What’s Obscene About It?

With regard to Thomas Cahill’s review of “Images of Lust” (The Book Review, March 15): Sheelas--images of lust? Candidates for a Hustler centerfold? The figures show women about to give birth in the squatting position universally favored by primitive cultures. Their faces reflect pain and concentration--not terror and death. Labor contractions pull the skin tightly over their rib bones as they gasp for breath. And their hands--eager to grasp an emerging infant--part the labia, as the climactic moment nears.

What’s obscene about childbirth?

Methinks the authors kissed the Blarney Stone in order to pad their meaningless study of obscure erotica.

IRA NICKERSON

Van Nuys