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
This article explores how women are constructed as a ‘space’ manufactured by men to seek comfort, but void of having any active agency or participation in that space itself. I seek to bring this out in this article by drawing a parallel between the nineteenth century ‘Bharat Mata’ (Mother India) and the depiction of the twenty-first century ‘heroine’ in Bollywood movies.
There’s a difference between ‘laughing with’ and ‘laughing at’. The above instance was obviously of the latter kind. Humour has a complex but integral relationship with queer genders and sexualities, and it has been evolving over time.
While women’s colleges are certainly a step ahead of other institutions in creating spaces of liberation and encouraging freedom of choice, this rare advantage must expand itself onto the landscape of our entire country.
The idea of a “desirable” body, sewn in my brain from the threads of Instagram reels, weight-loss ads, and the women on this store’s website, stitches the clothes I wear so that they become coloured in every shade of rejection. I wonder if the women I see outside the changing room, admiring themselves in the communal mirrors, seeking validation from their accompanying shoppers, feel the same way as I do inside their cubicle of doom.
The general attitude towards sexual fantasy, and the reflection of such fantasies in popular imagery, erotica and erotic porn is constructed on assumptions of ableism. There are other fantasies though, that reflect or are born of the sexuality of their creators and consumers, persons who do not fit into the accepted age, body or sexual identity.
It’s (already!) mid-2015: advocates, activists, development workers, policy wonks working on the ‘new development agenda’ or ‘sustainable development goals’ or…
So, yes, it is “just a step”. If sexual minorities are to exercise bodily autonomy and sexual orientation as fundamental rights, laws need to written, rewritten and read down, even if one step at a time.
Medical abortion is a threat to scientific authorities because it is technology easily used without the help of a medical provider. Since there is doubt that women will use the drug safely without supervision (even though they did it before and are still doing it), some think the kinder option is to remove their opportunity to fail.
You don’t even realise what you’ve said until someone in the group, quick as lightning, hits you with the rejoinder, “That’s what she said!” As you’re trying to make sense of what just happened, the group dissolves into giggles.
There are hundreds of mukbangers and flood vloggers in India, with individuals earning lakhs of rupees through just eating delicious, and sometimes weird, food. However, those mukbang creators who do not follow stereotypical ideas of gender, caste and class meet with differential treatment.
It is rather edifying to find information that one can relate to through a solitary rectangular box. Over time, this solitary box somehow stuck around while everything around it changed as the world moved even further into a digital era.