Not many  are aware about the significant influence  Kamasutra (the 4th century scientific treatise on erotic love, compiled by sage, philosopher and sexologist, Vastyayan) has on our contemporary understanding of human sexuality.

Modern sex therapy, pioneered by William Masters & Virginia Johnson (the influential American sex researchers) has its roots in this ancient Indian text. Much of what Vatsyayan advocated 1600 years ago is now endorsed by modern medicine.

For instance, Sensate Focus (a form of sex therapy that encourages couples to engage in physical intimacy minus sexual intercourse, to make each other comfortable and ready for sex) is the same concept which Vatsyayan advocates in the Kamasutra.

He devotes an entire chapter on foreplay and advises couples to spend the first three nights in getting to know each other and in kindling desire through amorous talks and touches without sexual intercourse.

According to Vatsyayan, after the sex act, a man’s performance ceases, while a woman’s does not. Being multi-orgasmic is an inbuilt thing for a woman. For a man, it’s an acquired art. Masters and Johnson also arrived at the same conclusion after extensive study.

Kamasutra also suggests that a man who is unable to satisfy his partner due to fatigue or old age must please them either through hastamaithun (masturbation), oral sex or apadravya (artificial penis or what you call today as a dildo or a vibrator). Modern science also believes that oral sex is hygienic and great at enhancing sexual arousal.

So it may not be entirely wrong to term what we call today as research is actually re-search and the solutions doctors prescribe for some of the modern sexual difficulties were actually pre-scribed centuries ago.

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(In conversation with Sangeeth Sebastian, writer and founder of Vvox, a sextech platform. The biography is a part of an AKADialog initiative to capture the lives of newsmakers.)