The Tantric Woman, aka Jo is a Tantra goddess specialising in Tantric bodywork sessions. She is also a sex and relationship coach. After growing up in a strict religious household where she felt a lot of shame around sex, she is now focused on understanding the space between spirituality and sexuality. Through her work, she hopes that she can fill her clients with a deep sense of love, touch and presence, giving them permission to fully express themselves and feel properly seen and heard.
Tell us about you and how you got into Tantra.
I’m Jo, I’m based in London and I’m a tantric massage and body worker. I also do sex coaching for both men and women. I got into doing tantric bodywork sessions only a few years ago now but I came into the world of conscious sexuality and Tantra about nine years ago.
I actually came in through a practice called orgasmic meditation which is deemed as a bit of a sex cult and it pretty much got cancelled- but the actual practice taught me a lot around how to just be really present with my sexual energy and how to use it in a way that gives my body a lot of nourishment and love that I’d never really experienced before.
It was through that practice that I then did coaching and during that, I realised how important touch is and I went into a practice called ‘liquid love’ where you glide on each other’s bodies with oil, which is amazing. I had just had the most amazing love making session with someone, it involved no penetration and was purely about the union of the two bodies coming and meeting one another. It really changed my life, I had never felt nourished from intimacy like that before.
I think my somatic work is really powerful for men because they spend so much time in their minds so for them to be able to access the feminine state of being in their bodies is a game changer. Many men that I have worked with have never experienced that level of attention or touch for two straight hours before.
So from there, I wanted to make my practice more physical, and give what I had received to other people. Transmutation of energy is so powerful- just by connecting with someone else who shows up consciously with presence and awareness. I learned tantric massage and I started doing swaps with someone, so receiving massages as well and I just noticed that every time I had one like I just felt lighter and there was more energy flowing through me. I was able to think more creatively and be more intuitive.
We live in a society where we think being sexually intimate with someone always has to be around like penetration. There’s a lot more to touch and sensuality than just having penetrative sex. My London-based tantric bodywork sessions are not just about healing sexual energy but also about cultivating more of it- self sourcing our own power in this way.
I feel like there’s nothing else like the transformative power of Tantra. It’s almost like embodiment therapy- it’s like you don’t have to speak but if you have a practitioner like myself who does the work who does journaling who’s cleansing their energy and doing all the different types of practices so that they can be fully present with their clients.
A lot of the time I’m doing different types of tantric strokes but often it’s sometimes like doing deeper somatic work as well and actually just being able to hold the body and encouraging clients to use their breath in a way that they can just simply being able to let go because often when you say to someone ‘oh just let go, surrender‘ people don’t really know what it is and especially when I work with men and that’s why touch is so important because I can begin to guide them through breath work by holding their body and something slowly begins to shift.
I’ve had like some of the most profound experiences- especially with some men, who will come and think ‘oh I’m going to feel ecstatic pleasure’ and then they have actually completely cried after the session through just being able to release in that way. My sessions are a lot about permission.
I think my somatic work is really powerful for men because they spend so much time in their minds so for them to be able to access the feminine state of being in their bodies is a game changer. Many men that I have worked with have never experienced that level of attention or touch for two straight hours before.
If you’re into kink but you haven’t addressed the more sensual aspect of sex within you, there’s not an alignment between spirituality and sexuality which is what my work is fundamentally about.
How often would you recommend people getting a tantric massage?
Everyone’s different. I had one guy that was 29 years old and had lost his libido. He said that he was with a really beautiful woman but he just didn’t get aroused anymore and he was thinking he needed to maybe take Viagra, so I told him to come and see me instead for a massage. I literally solved his issues immediately and he said it was the first time he had felt his sexual energy in so long. Men don’t need viagra, they can just easily become disconnected from their bodies. People like him only need one session, but then I also have had regular clients with weekly sessions.
If someone’s sexual energy is dormant or if they’ve got a lot of trauma then I recommend a healing package which is 3 sessions every week or every other week- largely focused around bodywork and de-armouring around the anus and genitals. We hold so much trauma in these areas- much more than people realise.
Work around the anus is so good for men. Men are often worried about the stigma around it, but when we explore it in a session, they become completely alive. The anus is also just a very stimulating area for a man, and whilst they are initially hesitant to explore, they end up having full body orgasms from me touching that area.
Then there’s other types of sessions like the mastery sessions, which is about mastering your sexual energy so that you can be more in tune with a woman. Because when a man is in his head when he’s pleasuring you, it’s really obvious- you can tell they are trying to get you off in a goal-driven way, instead of when someone is truly pleasuring you from their heart and really interested in exploring your body and your beauty. These two mindsets make all the difference between a woman freezing up or them opening and blooming like a flower.
