A digital magazine on sexuality, based in the Global South: We are working towards cultivating safe, inclusive, and self-affirming spaces in which all individuals can express themselves without fear, judgement or shame
Darlings, with the narratives of Badru (Alia Bhatt) and her mother, Shamshu (Shefali Shah), illustrates the story of ordinary women in India who are struggling to change their discourse, deconstruct their reality, and imagine miracles.
The film has all the makings and trimmings of a commercial thriller – a dynamic story, song and dance, an action-packed climax – and at the same time, it is a cinephile’s film.
The In Plainspeak team decided to time travel and re-discover previously published articles that explore the multiple ways in which people find joy and pleasure in their sexualities.
Nathicharami takes sexuality and sexual desire away from upper-class, Gucci-clad women and makes its viewers acknowledge its existence in the lives of women (middle-class wives and widows, in the case of this film) who are invisibilised, both in the society they live in and as subjects of popular content.
Though I come from a very conservative family, being open about female masturbation and watching porn didn’t seem to bother me. Yes, people have oohed and aahed at me for being so. I am still the same, proudly.
Desire is a man’s turf, right up there with moustaches and Adam’s apples / I’m the apple, I am the snake, I am Eve / I am the vibrator nestled between flimsy, cheap lace underwear / I am the shame, of saying I came