FREEING your soul and expanding your consciousness while reaching new heights of sexual pleasure; it sounds alright, but it takes bloody hours. 

If you’re Sting and earning $83 an hour for Every Breath You Take, then eight hours of sex is $664 in the bank. The rest of us? Who’s got time to put a whole Sunday aside for fucking when there’s so much prestige TV?

Still, hot people are often into Eastern mysticism in a shallow and facile way as the Buddha intended, so at some point you’ll sign up for the whole trip and hope there’s a clitorial chakra. Keep the following in mind:

Time is not a construct

The hemp-clad hippies who love a bit of tantric would have you believe that time is simply a construct. That if you breathe deeply enough for long enough as you lick your wife’s labia without letting your mind wander to the impending end of your daughter’s swimming lesson, time will melt away completely.

But she isn’t going to magic her way home from the pool while you bang your way into a state of pure bliss, and time’s remarkably consistent for a construct. Wedge your cock in and get this over with.

You need motivation

Tantrics would lead you to believe that the goal of sex isn’t to have an orgasm. If that’s the case, who would bother? Nobody’s in it just to get close to a scrotum. A deeper connection with your boyfriend is something both of you can live without. If you’re expected to be inches from his ballsack, you’re going to need a proper incentive and coming’s worked so far.

You’re exhausted

You fall asleep when you sit down to watch a show with lots of flashing lights and running around. Do you honestly think you’re going to manage to stay awake through an hour of listening to your own heartbeat with your eyes closed when you can’t even make it to the end of RuPaul’s Drag Race?

Even if you weren’t knackered, who has the attention span? You’ve tried mindful meditation before and all you actually meditated on was the Champions’ League and your plans for the leftover brie.

You feel like a complete tit

As a British lover, you can’t hold eye contact mid-hump for longer than a couple of seconds. How are you expected to do it for two hours? Let alone painfully nude and on the wrong side of a takeaway chicken biryani. A fit of the giggles and all arousal lost is actually the good outcome. Face it. Tantra’s for Scarlett Johansson and Sean Combs, not a shy accounts manager from Bicester.

Is it worth it?

If you do make it through all the wide-eyed staring and yogic stretching, when you finally get to the genital contact will the orgasmic pay-off be worth it? Do you really believe you’ve the patience to find out? Let Sting have his fun. We mere sexual mortals can go on squeezing in several time-efficient, quickies throughout the week. If you need to add some mysticism, have a spliff in the garden first.