When Sex Got Super Woo-Woo: Alicia and Magda

“When Sex Got Super Woo-Woo: Alicia and Magda”

a Girl Boner podcast transcript

August/narration:

Have you ever had a sexual experience that felt super spiritual? Do you consider sex to be a spiritual experience in general?

I recently polled my email list about this:

8% of folks who replied said they’d had a super spiritual sex experience at some point. Sixteen percent said they consider sex at least somewhat in general.

One person wrote: “I had sex with once and saw lights around my partner, like a rainbow. It didn’t feel scary at all, not like a health issue. I actually felt peace and warmth…at a time when I needed some emotional healing.”

Another wrote, “Sex always feels spiritual with my wife. There’s something about sex with someone you love and loves you that can make you feel almost as one…or out of body, even when your body is feeling so much.”

And another wrote, “Nope, it’s all physical and emotional for me. And sometimes just physical.”

All totally valid experiences and perspectives.

Today you’ll hear from two sexuality experts about their own spicy experiences that felt “super woo woo.” Like, on another spiritual plane. Transcendent.

[spiritual music…]

Sex and relationship coach, Alicia Davon, told me about a time she had sex with her now husband, Erwan, early on. She was in her early 20s at the time, and they’d been together for about 6 months.

Alicia: And we were casually seeing each other but casual just sounds so weird because our connection was so deep. So it wasn’t a casual connection, but the commitment level let’s say was casual.

I was having such profound sexual experiences with him and experimenting. I was just like, I’m going to roll with this and see how long I want to do this.

August/narration:

She remembers the day the sex turned deliciously woo woo vividly. At the time, Erwan was running two houses of people, about a dozen in each. They were all engaged in sensuality research and personal growth.

Alicia was part of that community when they started dating. She was also in grad school, studying to be a therapist…and her whole life was basically about personal growth. And some really awesome sex was part of it. The especially spiritual romp took place during the day on a weekend.

Alicia: I remember walking into his house, and as usual there were cool people hanging out in the living room and then Erwan was standing in the kitchen with oven mitts on. And had this big goofy smile on his face.

And I’m like, “what are you making?” And he’s like, “I’m making brownies,” which they could only be pot brownies. Erwan would not bake normal brownies. So I’m like, “Oh really?”

He took the brownies out of the oven and then cut them up and put them away But got a plate of them. He’s like, “all right, let’s go upstairs.” So I just had this feeling like this is gonna be a wild experience. I just had a feeling.

So we went up to his room and ate some brownies. Back then you could eat like more than a crumb and not be completely wasted. These were more mellow.

I was relaxed. I was used to Erwan and really comfortable with our dynamic, our fun banter. I knew that we would end up making out and having a fun experience.

It was always balmy in his house, kind of warm and felt tropical somehow. He had a lot of plants in his room. So I was just feeling, you know, chill.

We were there in his room. We were listening to music. [gentle techno music: “Aromatic”] He was really into the Thievery Corporation back then, which back then was kind of new and cool. So we were listening to these cool electronic beats. And then we started fooling around. It felt really good, whatever we were doing, like kissing and making out.

August/narration:

Part of their thing, she said, and something they teach together today, was extended orgasm.

Alicia: …which is clitoral stroking. And Erwan was amazing at stroking a clitoris. It was like every time I was with him, that was such a focus of our sexual time together and it just took me places. Very high, very expansive.

Just amazing. The potential I was discovering of my body and the pleasure I could feel. So we did that. Amidst everything else we were fooling around.

August/narration:

Then, she experienced something completely foreign and new. [chill, rolling acoustic guitar]

Alicia: We were having intercourse and he was on top of me. And I had this experience, like I had holes all over my body and then he had holes and like these little dots or holes or something and they were matching up and then all this like energy from his body was spilling into my body like we were so connected and permeable and open to each other that he was spilling into me.

August/narration:

She had to say something about it.

Alicia: ”Whoa, this is so intense.” He’s like, “Yeah, isn’t it intense?” And it was like, he was feeling that and I was feeling that. It was this complete union and merging of our bodies and our spirits and our minds and our hearts all at the same time.

August/narration:

As usual after sex, Alicia and Erwan discussed their experience.

Alicia: He said, “what was your favorite part?” And I described that experience. He’s like, “Wow, I remember that. Except for I felt like your energy was pouring into my body.

