Pleasure Is A Practice

Sex is one of the only places where we can’t fake being present for long, and that’s exactly why it can transform us. I’m joined by Emma Galland, founder of Tantric Awakenings, to talk about tantra as a full-body path of self-realization and why sexuality is not a “side topic,” but a powerful life force tied to confidence, vitality, healing, and how we show up in relationship.

We get practical and honest about what changes when intimacy moves from tension to regulation. Emma breaks down how tantric sex differs from conventional sex: less urgency, more sensation, more nervous system safety, and far less obsession with a finish line. We explore orgasm vs ejaculation, why many men experience performance pressure as premature ejaculation or erection changes, and how presence, eye contact, and embodied attention can shift everything from arousal to emotional connection.

We also open up the conversation around women’s pleasure, anatomy, and consent, including why time and “massage-like” touch matter, how de-armoring can restore sensitivity, and what it looks like to reclaim pleasure after shame or trauma. Then we go there: sex magic as manifestation, using intention plus embodied pleasure to rewire fear, align the nervous system, and take bolder action toward what we want. If you’re curious about mindful sex, sexual energy, trauma healing, and intimacy coaching, this one will stay with you.

Subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of mind, body, and spirit, share this with someone who needs a new lens on intimacy, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. What part of this conversation challenged your current story about sex?

Emma Galland

Website: Tantric-Awakenings

Holistic and Tantric Sex, Love and Relationship Coach

Creator of the Virtilité Method

Published Author and Inspirational Speaker

https://tantric-awakenings.com/ssdm

HELP contribute to this growing community.  Email topic ideas, suggestions for interviews, and feedback to venessa@squatsandseances.com.

FIND new episodes of Squats & Séances on all major podcast platforms and the vlogcast on our YouTube channel - Squats & Séances.

SUBSCRIBE so you never miss an episode. 

VISIT us at www.squatsandseances.com to subscribe to our newsletter.

FOLLOW us on social media @squatsandseances (IG, FB, TT, LinkedIn).

Until the next time - stay gritty you badass! 

Transcript

Welcome And Defining Grit

Venessa 0:17

Today we welcome Emma Galan to Squats and Seances, the founder of Tantric Awakenings. Emma is a French American tantric sex, love, and relationship coach, helping men worldwide cultivate confidence, vitality, and mastery in their sexuality and in life. With 30 years of experience in holistic health, fitness, and tantra, she developed the virati method, an integrative method for virility, vitality, and peak performance to help men achieve deep transformation. Emma emphasizes that sexuality isn't a side activity, but a core aspect of human potential. She teaches that sexual energy is a life force capable of creating love, financial success, and even healing past traumas. Determined to bring sexuality out of the shadows, she leads bold initiatives like nude yoga, classes, and sacred sexuality events for couples at New York's New Society for Wellness. And in 2025, she launched the Tantric Awakenings app. She was recently spotlighted as one of the top 20 influential female entrepreneurs to watch out for in 2025 by New York Weekly Magazine for her tantric awakenings work with men and couples. Welcome, Emma. Thank you very much, Venusaur, for having me. Yes. Forgive my butchering of the name of your method. I did some research. I'm pretty sure it's virati, but I do not speak French. So would you like to say it for us? How do you pronounce it?

SPEAKER_00 2:11

So it's kind of a made-up name, actually. Oh making it in English will be a virtue. So it's a mix of fertility and vitality.

Venessa 2:21

Oh, I love it. And when you say it, it sounds so beautiful. Not like when I say it. Okay. Well, before we begin the conversation in earnest, a couple of things. I have a wide listening base of parents. And so this may not be the episode to listen to with your young children. Although I really, really encourage you to come back and listen to it on your own whenever you have time. I think it's going to be very insightful. So that's the first PSA. And then the second part is actually for you, Emma. Every time I have a new guest on the podcast, I open by asking the same root question because it means the answers are so varied. People from all different walks of life have different perspectives of this. But what does the word gritty mean to you?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Gritty. As in grit.

Venessa 3:19

As in grit.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

What comes up in my body is um resilience, survival, overcoming, fire. Actually warm up, and I get a tingling between my shoulder blades hearing this word.

Venessa 3:46

Perfect. Because to give context, as you probably know, the squats and seances podcast is about exploring the intersections of mind, body, and spirit. Connection between our physiology and our psychology and our spirituality.

Emma’s Path Into Sacred Sexuality

Venessa 4:03

And always the body is that transport mechanism between all three of those things. Would love to give our listeners some of your backstory. How did you wind up here today? What started you on this path for your own self-actualization and eventually creating what you've created now, which is a movement in addition to an app and a company.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

As you said, our journeys generally professionally generally mirror or our the continuation of our personal stories. So I started in in the field of fitness and nutrition because I wanted to take better care of my health. So I've had a few things happen over the years, and they always led me back to school and learning and changing and growing. But when it comes to serving men and sacred sexuality and couples, it came from a personal story of buying into what being an adult was and what being a sexual woman was, and what being a wife was, and what being a in a relationship was, and buying into the kind of like the standard um of a container of a relationship in the Western world, which didn't align with who I really was. And when I divorced my best friend, so we're best friends, we're nice, we're really best friends, we love each other, but the container of marriage is not the right container, and there was no solution. It's like you're married or you're divorced and don't speak to each other anymore.

