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The Kama Sutra Diaries: Intimate Journeys through Modern India
Sally Howard, a self-confessed child of the Western Sexual Revolution, sets out on a sexploration through modern India by train, plane and auto-rickshaw.
From the heat of anti-rape protest on the streets of New Delhi to the cool hills of Shimla, playground of the Raj; from a Gujurati retirement home for gay men and eunuchs to a busy sex clinic in Chennai; from patriarchs to matriarchs; GIGs (Good Indian Girls), BIGs (Bad Indian Girls) and the fleshpots of Bombay, she accompanied by feisty Delhi girl Dimple lifts the bed sheets on India's sexual revolution.
And it's a revolution that's full of fascinating surprises and contrasts; for India - the land that gave us that exuberant guide to sexual pleasure, the Kama Sutra - is also the land where women remain cloistered in purdah while teenage girls check out porn online; where families bow down to a conjoined phallus and vagina, the Shivaling, while couples fear to hold hands in public; and where the loveless arranged marriage is still the norm.
Colourful, compelling, confounding, The Kama Sutra Diaries reveal what India has to tell us about modern-day love, sex and sexuality.
From the heat of anti-rape protest on the streets of New Delhi to the cool hills of Shimla, playground of the Raj; from a Gujurati retirement home for gay men and eunuchs to a busy sex clinic in Chennai; from patriarchs to matriarchs; GIGs (Good Indian Girls), BIGs (Bad Indian Girls) and the fleshpots of Bombay, she accompanied by feisty Delhi girl Dimple lifts the bed sheets on India's sexual revolution.
And it's a revolution that's full of fascinating surprises and contrasts; for India - the land that gave us that exuberant guide to sexual pleasure, the Kama Sutra - is also the land where women remain cloistered in purdah while teenage girls check out porn online; where families bow down to a conjoined phallus and vagina, the Shivaling, while couples fear to hold hands in public; and where the loveless arranged marriage is still the norm.
Colourful, compelling, confounding, The Kama Sutra Diaries reveal what India has to tell us about modern-day love, sex and sexuality.
228 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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201 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
March 10, 2024
3.5
ahhhhhh, uwielbiam Indie but I hate man
ahhhhhh, uwielbiam Indie but I hate man
May 31, 2022
This book was beautiful and I am so glad I read them. The author discussed about the sexual revolution in India, before and after British colonisation. Since India is such a huge country, the author very well researched and wrote her findings pertaining the topic, of people from North I/II, South and East. I also appreciate the author talking about the rise of rape cases linking with the pornification of Indian medias.
My favourite part:
- In India, marriage is assumed to be the cure for everything. Oh you’re loney? Get married. You think your son is gay? Get him married, he’ll be fine. It is just a phase. You’re daughter is a workaholic? Find her a groom. She’ll slow down when she is married. This perception is usually by the elderly and when the younger gen has no option but to fulfill them, they resort to arrange marriage most of the time (ofc after having to look at their horoscope compatibility and CASTE). The elder now expects their son/daughter to have sex with a stranger whom they married a day ago (with an intention of wanting a child soon) and this just creates pressure in their sex life.
- In Chennai, the author interviewed a gynaecologist and it is found that modern couples come to the hospital only to learn a very basic level of sex and intimacy. Sex education failed.
My favourite part:
- In India, marriage is assumed to be the cure for everything. Oh you’re loney? Get married. You think your son is gay? Get him married, he’ll be fine. It is just a phase. You’re daughter is a workaholic? Find her a groom. She’ll slow down when she is married. This perception is usually by the elderly and when the younger gen has no option but to fulfill them, they resort to arrange marriage most of the time (ofc after having to look at their horoscope compatibility and CASTE). The elder now expects their son/daughter to have sex with a stranger whom they married a day ago (with an intention of wanting a child soon) and this just creates pressure in their sex life.
- In Chennai, the author interviewed a gynaecologist and it is found that modern couples come to the hospital only to learn a very basic level of sex and intimacy. Sex education failed.
