Love and Sexuality

A roadside board reads, "Have your awkward Tinder dates here.

Why I’ve Stopped Going on Tinder Dates

·February 18, 2016
·Curated Content

I ressurected my account to be more pointed about who should swipe me left or right. But the problem wasn’t my bio, strategy or the app. It’s one thing to have loved and lost. It’s another thing to have gone on a spree of Tinder dates and gained nothing at all. Not even a perspective…

A woman in a white sleeveless tee shirt.

कहे अनकहे संवाद

·February 18, 2016
·Shikha Aleya

प्यार की अभिव्यक्ति कई रूपों में की जा सकती है और इसी तरह यौनिकता और इसे व्यक्त करने के भी कई तरीके होते हैं। हम सच्चाई को अधिक करीब से देख सकते हैं अगर हम इन सभी तरीकों को समझे और समग्र रूप से जाने।

Black and white sketch of a girl sitting on a sofa. She has shoulder-length hair and is wearing a casual tunic and jeans

POSTMODERN LONELINESS

·February 18, 2016
·Curated Content

Recurring themes of women and loneliness occur in the illustrations of Idalia Candelas. Her drawings are a mix of ink, watercolor, and collage combined with digital illustration. We see loneliness at the door, as the only visitor in these seductive and silent works of women in repose. And it’s not just the women who are…

In Plainspeak English Audit In Plainspeak English Audit 100% 10 "I saw you on Tinder" written in red over a dusty yellow wall. Screen reader support enabled. "I saw you on Tinder" written in red over a dusty yellow wall.

The Tindering of Our Lives

·February 18, 2016
·Curated Content

My friends thought I would never get onto Tinder. They thought I was too ‘cautious’ and ‘unadventurous’ for it. Well, “Challenge accepted,” I said.

Two women kissing each other.

How Lesbians in India Redefine the Idea of Community

·February 18, 2016
·Smita Vanniyar

I have always loved the Internet. Its potential to provide information and connect people has always amazed and enthralled me. Hence, I decided to look at how queer women in India, lesbian and bisexual women in particular, use the Internet to meet other queer women. I looked at three dating sites in particular, PinkSofa, OKCupid and Mingle2, apart from the usual social media sites.

A fist. A heart is drawn on the wrist.

The Editorial: Love and Sexuality

·February 1, 2016
·TARSHI

The Love and Sexuality issues this month have a few more articles than usual, and it probably reflects on how every one of us has something to say on the matter. Our writers attempt to crawl out of the tunnel of ‘legitimate’ love and sexuality.

A woman in a white sleeveless tee shirt.

Issue In Focus: The Conversations We Don’t Have

·February 1, 2016
·Shikha Aleya

A long, long time ago, in a room far, far away, I remember playing at being a mythological hero I cannot name for fear of mass hysteria. My childhood friend was wife to my hero. As I, hero, stepped toward the edge of the room, on my way to the forest to hunt (!?) and…

Pencil drawing of a naked woman. Her legs are spread apart, and she is having an orgasm. Screen reader support enabled. Pencil drawing of a naked woman. Her legs are spread apart, and she is having an orgasm.

How To Make Me Come

·February 1, 2016
·Greeshma Gireesh

This piece won’t write itself as an opinion piece or a review of experiences that happened or were bound to happen. Neither does it intend to chain itself within a specific notion of what it entails when love and sexuality intermingle. Rather it resonates more as a long interior monologue that tries to pen down…

Painting of a woman sitting on a WC in a bathroom.

Review: The Gaysi Zine is Envelope-Pushing, Occasionally Flawed, and Gorgeous

·February 1, 2016
·Guest Writer

At the Delhi launch of the fourth edition of The Gaysi Zine, on January 21st at Max Mueller Bhavan, a conversation took place about “Boundary-Breaking Graphic Arts in India”. It was revealed that this edition’s prompt was an innocuous three-word question: What is queer? Out of that impossibly simple and impossibly difficult question, 30 extraordinarily…

A woman swimming in a dark green-blue sea.

The Long Route to Being Comfortable With My Sexuality

·February 1, 2016
·Guest Writer

I have been out of school for close to five years. I recently met up with a friend from school after a very long time, and we got down to talking about how our peers and we have changed drastically compared to who we were back in school, and who we were expected to become…

In Plainspeak English Audit In Plainspeak English Audit 100% 10 A Hindu bride placing a ring on the groom's finger. Screen reader support enabled. A Hindu bride placing a ring on the groom's finger.

