Three Scholars ‘Explain’ the Kama Sutra. It Doesn’t Go Well.

The two male scholars urgently want to talk about what’s dealt with in the Kama Sutra that’s not, um, you know, the sex part.

BBC4 moderator Melvyn Bragg presses them, saying the sex part is why the book’s famous in the Western World. Could they kindly talk a little about it for the purposes of this British podcast?

His entreaties founder on consternation and deflection. They insist the ancient masterpiece isn’t really about sex.

The female scholar masters the situation, stepping up with cool fluency to elucidate the erotic content of the Kama Sutra. For tapping the aquifer whence intimacy flows, she is up to snuff.

Within moments of writing the above, I read “Beach” by Maeve Marien-McManus (Poetry, January-February 2025). In this elliptic lyric a young woman connects with her capacity for sending back the male gaze reconfigured. She’s reached the aquifer, and then some, is the feeling it gives me.

Beach
by Maeve Marien-McManus

to me I bend their gaze &
I break it.
For the women on the shore I break it.

For once my young body stronger,
treading deep water,
men’s water. surrounded.

the men call & at distance,
I turn.
Our ocean.

I stare back.

My animal stillness snaps their tautness
a claim. For once, bender
not bended.

they shrink away. splash muttering away power,
power, now I own three gazes and now I know,
now I know. Inside I’m just power.

About JMN

I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.

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