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Sexual Energy Ecstasy: A Practical Guide To Lovemaking Secrets Of The East And West
Provides advice on sexual techniques based on Tantric and other traditions
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
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115 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 5, 2022
Sex books are a dime a dozen. Thankfully this isn't one of the few written like a dense medical manual or a sensationalist Cosmo article. Despite the campy title and cover art, this book is a great intro for western audiences into esoteric sources such as Taoist meditation & Qi Gong.
Unfortunately it does have a few drawbacks:
- The entire layout of my copy was a headache to read through. A majority of the paragraphs were nonsensical new-age poems/manifestos written in an outline note taking method. I found myself skimming over those parts, missing out on information, then having to go back and re-read them again.
- The diversity of couples represented was lacking, and that seems to be the case with a lot of sex guidebooks (even in the newer ones!) Other than the couples portrayed in the Japanese woodblock prints, the main representation of people illustrated in this book were white, heterosexual, and able-bodied. Granted, this book was written by a white heterosexual couple in 1985, so it's not too surprising. However, I find it interesting that even Mantak Chia found it necessary to include homosexual sex in his book Healing Love through the Tao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy, and that was published in 1986.
- The lube recommendations in this book are outdated. If you love yourself or your partner, STAY AWAY from vegetable oil, petroleum jelly & Astroglide. Go to your local sex shop and check out their more body-safe lubes. Coming from someone who used to work at a sex shop, I'd recommend using Pjur or Überlube.
Overall & despite these small drawbacks, I'd recommend this book to anyone who wishes to gain an experience of bonding, spiritual connection and love with their sexual partner(s) ☯
Unfortunately it does have a few drawbacks:
- The entire layout of my copy was a headache to read through. A majority of the paragraphs were nonsensical new-age poems/manifestos written in an outline note taking method. I found myself skimming over those parts, missing out on information, then having to go back and re-read them again.
- The diversity of couples represented was lacking, and that seems to be the case with a lot of sex guidebooks (even in the newer ones!) Other than the couples portrayed in the Japanese woodblock prints, the main representation of people illustrated in this book were white, heterosexual, and able-bodied. Granted, this book was written by a white heterosexual couple in 1985, so it's not too surprising. However, I find it interesting that even Mantak Chia found it necessary to include homosexual sex in his book Healing Love through the Tao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy, and that was published in 1986.
- The lube recommendations in this book are outdated. If you love yourself or your partner, STAY AWAY from vegetable oil, petroleum jelly & Astroglide. Go to your local sex shop and check out their more body-safe lubes. Coming from someone who used to work at a sex shop, I'd recommend using Pjur or Überlube.
Overall & despite these small drawbacks, I'd recommend this book to anyone who wishes to gain an experience of bonding, spiritual connection and love with their sexual partner(s) ☯
April 24, 2007
This is not your average sex tips book and can't be read in one sitting either. I was given this book as a gift a few years ago and constantly go back to it for new ideas and approaches to sex. Some of it is a bit hippy dippy - there's some really bad poetry - but it can also be enlightening. The writing is very dense and it can be difficult to follow at times. Having said that, if you're really interested in tantric and another way to have sex other than in the usual 3/4 positions, than I'd really recommend this book.
April 19, 2009
It had some ideas that were new to me, but it was hard to see past the new-agey stuff I don't believe in.
October 24, 2014
David is an old friend, and mentor. This books was a textbook for me in my early-mid 20's.
May 17, 2024
My first NSFW review... Honestly, I was unsure if I should track this on Goodreads or not as the subject matter may be somewhat taboo on here. But, for people who are interested in what it covers, I did have some thoughts on it.
This book tries to offer a "holistic" approach to sex that emphasizes emotional connection/relaxed approach versus only the more physical and combative style of it. While I think this book has merits, I had two main criticism that I think may be deal breakers for many. First, in regards to the holistic approach it describes, this feels incredibly dated today. This book goes out of it's way to describe the polarities between men and women and how the ideal relationship fuses these two different natures into one. This obviously ignores any non-heterosexual couple and reduces the spectrum of people's relationships to an extremely narrow idea of how people are attracted to one another, relate to one another, and are sexual with one another. I do not mean to be a scold here on the ethics of this- I mean it honestly just feels incomplete and incompatible for a significant amount of readers. While I related to portions of this book, I am guessing many people would not. This book also describes things like the "frigidity" of certain women or women's inability to achieve orgasms and it seems obvious that the prescriptions offered here are ignoring (or I guess, unaware of) what some women are actually interested in.
