Ancient Indian Wisdom for Modern Sexual Citizens: The Kama Sutra in the 20th-Century United States

My presentation provides an overview of the circulation of ancient India’s Kama Sutra to the 20^th century United States. Medical personnel and sexologists used the text while working with their patients on a variety of sexual problems. Due to restrictions from government on obscenity, the text remained in relative obscurity for several decades. Criminal proceedings from government legal actions, particularly by the US Post Office, provide glimpses of the Kama Sutra’s circulation in American life. In the 1960s, US and UK publishers raced against each other to produce the first legal edition for the broader public. Although both the U.S. and Britain engaged in post-colonial Orientalizing of Indian culture, the U.S. publishers primary concern was in staking claims on the freedom of speech. The burgeoning counter-culture of mid-century America, challenged post-war norms of disciplined domesticity. Seeking the dawn of an Aquarian age, Americans gravitated culturally towards India as a supposedly less geopolitically charged culture, eager to Orientalize ancient India as both a source of spiritual enlightenment and a zone of sexual freedom.