sexuality

This edition is an exploration of the multiple layers of the relationship between sexuality, rights and sexual expression and the internet, through the EROTICS research located in three countries in South Asia and the EROTICS global survey of sexuality and internet activists. The most emphatic finding of both the survey and research is that communication rights should be considered as part of…

Kenya has few protections for the people within its own country who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, or queer. In this article Njeri Gateru traces their journey and that of the organisation National Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in Nairobi - the difficulties they have faced and their use of online tools and spaces.

In this interview with Ninka Khaindrava, she talks about the state of activism around women's rights, labour rights and sexuality in Georgia. Ninka attended the MFI meeting in Malaysia to learn more about activists and their experiences with security and online violence in other parts of the world.

Womxn in global south are making revolutionary uses of social media, and this includes people challenging casual and everyday ableism. In her column Samukelisiwe Mabaso looks at three amazing projects from different countries that are revolutionizing how disability is talked about - how they are changing language, discourse and perceptions

In her third column, Samukelisiwe Mabaso explores how groups and people, artists and performers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual are using the internet and social media to spread messages about love, diversity, and acceptance. This includes projects like Coalition for African Lesbians, Gaysi, Ahwaa and others.

The Internet Freedom Festival is refreshingly different from most forums around internet rights and technology - it is almost equal in gender ratio, welcoming of gender non conforming and trans persons, and takes privacy of its participants at the venue seriously. Smita Vanniyar tells us more about their experience at the festival this year in Valencia, Spain.

We can no longer ignore the pervasive datafication of our lives - the ways in which our habits, illness, abilities, relations are abstracted, and our bodies made into data by an intersecting range of institutions and processes. In this article, the gendered, sexualised and racialised nature of surveillance is unpacked, so we maintain a focus on the power relations involved. Surveillance…

Asexuality is often dismissed as experience or identity, even by those within the medical community. However in recent times the internet has played a valuable role in both affirming the choices of those who identify as asexual, and in building networks of support and conversation. Given that it is still very difficult to speak openly about any sexuality in most physical spaces in India, the…

In this column, Nadika Nadja explores the world of gaming and how it opened up realms of experience for her. Second Life, an enormous immersive multiplayer game, and many other similar environments on the internet, have been revelatory and powerful spaces for people to discover aspects of themselves, particularly in terms of gender and sexuality. From shame and fear, to play and sex, and to…

Surveillance has historically functioned as an oppressive tool to control women’s bodies and is closely related to colonial modes of managing populations. Big data, metadata and the technologies used to collect, store and analyse them are by no means neutral, but come with their own exclusions and biases. This paper highlights the gendered and racialised effects of data practices; outlines the…