The relationship between ejaculation control, essence and energy

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"Throughout our adult lives,
our sexual organs and hormones exert a profound
and decisive influence on our thought and behavior.

They literally 'drive' men and women into each other's arms
in order to insure propagation of the species,
and this drive is so powerful and compelling that it completely
overrides the instinct for safety and personal survival.

When 'in love', both men and women will defy death
and disregard social conventions in order to be together and 'make love'.

'Love', of course, is a Western euphemism for 'lust',
which, despite its negative connotation in the West,
is regarded as a natural sign of health and vitality in the East."

  Hormones and Health

Chinese physicians pinpoint what they call the 'kidney glands' (shen hsien) as the key regulators of sexual potency, especially in men. These glands, which straddle the tops of the kidneys like hats, are called the 'suprarenal glands' in Western parlance.

The suprarenal, also known as the adrenal cortex, produce a variety of hormones of vital importance to various metabolic processes and biological functions.

In both male and female organisms, adrenal hormones include small but physiologically significant amounts of androgens (male hormones) and relatively minute quantities of estrogens (female hormones).

These sex hormones, or Yin and Yang 'essences', regulate the secretions of all other sex glands such as the ovaries, testes and prostate, and also influence secretions from the pituitary, pineal and thyroid glands.

It is the balance, not quantity, of these microscopic elements of Yin and Yang essence that counts.

Insufficient secretion of androgens in males, for example, results in the loss of sexual drive and potency. Excessive androgen secretion in the female can cause such masculizing effects as beard growth and breast shrinkage.

Thus, a primary goal of Taoist sexual regimens is the enhancement of male and female hormone secretions in optimum balance.

Belatedly, Western science has also established intimate links between sexual stimulation and hormone production, and between hormone production and health.

In 1974, for example, the Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany, conducted tests on the physiological effects of mildly erotic films on healthy males aged 21-34. After half an hour of viewing, 75 per cent of the subjects showed marked increases in testosterone levels in their blood, thereby establishing a clear connection between sexual excitement and hormone excretions.

Subsequent research revealed that men with high testosterone levels, high sperm count and dense, viscous semen were completely immune to many communicable diseases and were highly resistant to others, while those with low testosterone and sperm count and thin, watery semen had only partial immunity to diseases.

It is also well known to Western medical science that women have always enjoyed higher immunity and resistance to disease, recover more quickly from illness, and live longer lives than men.

According to the Taoist view, the ravages of aging are caused by the progressive depletion of hormone production and the dissipation of vital energy.

Since essence is the 'root' of the Taoist Trinity, with energy as the 'stem' and spirit as the 'blossom', the entire planet may be nourished simply by cultivating the roots, which consist of blood bile, enzymes, hormones and other forms of 'essence'.

Of all these elements of essence, hormones exert by far the most profound and powerful physiological influences, even in the most minute quantities, and, of all Taoist regimes, disciplined sexual intercourse provides the most direct stimulation to vital hormone production and endocrine balance.

While sexual excitement remains one of the most effective means of stimulation vital hormone production in both men and women, women have the additional mechanisms of menstruation and pregnancy to promote production of sexual hormones, even in the absence of sexual intercourse.

Men, on the other hand, have no such alternative mechanism, and for them sexual intercourse remains the best way to stimulate hormone production. As a person gets older, it stands to reason that sexual intercourse grows ever more important as a form of preventative therapy against disease and aging.

When enhanced secretions from the male 'kidney-glands' are preserved through properly disciplined intercourse without ejaculation, they enter the bloodstream, travel throughout the body, and prevent hair loss, skin wrinkling, poor muscle tone, arthritis, rheumatism, impotence and other disasters associated with aging.

For Taoists, the issue of sexual intercourse in old age is not a moral or social one- it's a matter of life and health.

"Sweetie, please reread that again, it's so important we understand this."

To keep things in perspective, lets again verify this fundamental Taoist view point with some solid medical evidence from Western science.

A recent study conducted in America revealed that frequent sexual intercourse considerably relieves the chronic pain of rheumatism in elderly couples by stimulating secretion of cortisone in the adrenal cortex. According to the Taoist view, the adrenal cortex is the gland most directly influenced by sexual excitement.

