Maureen Freely: Uneasy positions on sex

It's been available in Sanskrit for 1,700 years and it's 129 years since Sir Richard Burton blackened his name by translating it into English. Although many generations of grateful schoolboys went on to read it in the dark, it was not until the 1960s that the Kamasutra became the sort of book you could leave on your coffee table. But even then, it was more of a fashion statement than a sacred text. The pictures of the odd, almost impossible sexual positions were of greater interest than Vatsyayana's high-minded instructions. We in the west had a lot of unlearning to do before we could stop sniggering, and, like Vatsyayana's Virgin Bride, we were not to be rushed.

But we're all grown-ups now, aren't we? That's what Oxford World's Classics is hoping, anyway. Next week it is bringing out the "first ever accurate English" version of the "most famous book on sex ever published". The new translation is by Wendy Doniger, a historian of religions at the University of Chicago, and Sudhir Kakar, a psychoanalyst. They have worked hard to be faithful to the "original tone" of the book and to use "clear, vivid, sexually frank English". Theirs is a serious scholarly enterprise.

Sadly, Burton's version was not. His Victorian and orientalist pruderies got the better of him. He prettified the prose and exoticised the acts he described by referring to the male and female organs as the lingam and the yoni. These are Sanskrit words but the latter does not appear in the original, and Vatsyayana uses the former infrequently, preferring the unisex term jaghana, which can be translated as pelvis, genitals or "between the legs". Burton's translation of the word for homosexuals was "eunuch" and wherever there were women's voices, he muffled them. So when the original suggested that a woman slapped too hard might cry out: "Stop!", "Let go!" and "Enough!" Burton said: "When the woman is not accustomed to striking, she continually utters words expressive of prohibition, sufficiency or desire of liberation."

Liberated as we now are from his moralistic mistranslations, we can appreciate the text as historical document, and ponder its curious injunctions with wry scholarly smiles. Did you know that fellatio is best practised not with wives but with those of the "third nature" - Vatsyayana's expression for homosexuality? Or that sex with someone else's wife is only right if you are sure you would die unless you have her? Were you aware that the ideal lover bathes daily and every four days has his beard and moustache trimmed into three points? The Kamasutra is not a sex manual, and not just a book of sexual etiquette. It's an attempt to civilise, to dignify sex - to acknowledge the importance of pleasure while preaching the virtue of restraint.

Or, as Tony might say, balancing rights and responsibilities. Learning how to have fun with people you really like, in the context of a stable relationship. Developing your confidence. Honing your emotional literacy skills. In extremis, having the courage to say: "Stop! Let go! Enough!" It is not too far-fetched to see the caring, sharing, relationship-stressing sex education programmes now on offer in most of the nation's schools as owing everything to the Kamasutra. If nothing else, this theory gives me faith in human nature. It suggests that not all of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s read the Kamasutra solely for the smut.

But if my Monday-morning visit to my local Waterstone's is anything to go by, the battle for sexual enlightenment is not yet won. You should have seen the looks when I asked for "the new Kamasutra" in a normal voice. The pale, almost gasping assistant waved me in the direction of the shelf marked "Health". What possessed them to classify the art of life with depression and herbal medicine? After I had found a handsome, coffee-table Kamasutra but not the tasteful, academic edition I wanted, the assistant redirected me to the shelf marked "Sex".

Here, among the manuals offering to teach me how to come fast and faster, I found a floral tribute called Kama Sutra for Women along with a hardboiled pocket edition on KS Technique. But still no trace of the highbrow classic. "It's the new translation I'm after," I explained. "The Oxford World's Classic." I hoped this would reassure the mother behind me. "Let's try again," the assistant said. "It's one word - Kamasutra," I said. The mother scooped up her toddler and rushed off. But now at last I was vindicated. The assistant had found the title in the system. "It arrived three days ago. But it could be anywhere. It's so hard to know where it belongs."

So that's the point we've reached. Forty years of raging sexual revolution and we still can't figure it out. We can talk and talk about the mind-body problem and the importance of seeing the two as one, but we continue to stock them on separate shelves. We say we wish we could see sex as part of life, but when we act on this wish in a bookstore, we also wish for a brown paper bag. The prospect of sex-as-noble-enterprise is still so terrifying that we can't even talk about it unless we label it "Other" and view it from the safe side of the east-west divide.