The Kamasutra
Kama Sutra
The name Kama Sutra stirs up images of the erotic Orient, of sexual
adepts locked in x-rated, acrobatic embraces - bodies arched in the
bliss of sexual yoga. Or, less poetically, it's that book with all
the kinky sex positions. The fact that it is an ancient oriental book
of kinky sex positions, only makes it that much more exotic and
titillating. Considering it's ancient beginnings (it was written in
India between 100-500 A.D.), it is not surprising that this classic
work of Hindu eroticism has fired the imaginations of countless
generations of horny couples seeking new ways to "do it". And,
given this usage, it's also not surprising that most folks prefer the
Kama Sutra's illustrated versions -- with dewy eyed couples pretzeled
together for one's viewing enjoyment.
For those who need a little more visual inspiration, for whatever
purpose, the wonders of modern technology also offer the Kama Sutra on
videotape and in computer animated format on the Web. For ultra "soft
porn" types, (i.e. those who like to pretend they're not kinky)who
still need visual cues to get it on upside down and backside front,
there is always the "Kama Sutra of Pooh" as well as assorted online
versions charmingly illustrated with artist's mannequins or teddy
bears.
Even with - or perhaps because of -- illustrations, few modern
readers have fully understood that the Kama Sutra was intended to be
much more than Hindu pornography. In actual fact, it was offered as a
treatise on the science of sexuality. Which explains its sometimes
pedantic approach to sex -- documenting every type of kiss, embrace,
combination of differently sized sexual parts, and the relevant cause
or effect or remedy for each of these. It even explains whom to have
affairs with, what to do when the gay shampoo boy feels up your cock,
and how to sneak into a harem. For the up and coming prostitute it
gives advice on being a high class "public woman" - how to
entertain your "johns" in style, how to acquire the right kind of sugar
daddy, and how to politely get rid of him when his cash runs out.
With its quest to classify every aspect of sexual life (including
choosing a bride, flirting, satisfying your woman sexually, etc.), the
Kama Sutra is really more of a self-help manual than a dirty book.
It's just that most people seem to skip straight to the sex positions
and go no further. With Beavis and Butthead sensibilities, they
stickily finger its pages while gloating, "Huh-huh, sex! Huh-huh,
huh-huh. Wow those dudes are really getting' it on." Of course, to
be fair, most people probably feel a bit put off by the advice on
buying a wife, sneaking into a harem, or being bathed by the public
"shampooer". At first glance, these passages seem anachronistic and
irrelevant to say the least.
Unfortunately, it is the stiff and stilted language of (most) English
translations of the Kama Sutra that have really prevented people from
seeing past these superficial differences of culture and era,
preventing them from grasping the deeper meanings with which it is
suffused - meanings which make the work as a whole immensely relevant
to the lives of modern readers.
Simply put, the central concept that should be noted is this: the
individual must live his life with balance - a balance between Dharma
(quest for spiritual and religious merit), Artha (quest for fortune and
social standing), and Kama (quest for love and sensual pleasure).
To put this in modern terms, he does not ignore his inner self (his
spiritual and emotional core), he does not ignore his social duties
(such as to family, community, career), but neither does he ignore his
sensuality and his need for love and erotic fulfillment. Rather he, or
she, seeks to address them all in balanced measure.
Placing great emphasis on this principle, some modern scholars of the
Kama Sutra point out that taking the time to notice such subtle,
wholesome pleasures as sensuous fabrics against our naked skin, looking
at beautiful flowers in our gardens or in cut arrangements, feeding
morsels of finely made foods to a loved one, anointing each others
bodies with richly scented oils or perfumes-all these sensual acts
have the potential to increase our sense of well-being by satisfying
and validating our bodies' ability to delight in these gentle
stimulations.
As modern humans we have become accustomed to focusing on the visual
(and inner imagination) and tuning most of our touch-related senses
(those stimulated by massage, caressing, and the feel of various
fabrics or lotions) -- to the point that we don't even realize how
our bodies ache for them. We think it is enough chase a ball around a
squash court, lay in front of the television, or to engage in some
"fast food style" fucking.
By contrast, Vatsyayana, the ancient author of the Kama Sutra, would
have us slow down, redecorate our homes to please all of our senses
(flowers, incense, beautiful art, soft fabrics and cushions, music,
etc.), and invite our friends over for wine and jokes and warmth -
all while getting a little flirtation going on with the one we love.
And then, after sending the friends home, let the lovemaking begin.
First with gentle conversation, then anointing each other with oils and
perfume, feeding each other treats, drinking from each other's cup,
then with embraces, kisses...
