Latest news with #Section377
Mint
7 hours ago
- Mint
Girlfriend cheats on 35-year-old man with gym trainer: Reddit user warns older men, ‘Don't ignore your instincts'
A 35-year-old man has shared the story of his heartbreak on Reddit. His girlfriend, 33, cheated on him with her gym trainer after over three years together. The user said the pain wasn't just about betrayal, but how it could happen at any age. According to him, many assume cheating is common only in young or immature relationships. However, he was shocked to face it in his mid-30s. The user claims to have supported her and believed in their bond. Yet, honesty was missing, he wrote. The Reddit user warns others not to assume they're too old for such things. If trust and communication weaken, emotional and physical lines can blur no matter the age or maturity level, he added. 'Don't ignore your instincts. If you sense real change or distance, respect your intuition, but communicate before jumping to conclusions,' the user wrote. 'Value trust above comfort. True partnership means ongoing effort, not just years together,' he added. The Reddit post opened the floodgates to a wave of heartbreak stories from others. Many others shared about their experience of being cheated on. One of them shared how his wife had ruined their 10-year marriage and the lives of their two children. She apparently ended the marriage because a younger man at her office had been praising her. The user said what hurt him the most was that she had shown no remorse for her actions. He also mentioned that her entire family was angry with him and had spread false rumours to cover up her infidelity. 'Why do I hear lot of cheating stories everywhere? Right from Coldplay concert till Reddit,' wondered one user. Another user wrote, 'Cheating with gym trainer is very common. Maybe women do get attracted by big muscles contrary to their claim "body doesn't matter, personality does".' 'Cheating happens more at 30s and 40s then at 20s. People tend to ditch their marriages just for smallest pleasure outside, some for sex, some for excitement,' oberved another. In 2023, Gleeden found that 77% of Indian women cheat due to boring married life. Gleeden is a French online dating platform for women who want to have extra-marital affairs. It revealed that the app had 8 lakh subscribers from India. According to Gleeden, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Kolkata had the highest number of unfaithful women. Also, 72% of unfaithful people didn't regret cheating. Among the responders, 46% came from homes where one parent had cheated. Seven out of 10 women blamed a lack of help with chores. According to the survey, 31% already had affairs with neighbours before joining the app. Interestingly, 52% women and 57% men cheated during business trips. Half of the female cheaters had sex on the second date. Among men, 17% had secret accounts for affairs. Flirting helped 4 in 10 women reconnect with partners. Same-sex affairs rose after Section 377 was removed by the court.
India Today
18-07-2025
- Politics
- India Today
Queer activists call for policy changes to ensure equal rights of LGBTQ persons
Two years after the Supreme Court's Supriyo Chakraborty verdict called for legislative changes to allow marriage equality, queer activists are now focusing on what comes next: policy reforms to ensure equal rights for LGBTQ an event on July 12, the Keshav Suri Foundation, along with the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, released a set of policy recommendations aimed at making India's legal system more inclusive of queer event featured a panel discussion with activists and lawyers, as well as a performance by the 'Theatre of the Oppressed' highlighting daily discrimination faced by LGBTQ people. Queer activists spoke about the continued lack of recognition for 'chosen families,' and how legal and policy gaps often ignore or exclude the lived realities of queer Supreme Court Justice Sanjay Kishen Kaul, who was on the five-judge bench in the Supriyo case, spoke at the event. He noted that while discrimination is a part of human society, progress has been made through long-term suggested that a law on civil unions may be the next step toward equality and praised the policy paper's proposal for a comprehensive family code as a starting point for broader public policy paper outlines recommendations to address key areas such as family recognition, anti-discrimination protections, access to queer-affirming healthcare and protection from violence. These suggestions build upon submissions made to a High-Powered Committee set up by the Central Government after the 2023 Supreme Court proposals come after consultations with over 150 queer activists and organisations. The paper includes detailed insights into existing legal hurdles and proposes changes involving multiple government calls for legal recognition of queer relationships, removal of discrimination in sectors like housing, education, employment, and financial services, and improved access to healthcare, especially gender-affirming also recommends steps to protect queer individuals from violence, including training law enforcement and providing shelter Arundhati Katju, who has been involved in major LGBTQ legal battles, encouraged the community to 'protect the moments of joy.' Reflecting on how far the movement has come, from the 2003 Koushal verdict that upheld Section 377, to its eventual repeal and the Supriyo judgment, Katju highlighted increased visibility and acceptance of LGBTQ people.'Today, a government committee says two queer people can have a joint bank account and name each other as nominees,' she said. 'Now is the time to work with the government and push for real legislative and policy changes.'- EndsTrending Reel
