Beauty and Sexuality
Editorial: Beauty and Sexuality
Beauty gleams in unexpected places, but its effulgence turns to tawdry glitter when it is shaped and squeezed into form-fitting frames. Rigid ideas of what is beautiful or desirable can reinforce oppressive structures. However, when these concepts are more flexible they can be subversive as well.
By TARSHI
October 15, 2018
इस्तांबूल में निर्वस्त्र होना – डव की ‘असली सुंदरता’ क्यों एक धोखा है
सम्पादक की ओर से: यह लेख सन् 2014 में डव कंपनी के ‘रियल ब्यूटी’ अभियान की प्रतिक्रिया के रूप में…
By Parigya Sharma
Bleached Girls: India and its Love for Light Skin
Bleaching syndrome is not a superficial fashion, it’s a strategy of assimilating a superior identity that reflects a deep-set belief that fair skin is better, more powerful, prettier. And it’s not limited to India; skin bleaching is also common in the rest of Asia and in Africa.
By Curated Content
October 15, 2018
Brushstrokes – Miss Moti Comics
“Moti” is often used as a slur, a denigrating epithet translating as “Fatty”, that is used to shame and to degrade; but when the “t” sound is pronounced differently, it becomes “moti”, a pearl – shining, precious, priceless.
By Curated Content
October 15, 2018
Review: Lihaaf
A woman can be more than something that just exists in a marital home, a woman can be more than just a beautiful body used as a mere decoration in the household. Isn’t it high time we talked about the problems of the terminology used to define beauty and the association of it with sexuality if Chughtai tried doing this in 1941?
By Grishma Trivedi
October 15, 2018
Too Beautiful to be Faithful
“It’s fascinating Yasmina, but also scary how sex or sexualising something can be ignited from our need for beauty that probably stirs positive emotions that we consider beautiful, such as feeling pleasure. But you know as well, desiring what we think is beautiful can generate fluidity: I can never know what I am exactly. All I know is that I was with men, and I was with women, and all of them tickled something within me. “
By Abdullah Erikat
October 15, 2018
A Knife that Cuts Skin and Soul
Beauty – a word that often haunts me, and ironically also a key idea in the process of my own…
By Pavel Sagolsem
October 15, 2018
Shamed and Sidelined For Too Long, Plus-Size Women in Pakistan Are Now Speaking Up
“I realised plus-size acceptance is neither a movement to eat whatever you want nor is it about placing restrictions,” Amina said. “It’s about being kind to your body and realising you are not defined by the size of your waist.”
By Curated Content
Beauty Dictated; Beauty Discovered
Should we train it to think well, all these minds would see reason in similar things and they would come up with the same absolute reality – a universal Truth. That Truth would be a reflection of the Natural order for all humankind. That Truth alone would be beautiful.
By Shweta Krishnan
October 1, 2018
Video Page: Naked Feelings
In a world where the body and its desires often become a site for personal insecurities and external policing, confronting the same body in its raw, physical nakedness, and feeling utterly, irrevocably comfortable with it is almost a revolutionary act
By Curated Content
October 1, 2018
Beauty Lies in Contradictions
I have been the overprotective patriarch and now it is time for me to find solidarity with my sister who will go through myriad experiences. I need to be there to support her while at the same time make her question her decisions rather than being a judgmental feminist.
By Shivani Gupta
October 1, 2018
Brushstrokes: Strange Like Me
When you feel “strange”, alienated, divergent from the reigning patriarchal standards of beauty, and are persecuted for it, sometimes all you need is a kindred spirit.
By Curated Content
October 1, 2018
Interview: Kripa Joshi
Kripa Joshi, an Illustrator and Comic Artist from Nepal, is the creator of Miss Moti, a character who defies stereotypical notions of how a person should look, feel and be. Kripa’s own experiences growing up as a plump person and her struggles with weight, have informed and inspired Miss Moti.
By Shikha Aleya
October 1, 2018
Sense and Sensibility
As Sontag points out, camp is a mode of enjoyment, not judgment. It is intrinsically generous, and is a form of love for human nature, it relishes the awkward intensities of character. Central to camp is a tenderness of feeling and love that has gone into certain objects and personal styles.
By Siddharth Narrain
October 1, 2018
My Complicated Love Story
Today I do not know whether I want to grow out my hair or keep it short; I am just trying to breathe and be in the moment. To enjoy the journey rather than worrying, and waiting for the destination!
By Ipsita
October 1, 2018