Modern American yoga primarily belongs to women. Not so for earlier yoga or for the yoga of India or the yoga of long ago—the details of which are mostly lost to us. It is a feminist issue then, not simply because it is made of so many women, but because the modern practice is obsessed…

If I want people to feel uncomfortable, I usually tell them I’m a minister. Once upon a time, this was a popular sort of profession. Harvard, for example, was founded to train ministers. These days, it’s akin to an unsavory body odor. People will put up with it, but they won’t get too close! As…