Voices
Working as a sexuality rights activist in a repressive environment can take a huge toll on people’s wellbeing. It is therefore important that we as social workers, activists, advocates and everyone else involved in this work take care, take care of ourselves and each other, be supportive, give that extra push to someone who needs it, and allow ourselves to make mistakes.
The Meitei queer’s tussle with sexuality continues to be a struggle jarred with discrimination, negation and moral policing through language.
In my opinion, Ghosh was in search of a language of cinema which could be adequately expressive of queerness; he was slowly moving towards inventing that language, which would not be alienating to his conformist audiences, yet, would be intelligibly pleasurable to his (informed) queer viewers.
As I reflect on what I had actively buried and tried to constantly forget, I realise how crucial language was in defining how I viewed myself.
You speak in so many tongues to me as you journey languorously down my body.
Typos are speed breakers, and autocorrect has kinky preferences
A basic analysis of the most powerful swear words reveals that the vast majority are somehow related to sex (as in the act) or sexuality.
While there have been many music videos objectifying women where they are shown to be given favours by men, it is amazing to note that even in a song where a woman is being refused the ‘gifts’ she seeks, the objectification of women persists.
Sudha ji’s indomitable spirit made me question if I was settling down for too little, if there was more that I should ask for, and if there is more that I deserve.
“I was not a wanted child. Of course I am a girl, and that explains it. It’s like no one really cares if I exist. My brothers are useless, but they are everything to them(her parents). It’s not like he (her lover) needs me either; I still take food for him everyday.”
In this essay, I revisit my early struggles with AIDS diagnosis during the summer of 2003. The recollections allow me to rethink how the New York cityscape and coming out about my HIV status to my parents in India shapes a racialised experience with HIV and AIDS, family relations, and transnational migration. Such a racialised experience is erased within Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.
Could we imagine QAMRA as an archive that is alive, and interventionist, that is enabling the creation of a new space for dialogue while assiduously documenting the lives, work and interventions of existing and older histories?
Historically, morality has been a privilege of the Savarna, and sexuality has been the fort that Savarna men seek to protect through patriarchy.
By creating a safe space to discuss these issues [of sexual abuse] and acknowledging these experiences, we can find a way to address the root cause and move forward in our healing process.