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Sexuality and Violence play out in many nuanced ways all around
us, ranging from subtle to more tangible forms. Is violence always
manifested physically or are there other ways in which one’s
rights could be violated? What role does the media play in
subjecting individuals or groups to violence?
The recent case of Santhi Soundarajan has brought to the fore how
a person’s sexuality, in this case her sexual/gender identity is
subjected to analysis by people in general and the media in
particular. It brings up issues of how the rights of people who do
not conform to the gender and sexuality norms of society whether by
choice or otherwise could be violated. Most interesting in this
case, as in many others, is how the media treats people sometimes
with the sensitivity they deserve and at other times subjects the
person to humiliation, and violates one’s right to privacy. One
may say that media involvement in this case could draw attention to
the larger issues of the rights of people who might be intersex,
transgender or transsexual. True, but it may also be of significance
to look at what messages are being propagated by the media, whose
voices are the ones generally being heard, which ones censored and
for what reasons.
I am glad we have been discussing this in our forum in such
detail. Let us go into it a little more in depth and discuss the
role of media in such cases. Does the media accurately reflect a
case in all its multi-faceted dimensions? How often does the media
interact with organizations and people working in the field of
sexuality to get to the depth of an issue in such cases? Does it
really serve the purpose of changing attitudes, stereotypes and
mind-sets of people towards issues which are generally not talked
about in the open or does it further help in feeding into these
stereotypes? Let us in this forum try and explore the challenges
being posed by the media when it plays a pro-active role in
portraying issues of sexuality and also talk about how best we could
take advantage of the media to spell out and have a debate on issues
of sexuality.
Looking forward to a stimulating discussion!
Regards,
Arpita Das (Moderator)
The South and Southeast Asia Resource Centre on Sexuality
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