by Seema Anand
The Manimala, the necklace made of Coral Bites, was also made in curved or looping lines like the necklace of dots, but was concentrated more on the inside of the thighs, between the breasts or in a line towards the navel. This was a late afternoon bite.
‘I am going away on a long journey and I am going to miss you’—the Khandabhraka or Scattered Clouds Bite. ‘I have just returned from a long journey and have thought of nothing but a night of passion with you’—Varaha-charvita or Chewing of the Wild Boar Bite. These bites are made on the breasts and, says the Kama Sutra, are for people with fierce sexual energy. They are generally made in a state of great excitement, so there is no prescribed shape or size or tooth combination.
The Khandabhraka are small areas of scattered, irregular tooth marks. The Varaha-charvita is a wider area of irregular bites made close together. As the lover reaches the point of orgasm, he (or she) moves his head back and forth in unrestrained passion, so the bites look like long rows of tooth marks with red centres. The Kama Sutra says there is an artery that directly connects the nipples to the erotic nerve centre in the yoni (modern science confirms that the nipples are directly connected to the erotic nerve centre in the brain), and repeated and rhythmic love bites on the breasts will make the vulva spasm to give you the ultimate orgasm, breathless and all consuming.
But I promised you romance and romance you shall have.
Perhaps the most romantic of the love bites described in the Kama Sutra are bites that didn’t have to be given directly to the lover but could be sent as ‘messages’ instead. You could place love bites on flower petals, exactly as you would mark them on her body, and send the petals to the beloved as a gift. Or you could send her leaves with bite marks—women used large flat leaves to apply make-up and traditionally a man would send these as gifts to the beloved, especially if he was requesting her company that evening.
And because each type of bite carried its own message, these love-bitten petals and leaves were like a carefully composed love letter.
The chapter on love bites ends with Vatsyayan reminding us that while bites are important for sexual arousal and satisfaction, for them to be arousing (rather than painful), they must be done with the right kind of pressure. If the beloved finds that the bites are too aggressive, she must tell the man to stop. And if he does not listen and lighten the pressure even after his beloved has asked him to, then Vatsyayan advises the woman to be twice as aggressive and bite him back twice as hard. If he has imprinted her with the Dot she must respond with a Necklace of Dots, if it is the Coral she should pay him back with a Necklace of Corals. If his head is resting on her breast she should bite him on the neck and, to indicate her annoyance, she is permitted to bite him with the Varaha-charvita (irregular bites with no specific shapes which are generally only made on the woman’s breast).
If he still doesn’t stop, Vatsyayan says she should grab him by the hair and, gluing her lips to his, she must force him to lie down and then, climbing on top of him, proceed to ‘bite his whole body as though she was a mad woman’.
After a night of passion, when the woman sees her lover in the midst of a group of friends, displaying the marks that she has made on him, she is secretly very pleased but will pretend to be very angry with him, accusing him of being unfaithful, insisting that some other woman has left these marks. She will toss her hair and leave the room, but only after she has secretly shown him her own love bites, which he has left on her. The Kama Sutra says that the love between two people who behave in this way, with passion as well as modesty, will never decrease, even after a hundred years.
My Advice
I do not recommend a public display of love bites—whatever the public acceptance of love bites may have been 2,000 years ago, showing off a neck full of bites no longer spells refinement, and as for bites on the cheeks, they are more likely to arouse police interest rather than anything erotic.
But love bites are important and exciting and should definitely be part of your erotic diet.
Try the hidden love bites. A few little private marks as a reminder of the previous night can do wonders for your sex life.
If it is romance you are looking for, then it is time to send bite marks on flowers. In a bouquet of ten flowers make sure that four are yellow in colour. On each yellow flower pick one petal and make three bite marks. Don’t worry about the Kama Sutra’s message code—create your own bite symbols.
Attach a card with a ‘bite’ message—be creative with the message. Build your own erotic love bite vocabulary.
The next time you visit the dentist for teeth cleaning come back and make passionate love—let that be your special date. Weird? Perhaps, but the novelty factor will send your heart rate soaring.
*Phyllis Granoff (ed.), The Clever Adultress and Other Stories, New Delhi: Motilal Banarasidass, 1993, p. 231.
Erotic Nerves
According to the ancient love texts, there are twenty-four nerves that run through the human body that cause erotic excitement. These nerves start in different parts of the body—for example, the eyes, cheeks, armpits, lower back—but they all eventually end up in the genitals. For men, the nerve endings are concentrated mostly in the anus, for women they are primarily in the vulva.
Aside from these twenty-four nerves women have another six major nerves of sexual excitement that run along the inside walls of the vulva, along different sides, ending at different depths. Which means that you can stimulate pretty much any point inside the vulva because each spot has the potential for orgasm—the possibilities are endless.
The Kama texts have an interesting way of categorizing erotic nerves. They are listed not by the areas where the nerves can be found but instead by their main method of arousal.
The first group of nerves mentioned are the ones that should be aroused with the mouth. According to Devadatta Shastri (one of the translators of the Kama Sutra), lips carry an electric charge. When you rub your lips on any part of the body for a length of time, the charge transfers itself to that nerve and it is this electric charge that causes excitement. Of the nerves that are to be excited by the mouth there are two in the eyes, two in the mouth, one in the lower lip, slightly left of centre, and one in the big toe of the left foot.
