Voices
जब मैं इस बात पर विचार करता हूं कि मैंने क्या सक्रिय रूप से दबा दिया था और लगातार भूलने की कोशिश की थी, तो मुझे एहसास हुआ कि मैं अपने बारे में क्या सोचता हूं, इसे परिभाषित करने में भाषा कितनी ज़रूरी थी। मौखिक दुर्व्यवहार और धौंसियाना बर्ताव ने गैर-मानक व्यवहार, समलैंगिकता और क्वियरनेस के साथ मेरी पहचान बना ली।
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?
…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.
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.
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.
Unlike many trans-masculine people who identified as lesbians/tomboys/butch pre-transitioning, I refused to abandon my ‘lesbian’ identity post-transitioning. A negotiation that took time to flourish.
क्वीयर मर्दानगी एक वैकल्पिक मर्दानगी है जो पितृसत्तात्मक और विषमलैंगिक मानदंडों को अक्सर चुनौती देती है और मर्दानगी के स्वरूप को अधिक समावेशी बनाती है।
पितृसत्तात्मक समाज में, पुरुषत्व एक विशेष प्रकार के व्यवहार के रूप में प्रकट होता है, जैसे नियंत्रण करना और हावी होना, अक्सर हिंसक तरीकों से।
Even her talking to other men elicits a growl from these men, and it’s all supposed to be okay because they’re billionaires and 6’5 feet tall or something, oh and did I mention the abs?
Men perform an identity that they don’t fully understand. The pressure to appear strong while feeling the full range of emotions that they cannot express creates a hollow inside, creates a quiet dissonance, a loneliness that is rarely spoken of but deeply felt.
Apart from the masculinity portrayed in commercial films with heterosexual tropes, Bollywood has produced movies portraying distorted female masculinity.
Social media and dating platforms provide new opportunities for connection, but they also elevate the potential risk of harm associated with any online engagement. The anonymity of the interaction can serve both as a source of freedom and potential exploitation.
Could it be that other changes in our lives make it even more difficult to conceive the desire of the ‘other’, specifically of those with whom we don’t share as many conversations, with whom we’ll soon, I expect, lose entirely the ability to speak?
Language can be a limiting thing when it alone is considered to be the marker of success or failure in intimate spaces. Sometimes we get stuck on what is said and fail to notice what is done in relationships. At other times, denial of a need, request, or crossing of one boundary can make us feel like the entire relationship has lost its value.
Intimacy can never thrive in an environment of rigid certainty. Intimacy requires surrender – not in the sense of submission – but in the willingness to be with another person without detachment or defences.