Sexuality
Brushstrokes: Searching for Network
Thus, you take to the Internet, with its vast landscape of possibilities, and it becomes your means of finding queer solidarity, queer friendships, and even queer love.
By Curated Content
April 1, 2019
Video Page: The Short Film ‘Naked’
The Internet is as public a space as any other – fraught with its own set of complexities – and the stigmas and moral judgments that plague our immediate physical environment often permeate into it, whether subconsciously or not.
By Curated Content
April 1, 2019
Interview – Kalpana Viswanath
Dr. Kalpana Viswanath, researcher, and urban safety and gender rights activist, shares her thoughts on issues of Public Safety and Sexuality with In Plainspeak. Co-founder and CEO of SafetiPin, a social enterprise that uses data and technology to build safer, more inclusive and smart cities, Kalpana has led large gender rights projects globally.
By Shikha Aleya
April 1, 2019
Coming Out as a Kinkster in Public
Will I write openly about what is or is not done, what is or is not meaningful when it comes to sexuality? Yes. Will I talk about BDSM and kink as a way of life, despite it being taboo for discussion? Yes, I will talk about BDSM and kink, and many other things as well, but I will not evangelise for them.
By Asmi
April 1, 2019
Where Do I Go?
As renowned queer scholar Judith Butler said, “For those who are still looking to become possible, possibility is a necessity.” This is essential but also easier said than done.
By Smita Vanniyar
April 1, 2019
Love, Lust and PDA
Six years later (and out of such an abusive relationship), as I sit in a Gender Studies classroom discussing public and private spheres, being introduced to the feminist ideology of the personal being political, I reflect back and see my experiences as emerging from a complex discursive pattern. The peculiar way in which heterosexual romantic relationships are envisaged and the potentiality of them being disruptive of traditional arrangements of companionship requires them to be manifested outside of the four walls of home and family. Yet, one faces a situation of a pathetic lack of safe spaces within the public sphere and the traditional discourse of love being private and contained within the private sphere…
By Anannya Chatterjee
April 1, 2019
Editorial: Choice and Sexuality
Choices are also influenced by our milieu, by socio-cultural norms, by the laws and strictures that operate to regulate what we may and may not do. Lest this makes it seem that we are mere puppets triggered by internal whimsy and simultaneously constrained by external forces, our contributors show that this is not so.
By TARSHI
March 18, 2019
Supreme Court Has Done Well to Legally Reaffirm Women’s Right to Choose Sexual Partners. So What?
Whether it is family, society, gangs of thugs, or political parties, the threats to women’s freedom to choose in India are many and varied. To the above list, one may add the police and the judiciary as well.
By Curated Content
बेटे का पत्र, पिता के नाम
आज वैश्विक और स्थानीय रूप से हम जहाँ भी हैं, मैं दिल से आपको धन्यवाद देना चाहता हूँ कि आपने मुझे हमेशा ही मजबूत और निर्भीक रहना सिखाया है।
By Sahil Sood
March 18, 2019
Multiple Generations, Same-Sex Couples, Many In-Laws: The Indian Family is Changing
The Indian family is changing. There’s no ‘ideal family’ defined by children or lineage. It comes in different shapes and sizes.
By Curated Content
Why Do People Watch Porn? Five Women Explain Their Reasons
India is one of the largest consumers of porn in the world, so much so that Pornhub created a mirror site following Indian government’s ban. Definitely, not all viewers of porn end up committing sexual crimes.
By Curated Content
March 18, 2019
Public Interview: Choice and Sexuality – II
This is Part Two of a ‘public interview’ that TARSHI conducted last month, where our attempt was to collate people’s thoughts, notions, and experiences surrounding the choices they make, and the choices that are accessible to them, with regards to their sexuality.
By Shikha Aleya
March 18, 2019
Reproductive Technologies: Families of Choice?
While we moved one step forward towards sexual rights by striking down Article 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and decriminalising homosexuality, we still have a long way to go in changing and challenging the popular psyche and the political and legal narratives around homosexuality and queer families.
By Anindita Sengupta
March 5, 2019
Public Interview: Choice and Sexuality – I
For this March issue, we decided to interview many people, not just one, and over 350 people responded! Here are the results of a ‘public interview’ that took the form of a survey, and two polls with two questions each, on Facebook and Instagram.
By Shikha Aleya
March 5, 2019
Sexuality, Choice and ‘Crazy Rich Asians’
Kwan’s ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ does not just highlight the lifestyle of the segment of Singaporean society that is unimaginable and unattainable to most people, it amplifies that heterosexuality is often not a choice.
By Vizla Kumaresan
March 5, 2019