Sexuality
I still remember my early childhood days when we used to get lessons on caste in our day-to-day lives. Coming…
Some weeks ago, I was invited by the British High Commission to give a talk about sexual harassment at the…
She turns towards me when I speak, and I can feel her eyes thinking over my words, sensitive to any hint of criticism. Her thighs slide against mine, and for a moment we are both distracted by the naked coolness of our bodies. For a moment, we look at each other.
‘People say, someone who has a disability should not indulge in sex,’ Inocente, a blind man in his 40s, told…
The Handmaid’s Tale leads one to re-examine these two forms of social hierarchy that women have to navigate: one where they apparently have equal sexual rights as men but have to bear most of the brunt of unwanted pregnancies, reproductive burdens and the like, and the other extreme where their decisions including those about sexual identity and procreation are institutionalised and they are robbed of all agency and autonomy.
What makes Unashamed particularly effective within the framework of CSE is Bhat’s unwavering commitment to an inclusive and affirming perspective.
Lack of women’s representation in policy-making institutions has allowed men, often with minimal understanding and empathy, to decide what women in sports can or cannot wear. As a result, these policies have ended up undermining women’s comfort as well as agency.
Just like on a misty morning,
we both
sit
without a shred of adornment
on these ancient stepwells
and the call of the hummingbirds
offer us sensations,
imagination,
and our innocence
Only sometimes Sometimes my love is as expansive as the earth itself Patient None of the restlessness of a…
A room of one’s own You couldn’t begin to say the self Before someone helps you finish — Self-centred Self-serving…
The point is simple. Intimacy is not about sexuality, penetrative sex, gender, BDSM or any one parameter. Yet, intimacy is about all of them AND MORE.
They say the world is a book and those who do not travel only read a page. I had a very un-travel-ish childhood. Like every other middle-class Indian family, my parents did not believe in travelling or even holidaying for that matter. The only vacation we used to take as an annual trip was to visit my maternal grandparents who thankfully lived in Dehradun – away from bad and polluted Delhi (my hometown).
I don’t know if travelling has changed my life, but I can definitely say that it has altered my thought process for the better. Especially, solo travelling has given me a lot of courage and determination to do things I had thought I’d be unable to do.
As a young woman, I feel powerless to do much more than get disturbed by this issue, write about it and talk about it with as many people as I can, with the hope that more of us will get disturbed by it and become more accepting of diverse expressions of gender and sexuality.