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
यहाँ लड़कियों के लिए सेक्स करना सामजिक रूप से बहिष्कृत हो जाने जैसा अनैतिक काम है या कहिये कि यह गैर-कानूनी ही है, हालांकि कानूनन इसे गैर-कानूनी घोषित नहीं किया गया है।
While some of these questions seem old, they continue to be renewed in public debate on competing claims to public spaces. Ideas about public and private spaces also speak to the ways in which caste and class shape ideas about respectability, thus marking some places as ‘safe’ and others as ‘risky’.
To claim the public then in arbitrary, messy and oppositional ways, whether on the streets or online is to challenge the neoliberal impulse which is located in the creation of order. To create place, to stake claim, thwarts the desires for the sanitised neoliberal city and is a politics.
Therefore, the question of safe spaces and alternative families is pertinent to queer identities, that are so much more than imagined by a single dominant narrative.
In our mid-month issue Shilpa Phadke brings us an interesting mix of ideas woven from narratives of pleasure, danger, and resistance, among others, with regard to the digital streets of online spaces, and explores the conditions of possibility that will allow us to have fun in the online public space that is the Internet…
Adsa Fatima is a feminist, trainer and resource person working with Sama Resource Group for Women and Health. In this interview, she shares her insights on issues of privacy, safety and inclusion in the context of reproductive health, sexuality and rights, and the family and social environment that influence individual choices and decisions
However elusive the combination of safety and adventure, it’s a framework I find terribly useful. It helps me understand much of life, including spirituality and sexuality, and what the two might have in common.
Jasmine George is a TEDx speaker, lawyer, and a sexual and reproductive health advocate from India. She is the founder of Hidden Pockets and currently curates conversations around sexuality and other fields. She is passionate about using alternative means in law and technology to explore sexuality
Many among us are called names, are greeted with aggressive taunts and jeers on the very streets we boldly occupy at least once every year,so we go on living docilely until the next Pride, when performative reclamation of spaces becomes possible.
However elusive the combination of safety and adventure, it’s a framework I find terribly useful. It helps me understand much of life, including spirituality and sexuality, and what the two might have in common.
Shilpa believes loitering, just being, just hanging out in public places, is about ‘claiming the city with your body’. One of the co-authors of the book, ‘Why Loiter: Women and Risk on Mumbai’s Streets’ published in 2011, Shilpa has authored several essays and journals on issues of feminist parenting, gender and the politics of space, the right to take risks and related thoughts and concepts.
To ensure that important discussions about issues of sexuality can take place at home, in schools and between generations, efforts needs to be made to change the norms – especially those related to perceptions of safety. Individuals, institutions, organisations and policies need to work together to include safe spaces for reflections and opportunities for these discussions to become common practice.