Consent and Sexuality
कृष्णा सोबती अपने उपन्यासों में महिला–यौनिकता की बात बेझिझक उठाती हैं। सन् 1972 ई. में प्रकाशित ‘सूरजमुखी अंधेरे के’ उपन्यास…
शहरी स्थानों को पुनः प्राप्त करने के लिए, सार्वजनिक स्थानों पर प्यार और रोमांस की पुलिसिंग या निगरानी के कई पहलुओं को देखना महत्वपूर्ण है
विकलांगता के साथ जी रहीं महिलाओं (Women with Disabilities/WWD) को यौन और प्रजनन संबंधी स्वास्थ्य देखभाल और अधिकारों पर ज़रूरी बाचीत
शहरी पुणे के एक नगरपालिका स्कूल की आठवीं कक्षा – एक सह-शिक्षा कक्षा जिसमें 18 लड़के और 12 लड़कियाँ हैं – के कुछ अनुभव
2013 के अक्टूबर के पहले हफ्ते का ख़त्म हो रहा था जब मैं और मेरे मामा प्रदीप के घर गए…
यह कोई नई बात नहीं है कि समाज में स्वीकार किए जाने का एक मुख्य तरीका ‘मरने तक साथ निभाने’…
…what is there to misunderstand
about hands that take without asking,
about silence twisted into consent
by those who have never had to be afraid?
The sheer ignorance of the intricacies of consent, or its performance, serves only to strengthen the enduring patriarchal framework that holds sway in a society where the bodies, desires, and even voices of women have been, and, tragically, continue to be, defined and controlled by men.
Consequently, a “yes” – whether verbal or gestural – cannot be shallowly inferred as an authentic, unambiguous, and static agreement to a “contract” proposed by men.
Intimacy can never thrive in an environment of rigid certainty. Intimacy requires surrender – not in the sense of submission – but in the willingness to be with another person without detachment or defences.
When a woman, in her own house, is told by her family members, to always seek their consent before doing anything, and to always keep them informed of every activity she engages in, or even to seek a job in her chosen field, her freedom is taken away from her. She is expected to take their consent for anything and everything, but her own consent is taken away from her.
The language of consent is not neutral. It is rigid where it should be nuanced, malleable where it should be firm. Yes is an all-encompassing spirit, ever-expanding; No is frustratingly constricted, barely visible.
Could it be that other changes in our lives make it even more difficult to conceive the desire of the ‘other’, specifically of those with whom we don’t share as many conversations, with whom we’ll soon, I expect, lose entirely the ability to speak?
There are times when we bend the rules and draw on the walls. This is one of those times. We listened in on some of the chatter online on the subject of consent and we ended up with some questions.
There may be situations in which a person’s responses might not be unquestionably equated with consent. Is consent merely a ‘yes’ or does one need to look for other cues to make sure their partner wants the same thing as them when it comes to intimacy?
Looking down upon the earth from many miles up in the sky, the divisions between land masses and water bodies…