popular culture
Joyland – Gazing Back Through the Lens of Desire
Directed by Saim Sadiq, Joyland (2022) is not a film about trans rights or women’s rights. It is not even about one specific group or community of people. It is about the whole spectrum of human emotions.
By Trijita
March 18, 2024
Refusing the weight in waiting
As a girl, I was made to believe that pleasure was something that existed outside my body, something that I had to seek out, something that was necessarily a product of a partnered experience. I don’t think I was even allowed to want pleasure, especially in its sexual forms.
By Aathira Gopi
March 15, 2022
REAL LOVE, BABY: THE CONTRADICTORY PRESSURES OF MODERN LOVE
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.
By Curated Content
February 15, 2022
Editorial: Fandom and Sexuality
Members of a fandom are not just passive consumers but active co-creators who imagine and build new worlds around their objects of adoration. Fandom communities offer fans the freedom of being able to imagine, create and share all sorts of scenarios, including romantic, erotic and sexual ones.
By TARSHI
November 15, 2021
A Manifesto for Single Women
Singleness represents eschewing all that patriarchy imposes on us in the name of emotional and financial protection. Women who decide not to marry defy age-old ‘wisdom’ mixed with terrible psychological and biologically-backed explanations.
By Sonia Soans
February 1, 2021
The Case For Platonic Relationships: Rethinking The Rules In Law And Society
The social value of the platonic relationship needs to be restated: Too many boys today grow up with the idea that their relations with women (who are not their mothers and/or sisters) are confined to an oversexualised romantic bubble.
By Curated Content
September 15, 2020
Editorial: Popular Culture and Sexuality
And so, in the mid-month issue we have Shweta Krishnan examining the place of political incorrectness in stand-up comedy, Rohini Banerjee talking about how fanfiction allowed her to delve into alternative worlds, and…
By TARSHI
December 15, 2018
The Politics of Politically Incorrect Jokes
Somewhere in the middle of Nanette, as I was crying and laughing, I thought about how political incorrectness is the soul of stand-up comedy.
By Shweta Krishnan
December 15, 2018
Queer Fanfiction and the Possibility of Queer Happy Endings
Fanfiction was more than just writing your own stories about the characters or the setting of your favourite book or TV show; it was a questioning of the dominant mainstream pop culture narrative as a whole.
By Rohini Banerjee
December 15, 2018
Let’s Talk About 377 | Popular Culture is Changing How India Views Homosexuality
When Deepa Mehta’s Fire came out in 1996, violent protests roiled India over the depiction of romance between two female leads. There is no homosexuality in India, demonstrators declared while burning effigies in the Capital. In contrast, when Margarita With A Straw came out in 2014, it received accolades for its sensitive portrayal of queer desire in a woman with disability.
By Curated Content
Crazy in Love? The Japanese Man ‘Married’ to a Hologram
Even in a country obsessed with anime, Kondo’s wedding shocked many. But he wants to be recognised as a “sexual minority” who can’t imagine dating a flesh-and-blood woman.
By Curated Content
December 15, 2018
हँसे या न हँसे?
“अगर आप उसपर हँस सकते हैं तो सब कुछ मज़ाकिया है।” – लुईस कैरोल लुईस कैरोल को अधिकार-आधारित परिप्रेक्ष्य वाला…
By Jasmine George
December 15, 2018
Bodice-Rippers and Bad Education: Do Romance Novels Lead to Sexual Mistakes?
While we’ve grown used to hearing porn blamed for society’s ills, it’s now the medium’s comparatively matronly cousin – romance novels – that have come under scrutiny.
By Curated Content
एक लंबी सनसनाहट
एक अलग जेंडर के शरीर के लिए मेरी इच्छा निरंतर और बेदर्द नहीं थी। ये तेज लहर सी होती और हमेशा मुझे उस शरीर के साथ काफ़ी संतुष्ट छोड़ जाती जो मेरे पास था। बृहन्नला का अवतार उस प्रकार की अस्थायी और पलटने योग्य संभावना के लिए एक संदर्भ बिंदु या आदर्श रूप बन गया।
By Aniruddan Vasudevan
December 15, 2018
A Tale of Four Theme Songs
Any narrative that we construct, any single word that we use to describe a person, a relationship, an individual is bound to be incomplete.
By Danish Sheikh
December 15, 2018