"is tantra about sex?"

i received an email this morning from a woman who had talked to a tantrik scholar who had dismissed sexual tantra 

tantra is divided into right hand and left hand parctices
the right hand (dakshina marga) does not engage in sexual practices
the left hand (vama marga) does engage in sexual practices for initiation, kundalini awakening and enlightenment

the left hand accepts the right hand, but the right hand usually denounces the left hand tantras, that is why it is called the left hand, because in india the left hand is used to wipe the ass, it is unclean. this is called the "forbidden" path of breaking cultural, moral conditioning of taboos.

Q:
 They say that the intimate partner practices & left-hand pujas were discarded/ censored from strains of traditional Shiva-Shakti tantra (including Sri vidya) some centuries ago, and it's my experience with all my teachers that they are very much alive.

 A:
when did tantra begin and what is tantra? some people say it was a neo-hindu offshoot in reaction to the morality against sexuality in indian culture. i do not agree with this and i think it is a puritanical view point from scholars who do not understand tantra. their own discomfort with this form of sexual spirituality leads them to dismiss the power of the sexual tantrik traditions throughout time. tantra has always existed. the worship of the Mother goddess and sexuality as a sacred staircase to the higher states of evolution has always existed in all cultures and as a mystical hidden teaching of almost all religions and ideologies. look at the drawings in the pyramids in egypt...

the scholars tend to dismiss or denounce the left handed sexual practices. they are not usually practitioners of this form of tantra. depending who you talk to, it is higher or lower form of tantra, initiation and practice. a left hand practitioner will feel it is the true hidden tantra and a right hand practitioner will say it is less.

this stems from our own direct experience and what opens us up truly to the Lord.

we can only follow our gnosis, how the spirit and the Mother has stirred rememberence inside of us. this stirring has happened within my womb and my spiritual experiences have multiplied through my sexuality. they say tantriks are born not made.
the real question is, "what is sexuality"

if i look at a person from outside who is meditating and i do not understand meditation because i have not had the inner experience- then i would describe the outer experience i can perceive, "this person is sitting down not doing anything". if you practice meditation, you know that in your inner experience vast universes are blossoming inside you, you may have sublime visions or terrifying encounters with your own thoughts and fears as well as supernatural energies. the inner experience that can be felt is radically different than the outer experience that can be spoken of.

if i was not a left hand tantrik and i saw 2 tantra practitioners engaged in union, i would only see the outer container, 2 people having sex. of course, their experience is as different from normal definition of sex as the meditator is from just sitting around.

how can people understand what they have not experienced? i have compassion for those who still feel so much shame in their bodies and repression of their natural and spiritual sexual energies. it is unfortunate that in their lack of experience of the tantrik union, they have judged and persecuted tantriks throughout the ages. tantrik women adepts have been called witches and whores, or at the very least not given the same credibility and stature as the scholars. this also is a form of HIMSA (violence).

i think the world needs a tantrik enema....