No, I didn’t only pick the title in a desperate attempt to get my Google rankings up! 😉 I really, truly care about the subject 🙂
The standard recipe for lingam massage has been bothering me for some time already. As we all know, it was developed about 20 years ago by an American called Joe Kramer who worked with homosexuals in particular. Now I’m not too sure, but I would guess that the distribution of character types across the homosexual population differs from that of the male population as a whole. From my experience of homosexuals they are more likely to be oral or schizoid types. As we all know, also, the nature of the genital reaction in the male (and in the female too, but that is not my subject here) is very much a function of character type. The rigid and psychopathic types tend to show diminished penile sensitivity while the masochistic type is excessively sensitive. Oral and schizoid types are more likely to show erectile dysfunction.
This has got to have some consequences for how a masseur/se approaches the lingam massage. In my opinion, instead of taking over Kramer’s ideas, we should be experimenting a lot more and discovering what works, how and for whom. I don’t have any doubt that an experienced masseuse (allow me my preference for the feminine form) has developed somewhat of an intuition for this, and probably the growth in interest around prostate/anal massage reflects some of this intuition. Still it would be nice to pool experiences and learn more.
Speaking from the masochistic perspective, I believe there are essentially two points.
The first is the failure of the standard tantra+lingam massage ritual to address the pelvic armoring. This is rather skipped over, with inadequate attention to the perineum and the inguinal fold. Of course I appreciate that the tantra massage is a sensual massage and that it does not aim at deep tissue work, even emotional in nature. Therefore my criticism should be (and is) addressed to other modalities. Nonetheless, insofar as these areas form part of the wider erogenous zone involved in male sexual response, their exclusion in my view detracts from the holistic nature of the massage and has more to do with received ideas of male sexuality than any sound neuroerotic basis.
Secondly, one really should be trying to delay the moment of ejaculation in persons who tend to ejaculate prematurely, and this is in fact what one does in tantra massage. But it makes little sense to attempt to spread the energy into the abdominal and thoracic regions when the pelvic region itself is insufficiently charged. In this case, the energy will be unable in any case to move beyond it and remain on a low level.
In my experience of the massage and my male body, I have the sentiment that there is really something missing here and that we should be developing new scripts. I suspect this is true for other character types also, and also for the yoni massage (although since this is necessarily internal, it may be less flawed). I would very much welcome views on this topic from massage professionals and lovers of tantra massage!
A very interesting topic but your post assumes we can read your mind or that Kramer only proposed one sequence for a massage. Did he really do that? Because you constantly refer to something that is missing or something we should do ‘instead’ without really telling us what you’re thinking of or what it should be instead of.
As well as these interesting details, the wider issue is: Is anyone really integrating tantra massage and body psychotherapy? A few masseuses I talked to recounted experiences where emotions came up in their clients that they couldn’t deal with and therefore the masseuses are more likely to ‘hold back’ in future to avoid such uncomfortable situations. Which is correct, since the clients didn’t come for therapy.
The issue of adapting the massage to the person in front of me (whether using character types or any other typology) is a non-issue. Every good masseuse does that according to her ability. Period.
Thanks for your comment!
It’s of course elliptic which is in the nature of a blog. From my experience of these things, the sequence which goes back to Kramer does not vary much in its essentials from one school to another. It was not my purpose to set out what it is in detail, but let’s say it is very much focused on the shaft itself.
As for your “wider issue”, you are talking about commercial tantra massage which is addressed to all comers, whereas I am talking about spiritual/therapeutic massage (these words being two aspects of the same thing). That a true tantrika would be unable to deal with the emotions generated by the massage is simply impossible; this is what the massage is really about (I have dealt with this issue in a previous post, see http://aruhea.wordpress.com/2008/11/09/will-the-real-me-please-stand-up/ ).
My comments were rather about some aspects that I believe are missing from the ritual with which I am familiar (as practised for example within the German tantra massage association). This being indeed rather ritualistic in nature, it is not, in my experience, adapted to include the kind of elements I am suggesting may be missing.
That we should endeavor to integrate body psychotherapy with tantra massage is probably a hypothesis at this stage, but I think it is one that makes sense on the basis of the principles supposed to underlie both.
> it is very much focused on the shaft itself
That’s why it’s called a ‘lingam’ massage 😉
So as you wrote yourself, the tantric approach would be a “tantra+lingam massage” or as I’ve seen advertised: ‘tantra massage incorporating a lingam massage’.
I believe Joseph Kramer moved on to offer a more comprehensive ‘bodywork’, but the part of his work cited in the field of tantra massage is often simply the penis massage techniques that he pioneered.
The German tantra massage association is actually an association of ‘commercial’ providers of a service, who are attempting to distance themselves from the less serious red light providers who are just exploiting the word ‘tantra’ (who you report to be prevalent in Brussels). So ‘their’ ritual has to a) remain commercially viable and b) be performed by people who are not necessarily ‘true tantrikas’.
Bearing that in mind, do you have any suggestions how they could include the ‘missing’ elements?
That would then leave the ‘true tantrikas’ and the real therapists to develop their own respective forms of tantra massage and offer them to the world in an appropriate way.
Of course, when you chance upon a real tantrika within the ‘commercial’ realm as you did in the experience described in your other post – lucky you! It’s also a complement to you, showing how far you are on the path, since a real tantrika would have opened the doors less wide to someone less capable of looking through them.
Thanks Casey!
You may be right on all that, I would just say the following:
When I say “true tantrikas”, that’s of course a shortcut here for “people who have (or at least try to have) presence and love in the massage”. Tantra massage incorporates elements of technique, but it is not a technique. Presence and love are essential; and if these are present, then the problem of difficult to handle emotions should not arise. Personally I never had that problem when giving massage. That said, there are clearly qualitative elements at work. The spiritual condition of the giver is fundamental to the quality of the experience. I think any serious institute will only work with people whose spiritual condition is known to them and who have done the necessary work on themselves; it’s no diffferent to psychotherapy in that sense.
My suggestion is to experiment in tantra communities with new scripts and to document them, rather than taking on authority what Kramer did in the 1980s (which he may well not consider himself as authoritative, I agree with you – I don’t know why his prescriptions have become so widespread). As I have very limited experience with giving lingam massage, I cannot compare but only speak from my own experience and feelings. For me it is clearly important to work on the perineum, groin and scrotum in order to build a quantity of sexual energy; connecting the lingam to the rest of the pelvis is also important. Otherwise you have to go over much too quickly to the big draw, with too little energy in the pelvis. By breathing deeply and rocking the pelvis, the receiver can no doubt help himself with this but manual stimulation would be better, and indispensable for the neophyte with a tendency to premature ejaculation. I suspect this applies also though to all the other body types.
I didn’t chance upon a real tantrika, it was a personal connection. For sure though the masseuse will modulate what she gives in function of what the receiver is capable of receiving and if one doesn’t start out with a compatible understanding of the massage then it will remain on a more basic level. This is OK, I am not against it, but what I am interested in is of course to explore the higher realms. That said, I suppose that masseuses must often encounter premature ejaculation with “less demanding” clients too and are not usually equipped to recognize and work around it.