The event was attended by some 150 sex therapists, tantra practitioners, performance artists, sex workers, adult filmmakers, and other members of the industry. Keynote speakers included author and tantra yoga coach Charles Muir, the self-described “Pioneer of the Modern Tantra Movement in the U.S,” and Annie Sprinkle, best known for her work in adult films, later for X-rated performance art, and more recently the author of the Ecosex Manifesto.

Muir’s message focused on raising the individual’s sexual consciousness and self-awareness, practicing the breathing, touching and feeling exercises and developing the techniques and skills needed to create far deeper intimacy and pleasure. Muir promises heightened sensuality, longer and more powerful orgasms, and methods for women to find their “sacred center” and access the female ejaculate.

Also on hand were Destin “Erotic Rock Star and Artist” Gerek and his stunning co-star and girlfriend IXchel, showing clips from their adult film, “Endless Seduction.” Gerek attempts to fuse tantra, “conscious erotic art,” and human connection in an effort to “regain the sensuality and eroticism of love making, get away from the animal side and move toward the spiritual,” he said during an abbreviated screening. Although billed as a sexual meditation, in the end “Endless Seduction” appears to be dressed up and stripped down soft-core porn with Eastern religion themes.

Other talks, films and workshops included “Sex Magic” and creating sexual heaven on earth, presented by local tantra guru, Baba Dez; a puja with Muir, where much touching, hugging, and spontaneous howling orgasms occurred amid the revolving partners; “Sacred Sexual Awakenings,” with Muir and his wife, Caroline; “Transformational Journeying” with Luisa Kolker; “ZEGG Forum,” a discussion of money, power, love and sex by Adam Paulman; “Divine Feminine Symposium,” a celebration of the “journey you share with your sister,” presented by intimacy coach Kris Ellen; and Annie Sprinkle’s film, “Amazing World of Orgasm,” followed by her “Heterosexual to Bisexual to Metamorphosexual to Eco-Sexual and “Beyond” seminar, later climaxing with Sprinkle’s earthy “Eco-Sexy Walking Tour.”

Sprinkle arguably stole the show. The prostitute cum porn star turned performance artist, author, adult film producer, and sexual liberation speaker is now a polished and personable pro on the adult lecture circuit. Speaking to a packed room of more than 100 enthusiastic attendees and fans, she amused, informed and delighted the crowd.

During her seminar, Sprinkle described her sexual sojourn from heterosexual to the arcane “metamorphosexual” and how she landed in “beyond.” She seems to have embraced the furthest reaches of sexuality with wife and creative partner, Beth Stephens, using their multiple marriages as ceremonial expressions of eco-sex and their biblical relationship with nature.

The former adult film diva, now 57, has not been laying down on the job. Since her heyday as the first lady of natural boob porn, she has gone on to find whole new positions in the world of sex as art and spirituality. From sitting naked in a museum kissing Stephens for hours at a time, to public masturbation rituals to her “Public Cervix Announcement” show, where some 40,000 curious peepers patiently took their turn looking through a tube for a peek inside her vagina, Sprinkle seeks to leave no social/sexual expression unseen. If not unadulterated exhibitionism, as some critics have claimed, it’s certainly on the outer cleavage of avant-garde art and salacious genital compulsion.

And that is at least partially the point. Sprinkle wants to call our attention to politicized sex and evoke a response to what she calls a “sex negative” society. Said Sprinkle, “We want to make love transgressive, graphically exploring the taboo; we want to occupy sex in all its expressions; we want people to love their bodies as if it were an act of [civil] disobedience; we want women to think about their clits.”

When asked how she felt after the seminar, a female attendee named Stacy said, “I feel blissed [sic] out. Annie helps women connect with their own sensuality in a very positive, unashamed way. I feel like I am in a warm place, like I’m swimming in the sperm of my inner dolphin.”

Sometimes uproarious, on occasion political, and always provocative, Sprinkle is, at her core, an entertainer. At one point during the seminar, she invited all “sex workers, healers and therapists” to come forward and accept their “diploma” for sexually serving their community. She ran out before everyone could get one.

Classroom moved to practice when Sprinkle and Stephens took a small group on an Eco-Sexual walking tour of the immediate area. Heightened awareness of our surroundings led to a communing with the grass beneath our bare feet. This shamanistic spiritual connection would eventually lead to a figurative, and later perhaps literal, intercourse with Mother Nature. According to Sprinkle and Stephens’ Eco-Sex Manifesto, among the “25 Ways to Make Love to the Earth,” are “talk dirty to her plants,” “kiss and lick her,” “bury parts of your body deep inside her soil,” and “plant your seed in her.” It’s hard to figure if Sprinkle and Stephens are attempting to create a fresh New Age animism, or a new genre of porn film.

The ISTA conference examined and explored what one speaker called salvaje y sagrada or “the wild and sacred.” It was an ambitious goal, seemingly trying to cover every position, thought, possibility, emotion, and consequence of enlightened sex.

The seminars and workshops sometimes fell into chitchat, speaker digression, sexual jocularity and occasional demonstrations of sex worker/therapist/artist/expressionist solidarity. The event was conducted in the shadow of a looming court case against the School of Temple Arts, recently busted for prostitution at both its Phoenix and Sedona locations. Attendance was down significantly from pre-bust conferences, according to organizers, citing fear of police harassment.

Sexuality and Consciousness is expected to reconvene in Sedona and surrounding areas next year. At press time, dates and ticket prices were not available. For more information, visit the International School of Temple Arts at www.schooloftemplearts.org.

Meanwhile, we will continue to monitor the pending, and possibly precedent setting legal battle between the School of Temple Arts and the state of Arizona.