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Intimate Relations: Exploring Indian Sexuality
Plumbing the hearts of women and men in India and exploring the relations they engage in, Sudhir Kakar gives us the first full-length study of Indian sexuality. His groundbreaking work explores India's sexual fantasies and ideals, the "unlit stage of desire where so much of our inner theater takes place."
Kakar's sources are primarily textual, celebrating the primacy of the story in Indian life. He practices a cultural psychology that distills the psyches of individuals from the literary products and social institutions of Indian culture. These include examples of lurid contemporary Hindi novels; folktales; Sanskrit, Tamil, and Hindi proverbs; hits of the Indian cinema; Gandhi's autobiography; interviews with women from the slums of Delhi; and case studies from his own psychoanalytic practice. His attentive readings of these varied narratives from a vivid portrait of sexual fantasies and realities, reflecting the universality of sexuality as well as cultural nuances specific to India.
Moving from genre to genre, Kakar offers a brilliant reading of verses from the Laws of Manu , the original source of Hindu religious laws, to uncover their psychological foundations—male terror of the female sexual appetite that shields itself by idealizing women's maternal role. Kakar also examines the psychosexual history of Gandhi at length, though his near-lifelong celibacy makes him an atypical subject. Gandhi's story is universal, Kakar says, because "we all wage war on our wants."
In India's lore and tradition, complex symbols abound—snakes that take the shape of sensual women or handsome men, celibates sleep with naked women, gods rape their daughters, and a goddess fries a king in oil. With the analyst's "third ear," Kakar listens, decodes, and translates the psychological longings that find expression in Indian sexual relations.
Kakar's sources are primarily textual, celebrating the primacy of the story in Indian life. He practices a cultural psychology that distills the psyches of individuals from the literary products and social institutions of Indian culture. These include examples of lurid contemporary Hindi novels; folktales; Sanskrit, Tamil, and Hindi proverbs; hits of the Indian cinema; Gandhi's autobiography; interviews with women from the slums of Delhi; and case studies from his own psychoanalytic practice. His attentive readings of these varied narratives from a vivid portrait of sexual fantasies and realities, reflecting the universality of sexuality as well as cultural nuances specific to India.
Moving from genre to genre, Kakar offers a brilliant reading of verses from the Laws of Manu , the original source of Hindu religious laws, to uncover their psychological foundations—male terror of the female sexual appetite that shields itself by idealizing women's maternal role. Kakar also examines the psychosexual history of Gandhi at length, though his near-lifelong celibacy makes him an atypical subject. Gandhi's story is universal, Kakar says, because "we all wage war on our wants."
In India's lore and tradition, complex symbols abound—snakes that take the shape of sensual women or handsome men, celibates sleep with naked women, gods rape their daughters, and a goddess fries a king in oil. With the analyst's "third ear," Kakar listens, decodes, and translates the psychological longings that find expression in Indian sexual relations.
172 pages, Hardcover
First published March 20, 1990
22 people are currently reading
376 people want to read
About the author
Sudhir Kakar
56 books84 followersSudhir Kakar is a psychoanalyst and writer who lives in Goa, India.
Kakar took his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Gujarat University, his Master’s degree (Diplom-Kaufmann) in business economics from Mannheim in Germany and his doctorate in economics from Vienna before beginning his training in psychoanalysis at the Sigmund-Freud Institute in Frankfurt, Germany in 1971. Between 1966 and 1971, Sudhir Kakar was a Lecturer in General Education at Harvard University, Research Associate at Harvard Business School and Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
After returning to India in 1975 , Dr. Kakar set up a practice as a psychoanalyst in Delhi where he was also the Head of Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology. He has been 40th Anniversary Senior Fellow at the Centre for Study of World Religions at Harvard (2001-02), a visiting professor at the universities of Chicago (1989-93), McGill (1976-77), Melbourne (1981), Hawaii (1998) and Vienna (1974-75), INSEAD, France (1994-2013). He has been a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute of Advanced Study), Berlin, Centre for Advanced Study of Humanities, University of Cologne and is Honorary Professor, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam.
