Kama's Website: read more about her life and her devadasi faith FAQ about Kama

Reclaiming the Devadasi Tradition By Elyse Weingarten A centuries-old caste of sacred temple servants, the Devadasi were talented dancers, singers and political advisors married to the Hindu deities. In addition to performing sacred temple ceremonies, Devadasis often offered sexual services. Core to Devadasi belief is that all men are incarnations of the male deities and that a man who makes love to a Devadasi becomes divine as the couple enacts the sacred marriage of god and goddess. Many Devadasi practices were outlawed in India in the mid-1940s. Most academics, human rights groups and feminist advocates view the Devadasi as a serious social problem, as forced prostitutes victim to poverty, misogyny and lack of resources. Kama, a university student in London working as a Devadasi escort near Heathrow, London, is actively working towards a Devadasi renaissance. Vocal and open about her right to pursue the Devadasi tradition, Kama writes a blog specifically on the subject and is keen to publicisize what she considers a lone voice in the biased debate against Devadasis. Here is her first published interview. How did you come to reclaim your Devadasi heritage and start your current London escort business? In earlier generations, my Devadasi ancestors broke with tradition and having left their place of origin, had been able to marry, enabling them to live more normal lives. The Devadasi had been systematically persecuted by the British Imperial Authorities and collapsed into the single issue of prostitution. The criminalized Devadasi lost their protection and privileges and became a repressed group. In turn, many Devadasi then contrived to leave the faith and find new identities. However, I decided to become a Devadasi so I could gain sexual and financial autonomy, and live independently of the South Asian patriarchy. Kama's Blog Article on Devadasis in India Human Rights Watch on Devadasis While studying in London I became sexually active, and I decided in that my dealing with men I could commercialize many sexual exchanges while still enjoying genuine intimacy and friendship. These relationships were often very temporary and transient, but they were also transparent, honest and allowed me to maintain my own independent identity. However, I realized that I did not want live as a liberated Western woman nor did I want to live as a typically servile South Asian wife. I want a life that allows me to have a South Asian identity that celebrates my autonomy and sexuality. Reclaiming my Devadasi heritage has allowed me to do that. After several months of experimenting with commercialized relationships, I decided to come out as a Devadasi escort in London. Since that time, I have been greatly in demand. What is interesting is that unlike most Indian escorts who overwhelmingly copy the western model of presentation for commercialized sex I deliberately highlight my differences from European sex workers. How do your friend and the people you go to school with feel about your work as a Devadesi? My friends have been incredibly supportive. I have received a lot of practical help with my website, particularly from a girl-friend who is a law graduate. She has helped me with legal issues and has also helped me address many of the attacks that I have faced. What sort of attacks have there been? I have been regularly subjected to racist persecution because of my faith, often by other sex workers or their cronies. I have been threatened many times and there was a time when I was so scared I would only leave my apartment through a back window because one woman said she would camp outside my apartment to take pictures of me for the tabloid newspapers. A known racist parodied my website with taunts about my faith and accusations that I was being controlled by Eastern European pimps. This woman then actually used my name to try and attract website searches to her own sex sites. I have had fake reports posted on other websites by supposed clients trying to suggest that I am sexually incompetent or an underage girl. However, I have also received a huge amount of support from other members of the sex working community in London. I now feel much safer and I believe that the racist troublemakers are really just a very unpleasant minority. How do your clients respond to your religious beliefs? Most of my clients come to me because they want a spiritual dimension to the sexual experience. Several have written reports highlighting how their time with me was so exceptional because of the sense of genuine affection and spiritual connection which then enhanced our intimacy. The difference between plain physical sex and affectionate intimacy in a spiritual setting is overwhelming for many men. I have been very pleased that my faith practices have been so attractive to so many men. I keep my Deities in my guest room and often spend time in mediation before beginning an appointment. I have had clients who have visited me who have wanted me to supply physical sex without any emotional connection and I have found such encounters very difficult. These men seem to divorce sex from anything else and really belong to what I now call the “shagging” brigade. I think they are so emotionally and spiritually bankrupt that sex has become a misogynist technical exercise. They are the “anorak” train spotters of sex work, they collect “conquests” and “experiences” without any understanding of what is really going on. In addition, there is a lot of performance related anxiety among men and being with someone like me allows them to have the time to overcome various problems and fears. I am often visited by men who suffer from premature ejaculation or are unable to reach orgasm, and yet in the relaxed and non-judgmental environment of my guest room we can explore these issues and often resolve them. How long do you intend to practice as a Devadasi? After you finish your studies, will you also have a more traditional career? I am sure that there will be a time when I no longer want to provide sexual services, but being a Devadasi is far more than just sex. I am a very good singer and I would like to sing more. Being a Devadasi is a life and faith rather than a career. Once I have finished my studies, I would like to be a Devadasi development worker or a Devadasi something. Historically, how do Devadasis learn to please a man? Is there a special training Devadasis must undergo? In other words, how do you learn your gift? I do not believe that it so much about learning sexual techniques or physical bouncing around, as offering sexual intimacy with genuine affection. Many sex working women must feign affection because they have no particular feelings for a man with whom they might only meet once for a couple of hours. However, the Devadasi is married to the Gods, and our love and affection for the Male Deities is genuine. As each man is in someway an incarnation of the Male Deity, we can truly express affection for any man. So while I am a very capable lover, my gift was not learnt, but is the consequence of my genuine relationship with the Gods. In your professional opinion, what is the secret to pleasing a man? You look into his eyes, see your Deity and then love him with all of your heart. This is the Devadasi secret, anything less is not Devadasi. What is the role of female pleasure within Devadasi tradition? Female pleasure is surprisingly important to many men, so as such female pleasure is a welcome feature of my work. The vast majority of my encounters involve considerable sexual pleasure for me, as well as my guest. With the Devadasi tradition, there is certainly an element of enabling the man to learn how to please the woman. What is the current situation like for Devadasis in contemporary India? The truth is difficult and complex. Originally, Devadasi was about placing control of non-reproductive sex for pleasure in the hands of skilled and autonomous women who were able to offer such sex to men according to religious conventions and practices that prevented most abuses associated with modern prostitution. But the Devadasi system has been broken down by centuries of repression and abuse intended to reduce the Devadasis' privileges while also keeping them available for the sexual service of men. This repression was greatest under the British Empire when the Devadasi were defined as "prostitutes" and subjected to arrest and constant punishment. All of the institutions that allowed the Devadasi to protect themselves were destroyed and Devadasi became increasingly vulnerable to abuse. Since then, much of modern Devadasi sexual experience is very exploitative. These abuses are partly the consequence of destroying the Devadasi system and the subsequent creation of an unrestrained secular system of prostitution controlled by men as commercial sex. All sorts of abuse in prostitution have been named as being representative of the Devadasi system when in fact it has nothing to do with the Devadasi. The Devadasi system is not about the forced rape of young girls in pseudo religious ceremonies and the grinding poverty that compels old women to sell themselves for a few rupees outside a temple gate. Truly skilled Devadasi are far more than sex providers; they have a number of skills and competencies that reflect a whole person. What I find so wasteful is the number of Devadasi who are socially excluded and labeled prostitutes, when they are very talented and skilled women! If the Devadasi could reclaim their legitimacy, and if the provision of non-reproductive sex for pleasure could be returned to the Devadasi, then there could be a Devadasi renaissance. However, power must be taken away from the exploitative miscreants and their governmental protectors in the Police. The Devadasi do not need to be protected by the Indian moralist middle classes, but they do need the right for their culture to be recognized as legitimate and not shameful.