Tantra Mantra

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday October 22, 2005

ALAN MASCARENHAS

Jaded suburbanites and corporate high-flyers are learning sexual enlightenment from a family firm, writes ALAN MASCARENHAS.

Whale Beach is one of Sydney's prestige addresses. It is well-heeled, conservative and home to an array of reclusive glitterati. So when Diane Riley opens her front door and whisks me into her sitting room, I wonder what her neighbours must think.

Buddhas and exotic bric-a-brac line the walls; a book entitled Indian Erotica sits tantalisingly on a coffee table. I shouldn't be surprised: after a frantic morning spent in city traffic, I've been lured into the playpen of a suburban tantric goddess.

Diane and her husband, Kerry, run the Australian School of Tantra in North Sydney, but they are hardly the X-rated family one might imagine. Coiffed and well-groomed, the Rileys and their bewitchingly beautiful daughters, Soelae and Lisa-Mae, burst with articulate insights and eagerly interrupt each other. They are keen to dispel a misunderstanding: tantra, an ancient Indian art form, is not about lurid sex but intimate lovemaking.

I digest this with scepticism. The study of sex, whatever the rationalisation, has always struck me as faintly disreputable. Before our meeting, my eyebrows were raised by a visit to the school's website (www.tantragoddessoz.com), replete with images of naked, golden couples entwined on beaches and bedspreads. The passion looked blazing, but so what? Surely lovemaking is supposed to come intuitively, even if it is fumbling and sloppy.

"I give the analogy of someone who does [jogging] as their only exercise," says Kerry. "There's nothing wrong with that but then people start exploring yoga or tai chi. It's like that with sex. People think, 'I've tried all these positions, I know about oral sex. What else is there?' With tantra, suddenly there's a whole range of things that opens up a person not just physically but emotionally and spiritually.

"Sting's always talking about his love-making sessions, Heather Graham was out here [saying] how she loves making love to guys who know tantra. So it's growing, you know? And why not. It's the study of love and sex - a big part of our lives - and it's time we opened up and said, 'Hey, we can do better at this."'

Philosophically, tantra regards sex as spiritual enlightenment; the balance of male and female energies represented by the Hindu deities Shiva and Shakti. Reduced to crudities, though, it can involve ejaculation control or "lasting longer without coming": a heightened ecstatic state achieved through patterned breathing and meditation.

"Ejaculations are wonderful experiences but they can drain your energy," Kerry says. "Especially for a guy over 50, he gets into a heightened state and then he ejaculates and he's done. He's tired for three to five days."

Ejaculation control, though, is a lot different to suppressing an orgasm, which can lead to scrotum pains and prostate trouble. Kerry cryptically describes a tantric technique that allows a man to reach orgasm without expelling semen. "Because I tell you, as a man when you develop these things, your self-image goes up 1000 per cent."

Other non-intercourse practices the family swears by include the "nurturing position" - a mandatory clasp after an argument - and the "daily devotion", which involves naked couples locking eyes and embracing intensely for five minutes each day.

The Rileys' teachings have evidently struck a chord, judging by their comfortable lifestyle on the northern beaches. The school's clientele, Diane says, includes men who are between relationships, corporate women seeking to reconnect with their feminine core, and middle-aged Mosman mums: "After being married 16 years, they just want something a bit extra to what you get in Cosmo."

Starting the business in 1988 was a risk, but the couple, who have been married for 26 years, were always passionate about alternative therapies. Kerry chuckles when he says they courted by going to yoga retreats back when it was seen as "some weird thing out of India".

In addition to their tantric lovemaking courses, the Rileys' output includes a self-help book, Sexual Secrets for Men, and a video, The Secrets of Sacred Sex, which has sold more than 200,000 copies.

More recently, their daughters Soelae, 25, and Lisa-Mae, 23, have joined the business. Soelae runs an internet offshoot, allowing curious browsers to download tantric love-making tips. It's a big change from their embarrassment as children, when they'd tell curious classmates their parents were marriage counsellors. "I was in year 7, [Lisa-Mae] was in year 5 and [our parents] were guest speakers on the TV show Sex/Life quite at lot," recalls Soelae. "So at school they'd be like, 'Your parents were on Sex/Life! What do they do? Do they teach sex?"' Lisa-Mae adds: "Only as we got older did we begin to realise they were teaching about heart-to-heart connection."

Diane, for her part, is protective of her daughters. When I imply Soelae and Lisa-Mae experienced a more risque upbringing than other girls, she bristles: "Sexually aware - but not permissive."

It turns out this self-proclaimed tantric goddess is an unlikely agitator against sleazy filmmakers and hard-core porn. Not so different from your average suburban soccer mum, then. The neighbours can rest easy.

"Young women are bombarded with so many exploitative images," she says. "But sex is [not just about] turning a guy on ... sexuality is about respecting yourself and not being dictated to. Tantra is inclusive of any sexual practice so long as it doesn't harm the self or the other and so long as there is a loving connection."

© 2005 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home