Tao Del Amante Perfecto (Tao of the Perfect Lover)
Ecstasy through sex? Lest the concept titillate, let it be known that this book will hardly replace the standard Gideon Bible at the bedside in cheap motels. It’s not a self-help manual for one-night stands. On the contrary, it is a guide to the delights of physical love to be shared by committed and devoted lovers, with a persistent insistence on the spiritual significance of sex.
Borrowing liberally from the Tao Te Ching, the Kama Sutra, and Tantric exercises, the author introduces a delicate filigree of Eastern mysticism into the act of love, investing its pure carnality with overtones of a spiritual unity. Offering an eighty-five-item bibliography, and a dedication to “the man of my life [who] brings all my woman’s fantasies to reality, helps me to grand dreams, a great companion, best friend and perfect lover,” Iam, a renowned sexologist and writer from Argentina, is clearly on top of her subject, both professionally and personally.
For many who have become bored or offended by a contemporary vulgar brutalizing of one of life’s more exquisite opportunities for subtlety, warmth, and genuine passion, the reintroduction of the idea of sexual union as a sacrament, with or without church sanction, will be a welcome addition to a growing search for deeper values in daily life and habitual practices.
According to the author, “The majority of people associate the Kama Sutra simply with multiple positions for engaging in the sexual act, a mixture of acrobatics and pornography. For the Orient, on the other hand, the true meaning of the Kama Sutra is very far from this purely gymnastic idea. From the perspective of the Tao of Love, the sexual union is sacred, a celebration of the ultimate creative act, that union of the cosmic principles of masculine and feminine which is the cause of the created and manifest universe.”
Presented through thirty-four carefully outlined and easily comprehensible chapters, the text offers the serious reader a guide to both physical and spiritual health; exercises for deep respiration and meditation, and the development of an open and intrepid approach to the joys of physical love. The twenty-nine illustrated examples derived from the Kama Sutra are an aide to the understanding of both partners of the necessity for the full arousal and satisfaction of each. When each recognizes and celebrates the “divine” in the other, the result is the release of deep, even cosmic, energies whose union is designed to fill the psyche, as well as the body, with ecstasy.
Reviewed by
Sandy McKinney
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
