Feminism

On a white background, digital art of lips: light pink, mauve, red, and magenta.

From Judy Blume To The Sexy Internet: What Counts As Erotica?

·June 15, 2021
·Richa Kaul Padte
·0 Comments

This question of appropriateness is, for me, at the heart of all questions around sexuality. Each of us carries within us our own private benchmarks for which expressions of sexuality we find appropriate, and which ones, in turn, have crossed an invisible line. The ones we believe belong across the border, in the land of the inappropriate, of the too much.

Wall-art of a face till the bridge of the nose. The face is coloured in peach, grey, and shades of blue. The eyes, green, are lined in black and have spots of yellow, brown, and blue colour around them. Under the left eye, there are yellow dots. The hair is streaked with purple and blue.

Probing the Screen: Pleasure in the Virtual World

·June 15, 2021
·Neel
·0 Comments

The virtual world allows me to challenge the hold of patriarchy on my ‘effeminate’ body; in a sense, it allows me to evade the policing of desire that my body shares with another, its flows and slippages, the messy and the unkempt. While virtual sex offers a window to revisit the sensual, it is also not immune to limitations and insecurities.

An abstractly painted image with magenta and blue and splashes of red, yellow, and black colour. In the background, two brown-black silhouettes.

Issue in Focus: The Heart of Being

·April 19, 2021
·Shikha Aleya
·0 Comments

To chase down our own vulnerabilities around sexuality is a short run around the corner, five minutes ago, last night sleeping alone, with a lover, a partner who lost interest, the Insta post that leaves you feeling you’re not good enough for the hug, the kiss, the cuddle and are you perhaps the A of LGBTQIA+?

A photograph, against a dark background, of a zoomed-in fence with a square lock hanging. The lock is painted red, left un-coloured in a heart shape in the middle.

Should I Say I Love You?

·April 19, 2021
·Shubham Ranjan
·0 Comments

Being vulnerable helps boost our self-esteem and self-worth by pushing us out of our comfort-zone. It provides us with an opportunity to overcome obstacles and reach deep down within ourselves to find strength and confidence to keep going even when the odds are against us.

A zoomed-in photograph of a wall with differently coloured flanks.

Vulnerability and Romantic Relationships: My Struggles Navigating These Spaces

·April 19, 2021
·Grishma Trivedi
·0 Comments

It took me some time to realise how important being vulnerable or, for that matter, being vulnerable during sexual engagement was for me to have great sex and how empowering it is for my sexuality. After much thought, I decided to open up to my partner about my past experiences and other things I never used to openly talk about.

There I sat down and wept

·April 19, 2021
·Anna Lynn
·0 Comments

“Be yourself, Sarah. Awkward smiles, empty silences, weird laughter, and all. It’s just a part of being human. Loving someone physically is never not awkward. Even if it’s a monogamous relationship. It’s only the comfort of familiarity that makes you think otherwise.”

Reclining Vulnerability

·April 19, 2021
·Noella Fernandes
·0 Comments

Through multiple maquettes, I finally came across (since I myself did not know what the result of the form or figure would be) the Reclining Lady. She represents confident femininity and vulnerability. The feeling one has after taking a bath and sitting in the nude, drying oneself in unabashed nakedness.

Interview – Indu Harikumar

·April 5, 2021
·Shikha Aleya
·0 Comments

I was watching something recently that said it was a bad thing to be vulnerable, but I don’t think it is a bad thing. I do see that there is a certain amount of power in vulnerability, it also needs courage, in my experience.

A photograph of oranges on a black background. One orange is whole and the other is halved.

Spinning Straw into Gold: Older Womxn Celebrate Sexuality and Spirituality

·March 1, 2021
·Nighat Gandhi
·0 Comments

The most satisfying spiritual and sexual experiences I’ve had were not in my twenties, thirties or even forties. They have been in my 50’s. The most insightful spiritual insights, and the most orgasmic orgasms have both arrived in middle age.

A close-up photograph of a dandelion with dew. The dewdrops are differently coloured in the light.

Editorial: Femininities and Sexuality

·December 15, 2020
·TARSHI
·0 Comments

Are certain forms of femininities denigrated more than others? Not just by misogynists but also by feminists? Is there a particular way of manifesting an ‘appropriate’ femininity, one that is just right, and is not ‘too girly’ or ‘too tomboyish’?

A photograph of the author, Di Sands

Tomboy Femininity

·December 1, 2020
·Di Sands
·0 Comments

When I finally came out to myself at age 16 and made it to a free queer youth space, I couldn’t wait to be accepted among folks who didn’t play by society’s heterosexist rules of masculine and feminine as polar opposites.

Two dandelion flowers in a glass vase on a pink background.

A ‘girly’ feminist

·December 1, 2020
·Anubha Sarkar
·0 Comments

Desiring motherhood meant veering into a more ‘girly’ territory, a notion that I had simultaneously been fighting and trying to embrace since childhood. I had understood that to be a feminist I had to be independent, be wary of men, dislike families and relationships.

On a pink background, a blue gift-wrapped box with a bow

Biscuit tin

·December 1, 2020
·Shikha Aleya
·0 Comments

I keep on hold the colours and prints to wrap you in gentle delicate flowers or little cartoon lions and boys with fists that say Bam and Super / until I know what lies between your legs the cigar or the smile of consolation if you’re the first

Film poster of ‘Someone Great’

Brushstrokes: 5 Fantastic Ways to Engage in Feminist Hookup Culture

·October 5, 2020
·Curated Content
·0 Comments

While navigating hook-up culture, we may exercise our agency to express our sexuality but at the same time, may face risks to our safety and bodily integrity as well as obstacles engendered by misogyny, rape culture, heteronormativity, and double standards.

An illustration of a woman’s face and torso, superimposed with markers of digital engagement. Behind her, two octopus arms and from under the torso, palms and leaves flowering.

The Future Is TransFeminist: from imagination to action

·August 14, 2020
·Curated Content
·0 Comments

Facebook. Google. Apple. Microsoft. Amazon. As the white male-dominated Big Five in Silicon Valley monopolise most platforms that guide online interactions almost everywhere outside China, any aspiration towards a feminist revolution has become capitalised.

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, I Issue – July 15, 2021
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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