be a very cool experiment of an afternoon, wouldn’t it?
Dawn Serra: It would be amazing and it would ease so much pain and shame, which is the vast majority of the emails I get.
Barbara Carrellas: Yeah, pain and shame.
Dawn Serra: Pain and shame.
Barbara Carrellas: I often say that my job is to give people permission and possibilities.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, yeah. It’s powerful stuff.
Barbara Carrellas: Pain and shame.
Dawn Serra: Pain and shame is rampant. Another thing that you’ve done with this edition of the book, that I’m so excited about, is you specifically mentioned that there are sections of the book that offer asexual and aromantic folks an opportunity to explore Urban Tantra within the framework of their experiences, and how to modify touch and erotic energy without having to do something that maybe feels out of alignment. What was that like for you to get to…?
Barbara Carrellas: I starting to get people who say, “I think I am pretty asexual or I’m pretty aromantic, but I think Tantra offers possibility so I’m here to explore.” Or I would or they sign up for a coaching session with me with that as the intention. Everybody’s flavor of aromanticism or asexuality is a bit different. I wanted to present Urban Tantra exercises, partner exercises specifically, and opportunities to get what you wanted out of a relationship. Maybe you wanted a deep friendship. Maybe you wanted an erotic relationship, but without the romance overlay. There I realized that there were so – it was such a fun creative process to go, “Oh, wow. How would this work? Would this – it would!” Then I suggest it and let people figure it out for their own personal selves. I always ask people, “If you discover something by walking down one of the paths offered in Urban Tantra, please write to me, let me know how it goes. I’m curious.” Because you’ll find something that I’m sure that, not having walked that exact path and that exact way, I wouldn’t find and then I can share it with others.
So asexuals and aromantics, and more than two. So many of the partners of the tantric sex I’m positions I learned about moving energy between people, of course, only limited it to two. People coming to my workshops going, “Hey, that’s not my reality.” Or people coming to my workshops going, “I don’t have a partner.” Hey, want to work in threes? Want to work in fours? Suddenly people – no body wounded up without a partner. Then people had to figure out, “Okay, here’s how the energy moves with two people?” How might that move with three? How would you position yourself? What would be your role if two people were doing this and you were sitting out? What’s going on for you? How could you participate? How can you turn up your witnessing skills so that that becomes a participation? All sorts of juicy questions came up with multi partner Tantra play.
Barbara Carrellas: I hoped to find – my intention is to continually invite more and more people to the Urban Tantra table. If you can’t see a place for yourself, write to me and I’ll try to open a window for you. If I haven’t yet, because that’s my job and it’s my passion.
Dawn Serra: I love how you’ve made space for different configurations of bodies and relationships to be in this. Because I think often the conversations we have about sex, especially in mainstream pop media, pop culture stuff, is a pretty narrow definition of the ways that we experience sex and love. I remember a couple of years ago, I went to a women’s/femme play party and there was a lesbian couple there, one of whom was nine months pregnant. And they wanted to do a group erotic ritual – honoring the one that was about to give birth. A few of us weren’t in a place where we wanted to have sexual exchanges, but we wanted to be part of the erotic energy.
It was this beautiful moment of the couple in the center were naked and clasping each other, and a close friend of theirs pressed their body against theirs, and they started moving and pulsing, and then two or three of us surrounded them and masturbated, and we all were calling out and making this noise. It ended up being this nurturing, powerful, gorgeous ritual where none of us actually had actual touching of each other. But it still felt unbelievably powerful, and giving people the space of– There’s endless possibilities. I think that’s so much of what you offer of, we can make this look however we want as long as it feels good. and everybody’s on board.
Barbara Carrellas: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Again, it’s permission. A lot of these things are things that people have – like your masturbation circle around a couple. This could exist in someone’s fantasy easily, but they would never think that they could find the group in which they could make that happen. Just giving people permission to go with these organic erotic creations. That can happen if you just look outside your safe little world for a moment and go, “Who might be doing a sexuality circle?” Then you can fill in your flavor topic or gender or style.
One thing that I did this summer I’m just going to give a shout out to the Body Sex Groups. Betty Dodson, this summer, held a retreat in upstate New York for the first generation of Body Sex facilitators. She’s handing over the reins. She’s in her very late 80s. Betty. She’s handing over the reins to the hottest group of women worldwide, who are holding Body Sex circles for women, and they are all over the world. We have people there from all over the world. So if what Dawn just described sounds good for you, look up Body Sex, or start at dodsonandross.com, and find yourself a body sex circle with masturbating in a circle of incredibly powerful women is your thing. Boy, will you have a good time – unsolicited, unpaid commercial, my friend.
Dawn Serra: We welcome it.
Barbara Carrellas: Most of Betty’s Body Sex circles are 10 people because that was the size of our living room. We had 35 at this retreat. It was the largest erotic recess masturbation circle we’d ever had. It was pretty freakin fabulous. There’s a Betty Dodson story about a Body Sex Group, in fact, in the adventurous section of Urban Tantra,
Dawn Serra: Just bringing it all back because it’s amazing.
Barbara Carrellas: It’s great work, it’s great work.
