david farley

Sexual Kung-Fu: How to Be a Boudoir Black Belt

[Note: this article was published about six years ago in a now-defunct magazine in San Francisco.]

By David Farley

It’s just after seven o’clock on a misty Midtown Manhattan evening and Saida tries to keep her inner tranquility in check as guests begin arriving at Eden House—a “sex positive” B&B—for a seminar she’s leading.

As the mostly middle-aged guests begin to take their seats in the candle-lit, Persian rug-filled lecture room, piped in new-agey Eastern-accented music trickles out of a stereo. Saida, a late-twenty-something Vancouver native with wild eyes, who insists on greeting everyone with ‘aloha,’ stands at the front of the room, wearing a large crystal around her neck and a cemented on smile. She has good reason to look happy: she lives in a near-constant state of orgasm.

Saida is on a mission to teach people a better way to get in touch with their inner selves—literally. Welcome to the world of sexual kung-fu. The very utterance of it is baffling—images of naked ninjas leading an indecent assault of genital-laden levitations, sexy somersaults, and badly dubbed moans of pleasure.

“Not so,” says Saida, who sometimes goes by the name ‘The Jade Goddess’ because she wears a jade egg in her vagina (more on that later). “When I tell people what I do, they think I’m going to karate chop them with my fallopian tube,” she says, her hands calmly placed on her black, skin-tight suede pants.

Sexual kung-fu comes from the Taoist philosophy, which includes chi qong and tai chi, and is considered by its growing number of Western practitioners to be a “sensual martial art”—one that develops internal and external skills for turning your usual 15-minute romp into a five-hour moan-a-thon…partner optional. 

“Orgasms and ejaculating are really two different things,” says Saida, who recently returned from a retreat in Thailand where she spent three weeks in complete darkness all for the sake of sexual and spiritual enlightenment. “This is evidenced by the fact that when a man has an orgasm, he has pleasurable sensations, followed a few seconds later by ejaculation. Through sexual kung-fu, you learn how to experience an orgasm and then redirect the ejaculation.”

That’s right, guys. Say sayonara to premature sperm-shooting shame and hello to your two new favorite words: master non-ejaculator.  Male sexual kung-fu masters can routinely have sex for hours, orgasm after orgasm, before finally turning over and falling asleep. “You have to be disciplined and practice,” Saida says of the rigorous routine, which doesn’t always include self-celebration. “After building up enough mind-body connection you can just think about an orgasm and it happens—it doesn’t have to be genitally located. People freak out when I talk about my liver having an orgasm”

Saida was introduced to sexual kung fu by reading the books of Master Mantak Chia—considered to be the mac daddy of the sexual kung fu movement. From his retreat in Thailand, Master Chia is churning out small armies of sexual kung fu ninjas and unleashing them on the West. “In six months to a year, you can become a total master,” says Chia in an email interview. “This is a very important practice. The more who practice sexual kung-fu, the less fighting and more love will exist in the world.”

Despite such quixotic proclamations, Chia is not without his enemies. The secrets to becoming a bedroom black belt had been safely stored away for centuries in the minds of aging, hermit-like masters in Asia. According to Marcia Kerwit, founder of Bay Area Healing Tao and a student of Master Chia’s, for centuries secrets were passed down individually to students on a master’s deathbed. “Eventually,” Kerwit explains, “you could learn these secrets but people in Taiwan were charging $5000.” That is until Chia wrote the revolutionary book, The Multi-Orgasmic Man: Sexual Secrets Every Man Should Know. “Suddenly,” says Kermit, “anyone could obtain the secrets in the form of book for $14.95.”

Soon Chia was teaching packed seminars in urban centers like San Francisco and New York, teaching the secrets to the newly converted like Kerwit, who in turn spread the seed of sexual kung-fu to others. Since Chia’s coming out in the ‘70s, he’s published over 20 books on these ancient secrets. “When I first started practicing in 1982, I was told that certain practices, for example the breathing practice called Iron Shirt, would never be in print, “says Kerwit. “But then Master Chia wrote a book about it.”

