For although most of the site's temple carvings are beautiful depictions of everyday life or gods, a notable minority are the kind of thing more normally found in the internet's sleazier reaches.
With this potent mix of architecture and eroticism, the temples should be more of a draw than they are. But when you go there, you realise why they aren't - Khajuraho is in the middle of nowhere.
In fact, Khajuraho is probably as isolated today as it was at its zenith a thousand years ago.
To get there you can either fly, which is convenient, or take the train, which isn't. By way of even-handedness we took the train there and the plane back.
Although the nearest railhead is more than 100 miles away, travelling by train is worthwhile as it means you can take in Orchha, a tiny town with a huge palace, en route.
Orchha was well worth our detour. Its multiple palaces - magnificent and beautifully preserved examples of Hindu domestic architecture - stand on a heavily fortified island in the Betwa River.
On the day of our visit, the place was practically deserted; we shared it with a handful of Indian visitors and hundreds of brightly coloured birds.
The town also has a charming little market and, best of all, you can stay in a room in the Sheesh Mahal, one of the palaces.
For about 25 a night, the Maharaja suite has to be one of the world's great bargains. You get your own staircase, rooms with 20ft ceilings, a private courtyard, a vast Edwardian marble bathroom and a lavatory in a turret with panoramic windows.
But Orchha was just a curtain-raiser for the main attraction, and the following day we travelled through empty countryside to Khajuraho.
Accommodation there was less stylish. Clearly the town had been slated for tourism development in the 1970s, meaning that most hotels were similar and your choice is entirely down to your taste in space-age chandeliers.
We plumped for the Radisson, whose other guests were the employees of a Mumbai software company on a corporate bonding weekend.
They all chain smoked over breakfast, which only added to the period atmosphere.
After our fumigated toast and coffee we went to see the temples. Built between AD 950 and 1050, they represent the greatest architectural achievement of the Chandela dynasty and are among the finest examples of temple architecture in the world.
For all this, Khajuraho's heyday was fairly brief. By the 14th century the complex had been more or less abandoned to the forest and forgotten.
It was this, and its isolation, that saved it from destruction by Muslim invaders.
The temples were rediscovered by T S Burt, a British engineer, in 1838.
By far the biggest and best-preserved cluster is the Western Group and, in particular, the amazing Kandariya Mahadeva.
Its central spire towers 116ft above the flat countryside and is surrounded by 80 lesser pinnacles, all decorated with beautiful and delicate carving.
Truly, it is a wonder to behold.
Then you start to look at some of those beautiful carvings a little more closely..
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Now, a number of people had told me that the erotic carvings at Khajuraho constitute a small proportion of the total and that it was a mistake just to see the site in terms of ancient porn.
All this is true.
But it is also true that the frisky figures, while small in number, are about as hardcore as you get.
They concern not just the love that flowers between a man and a woman, but also the love that flowers between large groups of people and, occasionally, the love that flowers between humans and beasts of burden.
The odd thing about the explicit eroticism is that nobody really seems to know what it's for.
Theories abound, from offerings to Indra, the voyeuristic god of thunder, to depictions of the Karma Sutra in a culture that had become depraved. Whatever the case, they certainly make an impression.
Although the site is not especially large, it takes most of a day to do it justice, and even the minor temples are worth a good look.
Moreover, unlike so many other attractions in India, Khajuraho is an agreeably low-key place to linger.
The beautifully manicured grounds make it rather like finding Hindu temples in an English park.
The next day, we visited the altogether more family-friendly complex of Jain temples to the east of the town.
These are impressive enough and are still used, which gives them a certain atmosphere. But, in all honesty, they're not a patch on the western temples.
The following morning, we flew back to Delhi.
In the queue for airport security the Frenchman in front of me was carrying a replica of one of the rather more explicit temple carvings. It was pretty faithful to the original and there was no doubting its craftsmanship but, stripped of its context, it looked like something from a smutty joke shop.
Indeed, the rather peculiar question Khajuraho poses, but never quite answers, is when does ancient culture become pornography?
British Airways (0870 850 9850; ), Virgin Atlantic (0870 380 2007; ) and Jet Airways (0800 026 5626; ) all fly direct from London airports to Delhi. From there, Jet and Indian Airlines ( ) fly to Khajuraho, usually via Varanasi. Prices to Delhi start from around 450 return; Delhi to Khajuraho from 100, one-way.
Accommodation in Khajuraho consists largely of 1970s hotels. Both the Radisson (0091 7686 272777; ; doubles from 50) and the Taj (272355; ; from 40) are recommended.
Abercrombie Kent (0845 070 0615 ) can tailor-make itineraries and extensions to other Indian tours: a five-day Temples and Traders tour, including Khajuraho, costs 506, excluding flights.
Real Holidays (020 7359 3938; ) offers an 11-day package, which includes Khajuraho and Orchha, from 1,145, including flights.
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