December 14, 2013
The sexual revolution in India is a massive subject to approach, but Sally Howard has criss-crossed the country in her quest for some understanding and to gain answers. She has drawn many parallels with the sexual revolution that happened in Britain in the 1960s, and further back to the period of the Raj, when there was such confluence of cultures, at a time when the 'Britishers', of course, had a huge amount of influence over the varied and colourful native culture in India.
Her research is a fascinating tour of sexual mores, cultural identity and paradoxes that pervade the country. Often in the company of her travelling companion, Dimple, Sally sets off to explore the Kama Sutra - the sexual pleasure guide - in terms of the present day and the past. It is not a voyeuristic journey of discovery but an interesting sashay through the highs and lows of of sex and lovemaking both in rural areas and the cosmopolitan cities.
Sally's journey starts out in Madhya Pradesh (and fortunately for those who are not overly familiar with India, there is a simple map at the beginning of the book) where she views the lusty friezes of the temple complexes at Khajuraho. This is where we first meet the goddess Kali and her yoni (vulva), which is depicted as pealed open ready to take the phallus. And this pretty much sets the tone for this travelogue through India, position impossible; journeying from dance schools in Kerala where the sensuous Mohiniyattam dance is undergoing a revival, to Bollywood splendour in Bombay, body builders in Amritsar and to Meghalay, where it's all different (and where the proverbial boot is on the other foot, and this is not about foot fetishes).
The British feature heavily in India's sexual development, and at the turn of the 20th century they brought with them the prudery and repression extolled by the Purity Campaigners that featured so heavily in the Victorian period (and no, it was never true that the Victorians covered up the legs of their grand pianos, because those piano legs were too reminiscent of a woman's well-turned ankle!). But Sally introduces her readers to some curious devices aimed at killing ardour, like the Stephenson Spermatic Truss, but there are just too many contraptions to mention in detail here. The rate of venereal disease amongst the soldiers stationed in India was much higher than in Britain at that time and there was a burgeoning move towards 'the exotic' across the Empire, which enabled sexual exploration that simply wasn't possible at home in Britain - think of Kitchener, stationed in Widlflower Hall at Shimla, who was a scopophiliac (in his case, gazing at nude young men). The wives of the officers were often left alone for long stints up in the hills in Shimla (the Summer camp for the Raj) and had free reign over the younger soldiers (these women were truly the first cougars). Frankly, it sounds like it was a hotbed of bed hopping!
In present day India there is the arranged marriage, which sits alongside eve-teasing (women suffering molestation) and the reality of a high level of rapes (and as we know, this can also result in death). 60% of marriages in India, says the book, currently suffer degrees of Domestic Violence and Abuse, and 40% of the world's child marriages take place on this continent. Power still largely lies with the male in society and with those who promote a powerful male culture. Yet there are some savvy women - who feature in the book - making some small waves and seeking a more liberated sexual life, whilst negotiating the constraints of traditional values.
This book highlights the vast array of mixed messages and confusion around what is - and what is not - acceptable in the world of sex, both then and now. It underlines that increasingly in modern day India change and upheaval are afoot. Old traditions valued gender-variant men, but under the Britishers, gay sex (or any sex perceived to be 'deviant') was criminalised in 1860, and it is only recently that those ostracised are finding their way back into society. Essentially many groups of people were seen to be a commodity, with the Britisher soldiers sating their lust back in the day; or the old tradition whereby Indian wives would throw themselves on the pyres of their husbands in Varanasi; or the child prostitutes who are still in evidence today.
Today, little is taught about sex in many levels of Indian Culture, so Sally stops off in Chennai (the city of fire), to have a chat with sexologist Dr Narayana Reddy to get the low down on sex education. Ignorance is certainly not bliss for many of the patients he sees and there seems to be quite a parallel between Edwardian England when Dr Marie Stopes was doing her pioneering work and some of the lack of knowledge present in India today (and sadly also in the UK, let's not forget). Pornography is hugely consumed and gives unrealistic expectations amongst modern day young people, especially when the fundamentals of sexual congress are missing.
