I love Tantra and I love elements of kink. The two combined are what I call Sensual Kink, and I don't think it gets much better than that. So, with the current interest in kink that's been generated by the overwhelming popularity of the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy, I thought I might share my thoughts.
To me, Tantra and Kink are at one end of a spectrum; and the alcohol-fuelled model of sex, along with porn and raunch culture, are at the other. The former are about depth and connection, resulting in ecstatic and altered states of consciousness; and the latter is about superficiality and a performance-style sexuality that has little if any positive outcome from what I can see.
I know my kinky side has been there since I was a five-year old getting turned on by a cartoon of Donald Duck pegging his nephews by their tails to a rotating clothesline and spanking their bottoms as it turned. I didn’t even know what that feeling was, but it’s etched into my memory. You could also claim that my years of martial arts training, spending hour upon hour being belted into the floor and feeling elated from it, was a form of sadomasochism. But I didn’t truly discover my kinky side until I first explored... read more