A leading figure in the fields of cultural psychology and the psychology of religion, as well as a novelist, Dr. Kakar’s person and work have been profiled in The New York Times, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Die Zeit and Le Nouvel Observateur, which listed him as one of the world's 25 major thinkers while the German weekly Die Zeit portrayed Sudhir Kakar as one of the 21 important thinkers for the 21st century. Dr. Kakar's many honors include the Kardiner Award of Columbia University, Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association, Germany ’s Goethe Medal, Rockefeller Residency, McArthur Fellowship Bhabha, Nehru and ICSSR National Fellowships and Distinguished Service Award of Indo-American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Board of Sigmund Freud Archives in the Library of Congress, Washington and the Academie Universelle des Culture, France. In February 2012, he was conferred the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the country's highest civilian order.
Sudhir Kakar’s twenty books of non-fiction and six of fiction, include The Inner World (now in its 16th printing since its first publication in 1978), Shamans, Mystics and Doctors , (with J.M. Ross ) Tales of Love, Sex and Danger,Intimate Relations, The Analyst and the Mystic, The Colors of Violence,Culture and Psyche, (with K.Kakar) The Indians: Portrait of a People, (with Wendy Doniger), a new translation of the Kamasutra for Oxford world Classics, Mad and Divine: Spirit and Psyche in the Modern world and Young Tagore: The makings of a genius. His fifth novel, The Devil Take Love will be published by Penguin-Viking in August 2015.
Sudhir with Katharina Poggendorf Kakar
Sudhir Kakar is married to Katharina, a writer and a scholar of comparative religions and artist. He has two children, a son Rahul who is in financial services, and a daughter Shveta, a lawyer, both in New York.
Kakar took his Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Gujarat University, his Master’s degree (Diplom-Kaufmann) in business economics from Mannheim in Germany and his doctorate in economics from Vienna before beginning his training in psychoanalysis at the Sigmund-Freud Institute in Frankfurt, Germany in 1971. Between 1966 and 1971, Sudhir Kakar was a Lecturer in General Education at Harvard University, Research Associate at Harvard Business School and Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
After returning to India in 1975 , Dr. Kakar set up a practice as a psychoanalyst in Delhi where he was also the Head of Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Indian Institute of Technology. He has been 40th Anniversary Senior Fellow at the Centre for Study of World Religions at Harvard (2001-02), a visiting professor at the universities of Chicago (1989-93), McGill (1976-77), Melbourne (1981), Hawaii (1998) and Vienna (1974-75), INSEAD, France (1994-2013). He has been a Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton, Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute of Advanced Study), Berlin, Centre for Advanced Study of Humanities, University of Cologne and is Honorary Professor, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam.
A leading figure in the fields of cultural psychology and the psychology of religion, as well as a novelist, Dr. Kakar’s person and work have been profiled in The New York Times, Le Monde, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Die Zeit and Le Nouvel Observateur, which listed him as one of the world's 25 major thinkers while the German weekly Die Zeit portrayed Sudhir Kakar as one of the 21 important thinkers for the 21st century. Dr. Kakar's many honors include the Kardiner Award of Columbia University, Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association, Germany ’s Goethe Medal, Rockefeller Residency, McArthur Fellowship Bhabha, Nehru and ICSSR National Fellowships and Distinguished Service Award of Indo-American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the Board of Sigmund Freud Archives in the Library of Congress, Washington and the Academie Universelle des Culture, France. In February 2012, he was conferred the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the country's highest civilian order.
Sudhir Kakar’s twenty books of non-fiction and six of fiction, include The Inner World (now in its 16th printing since its first publication in 1978), Shamans, Mystics and Doctors , (with J.M. Ross ) Tales of Love, Sex and Danger,Intimate Relations, The Analyst and the Mystic, The Colors of Violence,Culture and Psyche, (with K.Kakar) The Indians: Portrait of a People, (with Wendy Doniger), a new translation of the Kamasutra for Oxford world Classics, Mad and Divine: Spirit and Psyche in the Modern world and Young Tagore: The makings of a genius. His fifth novel, The Devil Take Love will be published by Penguin-Viking in August 2015.
Sudhir with Katharina Poggendorf Kakar
Sudhir Kakar is married to Katharina, a writer and a scholar of comparative religions and artist. He has two children, a son Rahul who is in financial services, and a daughter Shveta, a lawyer, both in New York.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
September 24, 2016
Brilliant work on Indian sexuality, based on textual sources from ancient times to new. What was refreshing for me was the way the author brilliantly explored Bollywood themes, especially the movie Nagina to explore the concept of the "Snake Lover".
Unfortunately, a cousin borrowed this book from me and lost it. He tried to replace it, but by then it was out of print.
