Masculinities and Sexuality 2
Gender has perplexed me throughout life. I never quite understood femininity or masculinity much – I mostly lived in what other people thought I was. One thing I did know always is that I never, ever, want to be seen as a man. But can I still hold masculinity?
Adolescence manages to highlight the reality of growing up in a world with the Internet where everything – the good, the bad, the questionable – is only a touch away.
It is rare to show with such simplicity and depth, the undoing of a robber as he falls in love with the subject of his robbery. Lootera reinforces the belief in love’s gentleness which can disarm all the trappings of normative masculinity that society commands.
My assertion of my gender was not because of masculinity, it was because of the feminism which I practised – and that gave me this chance to come back to what I was. To assert what I was and to assert what I am.
I have dealt with having a non-masculine body since the time I was a teenager. I have questioned my sexuality and how it interacted with my non-masculine body.
…we must also address men’s relationships with their spouses, other men, women and children in the community, and importantly, their own emotional selves to transform fatherhood. Therefore, engaging with men as fathers must involve a holistic understanding of their socialisation, emotional world, and position within patriarchal structures.
It’s time to scrape off the thick dark crusts of carelessly slapped-on murky hues of toxic masculinities and to bring out the brushes and the paints to paint masculinities in their true and glorious colours of life, freedom and love.
In the fast-paced digital world of clickbaits and instant gratification, where you can be ‘cancelled’ or ‘trending’ within the same minute, the very act of men talking to other men about alternative masculinities, has the ability to disrupt hierarchies of power, to disrupt the algorithm, to disrupt patriarchy.