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
When we are talking about the theme of embracing equity we can see sports as a neutral space that has the potential to be a space where everyone can connect, together, without language, and without the domination of any community over another.
The spotlight that the world’s biggest sporting event (arguably) has along with the inherent gender and sexuality bias in sport come together in how sportspersons and athletes are both perceived and perceive themselves in mainstream and social media.
Lack of women’s representation in policy-making institutions has allowed men, often with minimal understanding and empathy, to decide what women in sports can or cannot wear. As a result, these policies have ended up undermining women’s comfort as well as agency.
From today’s vantage point I see that I missed an opportunity to use PT and sports in school as a way to get to know and move my body. This in turn held me back from viewing myself as a sexual being.
कई लोगों को नहीं लगता था कि पैरालिंपिक्स वास्तव में एक खेल आयोजन है। लेकिन इन गेम्स ने दिखा दिया कि कैसे विकलांगता के साथ खेलने वाले ऐथलीट्स असाधारण लक्ष्यों को प्राप्त कर सकते हैं, भले ही उनके आसपास के लोगों को लगता हो कि वे नहीं कर सकते।
Society finds a million different ways to tell us that sports are not for women but why? In popular culture, it is mostly men who are shown to be excelling at sports. Athletic women are shown as out-of-place ‘tomboys’ and outcasts.
Stories hold power. They shape how we understand the world, and if they are stories of distorted facts and falsehoods, they spread unease, discord and hatred. But stories also allow us to imagine other possibilities; they give us hope that we can overcome oppression and injustice.
So I am realising now that for me the space of borderlessness applies to everything. It applies to the physical and topographical border as it does to the borders we create between gender and their expressions. I think I would like to argue for a truly borderless understanding of the world.
“Something about this pose brought about a sense of owning my body, my persona, my expression, my sensuality, my whole being. The drop of the hip made the bottom vertebrae curve, and appear out of alignment from the rest of my spine. A deviance, defiance of the normal straight stance. A resistance, a revolt of sorts.”
This awareness of the status ascribed to women – the status of being the objects of men’s desires – affects every aspect of a woman’s life. Desire then, in particular, becomes an aspect of a woman’s life where navigation becomes tricky.
I realise that a lot of men want (and need) to dominate women not because it is mutually pleasurable but because it reinforces patriarchal hierarchies. The taboo around kink, as a larger space of exploration, and BDSM, as a part of it, only furthers the violence, intensifying the apparent mystery of these subjects.
The idealisation of motherhood is crucial to our culture; it is important that the mother is self-sacrificing. This sacrificial instinct isn’t limited to women’s behaviour. It goes on to encompass the entirety of her corporeality and the way she performs it.
हमें ख़ुद को यह याद दिलाना ज़रूरी है कि हराम और आएब को पितृसत्ता की वैश्विक प्रकोप से बढ़ावा मिलता है। वे एक ऐसी क़ैदी संस्था, बाध्यकारी बुनियादी ढाँचे और प्रतिबंधक प्रणाली का हिस्सा हैं जो अपनी प्रजा की स्वतंत्र पहचान और खुली अभिव्यक्ति को नियंत्रण मैं रखते हुए अपनी व्यापकता को बनाए रखता है।