Venessa 5:45

Right. That has a very Western culture approach, yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Yeah, so I'm different. This is what I want. They said I know you, and that's not who I am. So how do we still continue growing together, but not as husband and wife? And so through the pain of heartbreak, I continued my journey of self-exploration and also healing and reconciling who I really was, which wasn't what the norm typically is. And I had a lot of shame, I carried a lot of shame around my body and my sexuality as a result of not really being in the mold. And I realized through my work that really no one is in the mold, it's very rare that you're in any mold. But there isn't a pathway and there's no forum for the conversation. But through that breaking of my marriage, I met after somebody who really accepted me exactly as I was, and somebody who a man who really was so grounded in his own sexuality, had done the work and was able to hold me exactly as I would without judgment. And through experiencing sex with this person, I actually really truly found my own hearing of my heartbreak, finding really peace with who I was, and really noticing when a man truly is integrated in his sexuality. That means integration here means that his penis is integrated with his gut, with his heart, with his voice, with his soul, like at the full alignment. He's able to hold a woman in her complete emotional storm and enable her to complete cycles of trauma and enable her to kind of mind shift into the next version of herself. And so my rising was dependent on meeting a man who was able to mirror my strength in the making. And these else things we don't speak about is about sexuality. It's not just, oh, I'm turned on, let's have sex. It's more how can I use my sexuality as a space, an intentional space. And that's a million intentions we can have, so the sexual experience can vary. But that was my story is I really became who I was through this experience, and literally right after this experience, I enrolled into tantric school to become a teacher. I was already a practitioner of tantra for 18 years through my own journey of really understanding myself, trying to heal some shame, trying to, you know, just become really the sexual woman that I wanted to be. But once I discovered this, I thought men need to know how much power they have, and women need to also to understand the power of their own sexuality and the space that couples could create to really help each other's growth, yeah, individually and together. And that's why I went back to school. I did all of the certifications, all of the all of the work to become a teacher. Yeah, chose men. Uh-huh. Because if men rise, then we men can rise as well. Like we need, we are mirrors of each other.

Venessa 9:01

Interesting. I have a bunch of questions.

What Tantra Really Means

Venessa 9:03

The first one I want to start with is just baseline for all of our listeners here that may not already know what is tantric sex.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

So it's a so maybe we should start with tantra, which is not sex. So tantra, it's a comes from inya, and it's a framework, uh set of philosophies and tools and techniques and ways of living that help humans achieve self-realization. It then covers everything from the way you exercise your body, the way you eat, the way you think, uh, your morals, and just a whole construct that helps people live the best life and self-realize. Centric sex is just using the the tools of tantra and philosophies of tantra apply to sexuality. So then sexuality becomes a portal into self-realization. So you're using your, if we think about our sex, it's really life force. We give birth, right? We give life through sexuality, but we can also use that sexual energy to give birth to other things, to ourselves, to our creative arts, to our work, to whatever it is that we want to create. So by being embodied and really truly understanding and using your sexuality intentionally, you can really allow yourself to self-realize and lead your best life.

Venessa 10:30

I have never heard of anybody say this before, really. And I'm in my 40s. And it this is just really interesting to me. And I wanted to pause too and appreciate the tie-in. You mentioned about the for men in particular, you were talking about the alignment of everything from genitalia to GI track to what's happening in their head, and then all of that comes up and out in the expression in of sex and sex with a partner. And this is my naivete showing. I did not realize tantra was more than just tantric sex. I think I've heard of tantric sex being a certain type of practice that you can have, but you're saying what you're really teaching people is more than just the tantric sex. Are you also teaching the principles of Tantra?

SPEAKER_00 11:24

No, it's included. So it's the way you do sex embodies those values.

Venessa 11:29

I see.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

So there are multiple tools. It's Jerry starts with being intentional. So if we're doing drawing animation, we could discuss the difference between let's call it conventional sex. Yeah, let's do that.

Tantric Sex Without A Goal

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Tantric sex. Yeah. So in conventional sex, Jerry, um it's just driven by impulse, right? Impuls to have sex. It's not, it's while tantric sex is not based on tension and an urge that needs to be released. In fact, it the the premise is to come, it's a lukewarm. Uh it's it's done in a state of relaxation, not tension. So already from a simple from a nervous system, tantric sex is meditative sex, relaxed state, in a state of calmness, not a state of urgency and emergency or tension in your body. And so you and to reach that state where you can actually really feel yourself and you can increase sensitivity. It's a very sensitive sex, dentric sex. You're focusing on your five senses. So you awaken consciously your sense of smell, your sense of hearings, taste, your touch. And you the practices that you do helps you enliven the body. Really, your nerves become alive and extremely sensitive, and so sensitive that actually you need to you you pace down in order to absorb all those sensations. While in conventional sex, people are generally arriving under with so much tension, they're actually numb. The body's numb, it doesn't feel much. So you need to have tons of friction in order to feel something. Yeah, and a lot of the time you only feel very little because you don't, you're not present into the experience that your body's having. It's very much a fantasy-driven, brain-driven, goal-oriented act. While in tantric sex, there is no goal. Actually, orgasm is not the goal. And uh I teach men how to become non-ejaculatory orgasmic men. So orgasm and ejaculation are two different things, and very few men know that. Most men think when they're having an orgasm, they're having semen ejaculation, but the orgasm happens before the ejaculation. So men who take the tantric path learn to have 10 different orgasms without any ejaculation in an hour, for instance. So they're getting all of those incredible full-body tremors and like bliss without having lost their ejaculation. So it's totally different. So therefore, if we're not going towards an orgasm, there's no ending. We're going into how do I get more and more present, more and more pleasure, more and more expansion of pleasure, more and more connection. And whatever the intention you set for your sex was, it could be maybe connection and love with your partner, or maybe it is healing trauma, or maybe it is grounding yourself, or and you start looking at your penis as a almost as a saber of light. So your penis can have can be conduit for healing, for strength, for softness, for whatever energy you want to share with your partner. So you're really using sex as energy, while in conventional sex, this there's not even everything is physical, not energetic.

