Stri Puja

Skt., stripuja
from stri: woman, women, female
and puja: worship, ritual

1. A specific form of the yoni puja. Rather than worshipping the yoni in symbolical form, using for example a statue or painting, the term stri puja indicates that worship is directed at the living yoni of a real woman. Preparations for this ritual include several days of sexual abstinence and other means (drugs, aphrodisiacs and a special diet) of heightening mental and physical responsiveness to erotic stimulation. Though there are certainly various possible paths along which such a ritual can proceed, they are only known to a select group of practitioners. Often, such a ritual is held in order to examine an adept's achievement of control over himself, and there may be neither intercourse nor ejaculation if he is to pass this test. The woman thus honored is not selected for beauty, youth or virginity - because it is not the individual who is the focus of everyone's perceptive attention - but the Goddess in the form of the sacred Lotus of Wisdom between her legs.
2. Another type of stri puja, or a preparatory phase for it, has been mentioned by Benjamin Walker (Tantrism. p.51). In this case, the man to be initiated has to play the part of a domestic servant in a woman's household, slowly progressing toward an intimate relationship with her. The following quote explains.

This ritual technique for building up erotic tension has been used as the plot for a beautifully written story, Moonjewel, by William Kotzwinkle.

Literature

William Kotzwinkle. Jewel of the Moon. New York: Putnam, 1985.
Benjamin Walker. Tantrism: Its Secret Principles and Practices. Wellingborough: Aquarian, 1982.

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