SISA spaces
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.
Mental health, much like physical health, is a state of wellbeing and not just the absence of disease or infirmity….
It’s time to scrape off the thick dark crusts of carelessly slapped-on murky hues of toxic masculinities and to bring out the brushes and the paints to paint masculinities in their true and glorious colours of life, freedom and love.
Humour makes us feel good, relaxes us, lubricates social interactions, and often allows us to see things in new ways. Who doesn’t love a good belly laugh? However, what tickles your funny bone may be very different from what tickles mine.
Questions, questions and inevitably more questions! That seems to be the human condition when it comes to connections, especially our connections with other people. It’s complicated, right?
100 issues, 8 years! Thank you, dear readers and contributors! As we planned for this issue to put on our…
To remind us of what spaces that are safe, inclusive and self-affirming for each person could look like, we have curated a selection of articles from the last five years of In Plainspeak for this anthology – our gift to wish you a wonderful 2026.
Sexuality and the workplace are closely related, and a safe and healthy working environment is a fundamental human right.
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.
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.
Each time a child or adolescent asks a question that may be (even indirectly) related to sexuality, many parents and teachers get squirmy and nervous. This may be because they themselves do not have the information required, but in most cases, it has more to do with the ‘hush-hush’ that surrounds sexuality.
The glorious heights of self-actualisation to which some words beckon us, the promises lying within others, it’s all language.
Gender and sexuality are like constituent parts of a jigsaw puzzle that keeps morphing in such a way that nothing ever ‘fits’ for long, and the game begins anew each time.
Looking down upon the earth from many miles up in the sky, the divisions between land masses and water bodies…
Happy New Year! We have curated this anthology to remind you and ourselves of the gift and wonder of possibilities.