Cinnamon Gardens

A doodle of a woman hugging herself. At the top is written "and here you are living despite it all -rupi kaur"

Editorial: Time and Sexuality

·November 15, 2017
·TARSHI
·0 Comments

Take Time. Add Sexuality to it. How does it move? In a straight line, in circles, or does it zig and then zag? Does it loop around to the very beginning? Move in spirals? Wind down and stop? Going by the articles this month, it seems to do all this and more. Most people consider…

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Photo Credit: (CC BY 2.0)

Same-sex love in the time of decolonisation: Historicising hidden sexual lives in Selvadurai’s Cinnamon Gardens

·November 1, 2017
·Kaustav Bakshi
·0 Comments

Cinnamon Gardens, looking back on the early twentieth century, reveals the trauma of queer lives, in a country where queerness, family and the state are still irreconcilable with each other.

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In Plainspeak publishes two issues with a theme every month.
A cross-cutting theme across all forthcoming issues in 2020 is how we can expand safe, inclusive sexuality-affirming spaces.

THIS ISSUE:

December 2020
Femininities and Sexuality, I Issue – Dec 1, 2020
Gender is a spectrum with many colours and we perceive new hues as our ideas about gender evolve. And so it is with our ideas about feminity; or rather of femininities. It isn’t about ‘girliness’ (in fact, what is ‘girliness’ in the first place? Who even is ‘girl’?), or a certain standard of beauty or physical appearance, a certain style of clothing, makeup, a particular body type, etc. The notion of femininities isn’t even restricted to a particular gender. It can be an experience, a state of being, a feeling that comes from within, as well as a performance. Hence, there are multiple femininities, and multiple horizons of experience associated with these femininities There are experiences of misogyny in various shapes and forms, there are experiences that are associated with the body and are also irrespective of the kind of body you inhabit, as well as irrespective of the gender assigned to you at birth. that influence one’s exploration of desire, of pleasure, of body image, and of sexual and romantic relationships. In a patriarchal world, where misogyny abounds, are all manifestations of femininities equally denigrated or are particular expressions of femininity valued? The spectrum of femininities intersects with sexuality in more ways than one can count, and the December issue of In Plainspeak attempts to explore these intersections, especially in the context of how they affect safe, inclusive, sexuality-affirming spaces.

जेंडर के विभिन्न आयाम हैं जिनको समझने से हमारे जेंडर से संबंधित विचार विकसित होते रहते हैं। जेंडर की एक पहलू, स्त्रीत्व के बारे में हम दिसंबर में In Plainspeak (TARSHI की डिजिटल पत्रिका) में जानने का प्रयास करेंगे। स्त्रीत्व पर, न की लड़कियों से जुड़े समाज द्वारा बनाए गए नियम जैसे सौंदर्य या शारीरिक उपस्थिति के मानक, कपड़े एवं श्रृंगार करने के तरीके पर। स्त्रीत्व की धारणा एक विशेष जेंडर तक सीमित नहीं है। यह एक अनुभव, भावना, किसी विशेष अवस्था के साथ एक प्रदर्शन भी हो सकती है। इसलिए, स्त्रीत्व के कई रूप हैं और स्त्रीत्व से जुड़े कई अनुभव भी हैं। स्त्री जाति से संबंधित विभिन्न प्रकार के द्वेष के अनुभव हो सकते हैं। कई अनुभव शरीर से जुड़े होते हैं, जो जन्म के समय दिए गए जेंडर के बावजूद होते हैं। यह अनुभव हमारी इच्छाओं, शारीरिक छवि, यौन और रोमैंटिक संबंधों को प्रभावित करते हैं। एक पितृसत्तात्मक दुनिया में, जहां स्त्री जाति से संबंधित द्वेष प्रचलित हैं, क्या स्त्रीत्व की सभी अभिव्यक्तियों को समान रूप से नकारा जाता है? या कुछ ऐसी भी अभिव्यक्तियाँ हैं जिन्हें महत्व दिया गया है? स्त्रीत्व अन्य तरीकों से यौनिकता के साथ जुड़ीं हैं। दिसंबर की In Plainspeak कड़ी में हम इन संबंधों को जानने का प्रयास करेंगे और यह देखेंगे कि कैसे यह संबंध स्वीकार्य, सकारात्मक एवं आनंदमय यौनिकता के अवसरों को प्रभावित करते हैं।

January 2021
Anthology Issue
Faced with a pandemic in 2020, we were reminded to reimagine wellbeing as more than the absence of disease and rather as a mosaic, its many differently coloured tiles together constituting an intricate and interconnected whole. Wellbeing may consist in living in alignment with who we truly are and feeling fulfilled, freely expressing our sexuality, or even being able to run 10 kilometres at a go. Though unique to each one of us, our wellbeing is affected by some overarching aspects such as our physical and mental health, our self-image, and our relationships. Sexual wellbeing includes not only sexual and reproductive health but also expressing and experiencing sexuality safely, positively, and pleasurably. At a time when we are witnessing violence (sexual and otherwise) and uncertainty in our world, we probe wellbeing again – how might we care for ourselves, especially while caring for one another, and cultivate practices and spaces which may contribute to a sense of wellbeing? In our anthology issue in January 2021 we republish In Plainspeakarticles from previous years about what wellbeing means to our contributors.

February 2021
Singlehood and Sexuality, I Issue – Feb 1, 2021
We live in a culture organised around relationships. We are told finding ‘The One’ is integral to our well-being; our ‘soulmate’ will intuitively understand as well as fulfill all our emotional, sexual, and material needs and desires. Our engagement with dating is expected to culminate in cisgender-heterosexual marriage, but what if we aren’t looking to live ‘happily ever after’ with another person? Singlehood carries stigma – of being lonely, materialistic, selfish, sexually restricted or ‘unlucky in love’. However, not all of us seek companionship within a heterosexual and monogamous framework. We may not consider love or commitment a prerequisite to engaging in sexual activity; we may simply be ‘single and not looking to mingle’; we may express and experience intimacy outside of romantic and/or sexual relationships. When our self-worth is considered to be inextricably tied to having and being desired by a partner, being single may be an assertion of our agency against patriarchal norms around legitimate relationships, sexual behaviour, and family. In the February issue of In Plainspeak, we attempt to delve into these aspects of singlehood and how they relate to our socio-economic location, age, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability status.

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!

Cinnamon Gardens

Editorial: Time and Sexuality

Same-sex love in the time of decolonisation: Historicising hidden sexual lives in Selvadurai’s Cinnamon Gardens

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