The other main gripe I have with this is that the content, while earnest and well intentioned, vacillates between interesting/grounded ideas and new-age nonsense. A chapter on the importance of your diet/mental well-being will give very reasonable and sound advice on foods/drinks/drugs to eat, moderate on, or avoid and how they affect your various bodily systems. That chapter will then weigh in on various vitamins that regulate this or that before going into more homeopathic remedies. It will then go into "negative ions" that affect our bodies and how to neutralize these... This book is of a time and place (the early 1980's) and so the new age fads of the day mingle freely with more accepted/supported practices like mindfulness meditation. Podcast like Maintenance Phase would have no trouble picking apart a lot of their suggestions and ideas. The same goes for the descriptions of historical practices and social arrangements which seem overly-romanticized, reductive, and far too credulous.
With all that said, I really did appreciate a lot this book had to offer. The main theme emphasized throughout was trying to get to a relaxed, emotionally-intimate, playful but sacred environment for sex and to set aside an almost indulgent amount of time for it. The set of practices this book outlines fall under their umbrella term of "soft-style" and for those looking at this as a sort of "cookbook" where you can just peruse various practices/experiences, they offer an impressive assortment. I will say that all partners will need to be at least somewhat on board with the ideas/attitude/goals of this book because otherwise a lot of the basic practices are going to feel extremely artificial or silly. I'm guessing that people interested in reading this are going to be somewhat open to the idea of identifying/connecting to energy points of the body or getting into the rhythm of someone's breath, but if you are expecting these practices to be so awesome and powerful that they will convert skeptics and transform people not interested - well my guess is that it will not. This book offers a thoughtful, healthy and generous way for likeminded people to re-approach or enhance their sex lives. I think if you are going in it for that- and can get past the dated, exclusive, and new-age-fluff material, than there is a ton of interesting ideas/practices in this.
This book tries to offer a "holistic" approach to sex that emphasizes emotional connection/relaxed approach versus only the more physical and combative style of it. While I think this book has merits, I had two main criticism that I think may be deal breakers for many. First, in regards to the holistic approach it describes, this feels incredibly dated today. This book goes out of it's way to describe the polarities between men and women and how the ideal relationship fuses these two different natures into one. This obviously ignores any non-heterosexual couple and reduces the spectrum of people's relationships to an extremely narrow idea of how people are attracted to one another, relate to one another, and are sexual with one another. I do not mean to be a scold here on the ethics of this- I mean it honestly just feels incomplete and incompatible for a significant amount of readers. While I related to portions of this book, I am guessing many people would not. This book also describes things like the "frigidity" of certain women or women's inability to achieve orgasms and it seems obvious that the prescriptions offered here are ignoring (or I guess, unaware of) what some women are actually interested in.
The other main gripe I have with this is that the content, while earnest and well intentioned, vacillates between interesting/grounded ideas and new-age nonsense. A chapter on the importance of your diet/mental well-being will give very reasonable and sound advice on foods/drinks/drugs to eat, moderate on, or avoid and how they affect your various bodily systems. That chapter will then weigh in on various vitamins that regulate this or that before going into more homeopathic remedies. It will then go into "negative ions" that affect our bodies and how to neutralize these... This book is of a time and place (the early 1980's) and so the new age fads of the day mingle freely with more accepted/supported practices like mindfulness meditation. Podcast like Maintenance Phase would have no trouble picking apart a lot of their suggestions and ideas. The same goes for the descriptions of historical practices and social arrangements which seem overly-romanticized, reductive, and far too credulous.
With all that said, I really did appreciate a lot this book had to offer. The main theme emphasized throughout was trying to get to a relaxed, emotionally-intimate, playful but sacred environment for sex and to set aside an almost indulgent amount of time for it. The set of practices this book outlines fall under their umbrella term of "soft-style" and for those looking at this as a sort of "cookbook" where you can just peruse various practices/experiences, they offer an impressive assortment. I will say that all partners will need to be at least somewhat on board with the ideas/attitude/goals of this book because otherwise a lot of the basic practices are going to feel extremely artificial or silly. I'm guessing that people interested in reading this are going to be somewhat open to the idea of identifying/connecting to energy points of the body or getting into the rhythm of someone's breath, but if you are expecting these practices to be so awesome and powerful that they will convert skeptics and transform people not interested - well my guess is that it will not. This book offers a thoughtful, healthy and generous way for likeminded people to re-approach or enhance their sex lives. I think if you are going in it for that- and can get past the dated, exclusive, and new-age-fluff material, than there is a ton of interesting ideas/practices in this.
December 28, 2025
A must-read if your light body is activated.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews