Can orgasm lead to enlightenment?

One of the main differences between authentic Tantra and Western Neo-Tantra is this: some of the latter's followers believe orgasm can result in enlightenment. Enlightenment may include orgasm, but the latter does not automatically cause the former. As one Tantric text states (and I paraphrase): If orgasm can lead to enlightenment, then the rabbits would be way on their way to sainthood.

Indeed, there would be many enlightened sex practitioners out there. And I mean truly enlightened, as in the case of one man named the Buddha.

Sex is a form of bliss, no doubt. But it is a short-lived sensual bliss that does not automatically lead to full-blown spiritual bliss. Indeed, I have yet to read or hear of someone who has achieved permanent enlightenment via the path of sexual practice alone.

I have read, however, that one well-known Neo-Tantric teacher made the rather preposterous claim that Buddha could not have achieved enlightenment without first having had sex with his wife Yasodhara.

Georg Feuerstein says such teachers “confuse Tantric bliss (ananda or maha-sukha) with ordinary orgasmic pleasure.” How can the primarily sensual pleasure of sex and spiritual bliss be the same? Sex is mostly sensory; yogic bliss is mostly extrasensory. As Nisargadatta Maharaj said in his book I Am That: “Love is a state of being. Sex is energy. Love is wise. Sex is blind.”

This blind force of sex can sometimes release powerful kundalini energies, resulting in amazing inner ecstasies. But sex is not a unique gateway to bliss. Music, dance, drumming, chanting, and yoga asanas can also release these energies. Yogic bliss is all about opening our heart chakra, letting ourselves dance into an ecstatic trance on waves of repetitive music and chanting. Unrelated to our sexual prowess, the sages say enlightenment as a state of being, comes as a result, as a spiritual plateau experience, after years of repeated, meditative, bliss experiences.