The I Column
Pyaar Online: Cruising Online for Love
Generations come and go but the quest for love remains eternal. In the early 2000s, most of us millennials were…
By Divya Swaminathan
June 1, 2017
Porn, Not Erotica
Porn is able to express the ‘yummy yucky’ nature of many of our fantasies. I use the term ‘yummy yucky’ because I feel it captures a mix of that which is both “hot and disturbing”
By Jaya Sharma
July 1, 2019
Pleasure and Sexuality – What Is Beyond?
Over the years, my understanding of pleasure has changed. However, much of it is thanks to external inputs. It is thanks to people of all gender identities sharing how they feel pleasure in different ways.
By Asmi
February 3, 2020
Options Not Choices
To write about safe abortion, I picture what the best-case scenario is for someone seeking a safe abortion in Lebanon.
By Rola Yasmine
April 1, 2014
On Realising a Young Feminist Dream
One gets introduced to feminism through various modes: through books, through university courses, through parents and sometimes one does not…
By Jasmine George
November 1, 2015
On Mental Health and Being a Transman
I did everything to change my gender expression from masculine to feminine. I started wearing feminine clothes, started growing my hair, and I even had a boyfriend. But the more I pushed myself to be feminine, the more depressed I became.
By Jamal Siddiqui
February 3, 2017
On Loverships, F**kships and Friendships
How am I bringing myself into the erotic moment I am sharing with a lover?
By Andy Stephen Silveira
October 15, 2025
On Looking for Love
I wanted to be one of those people who decide to never date again and actually follow through. Indeed, I decided that a lot. A resolution that was broken so many times that it became a running joke in my head.
By Wesley D'Souza
February 1, 2022
Of Identity and Belongings: The Gatekeeping within Queer Spaces
I went to a girls’ high school and for somebody who had spent the last ten years in a co-ed…
By Shubhangi
September 1, 2022
Of Green Tea, Weight Loss, and Living As #PCOS4Ever
“You know, most healthy girls get this disorder if they don’t lose weight easily,” chimed my high school best friend…
By Noopur Raval
October 1, 2015
Of filter coffee, marriage and mixed celebrations of sexuality
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.
By Vani Viswanathan
Of filter coffee, marriage and mixed celebrations of sexuality
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.
By Vani Viswanathan
January 13, 2025
Notes from the Field: What Single Women in Delhi Taught Me about Sexuality
The women taught me how to navigate the city, as I learnt about the different ways the body is marked in public (and in private too). I often tried to discern when ‘bold’ became ‘reckless’, and what the underlying politics of this rhetoric shift might be. How arguments were stacked up pre-emptively determining who was deserving of protection and whose transgressions left them out in the cold.
By Lucie Bernroider
Notes from Special Court No. 54
Special Court No. 54 is a hall filled with whizzing ceiling fans. When the magistrate enters or exits, people rise to bow. Lawyers in black coats and white pants or saree/suit, sit at a long desk in plastic chairs a level below the magistrate with a clutch of researchers like myself, and anti-trafficking missionaries who “rescue fallen women”.
By Manjima Bhattacharjya
April 18, 2016
No One Talked To Me About Sex
We need to disturb the institutionalised infrastructure and skew power dynamics even when it comes to something as complex as pleasure. Being aware of our language and the practices of our sexuality and denuding them of socially imbibed constructions will open up a safe space for discussing the diversity of our sexual behaviour.
By Abdullah Erikat
February 3, 2020