Author: Anjali

An image of a starry purple sky and a person flashing a white light towards the sky.

Unboxing Our Darkness: Vulnerability and Transformative Justice

·April 5, 2021
·Anjali
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When we are in tune with our authentic thoughts and feelings, vulnerability can be a guide-post in traversing through life, allowing us to forge deep and meaningful connections where we can hold space to mess up and get back on our feet again.

An illustration of a woman walking on an empty street at night, with a backpack from which a crescent moon and stars are emerging.

Between Fear and Freedom

·October 15, 2020
·Anjali
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While highlighting safety from, media narratives often dismiss safety to: express oneself, be it through the way we identify and communicate, or through the body. Not only the spaces we access and the time of day we do so but also the way we perform our self-hood.

I May Have Called You Baby But It Doesn’t Mean I Want One!

·August 14, 2020
·Anjali
·0 Comments

Some nights I worry that if birth control for men is indeed released, clinical trials of which were suspended in 2016 as its side effects, incidentally the same as what women have been dealing with for ages, were just not worth it, it would be named Fuckboi.

On Learning and Becoming: “To Whom Do I Owe the Woman I Have Become?”

·July 15, 2020
·Anjali
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I share an apartment with two friends in a cramped street across from posh, climber-draped bungalows in South Delhi. All three of us are young women who have recently stepped into adulthood, and its unfortunately timed pipe leaks and relieving pay days. All our neighbours, next-door and three streets away, know (and sometimes unwittingly discuss…

In Plainspeak publishes two issues with a theme every month.
A cross-cutting theme across all forthcoming issues in 2021 is how we can expand safe, inclusive sexuality-affirming spaces.

THIS ISSUE:

September – Intersectionality and Sexuality – II Issue – Sept 15, 2021
Distinct and overlapping aspects of our actual and perceived identity, such as gender, age, class, caste, dis/ability, and sexual orientation, to name a few, affect how we are received in the world. In other words, our privileges and oppressions are an intricate network woven on the basis of where we are seen to be located on different dimensions. And so, whether we can assert agency in our sexual lives, access healthcare services, safely express our gender identity and sexual orientation, and in other ways enjoy our sexual and reproductive rights, depends on the interplay of multiple factors. Intersectionality emphasises the interconnections of the freedoms and opportunities we access, and our privileges and marginalisations. The September issue of In Plainspeak considers intersectionality as an evolving and dynamic concept, and explores its potential in not only cultivating safe, inclusive and sexuality-affirming spaces but also in imagining a world organised around shared values of feminist social justice.

October – Labour and Sexuality
What we are expected to do and how, and the compensation and recognition we receive for our labour are influenced by socio-cultural attitudes around gender, disability, caste, class, and so on. And because our parameters to assess labour and to reward it, such as productivity or recompense, do not take into account the infinite permutations and combinations of our unique location in our context and therefore whether or not we can exercise agency, enjoy choice and freedoms, and have access to opportunities, not all aspects of our labour – be it sitting at a desk for eight hours or being in the fields at the crack of dawn, or cooking and cleaning, or even lending a patient ear – are considered ‘useful’, ‘productive’, or ‘work’ at all. The October issue of In Plainspeakattempts to tie together physical, domestic, reproductive, emotional, creative, and other forms of labour with sexuality, and explore its interplay with leisure, bodily autonomy and integrity, interpersonal relationships, and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

November – Fandom and Sexuality
Fandom is a community forged around shared enthusiasm for a particular aspect of popular culture, be it literature, film/television, music, art, sport, and what have you! Fandom is a space of belongingness, of unrestrained expression, of subverting conventions, of exploring the taboo, and of resisting hetero-patriarchy and imagining, in its place, a world vibrant with an array of gender identities, sexual orientations, and expressions. Scaffolded by an interest of its members in the canon, i.e., the original/source material, fandom brims with creative avenues of engagement in fanfiction, fanart, videos, songs, cosplay, and so on, where anything and everything is possible – from the romantic and the erotic, to the spiritual and the magical. In the November issue of In Plainspeak, we explore the potential of fandom as a safe, inclusive, and self-affirming space in the context of gender and sexuality

For future issue themes, click here.

Would you like to contribute? Send an email to blogeditor@tarshi.net with your idea. Do take a look at our submission guidelines!

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In Plainspeak English Audit In Plainspeak English Audit 100% 10 A photo of queer feminist activist Rudrani Chhetri. Her hair is tied up in a bun, and she is wearing a simple patterned top and jacket. She is also wearing gold earrings and a golden locket. Screen reader support enabled. A photo of queer feminist activist Rudrani Chhetri. Her hair is tied up in a bun, and she is wearing a simple patterned top and jacket. She is also wearing gold earrings and a golden locket.

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Published on January 1, 2014

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A person with short dark hair and silver earrings holds a sign that says "Sexual Rights To Me Means Control Over My Own Body". The photo is in black and white.

What Do Sexual Rights Mean To You?

Published on December 1, 2013