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
Irrespective of the gender or sexual orientation of the people involved, the only way the scales of power can be balanced in favour of everyone involved, is through explicit, well-informed consent.
Both rejections and affirmations of the couple are skewered on this doubleness: It is the fullest expression of love and proximity available to us, and it bears all the insufficiencies of present social relations. Monogamous romantic commitment, like infallible lifelong attraction to only men or only women, is surely a minority tendency expediently elevated to a general social principle.
Since we get to see hundreds of thousands of faces over the course of our lives, we know that facial features can take all kinds of shapes and colours and textures and combinations. We don’t see people’s genitals nearly as often.
Why is it always so hard to find a place for intimacy and why do we have to lie and cheat our way into getting it? Everything related to non-committal sex was always so taboo, shrouded in secrecy, and eliciting raised eyebrows, that it turned me off.
The movie Shubh Mangal Saavdhan was a commentary about perversions in our society – the denial of the truth about sexuality, that sex is normal, that sex could be just another physical need, that sometimes sex can be boring, that sometimes sex can frustrate.
This awareness of the status ascribed to women – the status of being the objects of men’s desires – affects every aspect of a woman’s life. Desire then, in particular, becomes an aspect of a woman’s life where navigation becomes tricky.
Many disabled people in India live with their parents and any expression of sexuality is suppressed as a rule within the confines of their homes. Sexual desires of persons with disabilities are seldom a priority issue for families or civil society. More is said through silence than words. Be grateful that you are alive. Isn’t that enough?
I am confident in my sexuality and know what I want from life. I definitely do not want to be joined at the hip with a man to feel fulfilled. But I do know what I want from a man and I can enter a relationship from a point of equality rather than subservience.
Looking back, it seems strange, almost sad that he couldn’t contain his anxiety, couldn’t bear the shame of what he did wrong. He must have skimmed over so much turmoil, that he couldn’t accept the reality of harming someone.