SouthFlorida.com | City Link Magazine

You know how it is: You get some, you get going, and before you know it, you're texting your BFFs about the latest episode of Flight of the Conchords. While almost everybody agrees sex is the most fun you can have without an Xbox, some experts maintain it can be so much better than the five minutes of huffing and puffing in which many folks engage. Just ask Tao Semko, co-founder of Umaa Tantra in Miami Beach (Umaatantra.com) and leader of classes and workshops in the ancient arts of tantra rituals and Taoism. These Eastern philosophies teach methods that can help men and women have mind-blowing, ceiling-dotting orgasms -- yes, that's orgasms, as in more than one pop per pop for women and men.

City Link recently spoke to Semko, for purely professional reasons, you understand.

What is the tantric approach to sex?

In tantra, you seek to expand the ability to experience pleasure within the body, but without being attached to it. You're trying to literally put yourself into an orgasmic state whenever you want. Gradually, you will teach your body and your brain, beginning with what you've already experienced, to trigger those experiences without external stimulus.

What is the advantage of deep breathing during sex?

It directly reduces the amount of lactate in the blood -- lactate is what causes panic attacks -- and directly slows brain waves. It's during slower brain waves that you're able to have much more powerful orgasms.

Can men really be multiorgasmic?

To become multiorgasmic, you want to train the pleasure response using the brain and movements from the pleasure center through the rest of the body -- for instance, up the spine and back down again when on the brink. But don't actually allow yourself to pass into full ejaculatory orgasm. The more you take yourself to the brink and hold yourself there comfortably while doing deep breathing and relaxing the body, it becomes easier and easier to get to the point where you have your first orgasm without ejaculation. And then, you can just have one after the other, the same as a woman can be trained to do the same thing.

On your Web site, you describe male and female "deer" exercises as ways men and women can intensify their orgasms. How do they work?

They regulate pleasure levels and the ability to become multiorgasmic and full-body orgasmic, where endorphins are being released not just from the pelvis but from the entire body at once, which of course, feels much better. � The various reflexology zones within the vagina, or on the various regions of the penis, are all being stimulated, instead of just the ones that a man or a woman tends to mechanically stimulate in habitual masturbation.

What else can women do to have more powerful orgasms?

A lot of Western sexologists tell women to do Kegel exercises [contractions of the muscle that is used to stop the flow of urine]. You can start with just squeezing against a finger or two, but there are also Taoist stone eggs and barbells that are lightweight and smooth and allow you to contract against them and at the same time pull them up into the body. These things improve muscle tone.

Vaginal orgasms -- orgasms without the need for clitoral stimulation -- are almost entirely dependent on the strength of the vaginal muscles and the ability to control different parts of the muscles independently so they can perform the same motions that fingers would perform while milking a cow, where one part of the vagina is squeezing before the next part and it travels like a wave through the vagina. It's pleasurable for the male who's inside the vagina and very pleasurable for the female.

And men?

You want to do things that increase the capillary blood flow to the pelvic floor and the entire lower body, especially the legs. So massaging all the pressure points of the legs, doing some exercises where the area below the navel is pulled in -- the lower abs are actually pulled in while doing leg exercises, leg swings, hip thrusts, squats -- all these things drastically improve blood flow. Studies show, in people with erectile dysfunction, it works as well or better than Viagra.

Does tantra say anything about oral sex?

There are all sorts of biochemistries that are created in oral sex that can provide exquisite mental and spiritual experiences. � On the level of bliss or pleasure, there are certain connections to the epineal gland back there in the rear sinuses that can be stimulated by a penis in a woman's mouth.

Is it difficult for people to break a lifetime of sexual habits?

It's easier than you think if the person wants to badly enough. � It's very difficult for some people to start breathing more deeply. But if you train your body to do that while you're on the treadmill or working out, it becomes more easy to do it when you're in bed. It's hard to jump into bed and practice all sorts of things you've never done anywhere else. If you break them into the rest of your life, it becomes very simple.