I need to dig up another copy. This is definitely worth a re-read.
Unfortunately, a cousin borrowed this book from me and lost it. He tried to replace it, but by then it was out of print.
I need to dig up another copy. This is definitely worth a re-read.
August 17, 2022
I am not used to reading this kind of book, so I have nothing to compare it to. It is a book about the sexual behavior of Indians and how males and females relate to each other in India. Kakkar tries to explain why there is a natural sense of rivalry between Indian males and females, why tiltating rape scenes are common in Indian movies and why domestic violence is prevalent in India. He uses stories from Hindu mythology, Indian non-English fiction and folklore to understand the Indian psyche especially with regard to male-female relationships and sex. The best part of the book is Kakkar's analysis of Gandhi's sex life which Gandhi explained in great detail in his books and letters.
I found Intimate Relations to be very interesting though some of the analysis seemed to me like intellectual mumbo jumbo. But like I said, I am not used to reading this kind of book.
I found Intimate Relations to be very interesting though some of the analysis seemed to me like intellectual mumbo jumbo. But like I said, I am not used to reading this kind of book.
January 16, 2025
Damn, I am at a loss for words. It was so powerful.
February 25, 2020
Leave it to Sudhir Kakkar to apply Freudian psycho-dynamic voodoo to the naagin dance and split open unconscious drives that make movie villains appeal to the Indian audience. Among India's finest psychoanalyst, in this book he invests some time delving into the ethos of indian sexual psyche, how its moulded from religious text to modern movies. He also elaborates at length on Gandhi's experiments with truth, his fight against desire.
His insight inspires the reader to tilt their head a bit and wonder why we do things the way we do. "What's the story ? .. where's the trauma ? .. where's my phone ?"
Midway through the book Kakkar's flamboyant delivery gets technical with phallic symbolisms, quagmire of genital desires, Ego and the Id, and then goes completely bananas introducing naughty Oedipus and what he did and why we Indians want to do it too.
I am very suspicious about what he has to say about Swami Vivekananda in his book 'The Inner World'.
His insight inspires the reader to tilt their head a bit and wonder why we do things the way we do. "What's the story ? .. where's the trauma ? .. where's my phone ?"
Midway through the book Kakkar's flamboyant delivery gets technical with phallic symbolisms, quagmire of genital desires, Ego and the Id, and then goes completely bananas introducing naughty Oedipus and what he did and why we Indians want to do it too.
I am very suspicious about what he has to say about Swami Vivekananda in his book 'The Inner World'.
October 19, 2025
Interesting read about what makes Indian society tick when it comes to gender relations and sexuality. Kakar is clearly a talented psychoanalyst, but like all great psychoanalysts his ability comes from his intuition rather than his application of Freudian theory. A few times in this book Kakar is on a roll with his analysis of what Indian film, folktale, fiction, and patient case studies reveal about their socio-cultural sexual mores, but then falls back onto some passé Freudian explanation like castration anxiety. Still a fun read though.
January 20, 2021
I read this book after reading his book "The Indians: a portrait of the people". Some of the topics are mentioned and discussed again in this book.
Kakkar's explanation of cultural trends in Indian cinema to explain the kind of heroes from Majnu to Kishan to Karna type lovers are quite interesting. In a culture where women are mostly viewed as mothers and pativrata (chaste and devoted to the husband), it is not interesting to note the extent to which Oedipus complex pervades. Indian culture is fundamentally based on Hindu mythologies like Ramayana and Mahabharata where exemplary women are portrayed as those who stick with their husbands even when they are at their abusive best.
Having asceticism as the ideal goal and trying to remain celibate to achieve the religious nirvana is an ongoing struggle for males according to this book. The eternal struggle to reach the ardhanarishwara (half man-half woman) state and the contradictory concepts of maintaining celibacy pushes the misogynistic concepts by objectifying women. These tendencies are deeply rooted in the mythologies and folklores which are still used as anecdotes in many families.
A bit too complicated to draw hard conclusions. But Gandhi's struggles clearly show the cultural impact people still have on sexuality. I must admit that I would enjoy an updated version of psychoanalysis in modern India though I am sure that most of the fundamental elements would remain the same.
