Seema Anand, Author of “The Arts of Seduction,” joins The Orgasmic Lifestyle Podcast by Venus O’Hara. They discuss how stories define our identities, the original purpose of the Kama Sutra, and how it can help both men and women experience mutual sexual pleasure, intimacy, and a better lifestyle.
Key facts
- Seema’s Facebook
- Seema’s Instagram
- Seema’s Youtube
- Seema’s Book
- Seema’s Book mentioned in Hindustan Times
- Seema’s article in The Free Press Journal
Listen to the full episode here:
Key takeaways
Changing the World Through Stories (0:22:14)
Seema shares impactful messages through storytelling. She believes that stories define our identities. While exploring identity through stories, Seema realized that people never tell stories of women’s rights to their bodies and sexuality in India. She decided to change this by sharing new perspectives on women’s sexuality and desires through storytelling.
Kama Sutra Isn’t Just About Sex (02:26:17)
Seema explains that Kama Sutra is a lifestyle book written only for men and divided into seven sections. The first section talks about how a man should find the perfect location for his house, build it, etc. The second section is on the arts of pleasure. The third section is on how to look for the perfect wife, and the fourth is on how to marry her. Then the fifth section is on how to seduce another man’s wife. The sixth section is about courtisanerie, and the seventh is about magic potions and lotions.
The book is written in metaphors, which have never been translated. As a result, people started to focus more on sex positions. Seema highlights the fact that the second chapter, The Arts of Pleasure, discusses sex positions, not the act of sex. Seema believes that the author wrote this chapter to change the way people think about women.
Focusing on Mutual Pleasure (08:49:05)
A crucial idea in Kama Sutra focuses on the act of mutual pleasure and love. The first way to make it mutually pleasurable is for partners to have the same sized sexual organs. The positions in Kama Sutra tend to help people synchronize their sizes. The book put a lot of responsibility on the man to make sure he was the one pleasuring the woman, not the other way around. They were trying to make it aspirational for men.
India’s Disconnect From the History of Pleasure (16:14:43)
Seema admits that India’s culture and ideologies changed over time. The teachings of the Kama Sutra have been prevalent up until the sixth, seventh century. After that, things seem to change.
Kama Sutra’s teaching focused on intimacy, mutual pleasure, and a better lifestyle. For example, the sixty-four skills include ideas and instructions on different aspects of life and how men can become more desirable. However, a lot of these teachings were lost along the way.
“The Arts of Seduction” (21:28:71)
Seema wrote her book, “The Arts of Seduction,” to translate some of the metaphors from the Kama Sutra. She also focuses on the fact that a longer-lasting and pleasurable relationship occurs if the woman feels the same amount of pleasure that the man does.
“The Idea of Pleasure Was About Beauty” (29:16:69)
The Kama Sutra says that a man needs to give his woman partner an instrument for pleasure, either as a wedding gift or for times when he is away. The man must make something that would suit her pleasure. Therefore, the idea of dildos was to introduce variety into a relationship, and often they were used together by couples.
How Can the Moon Lunar Calendar Affect Sexuality? (37:58:58)
Kama Sutra says that as the moon moves in its phases, our erogenous zones move around our body. It pulls and pushes the water inside of us. So different zones of your body become more sensitive. It can be your energy points or erogenous zones.
So each day it would be worth understanding what bothers the body and then stimulating that for a better orgasm. This happens for both men and women.
Which phrase/affirmation/quote/philosophy do you live by?
Let there be pleasure.
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Quotes
“I do think that stories are just about the most powerful tool of influence in the universe. Our identities are defined by the stories that reach out. Over time, you realize that we all act according to the stories that we tell and that we’ve chosen to silence. That’s what impacts our lives.”
“Kama Sutra was originally written as a book to explain to the wealthy man how to live a perfect lifestyle. I must admit that I am particularly interested in the second section of the book, which is the arts of pleasure. It is the only section where I think they were trying to change the narrative of women because that section is devoted to how a man must understand a woman’s pleasure, how you must treat a woman, how to bring her to complete pleasure.”