Eroticism in Religion. In the history of religion can be found many instances of erotic cultic practices. In Mesopatamia, for example, as in other parts of the ancient world, erotic rituals occurred in which priests and priestesses emulated the marriage of deities. Temple prostitution was common. In Hindu tradition, Kāma is the name of the god of love corresponding to the Greek Erōs. Both, however, function also as common nouns with a wide range of meaning, sometimes relating to artistic enjoyment, sometimes more specifically sexual. The Kāma Sūtra of Vatsyayana is frankly a guide to sexual conduct perceived as a good and celebrated in erotic painting and sculpture. Examples may be seen at Khajuraho and at Konarak. This tradition in Hinduism is in sharp contrast to the central Hindu outlook, which emphasizes the view that not only sexual but all pleasure can be a hindrance to emancipation from the transitory flesh-and-blood world. The coexistence of such extremely opposed outlooks is characteristic of Hinduism. In both Hindu and Buddhist forms of Tantrism, certain practices are overtly or otherwise sexual. Each god has been considered to have a source of power recognized as female in character and often identified with the god's wife or consort. Shakti, this power or goddess, has had many devotees who see her as justifying the notion that an effective way of attaining emancipation from carnal desire is to indulge it to the point of exhaustion, perhaps somewhat on the principle that has been used in the West to discourage children from smoking tobacco by giving them each a large cigar to nauseate them. In Tantrism, this aspect of such an outlook developed into a ritual performed under the direction of a guru as a sort of sacrament involving not only sexual intercourse but the eating of certain forbidden foods and the consumption of prohibited drinks. Shaktism as a cult of female energy and power, has taken several forms, some more orgiastic and openly self-indulgent than others, but all designed to have a cathartic effect while at the same time celebrating the worship of Shiva and Shakti.

Geddes MacGregor, Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy, New York: Paragon House, 1989