But even then, sex need not be a hurried race to a speedy orgasmic
finish. Rather, each lover should simply seek to enjoy the moment, and
to connect with their beloved - just as the Indian gods connect
divinely with each other, soul to soul in Hindu mythology.
As for "big finish" itself, the Kama Sutra teaches that delaying
one's orgasm, through sensual foreplay and much dallying about with
various positions, will result in a more spectacular finish - for
male and female. With this in mind, lovers are encouraged to take time
for all the delights mentioned above, experimenting with different ways
of pleasuring each other - orally, genitally, and all over the body.
And speaking of experimentation, while western lovers often hurry right
into one of three basic sex positions (missionary, woman on top, doggy
style), the sophisticated lovers of ancient times, taught by the Kama
Sutra, might sample a vast menu that could include the Clinging
Creeper, the Bud, the Couch, and the Thunderbolt - just to name a
few.
Her limbs, entwined in yours
like tendrils of fragrant jasmine creeper,
draw taut and slowly relax
in the gentle rhythm of linga and yoni:
this is "Lataveshta" (the Clinging Creeper).
She draws her limbs together,
clasping her knees tightly to her breasts,
her yoni, like an opening bud,
offered up for pleasure:
this is known as "Mukula" (the Bud).
When she draws up her knees
and you clamp yours about her raised thighs,
trapping them in a tight knot
while riding saddle upon her buttocks
and kissing her, it is "Shankha" (the Couch).
Seize her feet and lift them high
(like a wheel barrow),
drive your penis into her yoni
and pleasure her with vigorous strokes:
this is "Kulisha" (the Thunderbolt).
Your lover places one foot
on your ankle, lodges
her other foot just above your knee,
and rides you, swinging and rotating her hips:
this is "Garuda" (Garuda).
Lying upon you, your beloved
moves round like a wheel,
pressing hands one after the other on the bed,
kissing your body as she circles:
experts call this "Chakrabandha" (the Wheel).
When sexual excitement begins to peak, the couple then slows down, lets
things cool off. They would have some nourishing drink, rest while
still joined together, "lingam" to "yoni". Then they would
start up again, slowly. Eventually they might even work themselves up
to a truly dramatic finale, such as:
The woman lies face downwards and the man fixes cords to her hands and
feet and raises her by means of a pulley fixed to the ceiling. He then
lies under her, holds the other end of the rope in his hand and lets
her down, so that he can penetrate her. He raises and lowers her until
he ejaculates.
Then he scoots out from under her, gathers his clothes, jumps on a
donkey, and gets the hell out of town. Because now her arms are ripped
out of their sockets and there will be hell to play with the local
police -- not to mention her family.
Obviously, most people finish the act of love in some less strenuous
position. The real point to be made here is that lovers should feel
free to experience their sexuality fully and freely (within their own
limits however). And through sharing mutual pleasure, as well as
emotional and spiritual intimacy, their bond grows stronger and, hell,
life just seems a lot more fun -- for the body and the spirit. Here
again, we see the emphasis on wholeness, on satisfying the needs of our
whole being. For in the ancient teachings of the Kama Sutra, and the
even older texts from which it was derived, sex was holy, and making
love was a spiritual activity.
While Christian mythology teaches that the world was made by a God The
Father who doesn't like people to have sex (except to procreate), Hindu
mythology teaches that the souls of men and women could be elevated to
a higher level of being through enlightened sexual activity. As the
story goes, long, long ago the divine consciousness (the sentient
cosmos, God, etc.) had split from a singularity, the One, into the Two.
The resultant divine duo ultimately found their greatest fulfillment in
acknowledging their intrinsic and underlying oneness and equality and
in treating each other with love. In this state, they experienced
greatest harmony and bliss.
As with fractals, in Hindu cosmology, the macrocosm reflects the
microcosm and vice versa. Therefore, human beings (themselves splinters
from this original Unity -- i.e. "We are It."), can find their own
greatest fulfillment through this same path - in loving one another,
and acknowledging their underlying unity and equality.\
Furthermore, the human body itself was believed to mirror of the cosmic
body. It was, after all, God made flesh. (Now wait, where have we heard
that idea before...) So to take pleasure in the body was to be the
divine self (the One), taking joy in its own creation. And this was a
good thing, otherwise, what was the point of creating it -- to have a
bum trip?
But of course, for the individual to become overly obsessed with the
pursuit of pleasure, fucking morning, noon, and night, was another
matter entirely -- because the life of real human beings was not some
never-ending cosmic love-making session (well not literally anyway).
Real human beings also had to get up in the morning, feed their
children, earn a living, impress their parents. Hence the Kama
Sutra's emphasis on balance, of not letting one's love life eclipse
other matters of importance.
