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When Indian philosopher Vatsyayana was writing the ancient Sanskrit text that would be known as the Kama Sutra a few thousand years ago, there's no way he could have anticipated the impact his work would have on the world. Nowadays, the words “Kama Sutra” are often solely associated with sex positions or the text being a so-called “sex manual.” Somewhere down the line (and definitely due to more than a little orientalism), the non-sex parts of the Kama Sutra got forgotten, and the sex parts got expanded upon — in some cases, totally reinvented (as shocking as it may seem, Vatsyayana did not write about sex acts involving detachable shower heads).
If it seems strange that a 2,000-year-old text continues to carry such an impact on our erotic imaginations, it gets even stranger when you realize that most of the Kama Sutra isn’t actually about sex. Unlike the many hot-and-heavy sex guides that bear its name, the original Kama Sutra is a philosophical text offering musings on how to have a rewarding life and fruitful relationships; to the extent that it’s a “sex manual,” it’s mostly because it doesn’t shy away from the notion that sex (and interesting sex positions) is a healthy and normal part of life. Of course, given that this is a 2,000-year-old text, it’s very heteronormative and cisgender. While queer sex and non-binary gender identities do make appearances in the text, the general assumption was that the reader’s primary sexual relationship would be a heterosexual one — but that won’t be the case here.
So what’s actually in the original Kama Sutra? A wide variety of stuff — including, yes, lots of sex positions. Let’s take a look at the sex positions endorsed by the ancient tome.
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