Sensationalizing Nontheatrical Cinema: The Feminist and Queer Possibilities of Sex Education Films in Postcolonial India

In this essay, I examine how nontheatrical films on sex education from Europe and North America were recirculated by B-circuit filmmakers in India and in so doing suffused them with feminist and queer possibilities. I argue that this circuit of cinema enabled the production of alternate spaces of knowing, learning, and experiencing sex through these films where reproductive health and libidinal pleasures could coexist. This essay examines three films—Pregnancy and Childbirth (1981), The Birth (1981), and Gupt Gyan (Secret Wisdom, 1974) through each of their circulation contexts, theatrical exhibition, and reception histories, especially as they engaged with their female viewers. I trace how these films acted as libidinal sites of female friendship, camaraderie, and same-sex desire and help us envision a hitherto underexamined women-centered history of B-circuit films in India.