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
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.