“The Kama Sutra is divided into several chapters. It is the first erotic treatise in the world,” says Ruth Vanita, PhD, a professor of South and Southeast Asian studies at the University of Montana. The Kama Sutra is a 4th century Hindu text written in Sanskrit. “Kama means desire, and Kama Deva is the god of love and desire. While the Kama Sutra is way more than just a sexual guidebook, it’s important to note that it was really the first erotic text of its kind. So, if the Kama Sutra isn’t just the sexual playbook many sources in Western culture have touted it to be, then what exactly is it-and what can it teach us about sexuality, sensuality, and more? Below, experts explain what the ancient text is really all about. Shannon Chavez, PsyD, CST is an AASECT-certified sex therapist based in Beverly Hills. Seema Anand is the author of The Arts of Seduction. Gigi Engle, ACS, CSE, CSC is a certified sex educator and author based in Chicago, Illinois.ĭebra Laino, DHS is a sex therapist and the author of The Missing Link: A Fusion of Sexuality, Psychology, Lifespan Development and You. Ruth Vanita, PhD is a professor of South and Southeast Asian studies at the University of Montana. But, she adds, "Unfortunately, people still use these reductive, racist ideas to think about Indian sexuality in the past and present."ĭurba Mitra, PhD is an assistant professor of women's, gender, and sexuality studies at Harvard University, and author of Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought. The "distortion" of the book happened "in part because the first edition of Kama Sutra in English was done by colonial enthusiast-and Orientalist-Richard Burton in the late nineteenth century," she explains.īurton "wanted to create a fantasy for his English-speaking audience by portraying people of the East as hypersexual and unchanging, without history," notes Mitra.
The original set of texts that became known as Kama Sutra "were actually about everything from urban living to statecraft, from perfumes to gardens," Mitra says. " Kama Sutra is a book of philosophy on ethics and aesthetics, never just an ancient text on sexual positions and sexual pleasure."
and other parts of the western world," says Durba Mitra, PhD, an assistant professor of women, gender, and sexuality at Harvard University, and author of Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought. "The Kama Sutra has been quite distorted in how it has circulated in translation in the U.S. The Kama Sutra, written by Indian philosopher Vatsyayana, has garnered a lot of attention for acting as a guidebook to what seems like every sex position ever-but the ancient Sanskrit text is so much more than a reference book for intricate genital gymnastics.
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