As I was visiting home this weekend, I began thinking about food and sex in my own culture and how it relates to my Indian heritage. Until recently, modern Indian society has been quite conservative in matters of sex, at least in my opinion. But if you go many years back, India has a history of sexual art, literature, and even science.
While thinking, I remembered that someone had gifted our house a copy of the Kama Sutra, and I decided to take a look. It is an ancient Indian text that describes practices and techniques of sex as well as principles of love and marriage.
In the book, I found numerous references to food. First, a woman's sexual organ was referred to as a mango, some food-sex imagery that reminded me of Genesis. Then, the book described ways of using meals before and after sex to enhance the experience as well as the tie between man and woman. Finally, the book even had a glossary of "Plants, Herbs, and Spices" mentioned throughout the text in relation to sex.
So there has clearly been a strong connection between food and sex in ancient Indian history. I wanted to share these thoughts. I also wanted to offer a question if anyone has any insight. Why in a society that over a thousand years ago had great sexual imagery in art and literature, was sex and the role of women so suppressed during the 20th century? This is likely comparable to many Western cultures but seems more pronounced to me in Indian culture. Any thoughts?
So sorry for the lengthy post, but I found this stuff interesting.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us! Although I am unsure of how this would play out in the case of India, in general, the development of patriarchal structures gave way to the slow disappearance of female deities, the role of the priestess, etc., as well as the “disappearance” of fertility rituals (which included, of course, the sexual acts) with which they were associated, resulting in the devaluation of women and their role within societal structures, as well as the negative association between women and sex. I have put disappearance in quotations because, in many cases, these female-related rituals, imagery, etc., have not disappeared, instead becoming taboo.
ReplyDeleteThank you for that explanation, that is very interesting. And from my knowledge of Indian cultural history, limited though it is, that seems to be what has occurred, resulting in a society where sex and public intimacy between genders is indeed taboo.
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