A digital magazine on sexuality, based 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

Interview

Photograph of a woman with long hair in red sari, sitting with a brown dog against a background of bushes with vines and pink azaleas. The woman is resting her chin on one hand and petting the dog with the other.

Interview – Tishani Doshi

I’ve essentially thought of movement as a kind of freedom, but one that has the capacity to destabilise you in some way. My most creative moments are when I’m not moving, when I am in fact rooted and still.
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Photo of Sameera Khan. She has long black hair and is standing in a garden. She is wearing a black kurta, a deep emerald dupatta and a black necklace.

Interview – Sameera Khan

But what has been amazing to witness is how quickly young women in particular, took to the ideas of Why Loiter? and pushed them even further, creating new movements to expand women’s rights to the public, including the right to be out late at night, to stretch the curfew at women’s hostels, to demand extended access to women’s toilets, to public transport etc.
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A photograph of a number of multicoloured rainbows against the background of a blue sky.

Interview – This is what you bring to the table!

In this write up, we'd like to share a sense of what emerges from a compilation of these responses. This is based on the thoughts and feelings that come through for those of us here at In Plainspeak who have had the joy of reading the original responses as they came in to us. (Some of the quotations that follow have been slightly edited for flow and to help connect themes.) We know that most things in the realm of art, information and ideas lend themselves to a wide range of inferences and insights depending on the individuals making the inferences.
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A photograph of colourful weaves of threads.

Interview – Coupledom is a mix of meanings

Coupledom may or may not be for everyone, and does not mean the same thing to everyone. Importantly, coupledom does not hold the same value or position in our lives, even in the lives of the individuals perceived to be parts of a couple structure.
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A photograph of a woman’s face with a mural in the background. The woman has short black hair and a nose piercing. She is smiling.

Interview: Shruti Arora

There may already be another organisation in the community to share resources with but for community-led initiatives, a shared perspective on Safe, Inclusive, Sexuality-Affirming (SISA) spaces is also important. Sometimes when the shared perspective is not there, that becomes a challenge.
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Photo of a smiling man who is wearing a blue patterned shirt and standing in front of a brick wall

Interview – Manak Matiyani

As we grow older, moral codes, conventions of appropriateness and shame, and the utilitarian and income-focused education we get make us lose that stability. The idea of play to me is about bringing back that ability and comfort into the lives of people so that they can actually play.
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Interview – Sadhana Chathurvedula and Nirupama V

Sadhana Chathurvedula and Nirupama V have been exploring the phenomenon of Hallyu, the popularity and fan following of Korean entertainment around the world. Also referred to as the “Korean wave”, Korean dramas and popular music have grown in prominence across the world, and in India, especially so since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. Sadhana…
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Interview: Maya Sharma

In this interview with Shikha Aleya, Maya speaks with a deep knowledge of ground realities about the increasing informalisation of labour and its implications for gender and sexuality, and about what labour rights and inclusion mean in real terms.
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