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
“Something about this pose brought about a sense of owning my body, my persona, my expression, my sensuality, my whole being. The drop of the hip made the bottom vertebrae curve, and appear out of alignment from the rest of my spine. A deviance, defiance of the normal straight stance. A resistance, a revolt of sorts.”
So I am realising now that for me the space of borderlessness applies to everything. It applies to the physical and topographical border as it does to the borders we create between gender and their expressions. I think I would like to argue for a truly borderless understanding of the world.
Stories hold power. They shape how we understand the world, and if they are stories of distorted facts and falsehoods, they spread unease, discord and hatred. But stories also allow us to imagine other possibilities; they give us hope that we can overcome oppression and injustice.
Society finds a million different ways to tell us that sports are not for women but why? In popular culture, it is mostly men who are shown to be excelling at sports. Athletic women are shown as out-of-place ‘tomboys’ and outcasts.
कई लोगों को नहीं लगता था कि पैरालिंपिक्स वास्तव में एक खेल आयोजन है। लेकिन इन गेम्स ने दिखा दिया कि कैसे विकलांगता के साथ खेलने वाले ऐथलीट्स असाधारण लक्ष्यों को प्राप्त कर सकते हैं, भले ही उनके आसपास के लोगों को लगता हो कि वे नहीं कर सकते।
From today’s vantage point I see that I missed an opportunity to use PT and sports in school as a way to get to know and move my body. This in turn held me back from viewing myself as a sexual being.
Lack of women’s representation in policy-making institutions has allowed men, often with minimal understanding and empathy, to decide what women in sports can or cannot wear. As a result, these policies have ended up undermining women’s comfort as well as agency.
The spotlight that the world’s biggest sporting event (arguably) has along with the inherent gender and sexuality bias in sport come together in how sportspersons and athletes are both perceived and perceive themselves in mainstream and social media.
When we are talking about the theme of embracing equity we can see sports as a neutral space that has the potential to be a space where everyone can connect, together, without language, and without the domination of any community over another.
They use sports, technology, arts, and media to express themselves and to build the confidence to exercise choice and negotiate decisions about their bodies, health and life.
अधिकतर लड़कियों के लिए गोल प्रोग्राम वह पहला साधन बनता है जहाँ वे अपने जीवन, घरों में और आसपास हो रहे अपने जेंडर की भूमिका, भविष्य के बारे में सवाल, स्वाधीनता और उसकी चुनौती को समझ सकें।
No Limits explores several themes – the struggles that athletes go through to reach their goals, the personal and professional risks they take to break records, the compromises they make and the single-minded focus required of them.
I discovered that tennis is not only about having the privilege to buy a racquet and specialised tennis shoes and access a tennis court. It is also about how one performs and expresses oneself, requiring players to follow a particular aesthetic that enforces gender binaries.
Such open spaces to play sports are mainly occupied by men, while women are mostly excluded on account of various gender norms. This also applies to many underprivileged girls coming from the margins of caste and class who lack access to safe and inclusive open public spaces to play, such as public parks or maidans.
The gendered assumption that girls are generally disinterested in sports, could be easily refuted by the fact that the principal’s office shelf was adorned with multiple trophies awarded to the girls’ hockey team for winning championships.”