Cruising

Imagie of an underwear with the word 'grindr' written all over it

Does the Underwear Brand Really Matter?

·June 1, 2019
·Andy Stephen Silveira

After the underwear slips off, does the underwear brand really matter? The underwear may mean different things for different people. It may evoke desire or may hinder access.

Its a doodle of a girl and boy sitting facing their backs at eachoher. The girl is, wearing a yellow flower dress, looking at her phone. While the boy is using his laptop and has a red cup of coffee in one hand.

Pyaar Online: Cruising Online for Love

·June 1, 2017
·Divya Swaminathan

Generations come and go but the quest for love remains eternal. In the early 2000s, most of us millennials were getting our first email accounts. By 2004, Orkut, a now defunct social networking site, had come up. It was exhilarating to connect with all of one’s crushes, old and new, from behind the security of…

Two men in a public bus facing each other, one of them standing behind the other and they are looking at each other fondly.

Video Page: Lost & Found

·January 1, 2014
·Shrenik

Lost & Found is about two strangers trying to steal a moment of passion while looking for their own space in a crowded public bus; in the middle of summer; in the bustling metropolis of New Delhi. What follows is a typical comedy of errors and misunderstandings which lead to a light-hearted climax. Shrenik in…

In Plainspeak publishes two issues with a theme every month.
A cross-cutting theme across all forthcoming issues in 2022 is how we can expand safe, inclusive self-affirming spaces.

THIS ISSUE:

January 2022 – SISA Spaces and Sexuality
Imagine a space where we are free to be authentically ourselves, to love who and how we want, to feel accepted, connected, and supported, and to assert ourselves against heteropatriarchal expectations around gender and sexuality. In a world riven with violences and marginalisations, safe, inclusive, and self-affirming (SISA) spaces in the context of gender and sexuality bring to life the shared feminist vision of sexual and reproductive health and rights, and wellbeing. Celebrating plurality, SISA spaces make room for multiple identities, lived experiences, and perspectives. SISA spaces encourage us to look within, to engage with and learn from one another, to hold space, and to evolve. In the January anthology issue of In Plainspeak, we bring you a collection of older articles around SISA spaces and sexuality, and attempt to discover newer ways of forging and expanding such spaces.

February – Sexuality and Coupledom
Wading through the dating pool, we are expected to pair off – one man, one woman, get married, and raise children. Romantic relationships within a hetero-patriarchal set-up are tangled in ideas of ‘soulmates’ and ‘forever’. Instead of The One, what if we choose to seek The Two, or even The Three with whom we can forge fulfilling emotional, sexual, and material connections? Or, being asexual, maybe no one at all for sex, but still luxuriate in intimacy? In exploring relationships outside the bounds of socio-political and cultural legitimacy by experimenting with and expressing sexuality in ways we find meaningful is an assertion of agency, bodily autonomy, and selfhood against patriarchal norms around relationships and family. The February issue of In Plainspeak attempts to examine coupledom in our social context, and unearth its possibilities.

For future issue themes, please 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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