Shikha Aleya
Interview – Deena Mohamed
Deena Mohamed, Egyptian artist, illustrator and designer, speaks to us about her art and her perspective on politics, patriarchy, feminism, and gender and sexuality.
By Shikha Aleya
December 3, 2018
Interview – Ankur Paliwal
Queering to me is thinking, being, living and loving outside societal norms.
By Shikha Aleya
July 22, 2024
I Column : Fiction and Sexuality
What is fiction? Is it born of reality? Or does it birth reality, reflecting it back at me until I see the things I do not see? Until I find the person that is me? Until I dance my horse dance under moon, under stars, in a room full of people who like horse dancing just as much as they like the swirly skirt and the pot-bellied person doing the Bhangra.
By Shikha Aleya
September 1, 2017
I COLUMN : FICTION AND SEXUALITY
Her eyes are open now, she looks at him. There is sadness there. “What my love? What happened?” he asks….
By Shikha Aleya
January 2, 2018
Does Sex Equal Grape? How Sexuality Relates to Money
As soon as you add sexuality to a piece about money, the first instinct generally is to reduce it all to sex, leaving the “-uality” like a little invisible tail feather that flutters away into the unknown.
By Shikha Aleya
CSE and Online Hot Bath Scenes
No matter how many optional ways I’ve considered for starting this piece, I keep returning to ‘hot’ and ‘masala’. I’ve…
By Shikha Aleya
February 1, 2015
Consent, reaction, response, or – you lead, I follow.
Look sharp. Consent is tricky, hiding secrets behind the empowerment toolkit and all our good intentions. Why? Because we activate this value-loaded word in a world where many, or most things, are still about the first-mover advantage. A world that holds typically narrow views of capacity, ability and success.
By Shikha Aleya
February 18, 2025
Bridging the gaps in an evolving language
Fashion is a language that expresses survival, rebellion, freedom, visibility and invisibility, identity, representation and inclusion.
By Shikha Aleya
October 19, 2023
Biscuit tin
I keep on hold the colours and prints to wrap you in gentle delicate flowers or little cartoon lions and boys with fists that say Bam and Super / until I know what lies between your legs the cigar or the smile of consolation if you’re the first
By Shikha Aleya
December 1, 2020
Beyond Acceptance and Rejection
Tolerance and space for another who is not like oneself is important. Without such tolerance and space we risk becoming perpetrators of injustice, forcing everybody into a mold that is not their shape.
By Shikha Aleya
March 5, 2017
An Invisible Diversity of Gaze
There are a number of different ways to approach this theme, Films and Sexuality. One way is through the eyes of the popcorn-eating, samosa-chomping, money-paying audience member who chooses to see or not see a film, who likes or dislikes it, who makes the film a box-office hit, or pans it.
By Shikha Aleya
January 5, 2017
An Interview with Disability and Sexuality Rights Activist Kiran
He is the founder of a number of support organisations that focus on sexuality and disability issues at the grassroots. Over multiple conversations conducted in Hindi and English, Kiran and Shikha Aleya discussed issues of sexuality, access and disability based on some of Kiran’s life experiences.
By Shikha Aleya
A time to #metoo or not to
Time and sexuality, neither is one-dimensional, neither is neat and both have a way of being always in a state of movement, whether we like it or not, flow with it or not.
By Shikha Aleya
November 1, 2017
A Swirly Skirt on the Expressway
Who is this person? What does this person want? Is it random cruising? Is money the goal, is it adventure? Why does it make me think of selling strawberries by the dusty roadside? I don’t have a single answer. Sex work is a lurking unknown in the world of sexuality.
By Shikha Aleya
April 5, 2016
A small slice of Gender & Sexuality feels like this!
Here’s to some quiet time listening in to what people are saying, and consuming, on the Internet, particularly on social media, on the subject of gender and sexuality.
By Shikha Aleya
November 19, 2024