In the West, India's Kama Sutra most often evokes an exotic bible of sexual positions regularly consulted for blush-inducing tips in glossy magazines.
However a new exhibition in Paris hopes to flip these misconceptions on their head.
For the first time, the Hindu text dating to roughly the fourth century is examined in an exhibition of some 350 sculptures, paintings and everyday items.
The aim, says Indian curator Alka Pande, is to show "it is not a dirty little book and that it is not (just) a book on sexual positions."
"I want them to see it as a book of life, as a book of pleasure, as a book of celebrating the finer nuances of a great style of living and aesthetics," she told AFP.
The exhibit, at the Pinacotheque art gallery through January, "is not only erotic, it's about sensuality, it's about pleasure, it's all about music, dance, how to live a good life," she said.
With the City of Love in a saucy mood this season, the exhibit coincides with one on the infamous master of debauchery, the 18th-century Marquis de Sade, at the Musee d'Orsay, whose trailer shocked with its staged orgy of writhing naked bodies.
Some Parisians also got hot under the collar over a huge inflatable outdoor sculpture by American artist Paul McCarthy which, not unintentionally, resembled a sex toy.
And the Pinacotheque itself will open a new show next month, "The Art of Love in the Time of the Geishas", which like the Kama Sutra carries a warning that content may not be suitable for all.
One of the gallery's security guards told AFP that a few people, scandalised at images of acrobatic intercourse, orgies and even bestiality in the current show, had stormed out.
"They didn't take time to read the explanations," she shrugged.