Armed with the information that, in Hindu philosophy, lovemaking is not
only pleasurable and necessary for procreation, but also a vehicle for
spiritual bliss and awakening, we can more fully appreciate their
reasons for wanting to formulate their acquired knowledge and
experience into an actual "science" of love and eroticism - to help
couples find harmony and bliss, rather than strife and selfishness,
within the sexual act. And too, since the Kama Sutra was written as a
treatise on the science of love, we can better understand why its
author took such pains to name and describe so many aspects of sexual
life -- classifying them unto the smallest (and dullest) detail -
while offerring helpful hints in the process.
Without this perspective we might be mystified, nay stupified, by his
choice to devoting an entire chapter to classifying the basic sizes of
penises and vaginas, in all their possible combinations. What once
seemed eccentric and anal-retentive can now be seen as... Okay, so it
still seems eccentric and anal-retentive. But it was not without higher
purpose and intention.
Vatsyayana knew that a man and woman stuck together in an arranged
marriage (or brought together by love)sometimes turned out to have
mismatched genitals. (Still a problem today. Especially in the world of
inter-racial dating. And on past episodes of Sex And The City.) So what
was a couple to do? Clearly they could ignore the problem or find some
way around it.
One solution of course was to increase the amount of foreplay before
coitus (when the choo-choo train goes in the tunnel), so that the
"fit" of penis ("lingam") and vagina ("yoni") was not so
important:
the signs of her want of enjoyment and of failing to be satisfied are
as follows: she shakes her hands, she does not let the man get up,
feels dejected, bites the man, kicks him, and continues to go on moving
after the man has finished. In such cases the man should rub the yoni
of the woman with his hand and fingers (as the elephant rubs anything
with his trunk) before engaging in congress, until it is softened, and
after that is done he should proceed to put his lingam into her.
And of course the couple could make use of the various sex positions
described in the Kama Sutra, with the "elephant woman" (a reference
to her large vagina, not an encephalitic head)lying down in such a way
as to contract her vagina. She was especially encouraged to assume the
"clasping position", the "pressing position", the "twining
position", or the "mare's position".
Then of course there were prosthetics to consider. The man might also
try putting "armlets" on his penis -- what we today would call
"bracelet". Which seems a little odd, because if his dick was big
enough to wear bracelets, you wouldn't think there'd be a problem in
the first place. But nonetheless, this is what the venerable author
recommends -- these rather large, clanking forerunners of the cock-ring
and the ribbed condom.
Alternatively, the man might tie shaft or sheath (sometimes made out of
a slender gourd) onto his penis. If none of the above does not
sufficient solve the problem, the man might try slathering some
weird-ass folk remedies on his or his lady friends private parts -- to
shrink them to the appropriate size. (Obviously this was before penis
pumps could be ordered on the Internet.) Here we have one time-honored
recipe:
First rub your penis with wasp stings
and massage it with sweet oil.
When it swells, let it dangle for ten nights
through a hole in your bed,
going to sleep each night on your stomach.
After this period use a cool ointment
to remove the pain and swelling.
By this method men ... of insatiable
sexual appetite, manage to keep
their penises enlarged throughout their lives.
Of course, then again, one might skip the gourds, the bee stingers, and
the arm bracelets and go straight to oral sex:
Let your tongue rest for a moment
in the archway to the flower-bowed Lord's temple
before entering to worship vigorously,
causing her seed to flow:
this is "Jihva-mardita" (the Tongue Massage).
If the pair of you lie side by side,
facing opposite ways,
and kiss each other's secret parts
using the fifteen techniques described above,
it is known as "Kakila" (the Crow).
Naturally everyone has sex problems, of various sorts. Some however are
chiefly troubled by having more partners than the know what to do with.
"When a man enjoys many women altogether, it is called the `congress
of a herd of cows'". Again there is the scientific need to classify:
But advice is also offered to the man or woman with multiple partners,
especially to the man having trouble getting it up for his ladies. Here
for example is a recipe to increase potency:
Honey-sweetened milk in which
the testicles of a ram
or a goat have been simmered
has the effect, when drunk,
of making a man as powerful as a bull.
Yum, yum. Obviously the work is filled with unusual and interesting
advice. In another passage are told it is best to avoid having "woman
on top" sex with fat women and those having their period. (Some of
you will say this is obvious, while others will protest it is a matter
of personal taste.) And we are also advised about love potions, and how
to plop a woman on her lover's cock and spin her like a top (note, it
helps to have your servant remain in the room, to help rock the bed -
and bring refreshments).