The Confidence of a Married Woman

·February 1, 2016
·Surbhi Dewan

I envy confident women. It could be the way a woman speaks her mind, the way she dresses, or just her self-assured body language in a room full of people that blows me away. In my view, there is a confidence that comes naturally, and one that strengthens with one’s upbringing. I seem to lack…

Closeup of twigs.

The Questions Game

·February 1, 2016
·Yomalis Rosario

What is something I do that makes you feel good? when you lay your hands on the upper part of my back where do you feel it – on your body – when i say i love you?

Two women dancing in a strip club. Their clothes shine in green neon light in the dark background.

Playing With Love

·February 1, 2016
·Jaya Sharma

I’m a sucker for love. And I don’t want to be a party pooper either. There is lots I have been wanting to say about love, and here’s my chance. A scene flashes through my head. The Delhi High Court. A (Section) 377 hearing in the summer of 2009. As we sat at the back,…

Modern Art

An (A)sexual Awakening

·February 1, 2016
·Kavya Kartik

I had my sexual awakening in college. Or rather, the realisation that I would never have a ‘sexual awakening’ hit me in college. See, that’s when I realised I was asexual. No, not that biology lesson about asexual reproduction in plants. Just go ahead, take a moment to Google it. I’ll wait. Now, of course,…

A man in a grey tee shirt and black pajamas standing, looking surprised at something.

Video Page: ‘How Can It Be’

·February 1, 2016
·Curated Content

A moving short film by Mira Nair on the anguish we subject ourselves to when faced with the inexplicable power of love and desire. We curate videos and images based on our monthly theme, and credit and link back to their original source.

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:

June – Representation and Sexuality, I Issue – June 15, 2021
Drawing from the oft-discussed conundrum ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?’ we ask: How might we be truly and meaningfully seen and heard, especially if we do not find accurate or adequate representation in mainstream discourse? Representation is a broad term – it might mean political legitimacy of our gender identity and sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion and so on, inclusivity in decision-making processes, highlighting narratives of identities and communities which are marginalised, and portraying sexuality openly and authentically. Our lived experience as well as what we are told by way of religious and/or moral tenets, popular culture, and even advertising, shape the way we look at and interact with our socio-cultural-political milieu. And, while representation may influence how we perceive things, we are not passive consumers of it – we can bring to it a critical eye, point to what’s missing, and if we don’t like what’s on offer we can demand or create other representations. In the June issue of In Plainspeak we explore how representation (and even misrepresentation, or none at all!) may affirm or violate our sexual rights and the assertion of our individual and collective identity.

July – Sexuality and Self-care
People in caring roles, people like us, activists, human rights defenders, home care providers, health care personnel, amongst many other care-givers, tend to work tirelessly. Immersed as we are in the immediate demands of care-provision, we often have very little time and energy to take care of ourselves. Public health emergencies like the current COVID-19 (and HIV and AIDS forty years ago, and still counting) and socio-political, human-made and natural disasters add to our already heavy burden. For those of us who work on fraught issues of sexuality and sexual rights, with the very nature of our work looked askance at, self-care can seem like an indulgence, a frivolity, especially given the current capitalisation of the ‘wellness industry’ (an oxymoron, to begin with). However, self-care, in its truest sense, is not a commodity, but a radical act rooted in the politics of inter-connectedness. If in doing the work that we do, we flounder in eddies of tiredness, hopelessness, dejection or apathy and consequently have nothing joyful left to offer to ourselves or to another, what’s the point? What’s the Point of Revolution, if We Can’t Dance? ask Jane Barry and Jelena Djordjevic in their 2008 book on sustaining the wellbeing of women human rights activists.
What is it that we do for ourselves to keep going, to take care of ourselves, to practice intentional self-care? Exercise? Meditate? Get enough sleep? Reach out to our friends? Practice saying ‘no’? Build solidarity with others? Enjoy the pleasures that our body gives us? What else? The July issue of In Plainspeak dares us to dance, to transmute dejection to delight, and to tell our stories of how in caring for ourselves we expand the possibilities of caring for others and realising our vision of a world where all people enjoy their rights.

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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