August/narration:

Looking back, Alicia thinks a combination of factors were at play that made it so mystical.

Alicia: I think that, first of all, there was an openness on my end. You know, I was, happened to be in this very exploratory time.

And I don’t think that the pot caused this experience. I just don’t think so. Most of my incredible sexual experiences have been sober.

I don’t have a moral judgment on that, but I just want people to know that you don’t need that to have amazing sexual experiences.

There was a focus, meaning I wasn’t distracted by other things. Like I was very in my body, I was with Erwan, he was with me. I mean back then we didn’t even have smartphones but like there wasn’t any sense of any other time or space besides us. And I think there’s a really natural way that when we can drop into our bodies, that’s what’s there, is sensation and connection.

It’s more natural than we think, but often we’re just kind of distracted from it. So we think it’s magical when it happens, but it’s more common than we think.

August/narration:

Alicia said the experience impacted sex for her moving forward, but not in the ways you might think.

Alicia: One of the next times Erwan and I were together and making out, afterwards he said, “what was your favorite part” or “what, you know, would you enjoy?” And I said, “Well, I didn’t feel as much as I felt the other day because the other day was so amazing.”

And then he said something like, “oh, well, when you compare, you lose.” And I’m like, hmm, it made me think that often we have these incredibly profound experiences and then we compare subsequent experiences to that and often come up short. And that’s something that as human beings and the way our minds work, we just do.

And so after, when I had that subsequent interaction with Erwan, I learned, Oh. Every experience can really be the best one you’ve had, not because you’re like climbing a ladder and getting better and something’s getting flashier, but more because you can just so feel what’s there, that it is the best that you’ve had so far.

August/narration:

Now, Magda’s experience. Two of them, actually.

Magda Kay is an intimacy expert who specializes in Tantra. Her extraordinary experience with spiritual sex happened when she was part of a group, too.

Magda: So I actually lived quite a few years in a tantric community. Well, let’s just call it what it was. It was a sex cult.

August/narration:

One seemingly centered on exploring sexuality through polyamory.

I think the cult bit is an important part of her story. Fairly often, I hear from listeners who were in a sex cult of sort, or in a cult where sexual things happened – under the guise of spirituality. To be clear Tantra is a philosophy that’s been used in Buddhism and Hinduism for centuries. And many people practice it without being in a cult. But Tantra was mixed into this one.

Magda: In Tantra, you consider sex to be a spiritual practice. So we were really, well let’s just say we were advised a lot to have a lot of sex with a lot of people.

August/narration:

And like most cults, a lot of it seemed awesome at first.

Magda: We were all doing these practices that were really opening us up for incredible experiences.So even if you had a short encounter, more of an affair, you know, something that’s just like two weeks long or what you could call a hookup, they really felt incredibly deep. Because of all the practices that we were all doing on opening the heart and moving the energy through the body.

I was doing at that time four hours of yoga or meditation breath practice a day. So I would say that was definitely the time in my life where I was most sexual, experimenting the most, doing some crazy things.

That was a very vivid time of my life, I would say sexually.

August/narration:

Her especially spiritual experience involved a lover. They weren’t in a “proper relationship,” she said. They were both seeing other people and they’d gotten busy together a few times.

Magda: So it was very casual. I was very attracted to him and he had very intense energy, a lot of fire.

August/narration:

And when they “made love,” she said, it had been in unusual places.”

Magda: In the bar and then on his motorcycle. So that short affair was really full of passion and excitement.

August/narration:

Interestingly, they had sex in a conventional place, a bed, she said, when she had a coital spiritual awakening. It all started with one of his fantasies.

Magda: He proposed something that he really wanted to try, which was I was pretending to be asleep while we made love.

August/narration:

That desire to have sex with an actually sleeping has a name, by the way: somnophilia. Without consent, that would of course be assault. In this case, it was role play.

So they went for it. [ethereal music] Magda laid there, very relaxed. The sex started — and then the guy got really, really relaxed.

Magda: He was inside of me and it was late in the evening. I remember it was dark. And he basically stayed inside of me and fell asleep like that.

And then I remember like something extremely intense woke me up. It was like an electricity shock in my body. And here I was, he was lying next to me fully asleep. It’s dark. It’s the middle of the night. And suddenly my eyes open and I have that feeling that I’m fully awake.