Overall this is a hugely fascinating exploration of how 90 years of British suzerainty, blended with the polarities of exotic sex and repressed sex, have left modern day Indians struggling with their sexual identity in so many ways. It is full of interesting facts, both on the sex front and more general - whether it is that the Keralan dancers insert chundanga seeds near to their tear ducts to give their eyes a highly desirable bloodshot appearance, or the sadhus in Varanasi who sate their primordial urges, whether sexual (in graveyards) or spiritual (never mind that they find human skulls to make bowls from which to eat their food).
You will definitely come away from reading this book with a greater knowledge of lesser known India, about sexual proclivities and about the clash of cultures in history. A fascinating book.
Her research is a fascinating tour of sexual mores, cultural identity and paradoxes that pervade the country. Often in the company of her travelling companion, Dimple, Sally sets off to explore the Kama Sutra - the sexual pleasure guide - in terms of the present day and the past. It is not a voyeuristic journey of discovery but an interesting sashay through the highs and lows of of sex and lovemaking both in rural areas and the cosmopolitan cities.
Sally's journey starts out in Madhya Pradesh (and fortunately for those who are not overly familiar with India, there is a simple map at the beginning of the book) where she views the lusty friezes of the temple complexes at Khajuraho. This is where we first meet the goddess Kali and her yoni (vulva), which is depicted as pealed open ready to take the phallus. And this pretty much sets the tone for this travelogue through India, position impossible; journeying from dance schools in Kerala where the sensuous Mohiniyattam dance is undergoing a revival, to Bollywood splendour in Bombay, body builders in Amritsar and to Meghalay, where it's all different (and where the proverbial boot is on the other foot, and this is not about foot fetishes).
The British feature heavily in India's sexual development, and at the turn of the 20th century they brought with them the prudery and repression extolled by the Purity Campaigners that featured so heavily in the Victorian period (and no, it was never true that the Victorians covered up the legs of their grand pianos, because those piano legs were too reminiscent of a woman's well-turned ankle!). But Sally introduces her readers to some curious devices aimed at killing ardour, like the Stephenson Spermatic Truss, but there are just too many contraptions to mention in detail here. The rate of venereal disease amongst the soldiers stationed in India was much higher than in Britain at that time and there was a burgeoning move towards 'the exotic' across the Empire, which enabled sexual exploration that simply wasn't possible at home in Britain - think of Kitchener, stationed in Widlflower Hall at Shimla, who was a scopophiliac (in his case, gazing at nude young men). The wives of the officers were often left alone for long stints up in the hills in Shimla (the Summer camp for the Raj) and had free reign over the younger soldiers (these women were truly the first cougars). Frankly, it sounds like it was a hotbed of bed hopping!
In present day India there is the arranged marriage, which sits alongside eve-teasing (women suffering molestation) and the reality of a high level of rapes (and as we know, this can also result in death). 60% of marriages in India, says the book, currently suffer degrees of Domestic Violence and Abuse, and 40% of the world's child marriages take place on this continent. Power still largely lies with the male in society and with those who promote a powerful male culture. Yet there are some savvy women - who feature in the book - making some small waves and seeking a more liberated sexual life, whilst negotiating the constraints of traditional values.
This book highlights the vast array of mixed messages and confusion around what is - and what is not - acceptable in the world of sex, both then and now. It underlines that increasingly in modern day India change and upheaval are afoot. Old traditions valued gender-variant men, but under the Britishers, gay sex (or any sex perceived to be 'deviant') was criminalised in 1860, and it is only recently that those ostracised are finding their way back into society. Essentially many groups of people were seen to be a commodity, with the Britisher soldiers sating their lust back in the day; or the old tradition whereby Indian wives would throw themselves on the pyres of their husbands in Varanasi; or the child prostitutes who are still in evidence today.
Today, little is taught about sex in many levels of Indian Culture, so Sally stops off in Chennai (the city of fire), to have a chat with sexologist Dr Narayana Reddy to get the low down on sex education. Ignorance is certainly not bliss for many of the patients he sees and there seems to be quite a parallel between Edwardian England when Dr Marie Stopes was doing her pioneering work and some of the lack of knowledge present in India today (and sadly also in the UK, let's not forget). Pornography is hugely consumed and gives unrealistic expectations amongst modern day young people, especially when the fundamentals of sexual congress are missing.
