Aqua --- Just for you, then:
Krishna, the 8th avatar of Vishnu, was reknowned in his youth as a great lover. (I think he'd fit in very well here...
) He was a cow-herd, and would wander about in the evenings playing his flute, and all the female cow-herds (
gopis)would hear it and run to him, abandoning their husbands and families whenever he played. (See the picture below.) His consort was the beautiful Radha, but such was his power that according to the mythology, during these nightly trysts, he would multiply himself so that every single one of the
gopis would feel herself to be in divine sexual union with him.
The
bhakti (devotional) tradition of Hindu worship often focuses on Krishna, with poets (
bhaktas) casting themselves in the role of Radha or the other
gopis in order to experience the overwhelming power of Krishna's consuming love. The resulting poems are very erotic and often heart-breakingly beautiful. For example, the following comes from Vidyapati, who wrote this about 600 years ago:
All my inhibition left me in a flash,
When he robbed me of my clothes,
But his body became my new dress.
Like a bee hovering on a lotus leaf
He was there in my night, on me!
--- sweetstuff
p.s. Somebody lock up the podium before I'm tempted to spout lectures again!
(Can you tell I'm in essay-writing mode?
)