The Kama Sutra, which is better known as the Kamasutramra in Sanskrit, is a text about an ancient Indian philosophy written by Vatsyayana. Kama Sutra is a compendium that was collected into its present form in the second century; it often gets confused with being an instructional manual for tantric sex, when it is quite a bit more!

It is not based solely on sex – it includes tips on living one's life in a reputable and prosperous manner, while recognizing the importance of enjoying erotic pleasure experienced by the mind and the senses. It’s a compilation of customs relating to social norms, human behavior and love & sexual relationships. Despite this fact, the plethora of sexual positions and tips will make the Kama Sutra always known as a sexual "how to guide".

What does Kama Sutra mean? Kama is the enjoyment of things by using all of your senses. The feelings that your sensory organs provide, combined with your soul & mind’s interpretation of that sensation, emerges into an all encompassing experience of erotic pleasure. Sutra translates to thread, in terms of brief discussions.

There are seven major sections in the Kama Sutra; here is a brief summary of each:

Part 1. The introduction – This describes how to achieve virtue, wisdom, wealth and (of course) erotic pleasure. It touches on how to set up your house, keep good company and finding appropriate women to have sex with. It suggests that there are people with whom you can have ‘Kama’ for the very sole purpose of attaining pleasure. It’s interesting how the common understanding of relationships changes with the times. Today, the popular majority protects the idea that one person can satisfy all of their partner’s needs ... I think these scripts are on to something! ?

Part 2. The Sex Manual – If you had to just pick one section to read, you’d probably want it to be this one. This section not only covers off some seriously hot aspects of sex, it goes into deep detail explaining it all. I’m talking the art of biting, scratching, kissing, spanking, the different positions to have sex in, role reversal and acting like a champ when you’re having sex with a group of people. A formidable mention goes to their explanation of blow jobs and the finesse involved in beginning and ending sex. This section of the Kama Sutra was so descriptive in how body parts rub against each other and the depth in which two people could connect their bodies and minds, that my sense was (after reading this through) that I felt really hot!

Part 3. Finding a Wife – This includes tips on what to look for and what to avoid, tips to relax and build confidence in a virgin once you’re ready to consummate your marriage, and how each person should conduct him or herself in a relationship.

Part 4. About having a Wife – This section gives guidelines for how wives should act when their husbands are away, as well as how they should act around their husband's other wives... sort of like sisters.

Part 5. About Other Women – Here they open up a can of worms – it’s all about going after other people’s wives, dealing with desire, how men can be successful in acquiring women’s attention and how women can be so easily won over. I actually thought this section was pretty insightful at describing the nature and dynamics of human relationships.

Part 6. About the Temptation from Other Women – They debate a lot about courtesans, who are women who take pleasure in sex and the financial rewards that they can reap from it. Maybe we could liken these women to today’s gold diggers? It also gives suggestions for the types of men who are best suited to take up courtesans. Other honorable mentions: how to know when the other person is losing interest.

Part 7. Beautifying the Self - This includes prescriptions, aphrodisiacs & exercises based on Ayurvedic principles to make you look and feel better – the section that includes tips to enlarge your penis was definitely not something that I was expecting to find!

Now folks, when you read it, you have to do it taking into account that it was written in India in the early 1st Millennium so the context is off by well over a thousand and a half years and all that stuff about farm animals, courtesans and multiple wives have to be taken with a grain of salt to get value out of it. But there are some time honored sex tricks that they knew back then that have stood the test of time...