Voices
In 2008, there were two important sets of events that happened: six weeks of intense hearings at the final arguments stage in the Naz Foundation case at the Delhi High Court, where section 377 of the Indian Penal Code was being challenged, and a bunch of folks in Delhi deciding that they were going to organize a Pride March. While these don’t seem obviously connected, they were both expressions of freedom, one in constitutional terms within the courtroom, and the other, a very public expression of freedom, taking to the streets.
Cinnamon Gardens, looking back on the early twentieth century, reveals the trauma of queer lives, in a country where queerness, family and the state are still irreconcilable with each other.
Not everyone, however, is taken in by #MeToo. Some women feel that they shouldn’t have to make a public show of their pain for their suffering to be acknowledged. For others, sharing their story in such a public fashion exposes them to further online harassment from those who think of the hashtag campaign as a sympathy-seeking movement. Then there are those who are downright unimpressed, feeling that it unfairly casts sexual harassment as a man vs. women problem.
The articles also reflected the ‘fear of old age’ among younger gay men – not just in terms of what the future would hold, but also in terms of insecurity around ‘losing ground’ in the here and now. The articles reviewed did not quite explore in detail what the ramification of such insecurity was on the mental health, and by extension the sexual health, of younger gay men, but it could not have been positive, especially with the backdrop of the HIV epidemic. The articles did, however, talk about suicide and suicide attempts among gay men, and this did not seem limited to any age bracket.
Time and sexuality, neither is one-dimensional, neither is neat and both have a way of being always in a state of movement, whether we like it or not, flow with it or not.
The relationship between caste and sexuality has always been a complicated one, one that is performed through socially sanctioned practices,…
I still remember my early childhood days when we used to get lessons on caste in our day-to-day lives. Coming…
Aranyani’s writing most certainly has a sensory charm and no two people are going to experience her narration the same way. I wish you a happy and gloriously gay reading of this fleshy collection of erotic stories!
I thought of myself as a feminist activist much before I formally entered the development sector space. I participated in…
Neha is a proud, beaming 16-year-old. Standing on the lawns outside Delhi’s India Gate, she speaks to the camera about…
The discourse on safer sex is usually couched in medical language– protection from STIs and unwanted pregnancies are what supposedly…
Language is central to how we think about concepts and ideas, and rights-based language matters enormously when we talk about sexuality. However, much of what many of us know about sexuality-related topics is constructed, explained and communicated solely in English.
There are many ways to be queer. Apart from the fact that queerness encompasses a wide variety of sexual expression,…
It is very easy to fall into the trap of believing that the survival of the larger group is more important than the rights of an individual. This is especially true in diasporic communities, where people are constantly struggling to keep their cultural identities intact while simultaneously assimilating to the majority culture just enough to survive.
My entire life has been a struggle of confused identities. I stood at the intersection of gay, Muslim and economic privilege.