I recently (m47) attended my first Tantric 'play party' based on Wheel of Consent and it was a wonderfull eye-opening experience that shed more light into my own trauma-induced patterns that kept me in a perpetual loop of avoiding intimacy with the opposite sex since my latest breakup 2yrs ago.

After this event I now know for sure that plain therapy (Schema/Gestalt/Hypno) has been largely useless up till now to make me a more functional sexual being. Going further I now need to chose what to spend my hard earned money on. Tantric events or therapy? I can't do both atm.

In WOC-terms, because I can't 'Take' fully, I 'Serve' to indirectly get what I want. I used to 'steal' for the longest time when I sexless during my long depression and had a lot of guilt about it. I've healed myself for the most part w.o therapy now I'm very comfortable with the opposite sex. But with women I'm attracted to I do interact but keep the conversation casual short and friendly, testing the waters to be sure if there is anything mutual. As time progresses this makes the interaction more contrived and (to make matters worse) these women seem to notice this lack of spontaneity and in turn seem to avoid Me. I want something from them but I won't express it to avoid rejection, for good reason, bc history has proven that I crash into a spiral of isolation and addiction after a 'no', but I've become much better at it.

During the course this cute girl did something seemingly innocuous (standing up to sit further away from me) but in my head I started spiraling. During the excercises she kept avoiding me and when we finally paired up she was visibly impatient, avoiding eye contact and kept saying 'no' to every request, it was almost comical to witness. I should have asked 'am I making you uncomfortable?' but ofc I bit my tongue to not stir something that wasn't there. Later on she shared something very revealing, that she becomes very anxious when she's sexually attracted to someone and shuts down completely (Me also!). I'm not keen on suggesting that I would be that someone she could be attracted to. With all the other women there I could take their 'No' and be just fine with.

In short, I'm using Tantric events to possibly heal my unconscious patterns that kept sabotaging my relationships. First I need to have more positive sexual experiences to make me more at ease interacting with women I'm attracted to. For this, do I need to attend more Tantric/conscious kink/BDSM events to practice being more comfortable ? A sex therapist ? Or just plainly face rejection by just asking more women on a date ? What Tantric practice specifically can help me with this ? I'm fortunate to live in Europe and have access to all types of Tantric events. Thank you!