Payal Kumar

Payal Kumar has been creating pieces exploring the intersections of power and sexuality through kink as a south asian femme.

“i started creating these pieces to explore the “submissive desi woman” thru the lens of racialized and gendered power+pleasure. In the vulnerable and intimate space of a sexual/sensual encounter, kink provides an explicit framework to communicate of power dynamics and boundaries that can be really powerful as a brown nonbinary femme- these power dynamics continue to exist outside of these encounters, but we don’t often get the ability to control and manipulate them safely in the same way. 

What does it look like to reclaim the tired ass trope of the submissive asian woman, obedient and devoid of pleasure? Does the submissive no longer hold racialized appeal if wilful? What is the relationship between south asian femininity and sexual agency? where’s the boundary between exotic, erotic, and exhausted?  ”

We’re absolutely in love with their pieces!