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

Author: Kristin Francoeur

'Pro-race' cervical cap

Reproducing Caste: Savarna Eugenics, Then and Now

Today Marie Stopes is better known for her eponymous clinics, which provide contraception and safe abortion services in 37 countries around the world. In 20th century colonial India, however, she once thought it fit to promote contraception with a strong eugenic and neo-Malthusian slant. She was just one of many Western and Indian birth control…
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An adult female receiving a vaccination that was administered by a public health clinician by way of a jet injector.

The (Pseudo) Science of Not Trusting Women

Medical abortion is a threat to scientific authorities because it is technology easily used without the help of a medical provider. Since there is doubt that women will use the drug safely without supervision (even though they did it before and are still doing it), some think the kinder option is to remove their opportunity to fail.
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A diagram of the female reproductive organs against a blue backdrop

Abortion ‘Vacations’ and Other Complications – I

If I had a dollar every time I heard an opponent of abortion rights say something like “If you remove the option for abortions, women will stop getting them,” it’s safe to say I would go up a tax bracket or two. In many places today, Global South or North, I would need all of those dollars in order to travel a considerable distance for an abortion that may neither be legal nor safe.
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Comedian Aditi Mittal speaking into a mike.

‘सेक्सी’ और मज़ाकिया महिलाओं से जुडी विसंगतियां

क्रिस्टिन फ्रैंकर द्वारा पिछले वर्ष, एआईबी के बदनाम नाकआउट रोस्ट के दौरान कॉमेडियन अदिति मित्तल ने कार्यक्रम के पैनल पर अपने सहयोगी अबिश मैथ्यू के बारे में मज़ाक करते हुए कहा था ““अबिश, अगर कोई लड़की आपके साथ सेक्स कर ले तो वो दोबारा कुंवारी बन जायेगी, आप तो सही मायने में कौमार्य झिल्ली ठीक…
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Comedian Aditi Mittal speaking into a mike.

Review: The Absurdities of Sexy and Funny Women

At the now infamous All India Bakchod Knockout roast last year, comedian Aditi Mittal told this joke about her fellow panellist Abish Mathew: “Abish, if a girl has sex with you she becomes a virgin again. You are literally a hymen repairman.” Though hardly the most vulgar joke of the evening, suddenly Mittal was fielding…
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Book cover. A baby resting on her mother's torso and shoulder looks wide-eyed at the camera. Title of the book "Birth in the age of AIDS" is written in red on top of the photo, and the subtitle "Women, reproduction, and HIV/AIDS in India" is written in red at the bottom. Screen reader support enabled. Book cover. A baby resting on her mother's torso and shoulder looks wide-eyed at the camera. Title of the book "Birth in the age of AIDS" is written in red on top of the photo, and the subtitle "Women, reproduction, and HIV/AIDS in India" is written in red at the bottom.

Book Review: Birth in the Age of AIDS: Women, Reproduction, and HIV/AIDS in India

Cecilia Van Hollen’s 2013 ethnography (published by Stanford University Press) of low caste, low-income women living with HIV in Tamil Nadu is refreshingly incongruous. Despite overwhelming global evidence that married women are especially likely to contract HIV, and that risk is multiplied if they’re already impoverished or marginalized, most discourse still focuses on other so-called…
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A brown woman in a blue top standing amongst a crowd raises a placard that reads in black on a white background, "Keep sex sexy - consent."

Issue In Focus: Challenging Neo-liberal ‘Equality’ in Consent

In an ideal world, this article would read at Tweet-length: “Enthusiastic sexual consent is sexy, and necessary for negotiating unequal power dynamics among partners.” Bas. No explanation needed. (Actually, in an ideal world, there would be no unequal power dynamics to negotiate, but I digress.) Consent is intimately connected with power; because we have unequal…
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