Issue In Focus
DANCES OF DESIRE: FROM DEVADASIS TO MODERN STORYTELLERS
It is not entirely impossible to imagine that classical Indian dance is timeless or that the stories narrated in these…
By Shweta Krishnan
November 1, 2017
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…
By Kristin Francoeur
October 3, 2017
Issue in Focus: “Is that Book Feminist?”
Fiction is a realm within which we can imagine the limitlessness of our feminist realities. By censoring fiction itself in an anxiety to perform what we understand as feminism, is to censor our imaginations, its subtle negotiations with reality and its potential in generating desires and dreams we hardly knew of. Does this mean we don’t critique books and movies? Definitely not! Critique is fun. Critique is important. Critique is how we grow. But the judgement needs to stop.
By Shweta Krishnan
September 1, 2017
Issue in Focus: Beyond Ramps and Restrictions
Accessibility begins with access, enabled or denied, to concepts and ideas. At the core, beyond the architecture of the real and virtual worlds, it is about the architecture of the ways in which this access is broadened, to not only accommodate, but to nurture, the myriad expressions of human minds and bodies.
By Shikha Aleya
August 3, 2017
Community and Sexuality: Learning a Politics of Unbelonging
After writing the words “Community and Sexuality” as the working title of this piece, I attempted to begin writing many…
By Chayanika Shah
Ctr Alt Swipe Right: Sex, Sexuality and the Internet in India
The promises of the Internet are, of course, highly contextual. The Internet will mean very different things to a person who has access to their own mobile phone in a city with a reliable and affordable broadband or WiFi connection, as compared to someone who does not have access to a reliable Internet connection or who is unable to go to a shop to exchange downloaded songs and clips through an SD card.
By Siddharth Narrain
Issue in Focus: Money, Money, Money – Must be Funny
A few days ago, we were doing a self-reflective exercise at work on what gives us power, how we demonstrate power, and what (or who) has power over us. Surprisingly, but not much, I found money featuring across the board for me: be it through financial independence or financial constraints. Power, as exercised by me or as exercised over me, has been intricately tied with my sexuality – ranging from job options to travel decisions to reproductive choices – and money seemed to lord over it all. It wasn’t the only lord, but it was quite a powerful lord.
By Vani Viswanathan
Issue in Focus: Colouring Within the Lines
When colours spill across, when a little bit of the red house-paint spills into the blue sky, or the brown door seems to meld in with the green grass, we see ‘errors’ that must be corrected in another attempt to preserve the perfect order of that emergent world.
By Shweta Krishnan
April 3, 2017
Issue in Focus: Taking Marriage Seriously
‘Sexuality’ and ‘marriage’ are terms that we don’t instinctively think of in the same breath.
By Siddharth Narrain
March 5, 2017
Issue in Focus: The Fraught Relations between Care, Self-Care and Sexuality
My friend recounts how, growing up, there was one object around which cohered much intrigue and darkness and which, when brought to light and consciousness through accident, (usually) provoked much commotion, commotion of outrage, disgust and fear: her (used) panties.
By Mamatha Karollil
Issue in Focus: Coital Collisions With Censorship and Cinema
The notion of censorship of cinema has been highly debated, the repercussions of which have been evidenced in film form as well as spectatorship practices – censorship has defined our relationship with cinema, both in the making and the viewing of it.
By Ishani Dey
January 5, 2017
Issue In Focus: Fantasies – Our Pleasure, Our Business, Our Right
Sexual fantasies allow us to conjure up worlds that we want to play with, but in reality, we may not really want. A fantasy is different from a wish. So people may have sexual fantasies about things that they may never act out – like having sex in front of a multitude of onlookers, or with a zebra, or a famous film star or the neighbour next door. And it’s all safe.
By Radhika Chandiramani
November 3, 2016
Issue In Focus: What, Exactly, Is the Child Innocent Of?
Shohini Ghosh uses examples from art history and photography as an interesting analytical tool to examine both the historical context as well as contemporary shifts in the way childhood is viewed.
By Shohini Ghosh
October 3, 2016
Issue In Focus: Leaving Home and Reclaiming Self
It seems then that there is a direct relationship between the extent of transgression of sexual and gender norms on the one hand, and the need to migrate on the other. Whatever background people come from, migration is almost inevitable and necessary.
By Chayanika Shah
September 1, 2016
Issue in Focus: Naturalising the Normative
Societal norms that are contested, especially around body and sexuality, are often passed as the ‘natural order’ of things. The objective study of ‘nature’ that science claims to do induces society to seek scientific explanations to verify naturalness. It has been shown in many cases that the questions that scientists ask, and the methods they use, are coloured by norms of society. Yet, the ‘scientific answers’ thus got help determine what is natural. In the process, the normative gets naturalised.
By Chayanika Shah
July 1, 2016