A digital magazine on sexuality in the Global South: We are working towards cultivating safe, inclusive, and self-affirming spaces in which all individuals can express themselves without fear, judgement or shame

Consent And Coercion

Picture of a firecracker with the text 'Happy 18th Birthday to TARSHI' below

The Editorial: Consent and Violence

Felicitations to us at TARSHI! As we turn 18 this month, the currently legal age of consent for sexual activity in India, this issue of In Plainspeak poses some difficult questions that we all ask ourselves in the course of not just our work but also our own personal relationships. Every day we see around…
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The book cover of 'Good Times for Everyone: Sexuality Questions, Feminist Answers'

Review: Good Times for Everyone: Sexuality Questions, Feminist Answers

[Editor's note: When discussing consent and coercion, it is impossible to deny the shame and secrecy that surround issues of sexual assault and sexuality, generally.  In looking for ways to educate and to change cultural standards when it comes to consent and responsibility in sexual encounters, it seems clear that a new attitude about sexuality is…
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A photo of a few children dressed in matching red shirts that read 'enough is enough' and holding up placards with various slogans

Interview: Vidya Reddy

On Jan 1, 2014 when I met Vidya Reddy, one of TULIR’s co-founders, for an interview on consent among teenagers between 16 and 18, I had no doubt that she was going to flesh out the nuances and talk openly about a topic that makes most people cringe. Vidya has a background in psychology and…
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a pencil sketch of two hands touching

सहमति

भारतीय कानून में विसंगतियों की एक बड़ी संख्या है, चाहे हम सहमति की उम्र का उल्लेख करने वाले विभिन्न कानूनों को देखें या ‘बच्चे’ की परिभाषा बताने वाले विभिन्न कानूनों को।  किशोर न्याय (बालकों की देख-रेख और संरक्षण) संशोधन अधिनियम 2006 के अनुसार ‘बालक’ की उम्र 18 वर्ष से कम है और वे कार्यरत नहीं…
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Black and white picture of a child covering their face

Poem: Age 7

tender lips that had forgotten, momentarily, the taste of mother’s milk and couldn’t tell the silence of the womb from the darkness of sins knelt, panting, to sooth with their tender warmth the spineless erection of an old man. to believe that the sweat, stink and grime were not its own the tender body washed…
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Five transgender women dressed in colourful sarees, standing in the middle of the street.

I Column: Shades of Grey

  • ·February 1, 2014
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Introduction: As this first-person account of Anita, a Devadasi in Maharashtra, Western India illustrates, issues of consent and violence/coercion cannot always be clearly demarcated as black and white. Anita’s account shows that there were definite instances of coercion in her life and equally, there were spaces where she was able to exercise her choice and…
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Picture of a man speaking on the phone, with the words 'obsessive', 'forceful', 'controlling' and 'angry' written beside him.

The Fine Line

What is care and what is control? What is right and what is wrong? There is a thin line between the two! Inspired by real life incidents, "The Line" is a way to look at things differently. There is a tendency in all of us to disassociate with violence because "it would never happen to…
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An illustration of a boy facing a tiger, while they're both on a boat, with a quote from Life of Pi written above.

The Fearless Campaign

In India, we are constantly confronted by images of what Indian women should be. Goddess on walls portray the perfectly beautiful, extremely strong kind of woman. Then there’s the image that Bollywood projects; the coy sex-kitten who will act shy until you stalk the crap out of her, at which point she realizes she is…
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Photo of a woman dressed in a red kurta, in the middle of a dance pose.

Movies, Music and Conversations on Consent

Recently, social media was abuzz with Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines”, a song and video that sparked many discussions on the blurring of lines between violence and consent in popular culture narratives. The song sparked off many responses by groups that re-imagined and revamped it. The most interesting and bold according to me, was the one…
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