20/3/2024
Today, I am still kind of nervous about how this project is going to without the response of stakeholders, or people in general unwilling to talk. I have reached out to organisations and hoping for positive responses from them. In hindsight, I did put up a story on my instagram, and one of my schoolmates, who is now pursuing psychology is interested in talking about it from a psychological perspective, which I think is quite interesting.
I am also starting to try and form a narrative and so far I have different perspectives on how I am going to go about the pitch, and this would be in this way:
This is a depiction of me trying to understand various factors which influence the phenomenon of kink-shaming and trying to bring out the voices in all perspectives, but I’m still unsure as of now as to how to frame the perspective and narrative, do I try and tell the story of the victims? Do I tell the story of the culture it produces? Do I try and make someone feel it, is the feeling going to cause any visible change? Most importantly, with this I think I want to amplify the voices, but is amplifying the same as feeling? I didn’t think so because once you feel it you understand something better and I think I want to be able to do that.
Also, today I put up a story on my instagram in my search for people to interview about kink-shaming, and I had a respondent say that he thought kink-shaming was positive, and I asked him if I could interview him on this perspective, since I wanted to know different perspectives I could incorporate, and when I met him and explained the project and what I was talking about, he said that he did not feel that was right, but he mentioned that his perspective was that when someone is trying to shame you, it might be because they’re into it or not into it, and you tend to find like-minded people, which is an interesting factor I had not considered. In our interview, he also talked about how there’s a lot of porn which portrays sex/kinks/fetishes/bdsm in a different light than real-life and that may cause a shift in expectations, and he had also mentioned about how different cultures talk to young minds about sex and relationships and how they influence your perspective, for better context here, he is a Indian-male, cis-het, but during adolescence moved to china, and found a different culture in approach to sex education and how it changed the perspective on sex not by too much, since he always had supportive friends who understood things, but his experience would be that of people asking him why and how? He was into certain things, such as nails and scratches and they would listen to his perspective but very few actually made him feel bad, so my inference here is that better sex education leads to a better understanding of how to navigate social scenarios like this! This interview slightly relates to the article here: Anonymous2023, May 15. Concern grows deeper over normalised sexual violence. Sydney Morning Herald, 8. ISSN 03126315., which talks about porn and it affecting relationships in teenagers.
In the meanwhile, I have been collaborating for a while with Dana Shergill, who runs an organisation called, The Partition in Canada, and works on using imagination in empowering people, and I was able to give her a few questions to ask her clients, and fortunately, she was able to arrange another session on the 27th, and I can be a part of it. I am quite looking forward to this collaboration and getting a first-hand perspective from the participants.
24/3/2024
I still struggle to find a way to develop a narrative, since I have so many ideas going on? Digging into the internet for examples of investigative pitches and storytelling are all out-dated and I do not think the principles are really transferable. My initial idea post my experience on 27/2 was to try and make the tutor feel it, but how am I conveying the story when I’m trying to make someone feel something? How do I put in my research and the different perspectives and voices of people in here? An immersive experience definitely helps to relate better with the topic, but RESEARCH incorporation into this, esp. when I don’t have many accounts of participants describing their experience? Is that a gap I should address or a lack of effort in reaching out? On a surface-level analysis I would say people are not very comfortable talking about these experiences, some might not know about what’s happening, some may not feel very strongly about it.
Is my stakeholder demographic strong or would I need to re-think about the demographic? One of my biggest concerns has always been installing trust in stakeholders! But now I think it is too early to come to any conclusions without talking to the people in different perspectives. I hope with this outreach I can concretely base as to whether this is a viable MA project and with reiterations and analysis, whether this would be a good project/venture which can be beneficial for the community.
Responses from organisations are not great, (1 out of 6), and even from psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors (1 out of 6), which is definitely surprising since I’d have hoped that being kink-aware therapists they’d be interested in talking to someone who is working on this, but the lack of response has some meaning to it I guess?
In terms of research, I will have to line-up my secondary research in all perspectives and form a narrative, and make it immersive or an experience, which is quite a challenge but I am sure I can do it with due thought.
25/3/2024
Today I did the interview with one of my classmates, she was Asian, and she gave me a different perspective on society and culture, and I found it awfully sweet and cute, it was more about kink-enabling than it is about kink-shaming and it made so much sense, and even though the narrative is something I would like to see more of in the world, it is a long shot to get there and would require a lot of change and awareness. Her perspective was that in her culture sex was not talked about, but her partner was open and discussed it with her in the context of their relationship, when I asked her if she would discuss it with friends or if these conversations happened in parties during games, she said it didn’t and it was quite different from the previous respondents and culture and society does play a big role in these kind of scenarios. When she pursued rope bondage as a project in her school, her professors only warned her to be careful as it can lead one into quite dangerous situations and I told her about my experience and she understood and said that she never encountered these situations and that all the workshops she had been to to learn shibari, everyone was non-judgemental because they were also there to learn it, just like her, but when her work was showcased and her parents saw it, her dad who is very conservative was absolutely speechless, and so was her mum but apparently she wasn’t as speechless as her dad, and her professor tried to tell them that it is normal and that she has not done anything wrong. I really think this shows how a supportive environment can be nurturing in a relationship, friendship and in education too allows one to thrive. I personally have experienced something similar when I was doing my undergrad and was doing my graduate collection, ‘SUBSPACE’, a leather subculture, fetish-fashion collection for the Berlin market, at first I wasn’t quite sure if they’d be willing of the theme, but when I further explained my initial idea they were quite supportive and let me do it individually and pushed me out of my comfort zone all throughout the project and it was probably the culmination of my skills as a designer as well as my personal interests, which made me want to turn into the field of kink and figure out what I want to pursue my career in.