But probably one of the most useful pieces of advice that the Kama
Sutra has to offer however, especially for "newbies" to
heterosexual coitus, echoes the 20th century findings of the Kinsey
Report:
At the first time of sexual union the passion of the male is intense,
and his time is short, but in subsequent unions on the same day the
reverse of this is the case. With the female, however, it is the
contrary, for at the first time her passion is weak, and then her time
long, but on subsequent occasions on the same day, her passion is
intense and her time short, until her passion is satisfied.
Which is more or less a way of saying that women take longer. For the
average 18 year old male who wonders why he can't make his girlfriend
"cum" before he shoots his two-minute load, the foregoing passage
might just clarify a thing or two. As would this passage:
The involuntary shuddering of orgasm is called "Samputa" (the Jewel
Case). But no two women make love quite the same way,so orchestrate
your rhythms to the moods and colors of each lover's "raga" (emotions).
Which is why modern sex manauls advise couples to ditch the '50s "man
orchestrates all the sex" approach and communicate with each other
about what feels good. Emotional awareness and connectedness, as
Vatsyayana suggests above, will take you farther than some scripted,
technique-obsessed approach to sex.
Considering the timely quality of the Kama Sutra's advice (aside from
tips on sneaking into harems or taking a concubine), it is interesting
to reflect on how long ago it was created. As alluded to earlier, the
Kama Sutra itself was written about 1600 years ago. But its author,
Vatsyayana, based his work on even earlier works, which themselves had
been based on earlier works, and so on and so on. The origins of the
teachings are credited with the original laws and teachings handed down
from the gods. (Bear in mind that some scholars believe that the most
ancient Hindu teachings may date back 10,000 years.) However, it was
not until 1876 that two Indian scholars hired by the famed British
explorer Sir Richard Burton translated the work into English. Burton
and a friend then further edited the text, removing the more graphic
parts, and removing ideas that didn't jive with their own
preconceptions. (Burton, incidentally, was also the first non-Muslim to
enter Mecca, discovered of the source of the Nile, and collected and
translated many other erotic works such as the Perfumed Garden and the
Ananga Ranga.)
Shortly after, in 1883, Burton's Kama Shastra society, a kind of
sexual anthropological club, published the Kama Sutra for private
circulation. The book caused such a furor in sexually repressive
Victorian England (imagine, depicting women enjoying sex - the very
idea!), that the book was banned and not published for public
consumption again until 1963.
But even today, the legacy of Victorian censorship lives on. Many
editions of the Kama Sutra still lack the full listing and explanation
of the various sexual positions that the ancients knew -- rendering the
dull, pedantic translations that much more dull and lifeless.
Furthermore, many of the inaccuracies of the "Burton" translation (for
example, the pervasive bias against women asserting their own will and
desires) still color modern editions of the text, prolonging our own
cultural stereotype of the demure, consenting woman and the lusty,
assertive man.
The over all result is that new readers of the Kama Sutra, expecting
the heights of Oriental naughtiness and eroticism, are actually finding
a text much tamer (and less interesting) than that enjoyed by readers
of centuries long past. Thankfully, some modern scholars of the Kama
Sutra (such as Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar) have taken it upon
themselves to completely retranslate the Kama Sutra. Hopefully, through
such efforts, 21st century lovers will enjoy a text completely restored
to its original poetry, erotic spirituality, and female-inclusive
sexuality -- without having to learn Sanskrit.
"Great. One less thing."
An ingenious person should multiply the kinds of congress after the
fashion of the different kinds of beasts and of birds. For these
different kinds of congress, performed according to the usage of each
country, and the liking of each individual, generate love, friendship,
and respect in the hearts of women. (Kamasutra, 1883)
.. those things which increase passion should be done first, and those
which are only for amusement or variety should be done afterwards.
(Kamasutra, 1883)
Though a woman is reserved, and keeps her feelings concealed; when she
gets on the top of a man, she shows all her love and desire. A man
should gather from the actions of the woman of what disposition she is,
and in what way she likes to be enjoyed. (Kamasutra, 1883)
Such passionate actions and amorous gesticulations or movements, which
arise on the spur of the moment, and during sexual intercourse, cannot
be defined, and are as irregular as dreams. A horse having once
attained the fifth degree of motion goes on with blind speed,
regardless of pits, ditches, and posts in his way; and in the same
manner a loving pair become blind with passion in the heat of congress,
and go on with great impetuosity, paying not the least regard to
excess. For this reason one who is well acquainted with the science of
love (Kamasutra), and knowing his own strength, as also the tenderness,
impetuosity, and strength of the young women, should act accordingly.
The various modes of enjoyment are not for all times or for all
persons, but they should only be used at the proper time. and in the
proper countries and places. (Kamasutra, 1883)