Tantra massage Prague, Ltd. – Tantra massage versus erotic services
The daily paper Metro released an article with a headline „There is almost a hundred brothels in Prague, but it is hard to find pleasure on street“. Well, being a social pedagogue I accepted the information as quite positive because despite the bad reputation of the mentioned houses things were always much safer. So I nodded my head, had a sip of coffee and read more without any raised attention. That lasted only until I came to the paragraph starting with the following words: „Apart from massages tantra saloons offer also sex“ with an extra information “... Tantra saloons are a recent trend offering special erotic massages and other services for an extra fee.“ First I got upset about the author´s daring to relate tantra philosophy with mere prostitution and soon became sad and frustrated about the fact there is some truth in the statement. Yet the author left out the quotation marks with the word tantra mentioned with such businesses and if it was up to me, the word tantra would never be spoken in connection with erotic service. So how is it actually with sexuality in tantra massage? Why tantra sex cannot be offered in a commercial way? Let me explain why services offered by erotic parlours labelled as tantra massage have nothing in common with tantra in the article below.
Basic principles of tantra massage
A massage is quite a fascinating technique. Healing through touching as we know it from the legends of holy men in our culture and many others where they are represented by shamans, magicians, medicine men and others, is nothing unreal at all. During a friendly physical contact with another man, even if it comes to a banal handshake, our body starts producing endorphins called the hormones of happiness. They improve our mood, relax us and calm any pain. A number of research have been done into the efficacy of treatment describing the patients receiving touching, for example nurses holding their hands, stroking their faces or shoulders, are healing lot faster than those with similar or higher quality of care but less tactile stimuli. Hence we could say human touch is healing per se. By connecting perfect anatomy knowledge, understanding philosophy and inner relations between psychological and physical human levels, a massage becomes almost a miraculous technique aspiring to aid healing abilities of human body and with much positive psychological influence.
A concept of tantra massage combines within the best massage techniques such as Hawaii, Thai, Ayurveda or some European styles such as bio dynamic massage. The sequence of movements and touches follows the places in body that bear painful memories or store residual substances of stress moments. We tend to forget and block out many and especially the painful moments in our lives, which of course does not mean they are gone. Our body has the ability to remember everything. A Norwegian psychologist and the founder of bio dynamic psychotherapy, Gerda Boysen, talks about so called muscle armour. Various tight places in body reflect old wounds of the soul. These blocks hold us back not letting us live fully; on the other hand we need to realise these memories were created for a reason. Same as the armour is supposed to keep a hero safe from attack; it also limited comfort and movement. Psychotherapeutic massage can dissolve these blocks and realises their reasons and vulnerability of a human. The whole tantra massage ritual is established so that in the spirit of tantra philosophy it allows a receiver who is massaged to enjoy the contact with his or her body, with sensitive and safe guidance of tantra therapist. Acceptance is one of the main ideas of tantra; a complete and non-judgemental acceptance of a man; the body and soul including sexuality. Tantra claims using full potential of a human body that is also an ability to rejoice and feel pleasure. A massage teaches a receiver to realise own sexuality, become aware of body’s reactions to various stimuli; it teaches to be “selfish” and enjoy him or herself without any a permanent pressure to reciprocate; it teaches to become natural without having to perform or reach set objectives. That is why the massage does not focus on erection or even orgasm. Both these expectations are already anticipating “what should or should not happen”, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid. The word „erotic“ comes from Greek expression „eros“ (in latin Amor or Cupido, in Greek Ερως), one of the gods of love and desire. From him is derived the type of erotic love called éros or cupiditás, the desiring type. It is a wild, demanding and ruthless love of the physical body. That strongly contrasts with the meaning of tantra massage offering a caring love called storgé or agape in Greek. Tantra massage essentially cannot be an erotic.
Paying fees for extra services? (!)
Paying to touch a masseuse is quite absurd for many reasons. As I explained above, a massage is supposed to get a person in close contact with him or herself and into a state of no reciprocity. At the moment a receiver touches a massage therapist any concentration on own body is lost and the value of the experience decreases significantly. The feature of today’s successful people is the need to control everything. But that exact control causes stress and pressure and consumes much energy. Safe environment with tantra therapist allows a receiver to give up controlling. Reciprocated touching is not desirable for it brings control back.
We also have to think of a tantra therapist. He or she is fully focused on a client during massage; any mutual touching is distracting attention. Therapist as an expert and a guide is solely responsible for the whole process of meeting and a massage. Reciprocating touching during massage are about as relevant as asking your dentist to lie in the chair as you are tired of the position.
Paying extra for guaranteed orgasm is similarly absurd. Orgasm in tantra massage is acceptable same as other bodily reactions to touching. Though it can happen a therapist should be able to accept it and give the energy back to the body; on no account there is any pressure to achieve orgasm. As I explained before, pressure to perform or achieving an objective blocks natural flow of things and is perceived as negative; also one of tantra goals is using full potential of our sexual energy. Practically that means using its power for the whole body, not for a single moment of orgasm. That can be reached by conscious work with sexual energy using breathing techniques, visualisation and training pelvic bottom muscles. More experienced and advanced tantra practitioners perceive orgasm with ejaculation a loss of energy.
The last and most frightening option is extra fee for sex. Sex for money equals prostitution, which is simply illegal in our country; for more legislative info click here: http://www.nicm.cz/prostituce-legislativa. Personally I am a tantra practitioner, not a lawyer; therefore I focus on tantra level of the issue. Commercially offered tantra sex is basically a contradiction. Tantra philosophy does not require its followers become monogamist such as many other movements. Tantra practitioners obviously create couples, but they can make love with anyone they wish. Tantra love making is not just Kamasútra and demanding positions, as imagined by the wide public but it required at least a minimum knowledge of working with sexual energy. A client coming first to tantra massage without any previous training simply cannot have such skills. Some may argue an experienced tantra therapist can guide through tantra love making. Indeed it can happen but never on a commercial level that is also illegal and never in a relationship with a client, for it is unethical. Let me focus on an ethical level now. Between a client and a therapist often an intense relationship builds up. A therapist cares and a client gratefully receives and sometimes idealises a therapist. On a human level they are equal but essentially the relationship is asymmetric; the roles are given in advance and it is not advisable to bring them to a personal level. Why does a functioning relation in a massage or therapy environment not belong home? On a personal life level a therapist is not just caring, but needs to be cared for, which is something a client rarely realises, and still demands care. And I could go on and on to write a whole book on the issue. Nevertheless in case of interest I will gladly focus on just a relationship between tantra massage therapist and a client. You can find ethical code of tantra massage through the following link: http://www.tantramasaze.com/en/tantra-massage-prague-quality-standards.asp.
Few last words
Abusing tantra teaching and simplifying complex work with sexuality into just eroticism makes me quite sad. Not only because these are typical for our culture especially if the „victim“ is a foreign culture. But not to end my text in a miserable tone, let me remember and thank all tantra masseuses and masseurs in our country who work with high qualification, responsibility, care and love because there are still plenty and enduring even though their reputation is spoiled by brothels masked as tantra saloons. And because tantra is far from being just a matter of massages, I would like to thank all trainers of tantra and naked yoga, mohendžodára and spontaneous dancing; tantra therapists for healing and teachers for guiding and bringing knowledge. Tantra philosophy is one of the paths of current religions with a huge potential not only on a commercial level, so I believe that one day tantra will be liberated and free from the hands of pimps and procurers. And you can also become a part of the process!
