ABSTRACT

Issues of sexual violence or any form of forced or nonconsensual sexual interactions, whether in marital or nonmarital, heteronormative or queer, long-term or otherwise relationships, are most commonly understood as issues of consent. This chapter showcases how normative and discursive practices shape the interdependence between sexual violence and notions of pleasure, desire, and female sexual agency. It includes material from AoI, which has tried to use art as a form of intervention to educate the public, especially young people, on issues of consent by making desire and conversations about sex and sexuality central to this discussion. The chapter argues that artistic interventions open up a culture of possibilities that should be incorporated into policies and programs that seek to educate young people about consent, sexuality, and gender norms in India. Marriage and intimacy, desire and violence, are simultaneously embedded in global capital and technology flows as they are in cultures of countries and communities.