LGBTQ Archives • In Plainspeak

Being A Queer Woman Helped Me Accept My Body

·April 15, 2020
·Curated Content

Being a woman who loves other women, I realised that women look at me with the same tender gaze I look at them with. And that, more than anything, has made me feel at peace with my body. I hope to one day love it

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A watercolour painting depicting many hues

I Recently Had Sex With A Girl

·April 1, 2020
·Pallavi

I am a 25-year-old cis woman and I recently had sex with another woman for the first time. It was new, it felt nice, but it just didn’t feel safe.

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Critiquing the (Hetero-)Canon of Love: Desire and Longing in Contemporary Indian ‘Gay Romance’ Fiction

·March 16, 2020
·Anil Pradhan

Undoubtedly, LGBTQ+ literature and writing in India has witnessed an ‘explosion’ in the past two decades, and the trends in contemporary publication promise consistent growth in the future too. However, issues of queer representation in existing literature, and especially contemporary literature, need to be continually invested in, for literature is a key marker of society’s outlook on and reception of such sensitive subjects as homosexuality and ‘queer’-ness

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Source: Her Zimbabwe

Flipping the Script: 4 Reasons Fan Fiction Is a Feminist Pursuit

·March 16, 2020
·Curated Content

We need more spaces for marginalized people to express themselves. Although pop culture and mainstream media have yet to feature the diversity and representation we crave, fan fiction can help to fill in those gaps. And that is nothing short of feminist.

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Editorial: Sexuality and Pleasure

·February 17, 2020
·tarshiadmin

Fragile and fleeting like soap bubbles, pleasure shines with many colours. But its iridescence is frightening for many. Perhaps because its colours change in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways, and though fragile and fleeting, it is a world in itself

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Interview – Ritambhara Mehta

·February 17, 2020
·Shikha Aleya

Ritambhara Mehta is with Nazariya, a Delhi-based queer feminist resource group. Nazariya works on issues of gender and sexuality with a focus on issues of queer women and trans* persons.

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Worlds Within Queer Worlds: Presence, Politics And Diversity

·January 2, 2020
·Sohini Chatterjee

Many among us are called names, are greeted with aggressive taunts and jeers on the very streets we boldly occupy at least once every year,so we go on living docilely until the next Pride, when performative reclamation of spaces becomes possible.

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A Cafe Of Our Own?: The Politics Of Queer Spatiality In Urban India

·January 2, 2020
·Swati Vijaya and Debanuj Dasgupta

Queer cafés are not exempt from the fast changing landscape of Indian metropolitan areas and offer both inclusion as well as exclusion from the promise of a queer utopia.

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