relationship
Video: What It Means To Be Single Ft. Paromita Vohra | Leeza Mangaldas
Paromita, an award-winning filmmaker, and founder of the multimedia platform Agents of Ishq, and Leeza, who tries to normalise conversations about sexuality through her online work, remind us that neither singlehood nor marriage is the only determining factor of our wellbeing.
By Curated Content
Video Page: Find Your Beautiful
While the video’s message of women finding self-worth through beauty can be construed as sexist (our worth can’t be reduced to mere beauty and looks), and it also has the token ‘fat’ woman that one can criticise it for, one also can’t deny that the loving and acceptance of one’s body remains a universal, daily struggle of probably every woman the world over.
By Curated Content
May 1, 2016
Tom Makes Breakfast: A Personal Narrative On Intimacy & Casual Relationships
We would spend hours just lost in our sweet, intoxicating world of soft skin, whispers and drenched sheets. It was amazing. But also, I remember the most just sitting together at midnight talking about his mother, my childhood, his habit of wearing a nightcap while sleeping or just our Instagram browsing-patterns.
By Curated Content
The Romance of Small Intimacies
For a while now, I have been invested in noticing the unique terms of endearment that characterise individual relationships. What are some of the non-verbal, non-physical ways in which couples begin to connect with each other? Intimacies that are so subtle that they are almost invisible and often hidden in plain sight?
By Curated Content
February 15, 2019
The Loves of Others
Both rejections and affirmations of the couple are skewered on this doubleness: It is the fullest expression of love and proximity available to us, and it bears all the insufficiencies of present social relations. Monogamous romantic commitment, like infallible lifelong attraction to only men or only women, is surely a minority tendency expediently elevated to a general social principle.
By Curated Content
February 15, 2022
Refusing the weight in waiting
As a girl, I was made to believe that pleasure was something that existed outside my body, something that I had to seek out, something that was necessarily a product of a partnered experience. I don’t think I was even allowed to want pleasure, especially in its sexual forms.
By Aathira Gopi
March 15, 2022
On Looking for Love
I wanted to be one of those people who decide to never date again and actually follow through. Indeed, I decided that a lot. A resolution that was broken so many times that it became a running joke in my head.
By Wesley D'Souza
February 1, 2022
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
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
Interview – This is what you bring to the table!
In this write up, we’d like to share a sense of what emerges from a compilation of these responses. This is based on the thoughts and feelings that come through for those of us here at In Plainspeak who have had the joy of reading the original responses as they came in to us. (Some of the quotations that follow have been slightly edited for flow and to help connect themes.) We know that most things in the realm of art, information and ideas lend themselves to a wide range of inferences and insights depending on the individuals making the inferences.
By Shikha Aleya
March 1, 2022
Editorial: Support Systems and Sexuality
Connection is essential for our survival – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. We connect with people, form networks of care and support, and in a sense weave webs of safety and comfort that we can turn to when stressed or simply want to infuse a dose of joy into our day.
By TARSHI
November 16, 2020
Editorial – Play and Sexuality
Coupled with the tendency to approach sexuality with seriousness, play often remains absent in discussions of sexuality. Sexuality shares the elements of fun, pleasure and spontaneity that are found in play.
By TARSHI
December 15, 2021
Editorial – Connections and Sexuality
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?
By TARSHI
November 15, 2022
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