Next, Carla demonstrated how breathing is related to our base chakra, where sexual energy is stored. She arranged us into the missionary position on the table. Our breathing, thrusting and gazing was synched into a kind of tantric dry-hump. I wondered if we were going to shag, full-on. "How do you like to have sex?" Carla purred. "Do you like to be on top, Erica?" "Umm . . . yeah," Erica replied. We ran the gamut of our sexual repertoire in dry-hump mode, each time employing the techniques that we had been taught.

I have to confess, I desperately wanted Carla to see a powerful erection tenting my underpants. I wanted to impress her, to see if a pronounced woody would kick the session into high gear — if, at that point, she'd want to see us in action. But with a naked stranger ten years my parents' senior barking instruction and Erica and I sounding like a pair of asthmatic seals, the moment didn't arrive. Erica looked more amused than aroused.

Carla had us sit back to back and synch up our breathing again, then let forth a corresponding bellow for each of the chakras. "LUUUMM, VUMMM, RUUUM, YAAAAHHHM, HUUMMMM, OHHHHHMMMM" — over and over, until we could feel each of the sounds resonating in the perineum (taint), genitals, stomach, heart, throat and cranium. Next it was time for a Tantric massage. Erica and Carla both worked on my back, and it was good. "I am going to pull your underwears down, okay?" asked Carla. "Oh yeah," I moaned. Carla exposed my bum and started kneading my cheeks, her hands greasy with oil. She put the palm of her hand flat against my bare undercarriage. With the other, she tugged at the hair on the crown of my head. If you've been paying attention, you'll have deduced that she was connecting the base and head chakras, thus forming the link between the sexual and the spiritual.
 

After Erica's massage, the session was over. As we were dressing, Carla showed us her collection of little wooden figurines , couples engaged in most positions of the Kama Sutra. She picked one up and held it to our faces. "Look at his little wooden balls! Ha ha ha ha ha!" I wondered if all the sexual paraphernalia gets put away in a cupboard when the grandkids come over to visit. I know that I'd have been altered as a kid if a trip to grandma's meant hanging out in a room with a vast array of erect porcelain cocks instead of ornate teapots and vases.

When we got home, we decided to test our newfound tantric wisdom. Now, loud breathing exercises are all well and good when you're lying prostrate in a learned instructor's "inner sanctum," but pulling it off in your girlfriend's bedroom while her roommate snores loudly in the next room is another story. We waited until he rolled over onto his side and gave it a good shot. I think we even lit a candle. We didn't have any sitar music, so we put on an old Cure record. Inhale, exhale. "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh." Giggling. Inhale, exhale. "Ahhhhhhhhhh." Giggling. We felt ridiculous. I had the brilliant idea of putting it in, then continuing the breathing/thrusting motions. We did this for about a second. It's difficult to have sex like that. For starters, it's noisy as hell. Second, all that going-slow-and-breathing malarkey just doesn't feel very natural. After ten minutes, we settled back into our old Western ways. Both too horny to bother with the brooding, sensual nature of what we had learned, we postponed the breathing and synchronized motion for another day. That day has not yet arrived. Right now, we're more into fucking than harnessing heaven or whatever.

Conclusion:

Summarize your findings. Don't forget to attempt to identify possible variables that could result in different findings for others trying to recreate your test results.

Did you know that the people of the Indus valley didn't go to war for more than 3,000 years? Why? Because they were too busy mastering tantra. As we discovered, it's not something you can learn in an evening and immediately put to use, like knitting. It's a lifestyle , and not one that jibes with us right now. At time of file, we're young, hot for each other and doing it all the time. One of the objectives of tantra (at least as it's purported by the media) is to shag for ages and . . . well . . . we do that anyway.

Having a professional makeout coach was a trip and a little embarrassing. For days afterward, whenever I leaned in to smooch Erica, I could hear Carla saying, "Good, good, good!" In summary, I'd have to echo the thoughts of those kids from those TV abstinence ads: When it comes to tantric sex and the new Sting box set, it's definitely a case of not me, not now.

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