The First Issue

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.

April 30, 2008 · Filed under call for submissions

5 Comments »

  1. Bano Rashid Said,

    May 9, 2008 @ 3:43 am

    Can this forum also include the legitimacy of desire, sexual or otherwise, in our society? I’m basically interested in the parameters of desire: gender, class, religion, ethnicity. Who is allowed to legitimately feel and act on desire? One example I’ve noticed (glaringly) is how domestic labourers are expected, almost required, to be asexual and to have no sexual drive or desire.

  2. sarah Said,

    May 9, 2008 @ 5:24 pm

    The intersectioanlity of gender, race, religion, ethnicity etc, and how they impact desire and define its limits in ways is definitely a subject we would want to explore.

    In fact, the example you have given about the expectation and at times requirement of domestic labourers to be asexual is spot on and a good point of entry into that discussion.

  3. whatsername Said,

    July 18, 2008 @ 6:34 pm

    Is this still happening? I love your idea!

  4. Akhtar Said,

    July 23, 2008 @ 11:56 pm

    An excellent idea. I am enthralled because for the last many years I have been thinking to publish a magazine on same lines, but frankly could not muster courage to translate dream into reality. You have done it. Congratulations.

    I have written some papers for the benifit of Pakistanis, yet to be published. Also engaged in, though occasionaly, in sex therapy and advice(can not find much time because of my official engagements).Would love to read material in Chay. By the way, you have(perhaps intentionally) omitted the most important Two Words initialing with “Chay”. They are “Choot”, a Sanskirit word, used frequently in Urdu,Punjabi & Hindi(of course verbally) for “cunt”, and the second word is “Chola”, a punjabi substitute for “clitoris”. Both are the central “points” in sex.

  5. Zia Ahmed Said,

    January 7, 2009 @ 10:43 pm

    I am interested in reading this magazine but I could not find any link to that. would you please let me know how and where and how the magazine can be read or bought in print, etc. zia

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