Guess what one of your childhood faves has been up to recently. David Joyner, the man who portrayed Barney for 10 years, has reportedly been running a tantric sex business since 2004.
According to VICE, Joyner is now a tantra massage specialist and spiritual healer who exclusively accepts women clients with the goal of fully releasing a woman’s blocked energy. In addition to a ritual bath and chakra balancing, Joyner offers massages…with a happy ending.
“When the lingam [penis] and the yoni [vagina] meet, there’s a certain energy that takes place that hands on the body alone cannot create,” Joyner, 54, told VICE. “Even through G-spot massage, it’s still not the same energy that flows.”
Joyner’s tantric massage practice has 30 clients—or “goddesses,” as he calls them— where he unblocks the energy of two to four women a week. This is a far cry from anything we expected to hear about the man who once played not only Barney, but also Hip-Hop Harry. However, Joyner says that his new practice shares many similarities with his role as Barney.
“The energy I brought up [while] in the costume is based on the foundation of tantra, which is love,” he explained. “Everything stems, grows, and evolves from love. Even when you have emotionally blocked energy, the best way to remove it is to remove it with love, and then replace it with God’s divine love. Love heals and allows you to continue to grow.”
I love you. You love me. Right?
“Before I got into the [Barney] costume, I would pray and ask God to allow his loving divine spirit to flow through me through the costume and let that draw the kids. That energy would always draw them in,” Joyner says. “Children are more connected spiritually than [adults]. A lot of times when I see infants and I’m out and about at the grocery store or whatever, they start staring at me. I make the joke, ‘You know who I am.’”
His mantra via his website is “connecting your mind, body and spirit together as one, in perfect harmony. Achieving a higher and more blissful state of awareness to your sexuality, and who you are as a spiritual being.”
For those who aren't familiar with tantra, it's “a spiritual science of consciousness. Its goal is to liberate us from the unconscious programming that keeps us from recognizing the divinity in ourselves and all beings,” according to Matthias Rose, a certified tantra educator with the Source School of Tantra and founder of the Moksha Tantra Center in Seattle.
“Once the lingam is inside the yoni, there’s a technique where you don’t even move. You’re harmonizing spiritually and consciously, as you’re looking into each other’s eyes, and you’re feeling each other’s energy take place. This is about energy moving up.” Joyner explained, “A lot of women have never really had spiritual sex.”
However, as Barney faced criticism, Joyner's new role has created some, as well.
“I strongly disagree with this," said Rose. "I can’t say there’s never a place for intercourse; it’s part of the tantric tool set, but in a client/practitioner relationship, it’s almost always never needed—particularly for healing purposes."
"Even porn stars in California use a condom," Kimberly Resnick Anderson, a sex therapist and professor of psychiatry at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine, said. "It’s the law. For him not to use condoms is medically unethical and irresponsible. This is outrageous and far outside the standard of care.”
Joyner provides his STD test results to prospective clients, who are asked to disclose any STDs in a signed consent form before their first session. Apparently, as one would suspect, this is highly unorthodox.
Whatever he's doing, his clients seem to be enjoying it. This is all too much coming from the man who used to play Barney, though. That was almost 20 years ago, and it's safe to say that like our childhood, we clearly need to let Barney go.
"Barney was beautiful," Joyner said. "Barney was very, very good to me. I loved being Barney. I loved everything about being Barney. But that chapter is gone."
