In a forthcoming book, I argue that 1928, when The Well of Loneliness (Radclyffe Hall) and Lady Chatterley’s Lover (D.H. Lawrence) were published, was the year in which sex and sexuality were first described openly in the novel without any authorial moral judgement.

So the passage below, from The Well of Loneliness, would not have been a problem in 1928 if Stephen Gordon had been a man; but Stephen is a woman.

But her eyes would look cold, though her voice might be gentle, and her hand when it fondled would be tentative, unwilling. The hand would be making an effort to fondle, and Stephen would be conscious of that effort. Then looking up at the calm, lovely face, Stephen would be filled with a sudden contrition, with a sudden deep sense of her own shortcomings; she would long to blurt all this out to her mother, yet would stand there tongue-tied, saying nothing at all. (Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness, 1928) Read More→

India’s celebrated diversity and, by and large, a sense of peaceful co-existence has taken a severe hit since the past decade. This has been linked with the rise of right-wing Hindutva in politics, which has bred a sense of injured pride in the Hindu majority accompanied by a phobia created about the threat from minorities, most of all Islam. 

The myths being perpetrated include the uncontrolled rise in the Muslim population, as also the physical threats that could result from this change in demographics. 

There is no data to substantiate these claims but with the power of social media and its ability to make a piece of fake news viral, nobody seems to care anymore to do a fact check and most people are quite content to believe all the lies that land on their telephones, day in and day out. Read More→

The notorious stage and screen actress and playwright Mae West (1893–1980) of “come up and see me some time” fame, was surprisingly literary minded. West was famous as an actress, but it’s far less known that she wrote all her own stage and screen roles, creating the wickedly witty vamp character she became identified with.

Despite her bad girl reputation, despite having been sentenced to ten days in prison for obscenity in her 1926 play Sex, and despite the equally provocative title of her 1927 play The Drag: A Homosexual Play in Three Acts, Mae West wasn’t as much a modern woman as she seemed. Of her 1928 play Diamond Lil West said: Read More→