Overall this is a hugely fascinating exploration of how 90 years of British suzerainty, blended with the polarities of exotic sex and repressed sex, have left modern day Indians struggling with their sexual identity in so many ways. It is full of interesting facts, both on the sex front and more general - whether it is that the Keralan dancers insert chundanga seeds near to their tear ducts to give their eyes a highly desirable bloodshot appearance, or the sadhus in Varanasi who sate their primordial urges, whether sexual (in graveyards) or spiritual (never mind that they find human skulls to make bowls from which to eat their food).
You will definitely come away from reading this book with a greater knowledge of lesser known India, about sexual proclivities and about the clash of cultures in history. A fascinating book.
November 21, 2014
This book is a gem! An astute sociological outlook on the modern approach to sex and sexuality in India and it's dichotomy with the apparent sexual freedoms of ancient India. Extremely well researched with the correct amount of anecdotal information, anthropological perspective and emotional elements, it kept me hooked till the last page!
March 18, 2025
Sally Howard, a self-confessed child of the Western Sexual Revolution, sets out on a sexploration through modern India by train, plane and auto-rickshaw.
She accompanied by feisty Delhi girl Dimple lifts the curtain of shame and disrespect prostitutes go through and adversities and how they came to this line and what forces them, to sell there body for money and family crisis and narrator called themselves sexual revolution for Indian.
From the protest against anti-rape on the streets of New Delhi in 2010 to the cool hills of Shimla red light areas, playground of the British Raj memoirs ; they left and what condition they left, from a Gujurati retirement home for gay men and eunuchs to a busy sex clinic in Chennai for people with stress and childlessness problem; from patriarchs to matriarchs; GIGs (Good Indian Girls), BIGs (Bad Indian Girls), gigolos and the fleshpots of Bombay, Kolkata and Delhi . Exploration of Madhya Pradesh and ajanta allora caves and figure of Kamasutra. India the land that gave us that exuberant guide to sexual pleasure, the Kama Sutra is also the land where women remain cloistered in purdah while coming generation of teenage girls check out porn online because of taboo and inquisitive nature; where families bow down to a conjoined phallus and vagina, the Shivaling , while couples fear to hold hands in public and women faces harrasment, Eve teasing, groping and other mal practice in public places and vehicles; and where the loveless arranged marriage is still the norm, and women sold for dowry or child marriage killed the child in them with responsibility and society shame on them forced them to do prostitution work. The Kama Sutra Diaries reveal what India has to tell us about modern-day love, sex and sexuality.
She accompanied by feisty Delhi girl Dimple lifts the curtain of shame and disrespect prostitutes go through and adversities and how they came to this line and what forces them, to sell there body for money and family crisis and narrator called themselves sexual revolution for Indian.
From the protest against anti-rape on the streets of New Delhi in 2010 to the cool hills of Shimla red light areas, playground of the British Raj memoirs ; they left and what condition they left, from a Gujurati retirement home for gay men and eunuchs to a busy sex clinic in Chennai for people with stress and childlessness problem; from patriarchs to matriarchs; GIGs (Good Indian Girls), BIGs (Bad Indian Girls), gigolos and the fleshpots of Bombay, Kolkata and Delhi . Exploration of Madhya Pradesh and ajanta allora caves and figure of Kamasutra. India the land that gave us that exuberant guide to sexual pleasure, the Kama Sutra is also the land where women remain cloistered in purdah while coming generation of teenage girls check out porn online because of taboo and inquisitive nature; where families bow down to a conjoined phallus and vagina, the Shivaling , while couples fear to hold hands in public and women faces harrasment, Eve teasing, groping and other mal practice in public places and vehicles; and where the loveless arranged marriage is still the norm, and women sold for dowry or child marriage killed the child in them with responsibility and society shame on them forced them to do prostitution work. The Kama Sutra Diaries reveal what India has to tell us about modern-day love, sex and sexuality.