Venessa 14:58

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

So there's just a lot of different differences like this, and it could go even more.

Venessa 15:15

And then the opposite of that being we're not even trying to have this release, we want to hit a state of nervous system. What is the word I'm looking for? Parasympathetic? Yeah, yes, where the parasympathetic, the rest and digest is firing and then approach this act, or not even an act, it's it sounds like it's more of this energy exchange. And the meditation tie-in is really fascinating for me when you mention that. And it is like a type of meditation almost. Is there specific breathing that goes with this?

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Not so

Presence And Sexual Performance Anxiety

SPEAKER_00 15:51

many types of breathing. You can do it's what you're trying to do. But what's really interesting is that so a lot of the men who come to me they suffer from premature ejaculation or erectile dysfunction, and there's different causes for both, and you know, you're into health and wellness and all of this. So, you know, there's a lot, definitely a lot going into this. Uh, but what's interesting, if we're just talking about the energy of sex, premature ejaculations is basically a state of tension. There's so much tension, it's not controlled that it needs to be released. What you do, and so therefore you act is short. It could also be a nervous system, a fear of the deep connection. So a lot of them, in order to be a three-hour-long lover, which is really what I teach, yeah, you need to be, could you watch, look into your partner's eyes for three hours? And most men feel seen, and that's the point. When you look into your partner's eyes, it's actually an invitation in. And so, right away, if you have secrets, if you have shame, if you have guilt, if you're under a state of tension, if you're actually not present, you're somewhere else, you also she will see through you, and it's very scary. And so it ejaculation is a way to cut contact, and a lot of the time it is not conscious, it's subconscious, but there's a fear of being seen, and a lot of the nervous system say, I'm not good enough, or fear she'll see through me, and I'm not the man I'm trying to be. There's a lot of performance and fear, and premature ejaculation plays into this, that fear of deep connection.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

When you are in a state of when you choose tantric sex, it's actually even more pleasurable than conventional sex. So it's not because it's slower that it's less pleasurable, it's actually more pleasurable because you train your body to be so sensitive that you'll feel 10 times more. But because you're in a state of relaxation, you build the capacity to feel more. In conventional sex, the capacity to feel intensely is so little, therefore, the act is short and disconnected. In tantric sex, you train your nervous system to be able to feel so much pleasure. And if you're able to feel so much pleasure, you also build the capacity to feel so much pain, so much grief, so much skill. Because those things always work. Exactly. They're the same. Exactly. And so that's that was actually an exercise, but going back to that incredible it wasn't one night still too, that life-changing sexual experience. But I was feeling pain because it was the aftermath of my divorce. And I was held safe, that I could feel all the pain crying, and at the same time, because my pain was the biggest I've ever felt, I also had the greatest orgasm I've ever had in my life. And my body was able to do things that even thought was possible to do, because my capacity to feel pain was just as big as my opened up my capacity to feel pleasure. And I had a man who was here able to be a mountain, look me in the eyes, and hold me through this storm, washing over the mountain, he was. So that is what I wanted to say.

Venessa 19:21

Was he involved in in tantric sex? None at all, he was just super self-regulated, he had found his own path to a very similar place.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Somebody who had an incredible emotional depth and emotional EQ, and who also, because of what he his training in other fields, he knew how to hold tension. It's one of those men who could hold tension.

Venessa 19:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

So it's it's a beautiful thing, and I think it's presence. So the number one thing to that you work on when you do tantric sex for men and women is working on presence. And when you're present in your body, that means first you you're present to what you feel sensationally, like I'm feeling tingling in my lower belly, I'm feeling warmth in my back, I'm feeling whatever contraction in my genitals, whatever it is you're feeling. And then you're going to start feeling more and more and more, and then you start feeling suddenly, you don't know why, out of the blue, you're having a crygasm, you're orgasming, and then you're crying because there's an old pain or whatever an old thing that just comes out, or you just start just laughing hysterically and you start feeling everything, and your body just releases, and it's a beautiful thing because you become attuned.

Venessa 20:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

And the people who choose the topic sex past, it's kind of like it becomes a daily practice. So you have sex every day. A lot of my clients go, I haven't had sex in 20 years. My wife, how do we how do I do that now? Or like that.

