Desire
I am 27 now and marriage is the most brought-up topic of conversation by my parents and relatives. Now, choosing or wanting to stay single is inversely proportional to my reputation, respect, and worthiness.
Happy New Year! As 2021 begins and we are filled with a sense of hope and desire for better times, we resolve to find ways of sustaining ourselves while caring for others. And so, in this anthology issue we republish articles about wellbeing.
Sexuality and self-care are related at many levels, right from the level of knowing what you want and what you don’t, how you feel about yourself, how you are able to communicate your desires and how you are able to enjoy your experiences.
Therapy gives us tools and time, but the actual work of dismantling the forest is ours as we are the only persons with access to that forest. So queer affirmative therapy validates our beliefs and helps us identify the poison, cut it down, dissect it, unroot it.
Our body is home. We exercise, we eat right. We adorn it with jewels and tattoos. We live well and breathe easier if our home (our body) is clean, fed and rested. Come home to yourself. Masturbation is one of the easiest ways home.
“I feel comfortable with who I am,” he responded. “I’m at ease with myself. I don’t wake up and hate myself. I can’t tell you how amazing that feels.”
“I know how that feels,” I told him.
Puu, an episodic comic (consisting of 92 serialised episodes) created in 2016 by Nabigal-Nayagam Haider Ali – going by Nabi online – is woven together with vast, expansive threads of similar intense spiritual moments and reflections on devotion, faith, and love.
In a way, the expression of vulnerability can be a foundation of trust and mutual support in a relationship, often leading to a sharing of burdens and the building of a deepened connection and solidarity.
We found these heart-warming doodles that are dedicated to staying conscious of things that matter for our personal well-being and our relationships with others but that we tend to lose touch with from time to time.
Are certain forms of femininities denigrated more than others? Not just by misogynists but also by feminists? Is there a particular way of manifesting an ‘appropriate’ femininity, one that is just right, and is not ‘too girly’ or ‘too tomboyish’?
Desiring motherhood meant veering into a more ‘girly’ territory, a notion that I had simultaneously been fighting and trying to embrace since childhood. I had understood that to be a feminist I had to be independent, be wary of men, dislike families and relationships.
I am going to share a personal queer reading to help put forth what I mean. One day, while I was reading the gospel of John for my family, the final words of Jesus, made me wonder whether Jesus could have been gay.
Sexuality is taboo in our context, and expressions of it publicly or even in the home setting outside the bedroom, especially by those who are not in ‘legitimate’ relationships ‘alarm the modesty’ and are generally considered anti-culture or simply categorised as Western concepts.
When the pressure started to mount on Surekha, from all corners, to get married, she thought of reconsidering Kishore’s proposal…
Abha Khetarpal is a disability rights activist and self-advocate, writer, motivational speaker, and President of Cross the Hurdles, a resource…