Kamasutra teaches emotional bonding

Kamasutra teaches emotional bonding - The ancient manual to love-making is not restricted to only the physical aspect of your relationship. It also holds the key to a healthy emotional bond with your partner.

The notion that Kamasutra speaks solely of the physical aspect of sex is extremely skewed. The purpose of Kamasutra was not merely to educate masses about different sexual techniques, but promote a healthy relationship between the partners and constructively use sexual energy. Several Western (and even some Indian) authors, interpreters and commentators have paid attention only to the sexual / physicality aspect, leading to the scripture's misrepresentation. However, look deeper and the teachings of Kamasutra go far beyond sex

The purpose of Kamasutra was not merely to educate masses about different sexual techniques, but promote a healthy relationship between the partners and constructively use sexual energy. Several Western (and even some Indian) authors, interpreters and commentators have paid attention only to the sexual / physicality aspect, leading to the scripture's misrepresentation. However, look deeper and the teachings of Kamasutra go far beyond sex

Kamasutra, key to emotional bonding(Getty Images)

Participation

Many positions (Asanaas) depicted in the Kamasutra call for active and equal participation of the woman. Rather than sticking to the monotonous / boring missionary position where the woman is a rather passive receiver, the scripture encourages more pro-active positions. Only when there's an equal contribution from both ends will the session truly be fulfilling and fruitful. There's no posture that's meant exclusively for the man, or the woman.

The message: Be it sex or any other matter; ensure that you equally involve your partner. Participation is the key word. When you seek an active role from your partner, (in and out of bed) he/she feels wanted and the synergy between the two leads to greater fulfilment. That's what samabhog (equal pleasure) is all about.


Body image Vs. the body

The varied techniques depicted in the scriptures make sex pleasurable for anyone irrespective of his/her body type and body shape. The person may be muscular, obese, or thin, body issues and pleasure are best not mixed, says Kamasutra.

The message: Work on your body image. You can still make the best of your body provided you stop having unrealistic expectations of how it should look. Acceptance is the word. Magazine covers may be flooded with images of perfect bodies, but don't let them sway you away from realism. Don't let negative body image play spoilsport in your life, sex


Touch matters

The Kamasutra lays a lot of importance on touch, and not only during intercourse. Going by the texts, touch is of varied forms, each designated to arouse a unique sensation from the partner depending on his/her liking. However, the role of touch starts from the foreplay stage itself (at times, the foreplay lasting for hours together) and continues till the very end.

The message: Do not undermine the power of small. That casual hug or the loving caress (initiated much before sex can say a lot more about your feelings than the act itself. The touch may not even lead to anything, but is a very potent method of conveying your emotions. It will do more good to your relationship than most other things.


Dress to impress

The scriptures' emphasis on shringaar cannot be undermined. Almost every character shown in the act in Kamasutra is embellished with elaborate ornaments. This includes men.

The message: While it does depict the culture and traditions of the time when these texts were written, the underlying idea is that of looking good and dressing up for your partner. Many couples after a few years of courting lose the urge to look good (for each other).

However, that's wrong. Just like you take the effort to dress up for a certain occasion, it is important to look at least presentable (if not great) for your partner. Do not undermine the importance of how you look. Get rid of the complacent attitude. It communicates that your partner is not important any more.


Go play

The scriptures pay a lot of importance on the fun element of sex. That is what converts a rather boring, mechanical session to something that a couple looks forward to. Try all the experimenting you want. If the fun element is missing, there's little that you can do.

The message: Learn to have fun with each other. Start by non-sexual activities and build a rapport. Play games, travel together, discuss movies, and find stimulating conversations. When fun becomes easy, no matter what the occasion, the joy will by default be communicated to other aspects of the relationship as well. ( indiatimes.com )

The Kamasutra also has advice on ways of making money and renewing friendship with a former lover

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Why young men have the upper hand in bed, even when they're failing in life

Sex Is Cheap - Why young men have the upper hand in bed, even when they're failing in life - We keep hearing that young men are failing to adapt to contemporary life. Their financial prospects are impaired—earnings for 25- to 34-year-old men have fallen by 20 percent since 1971. Their college enrollment numbers trail women's: Only 43 percent of American undergraduates today are men. Last year, women made up the majority of the work force for the first time. And yet there is one area in which men are very much in charge: premarital heterosexual relationships.

