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
Note: Five sex workers – four women and one man – along with the filmmaker/narrator embark on a journey of storytelling. Shohini Ghosh’s Tales of the Night Fairies explores the power of collective organising and resistance while reflecting upon contemporary debates around sex work. The labyrinthine city of Kolkata (Calcutta) forms the backdrop for personal and musical journeys.
Written in one sitting in Philadelphia, Ukeles’ manifesto was a manifestation of the rage she felt when she was pregnant with her first child and a male mentor proclaimed, “Well, Mierle, I guess you know you can’t be an artist now.”
Looking through the prism of Tamil cinema, a female scientist distorts the simplistic, straightforward portrayal of women that most movies adopt. Her knowledge and authority on a subject enable her to challenge the hero (gasp!) in areas that he may not know about. Often, she flaunts her sexuality; it’s brash, open and departs from norms.
There’s always another way of presenting a look, attire, accessories and bodies; of presenting the way we feel about ourselves and our sexuality, of presenting an acceptance of diversity.
Emmi Kurowski (Brigitte Mira), a widow in her sixties, walks into a bar to take shelter from the rain. She is met with hostile stares by a mixed group of Moroccan immigrants and Germans. As a joke, one of his friends challenges Ali (El Hedi ben Salem m’Barek Mohammed Mustafa), a young strapping Berber man, to ask her for a dance. He agrees, and thus begins a romance across the taboo lines of race and age.
The boisterous figure of Indo-Trinidadian chutney soca musician Denise “Saucy Wow” Belfon has ruffled the feathers of many an Indian-origin immigrant sentiment with her song ‘Looking for an Indian Man’.
In a country with a burgeoning population that still doesn’t believe in talking about sex openly, the book wants to help parents and teachers deal with uncomfortable questions rather than brush them under the carpet. To ensure that young children are not dismissed, distracted, or confused by adults who are too awkward or even (gasp!) ignorant of biology.
Satyam Shivam Sundaram (Truth, God, Beauty) is the story of Rupa (Zeenat Aman), an archetypical abhagan (wretched girl), whose misery begins at her birth when her mother dies. She is immediately declared an accursed child and is shunned by others. Later, a freak accident results in scalding oil splashing across one side of her face, leaving her permanently scarred. Nevertheless, she goes about her daily life – alone, yet content.
As someone who was surrounded by the sounds of music at home from my early childhood and with a parent who worked in rural education programmes, forming connections between art and (social) change wasn’t too difficult, albeit extremely challenging to explain to many other people who didn’t necessarily see the power that art has to deliver a message or be used as a tool for change.