Yesterday, folks from our L.A. and national office staff held our first book club meeting! Our goal is to read books that we sell, so that we can better educate ourselves and our customers. June’s selection was Urban Tantra, the excellent and highly readable guide by Barbara Carrellas.
We, as a group, had different levels of experience and comfort with concepts like chakras and meditation. Still, even those of us who found some of the more spiritual aspects of Urban Tantra discomfiting or challenging agreed that every exercise in the book could be valuable, not least because they all sound like they feel great. One member of our L.A. staff, a theater director, even said that she had used some of the breathing exercises with her actors, with great success.
We also agreed that Barbara Carrellas is awesome about writing inclusively. Rather than talking about male and female bodies, she talks about testosterone-based bodies and estrogen-based bodies, or about specific genitalia, even acknowledging that there are not just two gender identities or two possible genital configurations. She also says specifically that certain exercises are particularly adaptable for people with certain disabilities.
Even when Carrellas doesn’t go out of her way to suggest it, the exercises in Urban Tantra are very adaptable. One of our staff wondered out loud how she might adapt some of the tantra techniques based on eye contact to use with her partner, who has a visual disability. Immediately, two other people were able to suggest touch- or sound-based techniques from the book that might work in place of eye contact to help two partners connect intimately.
Of course, as educators, we had two big questions: what techniques can we recommend to customers and folks who come to our workshops, and who would we recommend read this book? Here’s what we decided.
This book is great if you want to learn:
How to de-stress from your workday
How to warm up (and get out of your head) for sexytimes
How to delay orgasm
How to have bigger, deeper, different and more varied orgasms
How to connect or re-connect with your partner
How to give a delicious massage
How to give a kick-ass hand job (on any body)
How to figure out what kind of touch your partner enjoys
How to warm up a BDSM bottom
… and more. It’s a really comprehensive book. We’d even recommend it to folks who are just looking for a basic sex primer, since it puts so much focus on getting to know your body and what feels good to you. Plus, the anatomy diagrams are excellent.
In short, we went nuts for Urban Tantra. It was a great pick for our first meeting, and we all highly recommend it.
Intrigued? Get your copy here.
The post Staff Book Club Pick:
Urban Tantra appeared first on Pleasurechest.