The best way to stimulate the eyes of the beloved is to alternately cover and uncover them while kissing them lightly and repeatedly. The left eye is most sensitive during the waning phase of the moon and the right eye during the waxing phase.
The two nerves inside the mouth are in the left cheek and should be aroused with the tongue. The tongue should be rolled so as to make a little point at the end and pushed against the inside of the cheek for maximum effect.
The nerve in the lip should be bitten—hard enough so that the lip becomes swollen but not so hard that it leaves a mark. If each bite draws a moan of pleasure from the beloved then you know it is working.
Finally, the nerve in the big toe—the last of the ‘mouth’ series. After having classified it as a ‘mouth nerve’ all the books, except one, change their mind and insist that the only way to stimulate this nerve is to play footsie with it. It was considered impure to place the foot in the mouth so the lover was advised to stimulate the toe with the toe. Only one ancient Tibetan text has continued to maintain that taking the toe into the mouth and sucking on it is the best way to stimulate it.
Toes were the most explicit symbol of sexual arousal (according to modern science, toes actually curl during orgasm). The curled big toe became one of the most delicately expressive metaphors of arousal in ancient India—the woman standing in front of her lover, gripped by desire and shyness, turns her foot slightly inwards and curls her big toe under it.*
Next, we have the nerves that are agitated by scratching. These nerves run through the ears, the forehead, thighs, hips, the navel, the lower back (the small of the back) and the bum. The nerves in the thighs, hips, lower back and bum have to be scratched quite aggressively; because they are set quite deep under the skin, they ne
ed heavy contact for stimulation. Of these, the deepest set nerves are the ones in the buttocks and it takes a great deal of effort to access them—you really have to knead that area with very sharp-edged nails to get to them.
One ancient text says that sitting down for too long can also press the buttock nerves and stimulate them. Before you get too excited—remember that furniture has changed since this was written. (Back then ‘sitting down’ would have meant on something hard and so there would have been a chance that these nerves could get activated—a soft sofa cushion would not have the same impact.) But in ancient times the fear of stimulating an erotic nerve by sitting for too long was such a serious concern that in the Manusmriti (also known as The Laws of Manu, the book on dharma by the sage Manu), the author suggests that the best way to protect young girls from their own sexual impulses is to get them to do housework of a very physical nature (where they cannot be sitting around on their bum) from as early as four years of age because this will keep their desires under control.
The last two ‘nail’ nerves run through the cartilage of the upper ear and across the forehead and could be aroused with both scratching and love bites—not because they were deep set and needed force but because this was a form of ornamentation, it had to look like a necklace. Love bites and love scratches were left on the beloved as messages of passion. The Kama Sutra says one should stimulate the nerves in such a way that the beloved is left bejewelled with the marks of your passion.
Another two nerves run along the curve of the waist. These have to be stimulated by delicately nibbling on them with the love bite known as the Manimala or Necklace of Corals, mentioned earlier. The curve of the waist was perfumed with a very light fragrance that encouraged the lover to press his face deep into it and the bites were done in little looping necklaces of coral bites in this area while simultaneously kneading the bum, the hips and the thighs. It was believed that on rainy afternoons the nerves at the waist were the most sensitive of all.
All the erotic nerves pass through the navel on their way to the genitals, making it a very excitable spot. It is best excited by patting gently with an open palm but piercings, perfuming, massaging etc. are also considered effective. The great thing about the navel is that you can stimulate it very effectively yourself.
Saving the best for last—the ‘open sesame’ of all desire—the four erotic nerves that run through the nipples. There are two nerves in each nipple and these were considered the most vigorous in stimulating desire. Western science confirms that the nerves in the nipples are connected directly to the brain’s erotic centre and carry the most powerful sexual impulses. In the sixth century bce, Ayurveda had already told us that the nipple nerves hold the key to unlocking the yoni. The best way to stimulate the nipples is with chin stubble, the lips and the teeth. Placing your mouth and chin on the nipples, move your face from side to side very quickly, interspersing the movement with bites. If done right the woman will actually have the sensation of the muscles in her lower regions physically start to pulse and ‘open up’—hence the nickname ‘open sesame’.
Aside from these twenty-four nerves that carry arousal across the body, the vulva has its own collection of in-house erotic nerves. Six in number, the brilliant thing about them is that they run along different walls of the yoni, and at different depths, which means that penises of all sizes and shapes—long, short, thick, thin, crooked, straight, bent—can hit some point of excitement or the other. If you can’t find the elusive G-spot, don’t worry, the entire passage is virtually popping with X, Y and Z spots.
The six nerves in the yoni are called Sati, Asati, Subhaga, Durbhaga, Putrini and Duhitrini.
