The Kama Sutra: what it really says about sex

Kama means desire, love or pleasure, and sutra means a thread, a short teaching strung together with others. So the Kama Sutra is roughly a guide to pleasure. It was written in Sanskrit, probably between the 2nd and 4th centuries CE, and is credited to a scholar called Vatsyayana Mallanaga. We know almost nothing about him, except that he said he gathered older teachings into one book. In ancient Indian thought, a good life had three aims: dharma, meaning duty and virtue, artha, meaning wealth and success, and kama, meaning pleasure. The book treats pleasure as a proper subject worth studying, not something shameful. That idea alone feels refreshingly modern.

It's written for educated city dwellers, and it reads less like a sex manual and more like a lifestyle guide. Vatsyayana tells his readers how to decorate a bedroom, which arts to learn, how to flirt at parties and how to keep a lover happy. He also describes the ideal bedroom: soft bedding, flowers, perfumes, a lute on the wall, books, and snacks for afterwards. It's basically ancient advice to set the mood. Fresh sheets, candles and a good playlist are the modern version, and they still work.

The Kama Sutra book is divided into seven parts and 36 chapters. Only the second part, on sexual union, deals with what most people expect. The others are about life, love and relationships in a wider sense. Here's the rough layout:

• Part one: general ideas about pleasure, the three aims of life and how to live well.
• Part two: sex itself, including embracing, kissing, scratching, biting, positions and oral sex.
• Parts three and four: courtship, choosing a partner and married life.
• Parts five and six: affairs, seduction and the lives of courtesans.
• Part seven: attraction, charms and aphrodisiac recipes.

The sex section famously breaks lovemaking into 64 arts, eight topics with eight variations each. That number was clearly a source of pride.

The original Kama Sutra positions are fewer and simpler than modern books suggest. Many are variations on lying face to face, with names like the yawning position, where the woman opens her thighs wide, and the position of Indrani, named after the queen of the gods, where her knees draw up towards her chest.

There's the clasping position, where lovers lie with legs straight and pressed together, and the twining position, where one partner wraps a leg round the other like a vine. The mare's position describes gripping the penis by squeezing the vaginal muscles, which sounds very like pelvic floor play. Vatsyayana also describes sex standing against a wall, called supported congress, and sex from behind. Most famously, he encourages women to take the top role and act the man's part when their partner is tired or simply because she wants to. Ancient permission to ride your partner. We'll take it.

He also talks about varying speed, depth and rhythm, and about moving the hips in different ways during sex, including churning and pressing motions. It's a reminder that how you move often matters more than which position you're in. Slow circles and deep grinds can transform even the most familiar position.

This is where the book gets properly sexy. Vatsyayana spends ages on the warm-up. He lists types of embrace, from a light brush of bodies to the twining of a creeper, where one lover clings to the other, and the mix of milk and water, where bodies press together so tightly they seem to merge.

Kissing gets its own chapter, with advice on kissing the forehead, eyes, cheeks, throat, chest and mouth. There are playful kissing contests and kisses meant to wake a sleeping partner. He also describes scratching and biting, leaving marks as a sign of passion, and even moaning and playful slapping during sex. The message is clear: rush straight to penetration and you've missed most of the fun. Nearly two thousand years later, that's still excellent advice.

Yes, and that surprises many readers. Vatsyayana insists a lover should pay attention to his partner's pleasure and notice what she enjoys. He says women feel desire just as men do, and that a man who ignores his partner's satisfaction will lose her affection. He describes reading her body for signs that she's turned on. That doesn't make it a feminist text. It was written for men in a society with very unequal rules, and parts of it are uncomfortable, including advice on seduction that ignores consent in ways we'd reject today. Read it as history, not a rulebook.

Still, the core idea that sex should be good for both people, and that a skilled lover learns what their partner likes, stands up well. Ask, watch, listen, and adjust. That's ancient wisdom worth keeping. He even notes that tastes differ from person to person and place to place, and that a good lover adapts rather than assuming. That's a surprisingly modern nod to communication, even if the rest of the text falls short.

Vatsyayana's book is one of the oldest surviving sex guides, but it's far from the only collection of ancient sex positions. Vatsyayana himself says he drew on earlier writers. Ancient Chinese texts on the art of the bedchamber describe positions with poetic names, and Roman poets such as Ovid wrote cheeky advice on which positions suited which bodies. Later Indian works continued the tradition. The Ananga Ranga, written in the 15th or 16th century, is more focused on married couples and contains many more positions. Arabic erotic literature, such as The Perfumed Garden, has its own long lists of positions and tips for pleasing a partner.

People have always been curious, playful and keen to try new things in bed. The names change, but the basic shapes bodies make together are remarkably similar across centuries and cultures. Try giving your own favourite position a poetic name. It sounds silly, but private jokes and pet names for things you do together can make sex feel more playful and intimate.

Blame Victorian England, partly. The first famous English version was published in 1883 by Sir Richard Burton and Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot, printed privately through their Kama Shastra Society to avoid obscenity laws. It became a forbidden bestseller, passed round in secret, and its reputation as a naughty sex book stuck. In the 20th century, publishers cashed in with illustrated Kama Sutra books packed with acrobatic positions, many invented for the market. Magazine sex tips added more. Today, the name is often used for any list of creative positions, even ones Vatsyayana never described.

If you want the real thing, look for a modern scholarly translation, such as the one by Wendy Doniger and Sudhir Kakar. It's readable, funny in places and very different from the coffee table versions. Burton's version also softened, reworded or misread things in places, and it presents the book through a Victorian lens. Modern translators have restored much of the original humour and frankness, including the passages on women's desire.

Kama Sutra for beginners doesn't mean twisting yourself into a pretzel. Start with the spirit of the text: slow down, make the warm-up an event and pay attention to each other. Here are a few ideas inspired by the original to try tonight:

• Kissing contest: take turns kissing different parts of each other's body, and the first to give in loses.
• The creeper embrace: wrap your whole body round your partner while you kiss, standing or lying down.
• The twining position: during missionary or side by side, hook a leg around your partner and pull them closer.
• Swap roles: let the usual bottom go on top and set the pace.
• Pelvic squeeze: tighten your pelvic floor muscles around your partner during sex, the original mare's position.

Pick one or two, laugh at the ones that don't work and keep the ones that do. Above all, borrow the attitude. Treat sex as something worth learning, take your time and stay curious about your partner. That's the real secret of the Kama Sutra, and it costs nothing.

The last part of the book includes recipes meant to boost desire, attract lovers and improve stamina, using ingredients such as milk, honey, sugar, ghee and various plants. Some are harmless food, and some involve substances no one should eat. None have been tested in a modern sense. Enjoy them as a fascinating glimpse of history, not as a shopping list. If you want something that genuinely gets you in the mood, the rest of the book already has the answer: time, touch, attention and a bit of playful seduction.

If low desire or erection problems are bothering you, talk to a GP. Modern medicine has safe, tested options that ancient recipes can't match. Some ingredients mentioned in old love manuals, such as certain plants and minerals, can be toxic. Leave the historical recipes on the page and enjoy a good meal, a glass of something nice and an early night instead.

Vatsyayana believed a great lover should be a well-rounded, interesting person, so part one lists 64 arts worth learning. They include singing, dancing, playing music, painting, making perfume, arranging flowers, cooking, preparing drinks, word games, magic tricks and even teaching parrots to talk. Being sexy, in his view, meant being fun to spend time with.

Separately, the section on sex has its own set of 64, made up of eight topics, such as embracing, kissing, scratching, biting and positions, each with eight variations. The number was a nod to the idea that pleasure is a skill with depth, something you practise and refine rather than simply do. The modern takeaway is lovely. Being curious, playful and good company is part of being good in bed. Cooking your partner a great dinner or giving them a proper massage counts as seduction too.