A true erotic wake up call, which the superb town house on Avenue Albert heightens even further. It is like entering a temple, because spirituality is really what is at stake here. Tantra is an ancient Hindu-Buddhist philosophy which means “woven together”; mind and body, touch and ecstasy. Fabulously decorated private salons are lined with perfumed candles, paintings and bouquets, all surrounding a large central futon.
Whoever cares for you – naked as Adam or Eve – will be just as bare. After all, eyes closed, how can you know whether it is the silk of an arm, palm, chest or thigh procuring the ever so soft caress, the immense pleasure mounting like waves? The whole body is a keyboard in which every key, white or black, erogenous or not, is part of the choreography. Nothing left to do but to let yourself go, without any taboos, to this communion of senses. The energy of desire mounts, but does not necessary reach the point of no return. Bull’s eye: ecstasy. And it’s there at the rendezvous. Tantra, tempted?
Mado VUILLET
By restricting the touch, by codifying it to the extreme and by opposing taboos to it our culture has gagged the body’s language… And yet, starved for tenderness, Westerners only need to look to the Asian or Indian model where massage is a daily activity that heals the body’s ills as well as the soul’s.
Thankfully, in Brussels, there is a place that invites you to savour the moment you’re in, to let yourself go completely, and where this is reconciled with “love” – a tarnished term that has lost its substance for many couples.
9 years ago, Marie and Thierry Raes invented the concept of tantric massage following a couple’s session during which Marie felt something special, something beyond pure sexual excitement. Investigations were carried out through practical trials. This nurse passionate about Chinese medicine and her husband – himself a practicing masseuse for 15 years and an adept of Taoism and Tantra – created a massage technique that opens the way to a more harmonious, more balanced and richer sexuality. For example, you are invited to stop focusing on personal pleasure, to open yourself up to refinements and leave frustration behind.
When was the last time your ankle was caressed? What softness in the nape of your partner’s neck? Admit it: these subtle places, hot or cold, these playful areas of skin – which are not classically erogenous – are often left off the tenderness map, since ever for some.
You also have to accept the nakedness of the masseur – Thierry – or masseuse – Mary or one of her four colleagues. Then, once your eyes are closed, there is nothing to do but let go, abandoning yourself to a wave of immense pleasure, as stupefying as unknown.
With warm oils, no zone of the body is taboo to Marie’s hands, fingers, chest and legs. Mary knows it and doesn’t linger “there” more than anywhere else; she is invested with the mission to arouse more subtle sensations in us. And, we discover – astounded – the tactile resonance of the ear, the vibrant silk of the ankle and the quiver of the armpit.
A whirlwind, dare I say a revelation, bringing you to see – and make – love in another manner.
The little extra: Korean, California, Taoist massages.
More original, tantric massage for couples can be given in the light of a wood fire and the lovers left to find each other afterwards...
Marie and Thierry Raes invented the concept 9 years ago, during a massage session together when Marie felt something special, beyond relaxation and sexual excitement. They sought to understand, Thierry through his knowledge of massage and Marie through her experience with Chinese medicine and her nursing past.
They came up with a new technique, a shared masterpiece of joyous celebration, which they put on stage in their sublime Avenue Albert townhouse. Entering is like going into a temple, its about spirituality.
Tantra, which means woven together, is a way of transforming human beings, searching to give a spiritual dimension to touch and the erotic. It is also about a real awakening to the erotic. The idea is to liberate the energy of desire, and bring it back into the body with a view to living without ever reaching the point of no return.
Concretely, this means that once youre in a delicious room with subdued lighting and subtle smells, you have to accept lying naked on a large futon.
There are places that subsume beings and existence, that arouse the soul and invite love. Yes, I said “love”. Lovers of strong sensations, those starved of tenderness, it is time to have the ultimate experience: tantric massage. Certainly, playfulness is close at hand. Nevertheless, there is nothing unhealthy about linking these two words both of which have strong sensual connotations.
On his belly, all kinds of oil are generously applied. The massage, properly speaking, begins. Slowly, over the body’s entire surface. Marie gives advice: “Don’t keep in your emotions. Make sounds if you like. If you feel the need to cry, do it!”
