Not really. I think that you tend to argue in bad faith, but I don’t think everyone does. I also think that American political spaces, including South Asian ones, are to the right of most political spaces in the industrialised world at least, if not the whole world. Which is one of the reasons why my opinions come across as narrow and why my opinions actually are (or at least have been) more narrow than they might otherwise be. However, my perception of this conversation is of a forthrightnbess from you that I haven’t perceived in the past – I don’t know whether that’s from my side or yours, but anyway, thank you or apologies, whichever is more appropriate. To elaborate on my apology above, I missed a key line in your paragraph on the treatment of race and power (where you said you agree with understnading subjective positioning) which is what led me to think you ewre making a much blunter and more bad faith critique than you actually were, so again, apologies.

However, I would suggest that if you’re going to make broad characterizations about groups, you do as you did at the end and be very specific about the group of people you’re talking about. I need to do the same more often as well (e.g. libertarianism vs. conservative american libertarianism).

Yes Kama Sutra is an interesting read. But there’s not much in it that is of practical use in today’s world other than the positions.

RE: tantra.

Authentic Indic tantra has nothing whatsoever to do with female pleasure or multiple orgasms. In that sense, the Western appropriated “tantra” is much more female friendly and congruent with the times. I think Indian male tantrics would do well to take heed.

The conflation of Tantra with Kama Sutra is another Western fabrication, but again, it bodes well for women so we can’t knock it.

It still makes for an interesting read for those of us who have an interest in history. Beyond the sexual positions it details other factoids about family structure and norms regarding personal hygiene. It’s a book with a much more holistic look at sexuality and marital relations than the “compendium of sexual positions” image it has in popular culture.

As for Tantra, that’s a whole discipline and school of philosophical thought of which lasting longer in bed is a rather minor and ancillary facet.

Manju: “True. But you can’t use a moral argument to defeat a metaphysical one. It may be insulting to women to say they are tools of the patriarchy, but that doesn’t mean they are not in fact tools. comprendez?”

i certainly do comprendo, manju. I do now. But you’d think they make those tools more compliant if the makers are so powerful.

Really? Who would’ve thought?

I’d say from the Kama Sutra there is not much more than the positions that one can interpret or popularize for contemporary culture, because all of the other stuff is reflective of another era (and specific culture) and doesn’t compute nowadays, even in India.