Bowling for Orgasms

Some of my more devout readers may recall that several weeks ago I committed to attending yoga classes every day for at least a month. As first reported, my initial experience was not positive but, as I continued and became more familiar with the practice, I found that it remained pretty much awful each time. The most difficult for me was to adopt the “Happy Baby” pose without passing gas in an embarrassingly audible manner that would not be drowned out by Yanni’s friggin’ flute. While I did notice that my flexibility improved from near complete rigor mortis to simply mortis, the overall impact on my various joints, muscles and tendons can be summed up in three word: sore, achy and ouchee.

Many others in these classes, however, seemed to enjoy the poses to a far greater extent than I. One young woman–I think of her as “the freak with no connective tissue”,  given her ability to assume a pose that allows her to touch the floor with her chest, face, inner arms, inner thighs and soles of her feet all at the same time–comes particularly to mind. For me, to assume this pose would require nearly a complete dissection of my body and then laying my parts out on the floor separately.

The second time that I noticed this young woman was because she began to make moaning noises mid-way through the session, especially when we initiated particular types of poses that involved “pulling the pelvis in” or “thrusting the pelvis forward while tightening the inner thighs”. As the session proceeded her vocalizations became more aggressive and I was reminded of the deli scene from “When Harry Met Sally”.

Following this session, I rushed home and Googled “Female moaning/yoga/contortionist”. I was directed to several hundred sites where, indeed, there was lots of female moaning, accompanied by fairly clinical close-ups of people doing things of which their parents would not be proud had they known that their children would be filmed doing them. It took me quite a while to review this information.

Finally I came to a site that specifically discussed yoga’s connection to the libido. The term “yogasm”, coined for an episode of “Sex and the City”, is the most apt term for practitioners of yoga achieving sexual satisfaction “without touching themselves” according to sexologist Dr. Jeffre TallTrees.

I must stop right here to ask a few burning questions. First, where does one go to school to become a PhD in sexology? Second, how does a sexologist actually earn a living? Third, why didn’t I think of that? And, finally, what else would someone named Jeffre TallTrees do besides sexology unless he were a tribal elder on an Indian reservation in which case he would likely be required to drop the “Jeffre”? Put your answers in the “Comments” section of this blog.

I learned that one of the goals of yoga is to strengthen the muscles in and around the genitalia, or mula bandha. In this sense, the site explained, “raising the pelvic floor during yoga poses” is like advanced kegel exercises, something that until this very moment, I had always associated with bowling. (I distinctly recall writing a headline for the school newspaper, it read: “WSU Kegler Rolls Perfect 300!”)

As regards the libido and yoga, I further learned that many modern yoga practices such as Hatha and Kundalini are rooted in Tantra. This spiritual movement is defined in ancient Indian scriptures as “an expression of joyous divine consciousness through sex”.

I was reminded of a dear friend from California (where else?) who was, for awhile, a devotee of Tantric Yoga. He explained to me that it was the practice of sex while delaying orgasm and thus spreading the sexual pleasure throughout the entire body. This would be the sexual equivalent of carefully removing the wrapper of a Mr. Goodbar, over the course of several hours, and then….NOT TAKING A BITE! My friend even had a Tantric textbook titled The Joy of a Thousand Thrusts. Yowzer! He eventually gave up the practice, noting that instead of heightened sexual pleasure that he and his partner were just “bored and sore”.

One on-line magazine noted that the singer Sting was an advocate of Tantra and had once bragged that he and his wife “had seven hours of sex every night.” I suspect that sleep deprivation and a raw…well, you know, could well explain some of Sting’s more recent musical missteps.

Suffice it to say that my experiment with yoga has not reached a climax, either figuratively or otherwise. Raising my pelvic floor while trying to balance on one foot and simultaneously pulling my other foot up to touch my butt has offered my libido nary a twitch. I’ll admit, however, that the moaning from the corner of the yoga studio has generated the occasional carnal image. These thoughts are usually well suppressed by simply glancing at my current wife whose look suggests, “I know what you’re thinking, you pathetic old letch”.

But anyway, back to bowling. I now believe that with the right attitude and sufficient practice, bowling and sexual satisfaction can be combined. (And where better to enjoy that post-orgasm smoke than at the “Lois Lanes” snack bar.) This combination of bowling and a spiritual connection to the sensual self will require that the bowler “deliver the ball with a smooth, rhythmic motion while lifting the muscles of the pelvic floor in a supple and self-satisfying way”. In addition, the kegler’s approach to the foul line must always be done in a very particular mincing manner, which certain real men might reject as being “sissy pants”. Well, too bad for them. They’ll just have to go home and do it the old-school way which often involves the Internet and an imaginary partner.

Observoid of the Day: While you may be healthy enough for sexual activity, you may not be sexy enough.