Social Media and Sexual Expression - A Panel Discussion

Point of View, Feminism in India and Hidden-Pockets are excited to host the discussion, 'To Aid or Hinder: Social media’s complicated relationship with sexual content and expression'

On one hand, there is censorship by the social media companies themselves as well as censorship and self-censorship due to online harassment. But on the other hand, social media has helped in subverting the dominant hetero-normative ideas of gender and sexuality. This session aims to discuss and debate this line which users play with in order to exercise their rights to freedom of speech and sexual expression. It will be in the form of a discussion as well as repartee where speakers discuss the ways in which users have innovatively used social media to speak out in spite of censorship from the platforms themselves, and hence, how it is has in turn become an important space for them. The second part will be a conversation cum knowledge sharing session involving both the participants as well as the speakers. This is because it is essential that we learn from one another to ensure that social media spaces and the internet as a whole, is available for everyone in actuality and not just in theory.

Our speakers are:
Brindaalakshmi.K, Hidden Pockets
Chinmayi. S.K
Japleen, Feminism in India
Jasmine Lovely George, Hidden Pockets
Nipun Malhotra, Nipman Foundation
Smita Vanniyar, Point of View

They have all used social media in both personal as well as professional capacities. They have used it to speak out about feminism, gender identities, sexuality, the intersection of caste with sexuality, the role of class in queer communities and various other topics. Two of the speakers also run various social media handles for their respective organisations. This way, they will collectively be able to bring in their perspectives and expertise on how they respectively use different platforms for speaking out as well as giving out information. It will also be very interesting to see how personal use differs or is similar to professional usage.