Anthology Issue Jan 2025
How would we see the world really, if we were open to the idea that it is not purpose but play that drives us to seek companionship, be it an orchid seeking a pollinator or a human seeking another?
I think we are still in a trap of a heteronormative, youth biased, light skin biased, sizeist, ableist culture and until we consciously snap out of it we are throwing a cloak over a human being’s ability to really find what their sexuality even looks like.
This awareness of the status ascribed to women – the status of being the objects of men’s desires – affects every aspect of a woman’s life. Desire then, in particular, becomes an aspect of a woman’s life where navigation becomes tricky.
Our bodies become the form and medium through which we present ourselves to the outside world, engage with it, interact with it, perceive it and are perceived by it.
Even in these times when sexuality is talked about more than ever before, even as we are beginning to talk about sexual pleasure and not just violations, acknowledging our fantasies isn’t easy, particularly if they are of the kind that seem to defy our politics.
If not for these memories, my exploration of sexuality would perhaps have stopped a few years ago, when I was single for a long time and didn’t know if I could find someone like me.
“City-living gave me talons and claws, but now I want to put those away. I want something else. I want softness. I want grass under my feet. I want the fist in my stomach to slowly unclench. I want the garden of my childhood to get lost in play while letting sunlit hours pass over to rosy dusk.”
Marriage also feels complicated when one approaches it through the lens of feminism. Marriage throws in two people and often their families into a system designed to perpetuate patriarchy, subjugate women, and bind men and women (in heteronormative marriage) into strict roles in the marriage.
Let me begin with a confession. I have always loved the idea of marriage. What is one to do when…
In a world where queerness is looked at as failure, The Queer Art of Failure allows for many possibilities to make sense of these failures.
Dilli ki Galiyaan therefore offers us a broader canvas for our desires, than the one afforded by the clear cut binaries of our current debates. The text shows that there will be masculinities that we urgently need to discourage; while men who do not encourage us will continue to exist.
इंटरनेट पर बने क्वीयर औरतों के इस समुदाय की बुनियाद एक साझा हक़ीक़त है जो ये सभी औरतें जीतीं हैं। बंद दरवाज़ों के पीछे से एक-दूसरे के सामने अपना दिल खोलकर उन्होंने ये आपसी रिश्ते बनाए हैं।
मेरा लिपस्टिक और लिपस्टिक के रंगों के साथ हमेशा से एक यौनिक रिश्ता रहा है। लिपस्टिक से मेरी पहचान निशानों और धब्बों के रूप में ही हुई थी।
पहले जिन स्त्रीसुलभ व्यवहारों के कारण मुझमें वो मेएलीपन दिखाई देता था, अब वो मेरे जीवन का हिस्सा बन चुका है। वह अब उन सब कपड़ों में जो मैं पहनती हूँ, जिस अंदाज़ में मैं चलती, सोचती और बात करती हूँ या लोक चर्चाओं में भाग लेती हूँ, परिलक्षित होता है।