May 4, 2021
Autorka ciekawie opowiada o historii seksualności Indusów od odległych czasów Kamasutry po rewolucję obyczajową, która zapoczątkowała się ok. 10 lat temu po fali brutalnych gwałtów, o których usłyszał cały świat oraz wraz z upowszechnieniem się internetu. Howard od czasu do czasu wprowadza swoje przemyślenia, przemyślenia kobiety z Zachodu, a dokładniej Wielkiej Brytanii i jest ich, moim zdaniem, w sam raz - nie za dużo, nie za mało, na szczęście nie przyjmuje pozy uprzywilejowanej, 'wszechwiedzącej' Brytyjki. Swoją opowieść wzbogaciła natomiast o wątek roli swojej ojczyzny w ewolucji indyjskiej seksualności.
January 8, 2019
Spodziewałem się więcej bo temat bardzo ciekawy. Zwłaszcza że dość często bywam w Indiach. Książka nie porwała.
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July 8, 2021Lots of stereotypes.
Want to read
June 7, 2024The motif of the 'dark-skinned rapist'
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March 10, 2016This book proved somewhat of a mixed bag for me, throwing together the annoying and the interesting in about equal measure. I will have to admit, though, that at least the degree of my displeasure with some aspects of The Kama Sutra Diaries may not have been Sally Howard’s fault – it was rather unfortunate for her that I read her book with India: A Million Mutinies Now still fairly fresh in my mind. One cannot really blame Sally Howard for not being V.S. Naipaul, and it is decidedly unfair to compare her book about sexual mores in India past and present to what may very well be one of the greatest travel books of the last century – but it is really hard, if not entirely impossible, to avoid if one encounters them in such close proximity; so I’m giving advance warning that this review should be taken with even more grains of salt than usual.
Sally Howard shows that she is chiefly a journalist (rather than someone with literary ambitions for her book) by frequently catering to the lowest common denominator in her readers – even though the current level of general education may be at an all time low, is it really necessary to assume readers are not familiar with the names of Richard F. Burton and Sigmund Freud? This may not be a very essential point, and your mileage on this may vary, but I for one find it borderline insulting to have those names explained to me. Minor niggle though it may be, it does tell us something about the kind of reader Sally Howard seems to expect for her book, and that would help explain the other, somewhat more major issue I had with The Kama Sutra Diaries.
In spite of the book’s subtitle “Intimate Journeys Through Modern India”, the author thought it necessary to include several chapters on the history of sexuality in India. Which is not per se a bad idea, it even makes a lot of sense: It never can harm to have some historical context on what one is writing about, and the subject certainly is a fascinating one in and by itself. Unfortunately, however, Sally Howard does not appear to share that fascination, or else does not manage to transmit it very well, and as a result her treatment of it is cursory at best – those chapters of The Kama Sutra Diaries that concern themselves with history are very bland and not really all that informative either – they have all the appearance of being summaries of what tourist guides told the author and all the charm and depth of a Wikipedia entry. Obviously, this book is not meant to be academic and one should not expect too much detail and analysis from something which is, when everything is said and done, meant to be light reading. But even by standards of popular history this falls flat and completely fails to evoke any fascination about the vagaries of sexuality through the history of India, which one imagines would be considerable in the right hands, and instead gives us the listless drone of a bored tour guide.
However, the historical parts are only a few chapters which take up only a small part of the book; most of it concerns itself with contemporary India, and it is here where The Kamasutra Diaries finally start to shine. One can tell that Sally Howard has a real interest, and more, feels passion towards this aspect of her subject, and thus her travels through various parts of India (in company of an Indian friend going by the nom de guerre of Dimple who in the course of their travels contributes some illuminating commentary) exploring sexual mores and – the real emphasis of this book – through them, gender relations make for fascinating reading, offering insights into areas that weren’t covered by Naipaul and would be hard to come by for anyone not living in India. It also seemed to me that the contemporary parts were markedly better written, the author’s enthusiasm for her subject infusing her prose with a life the historical parts are noticeably lacking. She does remain more descriptive than analytical, but that is quite all right because she spreads out a wealth of varied information in front of readers who in all likelihood have not only hear of Burton and Freud but are also capable of drawing their own conclusions from the narrative Sally Howard provides.
