Desire
Editorial April 2025 – Masculinities and Sexuality
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.
By TARSHI
April 17, 2025
Toxic Soup
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?
By Aradhana PS
April 17, 2025
The Hollowness of (Performed) Masculinity
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.
By Shaifila Ladhani
April 17, 2025
The Villainised Other: Understanding Portrayals of Female Masculinity in Bollywood
Apart from the masculinity portrayed in commercial films with heterosexual tropes, Bollywood has produced movies portraying distorted female masculinity.
By Soumili Paul and Tiyasha Purohit
Out For Fun, In For Trouble
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.
By Namrata Dond and Vanshika Negi
April 17, 2025
The Masques Of Masculinity
Z is forced to wear the mask of masculinity, a mask made of the various tropes of stereotypical masculine energy…
By Hardik Jain and Shrusti Mulgund
April 17, 2025
Lootera: The Thief Who Stole My Heart
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.
By Pronita Tripathi
April 17, 2025
To Exist is to Defy
The novel turns the idea of masculinity on its head through the story of Brit, a boy who is as sharp as he is fragile. Born with osteogenesis imperfecta, Brit’s bones break easily, but his spirit doesn’t.
By Abhigya Singh
April 17, 2025
Ten Years of Changing the Script
Masculinity is like a script given to boys early in their lives. There is a constant pressure to fit into the box of toughness, and be silent and dominating. But what if we all rewrite this script?
By Urasmita Ghosh
April 17, 2025
मर्दानगी पर पुनर्विचार – प्रभुत्व से नहीं, साझेदारी से बनता है मर्द
पितृसत्ता ने मर्दानगी को विषमलैंगिकता और यौनिक वर्चस्व से जोड़ा है, जिससे पुरुषों पर ‘सच्चा मर्द’ बनने का दबाव बढ़ता है। यह न केवल समलैंगिक और द्विलैंगिक पुरुषों को हाशिए पर डालता है, बल्कि विषमलैंगिक पुरुषों के लिए भी यौनिक अभिव्यक्ति को सीमित करता है।
By Imran Khan
बाल विवाह की दुनिया में लड़कियों की यौनिकता पर हर किसी का नियंत्रण – एक असहज चर्चा
एक आदमी होने का मतलब है काफी कुछ भी अपने काबू में रखना। अपना व्यवसाय, अपनी भावनाएं, अपना घरबार, और खासकर अपनी यौन ज़िंदगी।
By Anne Sprinkel
Interview – We Have Questions!
There are times when we bend the rules and draw on the walls. This is one of those times. We listened in on some of the chatter online on the subject of consent and we ended up with some questions.
By Shikha Aleya
March 17, 2025
Take Desire For Instance
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?
By Cat D
March 17, 2025
All The Shades Of Grey
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.
By Reema Ahmad
March 17, 2025
The Unbearability Of Desire
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.
By Shaifila Ladhani
March 17, 2025