As I said before, there’s an answer to why the Indian culture became “obsessed” with “sculptured erotica”.
It’s in the Kama Sutra – literally “love teachings”.
A sutra is a text used in worship or teaching, and Kama was the god of love in Hinduism – love not only of a romantic or sexual nature, but love in its platonic, filial, and fraternal forms as well. It’s why his “bosom companion” Basant, the god of spring, is mentioned and featured besides Rati, his female consort. India had been accepting of gender fluidity long before it became a contemporary thing – Hindu mythology is full of instances of gods and goddesses assuming forms of different genders.
To Hindus – proper Hindus, old-school Hindus, not the fanatical reactionary Hindutva conservatives or any pseudo-Hindus of modern India – nudity was not considered vulgar. It was an early example of body positivity, coupled with a celebration of plumpness evocative of the once semi-revered British idiom “well-fed”.
Nudity and its depiction were treated as body positivity, as worship of the divine within each human soul. The positions described in the Kama Sutra talk about each partner worshiping their partner in turn, caring for each other’s sensitivities and the sensations they experience. The physical act of love was treated as a ritual involving the communing of each other’s souls.
The puritanism associated with Hindus today actually came about as a result of the British invasion, through the social-climbing processes of Sanskritization and early Westernization. In his essay “Decolonizing the Indian Mind”, Namvar Singh details the process in a far more meticulous manner than a comment board will usually allow.
But the bottom line is, nudity was not vulgar in Hinduism, and gender fluidity was not taboo. Every concept the LGBTQ community strives to defend, include, and inhabit – the Hindus had it first. They just forgot it all after centuries under British heels, and aren’t ready to find their way back yet.
As I said before, there’s an answer to why the Indian culture became “obsessed” with “sculptured erotica”.
It’s in the Kama Sutra – literally “love teachings”.
A sutra is a text used in worship or teaching, and Kama was the god of love in Hinduism – love not only of a romantic or sexual nature, but love in its platonic, filial, and fraternal forms as well. It’s why his “bosom companion” Basant, the god of spring, is mentioned and featured besides Rati, his female consort. India had been accepting of gender fluidity long before it became a contemporary thing – Hindu mythology is full of instances of gods and goddesses assuming forms of different genders.
To Hindus – proper Hindus, old-school Hindus, not the fanatical reactionary Hindutva conservatives or any pseudo-Hindus of modern India – nudity was not considered vulgar. It was an early example of body positivity, coupled with a celebration of plumpness evocative of the once semi-revered British idiom “well-fed”.
Nudity and its depiction were treated as body positivity, as worship of the divine within each human soul. The positions described in the Kama Sutra talk about each partner worshiping their partner in turn, caring for each other’s sensitivities and the sensations they experience. The physical act of love was treated as a ritual involving the communing of each other’s souls.
The puritanism associated with Hindus today actually came about as a result of the British invasion, through the social-climbing processes of Sanskritization and early Westernization. In his essay “Decolonizing the Indian Mind”, Namvar Singh details the process in a far more meticulous manner than a comment board will usually allow.
But the bottom line is, nudity was not vulgar in Hinduism, and gender fluidity was not taboo. Every concept the LGBTQ community strives to defend, include, and inhabit – the Hindus had it first. They just forgot it all after centuries under British heels, and aren’t ready to find their way back yet.