On the other hand, according to Western science, excessive coitus inhibits adrenal functions in the male. Since 'coitus' includes ejaculation in Western medical and sexual terminology, we see that the Taoist view that excessive ejaculation ruins the 'kidney-glands' in men is essentially correct.

LO G I C A L ?

 

Absorbing Essence and Storing Energy

In both men and women , sexual secretions contain many pure, potent, biochemically active substances: hormones, enzymes, proteins, vitamins and other elements.

When female secretions are released into the warm, moist environment of the vagina during intercourse, they come into direct contact with the sensitive, paper-thin skin of the man's blood engorged penis. Body heat opens wide the pores of this stretched skin, and the rhythmic rubbing of vagina and penis caused biochemically significant amounts of female 'essence' to be absorbed by the male.

In fact, less than a pinhead quantity of essential hormone suffices to exert profound physiological effects upon the entire endocrine system once it enter the bloodstream. In the sexually excited male, blood courses powerfully through the penis and picks up whatever hormones are absorbed in the vagina by friction and osmosis. Similarly, the spongy tissues of a woman's vagina absorb active elements from her own secretions and from male semen after a man ejaculates inside.

Despite its obvious logic, most Western physicians still deny that such mutual exchange of vital hormones takes place during sexual intercourse, even though they fully acknowledge that 'germs' can be exchanged in this manner. If syphilis, herpes and AIDS can be 'picked up' through contact of sexual organs of diseased people, then why can't hormones and enzymes be exchanged in the same way in healthy people?

Look at it this way. If you crush several cloves of garlic and place them on your thigh or abdomen or anywhere else on the body, cover them with a warm, damp cloth and rub them against the skin, then your breath will soon smell of garlic!

Garlic oil, which like hormones is a highly concentrated substance, enters the skin in microscopic quantities and is absorbed by the bloodstream, which carries it to every part of the body, including the lungs. If a tiny drop of garlic 'essence' can permeate the skin, enter the bloodstream and cause 'garlic breath' far from the point of entry, then a drop of sexual essence from male or female semen should be able to do the same thing through the even thinner, moister, warmer surfaces of the vagina and penis, especially if one uses Taoist techniques to prolong direct contact.

For women, frequent intercourse with orgasm is the most efficient method of cultivating sexual essence and energy. For men, frequent intercourse with infrequent ejaculation is the key technique for cultivating sexual essence and energy.

Furthermore, retaining semen during intercourse enables a man not only to preserve and reabsorb his own essence, it also enables him to prolong the act sufficiently for his partner to reach full orgasm, thereby releasing her most potent secretions for his benefit. In effect, he 'kills' two birds with one stone, preserving his own essence while releasing and absorbing hers.

As noted earlier, a mans sexual responses are largely limited to his penis (the four Attainments), whereas a woman's occur throughout her body (Five signs, Ten Indications). The same goes for sexual secretions. A man's essence comes mainly from his sexual organ, but a woman emits essence from all 'Three Peaks': tongue, nipples and vagina. Men who practice Tao benefit from all three 'libations'.

In Secrets of the Jade Bedroom, Peng-Tze points out the medicinal benefits of the 'upper libation', but her states clearly that only the saliva secreted 'during intercourse' contains the magic elixir: "During intercourse, if a man takes in a lot of the woman's saliva, it will purify his stomach like medicinal broth".

As for the potent therapeutic value of the 'middle libation' secreted from a woman's nipples, Western medical science has uncovered in the last 15 years evidence that tends to confirm the traditional Taoist view.

It has been firmly established that mother's milk contains powerful immunity factors secreted from certain glands in the breasts which protect nursing infants from a wide range of degenerative diseases. It is logical to assume, therefore, that the ducts that produce these immunity factors in a woman's breast may be stimulated to secrete those factors by a combination of intense sexual excitement and strong, prolonged sucking of the nipples during intercourse, and that these secretion form the 'Great Libation of the Middle Peak'.

Regarding the lower libation, it should be noted that Taoist have always regarded cunnilingus as an excellent way to absorb this elixir, although they advise against fellatio ('blowing the flute') owing to the risk of uncontrolled ejaculation.

That covers cultivation of sexual essence through intercourse.

