A Fabulous Night Out at the Vagina Museum

Talking Tantra in Bethnal Green

I’ve been resisting the idea of the Vagina Museum, I think because I heard that its first iteration in Camden was a bit basic. Of course, it was, there are no glossy sponsorships on board. Anyway, author Marianne Power – who wrote the best seller Help Me about her mission to improve her life as a single woman in her 40s without a partner or children and more recently Love Me where she explores her sexuality in a way that the Catholic Irish woman she is, would never have done a couple of years ago – got together Costa Book Award winner and tantra practitioner, Monique Roffey, and the UK’s most successful (read safe) tantra teacher, Jan Day for a conversation about Tantra and Modern Love. At the Vagina Museum in Bethnal Green. It was sold out plus the streaming was sold out too.

There is still a lot of interest in love and relationship and what tantra actually consists of. And how it fits into the contemporary world of sex and love.

Both Monique and Marianne are Jan’s students at the moment in her Living Tantra Training, in fact Marianne is assisting Jan, something she would never have imagined herself doing five years ago.

And I have also participated in Jan’s Tantra workshops mostly a decade ago, and I now work with her doing her press and PR.

The Vagina Museum is in Bethnal Green now and is under some railway arches, behind the shutters is an impressive venue funky gallery/museum. There are a lot of brightly coloured – red and flowery – vulva posters and goddess postcards, there is information about the menopause and a possible 65 seats. There is a simple bar/café. I have a feeling it’s all run by vagina volunteers.

One of the highlights is the bathroom tiles – many have their individual vulva design which is a great extra.

Monique – who mostly writes novels but has written a memoir With the Kisses of his Mouth which is about her experiences of tantra and often Jan’s work – was asking the questions. She delved into the origins of classical tantra but the most affecting answers were about vulnerability.

Jan, Monique and Marianne talked about how scared they were in tantra groups in the beginning and illustrated how brave you have to be to step into these deeper waters of intimacy and sexuality and all the shame we have around what we think we should be doing or enjoying and are not. Jan, when she was much younger, married a man who didn’t want to enjoy sex with her and she thought that was an advantage at the time. Eventually they split up and Jan started to explore her sensual nature. After 20 years of workshops, she became a teacher.

Monique signed up to tantra with Jan initially reluctantly because her armour was strong, whereas Marianne was scared first of all and then delighted that she’d found this tribe. She says she’s had some exquisite sexual experiences in Jan’s workshops and that has been a profound change for her, as a woman who grew up thinking sex was wrong and dirty. Now she emanates joy and honesty.

Meanwhile Monique has signed up to her second training and is sinking in to it in a way that she couldn’t initially. She’s got the love thing going on with her fellow participants.

Monique talked about how hard it was – there was a lot of media shaming – to publish a memoir about her sensual explorations and that the world wasn’t ready for it in 2012. Whereas Marianne’s books have been welcomed. It’s a different era now post me-too. Women writing about their sexuality are no longer shamed.

Jan talked about how expansive the term tantra is and how it can include so much – from learning to feel and welcome our feelings, to allowing ourselves to be more grounded in our bodies, to being able to say yes and no to touch and understand what is pleasurable.

Often Marianne opened up about her own struggle to let her feelings out and name them. And she is so joyful now, it pours out of her pores.

I think mostly it was evident how much support students get from their community. And how loving and funny and a tribe they are.

One young woman at the end asked about what happened if you weren’t attracted to someone that you were working with and what would the outcome be. That was a brilliant and fundamental question. And Jan said that tantra was different to working with others that you were attracted to – although this can and does happen – and an opportunity to truly see the person that is sitting opposite you in a way that you haven’t before and vis versa. It’s also an opportunity to give more than you’re used to and understand how that nourishes you.

Of course, there was a lot more… there will be a recording… but the essential part was the soft hearts at the core of it and how we can bring that tenderness into our daily lives.

A lot of hugging was de rigeur and gorgeous.

I’ll go again to the Vagina Museum, it’s a great space and it’s a great way of supporting women’s sexual and different stage health.

Personally I’d like to see more aimed at older women – ie after the menopause – and conversations about older vulvas. But I’ll mention that when I go again…

Jan’s book is Living Tantra out on Watkins.

Monique’s memoir is With the Kisses of his Mouth and recent novel Passiontide.

Marianne’s books are Love Me and Help Me.