Venessa 20:52

Every day, are you crazy, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Yes, but but it is a practice, it's a practice because it's not based on whether I'm turned on or not, it's based on seeking connection. So it's really this, it's almost like every day we're having a communion together, right? And a union together. Yeah, and so, and because we're not seeking an orgasm, although it when you don't think about it, Jerry, when it happens, but you're just connecting and feeling together and being pleasure together and just connecting and taking whatever it is you have. So if you're angry, you still have sex. If you're sad, you still have sex. If you're happy, you have sex, you'll turn on and light, great, have more of it. But it doesn't matter, you just come to the table saying, I'm really feeling sad right now, like my mother died, or something like that. Yeah, and then your partner will say, Come here, honey. And then you're just connecting, and there's some practices of breath work you do together, eye gazing, you do together, you connect together, and then the body eventually won't merge, and you're moving through that grief of your. Mother dying in during your lovemaking, right? Or I've just lost my job. Man would say, I've lost my job, I feel less than, you know, I'm really scared. Come here, honey. It's just we'll be all right. So it's you come to sex, not because you you want it, it's happy, always good, because you're at peace. No, you come together with all of you exactly as you are.

Venessa 22:22

Wow. Yeah, that definitely applies in the opposite direction of what I think a lot of people understand sex to be and how it would work. Oh gosh, I have so many questions for you. So it's a beautiful thing. Yeah, this is good stuff. So if premature ejaculation is a disconnect from being feeling vulnerable and being seen, then erectile dysfunction. What is the real psyche going on behind that?

SPEAKER_00 22:53

So there are multiple reasons also for PE. We mentioned one, but it's not the only one. Erectile dysfunction, so there's a lot of different reasons. Health issues aside, we're very healthy and all is well. So I want to tell that it it isn't normal for a man to be hard at on a scale of zero to ten at a nine for hours. So I want I always tell men your penis is always right. Meaning, if your penis is soft, don't force it. Like it doesn't want to go up, there's a reason. And what I've noticed is generally that their brain wants to have sex, but their heart doesn't let that go. Or there's like there's a misalignment between what they think they want and what they really want. So there's that. Is right really listening. If if my penis is always right, what is it telling me when it's going soft or it doesn't come up? Then the other thing is when during lovemaking, a penis is just alive as much as a vagina is alive. So your organ changes shape all the time. It's never the same shape every day, never the same length and girls every day, same for women or sense. We have different points of sensitivity. Like whether I'm sensitive on this side of my hand or this side of my hand, it's a bit different. But maybe today I feel more here, but tomorrow I won't feel as much here. So it's the same for men and women, it changes all the time. So during lovemaking, your penis is a reflection of the man you are. So if you're feeling really great, top of the world today, your penis, your erection will reflect that. If you're having self-doubt or just something is just occupying your mind or you're worried, your erection will reflect that. If you are present in the act of lovemaking, which in sex for a man means your consciousness is in your penis, it's not in your head, wondering, does she like it? Does she like it? Should we move faster, slower? This is not the right way to do it. You will disconnect actually from your penis and it will just say, Okay, now you're not here. I'm done. Presence you're in your penis, right? So I'm present in my penis, I can feel her. I let my penis do the moves. It's not me forcing my penis. My penis is sentient, it has intelligence and it knows how to move. And so when you start feeling and be present, you're gonna feel all of yourself. Same thing. You may have suddenly a bout of pain, about joy, about worry, about whatever, and your erection will show this. So an inconsistent erection doesn't mean something's wrong with you, it means you're human and your emotional experience is fluctuating. Yeah, and that's the beautiful thing, actually, is that you become aware that you're having an emotional experience that is wavy because your penis is wavy.

Venessa 25:52

Interesting. It's practicing present moments, right? Like you're present, you're teaching these individuals these penis ownership, you're present in your physical body, it's not here that you need to be present, it's literally in your penis, is where you need to be.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Exactly. And what's really interesting, you can feel it. So next time you make love, and this is for the ladies, you will notice the difference when your man is in his penis and when he's not, because you can really under if you're connecting with your old body, if you if you feel your body, she will notice down, she will notice he's checked out, yeah. Because when he's checked in, his movement will slow down and he will feel heavier, more rooted inside you. While when he's not here or worried or something, he's going to pick up the pace in order to feel himself.

Venessa 26:47

Interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

When we're distracted, we pick up the pace so that we can bring ourselves back to sensation. And also there's a fear when I start feeling my erection waver because I was absent for a moment. I pick up the pace because I feel that brushing will help me regain the erection. So friction to gain erection. And it's interesting when I was in tantric school, I asked a couple of the ladies that were there, 50 girls, and I asked them, What's one thing you want men to stop doing in the bedroom? And they all said, take responsibility for your erection and stop rushing me to keep it up. So both saying it's like when you suddenly are afraid you're losing it, you're rushing my experience in order to regain control. Learn how to control yourself without putting pressure onto me. So these are deep things that we're talking about here. But so I invite men when they're feeling suddenly, oops, I'm absent or I'm feeling my erection lesson to stop moving and stay in. Because here's what's amazing is that by not moving at all and try that, most men think, oh, I'm gonna lose my erection, I should speed up to keep it. But actually, the reverse will happen. If you stop moving and you really feel yourself in, and you really feel yourself, you amplify the positive energy, positive charge of your penis. The vagina is a negatively charged, it's almost like a battery. So a vagina is negatively charged, a penis is positively charged. And then a woman's heart is positively charged, she penetrates with her emotional heart. Men are negatively charged, they receive their receive that energy.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