Dawn Serra: Yeah. So I would love to close. I know one of the things you’re so known for is breathgasms and ecstatic energy movement, where you don’t have to be naked or even touching yourself to have these really powerful, erotic, ecstatic experiences. For someone who hasn’t yet started exploring breath and the relationship that breath has to be erotic, I’d love it if you could share a little bit about why red is important and how we can use it to get more in touch with our pleasure and potential.
Barbara Carrellas: That’s the closing question?
Dawn Serra: Thought I’d make it nice and easy.
Barbara Carrellas: I’ll try to be brief. You know how hard that is for me on this topic. Breath is quite simply the secret to your greatest aliveness. You really can have a full body or type of orgasm – orgasmic experience, just by breathing. It’s mastering this technique, which is not that hard, by the way, and there’s a lot of different ways you can do it. It’s written about in instructions in detail in the book on my website. There’s a free download of how to do it. Orgasms with spirit, my online course, walks you through it in detail. It’s not hard to learn. When you learn it, you’ve learned so much of everything Tantra – tantric sex is about. It’s all in that technique.
One of the most important things about learning the infinite possibilities of breath is that breath can change, contain, and expand everything. Frankly, look at it this way. You know how when you’re trying to be erotic, but all the thoughts from the outside world get into your head like the email you didn’t write, the garbage didn’t take out, the pet you didn’t walk, you get it? If you can, we were talking about mindfulness, if you can switch your mind to an erotically constructive thing to do, you give your mind something erotically constructive to think about – something that supports your pleasure, as opposed to detracts from it. And that thing that you can think about is breathing a bit more fully and deeply than you usually do. That’s it.
Barbara Carrellas: Breathing a bit more fully and deeply than usually do, all the time. But it’s especially when you’re being sexual with yourself or with someone else. I suggest that everybody try it while you’re masturbating. Do you notice when you’re holding your breath? And don’t hold your breath, breathe through it and see where you go. The first thing you’ll say, and you’ll email me about it, so I’ll answer it now is, “Oh, I was about to orgasm and you told me to breathe and when I stopped holding my breath and started to breathe, the orgasm ran away.” AYeah, I know. But keep breathing and it will come back, and it’ll come back bigger and stronger. It’s a great way of teaching yourself to breathe because not breathing as we approach orgasm is a habit. So we have to re-pattern that body response. So breathe. That’s my big tip, breathe. The breath will teach you the energy to answer Dawn’s question.
Dawn Serra: I also want to throw out – there have been a couple of times, especially early on when I started playing with breath while I was in a space of masturbation or sex, where I had some really uncomfortable feelings come up.
Barbara Carrellas: Good one. I’m glad you brought this up. Keep going.
Dawn Serra: Because by noticing I wasn’t breathing and then starting to breathe, I was forced to become very present and embodied. That was really confronting and even really, really scary sometimes, and having to grapple with those feelings was interesting and powerful.
Barbara Carrellas: I like to say let the sad feelings become crygasms. Let the angry feelings become angergasms, especially when you’re by yourself. You can have feargasms, and they will all eventually turn into gigglegasms, if you just keep going. Honestly.
Dawn Serra: Yeah, because I think so many of us have trained ourselves to contain and tap down really powerful emotions. That being present, especially when you’re present and someone’s either witnessing you or your present and the pleasure is in a much bigger or newer way than you thought. I have definitely had some of those big teargasms happen, and also this grief too.
Barbara Carrellas: Yeah, grief gasms. Emotions come up on breath and they come up during orgasm if we don’t stop them down. The fact that all orgasms is supposed to be delightful, giggly-laugh experiences is a myth. Because anytime you go into that completely into that sort of tension and energy release, all sorts of emotions will come flying out. And that’s a good thing. It’s actually a fun thing.
Dawn Serra: Especially when you start learning how to channel that. But that takes practice.
Barbara Carrellas: That’s our next podcast together.
Dawn Serra: Yes. Perfect. Well, I would love it if you would share with everyone how they can stay in touch with you online and also how they can grab a copy of the new book.
Barbara Carrellas: The second edition is released on Amazon and Barnes and Noble in the United States on the 21st of November 2017 and on December 12, in Britain. I’m still waiting to hear the Australian date, but the Kindle is available either now or momentarily. Please come visit me at barbaracarrellas.com. That’s two R’s and two L’s in Carrellas and come to a workshop. Sign up for my free gifts and newsletters, and enjoy Urban Tantra: the second edition.
Dawn Serra: I will have all of those links in the show notes for this episode. So folks can click right through and grab a copy of the book and sign up for all your goodies. I want to thank you so much for coming on the show, Barbara, this time flew by.
Barbara Carrellas: I know. Thank you, Dawn. I always love talking with you. We solve the world’s problems when we talk. We must do it more often.
Dawn Serra: I agree. I would love that. That’s pure delight for me. Yeah. To everybody who listened, I hope you had fun. I hope you loved it, if you haven’t already from my copious previous mentions of how amazing I think Urban Tantra is. I do hope that you will check it out now especially with this new delicious chapter and these wonderful additions. If you have any comments or questions head to dawnserra.com and shoot me a note. You know I love hearing from you. Until next time, I am Dawn Serra with Barbara Carrellas. Bye.