Is Kama Sutra just about sex?

Eww … Kama Sutra is a dirty book on sex because that’s what you Indians think about all day.

Calm down, Kama Sutra is our biggest contribution to the science & art of relationships, giving proper sex ed & you’d know this if you read the true translation by Upadhyaya, S.C. on indianculture.gov.in instead of the European mistranslations.

As a curation of many teachings & texts, written in a dialogue format by Vatsyayana somewhere near or before the 2nd century, it derives from 4 Purusharthas or goals of life, which are dharma i.e. moral duties, artha which are our day-to-day rituals, moksha which is liberation, and one way to it through kama or healthy desire & love.

In the 7 preserved books, we learn about the need for maturity before doing sex, how to clean our sex organs, look attractive, flirt well, socialize & find the right match (which your Bumble can’t), how to seduce, propose, marry, the importance of consent, how female & male psychology works & how to keep your partner happy by understanding their needs & giving pleasure, too, and also responsibilities towards each other.

So the trolled sex positions form less than 20% of the whole work.

It’s so progressive that in the 9th chapter of Book 2, it normalizes homosexuality, along with transgenderism & intersex folks i.e. tritiya prakriti, recognizing that sexuality is a fluid spectrum, while also teaching how to respect prostritutes for their occupation.

It even talks about polygamy & open relationships - who should engage in them & who should not.

So Hinduism in general sees sex as transfer of energy so its never seen in a bad light. And even our Vedic Upanishads talk about sex as a yagna or offering to Gods as a moral duty.