Blog Roll
Supreme Court Has Done Well to Legally Reaffirm Women’s Right to Choose Sexual Partners. So What?
Whether it is family, society, gangs of thugs, or political parties, the threats to women’s freedom to choose in India are many and varied. To the above list, one may add the police and the judiciary as well.
By Curated Content
Multiple Generations, Same-Sex Couples, Many In-Laws: The Indian Family is Changing
The Indian family is changing. There’s no ‘ideal family’ defined by children or lineage. It comes in different shapes and sizes.
By Curated Content
Why Do People Watch Porn? Five Women Explain Their Reasons
India is one of the largest consumers of porn in the world, so much so that Pornhub created a mirror site following Indian government’s ban. Definitely, not all viewers of porn end up committing sexual crimes.
By Curated Content
March 18, 2019
As A Woman Who Isn’t Interested In Sex, People Want To Know Why I’m On Tinder
Every match that came my way, every person I spoke to, every time someone pointed to the word “asexual” in my bio – it was all an exercise in acceptance, compassion, and empathy. People were asking questions because they wanted to know how best to interact with me, how to respect my boundaries, how to to get over their own misgivings about ‘my kind’.
By Curated Content
The Romance of Small Intimacies
For a while now, I have been invested in noticing the unique terms of endearment that characterise individual relationships. What are some of the non-verbal, non-physical ways in which couples begin to connect with each other? Intimacies that are so subtle that they are almost invisible and often hidden in plain sight?
By Curated Content
February 15, 2019
Tom Makes Breakfast: A Personal Narrative On Intimacy & Casual Relationships
We would spend hours just lost in our sweet, intoxicating world of soft skin, whispers and drenched sheets. It was amazing. But also, I remember the most just sitting together at midnight talking about his mother, my childhood, his habit of wearing a nightcap while sleeping or just our Instagram browsing-patterns.
By Curated Content
Let’s Talk About 377 | Popular Culture is Changing How India Views Homosexuality
When Deepa Mehta’s Fire came out in 1996, violent protests roiled India over the depiction of romance between two female leads. There is no homosexuality in India, demonstrators declared while burning effigies in the Capital. In contrast, when Margarita With A Straw came out in 2014, it received accolades for its sensitive portrayal of queer desire in a woman with disability.
By Curated Content
Crazy in Love? The Japanese Man ‘Married’ to a Hologram
Even in a country obsessed with anime, Kondo’s wedding shocked many. But he wants to be recognised as a “sexual minority” who can’t imagine dating a flesh-and-blood woman.
By Curated Content
December 15, 2018
Bodice-Rippers and Bad Education: Do Romance Novels Lead to Sexual Mistakes?
While we’ve grown used to hearing porn blamed for society’s ills, it’s now the medium’s comparatively matronly cousin – romance novels – that have come under scrutiny.
By Curated Content
From Stone Dildos to Sexbots: How Technology is Changing Sex
Sex and technology link in many different ways – whether its helps overcome a disability or separation from a loved one, or is simply be a way to increase pleasure and excitement.
By Curated Content
November 15, 2018
Why We Don’t Get Consent
But here is the thing. In heterosexual relationships, how are women and men going to learn to see women’s desires if the world does not see them? If the world is shaped to conform to a certain type of man’s desires only? Where is consent without a diversity of desires and a galaxy of desirability?
By Curated Content
November 15, 2018
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
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
‘Don’t They Realise We are Human?’: The Uneasy Alliance Between Fashion and Feminism
“Historically, feminism and fashion have been pitted against one another,” writes Manjima Bhattacharjya in her book, Mannequin. It’s a dilemma the fashion industry has struggled with for decades – being perceived as flippant, or existing in a vacuum”
By Curated Content
The Labor of Expressing Femininity as a Disabled Woman
The nature of the labor that goes into performing femininity is that it’s invisible. Or at least it’s supposed to be. As a culture, we expect women to look glossy and shimmery and smooth. We don’t want to know about the time and money that goes into this presentation.
By Curated Content
September 17, 2018