33 comments

Contemporary Creative Nonfiction American

In our tiny, throuple unfiltered world it’s important to be always honest about how we feel and our sexual activities.

As one may well imagine, when there’re three bodies involved, the variations of sexual positions and activity are increased by a multiple. Then factor in and couple that with having two members of our throuple who possessed a treasure trove of sex toys – well then – the possibilities are nearly bottomless. Even without some hot Hindu handbook celebrating copulation, and originally written in Sanskrit, one could sincerely say, that’s really hard to top!

That ancient Indian tattered tome, the Kama Sutra, dedicated to eroticism, had nothing on us. In fact, our trio invented several positions that are not depicted in that mash-up manual of love from the Far East. Now, one could deduce that since the Kama Sutra’s illustrations are usually interactions between couples, which would be one of the reasons why what we were sometimes doing anatomically, as well as mathematically, is less likely. And yes, V, Y, and I were capable of the impossible, indeed (such as the impossible odds that two such gorgeous, young women had ended up in bed and entwined in life with an old man who had no more than an average amount of attractive physical characteristics).

The Hindu concept of Purusharthas is comprised of the four key goals in existence, that when obtained, lead to a happy and fulfilling life. In Hinduism, artha, is one of the four important aims one needs to target. It’s connected to financial prosperity, economic security, career, earning a living, and in general, wealth. Said another way; artha leads to the path of securing the means of life that allows one to be in the state one wants to live. 

Then there’s Dharma. It relates to rights, conduct, duties, virtues, and laws. It’s said to be that which is in accord with the principle of rta; the cosmic order of the universe and life itself, and that is the right way of living. Dharma pertains to not only the entire social order but also the individual. Some say it’s what all human beings must live by and accept if there’s to be sustained harmony, respect, and order in the world. Moral rights and religious duties are necessary for the pursuit, execution, and obtainment of one’s true calling and nature.

Moksha is associated with freedom from Saṃsāra (literal rebirth after death). It, moksha, is the release, emancipation, or liberation from the cycle of life and death. Self-realization, freedom, and self-knowledge are the key to discovering enlightenment within our lives. This third of the four components of Purusharthas is where the Hindu school of thought may be most divided and disagreed upon. So much for inner peace…

Kama may be understood either with or without sexual connotations. Whereas it is most definitely primarily paired with physical pleasure as interpreted by our senses, it is in addition, concerned with the aesthetic enjoyment of life. Select scholars have taught that kama is love that does not violate artha (or material property), the journey towards moksha (liberation of the spirit), or dharma. So, as supported by historical evidence, the Kama Sutra is not only a sexual position manual, it is a philosophical guide to the art of living, finding a mate, balancing one’s love life, worldly pleasures, and love’s true nature within this material plane we exist.

Compiled somewhere between 400 BC and the second half of 300 CE, located within what was once known as the Pataliputra region and is now called Patna. The Kama Sutra has been reputed to be penned by Vatsyayana Mallanaga. The writer is claimed to have authored the how-to-suck-and-screw book after many years spent in meditation. Mallanaga does cite in the prefix of the Kama Sutra the work of others he often referred to as scholars or teachers. Furthermore, Vatsyayana credits employing earlier writings and works of ancient others, albeit, most of those transcripts have not survived the ravishing of that master thief named time. Some of his aforementioned sources may date back to the Vedic era and may have come from parts of the Hindu Rigveda – a time that precedes the post-Vedic Sanskrit writings (i.e.: works such as the Ramayana or the Mahabharata).

The Vatsyayana Mallanaga’s Kama Sutra is a manual divided into seven separate books with sixty-four sections, and thirty-six chapters. The book boasts 1,250 verses of poetry and prose. It features a nayaka (a man), a nayika (woman), one vidushaka (jester), vita (pander), and pitamarda (the libertine). This is similar to the characters presented in the Natyasastra, an earlier classic. Many modern-day editions of the Kama Sutra provide illustrations to assist readers in better understanding the directions provided by the poetic verses therein. Most English-speaking people who are familiar with Vatsyayana’s original manuscript have read the translations by the British scholar and explorer, Sir Richard Francis Burton.