While men penetrate with their penis, so that the positive pole. When you stop moving and you really breathe into your penis, breathe into your testicle. I teach genital breathing, you'll start feeling you activate the positive charge, and your vagina will actually polarity will start pulling you, and you'll start feeling that you'll get an spontaneous erection just from that moving. Wow. It's a fantastic feeling as a woman receiving a penis to feel you come back to life in me. And so, and what's fascinating when you do this, you'll start actually having very different sensations, you start moving very differently, not like a jab camera, but more like a swithering, right? You'll start feeling just shifting your hips and just trying to activate that electric field between the two. So trust your body, and that's what I say. So when I erectile dysfunction, it's never a dysfunction, it's a self-expression of your emotional state and your state of presence. This is what I've learned, practiced, and observed.

Venessa 29:42

Thank you. There's so much good stuff there, guys. So somewhere along your own path, you made a conscious choice to work with penis owners.

Women’s Pleasure And Sexual Healing

Venessa 29:52

And what about vagina owners? Like where what sway to one way or the other?

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Yes. So I actually went all the way to be completely trained and certified to work with women, and I do, and I have. So I work with vagina owners, I worked with women who had uh sexual trauma and no longer can have sex or have a lot of painful sex or are just not able to orgasm. And I want to say every woman can have cervical, A spots, G spots, orgasm. You can have a throat chasm, you can have an ejaculatory orgasm. Every woman is able to do that. Women don't really know their anatomy that well. And it's not the books, I'm sorry to say, aren't really current about it. Yeah. Because patriarchy has written her books.

Venessa 30:43

Yes. I was gonna say I feel like that's not an accident, Emma, and I completely agree with you. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

And the best way to know is you don't need a book, you need yourself. But it's the same for women, it's just knowing your anatomy, slowing it down, breathing, and doing the work. Women need to have a really develop a new relationship to their sexual story. Men as well, but women very much so. Because the majority of women, and I was raised Catholic, you know, so it's um my pleasure is not mine. It's and my body is not really mine, it's for my husband, you know, or it's to make children. And so when you get to tantric sex, you it's not procreation, which takes two minutes. I mean, men, you only need to be performing two minutes, and we have a baby. So learning how to make love for 45 minutes, which is the minimum time for one cervical orgasm. Anything before a woman who cannot orgasm vaginally, we always I hate people who promote and say not every woman can, or no, some women it's all through the clitoris or in a granite orgasm. It's not that, it's that we haven't given enough enough time. Interesting. If you look at Taoism, which is also what I've been trained on, Tentran Taoism, two different parallel uh philosophies around sex, one is from China and then one is from India. It's they talk about the thousand um stroke, so a thousand penetration, right? So you need to basically be having thrusting for a thousand times, which takes about 45 minutes or an hour in order to get there, because then the blood flow is there, everything is there. So if you cannot, it's because you haven't been able to, and so women need to learn, and I teach men masturbation. We can talk about that actually sometimes. Yeah, I'm I'm so curious. I think but you need my ladies to give yourself 45 minutes to an hour of massage and think about sex as massage. So if you're using a dildo, if you're using a penis or your fingers, it's about massaging your vagina. And I always tell men your role is to massage her open and massage yourself open. Right? So it's by just really having this contact with the skin that you will be able to open the floodgates. And so for women, they need to relearn their body, have a new sexual story, the ones that they want to have. So you need to be intentional about what kind of sexual story you want to create for yourself, and then they need to often de-armor their vagina. That's a practice also in Tantra, where you remove the tightness and the spots and a numbness in your vagina where too much, too much forced sex happened. We always say yes, but really sometimes we say no, we won't know, but we say yes. So after a while, our vagina stops listening and norms out. So we lose our sensitivity because they are too, we haven't listened to her. And so it's not safe, and she doesn't express anymore. She doesn't express, she becomes normal and she doesn't express pleasure either. So recreating a new relationship with the body, that's what I do with women and teach them how to massage themselves, how to take the time, how to relax. And that's really the qi. And I worked with a woman who had brain cancer and she was able to orgasm before and then she couldn't after because, as you know, yeah, being in the body, there are nerve endings in orgasm, and the brain's very important. And within three months of practicing, she was able to create new neural pathways and reclaim orgasm.

Venessa 34:25

So it's really life-changing for her.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Yes. I mean it's actually her husband who hired me to work with her. I'm like, is she okay with this? She would read okay, fine. So, and when we do this together, but she'll have practices, but you know, I want to make sure you're not pushing or pressuring her because that I'm not I'm not taking part of this. Yes, you know, before she needs to be fully consenting to this agreement. Yes, and that she wants this because at the end it's not for you, I told her husband, it's for her. Yeah, so if she wants to reclaim that for herself, I'll help. But if it's you because you want to have her going back to you, I'm not part of this.