Now let's take a look at the energy situation. According to Tao, a brief burst of explosive energy occurs when a man or woman reaches orgasm. Western science has already established that, at the point of sexual orgasm, human brain wave patterns alter radically, literally putting the person into an 'altered state of consciousness'. Profound physiological and electrical changes occur throughout the system during orgasm, and a burst of energy is indeed emitted. Partners may absorb one another's burst of sexual energy at the moment of orgasm by following three basic guidelines:

• keep your head nuzzled under your partner's ear when he or she ejaculates in order to avoid inhaling the 'muddy breath' exhaled at that moment. Owing to the intense 'fire' that occurs in the lower abdomen during orgasm, this burst of breath is regarded as a sort of waster product.

• Hug your partner very tightly and maintain maximum surface contact between your skins. At orgasm, the entire body radiates energy from its surface contact.

• Press and rub the public regions closely together. The biggest burst of sexual energy during orgasm naturally occurs in the region of the 'Sea Of Energy' (chee-hai), located below the navel.
  

Now let's take a look at the various possibilities for exchanging essence and energy between Yin and Yang during intercourse.

If the man ejaculates before the woman reaches orgasm, she gains the benefits of both his semen-essence and his energy, while he loses both and gains neither of hers. If the couple ejaculates at the same moment, the woman again gains the man's essence and energy, but the man gains only her burst of energy, because he loses his erection before it has had a chance to absorb the essential secretions of her orgasm.

If the man controls himself long enough for the woman to reach orgasm then suppresses his own ejaculation, he absorbs both his own and her essence as well as her energy, while she still derives the benefits of reabsorbing a measure of her own sexual secretions. The fourth and final alternative is for the man to permit himself and ejaculation (when his emission schedule calls for it) after his partner has reached orgasm, but only after he has spent some time 'dragging the Yin essence in through the Yang peak'. In this case, both partners absorb each other's sexual essence and energy in a perfectly balanced coition.

For a man who has thoroughly mastered the techniques of ejaculation control, there are additional steps he may take to facilitate absorption of female secretions and to further stimulate re-absorption of his own semen-essence.

The first method is to 'thrust inward fiercely but draw outward slowly, thereby dragging the Yin essence in through the skin of the Yang peak'.

Swelling and contracting the penis deep inside the vagina by deliberately flexing the muscles of the penile shaft is another highly recommended technique for promoting absorption of Yin essence during intercourse. After the woman has experienced one or more orgasms and is thoroughly satisfied, the man should start thrusting again deeply and rhythmically. When the pressure to ejaculate mounts, he should stop and 'return the semen' to his prostate, using methods introduced in chapter 7-Ejaculation Control (HPS on line highly recommends that you purchase Dan Reids book, The Tao of Health, Sex and Longevity and learn these methods to promote your health and sexual prowess). When his semen is back under control and his heart once again calm, he may repeat this process again, three to five times.

The prolonged friction between Jade Gate and Jade Stem facilitates absorption of Yin essence, while the excitement of repeatedly approaching the brink of ejaculation greatly increases a man's own internal sexual secretions. Such serial retention's also redirect the man's unexploded sexual energy inward and upward. This can often be felt coursing up along the spine as 'goose bumps' or as heat waves at various points in the body.

Men should not attempt this method of 'pumping up' extra essence and energy by repeatedly 'playing with the fire' of ejaculation until they have first mastered semen retention and established their own ideal ejaculation frequencies.

Otherwise, they risk the loss of even more essence and energy than normal owing to enhanced secretions when a man is due for emission because it primes the prostate with extra semen and thus increases the loss due to ejaculation. It should be done only when semen is to be retained. The old adage 'practice makes perfect' applies to this and all the other methods used in the Tao of Yin and Yang, and these practices must be mastered step by step.

To borrow another adage, 'to the victor go the spoils'.

A sexually active man who is unwilling to hone his sexual skills and correctly adjust his attitudes in preparation for the 'flowery battlefield' of sexual intercourse will, sooner or later, deplete his sexual potency, dissipate his vital energy, lose his immunity and foreshorten his life.

Such men become as expendable to the species- and as useless to women- as drones driven from the beehive.

More Tao sexual yoga information to be continued in future site updates. 

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