Voices
Love, Lust and PDA
Six years later (and out of such an abusive relationship), as I sit in a Gender Studies classroom discussing public and private spheres, being introduced to the feminist ideology of the personal being political, I reflect back and see my experiences as emerging from a complex discursive pattern. The peculiar way in which heterosexual romantic relationships are envisaged and the potentiality of them being disruptive of traditional arrangements of companionship requires them to be manifested outside of the four walls of home and family. Yet, one faces a situation of a pathetic lack of safe spaces within the public sphere and the traditional discourse of love being private and contained within the private sphere…
By Anannya Chatterjee
April 1, 2019
(In)Convenient Choices and Queer Affective Lives: The Story of My Mother and Me
My mother and I have both made certain choices, sometimes inconvenient for me, sometimes difficult for her, but those choices have revealed to me the strength of our relationship and alternative possibilities that she and I can imagine together.
By Sohini Chatterjee
My Choice and Sexuality
Choices in the sexual area should remain personal while maintaining the dignity and the rights of all people who must be able to make fully informed choices in this area. It is the duty of the state to provide the education and information to its people in this area but not intrude into their personal choices.
By Ravindran Jegasothy
March 5, 2019
Choice and Sexuality in Cyberspace
Consent, however, is not so straightforward in the digital world. With instances where data can be hacked into, and with deep fake technologies making it more difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is fake, we have a situation where it is difficult to completely anticipate the kinds of risks involved, and the ways in which sexually explicit material is used.
By Siddharth Narrain
March 5, 2019
Class, Caste and Choices
Choices about life, relationships and desires are all defined based on socio-economic background, caste, class, gender and sexuality. When these young girls found a comfortable and safe space, they openly talked about their desires and experiences and how they negotiated their existing environments in order to pursue their desires.
By Prarthana
March 5, 2019
The Impossibility of Intimacy
Roland Barthes writes in A Lover’s Discourse that we begin to think of ‘love’ as an idea only when our beloved or the object of desire has departed – either when love has failed, or in the absence of the lover – that is absolutely crucial to any theorisation of love.
By Rahul Sen
February 15, 2019
Love Has No Disability
After five months I received a call from Natasha telling me about the content of a WhatsApp chat that Raajveer was having with one of his male teachers. “He is missing his Sir and crying. He is very confused. He sent him roses on chat and reassuring messages saying that he will always be there with his Sir and will never leave him. We are very worried. My husband is not aware of this, and neither do I want to tell him about it. Please help him”, said Natasha over the phone.
By Prachi Srivastava
February 1, 2019
Jasmine Stains
Desire is a man’s turf, right up there with moustaches and Adam’s apples / I’m the apple, I am the snake, I am Eve / I am the vibrator nestled between flimsy, cheap lace underwear / I am the shame, of saying I came
By Malini Gopalakrishnan
January 2, 2019
“You Will Never Learn!” – Conversations Between a 17 Year Old and a 53 Year Old
As if the challenges of parents bringing up adolescents in a world dominated by social media is not enough, the addition of teaching these parents to accept different sexual orientations and the fluidity of gender in a gender-binary world can be daunting.
By Dr Jai Ranjan Ram
The Politics of Politically Incorrect Jokes
Somewhere in the middle of Nanette, as I was crying and laughing, I thought about how political incorrectness is the soul of stand-up comedy.
By Shweta Krishnan
December 15, 2018
Queer Fanfiction and the Possibility of Queer Happy Endings
Fanfiction was more than just writing your own stories about the characters or the setting of your favourite book or TV show; it was a questioning of the dominant mainstream pop culture narrative as a whole.
By Rohini Banerjee
December 15, 2018
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
Growing Up With Bollywood
While pop culture will continue to exist in the mainstream, it also provides us the scope to create alternative narratives and/ or counter-narratives that question, challenge and unpack the existing stereotypes and norms.
By Pauline Gomes
December 3, 2018
Sheriff Callie, Doc McStuffins and Barbie Dolls
In fact, once when I referred to Sheriff Callie (a cartoon character) as a man, I was sternly told she is a woman. Doc McStuffins, another of their favourite cartoon characters, is a smart girl who can fix anything. She inspires my nieces to think boldly.
By ElsaMarie D'Silva
December 3, 2018
Some Contemporary Hindi Films that Changed the Way We Perceive Sexuality
When representing sexuality, these stories went beyond dramatic and one-dimensional representations of sex and sexual orientation.
By Breakthrough Media Team