Gigi Engle, ACS, CSE, CSC is a certified sex educator and author based in Chicago, Illinois.ĭebra Laino, DHS is a sex therapist and the author of The Missing Link: A Fusion of Sexuality, Psychology, Lifespan Development and You. Ruth Vanita, PhD is a professor of South and Southeast Asian studies at the University of Montana. But, she adds, 'Unfortunately, people still use these reductive, racist ideas to think about Indian sexuality in the past and present.'ĭurba Mitra, PhD is an assistant professor of women's, gender, and sexuality studies at Harvard University, and author of Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought. The 'distortion' of the book happened 'in part because the first edition of Kama Sutra in English was done by colonial enthusiast-and Orientalist-Richard Burton in the late nineteenth century,' she explains.īurton 'wanted to create a fantasy for his English-speaking audience by portraying people of the East as hypersexual and unchanging, without history,' notes Mitra. The original set of texts that became known as Kama Sutra 'were actually about everything from urban living to statecraft, from perfumes to gardens,' Mitra says.

' Kama Sutra is a book of philosophy on ethics and aesthetics, never just an ancient text on sexual positions and sexual pleasure.' and other parts of the western world,' says Durba Mitra, PhD, an assistant professor of women, gender, and sexuality at Harvard University, and author of Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought. 'The Kama Sutra has been quite distorted in how it has circulated in translation in the U.S. 'It's interesting that the law brought over by the colonisers said that was an 'unnatural act', and those are the same words that my dad used,' says Lokesh.The Kama Sutra, written by Indian philosopher Vatsyayana, has garnered a lot of attention for acting as a guidebook to what seems like every sex position ever-but the ancient Sanskrit text is so much more than a reference book for intricate genital gymnastics. Homosexual acts were rendered a criminal offence until 2018, when the law was overturned.ĭespite the legal judgment, seen as a victory for India's LGBTQIA+ community, Lokesh believes the legacy of the laws live on.

'Anything that deviated from the norm on ideas about the family, sexuality male and female behaviour was seen as deviant.'Īnti-sodomy laws were imposed by British officials in India from 1861. ' couldn't go around the whole place, stamping out the hijras and forcing them to stop doing what they were doing, but what they did was create a kind of social construct,' she explains.

Loading YouTube content The influence of the BritishĪccording to Devleena Ghosh, a professor in social and political sciences at the University of Technology, India's colonisation by Britain was a significant contributor.

Karma sutra sex position