Oh, that's very interesting.
The religious people of the time may also have used this place for the young people who were entering puberty and considered the courtship of the respective girls and boys to be normal, since their senses were almost exclusively preoccupied with one thing anyway: How to win over the one they had in mind or the one they had set their sights on.
... Perhaps as a guide, perhaps as an inspiration, perhaps even as a shared experience of normal sexuality, these people carved into their temples because it didn't make them uncomfortable.
Similar to how being naked didn't make remote villagers of my parents' and grandparents' generation uncomfortable. They were all very strict Christians, but they didn't have a problem with nudity. We here in Europe also see ourselves as Western, but in some areas we have a nudist culture on the beach. Nudity and nakedness can be very different, can't they? Just like porn and free body culture are fundamentally different things.
Now, thanks for that inspirational posting.
Have you seen the Khajuraho temples? I would tend to agree with you, but once donkeys come into the picture, I bail 😆
Having visited a few of the temples in Hampi, I believe that their design is meant to arouse the senses. It feels almost paradisical interacting with the sensuous architecture around. This sensual arousal is intricately linked to the Hindu metaphysical systems, including the yoga of sexuality, which expresses itself in the visible architectural and artifactual forms scattered throughout the complex. I can only imagine what it would have been like to participate in a ritual at the climax of their history. Mind blowing!
In the west, we seem to have divided sexuality into separate spheres (entertainment, research, health, etc), but in the Indian way of thinking back then, sexuality was an intricate part of one's existence, both physical and spiritual. Something to be celebrated and revered not tucked away in the bedroom or research lab. They overtly made the point in ways that today we find shocking and even inappropriate, especially when mixed with religion. I find the issue endlessly fascinating, from a purely academic interest, naturally. 😅
Once, a long time ago, I was sitting outside the kindergarten with a mum and talking to her. She told me that her then four-year-old son wanted to know how children come into the world and she told him. He replied: "Can I watch the two of you make another child?"
I laughed heartily, but it also had another effect: I thought that modern children rarely have the opportunity to witness the union of man and woman and that they learn everything to do with sex in theory first.
Since parents and children usually sleep in separate rooms, unlike in the days when families shared a single room and children inevitably witnessed their parents' activities (and were not traumatised by it, why, because it was normal), this part of human sexuality remains hidden from them.
Even when people were predominantly Christians and perceived themselves as such, sex was not necessarily something objectionable, I think. But even if it did involve a certain threshold of shame for people, bearing children at home, for example, was also nothing unusual and so the children already in the family were able to witness birth as one aspect of sex.
It was only when we began to take births out of the home environment that not only the parental act of union but now also the maternal act of birth became inaccessible to children. Now, the third aspect would be courtship and specific rituals and traditions.
For example, I don't believe that western religion can be primarily linked to prudery, although that has become very entrenched in thinking, but that technology and prosperity can largely be seen as the cause of people making their biological and natural sexual urges and adult practices inaccessible to children - unintentionally, in fact.
Modern people tend to make the mistake of looking at the past from the present perspective and merely recognising ideological or religious beliefs and convictions for sexual shame or inhibition. They rarely see what is going on right under their noses.
My assumption is that first there was technological progress and this began to bring about a certain closed-mindedness with regard to sexual permissiveness.
The separation of work and life is another important indicator. If children can't see adults in their courtship rituals, they know little about courtship themselves. How are modern people supposed to learn about how a man wins a woman and vice versa if they never witness such natural processes? Engagements, weddings, traditions where the age of a man or a woman plays a role, are all in decline and lost meaning.
Since people want to witness other peoples sex activities and rituals, they shifted this need to the world of the screen. Since the screen is only second hand, it poorly serves what the individual might long for. Porn and prostitution is a phenomena and from what I think, an expression of what can go wrong when humans suppress their biology.
When children reach puberty, they have no idea what masculinity and femininity actually mean. As a result, both they and their parents begin to fear this time, because the naturalness and simplicity of learning by watching their own relatives is no longer guaranteed.
So, yeah, I agree very much with what you said above and tried to give my explanation to that. I hope you don't mind the long comment.
Children today have way more access to sexual content than we ever did as kids, thanks to computers. We're innocent babes compared to what your typical teenager can access online. As you said,
I'm not so sure. It appears that prostitution (or similar behavior) also exists in non-human animals (Wikipedia). If this behavior persists in animal populations, then it must have an evolutionary advantage. Porn is a more recent development (evolutionarily speaking), though we've been painting sex scenes for a long time. Animals also enjoy watching porn of their own species, though I have yet to hear of animals making sex videos in the wild 🤣
LoL :D - so you gave yourself the answer, there is no prostitution going on in the animal kingdom. Or, I have a completely different understanding of the term prostitution.
A very daring statement, I'd say. Would not sign it.
Watching an act of coupling because you happen to come across it (for example, a couple having a sweet secret rendezvous in the woods) or going to a whore and paying for it are two completely different things. I am unable to put a link to human evolution on that.
I find porn abysmally disgusting as a trade, but not purely random or spontaneous sex performance between male and female; which is not porn but them simply having sex. There only needs to be a certain erotic tension and not even the act itself in its entirety to make my heart beat faster. I bet you are the same ;)
Because modern people seem to take fewer opportunities to make such random observations (or be the ones observed) doesn't mean that porn is a good choice. It is not for me. You wouldn't want your wife/girlfriend, your daughter or even mum to be getting it on, would you? Or who prostitutes herself online?
Since porn is also a matter of fact, I will not give it my credit. It needs to stay in the dirty corner, since it won't go away. I think that is realistic but I am not making myself an advocate for it.
I don't mind porn. I think it's a wonderful invention and a surefire way to boot up the kinky circuits of the brain.
Well, you could argue that I am prostituting myself online right now. I have certain skills and knowledge that I'm willing to share with you for a like. So, don't forget to leave me a tip 😉
I could, but I wouldn't. Since you are not making yourself naked in front of me, and I didn't ask for it.
To my question if you'd want your madam/sister/daughter to sell porn, whether off- or online, I take no answer for a "no". Except you beg to differ ;)
I thought it was a rhetorical question. Of course, I wouldn't want any family member feeling like they need to make porn or prostitute themselves for a living. But if they so choose, and they're adults making conscious choices, then it's simply none of my business.