You've heard about tantra. Maybe from a friend who came back from a retreat glowing and transformed. Maybe from Instagram, where beautiful people in flowing clothes gaze into each other's eyes by candlelight. Maybe you're curious about what happens in those rooms—the breathwork, the eye-gazing, the promise of sexual healing and spiritual awakening wrapped into one weekend.
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Here's what the brochures don't mention: tantra workshops are one of the most unregulated spaces in the wellness industry, and sexual predators have figured this out.
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This isn't an attack on tantra itself. The ancient tradition has genuine depth—it's a path of consciousness, energy work, and yes, the transformation of sexual energy into spiritual awakening. People have been profoundly helped by authentic teachers and practices. But the Western tantra world has a problem it doesn't want to talk about, and if you're considering entering this space, you deserve to know what you're walking into.
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The Perfect Hunting Ground

Consider the setup: a room full of people, many of them women, who have explicitly come to work on their sexuality. They've already self-selected as open, seeking, and willing to push past their comfort zones. They've paid money to be there. They've put themselves in a vulnerable position on purpose.

Now add a charismatic male teacher who positions himself as a healer, a guide, someone who can unlock what's been shut down in them. He speaks the language of energy and awakening. He knows how to create an atmosphere of safety and spiritual significance. And unlike therapists, counselors, or any other profession that works with vulnerable people around intimate issues—he has no licensing board, no oversight, no accountability structure, and no standardized training.

What do you think happens?

What happens is exactly what you'd expect: scandal after scandal, exposed in recent years across some of the biggest tantra schools in the world. Agama Yoga in Thailand, shut down after widespread allegations of sexual assault by its founder and teachers. The New Tantra, whose former head teacher published a detailed account of systematic abuse. Source Tantra, where leadership defended a teacher against multiple rape allegations and blamed the victims who came forward. ISTA, where prominent teachers have faced repeated accusations.

The pattern is consistent: male teachers use their position to groom and sexually exploit students, often under the guise of "healing." When women speak up, they're told they're "in their ego," that their discomfort is a "block" they need to work through, that their boundaries are the very thing preventing their awakening.

This is spiritual gaslighting. And it's rampant.
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How It Works

The manipulation is sophisticated because it weaponizes the very framework of the teaching.

In legitimate tantra, students are encouraged to move past their conditioned resistance, to open where they've been closed, to explore edges. A skilled teacher helps someone expand their capacity for sensation, presence, and intimacy in ways that genuinely serve them.

But in the hands of a predator, this same framework becomes a trap. Your "no" becomes evidence of your wounding. Your discomfort becomes a chakra blockage. Your resistance becomes the thing standing between you and your liberation—and conveniently, the teacher is the one who can help you break through it.

One former student describes how her teacher convinced her that sex with him was part of her healing, that her reluctance was just old trauma she needed to move through. Another recounts being told that her boundaries were "masculine shielding" and she needed to be "fucked out of it." These aren't isolated incidents. They're patterns that show up again and again across different teachers and schools.

The grooming often happens gradually. Free sessions. Special attention. A slow erosion of professional boundaries disguised as spiritual intimacy. By the time the sexual violation occurs, the student has been so thoroughly convinced of the teacher's authority and her own deficiency that she may not even recognize it as abuse.
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Why It Persists

Several factors allow this to continue:

No standards or oversight. Anyone can call themselves a tantra teacher. There's no governing body, no certification that means anything, no mechanism for reporting misconduct. A teacher can be expelled from one school and simply start their own.

The community protects its own. When allegations surface, the response is often to circle the wagons. The accuser is painted as unstable, vindictive, or spiritually immature. Other teachers who've heard the whispers for years stay silent because they don't want to "create division" or harm someone's livelihood.

Students blame themselves. The very nature of the work makes it easy for victims to internalize the abuse. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Maybe this is my edge I need to work through. Maybe I'm just not evolved enough to understand what he was offering.

It's hard to define the line. Tantra workshops legitimately involve practices that would be inappropriate in other contexts—eye-gazing, breath work in close proximity, sometimes nudity, sometimes touch. This ambiguity creates cover for those who want to exploit it.
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Red Flags to Watch For

If you're considering a tantra workshop or teacher, here's what should make you pause:

They suggest that sex with them is part of your healing. Full stop. No legitimate teacher frames sexual contact between teacher and student as therapeutic.

They pathologize your boundaries. If your "no" is treated as a problem to be overcome rather than a signal to be respected, leave.

They create isolation. Predators separate targets from support systems. Be wary of teachers who encourage you to keep your experiences secret or who foster dependence.

There's no clear consent structure. Legitimate workshops have explicit protocols—what will happen, what won't, how to opt out at any point. Vagueness about boundaries is a warning sign.

The teacher's personal life is a mess. If they can't maintain healthy relationships outside the workshop space, that tells you something.

Everyone who raises concerns is dismissed as "not ready" or "in ego." Healthy communities can hold criticism without pathologizing the critic.

They have no lineage or accountability. Where did they train? Who do they answer to? If the answer is "myself" or "the universe," be cautious.
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What Authentic Tantra Actually Looks Like

Here's what one of the original teachers in this lineage said about where Western tantra went wrong: meditation should be the foundation, not an afterthought. When sexuality becomes the focus and inner work becomes secondary, the practice devolves. The point isn't to have amazing sex. The point is to know yourself.

Authentic tantra teachers understand they're working with fire. They maintain impeccable boundaries precisely because the work is so intimate. They don't need to sleep with their students to prove anything. They don't frame resistance as pathology. They create containers strong enough to hold what arises without exploiting the vulnerability.

They exist. But finding them requires discernment that the industry doesn't make easy.
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The Uncomfortable Truth

Tantra attracts seekers who genuinely want to heal, grow, and expand. It also attracts predators who've figured out that spiritual authority plus sexual content plus no oversight equals opportunity.

This isn't a reason to avoid the work entirely. Genuine sexual healing is real. Learning to be more present in your body, more connected to life force, more available for deep intimacy—these are worthy pursuits. Some people have had their lives changed by legitimate teachers and practices.

But going in naive is dangerous. The wellness industry's reluctance to police itself means you have to do that work yourself. Research teachers thoroughly. Talk to former students. Trust your gut when something feels off, regardless of how it's being spiritually framed. And know that your boundaries are not the enemy of your awakening—any teacher who suggests otherwise is telling you exactly who they are.

The dark side of tantra workshops isn't tantra itself. It's what happens when sacred practices get co-opted by people who were never in it for the awakening.

They were in it for the access.

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