The original Sir Richard Francis Burton translated edition of the Kama Sutra comes with over three hundred detailed illustrations of the sixty-four sexual positions and palm-leaf manuscripts. There are many out there who would agree, that this packaging is the perfect epitome of a lustful layout of erotic instructions. Us, well, not so much.

I once asked Y and V if they’d ever paged through the Kama Sutra in their past. Not surprisingly, I guess, they both said no. It was something I had done a time or two with one or more ex-wives or former girlfriends. From what I best remember of those viewings of Vatsyayana’s work I found much of the prose and poetry uninteresting, and the pictures were less than attractive. Perhaps my visual dissatisfaction could be well explained by some form of deep-rooted, stereotypical cultural bias. I don’t really know.

The only thing I do know for sure is the only sexually intimate literature the last two women in my life and I were ever to share together was the printed information on the sides of, or inside the jelly lubricant packing box of the lubes we’d sometimes used when we rocked. Facts regarding whether it was alcohol-free, water or silicone or oil or natural or hybrid based. Hey, the wetter the better – stay fluid while we do it! And if you believe that when a lubricant is required it indicates your partner or partners, are just not that into you then you need to open up better lines of communication with whomever you lust and/or love and trust what you hear them tell you. I believe I speak for the three of us when I say it was more than enough reading of sexual advice, as opposed to actual action, for our throupled tastes.

November 16, 2022 12:31

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33 comments

Rebecca Miles
20:04 Nov 22, 2022

"The Kama Sutra is not only a sexual position manual, it is a philosophical guide to the art of living, finding a mate" The other half asked yesterday what I wanted fir Christmas. Now I've the answer after reading your story. And it's a book, he wouldn't expect anything else from me. :-) Sex, philosophy, book: that's got to be a love triangle made in heaven!!! Thanks for giving me a chuckle on my sofa Stevie.

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Stevie B
23:18 Nov 22, 2022

Rebecca, thank you for reading, enjoying, and commenting. Be sure to include in your Xmas wish a hands on demonstration; action speaks volume above words...

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Philip Ebuluofor
19:11 Nov 21, 2022

Exactly like your work Stevie.

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Stevie B
20:25 Nov 21, 2022

Thank you, Philip.

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Philip Ebuluofor
16:05 Nov 22, 2022

Welcome.

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Lily Finch
17:45 Nov 19, 2022

History lessons and culture throuple exciting ways to deliver your message. Knowing and referring to the infamous Kama Sutra only to find that in the end you three never really needed it, but perhaps you stole from it as you had reviewed it years before. It may have been up there in your subconscious, and you may have accessed it when needed. The brain is tricky like that. It is interesting that you spend an awful amount of time explaining all about a book that you say you never really needed. LOL On an aside. I didn't know about your tro...

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Stevie B
17:58 Nov 19, 2022

Lily, thank you for your kind words and insight. In my heart and mind one should endeavor to make love to one person exactly as you had with another. I believe either the French or Freud are credited with referring to an orgasm as a tiny death; whereas you momentarily let go of any concern of doing it the right way. Nike certainly hit the nail on the head in that regard when they told us to just do it!

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Lily Finch
18:36 Nov 19, 2022

I wholeheartedly agree! :) LF6

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Lily Finch
19:47 Nov 19, 2022

Hey Stevie B, can I send you something to critique, please? 1800 word count or so. (5 pages double spaced). LMK - thanks. My email is finchlily532@gmail.com

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Stevie B
19:08 Nov 20, 2022

Sure, forward it.

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Lily Finch
21:58 Nov 20, 2022

https://docs.google.com/document/d/102HpZrxpQsVT00jZmvGov2nO37Lat114-LsEdErGHZ4/edit

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Lily Finch
21:36 Nov 20, 2022

are you in discord?

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Stevie B
20:26 Nov 21, 2022

Discord?

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Tommy Goround
14:34 Nov 20, 2022

The rumor used to be that it's a medical condition. The heart stops. Source: Johnson & Johnson about 30 years ago. "The family company" or some people with the same last name published extensive case studies on that subject matter. Orgasms.

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Tommy Goround
14:39 Nov 20, 2022

Oops. Masters and Johnson. Case studies from 1957 to the 1990s. Wikipedia, author Thomas Maier, says that they used to buy prostitutes and put electrodes on them. They ran out of money and started to have to have sex with each other. I don't know if either one was attractive. They sent away for government funding to have more sex with each other. Made notes. Brought in some fabulous Japanese scientists too measure everything with micrometers. Now we have the world's largest case study on human orgasms, etc. It would have been more funny ...

