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
एक समय ऐसा था जब मैं भी लड़कियों के लिए बनाई जाने वाली हर चीज़ से सिर्फ इसलिए दूर भागती थी क्योंकि मुझे लगता था कि नारीवादी दिखने के लिए एक खास तरीके से दिखना और व्यवहार करना आवश्यक है।
In my 27 years of existence, I’ve embodied various personas and roles. Even today, I behave slightly differently in the office, around parents, at a party and when I’m alone in my room. In the mornings I’m often a lawyer, whereas during evenings I become an artist.
Feminine energy is supposed to be yin, receptive, gentle, intuitive,and fulfilling. Masculine energy is supposed to be yang, active, fast, fierce, emptying, goal-oriented and focused.
The nature of the labor that goes into performing femininity is that it’s invisible. Or at least it’s supposed to be. As a culture, we expect women to look glossy and shimmery and smooth. We don’t want to know about the time and money that goes into this presentation.
The patriarchy is petrified of gender fluidity. Not only does the femininomenon threaten the modes of sex-based binaries, but it also undermines sexist hierarchies.
I am still coming to terms with my own femininity, as with new learnings I find myself regaining many facets of my personality which were lost while trying to ‘act like a man’ and ‘act tough’.
Coupledom may or may not be for everyone, and does not mean the same thing to everyone. Importantly, coupledom does not hold the same value or position in our lives, even in the lives of the individuals perceived to be parts of a couple structure.
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?”
If we are to reimagine coupledom and sexuality, we need to expand and challenge our ideas about togetherness, romance, love, intimacy, desire, sex, attachment, and so on.
Gender and sexuality are like constituent parts of a jigsaw puzzle that keeps morphing in such a way that nothing ever ‘fits’ for long, and the game begins anew each time.
Alok Vaid-Menon is one half of the trans South Asian performance duo from New York, DarkMatter. Vaid-Menon was gender-assigned male at birth, identifies as transfeminine (that is, identifies with femininity to a greater extent than with masculinity) and prefers the pronouns ‘they’ and ‘their’.
Taboos in relation to female desire, sexuality and the body are often addressed in my work. My recent artistic interest focuses on rituals that are primarily centred on agricultural communities in Bengal that involve the veneration of fertility symbols and celebration of feminine sexuality.
Social norms don’t expect women to look muscular, but if men are muscular, it is considered sexy. Just by choosing to pursue a largely male-dominated sport that glorifies what is accepted as “masculine”, Karuna and Sibalika are pushing the boundaries of these labels.
The simple truth is that my body and I are having an affair. We each obsess about the other, ask questions and desire each other so much, that it often borders on the shameless. My body is more in love with me, I suspect, than the other way around.