Greetings from TARSHI!<\/p>\n
We are very pleased to bring to you the first issue of In Plainspeak<\/strong><\/em>, our new monthly blog. Taking off from TARSHI\u2019s seventeen plus years of work in sexual and reproductive health and rights, our blog is an attempt to engage extensively and constructively with many issues, age-old and emerging \u2013 issues that deserve our attention, warrant our opinions and will, hopefully, inspire much debate and argument. \u00a0As the name suggests, we aim to converse with you simply (but not simplistically) about the many issues that shape our understanding of what sexuality is, how we define it, how we live it and how we challenge and subvert societal definitions of sexuality.<\/p>\n Our blog will feature a different theme every month. For our inaugural issue this December 2013, the theme is Sexual Rights<\/i>. We know that sexuality is a deeply contested field, a hotbed of ideas and opinions, arguments and challenges, questions and sensitivities. TARSHI\u2019s work has made it imperative for us to make sexuality from a rights-based perspective more visible in the public domain. This blog is an attempt to do just that. Bringing voices from across the Global South\u2013 voices young and old, straight and queer, local and foreign \u2013 we hope to challenge myths and misconceptions and raise many more questions on the manifold complexities of sexuality.<\/p>\n The fight for sexual rights has been fought for long, and continues to be fought across geographical boundaries. In India, as we await the Supreme Court\u2019s Judgment on the Delhi High Court\u2019s reading down of the draconian Article 377, a discussion on the universality of sexual rights becomes immensely topical. We hope that the voices featured in our blog will help draw a much needed focus on the fight for freedom from patriarchal constraints and gendered shackles.<\/p>\n This issue features Radhika Chandiramani\u2019s acute observations on our theme for this month, Sexual Rights in the Issue in Focus<\/em> section. Nikzad Zangeneh\u2019s personal musings in the I column<\/em> gives us a glimpse of the realities of gender and sexuality in Iran, while Jasmine George\u2019s exquisite art work makes us confront the pressures we allow society\u2019s gaze to impose upon us, sometimes even at the expense of losing much of ourselves in the process. In our Reel Review<\/em> section, we see Parigya Sharma\u2019s critique of last year\u2019s film, The Sessions, an attempt to stir discussion around the oft ignored aspects of disability and sexuality, with the aim of affirming the universality and inclusivity of sexual rights. Using her camera lens to peer into the deep crevices of society, Oindrila Duttagupta critiques the obligatory demands that marriage sometimes makes on a woman\u2019s body and her desires in our Brushstrokes<\/em> section. Mad Momma\u2019s Review<\/em> of TARSHI\u2019s ‘TheYellow Book’ gives an interesting insight into the book\u2019s refreshing take on that elephant in the room \u2013 sexuality education! Finally, we have a thought provoking and inspiring interview with noted HIV and sexual rights activist Anjali Gopalan in our Interview<\/em> section and Anisha Dutt\u2019s stirring poem in the Voices<\/em> section rounding off this first issue of\u00a0In Plainspeak<\/em>.<\/p>\n We are extremely grateful to all our contributors for sharing their thoughts, writing and valued art with us. We acknowledge that there could be opinions widely different to ours and we hope that In Plainspeak<\/em> will provide the platform to engage with diverse viewpoints and further help develop our own understanding of sexuality and sexual rights.<\/p>\n Happy Reading!<\/p>\n The TARSHI Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Greetings from TARSHI! We are very pleased to bring to you the first issue of In Plainspeak, our new monthly…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,65,86],"tags":[63],"class_list":{"0":"post-737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-categories","8":"category-editorial","9":"category-dec13-sexual-rights","10":"tag-sexual-rights"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11251,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions\/11251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}