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Lily Finch
21:38 Nov 20, 2022

Now you tell me.

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Michał Przywara
00:32 Nov 18, 2022

You snuck both a cultural and a historical lesson into a story, and I almost didn't notice :) Smooth segues between the sections. It also kind of sets up a punch line. So much background on the Kama Sutra, all to say, "we didn't need it." What's that mean? That the so called wisdom of the ancients is overblown malarky? Or that once upon a time, people stumbled on fairly self evident truths that they found so profound, they nevertheless committed them to art. Perhaps we're doomed to keep reinventing the wheel, but maybe this is what ties u...

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Stevie B
01:59 Nov 18, 2022

Michal, as always your observations are transcendent. What it means is it's one thing to simply expound upon it and another to truly experience something since that would obviously alter one's perspective. Almost as if to say, "Those who can't do, teach," (which is a philosophy I personally abhor). After all, aren't we all just merely chasing shadows in the dark? And yes, this cross pollination between creators that Reedsy affords us supersedes all other all other minor inconveniences sometimes incurred. In the end we're really here to creat...

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Jack Bell
23:47 Nov 17, 2022

Like with "Moby Dick", an attempt to fully explicate a mystery whose heart cannot be plucked. Which makes the attempt all the more worthy and valiant. Really enjoyed the swift survey. (But I swear, I only read Sir Richard Burton for the scholarly articles.) This recent odd word "throuple" -- it sounds like a complicated knee problem. Maybe that's no bad thing. ("The cold weather is really playing havoc with my throuple...") I wonder, can a civilization yearn for *moksha*?

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Stevie B
00:05 Nov 18, 2022

Jack, thanks for reading and commenting. As a compulsive communicator one of the many things I adore about language is how its so fluidly alive and eternally growing.

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Timothy Rennels
16:49 Feb 27, 2023

I love to read and learn! Particularly struck by the phrase " the ravishing of that master thief called time". The older you get, the more aware you are of his larceny.

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Stevie B
17:46 Feb 27, 2023

And yet aging is still better than the grave alternative...

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Roger Scypion
13:49 Feb 12, 2023

Very enlightening, thanks for sharing.

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Stevie B
14:00 Feb 12, 2023

Thanks, Roger.

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Ksenija Rubež
13:36 Jan 19, 2023

I enjoyed this one way more than I thought I would. "The writer is claimed to have authored the how-to-suck-and-screw book after many years spent in meditation" This one completely caught me off guard, and I burst into laughter. Thank you for sharing this one Stevie, gonna go back to it thanks to you :)

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Stevie B
14:00 Jan 19, 2023

Ksenija, oft times when reality is observed and served up with a side of its own self-awareness and delivered in the current vernacular it's funnier than fiction. Thanks for reading and enjoying.

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Ksenija Rubež
14:21 Jan 19, 2023

Hi Stevie, "oft times when the reality is observed and served up with a side of its own self-awareness and delivered in the current vernacular it's funnier than fiction" I already see myself pondering on this one for the next few days, and taking inspiration from it. Thank you for your encouraging words, I love it when people are so straightforward! Have a good one :)

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Stevie B
14:23 Jan 19, 2023

You're welcome, my creative friend!

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Delbert Griffith
12:16 Nov 19, 2022

Love the messages here, Stevie. Action means everything, right?

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Stevie B
13:18 Nov 19, 2022

I'd be a liar if I claimed I didn't love me some action...

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Stevie B
12:40 Nov 16, 2022

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I've been repeatedly asked by many here why do I continue to participate in these Reedsy Prompt competitions, especially after their company obviously decided to blacklist my work. For you see, earlier this year I was forced to threaten potential litigation. I’d demanded a full refund after their developmental editing jobs for my next book, one that’d originally been scheduled to be published this year, were incompetently botched twice in a row. As to why I still pay to play here, it's because I simply adore the communication...

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Tommy Goround
14:31 Nov 20, 2022

That's interesting. This is a good story.

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Stevie B
19:06 Nov 20, 2022

Thank you.

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