EROTIC TEXTS OF INDIA: Rediscover Kamasutra and more.

DESCRIPTION

What if I tell you that the word Yoni and Lingam do not appear anywhere in the original Kamasutra? The book was intentionally written as vague as possible, to accommodate a variety of pleasure-seeking behaviors, and not just highlight the cis-het-amatonormative versions.

In 1883, Kamasutra made its first appearance in English Literature, published by the Hindoo Kama Shastra Society. However, that organization never existed. It was a fictitious body created by Sir Richard Francis Burton and his associate, Forster Fitzgerald Arbuthnot. Its sole purpose was to circumvent the Victorian-era obscenity laws (Obscene Publications Act 1857). And so, “Kamasutra” was published by the English as a foreign academic work, as opposed to domestic pornography. Everything we know about Kamasutra is subjected to orientalist fabrications.

Kama, loosely translated as pleasure, in the original work of Kamasutra is defined as “the harmonious engagement of the ears, skin, eyes, tongue and nose with their respective sense objects, all regulated by the mind, which is itself connected to the Self. Further, through a particular kind of touch, it leads to fruitful sensory experience, which is filled with a delight arising from erotic arousal; that is the highest from of pleasure.”
This definition helps understand Kama from a more nuanced perspective, from looking into human faculties, as opposed to just sex. To merely reduce these reads to sex manuals, disregards a rich scholarship dedicated to understanding complexities of human desire.

“Pleasure is increasingly commodified through a manufacturing sense of pleasure deficit, casting pleasure as something to be acquired, something to be enhanced, optimized or normalized in your bodies.” – Shubham Arora, University of British Columbia

Kamashastra is concerned with the nature, aesthetics and bodies of pleasure, one among many manuals of the era, namely Dharmashastra, Arthashastra and Mokshashastra. The well-known version of these texts, are a compilation by Vatsyayana called Kamasutra, Aphorisms of Pleasure (300-400 CE). Several other premodern erotic texts didn’t receive the same popularity, such as Kokkoka’s Ratirahasya, Secrets of Lovemaking (1200 CE), Padmashri’s Nagararasarvasva, Everything an Urban Gentleman Needs to Know (1100-1200 CE), Rudrabhatta’s Sringaratilaka, The Ornament of Love (before 1173 CE) and Sangam Akkam Literature in Tamil (300 BCE-300 CE). In fact, today, a little over 30 erotic texts in Sanskrit have been revived, translated and studied.

Today, these texts are reduced to mere oriental fantasies, subjected to sexualization, commodification, Sanskritic nationalism. In the West, these texts pave the path for promotion of “wellness” retreats, digital dating apps, and sexual/spiritual tourism, often hosted in countries of the Global South, promoting capitalistic exploitation.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. By the end of the session, attendees will be able to deconstruct orientalist fantasies from interpretations of Kamashastra.
2. By the end of the session, attendees will be able to analyze the impact of social reform movements, rising nationalism and role of colonialism on the sanitization and eroticization of the texts.
3. By the end of the session, attendees will be able to deconstruct complexities of human desire, as expressed by different authors over centuries.

EDUCATOR BIO