Voices
A Queer Art of Longing
Like failure, longing is not interested in happy endings – whether of straight or non-heterosexual relations.
By Ketan Jain
June 18, 2024
A Self-care Approach to Life – and Sexuality
Not everybody, everywhere, learns self-care, though most people learn how to wash their faces, brush their teeth, wear clean underwear, and lock the door to keep themselves safe.
By Shikha Aleya
February 3, 2017
A Space of Belonging
My sexuality had to somehow find people and a space to belong, just as my collaborators and friends needed something of that sort. We found this together in part with Matai Society.
By Kumam Davidson Singh
October 17, 2022
A Story of the Body: Understanding Memories and Sexuality
“I was not a wanted child. Of course I am a girl, and that explains it. It’s like no one really cares if I exist. My brothers are useless, but they are everything to them(her parents). It’s not like he (her lover) needs me either; I still take food for him everyday.”
By Rashi Kapoor
April 16, 2018
A Swirly Skirt on the Expressway
Who is this person? What does this person want? Is it random cruising? Is money the goal, is it adventure? Why does it make me think of selling strawberries by the dusty roadside? I don’t have a single answer. Sex work is a lurking unknown in the world of sexuality.
By Shikha Aleya
April 5, 2016
A Tale of Four Theme Songs
Any narrative that we construct, any single word that we use to describe a person, a relationship, an individual is bound to be incomplete.
By Danish Sheikh
December 15, 2018
A tempestuous affair
The simple truth is that my body and I are having an affair. We each obsess about the other, ask questions and desire each other so much, that it often borders on the shameless. My body is more in love with me, I suspect, than the other way around.
By Pramada Menon
June 1, 2023
A time to #metoo or not to
Time and sexuality, neither is one-dimensional, neither is neat and both have a way of being always in a state of movement, whether we like it or not, flow with it or not.
By Shikha Aleya
November 1, 2017
A Work in Progress
Parenting is an odd space. It comes chock full of all kinds of normative strictures and regulations.
By Shilpa Phadke
July 22, 2024
A ‘Peoples Self-Care’ In-the-Making: Perspectives on the Multiple Possibilities of Existence and Care
But self-care is not a clean and happy procedure, it is not definitively achievable when systematically explored. To understand the scope of self-care we need to see the ‘dark side’ of the landscape, and destroy the versions of self-care that denounce our plurality. In this fight, the only outcome can be a recognition of experiences beyond the wellness narrative structured around the neoliberal agenda. This article is an attempt at foregrounding some aspects of self-care that decentralise the prevalent commodification of it.
By Rukmini Banerjee
A ‘Peoples Self-Care’ In-the-Making: Perspectives on the Multiple Possibilities of Existence and Care
But self-care is not a clean and happy procedure, it is not definitively achievable when systematically explored. To understand the scope of self-care we need to see the ‘dark side’ of the landscape, and destroy the versions of self-care that denounce our plurality. In this fight, the only outcome can be a recognition of experiences beyond the wellness narrative structured around the neoliberal agenda. This article is an attempt at foregrounding some aspects of self-care that decentralise the prevalent commodification of it.
By Rukmini Banerjee
Abortion ‘Vacations’ and Other Complications – I
If I had a dollar every time I heard an opponent of abortion rights say something like “If you remove the option for abortions, women will stop getting them,” it’s safe to say I would go up a tax bracket or two. In many places today, Global South or North, I would need all of those dollars in order to travel a considerable distance for an abortion that may neither be legal nor safe.
By Kristin Francoeur
March 1, 2016
Accessing Safer Sex – what does it mean to have access to exploring and enjoying your sexuality safely?
The discourse on safer sex is usually couched in medical language– protection from STIs and unwanted pregnancies are what supposedly…
By Unnimaya Kurup
Adolescence: A tumultuous time in my life
Experiences and learnings from the immediate surroundings such as the school and the family leave a deep impact on the…
By Arzoo
July 15, 2020
Adolescent Sexuality – Values And Conflicts In The Field
As development professionals, our tasks involve reflecting on the norms that service providers, colleagues and field staff engaging with communities hold on to so strongly. How can programmes create safe spaces to match up to service providers’ professional and personal beliefs so that they can challenge those norms in their own families and be non-judgmental?
By Suniti Neogy
December 2, 2019