Issue In Focus
From Judy Blume To The Sexy Internet: What Counts As Erotica?
I think the best thing we can do as we take this conversation forward is to consider this multifaceted breadth of desire as erotica; to include and not exclude in our definitions, and to accept desire wherever it lives, and in whatever form.
By Richa Kaul Padte
From Judy Blume To The Sexy Internet: What Counts As Erotica?
This question of appropriateness is, for me, at the heart of all questions around sexuality. Each of us carries within us our own private benchmarks for which expressions of sexuality we find appropriate, and which ones, in turn, have crossed an invisible line. The ones we believe belong across the border, in the land of the inappropriate, of the too much.
By Richa Kaul Padte
Friendships, or, That in which we decouple coupledom from the economies of marriage
I was not simply stuck within the binaries of “same-sex” or “opposite sex,” assuming that any reference to “same-sex” is in itself already revolutionary. But the call to recognise friendship, is a call to recognise so many forms of community that are made invisible by the emphasis within a liberal or conservative framework on “marriage” as the only path to family making.
By Shweta Krishnan
Friendships, or, That in which we decouple coupledom from the economies of marriage
I was not simply stuck within the binaries of “same-sex” or “opposite sex,” assuming that any reference to “same-sex” is in itself already revolutionary. But the call to recognise friendship, is a call to recognise so many forms of community that are made invisible by the emphasis within a liberal or conservative framework on “marriage” as the only path to family making.
By Shweta Krishnan
Freedom and an F Word
What do you think of when you put the words freedom and sexuality together? Orgies? Polyamory? Sex with no unwanted…
By Radhika Chandiramani
December 4, 2017
Finding Lit’s Political Potentials
Fiction is often relegated to a secondary stow because fact-based forms of knowledge are becoming more and more valued. To be informed is to stay with the facts. Yet I think fiction allows us to stay just about as informed.
By Shweta Krishnan
March 2, 2020
Feminist reflections on labour and sexuality
We begin this discussion – as it is an ongoing process of understanding on our part – by reiterating that…
By Tejaswi and Meena
October 18, 2021
Disability Rights: Can We Please Talk About Sexuality!
The Union Budget, 2014 presented by the newly elected government a few weeks ago includes various provisions for disabled persons…
By Rupsa Mallik
August 1, 2014
Desire: An Intersectional Perspective
“As a tool of social control, women have been encouraged to recognize only one area of human difference as legitimate,…
By Shweta Krishnan
September 1, 2021
Desire Against Desire
Post the historic Naz Foundation judgment of the Delhi High Court in July 2009, a prominent English news magazine carried…
By Oishik Sircar
June 1, 2014
DESIRE AGAINST DESIRE
Post the historic Naz Foundation judgment of the Delhi High Court in July 2009, a prominent English news magazine carried…
By Oishik Sircar
December 1, 2014
Dancing around each other: Conversations with a Tween
As a generation X-er I grew up in a world that was challenging sexuality but only encountered the instability of gender as an adult in radical new academic texts which were not then yet part of our everyday narratives. My daughter born between Gen Z and Gen Alpha is growing up in a world of gender fluidity and multiple pronouns.
By Shilpa Phadke
March 15, 2022
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
January 1, 2015
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
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