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: Nighat Gandhi

LAUNDERING DIAPERS: Love? Duty? Oppression? Economic Agenda?

Lisa calls such a model of marriage “sexist, out-dated and unrealistic.” Guess what? This sexist, out-dated and unrealistic model of marriage is the very model in vogue in our part of the world. Such a marriage model that should make parents of about-to-enter-matrimony women lose sleep, but this is the very model most parents are eager to shove their daughters into. Indeed such sexist marriages are the cause for over-the-top, days-long celebrations: i.e. the big, fat, horrendously expensive desi wedding.
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A graphic illustration with a black, inky tree with branches outlined by a silhouette of a face.

MY VAGINA IS DUKHA?

Ageing vaginas in ageing female bodies are joked about. But a vagina shouldn’t have the task of pleasing anybody but itself first. To begin with, we’ll have to love and respect our vaginas in order to pleasure them. Love them just as they are. If they feel a little dry, don’t despair. Use a lubricant or a little coconut oil. If my labia are unshapely, they’re still my labia and respond very nicely to gentleness and tenderness. If I don’t love and respect my ageing body, in need of gentle, loving, patient care, then who will, for God’s sake?
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Image of mannequins with orange and pink ductapes. On one of the mannequins ‘Your body belongs to you’ is written

STAY SINGLE. STAY SAFE.

The largest contingent of voiceless, lonely women with limited agency in the subcontinent must be its married women. If they’re fortunate enough to be born and reach adulthood, a woman’s parents and society make sure she becomes an adult brainwashed into self-alienation and self-loathing.
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