Venessa 35:02

I'm so glad to hear that. As a woman, I'm glad to hear that. And so she was able, she did it and she got it back. It came back to her.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

Yeah, she got it back, and then she was still under chemotherapy, and she was still undergoing things, and yeah, it takes her longer, yeah.

Venessa 35:18

Of course, but it's it takes a long time for nerve endings to come back, and sometimes they don't ever.

SPEAKER_00 35:25

But I imagine I mean, not take that pathway, so that's what I learned from her, for instance. Again, it is the only one of work to have that case, but for her, she it was not the old way, so this the old strokes were not really working as well. She basically had to rewire her body a bit differently, and then one of the things that I taught her, and she didn't know that because again, she's in a very religious culture where um women women can touch themselves, men cannot. Um, but that's like it's very regulated how you have sex. So I was lucky that she was able to do some things to train herself. But one of the things that she didn't know, because it's a very it's not a very widely open sexual culture, she didn't know that, and maybe you don't know women listening here, that your breast is actually what opens up your vagina. So the woman's uh what enables a vagina to be soft and plush and warm and wet is the approach from the outside in, that's the yin approach. So you have an environment that feels great, meaning you have no argument and resolve with your husband from the morning prior, and then you know you have a soul connection, your intellect has been warmed up, and then there's the heart is open, and then eventually the vagina is the legs open up, right? Then it's the reverse, it's their penis is the entry point, and then through love making, their heart blossoms, and then the soul connection blossoms, and then everything else is amazing in the household and in work, right? So that's the younger person that attracts. Yeah. So when a woman sidebar, when a woman says no to sex to a man is really important, he is understanding you don't love me because a lot of the men who ask for sex actually ask for love and tenderness, but they don't know how to ask it otherwise than through sex, because any other way isn't really man enough in our culture. So sidebar. But going back to women, so when you massage your breast, and I'm talking about a real breast massage, and I can on a different show show you how to do that. Yes. Um, but right away you'll start feeling your water running, and you don't even need anyone to do anything with your glitteries, you're ready for penetration, right? So she really worked on her breast massage really well, and she was so turned on by her breast massage. She turned herself on, she didn't want the man to do it, but she felt so sensual, so ready, like the queen, you know. Yeah, and that's how she would go to sex with him. And so that's that's really what I teach women is to take ownership or they're turned on throughout the day, actually. You should always be under low flame because it it powers everything in your life anyway. You can create your life with your vagina. I love that. So that's that's the secret for it.

Venessa 38:26

So interesting, right? So it's like having that. I don't want to use the word sexual tension because that's what you're moving away from by practicing tantric sex, but it's kind of a low-key turn-on the whole day. Yeah, because I do, I I mean, I'm aliveness.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

I call it aliveness.

Venessa 38:41

There you go. Yes, just enjoying life and your body. And I'm looking at all of the things I wanted to ask you. Let's

Sex Magic And Manifestation

Venessa 38:50

jump to what is sex magic. You have that as a prompt, and I was like, Yes, I would like to know it, but what is sex magic?

SPEAKER_00 38:58

Sex magic. It sounds so crazy. And so I heard that. I said, What is that? That sounds too woo for me. I'm I'm like a very cerebral, and I'm, you know, like I used to be a management consultant for all of the top three. Like, I'm I'm like, I don't do foo-foo stuff. Um, and now I'm with some trick on it to gentle your finger. So, what sex magic is, is using your sexuality in order to manifest what you want in life. So, let me just explain because that sounds crazy. But if it's using either your self-pleasure if you're single or your sexuality to activate your sacral chakra. So, all of that juiciness that you have in your roots and your sacral chakra. And then as you learn how to move sexual energy, so sexual energy feels like let's say pleasure, when you feel a lot of pleasure, you know, in your lower regions, you can waste your breast, your intention, you can start moving it and take that same intense pleasure somewhere else in your body. Sex magic is moving this the sexual energy and transmuting it as it goes up through the chakras in your body. So you bring it to your solar plexus, you're gonna bring it to your heart, and you're gonna feel that orgasm like in all of those places, you're gonna bring it into your throat, you're gonna bring it to your third eye and into your crown. And as you do this, you are carrying your intention. So if your intention is to make a million dollars this year, let's say, right? I would like that my sex magic manifest well and financial abundance. So as you're basically making up to this. So you're starting with beforehand as a meditation, really seeing what it feels like in your nervous system to be abundant like this, and I creating an audio on that topic actually to get people through this.

