The I Column
Acceptance, Agency, and a Women’s Hostel
Home, to me, was never a static entity, but my time in a girl’s hostel feels like the embodiment of everything my ideal “home” is – empowering, liberating, and full of women who love each other unabashedly.
By Anonymous
January 2, 2020
Feminist Parenting: Talking About Gender And Sexuality
“Mamma, look, that’s a boy giraffe, I can see his penis,” exclaims my four-year-old daughter in delight at her discovery as we stand watching the stately animals at the fabulous Mysore Zoo. Far from cringing at the over-loud tones of my daughter, I beam at her, “That is clever of you.”
By Shilpa Phadke
January 2, 2020
A Gay Man’s Daughter
Were there more people like my father? Was it legal? I read about sexual diversity and how people of all sexual orientations should have the same rights[1], the LGBT community, and so on, and what the law says about them. Though the picture is not a completely happy one, a lot of work is going on in this area and there is still hope for the future.
By Anonymous
December 2, 2019
Faith, Pleasure and The Da Vinci Code
In my adulthood, I have experienced God outside of how I was taught to experience Him. I have discovered that I am a sexual being with infinite ways of experiencing pleasure. Almost all of these ways are outside of the tame abstinence-penetrative sex to get pregnant-abstinence cycle prescribed by the Catholic Church
By Sheena D'Lima
November 1, 2019
Sexuality and Spirituality – Coming Full Circle
What do we create for ourselves in that moment of acute awareness? Do we create empowerment, love, care, self-expression; or do we manipulate it to create abuse, distrust and disharmony? For, what is spirituality if not the uplifting of the human spirit? If sexuality is the medium for someone, what’s the problem?
By Asmi
November 1, 2019
My Experiences In BDSM As Well As Vanilla Interactions With Men
My interaction with men started once I finished school and most men in my life have been decent to me, to say the least. However, there are different sides of maleness or manhood that I have come to experience.
By Asmi
October 1, 2019
Is Privacy Merely An Illusion To Be Rejected?
Is there anything about my sexuality that is private anymore? What happened to the unspoken rule of not discussing one’s sexual life in the open? What happened to the sleazy jokes and the complete silence around sexuality that I remember from the previous generation?
By Asmi
September 2, 2019
A Vicious Cycle – Forced to Stand Still and Then Feel Bad About It
On a larger scale, my non-normative sexuality is confined to tiny spaces, influenced by fear of impending violence, rejection and revulsion, even when one is privileged enough to live in a metropolitan city.
By Mahika Banerji
Following Aladdin’s Genie
It is this camaraderie with sexualness that made my mother uncomfortable about my comfort with lipsticks. Stains become metonyms for the woman herself, and her sexuality. It is possible that this stain might stay on someone’s mind as they encounter a stained cup. It is possible that even if they never have seen the person, they would now be compelled to imagine them.
By Muskan Nagpal
August 1, 2019
Porn, Not Erotica
Porn is able to express the ‘yummy yucky’ nature of many of our fantasies. I use the term ‘yummy yucky’ because I feel it captures a mix of that which is both “hot and disturbing”
By Jaya Sharma
July 1, 2019
Does the Underwear Brand Really Matter?
After the underwear slips off, does the underwear brand really matter? The underwear may mean different things for different people. It may evoke desire or may hinder access.
By Andy Stephen Silveira
June 1, 2019
Why it is Important To Not Include Everything in the Queer Bracket
I personally feel that any cause, specially one like kink that is in its nascent stages, needs its own space to grow, to affect enough people, before it merges with the larger cause of queerness, or sexuality, or even humanity.
By Asmi
Coming Out as a Kinkster in Public
Will I write openly about what is or is not done, what is or is not meaningful when it comes to sexuality? Yes. Will I talk about BDSM and kink as a way of life, despite it being taboo for discussion? Yes, I will talk about BDSM and kink, and many other things as well, but I will not evangelise for them.
By Asmi
April 1, 2019
Some Part of them Stays with You
For them there is always a smile, and for them time has stood through. Memories are edged in the season of those years in which I met them.
By Pavel Sagolsem
February 15, 2019
Traversing the Landscape of Intimacy, Penetrative Sex, Sexuality and BDSM
The point is simple. Intimacy is not about sexuality, penetrative sex, gender, BDSM or any one parameter. Yet, intimacy is about all of them AND MORE.
By Asmi