When attractive women will still bed you, life for young men, even those who are floundering, just isn't so bad. This isn't to say that all men direct the course of their relationships. Plenty don't. But what many young men wish for—access to sex without too many complications or commitments—carries the day. If women were more fully in charge of how their relationships transpired, we'd be seeing, on average, more impressive wooing efforts, longer relationships, fewer premarital sexual partners, shorter cohabitations, and more marrying going on. Instead, according to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (which collects data well into adulthood), none of these things is occurring. Not one.The terms of contemporary sexual relationships favor men and what they want in relationships, not just despite the fact that what they have to offer has diminished, but in part because of it. And it's all thanks to supply and demand.

To better understand what's going on, it's worth a crash course in "sexual economics," an approach best articulated by social psychologists Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs. As Baumeister, Vohs, and others have repeatedly shown, on average, men want sex more than women do. Call it sexist, call it whatever you want—the evidence shows it's true. In one frequently cited study, attractive young researchers separately approached opposite-sex strangers on Florida State University's campus and proposed casual sex. Three-quarters of the men were game, but not one woman said yes. I know: Women love sex too. But research like this consistently demonstrates that men have a greater and far less discriminating appetite for it. As Baumeister and Vohs note, sex in consensual relationships therefore commences only when women decide it does.

And yet despite the fact that women are holding the sexual purse strings, they aren't asking for much in return these days—the market "price" of sex is currently very low. There are several likely reasons for this. One is the spread of pornography: Since high-speed digital porn gives men additional sexual options—more supply for his elevated demand—it takes some measure of price control away from women. The Pill lowered the cost as well. There are also, quite simply, fewer social constraints on sexual relationships than there once were. As a result, the sexual decisions of young women look more like those of men than they once did, at least when women are in their twenties. The price of sex is low, in other words, in part because its costs to women are lower than they used to be.

But just as critical is the fact that a significant number of young men are faring rather badly in life, and are thus skewing the dating pool. It's not that the overall gender ratio in this country is out of whack; it's that there's a growing imbalance between the number of successful young women and successful young men. As a result, in many of the places where young people typically meet—on college campuses, in religious congregations, in cities that draw large numbers of twentysomethings—women outnumber men by significant margins. (In one Manhattan ZIP code, for example, women account for 63 percent of 22-year-olds.)

The idea that sex ratios alter sexual behavior is well-established. Analysis of demographic data from 117 countries has shown that when men outnumber women, women have the upper hand: Marriage rates rise and fewer children are born outside marriage. An oversupply of women, however, tends to lead to a more sexually permissive culture. The same holds true on college campuses. In the course of researching our book Premarital Sex in America, my co-author and I assessed the effects of campus sex ratios on women's sexual attitudes and behavior. We found that virginity is more common on those campuses where women comprise a smaller share of the student body, suggesting that they have the upper hand. By contrast, on campuses where women outnumber men, they are more negative about campus men, hold more negative views of their relationships, go on fewer dates, are less likely to have a boyfriend, and receive less commitment in exchange for sex.

The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data offer other glimpses into just how low the cost of sex is for young men ages 18 through 23. Take the speed with which these men say their romantic relationships become sexual: 36 percent of young men's relationships add sex by the end of the second week of exclusivity; an additional 13 percent do so by the end of the first month. A second indicator of cheap sex is the share of young men's sexual relationships—30 percent—that don't involve romance at all: no wooing, no dates, no nothing. Finally, as my colleagues and I discovered in our interviews, striking numbers of young women are participating in unwanted sex—either particular acts they dislike or more frequent intercourse than they'd prefer or mimicking porn (being in a dating relationship is correlated to greater acceptance of and use of porn among women).

