female sexuality Archives • In Plainspeak

A shot from the film featuring the two female leads, one is preparing a paan with the other’s face resting on her shoulder. Both the women are smiling.

Masculinity, queer representation, and the motifs of movement in ‘Dedh Ishqiya’

·May 3, 2022
·Srishti Gupta

The film has all the makings and trimmings of a commercial thriller – a dynamic story, song and dance, an action-packed climax – and at the same time, it is a cinephile’s film.

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Artificial golden stars against a blue background

The Time Machine – 5 In Plainspeak Articles that Celebrate Sexuality in its Diverse Forms!

·March 15, 2022
·tarshiadmin

The In Plainspeak team decided to time travel and re-discover previously published articles that explore the multiple ways in which people find joy and pleasure in their sexualities.

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‘A Promise to Stand By’: The quiet feminism of Nathicharami

·March 1, 2022
·Srishti Gupta

Nathicharami takes sexuality and sexual desire away from upper-class, Gucci-clad women and makes its viewers acknowledge its existence in the lives of women (middle-class wives and widows, in the case of this film) who are invisibilised, both in the society they live in and as subjects of popular content.

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When Pleasure And Pain Are Confused With Basic Rights

·December 2, 2019
·Micky Nair

Though I come from a very conservative family, being open about female masturbation and watching porn didn’t seem to bother me. Yes, people have oohed and aahed at me for being so. I am still the same, proudly.

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A pictures of the reddish-green leaves and branches of a plant, against a bright green background

Jasmine Stains

·January 2, 2019
·Malini Gopalakrishnan

Desire is a man's turf, right up there with moustaches and Adam's apples / I'm the apple, I am the snake, I am Eve / I am the vibrator nestled between flimsy, cheap lace underwear / I am the shame, of saying I came

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Jasmine Stains

·August 1, 2018
·Malini Gopalakrishnan

My hair smells like jasmine / From the wedding I went to last night / When I tethered my untameable hair with flowers,

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A pair of hands with wrinkles on them holding each other. One of the hands is wearing a gold band on their ring finger

Beauty

·June 17, 2015
·Almas Shamim

And all my life I’ve lived alone. What it means to be beautiful, I’ve never known. I’ve had partners but I pushed them all away, My sense of ugliness was like a fort to keep love at bay. Now, at fifty three, I take marriage vows again. Love can kiss wrinkles, scars and sagging breasts.…

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Notes On Body and Sexuality From The Abortion Discourse

·June 1, 2015
·Surabhi Srivastava and Kristin Francoeur

Rebecca Traister, in her recent article for the New Republic, titled Let's Just Say It: Women Matter More Than Fetuses Do, puts it bluntly: abortions are about women, not foetuses. We'll go one step further, be more explicit and posit that abortions are about women being able to assert control over their body and sexuality.…

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