What does emerge from this narrative (did for me, in any case) was a portrait of what it means to be a woman in present-day India, navigating a frequently difficult between traditions (very much a plural, and more often than not conflicted between themselves) and modernism, fear of repression and desire for freedom. This struggle is of course all-too familiar but it is was very interesting to see the shape it took and takes in India, and in the end, those aspects rather balanced out the annoying bits.
Sally Howard shows that she is chiefly a journalist (rather than someone with literary ambitions for her book) by frequently catering to the lowest common denominator in her readers – even though the current level of general education may be at an all time low, is it really necessary to assume readers are not familiar with the names of Richard F. Burton and Sigmund Freud? This may not be a very essential point, and your mileage on this may vary, but I for one find it borderline insulting to have those names explained to me. Minor niggle though it may be, it does tell us something about the kind of reader Sally Howard seems to expect for her book, and that would help explain the other, somewhat more major issue I had with The Kama Sutra Diaries.
In spite of the book’s subtitle “Intimate Journeys Through Modern India”, the author thought it necessary to include several chapters on the history of sexuality in India. Which is not per se a bad idea, it even makes a lot of sense: It never can harm to have some historical context on what one is writing about, and the subject certainly is a fascinating one in and by itself. Unfortunately, however, Sally Howard does not appear to share that fascination, or else does not manage to transmit it very well, and as a result her treatment of it is cursory at best – those chapters of The Kama Sutra Diaries that concern themselves with history are very bland and not really all that informative either – they have all the appearance of being summaries of what tourist guides told the author and all the charm and depth of a Wikipedia entry. Obviously, this book is not meant to be academic and one should not expect too much detail and analysis from something which is, when everything is said and done, meant to be light reading. But even by standards of popular history this falls flat and completely fails to evoke any fascination about the vagaries of sexuality through the history of India, which one imagines would be considerable in the right hands, and instead gives us the listless drone of a bored tour guide.
However, the historical parts are only a few chapters which take up only a small part of the book; most of it concerns itself with contemporary India, and it is here where The Kamasutra Diaries finally start to shine. One can tell that Sally Howard has a real interest, and more, feels passion towards this aspect of her subject, and thus her travels through various parts of India (in company of an Indian friend going by the nom de guerre of Dimple who in the course of their travels contributes some illuminating commentary) exploring sexual mores and – the real emphasis of this book – through them, gender relations make for fascinating reading, offering insights into areas that weren’t covered by Naipaul and would be hard to come by for anyone not living in India. It also seemed to me that the contemporary parts were markedly better written, the author’s enthusiasm for her subject infusing her prose with a life the historical parts are noticeably lacking. She does remain more descriptive than analytical, but that is quite all right because she spreads out a wealth of varied information in front of readers who in all likelihood have not only hear of Burton and Freud but are also capable of drawing their own conclusions from the narrative Sally Howard provides.
What does emerge from this narrative (did for me, in any case) was a portrait of what it means to be a woman in present-day India, navigating a frequently difficult between traditions (very much a plural, and more often than not conflicted between themselves) and modernism, fear of repression and desire for freedom. This struggle is of course all-too familiar but it is was very interesting to see the shape it took and takes in India, and in the end, those aspects rather balanced out the annoying bits.
August 4, 2014
This book was a fantastic read, and I'm not saying this just because I'm interning with the publishers. Yes, that *is* how I got around to reading it, but I'm a 100% sure that had I seen it in any bookstore or library, I would have picked it up just the same, read it, and thoroughly enjoyed it too. Why, you ask? Well, first of there's the title that's almost impossible to miss. The cover art doesn't hurt either, and the back cover copy as well as images are right on point and gives the prospective reader a very clear idea of what the book is about (it is NOT a translation of Vatsyayana's well-known Kama Sutra guidebook, but an investigative journal that chronicles the rise and decline of India's sexual climate and its ongoing sexual revolution).