Also, I did try to form a narrative and I think I gave a first framework, which I should gather and line up and see if it works, but it starts off with a situation where we spin the bottle, and I consensually shame the person the bottle faces towards, and I am a little about the implications it would have on the receiver but I’m trying a more ‘Show, don’t tell’ approach, but is this taking it a little too far or is it fine? The receiver even though they know what is happening and it is a part of the pitch, might genuinely feel shame and it might lead to awkwardness/feelings of sadness, and I think it is quite hypocritical of me to, but I am going to let it marinate in my head and see if I come up with something healthier and just as impactful, this experience will be followed by me mentioning certain statistics, and then touching on the multiple aspects in short sentences based off the responses I get.
26/3/2024
Today, I was looking into a more legal aspect and I talked to an old friend in india who is a lawyer and it was quite an interesting conversation because we talked about there being a lot of grey areas and ingredients in the law which makes a ‘contract’ or ‘crime’ or ‘case’ and also about the laws surrounding lgbtqia+ and transgenders’ marriage related etc., what was quite interesting was that he mentioned that a bdsm contract would not be legally binding and enforced and if any injuries are sustained during a session would be considered ‘bodily harm’ irrespective of the context, and the case would be filed as such and most people who sustain sex-related injuries don’t really come up to file a case, since all of the court records are public, except for the crimes under POCSO Act (Protection of children from Sexual offences) which are for minors, people under the age of 18, and they are not even in the same room as their perpetrator and I asked him if these principles if applied to legal adults would it encourage people to come forward about their abuse/assault/agony, and he said maybe, but it would also be misused and would be hard to find out whether they’re doing things out of spite or if they have an actual grievance. An another interesting point mentioned was that 70% of the cases are filed against the State and not the perpetrator, because the rights violated are given by the State, which I think is a matter of social rights and agency, that the cases are not filed against the perpetrator but against the State. He had also mentioned that when someone is shamed, and they choose to file a case they would have to be quite persistent about the lodging with the police and it would filed as ‘mental agony’ and that it would take a lot of time, except for the cases filed by people in the SC/ST (scheduled castes and scheduled tribes) would be taken quite seriously and when I asked why caste system is a part of this, he mentioned that these communities are quite oppressed in all aspects that the law is trying to giving them a preference and not feel very oppressed, but it does not do the same for the other castes.’Private complaints’ maybe filed but they would be for certain offences and do not contain ‘mental agony’ and in the case of a married couple (legal man and legal woman) if either of them have experienced marital rape, it does not count since they’re married and it does not constitute rape. It was also quite interesting to note that sexual orientations do not matter while filing a case and during legal proceedings, so any offences to LGBTQIA+ community would be translated to just legal man/legal woman in the proceedings, and what one identifies as does not matter, when we talked about transgenders it was interesting because once a person who is 18+ goes through a gender-affirming surgery they would have to go to the District magistrate (who is essentially a judge) and file for a legal change and if the judge approves then only would they be considered a ‘trans’ person, which is legally a third gender in India only from 2019, and homosexuality was decriminalised 2018, after it was recriminalised in 2013, but same-sex marriages are still illegal.
I would say there’s a lot of grey area in the law and some bias in the law in terms of recognising sexualities, alternative sex and in helping maintain privacy for the victims etc., but these also arise from various factors like societal conventions, socio-economic status of people, culture and miss of law and so on. In his perspective, with more legal awareness on these topics one can easily lodge in grievances and get legal aid. In the end, I would like to highlight one particular sentence which is, ‘‘there is no bias to the person, but to the offence committed’’, I think it quite summarises the legal context of sexuality, kink and kink-shaming in india.
27/3/2024
Today, was the session with Dana and Rae, and we had 4 other participants, and in total 7 participants and we had all shared our experiences with kink-shaming, learning/unlearning done in one’s kink journey etc. In addition to the questions already mentioned in 20/3 above, I added the questions of
- How do you think the portrayal of kink/fetishes in media has affected your views on kink/fetish?
- How do you think we can make our community more inclusive and have a more accepting attitude?
It felt freeing to share it with other people who’ve shared similar experiences, and be a part of my own research, but having a group of people together and sharing similar experiences, and in comparison with the interviews from the others, I think I see a few patterns emerging and a lot of it point out to three broad areas:
- Knowledge (in terms of, getting correct information about practicing safe and healthy kink)
- Awareness (in terms of, legal awareness and awareness about porn and the normalcy of kink)
- Education (in terms of, safe practice and implementation, aftercare and communication and boundaries)
- Resources. (In terms of, access to support, better tools/toys and knowing how to use them safely and effectively)
These are just broad areas, I’ve seen emerge based off the interviews I have done so far, which are quite few, and I am yet to consider other perspectives before coming to conclusions.
I am trying to see gaps in media portrayals of kink/fetishes, and try and use them as examples since, we’re quite influenced by media, and trying to see the gaps in portrayal will help understand how the influence of media on people and how it affects us, and does it actually play a role in shaming/normalising/denormalising kink and our attitude towards it’s acceptance.