DR THOMAS STUTTAFORD

Tantric sex includes the philosophies expressed by the ancient Hindu text on erotic pleasure known as the Kamasutra. It also incorporates ideas from Tantric Buddhism and Tantrism in China, Arabia and Japan. The aim of tantric sex is to make people happy and comfortable with their bodies, so that they connect spiritually as well as physically with their sexual partners. Tantric experts learn that having sex isn't only about ejaculation or having an orgasm and that sex can be fully enjoyed without achieving either.

To discover more about the techniques of tantric sex, I would suggest that you get hold of a copy of Tantric Sexuality: A Beginner's Guide (Headway) by Richard Craze. The book emphasises that it is mainly concerned with sex for couples, rather than single people, and it has only a few, not very explicit, paragraphs devoted to its practice during masturbation.

Many young British men assume that other cultures hold the key to sexual success. Nearly every fifth-former thumbs their way through the Kamasutra. They don't always enthuse about its literary style but reading the book usually leaves them with a lifelong conviction that sex in bedrooms east of Suez is exotic, diverse, sophisticated and wildly extravagant.

Accordingly, the Kamasutra has established a strong belief in the minds of many young British men that every man from the Middle East, Indian sub-continent or Far East was so well versed in the art of sex that the fifth-formers' fumbling efforts at sexual sophistication would never appear as anything other than gauche.

However, it may not always be the case that Asian men are supermen in the bedroom, as I discovered when I worked at a genitourinary clinic in Whitechapel, East London. Few areas of London are more multiracial than White-chapel and the patients we treated there naturally reflected the eclectic cultural mix of the area. In the clinic, we doctors were regularly given intimate information about our patients' love lives and it allowed us to gain a reasonable knowledge of the sexual prowess of men from a variety of cultures.

No objective scientific assessment of different nationalities ability as lovers was possible but many women partnered by men from India, the Middle East, China and Japan - the areas where tantric sex is supposed to influence people's love lives - suggested to us that their sex life was not as good as they would have liked; and certainly not on a par with the lurid imaginings of so many British adolescents.

No doubt there are some tantric-educated men who can retain their erections for as long as they wish and ejaculated only when their partner is satiated, but I suspect that they are few and far between. Equally, the Tantric masters of the Testicular Dance, the Art of 1,000 Thrusts, the Locking Position and the Sporting of the Sparrow, not to mention the Nailed Half-Press Congress, are probably rather thin on the ground.

A knowledge of Eastern tantric sex might be interesting, but this alone would be unlikely to make you any more popular with women. The thing to remember is that, throughout civilised society, East or West, good sex is as much determined by what happens between the ears as between the thighs.

Dr Thomas Stuttaford, the Times doctor, spent many years working in a genitourinary clinic

SUZI GODSON

I've read a lot about tantric sex, too. I understand it to be the sexual equivalent to slow cooking, or, to wring that metaphor dry, everything takes a lot longer but the end result is much more delicious because, by the time you are allowed to taste it, you are absolutely starving.

In tantric sex, orgasm isn't supposed to be the point. The focus is on increasing awareness, exploring the inner self and achieving enlightenment. Though I'm not entirely sure what “enlightenment” actually means, once you achieve that state the subtext woven into all tantric literature is the promise of better sex than you have ever had in your life.

So does it really work? When I received your question I figured there was only one way to find out, so I dragged my husband to a tantric sex workshop. There was less kicking and screaming than I had anticipated, but I had to assure him that he wouldn't have to take his clothes off or get involved in group sex. Which was a lie, of course, because I had no idea what I was letting us in for.

The event was hosted by Leora Lightwoman, of the Diamond Light Tantra group (0870 0780584), and it took place in a hotel in North London. When we arrived at the venue, my husband asked the two women working on reception where the tantra evening was being held. They grinned like Cheshire cats as they pointed to a sign on a door and, as we made our way to the basement, we could hear them laughing behind us. The room was clearly more accustomed to wedding receptions and corporate presentations but there were a few candles in the middle of the floor to give a bit of atmosphere. The 25 or so participants ranged in age from early twenties to late fifties, and there was little eye contact as we joined the circle to listen to Leora welcome us and outline what tantra entailed.

There was lots of stuff about “openness” and “pers-onal journeys” and the “inner self” and “enlightenment”, but sex didn't get a mention. And when the class members were invited to introduce themselves, there was more “openness”, countless “personal journeys” and a universal desire to make peace with the “inner self”. It was confessional group therapy and Leora was sympathetic. Everything shared was “lovely” and the sharing would have gone on all night if Leora hadn't insisted we move on.

She wanted us to get physical, which raised my blood pressure, but we remained on our chairs and shook our right hands in the air really hard. Then we shared how that made us feel. Then we had to stand up, breathe heavily and do juddery movements to music.

Some people started to make orgasmy noises and a couple of them began to roll around on the floor, barking at each other, which was un-settling. By the time Leora asked us to pretend that we were whisking eggs in a bowl in our pelvis, my husband was feeling twitchy, and when we were asked to walk around the room and touch foreheads with whoever we were next to when the music stopped, he finally threw in the towel and snuck away back to the giggling receptionists.

What had we learnt? Not much, really. As we drove home, we agreed that neither of us felt remotely enlightened; in fact, we felt that tantric sex seemed to make more sense on paper than it did in practice. Whether it would work for you depends on the type of person you are; and the only way to find out is to try it.

Suzi Godson is the author of The Sex Book (Cassell, £16.99) and The Body Bible (Penguin, £16.99)

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