Yes, sex is clearly cheap for men. Women's "erotic capital," as Catherine Hakim of the London School of Economics has dubbed it, can still be traded for attention, a job, perhaps a boyfriend, and certainly all the sex she wants, but it can't assure her love and lifelong commitment. Not in this market. It's no surprise that the percentage of 25- to 34-year-olds who are married has shrunk by an average of 1 percent each year this past decade.

Jill, a 20-year-old college student from Texas, is one of the many young women my colleagues and I interviewed who finds herself confronting the sexual market's realities. Startlingly attractive and an all-star in all ways, she patiently endures her boyfriend's hemming and hawing about their future. If she were operating within a collegiate sexual economy that wasn't oversupplied with women, men would compete for her and she would easily secure the long-term commitment she says she wants. Meanwhile, Julia, a 21-year-old from Arizona who's been in a sexual relationship for two years, is frustrated by her boyfriend's wish to "enjoy the moment and not worry about the future." Michelle, a 20-year-old from Colorado, said she is in the same boat: "I had an ex-boyfriend of mine who said that, um, he didn't know if he was ever going to get married because, he said, there's always going to be someone better." If this is "the end of men," someone really ought to let them know.

And yet while young men's failures in life are not penalizing them in the bedroom, their sexual success may, ironically, be hindering their drive to achieve in life. Don't forget your Freud: Civilization is built on blocked, redirected, and channeled sexual impulse, because men will work for sex. Today's young men, however, seldom have to. As the authors of last year's book Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality put it, "Societies in which women have lots of autonomy and authority tend to be decidedly male-friendly, relaxed, tolerant, and plenty sexy." They're right. But then try getting men to do anything. ( slate.com )

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Married 3 Years and Still No Sex

Married 3 Years and Still No Sex - We dated in 2007 and married May '08. We had talked about sex and decided to wait until we were married. I bought a sexy white sat an night gown but exchanged it for an old night shirt when he walked in to the bedroom with a T-shirt and sweatpants on. Before we were married he told me he had a mild case of ED because of his blood pressure meds. I was a RN for 27 yrs so knew this could be worked around.

I'm 53 he is 60. We've both been married before. Before we got married he told me he had 3 rules to live by. Making love in the morning, napping in the afternoon and never go to bed angry. So far everyone has been broken. I have tried to initiate some intimacy - even just cuddling and been turned down. This has happened so many times I don't even try anymore. I attended his appt with the cardiologist and discussed the ED issue and the Dr changed his blood pressure meds and gave him prescriptions for Viagra and Cialis. I have planned romantic weekend get aways to no avail. I finally asked him point blank if he didn't find me sexually attractive. He denied this.

I went on an extended vacation alone up north for 3 weeks while he hiked the knob-stone trail in southern IN. He was more affectionate when we both returned home within a day of each other in time to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. He had a romantic restaurant booked and a hotel room for the night. My first thought was 'at last'. We shared a bottle of wine in the double whirlpool with some foreplay and then nothing. I got a little frisky with him and he informed me he couldn't perform on demand. I thought all the planning he had done was leading up to the grand finale. I was wrong. I try to bring up the issue at neutral times and it usually ends up with him storming out of the room. I feel like we are roommates not husband and wife.

When i told him how I felt and asked how our relationship was different from room mates his response was he never loved a roommate. He won't go to counseling. We took a course through our church called Fireproof your marriage based on the movie of the same name. I thought we were getting somewhere but when the course ended so did his interest in trying to improve communication and intimacy. I'm not prepared to live the rest of my life sexless but I'm also not stepping outside my marriage. I moved from Ontario Canada to come to the USA to be with him. I really didn't have any ties holding me there where he has 2 grown daughters grandchildren, brother and sister and parents that are still alive.

