Tantra and Expanded Sexual Response (ESR)

Column Article

TANTRA  AND EXPANDED SEXUAL RESPONSE (ESR)

By Marjo Ramstadius

Tantra is the way of attaining ultimate pleasures and orgasms for males and females. Sexual union is regarded as a sacred and profound phenomenon in Tantra, such that the higher levels of sexual consciousness are sought. In Tantric literature, we witness that the woman has a limitless perception of sexual climax, while the male continues to stimulate her without attaining an ejaculation, or orgasm. In Kama Sutra or other texts, we know that the women’s pleasure can be prolonged and enhanced limitlessly. And this potential of women has been kept as secret for centuries in the Tantric subcultures.

Recently at the turn of 1990’s and 2000’s, there have been some attempts to reach such climax levels by some researchers. It has been concluded that prolonged and enhanced orgasms can be attained in human female, if proper body-mind connection and prolonged erotic stimulation is given. And many researchers have coined this phenomenon as “Expanded Sexual Response” (ESR). When I have searched PUBMED, I have seen many articles about the pathologies of female sexual response, but no mention of ESR. So ESR, although defined in Tantric Cultures, 2000 years ago, has not been defined by scientists or medics yet!

Tantra for centuries sought the ultimate, topmost pleasures for women; so ESR phenomenon was a very natural and normal way of life in Tantra and Tantric tradition. When you look at the definitions of Tantric female climaxes and readings from Tantric books, you come across unbelievable sacred and tremendous definition of orgasmic response of females. So we are, in Europe and USA, trying to rediscover something that has long been forgotten for centuries. In Kama Sutra and other Taoist scriptures we can read that, the female orgasms can be enhanced and expanded to a level that no ordinary person can experience. Catholic Church prevented females to attain ultimate pleasures for more than 2000 years in the West, while the East was discovering all possible means to maintain male sexual energy and enhance female orgasm.

With a colleague of mine, we have done a research in the internet and facebook about the possible means to attain ESR. Although it is daily and normal phenomenon in Tantric way of life, it was really difficult to find women with ESR in the West. We interviewed some women with ESR, who were not diagnosed as sex addicts or bipolar disorder or nymphos, and we submitted our findings for a sexology meeting in Norway. Here are the “Ten Commandments” of ESR:

THE MAIN PARAMETERS AND NEW DEFINITIONS OF ENHANCED AND EXPANDED SEXUAL RESPONSE (ESR)

Rationale:  In medical literature, there are many researches and articles about the pathologies of the desire and sexual response of females on the dysfunctions of female sexual physiology and psychology such as anorgasmia, vaginismus etc., however there has been no attempt for a research to investigate the possibilities of enhanced sexual functions and response of the human female, unless it is caused by bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive sexual disorder, persistent genital arousal syndrome etc. Recently many books have been published about the enhanced and expanded sexual response (ESR) of the human female (Taylor, 2002; Rhodes, 1991; Bodansky, 2000; Zdrok, 2004)[1].

Introduction: To investigate the main parameters of a possible ESR we have contacted some women who claimed to have enhanced sexual response. Our aim was to establish the main scientific basis of the definitions and parameters of ESR, if it existed, and to establish an objective ESR scale out of our preliminary findings.

Methods:   As a preliminary study, women who claimed that they have a form of ESR and …. women without ESR definitions were interviewed through internet and/or face to face. The women who joined the study were selected by means of personal communications through the academic circles, former survey correspondents, universities and via the internet and facebook communications; many women with different nationalities were included in the study in 2010 and 2011. To prevent the enhanced sexual response due to psychiatric pathologies such as bipolar disorder, compulsive sexual disorder, all women were questioned about their medical history and such women were not taken to the study.

Results: It is concluded that some aspects of the sexual response of women with ESR were different than the women without ESR (none-ESR, NESR): 1) The ESR women experienced vaginal, clitoral and blended orgasms, as described by Ladas, Whipple and Perry[2]. 2) The ESR women experienced multiple orgasms in most of their sexual activities. 3) The ESR women were able to attain long lasting and/or prolonged and/or multiple and/or sustained orgasms that lasted longer than the classical single orgasm and/multiple orgasm patterns defined in the literature. 4) The ESR women claimed to have strong pelvic floor muscles (PFM) compared to NESR women. 5) The libido of ESR women was very high compared to NESR women. 6) ESR women described a phenomenon called G-Spot orgasms. 7) ESR women described sensitive erogenous zones in their genitalia other than clitoris.  8) ESR women masturbated very frequently. 9) ESR women had erotic fantasies more frequently than the NESR women. 10) ESR women admitted to have a form of altered states of consciousness during some of their prolonged orgasms.

Conclusion: ESR is a novel phenomenon in the human female which was defined recently. Our preliminary data revealed that more detailed scientific research should be carried out on the possible existence of such a phenomenon. The authors are still working on some psychometric ESR-scales to measure the claimed ESR in the human female in scientific terms.