relationships
I never liked your beanie
I only ever read your letters
to learn what patterns to avoid
in future relationships.
By Hritvika Lakhera
May 4, 2023
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
How Masculine Am I?
I have dealt with having a non-masculine body since the time I was a teenager. I have questioned my sexuality and how it interacted with my non-masculine body.
By Asim Mudgal
May 19, 2025
HOW I LEARNED THAT I DESERVE TO LOVE MYSELF
“I feel comfortable with who I am,” he responded. “I’m at ease with myself. I don’t wake up and hate myself. I can’t tell you how amazing that feels.”
“I know how that feels,” I told him.
By Guest Writer
January 4, 2021
Hot Girls Wanted – Keeping up with the times
Because the Internet is an integral part of our daily lives, it is important that young people are given the right information so that they can explore the world around them, access information without violating legislations, know their rights in the virtual and physical world and have enjoyable and consensual relationships with whoever they choose.
By ElsaMarie D'Silva
August 3, 2020
Home-coming
The morning was heavy, laden with the weight of expectation, with the unsettling realisation that something was about to shift.
By Niv, Vanshika Gupta, Anjani Chadha
November 19, 2024
Having a Tea with You
On calls your voice greets me, balm to the parched everything.
By Carol D'Souza
October 15, 2025
From Compliance to Critique: Localising Masculinity Work Through Feminist Praxis
…we must also address men’s relationships with their spouses, other men, women and children in the community, and importantly, their own emotional selves to transform fatherhood. Therefore, engaging with men as fathers must involve a holistic understanding of their socialisation, emotional world, and position within patriarchal structures.
By Anand Pawar
Following Aladdin’s Genie
The lip colour then enters into a rather queer state of existence as it refuses to stand by the label it is expected to conform to. It moves and escapes categorisation. In its queerness, it renders itself as a paradox. At the heart of paradoxes is the understanding that something is what it is also not. Similarly, the colour of this lipstick is nude, but it is also not. It is possible that it is because of this slippery nature of the paradox that my sexuality as my identity too remains slippery, in motion and fluid.
By Muskan Nagpal
June 15, 2021
Exploring Consent Through The Film SUNO
There may be situations in which a person’s responses might not be unquestionably equated with consent. Is consent merely a ‘yes’ or does one need to look for other cues to make sure their partner wants the same thing as them when it comes to intimacy?
By Aratrika Datta
March 17, 2025
Embracing a Queer Second Adolescence
To queer something is to disrupt normative frameworks, to imagine and create new modes of being (Pirani & Daskalopoulou, 2022)….
By Srividya Mehendale
July 22, 2024
Editorial: Vulnerability and Sexuality
Vulnerability – is it a condition we find ourselves in? A state of being we choose? Let’s keep it very simple: it depends on the approach we take to defining it. In the former approach, we are ‘done to’, while in the latter we are consciously ‘doing’.
By TARSHI
April 19, 2021
Editorial: Singlehood and Sexuality
In this issue of In Plainspeak our contributors reflect on and reveal the myriad facets of being single – is it a choice? A condition? A state of being? Lonely? Joyful? Not one or the other, but a glorious mix?
By TARSHI
February 15, 2021
Editorial: Sexuality and Self-care
Continuing with our theme of self-care being about sustaining ourselves, our work, our movements, keeping the fires lit, and relating with love to ourselves, in our mid-month issue we bring you more articles looking at self-care from different perspectives – individual, queer, activist, collective, organisational, not necessarily separated, or in this order, of course.
By TARSHI
July 19, 2021
Editorial: Sexuality and Pleasure
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
By TARSHI
February 17, 2020