Just a few years ago the term sacred sex was rarely mentioned, much less understood in the United States, outside a few esoteric circles. Now, information on workshops, videos, audiotapes, and books on erotic spirituality are all easily obtainable from advertisements in mainstream magazines, through cable television talk shows, and on Internet websites. Familiarity with sacred sex imagery is even assumed - in everything from Atlantic Monthly whisky ads to mail order catalog Valentine's Day displays (as in the above collage). Publications as varied as New Woman, The Wall Street Journal, Gentlemen's Quarterly, Ms., Essence, Esquire, Time-Life Books' Living Wisdom Series, and Utne Reader have all issued first-time specials on sacred sex, and the network television news-magazine show 20/20's millennial year programming included a first-time segment on an icon of contemporary U.S. sacred sex imagery, The Sacred Whore.
Tantric sex, sacred sex, sex magic: different terms are used but whatever one calls it, there is a new popular interest in reviving the ancient arts of erotic spirituality in the United States today. People don't necessarily mean the same things when they use these varied terms, but distinctions between them are becoming increasingly linked and blurred. Tantra technically refers to a specific set of Hindu or Buddhist beliefs and practices that originated in ancient India. Sex magic refers to ceremonial uses of erotic energy for various purposes. Sacred sex is more of a catch-all term. People use these terms, however, to mean anything from erotic calisthenics, to enhanced partner-intimacy, to therapeutic spiritual and sexual healing; anything from the pursuit of better orgasms and feel-good ambiance, to seeking connection with the divinity within and beyond oneself. That's a wide range of different phenomena to squeeze under one umbrella of sacred sex, but the term does contain this wide spectrum.
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