I love his family and being a grandma. But that does preclude my need to feel loved and desired by the man I married. I am reaching the point of walking away, but I do love him. He can be controlling or try to be but I have a strong personality so that usually ends up in an argument, Times like that I feel he's using depriving my of sex as a control tactic. I don't know that that is the case but that is how I feel. I'm at a loss of what other suggestions to try and would appreciate any feedback or insight that may help me deal with this situation. ( webmd.com )

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Does Public Nudity Spread Disease? - Not especially.

Does Public Nudity Spread Disease? - Not especially - A proposed law in San Francisco would require the city's nudists to cover public seats with a protective barrier before sitting down. Supervisor Scott Wiener, who introduced the bill, claims that sharing bus seats, cafe benches, and restaurant chairs with naked people is a threat to public health. It's a claim that's been repeated in city ordinances and even a Supreme Court case. Does public nudity really increase the spread of infectious diseases?

Not especially. Unlike most cities in the United States, San Francisco law has allowed public nudity for years so long as it is not "lewd" (i.e. directly connected to a sex act). Yet the city's department of public health has no published cases of a person who became sick from exposure to the neighborhood nudists. Whatever bodily microbes one of them might deposit on a seat pose no more of a health risk than those you might find in a public restroom or pick up by shaking hands with a stranger.

There isn't much reason to fear getting a sexually transmitted disease from naked sitters. These infections are most commonly the result of vigorous and prolonged exposure of a person's mucous membranes, the thinner and more permeable skin found in the mouth and on the genitals. If you happened to share a seat with an infected nudist, you'd be protected both by your clothes and by your epidermis, which serves as an effective barrier against pathogens all by itself.

Can you catch a cold, or worse, from nudists?

Scabies can survive apart from a human body for a few days, and are known to be transmitted via shared bedding or other nonsexual pathways. Extended, skin-to-skin contact does pose a risk of infection, but the danger of picking up the disease from a seat—especially if you're wearing clothes yourself—is negligible.

Diseases like salmonella, E. coli, and hepatitis A, which can be transmitted through the fecal-oral route, might also seem like threats, but there's no reason to believe that public nudity would lead to a significant rise in infection rates. Most people are regularly exposed to fecal-oral pathogens from other sources, including computer keyboards and dollar bills. The immune system of a relatively healthy and hygienic person is generally able to survive exposure to these pathogens in small quantities, and, indeed, most people do so daily. It's not impossible that one of these illnesses (or any other) could be transmitted from a nudist in an urban environment, but such events would be very uncommon. Public-health experts say that increased nudity would not lead to an increase in infection rates. ( slate.com )

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Nudity Disappears from German Beaches, Parks

Nudity Disappears from German Beaches, Parks -- If you're visiting a public park or beach in Germany expecting to see plenty of exposed flesh, you may be in for a surprise.

The naked sunbathers who once crowded Germany's Baltic beaches and city parks are becoming an endangered species due to shifting demographics, the fall of the Berlin Wall, growing prosperity and widening girths.

Much to the chagrin of Free Body Culture (FKK) enthusiasts who have been stripping off their clothing on beaches and parks since the early 1900s, a cold wind has been blowing across Germany for nudists and their numbers are steadily dwindling.

"German society is changing and it's not easy to be a naturist anymore," said Kurt Fischer, president of the German FKK association (DFK). There are some 500,000 registered nudists and a total of seven million Germans sunbathe naked regularly.

Mostly clothed people relax in Munichs English Garten park. The naked sunbathers who once crowded Germanys Baltic beaches and city parks are becoming an endangered species

"But the numbers are unfortunately falling by about two percent each year," Fischer told a group of reporters in the Foreign Press Association (VAP) while sitting, fully clothed, at a beach bar in Berlin's government quarter. "Times are tough."

The main problem is the shrinking population, Fischer said.

The number of Germans fell by more than 3.2 million over the last three decades even though the country's total population has managed to remain more or less steady at about 82 million thanks to immigration -- often from countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans as well as Turkey and Arabic countries.

