Mark Skanda describes himself as a professional masseur, change agent, pleasure activist, life coach, selective and sacred sex educator, and even sometimes a sex worker, currently working and playing in New York City. He talks here with “How Positive Are You” co-hosts David Crowe and Elizabeth Ely about what it means to explore the “Tantric Tiger” in all of us. We invite you to listen in on this fascinating, challenging and playful discussion that shifts the conversation from “safe sex” to the health benefits of feeling safe in the arms of a lover. . . . Let’s get it on.
Skanda is that guy featured as author Pamela Madsen‘s guide through the Sacred Intimacy movement in her book Shameless: How I Ditched the Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure . . . and Still Got Home in Time to Cook Dinner. He describes the book as “Eat Pray Love meets Sex and the City meets Funny Girl.”
Skanda became certified as a Certified Sexological Bodyworker in 2008 after studying with Dr. Joseph Kramer at the Institute for Advanced Studies of Human Sexuality in San Francisco. He also trained in various workshops and certification programs, including Landmark Education as the successor to Werner Erhard’s groundbreaking “est” movement, rebirthing, tantric bodywork and shiatsu massage, the Coaches Training Institute and Coachville, The Mankind Project, and yoga.
Skanda is currently hosting twice monthly lecture/discussions on “Tantric Basics” for men who love men, and on alternate weeks he co-hosts erotic exploration and play parties, donating part of the proceeds to organizations that encourage AIDS rethinking – including, soon, “How Positive Are You.” He can be contacted through his “Tantric Tiger” Web site.
Along the way in this conversation, we bring up Ian Young’s description of the St. Sebastian myth as it applies to gay sexuality and identity from The Stonewall Experiment. Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth gets a brief mention for its insight into body image among women.
A previous episode with Liam Scheff discusses, among other things, women’s socializing effect on men, and we thank Liam for his insight into the recent criminal verdict against Atlanta man Craig Lamar Davis for allegedly using his “HIV” as a sexual “deadly weapon.” This trial was the subject of Episode 78 with the private investigator for the defense, Clark Baker. A separate story about another man allegedly having infected 30 people, is published here. (Special thanks to the listener who sent this in; please give us your feedback at mailto:info@howpositiveareyou.com.) Need we even mention how alarming it is that “HIV positives” are being charged with crimes merely for having sex?
If you are interested further in the subject of “safe sex” and its side effects, we invite you to check out Episode 80 with Dr. James DeMeo.
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[…] In the course of our discussion, we also mention HPAY Episode 74, featuring Dawn Lester and David Parker talking about Why Germs Don’t Make You Ill and Drugs Can’t Cure You. The Culture of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch explains what we mean by “narcissism.” For information about the Gerson therapy for cancer, see the documentary film Dying to Have Known. (For another view on sex, we hope you stayed tuned for our talk about the “Tantric Tiger” philosophy in our upcoming Episode 81 with Mark Skanda; if you haven’t heard it yet, you can still tune in now.) […]