The biggest warning sign when performing the tantra technique and trying to sense how much control you have before you enter the orgasm is the willingness to flex your PC muscle. For a variety of reasons, which include wakefulness, gut fullness or other aspects, you might not feel like you want to flex your lower pelvic muscles and it might even feel uncomfortable.

In such scenarios, the technique becomes much harder to execute. It is therefore advisable to first meditate and flex the PC muscle thoroughly to identify if there are any such issues.

Controlling the Uncontrollable

The more I practise tantra and the more I succeed or fail, the more I learn about the art of navigating orgasms. Tantra really is a game that is at the razor's edge of control.

There are few things that are less controllable than orgasms. In fact, I can't think of a single one.

Controlling orgasms is the ultimate exercise of control since no other internal sensation even comes close.

The Lightness of Failure

The difference between success and failure is often lighter than a thought, a moment or a sensation. The difference can be so small that it can only be described as outside of oneself yet still within your grasp.

If the PC muscle tries to un-flex itself and it feels like it just does not want to flex properly, then moving the energy downwards will become more difficult simply because the lower pathway is blocked. If the energy has no way to escape but upwards, then this is what it will do.

I have had multiple experiences of success and failure when delving right toward the border of where failure lies, almost as if trying to dare it.

If I let go of my control and delve even deeper, will I be able to pull myself out again?

Locked In

A central concept that often leads to failures is the ramp, which signifies an escalating sensation that can lead to an ejaculation if it is not controlled. The ramp will turn the flexing of the PC muscle into an escalating ejaculation, which is the ultimate loss of control since the one thing that should provide control turns against you.

Within the ramp, or maybe a new alternative pathway, is the lock. The lock seems to be a state where the orgasm has "settled" in the tip of the penis and locks the way down behind it. That means you can be within the ramp but still have control, only to lose it once it locks in fully.

Once it is locked in, it does not allow you to deescalate the sensation anymore. While the ramp itself can be dissipated, the lock seems to be a terminal state for the ejaculation energy. Once it is locked, it will not go back.

Locked Out

What is curious about the lock is that it is not actually the ejaculation, nor is any fluid moving when it hits. The lock is simply a locked-in sensation in the tip that feels final. There is still space within that sensation to relax and aim to dissipate the energy, but the lock is so strong that it is nearly impossible to calm.

While the ramp is a continuous escalation moving the energy upwards along the penis, the lock is a single event that locks the energy in place and blocks it from moving down. If the ramp is a continuous process vaguely felt along the penis, the lock is a discrete moment, narrowed down to a single point.

When encountering the lock, you must treat it like the ramp and loosen up, not flex the PC muscle while dissipating the energy until the lock is released.

With orgasms, the most important tool is not tension but relaxation.

But, relaxation is very hard to trust when control is the goal.

Tantra Unlocked

Allowing yourself to dive into the ramp and letting go of the need to control the orgasm is in itself a new way of executing the technique. It requires less muscle control and more mental control.

When things seem lost or urgent, it appears to be essential to act, and not doing so seems to make it worse. Yet, it is the other way around.

It is almost like an exercise in trust that there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. The ramp or lock might seem insurmountable at first but, with practice, even that can be dissipated and gently removed.

Over the years that I have been doing tantra, I have used different approaches that, in hindsight, all seem incompatible with each other.

When I started, my tantra was light but very deep with the flexing being minimal. At this point, I just ran deep into the orgasm, fully relaxed, and used all my mental and physical control to revert the ejaculation afterwards. Failure was frequent but it was a great technique.

Later, it became heavy and controlling with muscle tension and flexing being the most important aspect. Harvesting became my focus and I developed an awareness for the hormonal response beyond the orgasm and beyond the horniness. Harvesting became a way of stealing thunder in a controlled environment. Failure was rare but the technique was not perfectly clean even if no drops emerged.

Now, it is gentle, clean but visceral with lighter orgasms but deep hormonal depth. It has gone beyond harvesting the horniness from the tip and has reached the level of touching the forbidden hormonal response itself. Failures are very rare now.

An Evolving Practice

In between these transitions, I had many interesting experiences that challenged my perspective of what pleasure, orgasms, ejaculations and hormonal responses are.

None of these experiences are mystical or better than a regular orgasm. Those trying to convince you of it are, in my opinion, selling good old-fashioned snake oil, nothing else.

If you had an orgasm before, then that is what you get with tantra. But you will meet different types of orgasms. Some are way deeper. Some are lighter. Some are longer while others feel strangely different.

Of course, the harvesting of energy from the orgasm will be new but it is most useful to those who are interested in meditation rather than those looking for pleasure.

Looking Into The Future

How will my tantra practice evolve? I believe that I will go deeper and deeper into the uncontrollable to gain a sense of control or, at least, a way to navigate the uncontrollable to reach a desired outcome.

The lock is just another roadblock on the way, just like the ramp used to be one. But what is a problem today will be forgotten once it is solved.

I believe that delving into the hormonal response of the orgasm, the thing that normally softens the erection and is generally experienced after the orgasm and ejaculation, but without emitting any ejaculate, is the next level of the practice.

The next level of tantra is one step closer to the fire.

So far, I have managed to identify the lock and found a way to avoid it: Rather than flexing your PC muscle at all, as you would with the ramp, you only dissipate the energy, since any PC muscle flexing will create the lock no matter how long you wait.

For the regular ramp, you first dissipate the energy and flex once you deem it safe. If there is a high risk of the lock happening, you dissipate way beyond the orgasm and don’t flex at all beyond general lower body tension.

Your erection will simply subside as as time passes and so will the ramp and the lock.

This requires extensive experience, since it is the most mind-over-matter technique in tantra I have ever used.