Crying? No. It’s not the feeling you feel first. Just a pleasant sensation of relaxation, the feeling of living in a privileged moment that you hope will never end.
At this stage, the masseuse invites us to put our hands on her body, in turn, without going past the limits defined in the regulations, or rather the courtesy agreement. Yes to caresses, but no uncalled-for insisting. “That is not the aim in this house”, Marie continues. “There are other salons for that. Generally, there are no misunderstandings. When someone receives information over the telephone, they quickly understand that this is not the right place for sexual massage.”
The session continues to background music alternating between Ennio Morricone and whale songs. Marie comes and goes slowly, gliding over the guest’s body, alternatively using hands and feet to provide wellbeing.
One question that we wouldn’t miss asking: is it possible to remain impassive with such bodily solicitations? Of course not. Natural excitation is tolerated, even if it is not the goal of this research.
Voila, the ninety minutes have gone by like the blink of an eye. Oiled from head to toe, we move to the bathroom, which is impeccably clean just like the house. With a feeling of being incomparably fulfilled and the desire to do it again as soon as possible.
And we’re on our way. I tense up. What is he going to do to me? The first caress brushes my body. A second, followed by a third. Right away, I understand that I’m in good hands. Thierry only wants what is good for me.
The session can begin in complete serenity. With gestures that are never out of place, never bold, my masseur relaxes me. His caresses are a mix of known and discovered sensations. What joy, the warm oil dripping down my spine. The pleasure is in the meeting. It’s magical because it’s far, far away from excitation. I am simply good – relaxed, serene. I let myself be guided by his hands that sometimes massage and sometimes lightly brush my skin. Thierry lingers at every part of my body with his silky caresses. I promised myself that I would not let myself be persuaded. I lied.
A face massage ends these two hours of relaxation. Thierry places a warm towel over my oiled body. It’s over. Alas.
ITS FOR HIM
At Mary Hash, every word has a meaning. Therefore, we do not get undressed but we put on our natural outfit. Massages of the genitals are not all sexual, rather they arouse the senses. The paying visitor is not a client, but a guest.
Inside the house, everything is calm and sensual. The client, excuse me, the guest, receives refreshment while waiting. Then, he is led into the relaxation room. The room is plunged into darkness; it is barely lit by small candles. Incense provides an oriental touch. Background music tops off a relaxing environment.
Requested to remove his garments, the visitor lies down on the futon large enough for a couple.
As you shall read, tantric massage refutes all sexual connotations and only targets the wellbeing of each individual through self-confidence gained from (re)discovering one’s body. Interested? Visit our site or call 02/346.57.59
IT’S FOR HER
“What, a tantric massage? But that’s sexual.” Every time I spoke about my meeting with Thierry, my masseur, I got the same looks, the same comments. My husband, friends, and colleagues imagine me naked on the bed, ready for a sizzling erotic session.
Therefore, I visited Mary Hash with a great deal of apprehension, but also with a good deal of curiosity, I admit. From the outside, the town house is reserved. Okay, I take the step and ring the bell. A woman’s voice invites me to come in. The door opens and candles light and perfume the entranceway. A feeling of wellbeing comes over me. A charming young lady comes out to welcome me and invites me to wait in a small lounge. In passing, I get a glimpse of a dark room filled with candles. Will it be there? After a few minutes, I got the answer to my question. No… Thierry and his wife, Marie, open the door. Can’t go back now. Oops.
I find myself in a room lit by some candles. A futon. Background Music. Cosy decoration. And then, I’m naked, laid out on the bed. I’m a bit embarrassed and terribly anxious. Thierry – an attractive man, it must be said – had slipped out and now he returns with a towel tied around his hips. “I’m just as stressed as you are”, he confides to me in a reassuring voice. “Usually, clients come knowingly.” Not me! That’s for sure
Okay, we start. To put myself in the place of clients who already enjoy tantra, I agree to be blindfolded.
Instead of a long speech, a little demonstration – even two! – will help you understand the reality of this massage that is what we have tested for you.
