What Is “Receptive Masculine”? And How That Phrase Came Into Being…
The Receptive Masculine is a term I first said in Virginia Beach at a tantra practitioners conference back 2008. I was slowly switching from being one of the faces of Cuddle Party (which just turned 18 years old last week, BTW!) to focusing more specifically on sex & relationship education rather than platonic touch.
As I was making the shift, I was being invited to teach at sex-positive conferences of all sorts. One of them was the now-defunct Daka/Dakini Conference, a gathering for teachers and practitioners of sacred sexuality traditions like tantra, Taoist sexuality practices, Chuluaqui-Quodoushka, etcetera.
Before we continue…
A Quick Note About Masculine/Feminine Energy…
Since this is an email and not a Ph.D. dissertation, let’s boil sacred sexuality’s take on “energy” down to two words, sexual polarity. As Wikipedia shares, “Sexual polarity refers to the chemistry, tension, or charge between people with opposite energies: feminine and masculine, yin and yang.”
How I see these concepts working together…
Through certain practices and disciplines, an individual learns how to magnify, purify, and wield their own energy to be able to connect with the energies of others. This allows practitioners to leverage the polarity between them to catapult themselves into ecstatic states of awareness (enlightenment) and pleasure (full-body orgasms). In American neo-tantric practices, practitioners weave their energies together through sound, movement, and intention seeking to unblock their energy centers (chakras) and raise their energetic vibration until they can merge with the sacred masculine and sacred feminine energies that run through all things.
Thanks for coming to my short TED talk on masculine/feminine energy!
Now back to Virginia Beach, 2008, as we resume our story…
I don’t know if I invented the phrase receptive masculine. I’d never heard the term mentioned before, but one night, the phrase just appeared in my brain and shot out my mouth… Why? Because a tantra teacher was being a dick to me…
Prior to 2008, I’d already experienced my Kundalini awakening (watch that story HERE) and considered myself a skeptic as well as a mystic — meaning, I loooooove me some peer-reviewed, double-blind scientific studies, AND I am comfortable having had and learning from experiences I can’t find hard science for yet.
And as someone who goes both ways (science and woo-woo), I was more than happy to nerd out with sex-positive folks from across the spectrum of traditions, identities, and experiences. Want to speak woo-woo and rub crystals on our third eyes while we try to climax simultaneously? Great! Want to discuss the osmolality of water-based lubes as a form of foreplay? You had me at osmolality. 🥰 🥰 🥰
As long as it was consensual and everyone was having fun, I didn’t need to know if something was verifiable or even believe in it to try it! (Hence why I identify so heavily as a pragmatist — if it works and leaves the campsite better than you found it, use it!)
Sacred Strap-On, Did You Say?
It was the tantra conference’s temple night (what I would call a play party) and many of North America’s leading sacred sexuality teachers were in attendance.
After the welcome circle’s safer sex conversation, which I had the honor of leading, a very prominent, male tantra teacher who shall remain nameless scoffed at me as I pulled a strap-on harness and dildo from my sex toy bag.
“What is THAT for,” he said pointing at my harness and dildo.
“It’s for my receptive masculinity practice,” I quipped. 👍
As the women tantra teachers gathered around me with enthusiastic curiosity, he jealously mumbled something about masculine energies being active, not receptive, to which I asked innocently…
“Surely, a teacher of your prowess invites their students to unlock the power of their penetrative feminine by initiating them with your receptive masculine, yes?”
Okay, it wasn’t sooooo innocent the way I asked him. (The American tantra/neo-tantra scene back in 2008 wasn’t very queer-friendly and I had strong opinions about how ideas of gender, masculinity/femininity, and unexamined heteronormativity were reinforcing the very shame and trauma sacred sexuality invited people to release and heal.)
The silence in the room was palpable.
The women tantra teachers —almost all of them former or current students of his— turned to him waiting for a response. It occurred to me then that this might be the first time a strap-on had ever made an appearance at the temple party. Could that be true?
Did I unwittingly introduce something that had never occurred to these teachers before? The tantra scene was full of genital massage techniques, as well as lingam (penis) penetrating yoni (vagina) sacred practices and Kama Sutra positions… And it wasn’t unheard of to hear tantra teachers talking about and teaching prostate massage as a means of releasing shame and accessing full-bodied orgasms… But pegging as a tantric practice?
[It is important to note that gay tantra was around in 2008 and men being penetrated wasn’t anything new in those circles if you could find those workshops (and lesbian tantra was even harder to find)… However, the concepts of yang (masculine) and yin (feminine) energies were still based heavily on masculine = penetrates, and feminine = is penetrated. And the conversations around non-binary gender, trans & cis identity, that trans men are men and trans women are women… It would be years for these ideas and concepts to start reaching the mainstream tantra world – and, in some communities, those conversations are, sadly, still not happening.]
In the silence of the temple party, I noticed the other male tantra teachers eyeing one another nervously. The know-it-all teacher I’d asked the question of was at an uncharacteristic loss for words. He began shifting nervously…
It felt like a cowboy movie standoff. I gently shook my strap-on harness, jingling it like a gunfighter’s boot spurs…
Not wanting to torture the male teachers any more than I already had, AND wanting to reignite the
playful energy of the temple party, I used the Embrace The Awkward Formula to break the tension…
I announced with great glee, “I have an idea!”
The women excitedly responded in unison, “What?!”
Raising the harness above my head for all to see, I said, “Who wants to wear my strap-on and get a blowjob from me?!”
Several women squealed, their hands shot into the air to call dibs. A few of the men gasped and unconsciously took a step back. And one or two men gasped as they stepped closer…
The temple parties at that conference were never the same again! 😊
That night, many tantra teachers got to witness a cis man (me) receive penetration (and lots of pleasure) from women wearing a harness and a dildo.
There were blowjobs, handjobs, blowjobs with handjobs… and there was pegging. Several women wore a strap-on for the first time and explored their penetrative feminine. There were lots of curious questions and loads of laughter from all genders. There were grunts, gasps, and moans of self-discovery. There was even energetic sex without the strap-on where I was penetrated by the “energetic lingams” of several of the women teachers at the same time! And we dove deeper that night, exploring how the “energetic yoni” could penetrate without having to embody any “lingam energy” at all.
The idea that feminine energy MUST be receptive, that a woman is being less feminine, less of a goddess, when she is pegging me or receiving a blow job… That masculinity can NEVER be passive, must ALWAYS be penetrating, and that receptivity somehow means I am being less masculine… Isn’t sacred sexuality supposed to be about raising our collective vibrations and expanding beyond the bullshit and cultural limitations of what we are taught sex is?
Think about all the amazing things your body might enjoy… All of the incredible activities it’s capable of and how hot AND sacred those can be…
But how is anyone going to unlock the amazing breadth and vast scope of what we’re capable of if we are never given permission or encouraged to explore —or even consider— what lies beyond our traditional ideas of Tab A goes into Slot B… How would you even know what you’re missing or where to start looking for it?
I’ll wrap up this post here. If you got this far, I appreciate it.
I’ll link to another post soon, sharing deeper ideas on what receptive masculine is to me, as well as my take on what I think being “evolved” really means (and why trying to be a “real man” and “real woman” is such a trap).
I hope you found these ideas useful. If you did, please leave a comment and share what resonated for you!
And if you really resonated with these concepts, please consider joining me for a weekend devoted to exploring the topic of the receptive masculine as well as the penetrative feminine… The Receptive Masculine Meets Penetrative Feminine Retreat. Perhaps you’ll join us!
Geekily yours,
REiD