Thread: Kama Sutra a feminist book of erotic love?

Does the world's oldest textbook of erotic love need to be redeemed and accorded its proper place as a literary landmark of India's rich heritage?



American Indologist Wendy Doniger, who teaches at the University of Chicago and has written nearly half a dozen books on Hinduism, believes so.
But why? After all, Kama Sutra, written in Sanskrit - the literary language of ancient India - by Vatsyayana, who claimed to be a celibate himself, is possibly the most celebrated treatise on love and sex.
Google Kama Sutra and it spits out more than 14 million results in less than a second. There are Kama Sutra condoms, toys, wristwatches, apps, chocolates, a TV series and films. Cosmopolitan magazine published Cosmo Kama Sutra, offering "12 brand-new mattress-quaking sex styles".
This may be part of the reason why Doniger, who has also written a translation of the Kama Sutra, is looking to rescue the book from the "enormous misunderstanding in which most people hold it".
"They think it is a silly book about sexual positions, or a dirty book about sexual positions, and they are embarrassed to read it," Doniger tells me.
Sophisticated
"I want the reading public to know that it is a fascinating book about the subtle interactions between men and women in a highly civilised world, that it is full of profound psychological observations and very good advice about how to get married, how to stay married, and, yes, how to commit adultery."
The result is Doniger's compelling new book The Mare's Trap, published by Speaking Tiger, which attempts to change the conventional understanding of Kama Sutra as a kooky book on sex and improbable sexual positions.
In her telling, the Kama Sutra is a sophisticated and courageous text, which assumes a kind of sexual freedom for women that would have raised the hackles of today's puritanical censors.
For one, for most of his book, Vatsyayana ignores the idea of sex for procreation and is only concerned with the sexual goal of pleasure.
In a way, he challenges the dharma (the moral duties and responsibilities of a Hindu) of fertility, laid down in an ancient Hindu text, the Manusmriti, which says the man has a duty to have sex with his wife during her fertile period.




Is Kama Sutra a feminist book of erotic love? - BBC News

Isn't the KS one of the first examples of encryption?

According to the book a man becomes irresistible to women if he ties the bone of a peacock or hyena which has been covered in gold to his right hand.

It's the gold wot does it.