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
We would spend hours just lost in our sweet, intoxicating world of soft skin, whispers and drenched sheets. It was amazing. But also, I remember the most just sitting together at midnight talking about his mother, my childhood, his habit of wearing a nightcap while sleeping or just our Instagram browsing-patterns.
We might need, therefore, to uncouple sexuality from intimacy because they do not necessarily belong together. Intimacy points to the comfort of knowledge while sexuality often shatters what knowledge we think we have.
But whether you root for this couple or not, Little Things makes you think about the small things – like reading out a line from a book of poetry, sharing a friend’s WhatsApp message with your partner, forgetting to wash your dirty socks before they make the room stink – that make or break a relationship.
The process of connecting with another person, opening up to them, and getting close enough to build an intimate relationship is fraught with complexities and grey-areas, which often has a marked impact on how we interact with that person and how we choose to conduct ourselves around them.
Co-founder of The Chinky Homo Project, a digital and print queer anthology from North East India, Kumam Davidson talks about growing up in the shadow of insurgency, his writings, and his worry that “in 2019 even after Section 377 has been partially revoked, I continue to grapple with questions of intimacy and sexuality here in my state.
After five months I received a call from Natasha telling me about the content of a WhatsApp chat that Raajveer was having with one of his male teachers. “He is missing his Sir and crying. He is very confused. He sent him roses on chat and reassuring messages saying that he will always be there with his Sir and will never leave him. We are very worried. My husband is not aware of this, and neither do I want to tell him about it. Please help him”, said Natasha over the phone.
As we move toward destigmatising the topic of sex for all genders, we should include the language of intimacy as we collectively create a new cultural grammar around sex.
Artist Amanda Oleander’s paintings chronicles the everyday lives of couples and the various mundane things they do together that are simultaneously deeply intimate and poignant.
Why are certain privileges only afforded to couples? Why can we not share them with others outside of a romantic or sexual paradigm? Why is intimacy seen as being the purview of lovers? In actual fact, we may often share a greater intimacy with our friends than we do with our lovers.
Who is this person? What does this person want? Is it random cruising? Is money the goal, is it adventure? Why does it make me think of selling strawberries by the dusty roadside? I don’t have a single answer. Sex work is a lurking unknown in the world of sexuality.