"Our problems are demographic changes and the fact that immigrants aren't interested in social nudity," said Fischer, 70, whose association has such honoured standing in Germany that it is even part of the Olympic Sport Federation (DOSB).

"Germany is relying more and more on immigrants to keep the population steady. But many come from countries with strong religious beliefs. They just aren't into FKK."

Immigrants who arrive from cultures where headscarves are common will not usually be interested in becoming naturists in Germany, he said. Virtues of social nudity

With one of the lowest birth rates in the world, Germany's native population is projected to fall from about 75 million to 50 million by 2050, population researchers say.

The dwindling number of Germans has caused myriad problems -- affecting everything from beer and schnitzel sales to the numbers of schoolchildren. The country's proud nudity traditions are not immune. Fischer said the trend is inexorable.

"It's better that we shrink in a controlled fashion and keep a diverse age-group structure with all age-groups than to try to stay bloated with mostly seniors and few young people," he said.

Fischer added they were using "special trial offers", direct recruitment and other gimmicks to attract young people.

Nude sunbathing has a long tradition in Germany. The Free Body Culture (FKK) movement was founded in the early 20th century and succeeded in taking much of the smut and embarrassment out of nudity.

Even Germany's top model Heidi Klum was quoted in the German media recently extolling the virtues of topless sunbathing and describing difficulties she has pursuing it in places such as the United States and Italy where it's frowned upon or illegal.

"I love to get a sun tan and I don't like white stripes," said Klum. "I don't worry about what other people think." Her parents often ran around in the nude and still do, she said.

In Germany, public nudity on beaches and lakes is by and large tolerated and practitioners face no legal consequences, although some courts have fined some caught hiking nude on public trails or riding bikes or horses while naked.

For decades nudity was a popular way for those living in Communist East Germany to express themselves -- and was a small piece of freedom for those behind the Iron Curtain. East German beaches on the Baltic were always filled with nude bathers.

But that began to gradually fall out of fashion in many areas in the east after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and then tensions sometimes flared when some western German tourists unaccustomed to the widespread nudity complained.

"When we moved from western Germany to a town in the east, we noticed there was less of a taboo about nudity," said one American surprised by the ubiquitous nudity in the east. "It really struck me at a nearby lake when people were just naked in the water or getting a tan in the sun and nobody was bothered."

That, however, has also begun to change. "We've got a lot chubbier"

Increasing wealth and fashion-consciousness in Germany and especially the east has hurt the movement as well. "We're all equal in the nude," said Fischer, a westerner who admitted it felt like "torture" for him to sit in his clothes on a bright sunny summer afternoon while talking to journalists.

"When people are naked you can't tell the difference between the man with the doctorate and the man who collects trash. There used to be more of an egalitarian attitude. People now want to distinguish themselves and one way to show off is with fancy swimsuits. It's not easy for the nudist in a society like this."

There are other reasons contributing to decline of the unique German cultural tradition. As a 70-year-old eastern woman named Brigitte pointed out, growing prosperity has led to growing waist sizes.

"In East Germany, there were a lot more people with attractive physiques," said Brigitte, a retired dental assistant and avid naturist who asked that her full name not be used.

"But with the rise in prosperity a lot of people have come apart at the seams and they can't show their bodies in public anymore. We've become a lot chubbier with all this prosperity. It's not really very aesthetic anymore."

Brigitte said she misses the East German era when entire beaches and camping areas were packed with nudists even though parts of West Germany, such as Munich's English Garten park and West Berlin's Tiergarten, have proud FKK traditions.

"I miss those places more and more," she said, admitting that she often feels inhibited about being nude and now wraps a towel around herself until she gets to the water. "You definitely see fewer people in then nude. But I don't think the movement will die out. It's too much fun." ( Reuters)

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Handsome Men Mean Better Sex

Handsome Men Mean Better Sex - Women orgasm more quickly and more often with handsome partners, according to research carried out by anthropologists and psychologists.

Noting that "supporting evidence indicates that female orgasm promotes conception," the researchers concluded that the female orgasm is linked to the urge to produce "quality" offspring.

