Chay Magazine

Muslimah Media Watch has reviewed us and seem to like what we’re doing. In their view: Read the rest of this entry →

We have been asked many times since we first announced this magazine what we would like for the first issue. Our call for submissions was limited for space and we wanted to cover broad themes for the first four issues. So, here, we have decided to set out in detail what we would like the first issue to be about. You will note that comments are possible on this post, so feel free to share your thoughts. If you do have submissions, however, please send them to our email: chaymagazine AT gmail DOT com. We will not read any submissions posted in the comments.

These are the questions we would like to address:

• Why engage sex and sexuality in our conversations, and in Pakistan?
• What are the different conceptions of sex and sexuality?
• Conceptions of sex and sexuality
  - alternative sexualities: heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, transgender, transsexuality, interesexuality, questioning sexualities.
  - awareness of sexual drive and desire
  - value attached to sexual desire (usually negative - why negative?)
  - sex as socially and religiously sanctioned
  - sex as legally regulated, criminally and Islamically prosecuted outside of marriage.
  - how are ideas of sex, gender and sexuality are based on constructed binaries: male and female with male and female roles that are specific, hierarchical and often mutually exclusive.
  - gender roles and binaries naturalized and explained with medicine and biology when in fact they are socially constructed
  - questioning binaries of sex (male/female), gender (masculine/feminine), sexuality (homo/heterosexual)
• What are the taboos and why do they exist?
• Why is there a need to explore the taboos and open the discourse?
• How do taboos and silences affect the lives of everyday people?
• - young people in romantic relationships
  - marriage proposals, love marriages
  - sexual autonomy in love relationships, marriages

If you would like to write on one or a few of these topics, please submit essays of 500-1000 words with a short author bio by June 1, 2008. Please send your submission as an email attachment with an .rtf or .doc extension (we cannot accept .docx extensions).

We are also accepting, poetry, fiction and artwork related to the above themes. Please see the call for submissions page for details.