Reading the Complete Kāma Sūtra
Dan Libman
Everything you’ve heard about the Kama Sutra, the ancient Indian sex guide to life, is wrong.
Sure the sex is there: all the positions in excruciating, contortionist detail, the directions on the art of seduction, the wooing of future brides, lengthy discourses on when and how one should seduce another man’s wife. But that’s maybe a fifth of what’s in this comprehensive “How-to.” It’s less Kinsey Report and more Book of Lists, a chatty, practical manual on how to decorate your home, suitable party conversational topics, and how to turn yourself invisible should you get caught in a king’s harem. There are lists for minor routines, for major life decisions, for cooking, for travel and for socializing.
For example, the Kama Sutra tells us there are only three kinds of liquors to drink before sex: molasses, wheat or honey; eight astrological factors to be considered before marriage; four kinds of recommended penetration; four acceptable ways of striking a partner during sex (side of the hand, open palm, fingers tight slap, and closed fist); eight acceptable ways to respond to said hitting (bee’s buzz, roll of thunder, hissing, weeping, sighing, cry of pain, and a violent expulsion of breath.) While ten is the number of stages of passion, there are three kinds of messengers one could employ as a go-between when trying to woo another man’s wife (a letter carrier, an independent, or an idiot who conveys messages unawares.) There are four ways a good woman could be ruined: drink, contact with corrupt men, absence of a husband, or changing residence. Moving can be stressful.
There is a list of 64 essential skills every woman should possess:
cooking, cleaning, dressing, preparation of drinks, hair care, decorating houses, manicure, massage, and making guests feel welcome. There are some old fashioned skills that modern people probably don’t have, but maybe should, such as needlework, woodwork and carpentry, and making jewelry of stones and gems. Some skills would be good to acquire in any age: developing memory, learning multiple languages, knowledge of the dictionary, singing and dancing, playing stringed and percussion instruments, finishing quotations, telling stories, chess. The list includes a few curveballs too: making cutout dolls, water spewing games, garland weaving, making cane baskets, perfume making, fashioning musical instruments out of bowls filled with water, writing puns and conundrums, being able to discuss military strategy, mastering the art of cheating, teaching myna birds to talk, fabricating machines, and being well versed the in the art of disguise. While I know plenty of women where I live who are well versed in stockbreeding, (item 42 of the 64), I’m not sure how many in the future are going to be needing item 31: bookbinding.
There is a commensurate list of 64 skills a man is to master, of which I have achieved exactly six: Cooking, drink prep, riddles, puns, dictionary knowledge, cheating, but only in certain situations. That’s 9.38%. and to be honest, saying I’ve “mastered” cooking is stretch. I can fry and broil pretty well but my barbecue skills are dubious and carving whole chickens remains a disaster though I do it a lot. I often serve an over-cooked chicken with unidentifiable mangled parts. “Yes, that’s the thigh, kids.”
I tried to think of some skills I have which aren’t mentioned in the Kama Sutra: regular bowel movements, pretty good at ignoring angry looks when I line-jump, keeping my desk neat, remembering songs from 30 years ago, being able to spot the word “Jew” on any page of text--no matter how dense or how small the print as soon as I flip to that page; also, I get a pretty deep tan early in the summer and usually manage to keep it into late into autumn.
Good qualities in a man number 29: belonging to an important family, possessing wisdom, possessing openness. He might also be respectful, ambitious, enthusiastic, faithful, not slanderous, generous, social. Not to mention slim, sturdy, not a drunk, alert, compassionate, a defender of women, while being able to resist the charms of women. Financially independent, couth, not fearful or temperamental.
The good qualities ascribed to women are fewer in number and more modest in goal: being pretty, being young-looking, appreciating the qualities of men, doing a good job in the rack, saying what she thinks and knowing what she wants. That last item must have been as difficult to master in 400 BCE as it is now.
The list of desirable qualities shared by both men and women? Intelligence, being ethical, knowing local customs, not laughing without cause, and not being the first to speak, which, obviously, is confusing.
There are thirteen kinds of women men should not have sex with,
including lepers, women who can’t keep a secret, women who are too old, too white, too black, women who smell, or women with whom one already has a friendship. There is a list of names of men can use when referring to their penises, including the hare, the bull, and the stallion.
Vaginas are classified as doe, mare, and the cow-elephant. You can do the math yourself on this, but each coupling type has its own categorization and description. Soberingly, The Kama Sutra says there are exactly nine kinds of acceptable unions. The stallion and mare can have an acceptable union. The bull with the doe is bearable, but up to a point. The cow-elephant with the bull, or the hare with mare are not recommended.
Commensurately, there are 14 kinds of men that no woman should ever sleep with, not for love or even material gain: men with tuberculosis, men with worms in their excrement, men in love with their wives, men abandoned by parents, idiots, or men practicing magic. The text here refers to “love potion/evil eye” magicians but I would extend this caveat to “restaurant table/ birthday clown” magicians as well.
