You have surely heard of Kamasutra, a book today known throughout the world for the list of sexual positions it contains. Yet it was written primarily as a reference book on romantic relationships, eroticism and sex. So what does it actually contain?

Nowadays, the Kamasutra is one of the most famous books in the world. It comes in the form of a collection comprising a total of seven books, including one, the best known, which can be considered as a sort of “dictionary” of the different sexual positions. The rest of the book includes writings on sex, love, couples and eroticism. Its origin dates back to between the XNUMXst and XNUMXth centuries AD. It was written by Vatsyayana, a writer from medieval India, who believed that a good knowledge of Kâma (which means “desire” in Sanskrit) was essential for human well-being and development. It is therefore intended to be a real bible of sex and romantic relationships, a kind of practical manual of erotic pleasure for everyone.

Indeed, Kamasutra places pleasure, and more particularly pleasure within sexuality, at the heart of development and the search for happiness. The work was initially aimed at the upper classes of Indian society. The goal was to give them the keys to establish harmony in their couple and in their romantic relationships. It is therefore indeed a collection of prescriptions, where we teach the art of kisses, caresses and tenderness. The book is also intended to be universal: it is aimed at everyone, men and women, heterosexuals as well as homosexuals, in couple or not. Pleasure is seen here as a common goal, accessible to all and essential to the well-being and proper functioning of human relations.

Several themes are discussed in the Kamasutra. Nowadays, only the part about the kamasutra positions for making love is known to the general public. However, the Kamasutra is a much larger work, which compiles several writings on sex, love and eroticism. Only one chapter is in fact devoted to positions. The other parts, less known, which constitute the majority of the work, relate to the couple, marriage, relations between women and men, etc. The Kamasutra is also and above all a practical guide to provide advice and answers to certain questions or dysfunctions in sexual practice. Thus, topics such as difficulty reaching orgasm in women are also discussed.

There are 64 sexual positions in all in the Kamasutra. These are explained in a sober, purely descriptive way. No judgment or comment is made. Thus, we are not told whether a position is considered more “acrobatic”, more “erotic” or which brings more pleasure to men or women. On the contrary: all are put on the same level, and it is up to each couple and to the individuals themselves to find the positions which suit them. Among the 64 positions shown, some are familiar to everyone, while others are more acrobatic. Each of them has a particular name, often without any sexual connotation: “the monkey”, “the good of the tiger”, “the butterfly”, etc. In the explanations, the male sex is called “lingam”, and the female “yoni”. For each position, a short description of the interlocking of the bodies is given there.

The illustrations that accompany sexual positions did not appear until later, around the 1871th century. Initially, when writing the book, only the texts were present. The drawings were used to better understand the description of the positions and to disseminate them throughout the world, especially at the time when the book was not yet available in different languages. It was not until XNUMX that Kamasutra was translated for the first time from Sanskrit into English. Its distribution first caused a scandal in Western societies, before it was recognized as a reference work in the following century.