The Hindu
11-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Changes to marriage, succession, criminal, tenancy laws suggested in policy brief to panel looking into issues of queer community
A new civil union framework to recognise 'non-marital intimacies', horizontal reservations for transgender people in education and jobs, 'safe and inclusive' access to washrooms, amendments to marriage, succession, and tenancy laws among a gamut of other laws, and a ban on treatments like 'conversion therapy', are just some of the recommendations and suggestions submitted to the Union government's high-powered committee that has been looking into issues faced by queer persons on account of their identity and non-recognition of queer relationships. After months of deliberations, public consultations, and expert inputs with and from the queer community, activists, lawyers, civil society, the policy think tank Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, in collaboration with NGO Keshav Suri Foundation, has sent in a detailed policy brief proposing executive and legislative actions for at least 12 Union Ministries and dozens of statutory bodies in the areas of recognition of queer relationships and families, discrimination in access to goods and services, queer affirmative healthcare, and prevention and prohibition of violence. These areas of concern were identified by the Supreme Court in 2023, when it decided the same-sex marriage case and the court had recorded that the Union government would form a committee to address issues persisting in these areas. Last April, a six-member panel headed by the Cabinet Secretary was formed to this end. The detailed policy brief with proposed action addressing hundreds of issues faced by the LGBTQIA+ community was submitted to the high-powered committee and the Cabinet Secretary in April this year, and the policy briefs on each of these areas are scheduled to be publicly launched on Saturday (July 12, 2025) in New Delhi. Among the recommendations made to the government are ones that call for amending the Special Marriage Act and the Indian Succession Act to make them gender-neutral; repeal the 'objection and notice regime' for the registration of marriages; 'move away from a gendered approach' to determining vulnerability in case of divorce proceedings; and recognising 'compulsory shares for all children' to prevent parents from discriminating on grounds of sexual orientation or gender identity. Residence rights In addition, the recommendations call for a 'reform' of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019, suggesting that the law needed 'to rehaul its approach to the residence rights of transgender persons'. This includes the proposal to introduce horizontal reservation for transgender people in jobs and education and removing the requirement of medical procedure to identify within the binary genders of man and woman and setting up grievance redressal mechanisms to address private discrimination. The policy brief goes on to suggest amending criminal laws to protect people members of the LGBTQIA+ community from sexual violence, also recommending the re-introduction of the equivalent of Section 377 of the IPC so that non-consensual same-sex sexual violence can be provided for while leaving consensual same-sex intimate activity de-criminalised. It has also called for amendments to laws dealing with workplace harassment to be inclusive of queer individuals and fresh laws that comprehensively cover discrimination against them. The recommendations call for reservation for transgender persons in school education, higher education, and employment, also proposing their inclusion in school processes and student grievance redressal cells, building inclusive curricula, recognising and prohibiting discrimination against queer persons. They also call for ensuring that teachers in schools and universities are 'queer affirmative', and inclusion of transgender persons in 'gendered activities', including 'gender-based sports teams' as per their chosen gender identities, and the introduction of an 'open sports' category, along with many others. The brief also recommends amendments to tenancy laws, and cooperative society laws to prohibit discrimination on grounds of gender identity or sexual orientation. In addition to suggesting the country-wide expansion of the government's Garima Greh scheme for transgender people, the brief also calls for similar shelter homes for non-transgender LGBTQIA+ individuals who might need a safe space. The policy brief has also gone on to propose the banning of all forms of 'conversion therapy', prohibiting 'unnecessary intersex surgeries', and remove the blanket ban on blood donations for transgender persons, men who have sex with men, and female sex workers. The brief has also recommended the government to use its executive powers to issue clarifications and orders that provide for nomination benefits for people in queer relationships and families, urging the government to recognise queer relationships for the purposes of financial services, and proposing a nomination regime for social welfare benefits and in the labour and employment sectors.