So...where do I start?
Howard's writing style is great, being both informative and conversational at once and she doesn't fall too deep into the trap that most Western people do when talking about "exotic" India. She addresses its history, people, and issues just as they are and I saw only a few glimpses here and there that made me think that being a white woman talking about the sexual oppression in a not-at-all white country, she lacked perspective.
My only issue with the book would be that it seems a tad biased. Howard seems to believe that sexual oppression in India was a direct result of the British colonizers and does not talk about how the Indian society was already denouncing their "kama" ways before the Britishers came around. I'm also not entirely in agreement with her conclusion, or rather, her hope that "India's sexual revolution will be infused with its ancient myth and spirituality, and with the inheritance of the great Indian love stories."
Other than that, this is a marvelous book that really did need to be written and published. Do read it as a light-hearted journalistic travelogue. I wholeheartedly recommend it!
So...where do I start?
Howard's writing style is great, being both informative and conversational at once and she doesn't fall too deep into the trap that most Western people do when talking about "exotic" India. She addresses its history, people, and issues just as they are and I saw only a few glimpses here and there that made me think that being a white woman talking about the sexual oppression in a not-at-all white country, she lacked perspective.
My only issue with the book would be that it seems a tad biased. Howard seems to believe that sexual oppression in India was a direct result of the British colonizers and does not talk about how the Indian society was already denouncing their "kama" ways before the Britishers came around. I'm also not entirely in agreement with her conclusion, or rather, her hope that "India's sexual revolution will be infused with its ancient myth and spirituality, and with the inheritance of the great Indian love stories."
Other than that, this is a marvelous book that really did need to be written and published. Do read it as a light-hearted journalistic travelogue. I wholeheartedly recommend it!
August 19, 2014
In our country India, seldom anyone talks about sex, the only time one could talk about sex is with your friends..that is the usual banter..there is no serious discussion on sex as in no real knowledge- historical, different viewpoints about it. This book provides that..the history of sex in India, the current status across states, across genders -including the third gender. And the knowledge I would say is kind of a eye-opener. How free and beautiful we were and how a century of British rule would almost kill it!
When I was reading this book I somehow felt I was dealing with something real here..the things as they are, something although which we don't discuss but which is always there humming in the background..now in this book it has come out to tell its tale and make us understand who we really are and how far we have to go to find closure.
When I was reading this book I somehow felt I was dealing with something real here..the things as they are, something although which we don't discuss but which is always there humming in the background..now in this book it has come out to tell its tale and make us understand who we really are and how far we have to go to find closure.
March 5, 2014
This is one of those much needed books in this exploding chaos that is the Indian sexual mileu. Sally Howard's book is not a mere erotic account of happenings in India's history but a well rounded picture with the spate of sexual violence against women and related misconceptions duly highlighted. Written in a lucid yet comic prose, I guess a lot of us could do with this read.
June 3, 2014
Sassy, informative, titillating, and relevant! Sally Howard is a fabulous human-interest journalist who really knows how to take a reader on a journey. Fascinating!
I had the pleasure of chatting with Sally about Sexual Revolutions, India in particular, on my show, Empowered Living Radio. If you're interested, you can listen to it here anytime after 6/16/14 7pm EST: http://bit.ly/Rrdmor
I had the pleasure of chatting with Sally about Sexual Revolutions, India in particular, on my show, Empowered Living Radio. If you're interested, you can listen to it here anytime after 6/16/14 7pm EST: http://bit.ly/Rrdmor
January 3, 2016
Very interesting asI am going to India in five days! All about the sexual stuff from the ancient Hindu temple scene and frescoes depicting lots of sex etc to influence of Victorian British to modern day porn e posire on internet, arranged marriage scene, homosexuality, women's inequality, very today. Enjoyed this.
April 9, 2015
This book is a brilliant piece of writing not just about sex in modern India but also about the cultural shift
August 6, 2015
Boring!
September 13, 2017
Rozczarowująco płytkie przy dużym nakładzie wysiłku autorki włożonym w podróże.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews