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JANUARY 2007 - Lavender Magazine
by Terrance Griep
As Mark Twain slyly noted, “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.” Nowhere is this paralyzing embarrassment more evident than in our individual relationships with the fragile vessel we call the human body. Terrance Griep chats up yoga therapist and teacher Kevin Kortan, whose Naked Yoga for Men classes provide the bare necessities of physical and spiritual health with nothing to hide.
Lotus Notes
Kevin Kortan’s Naked Yoga for Men
The first thing to come up, of course, is the topic of erections. People wonder what to do if they arrive unbidden.
“That’s the question I get asked most often,” Certified Yoga Therapist and Teacher Kevin Kortan verifies.
The yoga sessions Kortan presides over in both Minneapolis and New York City are called Naked Yoga for Men, a variation of Tantric yoga—you know, the practice that Sting, and his illustriously epic orgasms, made famous...or infamous.
As Kortan says, “The Tantric path of yoga would say this: One of the great things is that it talks about sexual energy and erotic energy being, in fact, one room in the mansion of Eros. There’s sexual energy, but there are other rooms in this mansion. There’s emotion, and sensuality, and tenderness, and affection, and power, and love, of course. Eros is the god of love, fueled by this erotic, sexual energy. Basically, it’s life force energy.”
Harnessing this energy—in theory, at least—is the means to both physical
health and spiritual mastery within yogic practices. During Naked Yoga for Men classes, this harnessing of energy is made manifest.
“We think of sex, and we think of genital sex only,” Kortan notes. “These classes are not that. People do not touch each other’s genitals with their hands. We do embracing. We do partner yoga postures. The practices themselves help channel that erotic energy into something useful and accessible and directable.”
Describing the actual instruction, Kortan explains, “We have a wonderfully wide mixture of different ages, of different body sizes and shapes, and of backgrounds. It’s a yoga class with partnering in it.
“I don’t let people choose their partners, though. I use a system that’s
basically chance. Sometimes, you’ll be with just one person. Another time, you might do two or three partnerings in one class. You get the opportunity to be with different men and have these experiences.
“My hope is that people can realize that, whether they’re attracted to them or not, they can see each partner as a human being, as a person. Sometimes, people will tell me in private, ‘There’s this person I just wouldn’t normally want to be around, but I actually really liked being held by him and breathing—his energy felt so good.’”
These pairings aren’t an intrinsically gay experience.
“I work with a lot of gay men,” Kortan relates, “but I work with a lot of men who consider themselves bisexual, as well as men who don’t define themselves. Maybe they’re questioning, or they’re fluid, or they’re in denial—or they just don’t necessarily want to be in a rolodex.
“That’s actually one thing I’m proud about in my work. I think it’s an invitation that no matter how you’re viewing yourself in the moment—whatever you name or don’t name yourself—there’s a welcome for everyone, as long as they’re sincere about exploring.”
Yoga itself is a kind of exploration—of yourself, of others—and nakedness
certainly catalyzes such reconnaissance, often leading to some intriguing questions. Some of these are obvious. Some are not.
Kortan asks, “Is it OK for me to be a sexual being? Is it OK for me to be a powerful man expressing erotic electric energy? What if I have to face my attraction to men? Is it a question of how I feel about my body in general? Is it OK for me to be beautiful? It is OK to be handsome? Where is the dynamic middle path where one can celebrate and accept one’s beauty, and not use it against people? Awareness becomes compassion.”
The benefits away from the class are manifold.
Kortan believes the biggest benefit is “finding the pause—realizing that
everything is changing all the time. Things are important, but nothing is so important that it’s worth hurting myself by getting all freaked out. All of us get caught in storms of thought, worrying about the future or rehashing the past.
“Of course, we all need to be able to think and plan—to use our knowledge. But you can get obsessed with all of that. It’s a real torture for a lot of people. When I pause on and focus on my breath, I’m actually in the present moment, as opposed to rehashing the past, or projecting into the future.”
Oh, and if you get an erection during class?
Kortan offers this advice: “Celebrate!” | |
