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
I did everything to change my gender expression from masculine to feminine. I started wearing feminine clothes, started growing my hair, and I even had a boyfriend. But the more I pushed myself to be feminine, the more depressed I became.
Have you ever heard the old adage, “You have to love yourself before anybody else can love you”? Well, I grew up interpreting this in the absolutely most terrible way possible.
Māyā Mridanga infinitely problematises the nature vs. nurture debate that is central to sexuality studies. The novel seems to suggest that a certain kind of male body – feminine, smooth, shapely – is the ideal raw material for making a chhokra out of a biological man. Ustaad Jhaksa, whose life the novel documents[2], repeatedly emphasises on this act of nurturing, moulding and pruning of a feminine male body for which he has fatherly affection as well as a lover’s lust.