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Comment by gaius | Hacker News Reader

I think it must be more complex and subtle than that. Isn't India the home of the Kama Sutra? Like, if any country can claim to be the world experts on sex, it's India, they even beat the Dutch.

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I think the issue is this: India has been historically openminded about sex, before the British rule. The current situation, i.e., a social taboo to even talk about sex are remnants of the British rule in India: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sex_in_India#Colonia...

India was under British influence and control for 250 years. It seems a little strange that the Victorian Era which lasted for 70 years and the more conservation period only 50 years or so had such a strong influence on such a large and diverse country. Moreso because the Victorian era was preceded and succeeded by rather liberal periods in British society which were by Victorian standards, positively scandalous. Why did Indian society also undergo similar periods of liberalisation if British rule was so influential. Perhaps Indian society was already conservative and the Victorians simply re-inforced this.

The wikipedia articule seems to use revisionist language and lacks sufficient references so I would be interested if there any historians present with better information.

There are more than a billion people living in India. I don't think you can say much about them collectively, aside from obvious banalities.

Kama Sutra is about 2000 years old in the current form, according to Wikipedia 2 CE. To put this in perspective, this predates the Muslim/Mongol invasions by about 1000 years, British invasion/colonization by 1700 years etc. Societies change.

Didn't you study history (or at least the Indian version)?

The Indians welcomed the muslims because although they were happy playing sittars and doing yoga they missed contact with the wider world and so welcomed the rich ethnic diversity of the mughul empire and then lived happily together in peace and love until the British deliberately caused religous strife in 1946 by forcing the muslims to move to Pakistan.

See also - how native american tribes lived in peace and harmony together and at one with nature until the British arrived.

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