Saloni Meghani (BangaloreMirror.com, March 13, 2011)
New translation straightens out some common myths about the Sanskrit original
The Kama Sutra is NOT about convoluted sexual positions. Not just, at any rate. It is also about how to decorate your home if you’re a gentleman, how to treat your man if you’re a wife, [and sexual misconduct such as] how to get a subject’s wife into your chamber if you’re a king, and how to get a client to loosen his purse strings if you’re a courtesan.
New translation straightens out some common myths about the Sanskrit original
The Kama Sutra is NOT about convoluted sexual positions. Not just, at any rate. It is also about how to decorate your home if you’re a gentleman, how to treat your man if you’re a wife, [and sexual misconduct such as] how to get a subject’s wife into your chamber if you’re a king, and how to get a client to loosen his purse strings if you’re a courtesan.
[Left out of the discussion is the futuristic practice of sex with automatons, which its ancient authors would probably have discouraged, not being in the habit of advocating robotic or mechanical sex. But goodness knows they were familiar with more advanced technology than we have yet been given, so any soul-crushing or otherwise debasing practice is possible.]
Then there are bits on how to increase size, a subject much-favored in Spam Land (massage paste, etc.). Scholar A.N.D. Haksar, whose recent translation of the Sanskrit original has gotten rave reviews, wants to set the record straight: There are many popular misconceptions about the much-fetishized text. For one, illustrated positions are not in the original.
“The erotic aspect of the Kama Sutra has received attention, but the rest has been marginalized. It is also about social relations between men and women. Only one of seven sections is about sexual intercourse. The others are about courtship, marriage, polygamy, life in a harem, extra-marital affairs, and aphrodisiacs,” he says. [That ought to set the record straight.]
This makes the 2,000-year-old work almost New Age. There are many books, articles, and Web pages on how to lead our lives, including the most intimate aspects. More>>
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