Sexuality
Opinion: India’s Proposed Commercial Surrogacy Ban Is an Assault on Women’s Rights
The new proposal to ban commercial surrogacy is essentially a rehash of a bill that was proposed three years ago — the Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2016 — which lapsed when Parliament adjourned without taking the measure for a vote. The Indian minister for health has called the 2019 bill a “need of the hour,” citing a rough estimate that between 2,000 and 3,000 unregulated clinics currently operate in the country.
By Curated Content
Open Letter to Parents-Who-Are-Katti-With-The-Daughter-Mumbai-Police-Illegally-Harassed
Dear Parents-of-the-Young-Woman-Picked-Up-By-Moral-Mumbai-Police, I write this as a citizen, outraged by the actions of the Mumbai Police in picking up consenting…
By Shilpa Phadke
One-sided Relationships in Sports
The fans invest emotional energy, and time, knowing very well that the players may never know of their existence or reciprocate the same emotions. That, however, does not deter them from feeling and living those emotions.
By Shriya Roy
April 21, 2023
On Trans-Masculine Lesbianism: The Values in the Unintelligible
Unlike many trans-masculine people who identified as lesbians/tomboys/butch pre-transitioning, I refused to abandon my ‘lesbian’ identity post-transitioning. A negotiation that took time to flourish.
By Aranya Vadera
On TikTok, the Party Don’t Start Till These Women Walk In
But TikTok is giving young people – particularly women – in South Asia a new avenue to showcase their talents. While for the majority of women using the app their fame is exclusive to TikTok, an increasing number are able to use it to get paid work. And for many, the platform represents a scarce opportunity for bodily autonomy, and a chance to carve out space as a performer in the face of film and fashion industries that shut them out.
By Curated Content
On the Sustainability of (Non) Romance
Contemporary and predominant imaginations of intimacy focus primarily on a sex-centric (romance-centric?) model which assumes that sexual desire exists and holds the same value for every person and every relationship regardless of their subjective positions. Sexual intent and desire are often the cruces of how relational aspects such as intimacy are socially constructed.
By Fariha Sameen
February 15, 2022
On the day my lover would die
I would once again be theirs, in memory, on the day my lover would die.
By Sara Haque
April 18, 2024
On Realising a Young Feminist Dream
One gets introduced to feminism through various modes: through books, through university courses, through parents and sometimes one does not…
By Jasmine George
November 1, 2015
On Old Questions that Remain Important
While some of these questions seem old, they continue to be renewed in public debate on competing claims to public spaces. Ideas about public and private spaces also speak to the ways in which caste and class shape ideas about respectability, thus marking some places as ‘safe’ and others as ‘risky’.
By Sneha Krishnan
April 1, 2019
On Loverships, F**kships and Friendships
How am I bringing myself into the erotic moment I am sharing with a lover?
By Andy Stephen Silveira
October 15, 2025
On Looking for Love
I wanted to be one of those people who decide to never date again and actually follow through. Indeed, I decided that a lot. A resolution that was broken so many times that it became a running joke in my head.
By Wesley D'Souza
February 1, 2022
On Learning and Becoming: “To Whom Do I Owe the Woman I Have Become?”
We become women before we become a woman. Of course, we don’t need to try hard to do so…We learn the sides and folds of the gendered box we are in before we gain the perspective to decide we don’t fit in and build a customised box or choose to have no box at all.
By Anjali
On Feminism, Sexuality and Disability
Bula was not happy at being offered a bath and fresh clothes. Food, she would gladly take – but…
By Gunjan Chandak Khemka
November 1, 2015
On Feminism And Writing: A Path To Self-Realisation And Empowerment?
Though writing about feminism and being in a position to voice out one’s opinions about the injustices and inequities that continue to exist in society is still relevant, times are also changing as we begin to understand intersectionality as an all-inclusive concept and the positions we speak from.
By Curated Content
Of ‘Kinkfests’ And Forbidden Fantasies: The Subversive Potential of Erotic Fanfiction
In a society where queer sexuality had been demonised in not just mainstream fiction but also mainstream culture, the erotic fanfiction that emerged out of kinkfests became an important source of queer sex-positivity.
By Rohini Banerjee