What does it mean to be an Agent of Ishq? Or why Sex Education and Life Education are intertwined!

Agents of Ishq founder Paromita Vohra talks about the philosophy that underlies this unique cultural sex-education project at Dasra Philanthropy Week 2021 ‪@DasraCatalyst‬
How do we as children, learn to become adults? Most of us are taught that being a grown up is about learning to fit into and better adjust to the world around us so that it rewards us for this with success. In order to do that, we are taught to minimize and reduce parts of ourselves that are pleasurable, emotional, Sexual, i.e., the world of desire, longing, confusion, pleasure, doubt, pain, feelings. And so, we stigmatise those parts of ourselves as taboo, shameful or weak.
Think of how we talk about sex - we talk about it as violence, disease or exploitation. We do
not talk about it as pleasure or possibility or creativity or life itself- all of which it is. What could we learn if we gave love and attention to these parts of the self and the world that are stigmatised? This is the question we asked ourselves when we started Agents of Ishq.
With this question we created a space saturated with pleasure; one that is completely non-
prescriptive. Agents of Ishq is about sexual health and rights, but also about sexual desire,
emotions, feelings, doubts and relationships. Information, education, enjoyment, pleasure, emotion, sex, love, desire, rights, are all given equal importance.
At AOI, the community builds the space by sharing their experience - their experience is the
point of entry, not only identity. This co-creates a space that is organically inclusive and
diverse. We do not speak a language of aggression, reform or upliftment, where
communities are imperfect and need ‘fixing.’ Rather, we speak a language of exchange,
inclusion and love which honors the human experience and give it dignity through art and
offerings of pleasure and enjoyment.
This, we believe, creates a confidence in the self, a belief in the right to be human which is
also a human right, and a world where we do not need to fear change, but can define
change on mutual terms and walk towards it, hand in hand.