At the entrance of the yoni, to the right and left of the clitoris respectively, sit the Subhaga and the Durbhaga nerves. According to the Kama Sutra, if you stimulate the Subhaga the woman starts to feel happy and calm—it makes her skin glow, her face look more beautiful and her limbs feel light. The Durbhaga is like the alter ego of the Subhaga, and if stimulated during the waxing phase of the moon, it will make the woman angry and ‘dry’—both in looks and temperament: the voice becomes harsh, the complexion becomes yellow and dull and all the problems of old age, like joint pains and hair loss, start to befall the woman. However, during the waning phase this does not happen.
At the very top of the passage, just before the entrance to the uterus, are the Putrini and Duhitrini nerves, which are massaged to enable pregnancy.
Somewhere in the middle of the yoni are the Sati and Asati. These two nerves seem to be far more complex because their stimulation is based on individual characteristics. If a woman who is of a calm, introverted and chaste temperament has her Asati stimulated, she becomes very excitable and begins to act like a ‘loose’ and ‘wanton’ woman. If a woman who is fiery, extroverted and fond of male attention has her Sati rubbed, she becomes ‘short of breath, listless, ill and loses her desire to practice the sixty-four arts of pleasure’. It is very important to properly understand the temperament of the woman before you decide how to arouse her.
The Sati nerve can be massaged heavily to cause abortion or as a contraceptive.*
The love texts say that these nerves can also be aroused from the outside, but there is very little agreement on the points of arousal. One source says that pressing and kneading the curve of the waist and the sides of the hips will excite the Asati nerve, and moving around the circle of the waist with kisses will get the Durbhaga going. Kneading, scratching and kissing the buttocks and lower back will cause both the Subhaga and Duhitrini to flare up and kissing on the mouth brings the Putrini into play.
Another source says the arousal point for Sati is in the breasts—the breasts should be kneaded and pressed heavily. Asati can be excited by scratching the armpit, Subhaga is in the upper lip and needs to be kissed and bitten and Durbhaga reacts to being alternately stroked and struck on the hips. The Putrini nerve is up in the cheeks, which should be kissed and sucked and, finally, the Duhitrini, which sits in the buttocks, has to be stroked, struck and bitten.
But, says the Kama Sutra, if you are in the throes of passion and are finding it difficult to locate precise spots, just focus on the hairless areas. The erotic nerves run through the whole body, so you could potentially excite them at any point, but the best spots for stimulation are where there is no hair. Some parts are naturally hairless like the lips, eyes, toes, etc. Other parts were depilated (waxed, shaved). Men and women were advised to remove their pubic hair from the roots regularly—the Brazilian wax is not a modern-day invention.
There was a strictly prescribed schedule of hair removal for men—beard hair was to be trimmed every fourth day, armpit hair removed every fifth day, pubic hair shaved every fifth day and removed from the roots every tenth day, and so on. Women removed body hair every day. Interesting fact—back then it was believed that the armpit was the mirror image of the yoni. If a woman had no hair in her armpits then her vagina would be hairless too.
Moles were also significant. If the woman had a mole on her cheek then she would have a mole on her yoni as well, either on the outer lips of the yoni or inside. Moles on the yoni, known as yoni prashansak (that which makes the vagina delightful), were very desirable. Because they were thought to indicate the exact point where the erotic nerve finished, they made the lover’s job very easy. You didn’t have to go hunting around for the correct spot to excite.
Men loved women with moles (beauty spots) on the face. Women would draw moles on the face and on the yoni as part of their shringhar. In India, the facial mole is still an indication of sexiness—but now you know why!
Aside from kisses, love bites, scratches and various other physical means, there was also the tradition of using mantras or sound vibrations to excite the erotic nerves.
In India, there is an ancient tradition of using mantras to augment any kind of physical action—sound vibrations energize the cells so that all actions become more effective. This was the case in lovemaking too. You stimulate the nerves
all over the body by the usual means (scratching, biting, kissing etc.) and then you energize the nerve endings (in the clitoris or vulva) with sound vibrations so that they become totally receptive.
They say that Kamadeva’s five arrows—with which he conquers lovers—are made of flowers strung on mantras. Different sounds create different effects, so mantras are made of an assortment of syllables, sounds, pitches and tempos. For instance, Kamadeva’s arrows are created from the syllables A, E, I, O and U and each arrow has its own target. The sound of ‘A’ pierces the heart, ‘E’ is for the forehead, ‘I’ is aimed at the breast, ‘O’ is for the vagina and the target for ‘U’ is the eyes.
There are other more complex mantras made up of a series of syllables.
‘Han-k-sh-yam’ was the mantra for protecting your wife’s chastity if you were going away for an extended period of time. The man chanted the mantra and then placed its energy at the opening of the vulva. This diverted the erotic sensation and ensured that she would not fall into the trap of any other man in his absence.
The most powerful syllable is ‘bli’—it is known as the rays of the morning sun. Just as the appearance of the sun’s rays propels the entire earth into work mode, this mantra can propel all dormant erotic nerves and spots into full arousal. This mantra is meant to be placed in the very centre of the yoni. It is so powerful that if any man places it in a woman for seven consecutive days, she will become his slave forever more. Even when she goes to the land of Yamaraj (the land of the dead) where all earthly memories are wiped clean, she will still not be able to forget this arousal and in death, too, she will remain the man’s slave.
