Performance and Sexuality Archives • In Plainspeak

Editorial: Performance and Sexuality

·September 17, 2018
·TARSHI
·0 Comments

We are many selves. Or rather, like a series of Russian Matryoshka dolls nested one within the other, we perform many selves. But unlike the dolls that are already fashioned, our performance can change, both for the outside world and also for ourselves. Sexuality and gender are performance while they are also integral parts of…

Read »

Picture of a man and woman, in period costume, kissing.

Outlander: A Review

·September 17, 2018
·Dana Burton
·0 Comments

Time and time again, Galbaldon asks us, through the character of Claire, to remember that we are travelers, we move and are moved by the interactions and environments around us.

Read »

Picture of author Manjima Bhattacharya. She has short white-and-grey hair and is wearing dark thick-rimmed glasses

‘Don’t They Realise We are Human?’: The Uneasy Alliance Between Fashion and Feminism

·September 17, 2018
·Curated Content
·0 Comments

“Historically, feminism and fashion have been pitted against one another,” writes Manjima Bhattacharjya in her book, Mannequin. It’s a dilemma the fashion industry has struggled with for decades – being perceived as flippant, or existing in a vacuum"

Read »

A series of feminine body hair removal products - razors, epilators and so on - arranged on a pink coloured table

The Labor of Expressing Femininity as a Disabled Woman

·September 17, 2018
·Curated Content
·0 Comments

The nature of the labor that goes into performing femininity is that it’s invisible. Or at least it’s supposed to be. As a culture, we expect women to look glossy and shimmery and smooth. We don’t want to know about the time and money that goes into this presentation.

Read »

In Transit

·September 17, 2018
·Rishit Wishit
·0 Comments

I could have called it transformation instead of transitioning. But it became clear to me that transitioning does not necessarily imply a caterpillar-butterfly story but that it means a gradual acceptance of the self (and the self is ever-transitioning); of being comfortable in your own skin (even if it means shedding skin); of perfecting your act (even if it means learning a few new things).

Read »

Picture of a classical dance performer, face painted in yellow and black

Issue in Focus: Performance and Sexuality

·September 4, 2018
·Sneha Krishnan
·0 Comments

To think of sexuality as performative disrupts the need for stable categories and identities, instead suggesting that we all reinforce and disrupt normative formations as we attempt to inhabit the world in messy ways.

Read »

Prescriptions of Proper

·September 4, 2018
·Shikha Aleya
·0 Comments

In a world of prescriptions of performance and perfection, there isn’t truly that much space built in to risk non-performance, not being perfect, or to risk not fitting the prescription.

Read »