Venessa 40:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

But so, what does it feel like? What does it taste like? What does it smell like? So you turn on all your five senses to being that millionaire, and then you start making love, and as you make love and move that energy up, you're staying very present in your intention and in your nervous system, you're marrying pleasure with being wealth being, and you're sending this energy up to your crown and into the universe, you have to wait to orgasm and the end, you can just midway, but you're building that pleasure and an orgasm and you're sending it out in the universe. And what it does is that a lot of the time, and that's the secret of manifestation. The reason why people don't get what they most want is that some part of them is afraid of getting what they want. So if you have a poor money mindset, it's really hard to be comfortable being wealthy, and so sex is so pleasurable that you can rewire your nervous system and make the experience of being filthy, wealthy feel really good, yeah. And so, therefore, you will take action towards that goal without putting obstacles in your way because you're afraid in your nervous system to be that rich, because you think whatever rich people are are thieves. That's one of the things that rich people are thieves, exactly. But if it's not to feel really good in your nervous system, and you can really see the magic and the gift of being abundant, and I will serve you and serve others, tantric sex is always you do things, and that's the philosophy of tantra, you do things for the good of all. So for me, everything I do is alignment with love and the good of all beings. Yeah, so that goal that I set is for the bet the good of me and the good of all beings. So, how can I do bad? And so, through having sex over and over and over through that goal, you will manifest that. And then if you can even, to make it even more real, put I don't know, a thousand one dollar beer on your bed and have sex on your dollars, it's even more crazy, right? Yeah, so you you can really set up that whole experience, and then you're gonna just take every risky action you need to take in order to get that. Does that make sense? Yes, what I'm hearing is you can use sex magic for love, it's embodiment or whatever.

Venessa 43:20

It's embodiment in intention, and it's taking your physical, spiritual, and psychological space to the very core of your essence. All of the walls, right, should be down. Even if you're someone that's really good at hiding and compartmentalizing, most of the walls are down. Maybe not all of them. Maybe you need to do some work before you can truly enjoy the type of sex that you've been describing and that experience. But but in that moment, you're the closest to your true essence that you're ever going to be. So if you can embody your intention in that space. There could be no more powerful an expression of it, I think. That tracks, that makes perfect sense to me. One thing that's I've been dying to ask this whole time. Um,

Tantra Beyond Gender And Labels

Venessa 44:11

do you ever do work with same-sex couples? Do you work with people that identify as something other than their biological body? How does it track for the non-stereotypical couple? And um, you know, because they would deserve to know and experience all of this. Right?

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Yep, yeah. And I feel very strongly about this. Like I'm good, I'm so glad I asked. Oh my god, I'm so glad you asked. Yeah, it's I really believe that gender is fabricated. So yeah, yeah, because I have so I haven't coached in this field, yeah. Uh transgender, I have transgender friends, yeah, and I have transgender clients in a personal training area who actually needed me to help them train them as they were transitioning, yeah, from man to woman, for instance, or others. So and and I work, I'm very present in the gay community in New York City. So I'm very aware. I haven't coached yet this clientele because I think that some people do be better than me and specialized it in these questions out of school. So I would recommend. I have taken the difficult task though, to work with straight men knowing what I know about women, about genders, and really gently opening and getting a lot of resistance sometimes and challenging their view of masculinity. Yeah, challenging their views of masculinity, and and because straight men are very prisoner and oppressed by their view of masculinity, which is unrealistic because it's a model, it's not real. And so when we start looking at transgenders in a centric sex area, basically it's really unsteady for them because they their understanding of what makes them a man is shattered. And so it's really coming back, and that's what tantra is it's about self-realization, is don't look out what being a man means to you and what does it mean in terms of fatherhood, in terms of being a lover, in terms of all of this. And also it's interesting because in tantra, all sexual practices are waked up. So there's a anal sex is actually something that's incredibly powerful, and actually very powerful for men, because it requires a complete surrender. It really, all of your tension in your body will melt. But there is such stigma around this sexual practice amongst straight men, and yet also 100% of the men that I work with, straight men, desire that experience, just don't know how to ask for it to their female partner because they're afraid they will be looked at gay. So, all I'm wanting to say is any man who comes with questions or with curiosity around their sexuality, their experience of manhood or womanhood, there is no dogma in Tantra. It's always back to what is your experience, what is your body telling you, and creating an environment, holding space for each individual to experience themselves without any preconceived notion. Pleasure is pleasure, and the more present you are in your body's experience, the more your body will tell you what it feels being a man is or being a woman is for you, and that's this actually. And then when you look at the tantric text, there is actually a whole um the practices because man, woman, that's not this feminine-masculine energy that we're talking about, and so you can have two men together, two women together, and you still can have this exchange of masculine and feminine energy between two men or two women. So the practice track, same for Taoism.

Venessa 48:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

And so it's not about gender.

Venessa 48:16

Yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. The most

Programs Workshops And The App

Venessa 48:19

empowering statements like that you've just made that is so helpful to hear. I know that you teach some some classes at the brick and mortar, but what is tantric awakenings your personal services that you offer, like your consultation services? Is that what that comes into?

