play
अपना किरदार निभाना
In this month’s issue of Play and Sexuality, Wesley D’Souza recounts the time his school put up a production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, his preparations for its audition, and how the process was intertwined with an exploration and acceptance of his sexuality.
By Wesley D'Souza
January 11, 2024
A ‘Peoples Self-Care’ In-the-Making: Perspectives on the Multiple Possibilities of Existence and Care
But self-care is not a clean and happy procedure, it is not definitively achievable when systematically explored. To understand the scope of self-care we need to see the ‘dark side’ of the landscape, and destroy the versions of self-care that denounce our plurality. In this fight, the only outcome can be a recognition of experiences beyond the wellness narrative structured around the neoliberal agenda. This article is an attempt at foregrounding some aspects of self-care that decentralise the prevalent commodification of it.
By Rukmini Banerjee
Bodies Seen Through a Kinky Lens
Our bodies become the form and medium through which we present ourselves to the outside world, engage with it, interact with it, perceive it and are perceived by it.
By iwonderwhy
June 1, 2023
Playing ball
The gendered assumption that girls are generally disinterested in sports, could be easily refuted by the fact that the principal’s office shelf was adorned with multiple trophies awarded to the girls’ hockey team for winning championships.”
By Bijayalaxmi Biswal and Karen Coelho
April 21, 2023
Of Mothers and Playgrounds
“City-living gave me talons and claws, but now I want to put those away. I want something else. I want softness. I want grass under my feet. I want the fist in my stomach to slowly unclench. I want the garden of my childhood to get lost in play while letting sunlit hours pass over to rosy dusk.”
By Sheena D'Lima
February 2, 2023
Acting Like Myself
Wesley D’Souza recounts the time his school put up a production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, his preparations for its audition, and how the process was intertwined with an exploration and acceptance of his sexuality.
By Wesley D'Souza
January 3, 2023
Editorial – Sexuality and SISA Spaces
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.
By TARSHI
January 3, 2022
Book Review: Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows
The story is so well told and is written with such a light, deft hand that it is almost easy to miss what makes it so quietly radical. To review it within the scope of exploring the coming together of literature and sexuality we must begin with its central cast of characters – the widows.
By Sheena D'Lima
January 3, 2022
Acting Like Myself
In this month’s issue of Play and Sexuality, Wesley D’Souza recounts the time his school put up a production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin, his preparations for its audition, and how the process was intertwined with an exploration and acceptance of his sexuality.
By Wesley D'Souza
December 15, 2021
Of “unapologetically flawed” women and feminism-lite: A review of Four More Shots Please!
Four More Shots Please! moves in the right direction when it comes to women (of a particular social stratum), their lives, and feminism at large – even if it takes small, stumbling, baby steps towards it.
By Srishti Gupta
It’s not ‘just’ play!
Play is not only about cocks, balls, vaginas, paddles, or anything that happens between two consenting adults in the bedroom. It’s also about what goes on in a masochist’s mind before they submit to a cane, or a whip, and before they orgasm from the pain.
By Asmi
December 1, 2021
I will meet you post quarantine
A kiss for the side of your neck One for the last of your back For a year that we…
By Aishwarya Shrivastav
December 1, 2021
Mission Orgasm
This Parodevi Pictures’ production from Agents of Ishq is a kaleidoscopic must-watch that takes us into the poorly understood ‘galaxy’ of female orgasm and sexual pleasure through a mobile-phone game – A Little Death – that helps people navigate this terrain unfamiliar to many in an exciting and accessible way.
By Curated Content
December 1, 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
Interview – Raj Mariwala
Self-care is influenced by the environment we inhabit, the way we relate to others, the way we negotiate with other living beings or structures. Self-care is also interlinked with other types of care – whether that is in community resources, psychosocial support, engagement with medical and health care institutions, and of course in collective agency and solidarity.
By Shikha Aleya
July 5, 2021