For the rest, the maryhash.com website will provide you with all the relevant information. It is important to know that this kind of massage is not cheap (150 euros an hour, 250 euros for an hour and a half), even if adherents claim that it should be reimbursed by social security. Alas, this is not yet the case. Thus, those with smaller budgets must take recourse to the morning sessions (10 a.m. and 10.30 a.m.) for a more manageable fee of 100 euros. “If we didn’t have to live like everyone else, we would do it for free we take so much pleasure from our work”, explains Marie. “Our goal is to attract everyone, men, women, elderly and handicapped people, those who are in need of caressing and to whom they have often been refused.”
Lovers of naturism, Marie and Thierry have been working together for sixteen years, seven at the current address. It has even become a family affair, as their daughter lends them (a) strong hand(s).
Discover it at Mary Hash in Forest! Tantra is well known to students of oriental philosophy. Very simply, its principle is to attain harmony through the union of the masculine and feminine aspects of creation. On the other hand, tantric massage is an innovation that Mary and Thierry brought into the world at their centre, Mary Hash, on Avenue Albert in Forest.
Could I be at the gates of paradise? Thierry has just shaken my hand. In ten minutes, I will be naked, and so will he. Mary talks to me about this passion they have, both of them, for bringing wellbeing to others. It is clear this is a true commitment for them, a case of body and soul.
A quick shower. I wait for him. Stretched out in the middle of the futon. He comes in and places his towel next to mine, with slow movements.
Are you comfortable?
He places his hands on two spots. A liturgy of shivers begins. Classic massage has something prudish about it, and absurd, in stubbornly avoiding the most sensitive zones. Thierry doesn’t avoid them. And doesn’t linger there either. The entire body is part of his choreography. And when he has awakened each centimetre of skin with his hands, from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes, he returns with his entire body, his body like a new vector of gentleness. I imagine this requires technique, but what I mostly perceive is an intention. This man wants to do me good. He is gentle. He is tender. I’m going to say something huge: I feel loved.
I expected some kind of performance, and instead I’m slipping into an act of communication. It’s clear that our bodies are speaking to each other. There are subtle places, hot places. We could choose to go towards pleasure – we can do that, Thierry tells me later. But there’s more than mere pleasure to be discovered in this adventure. There is perhaps a focal point of ecstasy – a spiritual state as well as a physical one.
Here, the body is a piano, on which one plays the sensitive notes: skimming over them, freeing them, lighting them up. Bliss can be skin-deep, and we don’t even realise it.
Marcel Joris et Elisa Brune
Our massages are a veritable awakening of sensuality and eroticism. With hot oils, and under the hands, feet, chest, or buttocks of the massage therapist, no area of the body is taboo. We stimulate their energies, teach them to lose control and let go, to the point of no return.
After a massage like this, lasting more than an hour (I never wear a watch), during which one feels transported, and during which Mary has completely put herself into it, it is amazing to see her radiant state. “Ha!” she smiles. “I am Tao. I don’t release my energies. And then, the training is daily. We are like professional athletes.”
And the ladies? Do many of them come to the salon?
“Not many, but over the past four or five years, they’ve finally been granting themselves the right to come. Many of them are searching for something, and some are sent by their shrinks. But here, no blah-blah: we speak the language of the body. I recently massaged a lady who claimed to be bereft… of her mother and, since then, felt castrated in terms of her sexuality. But young women who feel good about themselves also come and, what is more, they come back.”
A WOMANS OPINION: Massage crème de la crème
I leave my friends to go for a tantric massage.
Mocking glances. Are they confusing tantric with erotic? Or even carnal? I don’t know if I really understand the difference, but I just want to find out.
A mansion with waxed parquet floors, candles, soft music and sparse furnishings. It’s a meditative atmosphere. Mary welcomes me with an angelic smile.
A HIGH PERFORMANCE SPORT
As we have seen, tantrism has been around for nearly two thousand years. But tantric massage® itself was apparently only invented a few years ago by a young couple, Mary and Thierry, who registered the name.