And in that moment, I knew exactly what was happening because our tantra teachers spoke about this. I had just had a kundalini awakening.

August/narration:

According to Yoga International, Kundalini is believed to be “a powerful, primal energy that represents the un-manifested potential within us.” So a Kundalini awakening is said to be the waking up of that dormant energy. It’s described as a feeling of energy that moves up your spine to the top of your head.

Magda: I remember hearing and reading these stories that when this happens, it’s like you’re so awake. It’s just this incredible amount of energy discharges in your body.

And you’re just like, you know, you’re like plugged into a socket. And it honestly felt like that. Like some, atomic bomb going off inside of my Yoni, inside of me.

And I just lied there with my eyes fully open. I remember that. And I just like, Oh, wow. I just had a Kundalini awakening, which woke me up. It was so intense. It woke me up. But from inside from within. And then this energy shot up my spine and I could really feel that.

It wasn’t something you would imagine in your mind when you do a visualization. It was so physical. Like I felt that energy go up my body.

And I lied there for I think like half an hour, fully awake, just noticing what just happened and so amazed because it felt like a true gift! And he never woke up.

Basically we kind of slid out by then. So he’s sleeping and here I am having this incredible experience just on my own, but it honestly was perfect.

August/narration:

And, it seemed, completely her own. They never discussed it.

Magda: To be fair, because we didn’t have a relationship, I don’t think I would have wanted to share it with him. I felt like it was mine.

August: So he slept through your awakening after fantasizing about having sex with you asleep.

Magda: Yes! [laughs] And in the end, he’s the one being asleep where I’m having this incredible experience.

August: Wow.

August/narration:

Magda recalls another intensely spiritual sex experience during her time with the community/cult, too. This time she was in a relationship, an open one.

Magda: We were together for about three months at that time. And again, because of all the tantric practices we were doing, that felt so deep.

You really go through so many layers of connecting in that time because you see each other almost every day.You do a lot of tantric practices. There is a whole different level of intimacy. So it was very very committed and very deep.

August/narration:

This time, the sex took place during the day.

Magda: Again, he came over and we were making love. And honestly, like that part was like any other time. There wasn’t anything special about us being together. But then we finished and we were embracing. Upright, so we’re not lying down. We’re still like kind of sitting and embracing each other. And I looked at him and I honestly, honestly saw Shiva in his, in his face.

August/narration:

Shiva is a god in Hinduism. A BBC report describes Shiva’s role, in Hinduism, as destroying the universe in order to re-creating it.

His powers are believed to destroy illusions and imperfections in the world, making way for helpful change. And seeing his face means you’re close to him and those powers.

Magda: That’s what we try to do in Tantra, right? It’s about the practice of transfiguration when we want to see the Divine in the partner. And I think for me, that was really the first time when I truly did. Like there was no time and no space. That didn’t exist.

And then, I came back and it’s almost like, you know, sometimes when you fall asleep and you’re drifting away and then something brings you up, right? Maybe there’s like a tick in the physical body and you’re just in your back and you’re fully awake. So that’s how it felt. It felt like I I snapped out of the state.

With all of the spiritual practices I’ve ever done, nothing comes even close to that experience. And I think it’s because I had a very deep connection with this guy. We were really cared for each other.

And I’ve worked for that… I’ve gone through so much sexual healing and had to open my body. And it didn’t feel like I’m hacking it. Like I’m using something to get me there faster. It’s like, no, I’ve, I’ve worked to get there. And I was so happy and proud of myself for feeling that.

And it honestly felt like I was invited by the whole universe to actually see what it’s all about.

August/narration:

These experiences, incredible as they were, did not lead Magda to want to stay in the community. It was more like the opposite.

August: How did these experiences impact your sexuality, maybe yourself, moving forward? Did it change anything or is it just kind of something, which is just as wonderful, that you can just carry with you?

Magda: Great question. So, I had these experiences and then I was having lucid dreams like outside of that. We were really practicing a few hours a day. The point was that I dreaded this practice. I actually  just hated doing it.

And at some point I realized that. Okay, great. I’m having all of these really deep spiritual experiences, but they don’t make me any happier. I just concluded for myself that, you know what, I actually want to be more present in the physical world.