India Today
10-07-2025
- General
- India Today
India Today Sex Survey: The age of pleasure
(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated March 12, 2018)It's 2018, and 'kissing ass' has come to mean a lot more than currying favour by flattery. Rimming or rim job, essentially oral stimulation for the anus, isn't something young India is speaking about in hushed tones any longer. As millennials open up about exploring their sexuality, raise rallying cries against Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalises consensual homosexual sex and other penetrative acts in the bedroom, the nerve-endings that surround the anus and the perineum have found their place as favoured sexual touch points. And terms such as "that's gross" or "that's so gay" have fortunately become relics of the its 16th year, the INDIA TODAY sex survey reveals that there is a new standard for what the country considers 'normal'. The days of exclusively missionary sex are over and flavours other than vanilla have crept into the intimate lives of our countrymen and women. And this broadening of sexual horizons, the careful deconstruction of what has been hammered into the collective consciousness as 'conventional' or 'proper' carnal pleasure, has led to a satisfied 61.5 per cent of respondents claiming they are "totally happy" with their sex NEW 'Giving great head since 2009', reads a panel in Mumbai's Doolally bar, a winking reference to both the foam on a freshly poured glass of beer and, of course, fellatio. The writing on the wall elicits a passive smirk each time a new patron finds his/ her way in, but is representative of how oral sex is no longer the secret it used to be. Giving head is also currently India's most preferred 'experimental' sexual act, though it is fast losing its exploratory status and is well on its way to relegation in the ordinary foreplay category. For scale, as high as 80 per cent of respondents in Pune and Jaipur are engaging in oral sex, while couples in Guwahati top the list at 92 per cent. There is very little that is making people cringe today, and if rimming has found its way into the ordinary urban sexual vocabulary, anal sex is something Indians aren't shying away from either; 42 per cent male respondents admitted to having tried it and a higher percentage of women (43 per cent) have indulged in 'reaming'. Turns out sodomy is an offence only in the statute books, and is being flouted with the frequency of jumped red easy availability of lubricants (with different sensations) over the counter at any chemist or 24-hour stores in metros (and on the internet) has taken care of the fear of pain that accompanied the prospect of anal sex (if that term ever gets old, 'climbing down the chocolate chimney' is a happy alternative the internet throws up). Not only are more people exploring parts of the body that would otherwise have made them quail, the availability of copious tools for protection is reducing the risk of both infection and revulsion this isn't all-sexting and phone sex have taken on new dimensions. 'Send nudes' is used ironically on social media platforms (political parody accounts even have a 'send nukes' meme depicting an exchange between controversy's favourite politicians Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un) and intimately on instant messaging. And with video calling available on almost every platform for free, physical distance is no longer posing a barrier for sexual encounters. Neither are gender or favourite intimate explorations for couples include toying with the idea of homosexual or bisexual encounters. Almost 21 per cent of respondents admitted to having engaged sexually with those of their own gender-close to one-fourth of females (24 per cent) and 18 per cent males. Turns out India is truly racing ahead of dusty old colonial laws and residual prejudices. But it's not just what people are trying, it's where they are trying it and with whom. Sex in a car, for instance, is ranked as one of the top three fantasies for both men and women and a fourth of the respondents picked sex with strangers as one of their most recurring carnal CITIES, BIG KINKS If the notion of the 'regular' is changing, it's the smaller metros that are embracing the new normal most readily. Whether it's seeking new experiences or dreaming up kinky fantasies, cities like Guwahati, Jaipur, Pune, Chandigarh, Patna and Ranchi are leading the revolution, while cities like Delhi and Mumbai seem straitlaced in comparison. It's no surprise then that the pink city is high on the happiness quotient-90 per cent respondents here are entirely happy with their sex lives (the number is almost as high in Ahmedabad, 87%, and Ranchi, 75%). Some 79 per cent of Pune's respondents are having phone sex and 63 per cent of the respondents from Indore are doing it in the fifth of Ahmedabad is experimenting with bisexual encounters and 72 per cent of Lucknow would agree to oral sex if their partner requested it. So while Bollywood, even with its new wave of indie cinema set in small-town India, teaches us that our population is essentially waiting for stolen embraces on motorcycles and modest necking under trees, the truth is that upwards of 75 per cent of couples in many of these towns have unearthed the G-spot, and no amount of diffident filmmaking can hide it away DESIRES So as pop culture and the censor board conspire to infantilise a population of 1.2 billion by beeping out the word "intercourse" and the self-proclaimed gatekeepers of our morality burn buses over a peeking midriff, audiences are well past these humdrum words and visuals. Age and sex no bar. Last year, the country watched, perhaps for the first time in Indian cinema, the sexual agency and desire of an older woman, graphically and realistically Pathak Shah, as the 55-year-old Usha or Buaji in Lipstick Under My Burkha, read out pages of erotica, even ran water taps and faucets to mitigate moans of pleasure as she had phone sex with a younger man. And while this made viewers shuffle uncomfortably in their seats, the real numbers seem to match up to the reel depiction. Respondents over the age of 46 are turning up the heat, to prioritise their half of those between 46 and 60 years of age would agree to oral sex if their partners asked for it, and a close 47.3 per cent of them said they would experiment with anal sex. With 61.3 per cent of men claiming to know where their partner's G-spot is, perhaps it's no surprise that upwards of 60 