Thierry already performed classic massage, explained Mary: Korean, Californian, etc., then one day, as we were giving each other a massage, I was suddenly filled with an indescribable sensation, off the scale of anything caused by a relaxing, energising or even a sexual massage¦
I tried to learn more about it. I read Margo Anand [an expert on the role of sexuality in sacred traditions], and also sacred texts from the tantric tradition, at the Royal Library. It was through the inspiration we drew from these texts, and through our own experiences, that we perfected this technique.
œIn the Orient, she explains, it would be absurd to say that women are more sensitive than men to caresses, and a tantric master would be astonished at the small number of body areas that we have decided to consider as erogenous zones.
Tantrism is trendy. And tempting. But what is it, exactly? Kama Sutra philosophy, or frantic body contact? Our journalists have bravely embarked on the experiment… A training report.
SENSUALITY AND BODY LANGUAGE
We have met with Mary, the creator of Tantric massage
How did you happen to create Tantric massage?
It was almost by chance. And a beautiful story of a couple. A few years ago my husband, Thierry, and I were massaging each other... and something unique happened, an indescribable sensation that I felt while he touched me, something that went beyond simple relaxation or sexual excitement. As he already practised massage and that I studied traditional Chinese medicine, we tried to understand what had happened to us. Through reading sacred texts then multiple essays, we have then implemented a new technique that we baptised “Tantric massage”. And for the idea not to be stolen, we even patented its name.
One of your starting premises is that the West is underdeveloped in terms of touch and sensuality?
While Tantrism is an ancient mystic tradition, Tantric massage has been conceived a few years ago by Mary, a young Belgian and her husband Thierry.
A true revelation of the senses, it endeavours to give a spiritual dimension to touch and ecstasy.
We try to have them travel at the same pace, which is not easy since men in general take off much sooner... then, when we feel the moment has come, we leave them so they can find each other, that they are able to take advantage of this state to unite in a new way. Often, this experience allows them to get in touch with certain emotions, they recreate a sacred space between them that they can recreate in their home by massaging and touching each other.
What are the required qualities to practise Tantric massage?
There must be a lot of love and respect for the person with whom this moment is shared. But expect nothing in return. You put yourself entirely at the service of the other person, you give them all your energy, your joy, tenderness to provide this sense of wellbeing.
And what are the obstacles you could be confronted with?
Lack of time, stress, our inability to detach from daily life to experience magical moments. Also the limitations linked to our culture. Our lack of habit to touch, to let go. Then also this false notion that each of us only has three or four erogenous and energising zones. Whereas quite the contrary, all body parts can provide pleasure.
In order to try Tantric massage with the woman who invented this technique and her team, contact Mary Hash, 192 avenue Albert, 1190 Brussels, Tel. 02/346.57.59. www.maryhash.com.
Christophe Coppens
Absolutely. By restricting the function of touch, by opposing taboos to it our culture has muzzled/gagged body language. In Asia, massage has taken its place in the social sphere as a manifestation of mutual attention for thousands of years. In India, for example, massage is a daily activity that everyone practises: women massage their babies for long hours and children learn to do the same with their parents. There sensuality is much richer than in these parts. In the Orient, it will never be said that a woman is more sensitive to touch than a man. And a Tantric master would be astonished to see the inadequacy of what we consider to be erogenous zones.
This massage therefore not only has a purely sexual purpose?
No, it’s an opening of the senses, the release of energies. Of course, it provokes almost inevitable physical reactions... but that is not the main goal. Linked to Indian philosophy and Buddhism, it is first and foremost an awakening to eroticism that immerses people into a different vibratory state, which confronts them with what they feel to discover new sensations and emotions. It is a way to abolish boundaries between what is carnal and what is energetic. There is a certain variety, massages are carried out with different parts of the body, vital energy is stimulated at the same time as sexual energy. The person being massaged must almost reach a state of trance, in any case, let go, in total abandon.
Who can benefit from this kind of massage? Men of course, who wish to discover these new sensations. But not only. WE also do women, couples who are massaged side-by-side, people who suffer from problems linked to desire, to premature ejaculation, etc. And there is no age.
When a couple is massaged side by side, what happens? It’s a truly unique way of creating a bubble of desire between two people. One next to the other, they immerse into this vibratory state and energy connections are created between them.