August/narration:

So with gratitude for the good experiences, and feeling put off by the rest, she left.

August: Wow. And when did you realize that this was a cult?

Magda: Probably once I was out.

August: I think that’s common, isn’t it? Like you don’t go someplace knowing it’s a cult.

Magda: I mean, I’ll say this. I think I realized really to what degree there was, definitely a certain form of abuse of power. So, people that like were leading the community, these were men and definitely a lot of approach to sex was male-centric. And I don’t think it’s fully okay for women.

The moment that kind of stuck with me was when I was with the main guru, the main leader of the community. I had a meeting with him and he told me that I should be having more sex with more people. And I said that right now I’m not really attracted to anyone.

And he said to me, “These are your karmic blockages. And if you don’t push through them, nothing will change.” And I remember sitting there and thinking, I actually agree. And still, I’m not gonna do it. I’m not gonna engage sexually with someone if I don’t want it. I’m not gonna go against my body. Maybe that was this kind of tipping point for me to be like, yeah, I think I’ve had enough.

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[DB’s podcast trailer]

August/narration:

If you’d like to experience sex that feels spiritual in some way, Alicia suggests this:

Alicia: My advice is kind of in the realm of, what’s the word for this? It’s not preparation because that sounds too much like planning, but to know that, without comparing and reaching for some sensational experience, our bodies are totally capable of feeling incredible pleasure. And if you set the environment up and your own mental state up for that, it’s more likely to happen.

It’s not hard. All that means is put your phones away and you know, maybe if you’re transitioning from work or something where you’re distracted, into the sensual experience, take it slow, take it gradually, like give your body time to transition and warm up.

You can really just be out of your head and in your body and be able to feel so much pleasure. Don’t even worry about the voice in your head that’s like well this isn’t as good as this person shared or this isn’t good as my experience with this lover ten years ago that nobody matches up to. Just say goodbye to your mind. Feel your body.

And of course sex skill is also a good thing, right? But the more important part is learning how to just be in your body.

August/narration:

For spiritual sex, no cult required, Magda suggests this:

Magda: If anyone wants those experiences, the most important thing is to be working on opening your body. And there’s so many ways we can do that.

So first of all, any form of physical stretching and mobility is great because if your body is physically tight, it means that the energy will not be able to move. This is why in yoga we do all the asanas, right? Which can be really demanding, like a lotus position, which I, for example, cannot do. But all of these positions are there to bring flexibility and open the physical body. So that’s level number one.

Level number two is of course, opening the energy body. And again, this can be done in many different ways. I personally feel that breathwork is the best tool. First of all, breathwork is available pretty much anywhere around the world.

And there’s so many breathing practices that are not spiritual. So if for someone, this is a bit like too much, or if, if it’s too much for your partner, for example, and you know, it’s hard to get your partner on board. I think it’s really awesome to get them into breath work. I feel that this offer is the most intense releases.

Then the third element is to really consciously open your heart. You know, as long as your energy goes into the heart or higher in your chakras, you’re going to have a full body experience.

August/narration:

Chakra is a a Sanskrit word that describes energy centers in the body. They’re believed to be like spinning wheels of energy that allow life force to flow through you.

Magda: but the heart is the most important. If the heart is blocked and the energy cannot move beyond that.

So you have to open the heart to unlock the flow. And how do we do this? Just practice being vulnerable and intimate with with your partner. Like, just practice opening your heart, really loving as much as you can unconditionally and receiving the love because most of us are not. Let’s be honest. So really, really dropping and just practicing love, which really, really opens your heart center.

[encouraging, acoustic music]

August/narration:

To learn from Alicia Davon, sign up for her and Erwan’s course, Mastery of Relationship. She said it’s for anybody who wants to have an ever better love or sex life. It’s a weekly class you can take in the San Francisco Bay Area or online. Sign up or schedule a free Love Life Consultation by texting their school at 415-308-9580 or fill out the form on their website: davonmethod.com.

Magda Kay offers coaching for the practices she mentioned, Tantric and breathwork, both in person and online as well. You can apply to book a free discovery call at magdakay.com/more. There you can also find her courses, her book, and free guides to download.

If you’re enjoying Girl Boner Radio, please take a few seconds to give it a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or send a link to your friends. Both mean the world to me. Thanks so much for listening.