per cent are totally happy with their sex BEDROOMS This distension of erotic margins, however, would never be possible if bedrooms weren't becoming a more comfortable space for confessions and conversations. As the discourse about consent takes centre stage in the western media, the need for openness between partners has become key, especially in this growing, experimental milieu-exchanging safe words, communicating fantasies to assess levels of comfort and daring are large parts of pleasure. Not all surprises are fun (just ask anyone who has ever had a 'golden shower' experience with no warning).advertisementAnd it's happening. Over 50 per cent men and women are sharing their sexual fantasies with their partners. They're watching porn together (46 per cent admit to doing so) and are more aware of their partners' pleasure points. What was earlier considered a tedious and spice-diluting process (open discussions about sex) is now the gateway to better and more playful exchanges, more sensitive lovemaking and hopefully a more evolved notion of careful dismantling of this conditioning is crucial so that those across the gender spectrum can enjoy sex without being resigned to the idea that their pleasure is not as important as their partner's. While natural power dynamics (not to be confused with ones created mutually by partners-BDSM or simple doms and subs) are still quite sturdily in place, chiselling away at the foundations to create more democratic bedrooms is what will lead to enhanced and inclusive these numbers improve, so will levels of gratification-respondents in the survey are today orgasm-ing more, faking less, trying an assortment of foreplay activities and flipping positions according to taste. And this is to India Today Magazine- EndsMust Watch
The Hindu
30-06-2025
- General
- The Hindu
The need to normalise queer in the classroom
I wear a mask. Not like the crime-fighting vigilante Batman but like a self-conscious child at a fancy dress competition, trying to fit in. The mask becomes stark in June, Pride Month, which also marks the beginning of the school academic year. Over weekends, I plunge into community mobilisation and conversations on sexuality. On weekdays, I find myself fumbling when an adolescent girl student remarks, 'I am attracted to my friend who is also a girl.' Around 10% of India's population belongs to the LGBTQ+ community. It has been seven years since Section 377 was read down, decriminalising homosexuality. Yet conversations around gender and sexuality remain absent — or worse, are actively silenced — in schools. While students experience binary collapse at an early age, many teachers remain in denial. In Karnataka, for example, one teacher argued that girls must be protected from salingakama a derogatory Kannada word for homosexuality. Such attitudes reflect not only ignorance but also harm, perpetuating shame and silence around queer existence. Heteronormativity is embedded in folk pedagogies, leading to its normalisation within the school environment, making sexuality a taboo topic. Adolescence is a formative phase where identity-building begins. While there are many popular songs that celebrate teen crushes as a mark of growing up, doesn't the queer teenager deserve the same innocent joy of their first crush on a film star, a teacher, or a neighbourhood friend? For many queer individuals, these simple yet significant moments of development are lost. I remember sitting silently while my classmates discussed boys they liked. I couldn't relate to them and thought something was wrong with me. There was no one to tell me otherwise. Only after I left school and graduated did I begin to understand that I was attracted to the same gender. By then, many milestones of adolescence had passed, unnoticed, unspoken, and unlived. Studies show that helping adolescents develop a healthy relationship with attraction, love, and sex is essential to their emotional and psychological well-being. Denying queer children the space to explore their identities does not preserve innocence, it perpetuates ignorance, loneliness, and shame. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 constitutes a 'Gender Inclusion Fund'' to make sure that transgender students get equitable education. Though the policy acknowledges and seeks to address structural barriers that transgender children face within the schooling system, other queer identities have been ignored. However, policy does not automatically translate into inclusion in practice: 28% of transgender students reported harassment in school. While a total of 61,214 transgender children are enrolled in schools (Unified District Information System for Education 2019-20), this demographic is also likely to have the highest 'out-of-school' children. How can the lived experiences of queer people inform our curriculum and make it inclusive? Inclusive education is more than just access; it means being seen, respected, and supported. Educators, school leaders, and peers must be equipped with the knowledge and sensitivity to understand and respect transgender identities essential to building affirming safe spaces in schools. Schools are not merely spaces for academic learning, but crucial grounds where identities take shape, friendships form, and young people begin to understand the world. Integrating LGBTQ+ inclusive content into curriculum is not just introducing children to something foreign but recognising the reality they already live in. They observe trans persons at traffic signals and encounter same-sex couples in social media that often reject traditional notions of love and attraction. Yet, these lived realities find no reflection in textbooks or school environments. Including queer stories, histories, and movements does not require closed-door sex-ed sessions where boys and girls are separated. This awkward separation is only in a physical sense, as we rarely consider that there might be a trans-child among them. We need what I call 'courageous conversations'. Schools are precisely where such conversations should begin because they are where a child's future is shaped or stifled. If we truly want our schools to be inclusive, safe and nurturing, we must begin by reflecting the world as diverse, complex and full of possibility. Queer children exist. They deserve representation, respect, and room to grow like everyone else. Just make them feel normal. Everything else will follow. The writer is Programme Associate, IT for Change, Bengaluru.
