Shikha Aleya
The Challenge of Accessibility: Desire, Fantasy and People with Disabilities
The general attitude towards sexual fantasy, and the reflection of such fantasies in popular imagery, erotica and erotic porn is constructed on assumptions of ableism. There are other fantasies though, that reflect or are born of the sexuality of their creators and consumers, persons who do not fit into the accepted age, body or sexual identity.
By Shikha Aleya
The Many Shades of Parenting and Sexuality
As a society, in our platforms of exchange of goods, products and services, how are we approaching parenting, children or sexuality? Stores are clearly catering to the constructed parent and child. There’s lots of toys, clothes, diapers, bedsheets and cute dangling, fluffy things to cluck at in stores catering to parent and child as a combination thali (platter). The day I see personal and sexual hygiene products in a store catering to mom and a teenaged me, I will kick up my heels and bray.
By Shikha Aleya
October 3, 2016
Not So Impervious: Borders of Migration and Sexuality
The migrant has come to represent threat on many fronts, with sexuality and sexual behaviours storming the front of fronts. This is because sexuality is in itself so threatening to so many; as a word, as a concept, it is untidy, unknown, uncontainable, like that alien substance bubbling out of its pod in the film ‘Prometheus’. Or ‘Alien’.
By Shikha Aleya
September 1, 2016
Review: What Does Clothing Have to do with Sexuality in the Media?
There’s always another way of presenting a look, attire, accessories and bodies; of presenting the way we feel about ourselves and our sexuality, of presenting an acceptance of diversity.
By Shikha Aleya
Of Braille, Fighter Pilots and a Sexuality-Informed Approach to Science
I spent time reading up the basics of gender-neutral design to understand the connect between science, society and gender. Sometimes, some people try to prove that there are ‘scientific’ reasons for inequality and injustice, for depriving one set of people of the same choices and opportunities that another set of people enjoy. This is not true. Times are changing. ‘Biased technologies’ are being altered.
By Shikha Aleya
Issue in Focus: Hackers and High Heels
Adeanna Cooke:
International model, featured in Playboy,
Established hacker and amateur computer programmer.
By Shikha Aleya
June 5, 2016
Reframing Family History
Often when we speak of families and family history, we talk genetics, traditions and inheritance of all kinds. Somehow our relationship by blood or otherwise to a clan is supposed to help us identify our place in the universe. So there’s family medical history, family culture, family traditions of food and career. But sexuality? A family history that focuses on sexuality? What would that even mean?
By Shikha Aleya
May 1, 2016
A Swirly Skirt on the Expressway
Who is this person? What does this person want? Is it random cruising? Is money the goal, is it adventure? Why does it make me think of selling strawberries by the dusty roadside? I don’t have a single answer. Sex work is a lurking unknown in the world of sexuality.
By Shikha Aleya
April 5, 2016
Issue In Focus: A Travelling Sexuality
Travel and sexuality throws up different thoughts and feelings for us all. For me, it threw up the term travelling sexuality. I like it. Travelling sexuality. It sounds exotic or intellectual, adventurous, dangerous, depending on who you are and how you live life. A travelling sexuality could describe the way we evolve as sexual beings, shifting and changing identities.
By Shikha Aleya
March 1, 2016
कहे अनकहे संवाद
प्यार की अभिव्यक्ति कई रूपों में की जा सकती है और इसी तरह यौनिकता और इसे व्यक्त करने के भी कई तरीके होते हैं। हम सच्चाई को अधिक करीब से देख सकते हैं अगर हम इन सभी तरीकों को समझे और समग्र रूप से जाने।
By Shikha Aleya
February 18, 2016
Issue In Focus: The Conversations We Don’t Have
A long, long time ago, in a room far, far away, I remember playing at being a mythological hero I…
By Shikha Aleya
February 1, 2016
…‘Raised on These Jokes’…
“Tell me something,” the 15-year-old asked her mother, “what is it like the first time?” “You, in your age and…
By Shikha Aleya
January 4, 2016
Of Socks and Sexuality
I grew up with a book cupboard where Paul Gallico’s Love of Seven Dolls rubbed shoulders with Germain Greer’s The…
By Shikha Aleya
November 1, 2015
इन्टरनेट पर परिवार और यौनिकता : एक रिव्यु
यह मेरी इन्टरनेट पर भारतीय परिवारों द्वारा और ‘परिवार और यौनिकता’ विषय पर पोस्ट की जाने वाली सामग्री को पढ़…
By Shikha Aleya
October 17, 2015
A Chicken Tikka Roll For Real Men
Bakasura Chicken Tikka Roll. 100% Wholesome. Made for Real Men. In the home delivery menu card of a local restaurant,…
By Shikha Aleya
October 1, 2015