After Ajeet’s village, he turns me loose on the temples at Khajuraho.
Heads up, these temples are covered in scenes from the Kama Sutra. So, parents reading with kids, kids reading with parents, and anyone who wants to turn back now, this is the point of no return.
Everyone want to be here? Everyone allowed to be here? Good.
The Kama Sutra is one of India’s oldest documents, and probably it’s most misrepresented. The Kama Sutra, contrary to popular opinion, is not a manual on how to have sex, although there is a chapter on that, and it is often marketed that way to people who don’t know better and generally have no idea what they’re doing in the bedroom or want to “experiment” and think that a two thousand year old sex manual will help them out more than an honest conversation with their partner.
Instead, the Kama Sutra is a marriage manual. It has chapters covering selecting a wife, how to be a good lover, how to act around other men’s wives and courtesans, the duties and privileges of a wife and a hundred other things, including sex positions. There’s also a section on occult practices, which is code for not being able to get it up.
The temples at Khajraho were put together by the local king, who faced with the unusual problem of not having enough of a population, decided to use religion to encourage people to get busy. Now that’s some long-term thinking. Apparently the best way to do this was to cover all your temples with images of a good old-fashioned orgy.
Heads up, these temples are covered in scenes from the Kama Sutra. So, parents reading with kids, kids reading with parents, and anyone who wants to turn back now, this is the point of no return.
Everyone want to be here? Everyone allowed to be here? Good.
The Kama Sutra is one of India’s oldest documents, and probably it’s most misrepresented. The Kama Sutra, contrary to popular opinion, is not a manual on how to have sex, although there is a chapter on that, and it is often marketed that way to people who don’t know better and generally have no idea what they’re doing in the bedroom or want to “experiment” and think that a two thousand year old sex manual will help them out more than an honest conversation with their partner.
Instead, the Kama Sutra is a marriage manual. It has chapters covering selecting a wife, how to be a good lover, how to act around other men’s wives and courtesans, the duties and privileges of a wife and a hundred other things, including sex positions. There’s also a section on occult practices, which is code for not being able to get it up.
The temples at Khajraho were put together by the local king, who faced with the unusual problem of not having enough of a population, decided to use religion to encourage people to get busy. Now that’s some long-term thinking. Apparently the best way to do this was to cover all your temples with images of a good old-fashioned orgy.
Oh yeah. 3rd century style. Which is apparently upside down. And backwards.
-Doug
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