A digital magazine on sexuality, based in the Global South: We are working towards cultivating safe, inclusive, and self-affirming spaces in which all individuals can express themselves without fear, judgement or shame
The point is not to lay the blame on women or assign them responsibility for patriarchy. It is to encourage a deeper introspection of our desires. My first boyfriend, whom I got to know in 2010, was in the habit of asking me (and other women he had previously dated) whether he could kiss me, before doing so. Every time any sexual activity was involved he would always ask beforehand and continuously check in if I was comfortable throughout.
My body presented to me the first paradox in my feminism that I would encounter. How could I claim to be a feminist if I was not proud of the body I was born in? My advocacy as a sixth grader seemed to fail when it came to my own self.
Therefore, the question of safe spaces and alternative families is pertinent to queer identities, that are so much more than imagined by a single dominant narrative.
I was focused on becoming the ‘perfect’ feminist, based on the stipulations of mainstream feminism. The result: a deeply narrow conception of feminism,and it would take years to unlearn the ‘black-and-white’ mentality and embrace intersectionality.
Erotica moved from objectifying bodies to seeing people as more than vaginas and penises, there were actual stories and descriptions about why the characters liked what they were doing and what they enjoyed.
Inspired to collect photographs of women spending time by themselves and for themselves after a conversation with her mother’s friend, Surabhi Yadav began the project, Women at Leisure.