The Kamasutra is probably the first entertaining book on sexuality for millennia. But never in history had anybody updated it to show all forms of human love. So by updating the first book on sex, Sidaction’s Kamasutra+ raised awareness for the LGBT+ cause with artistic and creative expression and a joyful and colorful vision. The result is a positive and inclusive cultural object that isn’t assimilated with an institutional or preventive campaign but is a fun book about all the pleasures love can bring…regardless of our genders, bodies, or sexual identies. And what’s better entertainment than sex?!

Sidaction, the leading French association in the fight against HIV, wanted to celebrate the diversity of love while also defending the LGBT+ community that is still poorly represented and that has been dear to them for many years. And they wanted to remind us of the importance of safe sex and taking precautions, so that all types of love can be protected.

The LGBT+ community is still poorly visible and represented. There is a lack of representation and comprehension of their cause, and very few visible campaigns that proudly support it. Through Sidaction’s eyes, the acceptance of oneself and of all sexualities is one of the key elements of enjoying good sexual health and fighting against HIV. But today, the LGBT+ community still suffers from many forms of discrimination that weigh on the mental, physical and sexual health of its members.

So by creating the first Kamamustra+ ever, Sidaction spoke directly to the LGBT+ community who reacted to this campaign and approved this book extremely quickly. We even decided to republish it at their request. This showed how important it was to bring a concrete, material object as a response to the lack of the community’s representation.

In order to change our representation of love, we used the most famous book on sexuality in the world, the Kamasutra. And we created the Kamasutra+, the first LGBT+ version of the Kamasutra. We worked with 69 French and international illustrators from the LGBT+ community. The Kamasutra+ represented, for the first time ever, all genders, all bodies, all sexual preferences, in short, all love, in one dedicated book! A book of love and commitment, prefaced by French singer Eddy de Pretto.

With this book, we wanted to create a cultural object that would promote an inclusive and positive representation of love. A colorful and joyful vision! An object that was both a wonderful gift to offer somebody and an educational tool for diversity. This was a way of conveying a message of tolerance and prevention with a beautiful object.

We contacted various French and international artists from the LGBT+ community, through the association, its contacts and social media networks. We then had various meetings face to face with each of them so that they could express themselves freely, but with a common objective that was the book’s message.

The book was available from September 2022 in France and Belgium in bookshops, at various book fairs and on social media.

The visual universe was also further brought to life at the Paris Pride festival and decorated the Sidaction float.

The publication of the book was a huge success and greatly exceeded our expectations in terms of speed and scope. It positioned Sidaction as a loving and loved brand, even more so than before. Not just in its approach to representativeness, but also in the creativity the brand managed to express in its fight. This was reflected by the LGBT+ community as the book was very successful, selling out very quickly, to the point where, by popular demand, it will be republished in the summer of 2023.

The impact of this campaign and the book is on-going today, many months after the release and the following results are likely to improve in the future:

Sold out in 5 days

10 partner bookstores in France and Belgium

+5.6M people exposed to the campaign

+64 relay posts on social networks, by the media and influencers

25 press reports (print, digital, TV, radio)

In the entertainment industry, the LGBT+ community is still poorly represented, even though it’s gained visibility over time, this is still in a limited and disparate way. So with the Kamasutra+, it was the first time ever that all LGBT+ representations were gathered together in one place, one object. We materialized a fight, a commitment, but not with fighting rhetoric, rather with a joyful, colorful, entertaining, positive universe. We created a concrete, lasting object. An object that people could give to each other as a gift, so that the message could pass on through the next generations. No book, movie, TV show, series, social network, or media had ever shown what we represented in one object.