Voices
Extra Large
“Large will not fit you.” / She is scoping me, up and down, eyes / Flicking fast and darting away…“Try extra-large instead.”
By Damini Kulkarni
January 3, 2023
A Space of Belonging
My sexuality had to somehow find people and a space to belong, just as my collaborators and friends needed something of that sort. We found this together in part with Matai Society.
By Kumam Davidson Singh
October 17, 2022
The many hues of connections
Connection, to my mind, is one of those profoundly entrenched concepts manifesting itself throughout our lives. It is difficult to let go of.
By Adsa Fatima
October 17, 2022
Where do we begin?
What does it mean to extend acceptance and support in one of life’s most crucial areas – the workspace? How do we unpack the concept of positive discrimination and affirmative action at the level of the organisation.
By Shikha Aleya
September 19, 2022
When the Game is Set Against You, Why Play By The Rules?
When working with clients at the margins, the effort is not just to find out what intersections they are at and what systems alienate or harm them, but also the internal factors that affect them in the process of exclusion and violence.
By Simran Kewlani and Vasudha Ramani
September 19, 2022
The Chronicles of the Changing Room: Reclaiming the Cubicle of Doom
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.
By Sanskriti Bhardwaj
September 19, 2022
Obedience, the Greater Good and Self-Exploration
Years of control and suppression made their presence felt emotionally, mentally, and even physically. I would walk hunched up and was extremely conscious of how I should present myself physically, so as not to displease others. Those were very stressful days.
By Taniya Mondal
September 1, 2022
Nightmares of Being Chased by an Angry Mob
Someone like me, who was always vocal about sexuality, would feel invalidated speaking frankly about sex. Most doctors themselves weren’t comfortable discussing anything remotely pertaining to be a challenge in the sexual wellness area.
By Pooja Priyamvada
September 1, 2022
Queer mental health and therapy
Several outcomes of minority stress were observed in this study – feelings of guilt and shame, internalised homophobia, experiencing queerphobia, lack of acceptance, and family-related stress.
By Anuckriti Garg
September 1, 2022
High Heels and Loose-fitting Clothes: Movement Unfettered
How should I walk, what should my gait be like, what kind of clothes can I wear that will sort of cover me up…? This indecisiveness and the burden of, “What will others think?” are some of the worries, that I carried for a long time while making decisions like: “Is this going to expose too much skin?”, “Is this going to look a certain way that I may not like to present myself as?”
By Taniya Mondal
Shouldn’t The World Be Big Enough?
We live in a world where resilience is celebrated and given priority over attempting to resolve factors that force one to be resilient. Campuses shouldn’t aim to merely be inclusive of diverse individuals – they must strive to not only affirm them but also celebrate them.
By Mythili Menon
April 18, 2022
Public Sex and the Police in Urban Spaces
While sex workers face repeated harassment by the police, many young couples face threats in a one-off incident if the police finds them with their partner/lover. They may face police surveillance of expressions of intimacy and affection in public.
By Shruti Arora
April 1, 2022
The Gendered Muscle in Gym Spaces
I can recall my experiences in the washrooms of different gyms that I have been a member of. A men’s washroom is an interesting place in terms of how sexuality manifests itself in its various aspects. It was not unusual to see men of various kinds with strange energies in these washrooms.
By Shiva Chauhan
April 1, 2022
The Construction of Women as Spaces
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.
By Tanvi Chattoraj
April 1, 2022
Refusing the weight in waiting
As a girl, I was made to believe that pleasure was something that existed outside my body, something that I had to seek out, something that was necessarily a product of a partnered experience. I don’t think I was even allowed to want pleasure, especially in its sexual forms.
By Aathira Gopi
March 15, 2022