The book shows how closely intertwined the history of erotics in ancient Indian culture is with the history of theater-aesthetics. Gautam also takes up the Natyasastra (the Kamasutra's twin), locating in the first the themes of sexual-erotic pleasure, and locating in the second the classical Indian view of theater, music, dance, and aesthetic pleasure. Gautam has here laid out the first serious reading of Michel Foucault in relation to key Sanskrit texts, and-what may be a surprise to many-he has written the first book-length work in English on the nature and origin of the Kamasutra. With practical wisdom and spiritual clarity, it points the way out of the shadows of sexual compulsion and back into the light and fullness of life. Revised and updated to include the latest research-and to address the exploding phenomenon of cybersex addiction-this third edition identifies the danger signs, explains the dynamics, and describes the consequences of sexual addiction and dependency.
Out of the Shadows is the premier work on this disorder, written by a pioneer in its treatment. And when it becomes a compulsion, it can unravel our lives. With the revised information and up-to-date research, Out of the Shadows is the premier work on sex addiction, written by a pioneer in its treatment. An essential resource for those struggling with sexual addiction and compulsions, and those who love them. Unhooked from regular routines and healthy relationships by the coronavirus pandemic or other traumas, even our most basic human impulses and inputs can become addictive and destructive.
The first work to tell the full story of the Kamasutra, The Book of Love explores how a remarkable way of looking at the world came to be cradled between book covers-and survived. And he describes how the Kamasutra was driven underground into the hands of pirate pornographers, until the end of the Lady Chatterley obscenity ban thrust it once more into contentious daylight. Burton, who-along with his clandestine coterie of libertines and iconoclasts-unleashed the Kamasutra on English society as a deliberate slap at Victorian prudishness and paternalism. He details the quest of famed explorer Richard F. In lively and lucid prose, James McConnachie provides a rare, intimate look at the exquisite civilization that produced this cultural cornerstone. Over the ensuing centuries, the Kamasutra was first celebrated, then neglected, and very nearly lost-until an outrageous adventurer introduced it to the West and earned literary immortality. Yet the book began its long life in third-century India as something quite different: a seven-volume vision of an ideal life of urbane sophistication, offering advice on matters from friendship to household decoration. In the popular imagination, it is a work of practical pornography, a how-to guide of absurdly acrobatic sexual techniques.
An engaging, enlightening "biography" of the ancient Hindu manuscript that became the world's most famous sex manual The Kamasutra is one of the world's best-known yet least-understood texts, its title instantly familiar but its actual contents widely misconstrued.