Pleasure
As shocking as his request for a nude was, what confused me even more was why would he want nudes from me, a woman who hated her body? Would he appreciate these saggy breasts with their stretch marks? My ever growing thighs and my belly which has body hair on it, wouldn’t he think I’m ugly?
Saying yes to pleasure is as important as saying no to danger. To focus only on danger and keep it separate from pleasure leads to half-knowledge.
Lawrence may have given Elena a world and a voice. But it was she who chose to delve into the unknown world of sexuality. It was she who chose to see the beauty and the richness of pleasure within communities of sex workers, soldiers, the elite, all alike. She alone chose to discern as well as reconcile love, as we commonly seem to know it, with a life in which she is capable of many loves.
It was so wonderful when I got sexual pleasure from someone I loved, someone I had fun with, someone I trusted, and someone whom I liked as a person!
Just as there are diverse ways of expressing and experiencing one’s sexuality, pleasure, too, is experienced in multiple forms and through multiple practices in each relationship.
You see, you are being pushed and pulled in all directions because people around you, whether family, friends or the larger society, expect you to behave in a particular fashion and stick to existing norms. However, your inner voice is telling you to challenge these norms and follow your own path.
For I was a woman / Taught to chain herself gracefully / In an invisible cage.
In a society where the very pursuit of erotic pleasure is often stigmatised, when sexual desires are often seen through the narrow lenses of penetrative sex and as means for reproduction, it is considered radical for an older woman who is already the mother of adult children to seek pleasure.
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.
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.
So while theoretically we should all have the right to make our own decisions about matters to do with our sexuality, have the right to sexual and reproductive health care, the right to love who we want to, and the right to be free from violence and discrimination based on our sexual choices, to name just a few sexual rights, even today many people do not have these rights.
Jasmine George is a TEDx speaker, lawyer, and a sexual and reproductive health advocate from India. She is the founder of Hidden Pockets and currently curates conversations around sexuality and other fields. She is passionate about using alternative means in law and technology to explore sexuality
Though I come from a very conservative family, being open about female masturbation and watching porn didn’t seem to bother me. Yes, people have oohed and aahed at me for being so. I am still the same, proudly.
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.