Let's Not Just Talk About Sex Maybe?
A thesis and project on Embodied Education of Sexuality
What is?
This project was a thesis arguing for the "Embodied Education of Sexuality". It was a theoretical critique of dominant informal spaces of sexuality. It problemitised assumptions made in understanding the individual, sexuality and its education. As an alternative, the thesis recommended sexuality education using embodied pedagogies. It was followed then by 6 workshops that used somatic practices to learn and reflect on individual sexuality, relationships and communication via these relationships.
While I am going to be describing the project here, the "gyan" page will have explanations of the theory and terms in more detail so as to be easier to navigate.
Premise and Argument
The paper followed a method of critique and solution. It looked at existent ideas of the 'body' with respect to modernity and sexuality. And then critiqued these ideas with being harmful to respectful and equitable relationships and then offered a solution.
Indian informal practices of sexuality, particularly the hindutva hyper-masculinity and the gandhian practice, both view the body as an object. It makes it seem like it is one that needs to be overcome. This is not drastically different from that of Descartian duality that bifurcates and then subjugates the body to the mind.
This premise and assumption is rooted in the understanding of the "liberal" individual that is the "rational self" and that desire is then something that exists in the mind and can be rationalised or overcome, like any other emotion or experience of the body.
Therefore, in response to that, the conception of the embodied emotional self is offered. The idea is to "formulate a self that is both habitually and dialogically constructed and created"". With respect to that, it then follows that education of sexuality and desire is navigated and nuanced through embodied pedagogies that allow for effective and ethical learning.
Procedures
The theoretical and philosophical argumentation was done like any other research paper. I read and consolidated ideas and arguments and the such.
The pratical component of my project was FUN. It was 6 workshops of movement and theatre exercises that I designed and recontextualised from August Boal's "Games for Actors and Non-Actors".
I had 18 of my classmates participate in the workshops. we had intersectional diversity from gender (just the binary) , sexuality, caste and class. We unfortunately had no diversity in religion or non-cis people.
The workshops were designed to migrate from understandings one's own sexuality and relating to the body and then forming and understanding relationships non-verbally. Then we moved to communication within relationships to finally establishing boundaries and understanding consent. The whole workshop allowed for the dialogue to happen between the reflective mind and body.
Fun Findings
Many findings came. I'm going to just put all the relevant quotes that came out of the workshops. Do with it what you will.
"Completely let go and was carried by them and felt really light and free at that point. My body cues with no intention were initially maybe filled with hesitancy but soon I fell into one pattern and rhythm of letting go"
"After the session I understood that I have a tendency to go along with what people say even if I am uncomfortable..I only realised that I act very poorly when I let the tension build up within me."
"Also I realised the difference between what you view a person in your head and what they identify themselves with. Brown got the exact beat of what I thought. Maybe it doesn’t have much emotion or one feeling but it is very much a part of my identity. Probably that was the mistake I made, ascribing one feeling to green's rhythm"
"This made me realize that my relationship with my body was perhaps a little too distant, almost clinical. I don’t want to see my body the way a doctor would, I want to have a more dynamic and emotional connection to my physicality, and this exercise reminded me of the importance of that"
"I felt parts like arm pits and sexual organs like for the first time"
"I felt the postures were suited for me but few others thought that the posture I made for sitting down by widening legs is more dominant posture. For me it is just I am relaxing and talking normally at 1”
"Throughout the session, I kept thinking how different parts mean different for different people, it was very important for me as I generally feel if I am comfortable with something maybe the other person is comfortable too"
"I only had to feel the emotion without trying to understand what he was saying.”
lack of eye-contact was said to be “like shutting off all forms of communication and displacing all ties of the relationship”
"Eye contact made the second time different, although I had to do it with someone from the opposite sex. Smiling and eye contact made me so comfortable, I was surprised because I usually am awkward"
“It was nice to be in other person’s space with their permission of course. There is something nice about sharing a space non-verbally. I feel the more non-verbal the action, more trust that is present and more comfort also"
“Eye contact was big when entering people’s spaces.” “People avoided eye contact as a rejection”. “I had to use my lips but mostly my eyes to show my consent.”
"I was very confused, and thought maybe some of my relationships, especially with men are more based on speaking rather than any other form of non-verbal communications."
Therefore..
To conclude this project, I had a thesis I wrote and many a presentation.
There was much to critique in the learnings of it. Some of which I did happen to work on in the next project. Things like assessing outcomes, leaving the meta-cognitive process to each participant to figure out and the fact that a lot of my analysis ended up relying on writing.
But I could still conclude that there was an inherent value to embodied pedagogy. It allowed for inter-personal reasoning through experience, empathy and vulnerability. It allowed for developing relationships that understood each other physically and non-verbally. And it truly shows that there is scope for nuanced, critical and wholesome ways of creating knowledge around habits and attitudes of sexuality.