I also think some people can be really into kink and have these fantasies that they want to play out, but in doing that they bypass a lot of the heart space and go straight to the thrill. I think to me, if you’re into kink but you haven’t addressed the more sensual aspect of sex within you, there’s not an alignment between spirituality and sexuality which is what my work is fundamentally about.
Pleasure shouldn’t be dependent necessarily on the person you’re doing it with. I go to get plenty of yoni massages myself, because it really blisses me out to receive so much attention down there, and it’s not about the masseuse, it’s about me. I feel that I’ve learnt to self-source my own pleasure, I’m the empress of my Yoni kingdom.
How would you then define yourself in comparison to other people doing Tantra sessions?
I don’t know many people who do what I do but I have had clients come to me and say that (in terms of Tantra) I’m authentic in the way that I see everything as a ritual. I don’t do sessions shorter than two and a half hours long because I don’t think you can do a proper tantric massage in an hour.
It’s all about the details from the undressing ceremony to sitting in a tantric posture called ‘yum’ which allows us to be in a heart connection with one another as we begin to activate sexual energy through breath, sound and movement-so I know that I have curated something in a way that gives the most fullest expression of what Tantra is and I know it’s like a journey that I take them on.
I always cleanse my energy and I emulate from my heart rose quartz, I make my body into this healing space in my Tantra sessions. I definitely feel nourished after the session like even though it’s like we’ve been in this kind-of vortex for like two hours. Like I feel very healed but I also need time to rest afterwards because my spirit is like working through me as I’m doing the work and so it’s a different type of feeling.
Interesting things you’ve learnt on this journey?
I feel that I’ve learnt that pleasure shouldn’t be dependent necessarily on the person you’re doing it with. I go to get plenty of yoni massages myself, because it really blisses me out to receive so much attention down there, and it’s not about the masseuse, it’s about me. I feel that I’ve learnt to self-source my own pleasure, I’m the empress of my Yoni Kingdom.
I think that’s why sometimes people get stuck in sex- because they think it’s about the other person. When we get stuck thinking too much of the other person, we limit something which is meant to be limitless. A guy explained at experience at a massage where he said he found it really difficult to get a hard on because he didn’t fancy the tantric woman and that just says to me – it’s got nothing to do with the woman, it’s just that he’s too much in his head and thinking that he can’t feel pleasure because he’s not attracted to the woman.
I think it’s crazy how it’s actually more normal in society to speak about sex and women in a degrading and crude way than to speak about sex and women in a positive, nourishing and loving way.
A lot of men are in pain because not many men are able to come into their hearts and just actually feel, so when they go through stress or traumatic experiences they close down their emotions and their feelings and they actually don’t connect to their hearts so my mission is also to make men more present with their heart space.
What is your mission?
Mine is a very simple one: it’s about being able to be in service to love.
A lot of men are in pain because not many men are able to come into their hearts and just actually feel, so when they go through stress or traumatic experiences they close down their emotions and their feelings and they actually don’t connect to their hearts so my mission is also to make men more present with their heart space, because I think that this will completely change society and relationships.
I feel as though men and women are very polarised from one another today. Women are understandably annoyed about toxic masculinity but then men don’t know how to respond to our anger. I think we always have to be compassionate and try to educate, and show that we still appreciate masculinity as a thing, otherwise I think men just end up feeling emasculated and unsure of what to do with themselves.
I think if sex work and the sex industry could could shift in a way that people could promote themselves differently to what they think men want, we could actually start to move away from how pornography has warped the world view of sex.
What is the most challenging thing about what you do?
I think keeping to my boundaries is the most challenging thing. I think what this work has actually taught me is how to be very strong in my boundaries, because in the sessions there’s a lot of sexual energy moving between us, and sometimes the men want to have sex and it takes a lot of strength for me to just not just say no in a way that’s going to shut down their sexuality but more in a way that is like ‘thank you for expressing your desire but this is not what the session is about today you know we can have a chat after the session’.
What do you think about sex and sensuality in society today?
There’s so much objectification around sexuality which for me is deeply unhealthy because even in pornography we’re looking at a woman in a particular way, it’s no wonder like men have issues when it comes to real intimacy because they’re in a fantasy mode of what sexual intimacy is.
I think if sex work and the sex industry could could shift in a way that people could promote themselves differently to what they think men want, we could actually start to move away from how pornography has warped the world view of sex. I think the world is way more sexual than sensual today. I think sensuality is so much more 3D- it’s about the senses, it’s not just a body. It’s about the soul.
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Iso
Iso is a writer and filmmaker based in East London. She is passionate about all things erotic and leads a sexy, shame-free life in hope that she can inspire others to do the same. Originally from a Northern seaside town, she is naturally drawn to the best things in life: candyfloss, trashy karaoke bars and heart-shaped sunglasses.