SPEAKER_00 48:36

It's an online, yeah. So tantric awakenings is the company. And then I created a school, it's a virtual school, it's a one-year program that follows men's season of their sexuality. So their spring, summer, fall, and winter, and things to explore in these different seasons of their arousal and in their manhood, if you'd like. Um, and I do, and this is all online, and people that are all around the world that are coming from Middle East, Australia, you know, Africa, Europe, here. It's fascinating because they all have different culture, so there are different views of sexuality also. So it's April to April the school year. So it's we're about ending the school year now. But in New York, I rent some space where I teach I teach uh workshops. Okay. Um, and generally there, so the the NSS over there, the new the New York Society for Wellness, is a sexual society, it's a sex club. It's already a club, it's a society and they have a venue and where they it's a space where people can explore their sexuality. It's also a space where people don't really know their, you know, where they go on the sexual, the sexual uh orientations, they can explore and speak to other people. The can't the transgender community is represented and not harassed. So everybody's really welcome to explore. And I really like this space because when I do my workshop, there are two tricky sexual couples. I teach penis massage, don't trick penis massage, don't trick our pissy massage, and it's actually between couples, an hour each. So a man will give an hour massage to the woman and invasive version. It's beautiful to the armor in practice. I teach eye gazing, I teach speed dating without talking. So it's just eye gazing, and the goal is to really feel somebody else's energy and how you feel looking into their eyes. Do I feel attracted or do I feel like not my body? And rather than having to speak up about who you are and selling yourself, right, you know, like a car salesman, why don't you just spend a moment feeling this person's aura and then you'll know a lot of what you want to know and then later on you can talk. So I think different things like this, but it's it's not my space. I I dream of having my own house in New York or the tantric awakenings home, but Ryan is primarily virtual.

Venessa 51:06

You can do one of your tantric manifestation things for that. Yeah, I should actually. Oh, you have the plan.

SPEAKER_00 51:14

Yeah, oh yeah.

Venessa 51:15

Oh, I love it so much.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

Who needs just a year away?

Venessa 51:18

But yes, that would be amazing.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

And then I created audios called Sound Self-Discovery Meditation. Okay. So it's a tantric 60-minute experience where they learn how to breathe and they learn how to work with their sexual energy and their emotions and integrate their sexuality in their body.

Venessa 51:37

Where would somebody go that would they want to discover more about you and your teachings and your offerings? Where would you like to direct listeners to go? And I'll include all of that as well.

SPEAKER_00 51:48

Instagram, Instagram, Instantric Awakenings are very present there. Okay. And then just my website. I have a blog where I write a lot of those conversations we're having are pretty surprising to people. So my blog and my newsletter. Okay, perfect.

Venessa 52:02

Thank you, Emma. I will be sure to include all of that.

Your Pleasure Belongs To You

Venessa 52:06

And we're, I knew we would have so much. I had so many more questions I wanted to ask you. In closing, this second season that I'm doing of the podcast is all about the choices that we make to elevate our experiences in the present lifetime. So if you were to choose one takeaway from our discussion that you would recommend to listeners, this is the key point that I want you to know. What would it be and why?

SPEAKER_00 52:34

That your pleasure is for you and that your body has all the answers for you to self-realize in this lifetime. You just need to come home to your body, and your pleasure, your sexuality can actually be this portal for you to get everything you want in life and create your own safety and your own lively livelihood.

Venessa 53:00

That's awesome. Thank you so much, Emma. It has been an absolute pleasure to talk to you today. I will definitely follow up with you in the future. I want to hear about what's happening with your business and the classes that you're offering. And I feel like we could do a whole deep dive into the vagina owner's perspective of how this plays in. Right.

SPEAKER_00 53:40

I like that you name it out. Yeah. And now I understand.

Venessa 53:43

Well, now, and I've learned you can be a vagina owner, but maybe you identify more with the masculine energy, and you can be a penis owner and identify with feminine energy. And we have those among us that have this beautiful ability just to be gender fluid in how they express themselves. And I see that as a very unique gift.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

May I actually share one way? Because I still see with my my clients, sometimes they have a really don't those who resist the concept. I found a way to explain it that makes more sense, but people who still don't understand it's gender versus your sex. So if you're closing your eyes and you're opening your eyes for the first time and you haven't seen what you look like, you don't know your body yet. When you open your eyes, do you instantly feel yourself as a man or as a woman? That's it. That is your gender. If I wake up and I feel like I'm man, that's my gender, then I can look down at well. I have a vagina. Okay, yeah. That's the difference. That's my biology, that's my sex.

Venessa 54:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:56

And I know it might be inconvenient, but this is the difference. So if I wake up and I'm I'm a woman and I have a vagina, well, it will be easier for me in our current society. Or if I wake up as a man and I have a penis, but it is not it's it's not the way these are two different things. So when you comprehend it like this, it's easier to understand than what a gender is versus sex.

Venessa 55:23

Thank you for sharing that, especially as the mother of a trans son, he's now a young adult. That was something that he taught me that I'm really eternally grateful for. So thank you for your time. Thank you so much. I wish you a very blessed and beautiful day. And I will talk to you soon, I'm sure. I wish you the same, Vanessa.

Listener Contact And Closing Blessing

Venessa 55:47

In closing, I want to offer a reminder that your voice matters, and I would love to connect with you. If you feel called to contribute to this community, please reach out. You can email topic ideas, suggestions for interviews and feedback to Vanessa at squats and seances.com. That's Vanessa with an E, V E N E S S A at Squats and Seances, all spelt out one word in its entirety. You can find new episodes of squats and seances on all major podcast platforms and the adjacent vlogcast on my YouTube channel. I'll link the YouTube channel in the reference notes for you. Find and follow me on social media at squats and seances. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Until the next time, may you continue to live well, embrace authenticity, question everything, and of course, stay gritty.