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So what if I’m my own voyeur? — Connections and Disconnections with Desire(s)
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So what if I’m my own voyeur? — Connections and Disconnections with Desire(s)

Funnily enough, porn played a massive role in helping me articulate my queerness (I am pansexual) and my even queerer desires.
By Ankita Dhar Karmakar
October 17, 2022
So what if I’m my own voyeur? — Connections and Disconnections with Desire(s)
Editorial – Mental Health and Sexuality
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Editorial – Mental Health and Sexuality

Mental health, much like physical health, is a state of wellbeing and not just the absence of disease or infirmity….
By TARSHI
September 19, 2022
Editorial – Mental Health and Sexuality
Where do we begin?
An office space with rows of desks. At the forefront are two desks with monitors, chairs and desk lamps. There are knick-knacks like a wooden statue of a cat, plan, a bottle containing amber-coloured liquid and cables.
Where do we begin?

The connection between mental and emotional wellbeing and stigmatised identities is perhaps most easily understood and therefore a good entry…
By Shikha Aleya
September 19, 2022
Where do we begin?
The Chronicles of the Changing Room: Reclaiming the Cubicle of Doom
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The Chronicles of the Changing Room: Reclaiming the Cubicle of Doom

I pride myself on being a fast learner. Yet it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that shopping,…
By Sanskriti Bhardwaj
September 19, 2022
The Chronicles of the Changing Room: Reclaiming the Cubicle of Doom
This is how we do it
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This is how we do it

We need to recognise that mental health stressors that queer people face are not because something is inherently wrong with them.
By Shruti Chakravarty
September 1, 2022
This is how we do it
Nightmares of Being Chased by an Angry Mob
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Nightmares of Being Chased by an Angry Mob

My foray of offering support in both the fields of sexual wellness and mental health was unplanned to say the…
By Pooja Priyamvada
September 1, 2022
Nightmares of Being Chased by an Angry Mob
Of Identity and Belongings: The Gatekeeping within Queer Spaces
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Of Identity and Belongings: The Gatekeeping within Queer Spaces

I went to a girls’ high school and for somebody who had spent the last ten years in a co-ed…
By Shubhangi
September 1, 2022
Of Identity and Belongings: The Gatekeeping within Queer Spaces
With Love: A Special Issue on Sexuality, Mental Health, Wellbeing, and Self-care
An illustration of the title of the article with a beige background. There are oblong-shaped blobs in peach and sap green on the upper left corner and the lower right corner. At the centre is the logo of TARSHI followed by three verticle rows of squiggly lines and the text that reads "In Plainspeak: Sexuality, mental health, wellbeing and self-care"
With Love: A Special Issue on Sexuality, Mental Health, Wellbeing, and Self-care

The intricate connections between sexuality, mental health, wellbeing, and self-care have been some of the core themes that In Plainspeak…
By TARSHI
June 15, 2022
With Love: A Special Issue on Sexuality, Mental Health, Wellbeing, and Self-care
Editorial – Movement and Sexuality
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Editorial – Movement and Sexuality

This issue of In Plainspeak while inviting us to embrace the joys and pleasure in movement, also questions the ways in which movements are facilitated or obstructed, visibilised or invisibilised, and the spaces that we must envision to find freedom in/to movement.
By TARSHI
May 19, 2022
Editorial – Movement and Sexuality
Issue in Focus
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Issue in Focus

Expanding contexts give the word ‘movement’ different meanings and value. Physical, conceptual, technological, relationship, emotional, mental, power, knowledge, ability, access, may be amongst the contexts immediately identified.

By Shikha Aleya
May 3, 2022
Issue in Focus
Interview – Tishani Doshi
Photograph of a woman with long hair in red sari, sitting with a brown dog against a background of bushes with vines and pink azaleas. The woman is resting her chin on one hand and petting the dog with the other.
Interview – Tishani Doshi

I’ve essentially thought of movement as a kind of freedom, but one that has the capacity to destabilise you in some way. My most creative moments are when I’m not moving, when I am in fact rooted and still.

By Shikha Aleya
May 3, 2022
Interview – Tishani Doshi
Shouldn’t The World Be Big Enough?
Three people are seated at a wooden table - two are reading and one is writing.
Shouldn’t The World Be Big Enough?

We live in a world where resilience is celebrated and given priority over attempting to resolve factors that force one to be resilient. Campuses shouldn’t aim to merely be inclusive of diverse individuals – they must strive to not only affirm them but also celebrate them.
By Mythili Menon
April 18, 2022
Shouldn’t The World Be Big Enough?
Interview – Sameera Khan
Photo of Sameera Khan. She has long black hair and is standing in a garden. She is wearing a black kurta, a deep emerald dupatta and a black necklace.
Interview – Sameera Khan

But what has been amazing to witness is how quickly young women in particular, took to the ideas of Why Loiter? and pushed them even further, creating new movements to expand women’s rights to the public, including the right to be out late at night, to stretch the curfew at women’s hostels, to demand extended access to women’s toilets, to public transport etc.
By Shikha Aleya
April 1, 2022
Interview – Sameera Khan
A ‘Room’ of One’s Own – Sexuality, Self-expression, and Safe Spaces on Clubhouse
Photo of a smartphone screen displaying the logos of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Clubhouse.
A ‘Room’ of One’s Own – Sexuality, Self-expression, and Safe Spaces on Clubhouse

In theory, the concept of the app is a great one – it provides women, queer people, and people belonging to oppressed castes the tea-stall, cigarette-shop type of public spaces for conversation that are available to upper-caste cis het men. The relative anonymity acts like a safe cover, and the app affords a certain autonomy and agency to marginalised people to regulate the kind of conversation that goes on in rooms moderated by them.
By Srishti Gupta
April 1, 2022
A ‘Room’ of One’s Own – Sexuality, Self-expression, and Safe Spaces on Clubhouse
Looking For Someone To Talk To
खुले आसमान के तले दो लोग एक दूसरे की तरफ़ अपना हाथ बढ़ाते हुए. Two hands reaching out to each other against the background of a blue sky.
Looking For Someone To Talk To

I would say that growing up in a small village would make it difficult to find love or companionship, but I have since moved to a city and found that it was difficult to find love there, too. It did not stop me from trying, though.
By Wesley D'Souza
April 1, 2022
Looking For Someone To Talk To
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