It’s tempting to theorize that the relatively recent popularity of sexual kung-fu, and eastern philosophies like Buddhism, reveals a deep flaw in late-20^th/early 21^st century hyper-capitalist societies—that the greedy, celebrity-driven society we’ve become eclipses our self-reflective side, leaving a gaping yen for a deeper raison d’être. It’s very possible. But, really, let’s face it. We’re embracing new ideas like sexual kung-fu for one reason: the best orgasm ever. 

Karinna Kittles, a 15-year sexual kung-fu veteran and former Elite model, didn’t know orgasms were possible until she was exposed to sexual kung-fu. “I took a seminar with Mantak Chia for the first time and, during meditation, I had my first orgasm,” she said on the phone from her Beverly Hills home. “After that, I knew I’d found my path.”

“The goal of sexual kung-fu,” Kittles says, “is to turn sexual energy into spiritual energy. Coming from a Western background, this was very hard to accept at first—we’re taught that sex and spirit are two different things.” Reflecting Chia’s words, she adds, “As more and more individuals create a healthy sexual relationship with themselves, the world begins its process towards sexual healing.”

Like Saida, Kittles also claims to live in a constant state of orgasmic bliss. “I practice on myself every day,” says Kittles, giggling, who is currently single.  The high-cheekboned blond, who claims to be ‘ageless,’ is working on a book and a series of DVDs based on her experiences.   She’s also devising a way—like traditional kung-fu—to rank one’s expertise. She won’t reveal the type of demarcation, but one thing is for sure: it probably won’t be the color of a belt.

Midway through the seminar, Saida shows the group how to perform a series of visualization exercises aimed at the genitals. Swooshing noises—accompanied by wild hand gestures, first pointed at the pelvis and pushed outward above the head—apparently help release negative energy stored in the penis and vagina.

“Choooo,” “Sheeeeee,” “Woooosh!”

Which brings us to Saida’s curious habit of wearing a jade egg inside her vagina. According to Saida, a number of important reflexology points exist in the male and female genitals.  “Massaging” these points, she claims, will bring health, well being, and plant the seed for the important mind-body connection. “The egg,” she says, “does this for me all the time. I don’t even have to have sex anymore.”

She pauses for a second, as if debating whether or not to mention a thought that’s running through her mind, and then says, “Science has never proven this, but the spot in back of the penis by the head—the part that’s always rubbed when masturbating—corresponds to the colon.” She turns to the whiteboard to draw an arrow to the point on the big blue flaccid penis she’d sketched at the beginning of the seminar. “It’s not a coincidence that, after 25 years of masturbating and rubbing this one spot in the process, a lot of men in their 40s end up with what disease?”

“Colon cancer,” the group yells out in unison. 

“Exactly,” Saida says, nodding her head confidently.

It’s all about ‘cum-passion’ (her term). “Sexual energy is the most mismanaged of all our energies,” she says, suggesting we use our entire bodies for sex rather than focusing on one or two (apparently cancer-causing) spots. “If you can learn how to control it, you will be able to create things in life you didn’t know were possible.”

Saida wraps up the lecture by offering a few sex tips. “I’m a huge fan of screwing,” she says. Discrete chuckles from the audience turn into full-scale laughter when she demonstrates by gyrating her hips in a circular motion as she continues to talk. “I’m not against thrusting,” she says, illustrating her point by sticking her arms in front of herself, as if holding an invisible body, and thrusting her pelvis like a rockstar. “But I think we need to reclaim the screw—it touches more of our genital reflexology points and brings people closer together.” 

As some of the lecture-goers make their way out onto the still misty street, a thin, red-haired woman ponders out loud if Saida has any groupies. A woman next to her responds, “I’m sure she has plenty—probably every guy she meets.”