Sting says he doesn’t mind being asked about tantric sex 30 years after he brought it up during a booze-fuelled interview with a British magazine.
“I don’t mind that at all – it’s very healthy,” the 71-year-old singer-songwriter told the Sydney Morning Herald.
“We didn’t discuss sex with my parents ever. I’m fortunate in many, many respects, and having my health at this age is something that I don’t take for granted. I’ve lost a lot of friends that didn’t make it this far. And so I appreciate every day as it comes.”
In an interview with Q magazine published in March 1993 Bob Geldof asked Sting if yoga works.
“I’ve started to use it in sex now where you don’t spill your seed … You retain it all and go on for longer … you never lose control, you just keep going,” Sting replied, adding that it can go on for “four or five hours.”
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Two decades later, Sting was asked about those comments in an interview with The Guardian.
“Bob and I were pissed when we did that interview," he said. "I was just trying to wind him up. That quote went round the world like wildfire, and it's still going round.
“For a while I would say, well, five hours of sex includes a movie, and that worked for a while, but at the same time, I do believe sex is the most important thing that we do with someone we love: it's a spiritual expression … it can be a beautiful, extended sacrament too.”
On a 2014 episode of Inside the Actor’s Studio, Sting was asked if his infamous boast was legit. “There is some truth to it in that the idea of tantric sex is that sex is a spiritual act,” he replied. “I don’t know any purer and better way of expressing a love for another individual than sharing that wonderful, I call it sacrament. I would stand by it. Not seven hours. The idea.”
Sting and wife Trudie Styler will celebrate their 31st anniversary this summer.
In a 2011 interview with The Sun (according to NME), Styler downplayed her husband’s boast. “The tantric hours got extended and, suddenly, I was doing it all day long. Well, if only,” she said.
“I imagine the tantric story will carry on going until he drops.”