The study, which was carried out at Pennsylvania State University, focused on the sex lives of 110 heterosexual couples, who reported who orgasmed and how often.

The male subjects were rated for "objectively-measured facial masculinity, observer-rated facial masculinity, partner-rated masculinity, and partner-rated dominance"; observers, as well as the men themselves, were also asked to rated their own attractiveness.

Women orgasm more quickly and more often with handsome partners, according to research carried out by anthropologists and psychologists.

Women whose partners rated as masculine and dominant reported more frequent and earlier-timed orgasms than those whose partners rated less well. The women whose partners were deemed attractive also orgasmed more often during or after male ejaculation.

Frequency of female orgasm as a result of masturbation was not predicted by the male partner's attractiveness.

"Thus, possible conception-promoting correlates of female orgasm may be especially effective and/or likely when copulation occurs with masculine males," the authors wrote in the study, published in the journal Evolution and Human Behaviour.

"These results appear to support a role for female orgasm in sire choice." ( sydney morning herald )

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Sex, Power, and Very Strange Habits

Sex, Power, and Very Strange Habits - Alpha males, for all their swagger and success with the ladies, are actually completely miserable.

Lashings of money, power and sex may be bloody wonderful but it's also bloody stressful to keep up; much more relaxing to be a weedy beta who works in accounts and only enjoys conjugal relations on weekends and alternate Wednesdays.

Research into the general well-being of the alpha - carried out by Princeton University and published this week - confirms my long-held suspicions, suspicions developed during a period of dating one.

He wooed me by beating his mighty fists against his broad chest (plied me with wine and carried me home from the pub on his back), but after a while it became clear that he used fake tan, worried endlessly about his weight and spent half an hour every morning preening himself in front of the mirror.

Alpha males ... vanity and strange habits are often part of the package.

'Do you fancy me?' he would ask, as he returned from yet another two-hour workout. The question was irritating and the more he asked it, the less I did.

Anyway, this study goes some way to explaining the increasingly strange behaviour of alpha alpha alpha male Bear Grylls. Mr Grylls, who was born plain Edward, got his name not because he wrestled grizzlies to the death, but because he used to carry a teddy around with him (so a good friend of his informs me).

The former SAS reservist, whose skills as a self-proclaimed 'born survivor' have been tested to the very limit as he toughs it out in hotels around the globe, has a new television programme that has just started on the Discovery Channel.

In one episode, he finds himself - as if by magic - stranded on an island off the coast of Scotland. How will he get out of this one? The rest of us mere mortals would simply lie down and die, or alternatively not ask a production company to drop us off in the freezing cold in the middle of nowhere in the first place.

But brave Bear, stumbling across a seal that just happens to have died nearby, slits the mammal in half and proceeds to wear it as a wetsuit. He has outwitted the Grim Reaper yet again!

This is not his first such display of ingenuity. He has used a sheep's carcass as a sleeping bag, and crawled inside a dead camel for shelter in the past. It is quite the party trick. But were you ever stuck on a desert island with Bear, you would have to sleep with one eye open to make sure he didn't kill you and wear you as a frock.

Yet, despite his undoubted survival skills, I worry about Bear Grylls. I worry about him in a way that I don't about, say, Ray Mears, because I think Ray Mears couldn't give a camel's carcass about being an alpha male. But Bear seems so obsessed with proving his toughness, that he only ends up emasculating himself.

When I watch his desperate battles for survival in some of the least hospitable terrain on the planet, I don't think 'What an amazingly brave man'. I just think: 'WHY?'

I fret that Bear might one day fall victim to the Boy Who Cried Wolf Syndrome. He'll be in real danger, and the crew will just think he's doing his usual macho posturing, and off they will go, thinking 'you've made your bed in a sheep's skin - now you must lie in it'.

Nah. I'd rather take an under-achieving beta boy or a grateful gamma guy over an alpha male any day. ( The Daily Telegraph )

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