heteronormativity
The Complexities and Necessities of Queer Humour
There’s a difference between ‘laughing with’ and ‘laughing at’. The above instance was obviously of the latter kind. Humour has a complex but integral relationship with queer genders and sexualities, and it has been evolving over time.
By Rupal Rupali
May 17, 2023
Drag As Mapping Culture, Fun, And Resistance Onto Our Bodies
Drag is more than a form of entertainment or art form or a form of comedic release, it’s the realization of the fun of being queer or having a queer perspective.
By Rajeev Anand Kushwah
Breaking new ground: Maja Ma’s portrayal of queerness in a traditional Indian family
This reconciliation between Pallavi’s public (seemingly) heterosexual and closeted lesbian identities points to a distinctly Indian way of avoiding polarities through a new social arrangement where both identities are allowed the space to flourish.
By Juhi Sidharth and Chaitanya Ravi
Editorial – Queering Sexuality
Queering transcends the confines of symmetry and is a way of looking, of breaking established meaning, of making new meaning, and of being and becoming that offers us the promise of fluidity, flux and freedom.
By TARSHI
December 12, 2022
The Promise of Queer Failure as a Way of Life
In a world where queerness is looked at as failure, The Queer Art of Failure allows for many possibilities to make sense of these failures.
By Rajeev Anand Kushwah
December 12, 2022
With Love: A Special Issue on Sexuality, Mental Health, Wellbeing, and Self-care
Any conversation on sexuality cannot exclude engagement with the myriad ways in which taboos around sexuality, the privileging of heteronormative ideals, the violence and marginalisation faced by people deviating from norms of sexuality and gender affect our mental health and well-being.
By TARSHI
The Time Machine – 5 In Plainspeak Articles that Celebrate Sexuality in its Diverse Forms!
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.
By TARSHI
How We Reimagine and Redefine Freedoms
Every part of life, the world too, is storied. Stories are the thread that hold histories and truths together. Stories are at the core of myth-making. Everything that we know is part of multiple crisscrossing relational storylines that we raise and those that we have no power in raising.
By Curated Content
March 15, 2022
Of filter coffee, marriage and mixed celebrations of sexuality
Marriage also feels complicated when one approaches it through the lens of feminism. Marriage throws in two people and often their families into a system designed to perpetuate patriarchy, subjugate women, and bind men and women (in heteronormative marriage) into strict roles in the marriage.
By Vani Viswanathan
Editorial – Sexuality and Coupledom
If we are to reimagine coupledom and sexuality, we need to expand and challenge our ideas about togetherness, romance, love, intimacy, desire, sex, attachment, and so on.
By TARSHI
February 15, 2022
On Looking for Love
I wanted to be one of those people who decide to never date again and actually follow through. Indeed, I decided that a lot. A resolution that was broken so many times that it became a running joke in my head.
By Wesley D'Souza
February 1, 2022
Editorial – Sexuality and SISA Spaces
We envision SISA spaces as non-judgmental, inclusive, rights-based and affirming spaces wherein people’s sexuality, their identities, wellbeing, choices, desires and pleasure are respected.
By TARSHI
January 3, 2022
Book Review: Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
The story is so well told and is written with such a light, deft hand that it is almost easy to miss what makes it so quietly radical. To review it within the scope of exploring the coming together of literature and sexuality we must begin with its central cast of characters – the widows.
By Sheena D'Lima
January 3, 2022
The Queerness of Fandom in Bollywood
People looking for queer plots in Bollywood are sometimes disappointed, as the focus on marriage in many films seems to suggest that Bollywood is a conservative genre invested in sanctifying reproductive heteronormativity.
By Ulka Anjaria
November 1, 2021
The Legend Of The Invisible Lesbians
Of course, one needs to acknowledge that this word did not magically turn up in the vocabularies of the ‘good girls from good families’ that came to a convent school to learn ‘good things’ everyday. The extensively gendered environment which promised to manufacture highly-marriageable ‘young ladies’, aided by the insistence of middle-aged spiteful teachers to absolutely destroy any kind of existence that does not constantly bow it’s pretty, two-plaited head to the heteronormative male gaze, created a suffocatingly toxic atmosphere.
By Curated Content
June 15, 2021