Kakkar's explanation of cultural trends in Indian cinema to explain the kind of heroes from Majnu to Kishan to Karna type lovers are quite interesting. In a culture where women are mostly viewed as mothers and pativrata (chaste and devoted to the husband), it is not interesting to note the extent to which Oedipus complex pervades. Indian culture is fundamentally based on Hindu mythologies like Ramayana and Mahabharata where exemplary women are portrayed as those who stick with their husbands even when they are at their abusive best.
Having asceticism as the ideal goal and trying to remain celibate to achieve the religious nirvana is an ongoing struggle for males according to this book. The eternal struggle to reach the ardhanarishwara (half man-half woman) state and the contradictory concepts of maintaining celibacy pushes the misogynistic concepts by objectifying women. These tendencies are deeply rooted in the mythologies and folklores which are still used as anecdotes in many families.
A bit too complicated to draw hard conclusions. But Gandhi's struggles clearly show the cultural impact people still have on sexuality. I must admit that I would enjoy an updated version of psychoanalysis in modern India though I am sure that most of the fundamental elements would remain the same.
October 12, 2025
Prof Kakar, a prolific and remarkable writer, has made this academic text an accessible and engaging read. It is a psychoanalytic exploration of Indian culture’s influence on its sexuality and gender dynamics, spanning multiple contexts — from Indian mythology to stories of two women from Delhi slums to Bollywood films, Gandhi’s life and autobiography, and psychoanalytic clinical vignettes. The book, through an Indian cultural lens, offers a colorful and diverse perspective, illustrating how traditional psychoanalytic theories may overlook the significant influence of cultural contexts. He thus emphasises that “one cannot speak of an ‘earlier’ or ‘deeper’ layer of self beyond culture,” thereby encouraging a deeper exploration and synthesis of the study of cultural and internal worlds.
While I appreciate the writing style, at times the book seems to sacrifice some of its academic rigour. On the other hand, this probably makes it more approachable for everyone. Certain chapters lean heavily on narrative and storytelling, with limited critical analysis, though the insights offered are nonetheless powerful and evocative.
Overall, an enjoyable and enlightening read — I’m definitely eager to explore more of Prof Kakar’s work!
While I appreciate the writing style, at times the book seems to sacrifice some of its academic rigour. On the other hand, this probably makes it more approachable for everyone. Certain chapters lean heavily on narrative and storytelling, with limited critical analysis, though the insights offered are nonetheless powerful and evocative.
Overall, an enjoyable and enlightening read — I’m definitely eager to explore more of Prof Kakar’s work!
November 28, 2020
The Introduction to the book was a bit dense and full of jargon. I almost gave up. However, the book itself is easy to read and very interesting. To understand a little bit about how people's minds work is quite fascinating.
July 8, 2025
At times, seems more like the author's journal than a serious study. Enjoyed the narrative style of the author, however, the long tales recounted/reproduced in the chapters turned frustrating at times.
February 24, 2023
Underwhelming… especially considering we authored the Kamasutra and Anagaranga.
Meh.
Meh.
September 7, 2023
Some really interesting things to take from it.
But 90% is just long af and repetitive.
And the guy also writes like an English teacher trying to waffle or fill in a word count
Ok now I finished it it was actually really good. The story’s and the chapter on Gandhi especially, we actually have a lot of the same views
But 90% is just long af and repetitive.
And the guy also writes like an English teacher trying to waffle or fill in a word count
Ok now I finished it it was actually really good. The story’s and the chapter on Gandhi especially, we actually have a lot of the same views
March 17, 2017
Interesting. A worth knowing interpretation of various forms of Indian narratives. Succinctly written.
April 4, 2013
It is indeed an extra-ordinary work. It is anthropological & psychological study about Indian sexuality and intimate relationships. It was a good read but not a quick one as it is thought-provoking. The chapter Gandhi and Women made me look back at my notes on Gandhi and his sexuality. Another chapter 'Husband and others' takes you to the slums of Delhi and self-narratives of Janak and Basanti is insightful. I will give it a four star.
June 11, 2009
Pretty interesting book. I can imagine that it must have been more shocking in the 90s, when it was first published. I'd love to see an updated version, especially focused more on the educated urban Indian population. One criticism is that the Freudian analysis of myth/stories/sexuality seems a bit dated.
February 27, 2015
It is a therapy in the form of a book. A must read for anyone who has/wants to delve in the mystical realms of intimate desires & erotic fantasies, which are ever elusive and convoluted as our small intestines are...
December 1, 2015
Offered me a compelling rethinking of gender relations in the Indian context
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews