"Place the bristles of certain insects which are born from trees on the penis and massage it with oil. Done for 10 nights and then repeated, this will make the penis swell. Then lie face down on a string cot and let the penis hang down through it. This process should be concluded gradually, relieving any pain with cold salves."
Cold salves! Although, if that has you worried, you should see what the book says about the importance of piercing. I'll spare you the gruesome details. Suffice to say that this is what is supposed to happen afterwards: "Cleansed with a mixture of licorice and honey, it [that's to say, the hole you've just made in your chap] is further enlarged with pins of lead and smeared with the oil of the marking nut." Don't think you escape either, girls:
"Sprinkle a mixture of powdered milkweed thorns, hogweed, monkey's shit and root of glory lily on a woman. She will not want sex with anyone else."
Meanwhile, beware of the man who's taken another nugget of advice from the book and approaches you with his penis covered in the powder of "a kite that has died of natural causes, mixed with honey and gooseberries". He intends to bewitch you!
All of the above is taken from the new Penguin edition of the book that's generally held up as the last word in ancient wisdom about sack-play: The Kama Sutra. It's further confirmation of my belief that the wisdom of the ancients is most generally to be ignored. After all, most of human endeavour in the past 2,000 years has been dedicated to escaping such stuff and similar wisdom about flatness of the earth, the importance of blood draining, the way fire is powered by lignin, and a man who trotted around Galilee claiming to be able to cast out demons.
But that's not to say that I would advise against reading the Kama Sutra. For a start it's a hoot – and all the more so thanks to this new playful and wonderfully blunt translation by AND Haksar (No lingams or yonis here. This is a man who calls a cock a cock.) It's also a fascinating – and if this isn't too much of a contradiction – enlightening book.
As the quotes above might suggest, the Kama Sutra is pretty wacky. Right from the start you get a strong sense that this isn't advice you should be taking too seriously. In the first few verses, the author (named in the text as Vatsyanana) claims to be distilling the book from the original work of "Nandi", the sacred bull and doorkeeper to Shiva. (And yes, sadly, I am unable to resist the obvious joke about this being a load of old bull.) It's also notable that Vatsyanna claims to have observed "a celibate's life in full meditation" while writing the book. Clearly, you should take any tips from him with a pinch of salt as well as a peg over your nose.
Yet there is more here than rumpy-pumpy. In his elegant introduction, Haksar notes ruefully: "The title has more than 183 listings in the online catalogue of the US Library of Congress… more than half point to perspectives other than academic." There's also a great quote from a (sadly unnamed) Indian psychoanalyst saying that even people from the book's home country "don't read it any more; they only look at the illustrations of the sexual positions". This unwavering focus on coitus does the book a disservice. I wouldn't quite accept the unknown psychoanalyst's assertion that what the book "is really about is the art of living…" It's clearly about the art of getting your end away. But I would say that the other material in the book is almost as interesting as the information about how to perform something called the "cow union".
There's stuff about getting a partner, adultery, using drugs, maintaining power in marriage as well as all the positions. Most of the advice is pretty bad – but that's not why it's interesting. It all builds up an image of a privileged, strangely-scented world that disappeared more than a thousand years ago. There are insights into the rigours of the caste system, the employment of courtesans, advice on grooming, on elegant living and dining, where "questions of poetry and art" are discussed with courtesans. There's a section on how to enjoy the best picnics (think horses, courtesans, servants, theatricals and swimming pools). There's another on drinking parties ("wines and spirits made from honey, molasses, grain and fruit").
And just as strongly as it displays this ancient culture, it reflects back our own. Sticking a picnic in the back of my dad-mobile will never feel quite so romantic. And as for love… Like every generation, we in the internet age imagine we've invented rudery. Here is a 2,000-year-old text showing us we are but amateurs. Less palatably, the book also contains plenty of female humiliation and lessons about the best kind of "hitting during sex". For instance, "if she sobs and protests, he strikes her on the head with his hand hollowed and the fingers slightly curled and, choking back her babbling and sobbing within her mouth, she sighs and weeps when intercourse ends."
To read the Guardian's comment pages, you'd also think that kind of thing were an entirely modern phenomenon. It's salutary to be reminded that it isn't. Of course, none of that makes these things any more acceptable. I'd recommend beating up your partner even less than I'd recommend attaching insect bristles to your lingam. But it does add a useful perspective.
