Please note: This is a book for mature readers thus the review is for adults. A personal note about sex from a 50-year-old (me) is at the bottom.
I am reviewing Kama Sutra, The Arts of Love. This book is an abridged and annotated version of the Kama Sutra. The text was written by Indra Sinha, Zek Halu, and Misha Halu. The Editor is Jane Graham-Maw and the Designer is Rosamund Sanders. Some parts of the book are extracts from “Love Teachings of Kama Sutra” which Indra Sinha translated. It was published by Thorsons in 1992 and 1995. The Arts of Love is 173 pages long and includes a short bibliography which acknowledges that it wasn’t possible to include all of the Kama Sutra in this book and recommends other editions to supplement it. With 150 full color photographs and beautifully written text to go along with each picture, to me the book seems complete!
This book is intended to “enrich loving, monogamous relationships.” I would like to add: If you intend to use this book otherwise, please practice safe sex.
The Book:
~The first dozen pages of text which includes a picture of a couple in sensual, erotic poses (couples touching, erotically kissing, in a bathtub, washing each other, toweling each other dry) is basically an introduction about how the Kama Sutra came to be and what it means. I will summarize it briefly because to know where the Kama Sutra came from helps to understand what it is not. What it is not is a pornographic magazine. This isn’t Hustler or even Playboy. The pictures are more on the nature of the 1:00 am HBO movies. There is little full nudity but there is some (women only, of course).
~The Kama Sutra was written by an Indian sage between the 4th century BC and the 1st century AD, according to The Arts of Love but it wasn’t translated into English until the 1880s and has only been available “to general readers since the 1960s.” We are told that not much is known about the author of the Karma Sutra except that he belonged to the Vatsyayana sept (from yourdictionary.com, sept means a branch of a family) and his name was Mallanaga. It was thought that he wrote this book toward the end of his life and saw the writing as part of his religious duties.
~The Sanskrit term Kama meant “love, pleasure, sensual gratification” and Sutra meant “compressed expressions.” Kama is actually used for all sorts of pleasures such as beautiful clothing or nice smelling perfume. The Kama Sutra and thus the Arts of Loving show us a variety of sexual techniques and lovemaking positions. Only heterosexual couples are depicted in the pictures but it is noted that the book applies to gay and lesbian relationships as well.
~Each picture (or oftentimes sets of pictures with a theme in common) is described both in terms of how the position is done physically and how the mind is involved with the senses. Oftentimes, the Sanskrit terms for the position is used. For example, there are basically 12 pages around the bath and pleasure associated with that. We are told that “Embracing and making love in the water is called Vatikrida – The Water Game.” You will read text such as “When washing one another it would be perfectly possible to do it quickly and mechanically, without feeling. But when you put your feeling into it, you can be infinitely tender.”
~A concrete sexual technique which partners need to know would be something like this passage, “His hand travels down to between her legs where the towel is rubbed gently. Many couples only touch each other’s most intimate parts during or just before sex. It is important to learn to touch each other easily and without embarrassment, even without the lights out.”
~You will read some very explicit text that goes along with really well done pictures. This book is not for the shy couple – or perhaps that is exactly the audience who should be buying it! If you are uncomfortable with being told and taught and shown how to masturbate, if reading that many woman like to have an orgasm (or using the verb form, as in "many woman orgasm" rather than the noun form) before making love and that the simplest way to do that is to stimulate her clitoral area (This took a bit of creativity to get around the censors.) and vagina with your fingers, then you should run out and get this and get over your embarrassment, or run out and get it and enjoy it.
~You will learn many ways to make love and various positions. One version of the Dolita or the Swing is having the man lean against a tree (I guess a wall would do.) “while she worked her feet round to place her soles flat against the trunk, gently pushing herself, backwards and forwards." Many of these techniques do require more flexibility than a lot of us have but most of us are not imaginative enough to be able to try these techniques and that is the intention of this really beautifully written book. You will not only read text that teaches you positions, but also you will read lines such as, “The objective of the postures and techniques advocated by the Kama Sutra is not to acquire virtuosity but to build love between husband and wife.”
~You will also read, what I think of as little tidbits, in italics that aren’t technique-orientated in detail or statement of fact like the line above but something like this, “Kissing is of four kinds – moderate, contracted, pressed, and soft, according to the different parts of the body which are kissed.” The text has enough variety in it to keep you interested in more than just the pictures. In fact you will, for sure, eventually, perhaps not immediately, read the text because you will want to. You will want to read it for technique and just for beauty.
The text is very easy to understand and easy to follow. It is quite clear what explanation goes with which picture. There are 6 additional pages at the end that don’t have the flowing, beautiful text or phrases in quotes that you will find in the book, but are a glossary of various positions.
My thoughts:
This is a perfect Valentine’s, Anniversary or even Birthday Gift if you are in a relationship with someone with whom you are comfortable. I gave this to my husband one anniversary many years ago. This is not a coffee table book as beautiful as it is. In fact I have tucked it away each time my 23-year old has come to visit because I have had it on my desk to review for weeks now! I highly recommend it and for its intended purposes will rate it a 5. It is really well done, informative, erotic without being pornographic and the pictures are gorgeous.
******
On a personal note: As I said I am 50 years old. I am the age of some reviewers' moms or grandmoms, especially if you read this without heeding my warning. I know 50 sounds old to many of you. I know it may sound unthinkable that 50 year olds (not to mention 60, 70, 80 ) enjoy sex. Perhaps more and more often than younger people. I was 19 and 23 and 30 once! I can assure you that your parents and grandparents, if they are healthy, are having sex no matter how you can’t imagine it. I hope that the young people reading this can learn how to satisfy themselves and their partners in healthy ways and continue doing so as long as your bodies will let you.
Format: Paperback, 144pp.
ISBN: 0722532377
Publisher: Thorsons
Pub. Date: September 1995
Dimensions (in inches): 0.35 x 7.92 x 6.73
Also available at Amazon.com are Kama Sutra : The Arts of Love with The Complete Kama Sutra: The First Unabridged Mode for $24.32
The list price if $12.95. You can buy it at amazon.com for $10.36 and used for $4.95.
Recommended:
