LGBTQIA
Intimacy can never thrive in an environment of rigid certainty. Intimacy requires surrender – not in the sense of submission – but in the willingness to be with another person without detachment or defences.
The language of consent is not neutral. It is rigid where it should be nuanced, malleable where it should be firm. Yes is an all-encompassing spirit, ever-expanding; No is frustratingly constricted, barely visible.
शहरी स्थानों को पुनः प्राप्त करने के लिए, सार्वजनिक स्थानों पर प्यार और रोमांस की पुलिसिंग या निगरानी के कई पहलुओं को देखना महत्वपूर्ण है
The sheer ignorance of the intricacies of consent, or its performance, serves only to strengthen the enduring patriarchal framework that holds sway in a society where the bodies, desires, and even voices of women have been, and, tragically, continue to be, defined and controlled by men.
Consequently, a “yes” – whether verbal or gestural – cannot be shallowly inferred as an authentic, unambiguous, and static agreement to a “contract” proposed by men.
… when they believed we were of the right age to marry, they urged us to “leave everything behind and get settled”. When marriage is considered such an important institution in our society, why not teach us about consent as well?
…when both of us speak about the way we engage in our workspaces, we find common contradictions and barriers. How does a queer person navigate these barriers, constantly negotiating when, where and on what terms to engage? To be seen or to remain unseen?
How would we see the world really, if we were open to the idea that it is not purpose but play that drives us to seek companionship, be it an orchid seeking a pollinator or a human seeking another?
In a world where queerness is looked at as failure, The Queer Art of Failure allows for many possibilities to make sense of these failures.
I feel that parents, teachers and CSE can make room for these disparate realities of adolescents by first acknowledging the limits of formal sexuality education, that the curriculum imparted formally fails in providing the kind of learning that happens through other sources.
Despite the lack of a formal Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) curriculum in place in India, there has been a growing interest in providing CSE programmes in schools.
Here’s to some quiet time listening in to what people are saying, and consuming, on the Internet, particularly on social media, on the subject of gender and sexuality.
चूँकि दुनिया हाशिये में जीने वाले लोगों के प्रति इतनी प्रतिकूल रही है, इसलिए वे लोग हमेशा से, हर जगह ‘सुरक्षित स्थान’ बनाने की कोशिश करते आ रहे हैं।
Safe spaces in the way that they often circulate are depoliticised and the assumption is that there won’t be any conflicts, but there can be no safe space without an exchange of ideas, which will create some bad feelings leading to conflict.
What does belonging, then, look like in urban India for people from different social, economic and political backgrounds?