Foreplay has 64 elements and each one has its own chapter. There are four kinds of embraces (encircling like a liana, climbing the tree, rice and sesame, and milk and water), sixteen states of mind women might be in prior to sex (including tender, restive, contemptuous, excited, perplexed, mocking, disagreeable, bored, or complaining), ten ways a woman might behave during the sex (perplexed, amused, refusing, moaning, bored, charming), three kinds of acceptable kisses (nominal, vibrant, and rubbing), and four more additional kisses which are considered vulgar and are to be avoided (equal kiss (!), crosswise, reverse, and pressed). Local customs vary and the Kama Sutra encourages readers to consult regional authorities before kissing anyone.
The Kama Sutra encourages nail scratching during sex, and lists eight qualities one might have nail-wise such as broken edges, cut into three tips, shiny, painted, etc. There are also eight types of acceptable marks one can leave on the flesh of one’s partner including the dash, the tiger’s claw, the knife stroke and lotus leaf. There are seven places on the body that are suitable for scratching such as the lower lips and breasts. The Kama Sutra ends this section by warning men not to leave a mark on another man’s wife. Nota bene, dude!
Biting is a part of successful love making, and the Kama Sutra has a list of ten kinds of acceptable chewing one might do on the flesh of a woman during congress: necklace of dots, scattered clouds, or the wild boar. One is again cautioned against leaving too much physical evidence with women of a lower caste or other men’s wives. In these instances it is acceptable to simply press the lower lip instead of going all-out and sinking teeth.
Again, one should treat women according to local conventions. We are told people from “the south” use four other kinds of aggressive tactics during lovemaking: nail on the chest, knife on the head, borer on the cheek, pincers on the breasts. Once you have your lady-friend in bed with you, there are four kinds of ways to embrace her: light, penetrating, stirring, or tight.
The Kama Sutra acknowledges that occasionally sisters
can do it for themselves, and in that case , there is a list of ten types of ways for women to penetrate other women, with such thrusting techniques as the rod, the thunderbolt, the devastator, and the wild boar.
Men with men? Actually, there are pages and pages of quite detailed information on what men might do with other men, all the while cautioning that one should refrain from this kind of activity.
“At the same time, if the man indicates his desire for this act [sex with another man] he first refuses.... If he is asked to do it, whether or not he feels an aversion for this act he will refuse, replying, “I do not do such things.” Having let it be understood that this is a woman’s job, “he takes it on with a show of difficulty.” Finally, “Having protested, [he] devotes himself to it.”
And so, we get a list. There are eight steps for men making love to other men, beginning with “lips on the mast” and ending with “devouring.” A lot of sex acts are described in detail in the Kama Sutra; however, these man-on-man shenanigans are strikingly detailed. It even advises how one should make jokes to hide one’s shame when getting hard in front of another man. “He takes the penis in hand, strokes it, and audaciously makes fun; he starts laughing.”
After some pretty intense man on man maneuvers, including Sucking the Mango and a sober FYI that it is “customary to pinch a gigolo’s nipples,” the Kama Sutra turns scoldy: “This practice is not recommended. It is contrary to sound morals and is not a civilized practice.” In other words, now that you know how, Don’t.
After the fun and games of courtship are over,
the Kama Sutra begins in earnest to talk about marriage. There are four ways one can become engaged, from negotiating with the parents to taking her by force. Once the match is set, the Kama Sutra talks about the various forms of marriage. There are eight of them, six of which sound lovely: ancestral, royal, priestly, heavenly musicians, and the genies. The last two sound more ominous: of the Incubus and of the Demons. Which type of marriage you have is determined not by how it’s going after a year or two, but by how the bride is negotiated from her family. If she’s been given away without any consideration to the family, that’s a “royal marriage”; however, if she is traded away for two bulls, then what you’ve got there is an “ancestral marriage.” If you’ve annihilated her entire family in a battle and then just taken the poor girl as a prize, you’re in a good old fashioned “marriage of the Demons.
The text advises young women beginning careers in prostitution not to, “show herself off shamelessly, since it would diminish her market value by half.” A pimp should be engaged to make arrangements, protect the woman, and “ward off trouble.” Pimping is thought to be a side profession, done by men gainfully employed elsewhere, and the Kama Sutra has a list of professions whose practitioners make fine pimps. There are exactly eleven of them. So here’s a little guessing game for you. Guess which profess—it’s lawyers. Sorry, but you were going to guess right anyway. Other professions which make good pimps: astrologers, administrators, gigolos, entertainers, florists, liquor merchants, laundrymen, barbers, and mendicant monks.
I have an MLA style version of this essay available upon request, complete with Works Cited and in-text citations, suitable for students to use for their composition classes, should you chose to plagiarize. Shoot me an email and I’ll send you a copy, gratis. I’ll toss in the Works Cited list here so you don’t have to use any of those dumb Perdue or Chegg sites and be forced to watch a dumb video:
