7 Kama Sutra Sex Tips That Will Put You In The Hospital

Vatsyayana's Kama Sutra was a strategy guide for the interaction of penises and vaginas in Gupta-era India (320 to 550 CE), meant to be read by sexual partners to enhance their lovemaking. That's around the same time the New Testament was made official, and people still take that book pretty seriously. What's the problem?

Well it turns out there's a big difference between adopting moral platitudes from thousands of years ago, and trying out their sex advice. Some of the "tips" from the Kama Sutra seem to be setting people up for serious injury should they be performed incorrectly, or in some cases, if they're performed at all.

"When a man supports himself against a wall, and the woman, sitting on his hands joined together and held underneath her, throws her arms round his neck, and putting her thighs alongside his waist, moves herself by her feet, which are touching the wall against which the man is leaning, it is called the 'suspended congress.'"
- Vatsyayana

Oh it's just a little standing position. Sounds easy enough, right ladies? Well, to most men, the idea of having sex standing up is a slippery, pride-greased slope towards repeating the phrase, "I'm so sorry," over your naked heap of a body and his own rapidly blue-ing balls. It's not like he's going to say no. If he wants to have sex with you, he'd swear he could bench press twice his body weight right up until he passed out from the 500 lbs of barbell he just dropped on his own chest. You think he's going to tell you he doesn't have the strength to hold you up for more than five seconds?

Also, "Suspended Congress" is just about the most unappealing name for a position in the history of sex.

Why it's Dangerous:

Anne Hooper warns in her Keep It Simple Kama Sutra Series that this position should not be attempted by men "that have even the inkling of a bad back!" (Exclamation-mark totally included.) Now there's a bit of medical history he's going to willingly volunteer when you've just asked him to turn you into a human sex swing.

The book goes even further by pointing out that should the man drop the woman, her tailbone could be fractured and her arms could get popped right out of their sockets, not to mention the ferocious dick-snapping that would likely occur (see "The Turning Position," below). All told, the Suspended Congress could lead to the most humiliating emergency room visit in both of your lives.

"When a man, during congress, turns round, and enjoys the woman without leaving her, while she embraces him round the back all the time, it is called the 'turning position,' and is learnt only by practice." - Vatsyayana

Translation:

This is basically a guy doing the Curly Shuffle while inside his girlfriend, which was considered the pinnacle of intimacy by all three stooges. Some may refer to this as "The Helicopter."

The ladies love this guy.

Why it's Dangerous:

While we're all for ruining tender moments with bafflingly asinine behavior, there are certain feats the human body was not designed to perform under any circumstance. Sure, the evolutionary process is largely trial-and-error, but we're fairly certain that at no point was the penis intended to function like a corkscrew, which is the precise idea behind the Turning Position.

Vatsyayana's advice is for the male to simply wing it and spin his entire body around the girl, failing to mention that if he moves too fast he can literally snap his dick in half.

Really it's hard to tell who exactly benefits from the turning position, because even if the guy is really into yoga and manages to pull it off without suffering a penile fracture, the girl's insides are in danger of being torn to pieces if the guy is anything less than gentle. Physical injury aside, guys are spending half the time making out with his partner's feet while she in turn stares down the barrel of his grundle, which we're pretty sure is considered sexual assault, consent be damned.

"To Increase the Size and Potential of the Penis: Take shuka hairs - the shuka is an insect that lives in trees - mix with oil and rub on the penis for ten nights... When a swelling appears sleep face downwards on a wooden bed, letting one's sex hang through a hole. "
- Vatsyayana

Translation:

If you're like us, you add a few extra inches when measuring your manhood because dicks should be graded on a curve. But the Kama Sutra teaches us that we don't have to be ashamed anymore with a sure-fire method of penis enlargement. All you have to do is collect some "shuka hairs," mix them with oil, and rub them on your yogurt cannon for 10 days. Make this part of your nighttime routine, and you'll be like Ron Jeremy in no time.

Which is apparently a good thing.

Why it's Dangerous:

If you're picturing the "shuka" as a hairy bug, you're way off. Shukas are fucking wasps and their "hairs" are their fucking stingers.

Pictured: fucking wasp, fucking stinger.

If a person gives you a piece of advice that begins with the phrase "rub wasp stingers on your dick," hitting said person in the face with a brick is not only legal but actually required in some jurisdictions. See, death is a rare but potential result of engaging in this lunacy when you consider that three to five percent of people are vulnerable to "some sort" of allergy to stings ("acute death" and "inflammation of the not-alive-anymore gland" being two such allergies). The rest of the population is subjected to the general discomfort of sticking your penis in a beehive.

Sure, given the massive swelling that would result from thousands of stings could actually make it larger, but that's sort of like gouging your eyes out so you don't have to wear glasses anymore. Sometimes embarrassment is better than mutilating your penis with insect venom.

"When the legs are contracted, and thus held by the lover before his bosom, it is called the 'pressed position.'"
- Vatsyayana

Translation:

While on the surface a rather harmless sexual position, the Pressed Position is a bit awkward because it brings feet in on the action like an uninvited roommate. Basically, both partners are facing each other while the girl presses her feet against the guy's chest, sort of like a crablegged dropkick only with more vaginal penetration.

Sent from the future to robo-blast your vagina in the past.

The man, with his hands comparatively free, is supposed to massage aforementioned feet with a lustful vigor, something which is hard for most of us to achieve while rubbing some chick's gnarled bootclaws.

This image is nothing like what you would experience.

Why it's Dangerous:

Most modern versions of the Kama Sutra suggest that you add reflexology to the mix, which is a type of alternative medicine focusing on pressure points in the feet that correspond to different areas of the body.

Reflexology for Dummies.

While this dabbling in holistic remedies might be how you tricked your new age girlfriend into sex in the first place, the danger posed is that you're essentially fooling around with something that people actually go to school for. Also, you're having sex with someone while essentially tickling their feet, which makes you about a hundred times more likely to get a spastic kick to the face that knocks your teeth down your throat.

And of course there's always the chance that reflexology isn't total bullshit and you accidentally squeeze whatever part of the girl's foot that causes her heart to shut down.