Deconstructed Desirability a Critical Study of Queer Sexualities in the TV Adaptation of Piper Kerman’s Orange Is the New Black (Published)
With the intention to pinpoint queer identities within all-female correctional institutions, a research has been conducted on the TV series Orange Is the New Black, whose miscellany of queer personae allows for an inclusive examination. Essential to the study’s argumentation is, whether the prison environment provides women with the potential to rise above masculine power relations and norms, by way of adopting transgressive sexual patterns of behavior. Heterosexuality is limited to inmate-staff’s consensual and nonconsensual interactions. Expounded on through reference to the role imprisonment plays in its emergence, homosexuality is categorized into three different groupings within the confines. Thereafter, the discussion comes to an end by bringing to notice bisexual patterns of behavior. In closing, it is claimed that queer sexualities appear in women’s prisons more than the society at large; it is due both to the potentiality inmates’ primal concentration in an all-female correctional facility brings about, and deprivations and pains of imprisonment that cannot be dealt with, unless through substitution by queer sexuality.
Keywords: Bisexuality, Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, Queer Theory
The Repercussions of Childhood Experiences and the Resultant Neurosis: The Heights of Criminality and Fixation in Shobha De’s Strange Obsession (Published)
This research article is an effort to examine the eccentricities and neurotic persona of an atypical female character in Shobha De’s Strange Obsession who is strangely obsessed for an attractive young lady Amrita, travelled from Delhi to profession oriented Bombay to pursue a career in modelling. Strange Obsession is a tale of a psychosomatic woman named Meenakshi Iyengar who had a miserable and troubled childhood, being a single child of an Inspector General of Police and a social worker mother. Because of imbalanced development in childhood and being a spoilt child of a powerful Police authority, Minx starts extracting pleasure by exploiting people as a compensation for her own anxieties and insecurities. The heights of alternative homosexuality and criminality are skilfully presented through manipulative strategies and merciless behaviour of neurotic Minx. Moreover in the light of Simone de Beauvoir and Sigmund Freud’ theories of lesbianism and fixation, the resultant neurosis and afflicted psyche are well investigated in this article with an amalgam of the stark realities of higher-strata modelling world and sadistic homosexual tendencies.
Keywords: Criminality, Fixation, Homosexuality, Neurosis, Psychosomatic, Sadistic
SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND GENDER IDENTITY: NEGOTIATING DIVERSITIES AND INTERSECTIONS OF QUEER SPACE IN INDIAN WRITINGS (Published)
The entire systems of social categorization agree to for two sexes – male and female. But some societies explicitly articulate three sex categories, socially distinguishing hermaphrodites as a third, mixed intermediary, or alternate sex. Other societies seems to give consent to additional categories, allowing for a range of mixed, crossed, complex, or fluid identities in between male and female. Indian culture is based on the notion that there are two opposite sexes with distinct culturally approved gender characteristics. Using this binary system allows little tolerance for cultural and social variances of what is perceived to be masculine or feminine. Indian society is much more focused on sexual behaviour rather than social role choices and expectations. In Indian culture some people who are merely dissatisfied with their gender role often feel pressured to anatomically become the other sex through surgery. Some people do not believe that their gender identity corresponds to their biological sex, namely transgender people, including transsexual people and many inter-sexed individuals as well. Consequently, complications arise when society insists that an individual adopt a manner of social expression i.e. gender role which is based on sex. Sexuality, or gender identity, may be all about the cultural response to the individual. Some people may be born with confusing sexuality and they need to find the gender role that fits with their nature, and others find that the male/female, man/woman roles are not sufficient to embrace their gender/sexual role. The present paper examines how questions pertaining to sexual orientation and gender expression are inter-connected with the politics of citizenship. It also seeks to critically examine the social understandings of sexual identity and the powerful role that it plays in the arenas of family, personal relationships, the economy, work, the media, health, security and the environment. Through an examination of the selected literary texts in Indian writings in English, we will interrogate the ways in which heteronormativity permeates a variety of institutions in the public sphere. We may find answers and ways to respond that would embrace all human beings.
Keywords: Homosexuality, Sexual Orientation, Sexuality, Transgender, and Gender
THE REPERCUSSIONS OF CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES AND THE RESULTANT NEUROSIS: THE HEIGHTS OF CRIMINALITY AND FIXATION IN SHOBHA DE’S STRANGE OBSESSION (Published)
The research paper examines the eccentricities and neurotic persona of an abnormal female character in Shobha De’s Strange Obsession who is strangely obsessed for an attractive young lady Amrita, travelled from Delhi to pursue a career in modelling. Strange Obsession is a tale of a psychosomatic woman named Meenakshi Iyengar (Minx) who had a miserable and troubled childhood, being a single child of an Inspector General of Police and a social worker mother. Because of her imbalanced development in childhood and being a spoilt child of a powerful Police authority, Minx starts extracting pleasure by exploiting people as a compensation for her own anxieties and insecurities. The heights of alternative homosexuality and criminality are skilfully presented through manipulative strategies and merciless behaviour of neurotic Minx. Moreover the paper emphasizes Simone de Beauvoir and Sigmund Freud’ theories of lesbianism and fixation to understand the afflicted psyche and the resultant neurosis with an amalgam of the stark realities of higher-strata modelling world and sadistic homosexual tendencies.
Keywords: Criminality, Fixation, Homosexuality, Neurosis, Psychosomatic, Sadistic