If it has something to do with acrobatic sex positions, you wouldn’t be the only one. However, sex positions are just one of many varied topics discussed in the ancient Indian text known as the Kama Sutra. To understand what the Kama Sutra is truly all about, we spoke with two Indian sexuality experts about its history, misconceptions, and a few of its most noteworthy teachings. “You can actually say that it’s a little bit of everything,” says Varuna Srinivasan, MPH, FRSPH, a sexual health consultant and gender justice advocate. “It’s a book about how to live life and appreciate the finer things.” The word kama translates to “love, desire, and pleasure,” according to Srinivasan. A sutra is a specific type of Indian literature, typically written in aphorisms and meant to be instructive. Therefore, kama sutra roughly translates to “pleasure manual”—though again, it’s about pleasure in the broader sense. “It’s very much about elegance. It’s about refinement,” says Seema Anand, a sexuality educator, mythologist, and scholar of the Kama Sutra. “And I get really annoyed when we talk about positions because it’s not a book about positions.” “He says that he took all his information from texts that were written a thousand years before, and that he’s pretty much copied and pasted the bits that he likes. He says that in his introduction,” Anand explains. According to Indian mythology, she says, some of those original texts are believed to have been written by the wife of the God of Love himself, Kama. Other stories suggest courtesans of the time paid for the book to be written, she says. Anand personally believes the famous section on sex (section two out of seven sections) may have been written by a woman because of the way it focuses so much on women’s pleasure, which was still radical at the time of its writing. While its authorship remains shrouded in mystery, the Kama Sutra went on to become a very important and widely disseminated text across the region that later became India. According to Anand, there have been hundreds if not thousands of versions of the Kama Sutra. “Literally every kingdom across what we call India would have their own version of this written,” she explains, though she says that over time, as different cultures and different ideas of morality came into play in the region throughout history, the text gradually fell from prominence. Then, in 1883, a British explorer named Richard Burton published a translation of the book that became massively popular across Europe and the world. “That’s when it also goes askew because a lot of it is translated pretty badly,” says Anand. Burton’s version focused heavily on the erotic themes of the Kama Sutra and specifically the sex positions, which is where today’s misunderstandings about the text stem from. “Unfortunately, as result to Richard Burton’s translation and Western caricatures of what it means, it has now been marketed as a ‘solution’ to sexual health problems,” Srinivasan adds. “I don’t know of one Indian woman who hasn’t been accosted by a white man asking her if she can do some of the moves from the Kama Sutra. Common misconceptions are that it is a book about sex positions and that all Indians are experts in the Kama Sutra. Wrong.” She notes that the Kama Sutra never actually talks about thrusting, sexual fluids, or the physical act of intercourse in any great detail—it simply talks about ways to increase the physical sensations and erotic pleasure of sexual experiences. One version of the text explains men must make sure their wife is fully pleasured for the good of his business, according to Anand. The logic goes: If your wife is pleased in her life and in the bedroom, she’ll support you in your work and in all your endeavors. But if she’s dissatisfied, she’ll find other lovers or spend your money or otherwise make your life miserable. Other versions compared lovemaking to the skills of a warrior, drawing connections between sex positions and battle positions. More broadly, Anand says a mutually happy relationship was seen as the bedrock of a healthy society. “Literally every single king of every kingdom who ever came to the throne would have [a copy of the Kama Sutra] written because they believed that if a couple were to share truly mutually pleasurable intimacy, then their relationship would be stable. And if the relationship was stable, society would be stable. And if society was stable, the kingdom would be stable,” she explains. “So the stability of the kingdom depended on the pleasure of the woman.” Anand notes that many non-penetrative activities are described in the Kama Sutra as being potential sources of pleasure. For example, she says the book tells men to keep drawing materials in their bedroom and to make portraits of their lover prior to sex, as a way to create moments of intimacy, eye contact, and one-on-one special time together. It also describes activities like juggling, using perfumes and jewelry, and specific types of kisses and “love bites” as key parts of intimacy. “I think sex, for most people, is about that penetration, isn’t it? And nothing more. And for most women, that doesn’t even count as pleasurable. There’s nothing exciting about that. It’s like the least exciting thing,” Anand says. “There are so many other things to the sexual act that should be explored.” She notes that men are instructed to make sure their female partner has at least two orgasms before he even considers penetrating her. “It says that, if two people are going to have sex, then one of the first criteria is that the sexual organs should match in size,” Anand explains. “If the woman is too tight, and the man is too big, it’s gonna lead to pain. And if the woman is too large, and he’s too small, there’s going to be absolutely no sensation. So the idea is that the organs should be the same size.” This is actually the basis for why the Kama Sutra talks about sex positions so much in the first place, says Anand: It says that if two partners’ sexual organs are not matched in terms of size, they should engage in specific positions meant to help maximize sensation and pleasure (and/or minimize any sexual pain). Those are the sex positions described in the Kama Sutra. “So for instance, if the woman is really, really big, and the man is really small, it recommends that the woman should lie on her side. She should pull her legs up a little bit. That makes [her vaginal opening] a bit smaller, [and then] the man should enter from a particular angle so that he will feel the friction against her a little bit more,” Anand explains. “That’s what [the sex positions] were originally meant for.” “While we think of sex when someone says the word kama sutra, what it really is about is finding self-love, being a dutiful husband/wife, and learning to appreciate the arts,” Srinivasan explains. “It teaches us to derive pleasure from inherently nonsexual activities.” If you want to learn from the Kama Sutra, Srinivasan recommends finding a modern (and accurate) translation and seeking out Indian authors with expertise in the field. “If you’re reading the book, try something new that you’ve never tried before,” they add. When it comes to our sexuality, the biggest takeaway from the Kama Sutra is perhaps this: Sex is part of a full, healthy, well-lived life, and good sex is an endeavor worth pursuing. With her warm, playful approach to coaching and facilitation, Kelly creates refreshingly candid spaces for processing and healing challenges around dating, sexuality, identity, body image, and relationships. She’s particularly enthusiastic about helping softhearted women get re-energized around the dating experience and find joy in the process of connecting with others. She believes relationships should be easy—and that, with room for self-reflection and the right toolkit, they can be. You can stay in the loop about her latest programs, gatherings, and other projects through her newsletter: kellygonsalves.com/newsletter
