relationships
Language itself is being plugged as a resource, to be shared with those who share similar politics, or if not, at least to move them along in that direction. And people who speak, think, love and live differently are targeted as “the other”.
I only ever read your letters
to learn what patterns to avoid
in future relationships.
Growing up is a tedious task in our society because of the institutionalised practices, societal constructs and boxed identities and expressions that we are expected to adhere to. Anything beyond these implies harm, danger, and deviance.
Every part of life, the world too, is storied. Stories are the thread that hold histories and truths together. Stories are at the core of myth-making. Everything that we know is part of multiple crisscrossing relational storylines that we raise and those that we have no power in raising.
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.
“I feel comfortable with who I am,” he responded. “I’m at ease with myself. I don’t wake up and hate myself. I can’t tell you how amazing that feels.”
“I know how that feels,” I told him.
Because the Internet is an integral part of our daily lives, it is important that young people are given the right information so that they can explore the world around them, access information without violating legislations, know their rights in the virtual and physical world and have enjoyable and consensual relationships with whoever they choose.
The morning was heavy, laden with the weight of expectation, with the unsettling realisation that something was about to shift.
On calls your voice greets me, balm to the parched everything.
…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.
The lip colour then enters into a rather queer state of existence as it refuses to stand by the label it is expected to conform to. It moves and escapes categorisation. In its queerness, it renders itself as a paradox. At the heart of paradoxes is the understanding that something is what it is also not. Similarly, the colour of this lipstick is nude, but it is also not. It is possible that it is because of this slippery nature of the paradox that my sexuality as my identity too remains slippery, in motion and fluid.
There may be situations in which a person’s responses might not be unquestionably equated with consent. Is consent merely a ‘yes’ or does one need to look for other cues to make sure their partner wants the same thing as them when it comes to intimacy?
To queer something is to disrupt normative frameworks, to imagine and create new modes of being (Pirani & Daskalopoulou, 2022)….
CSE’s ‘natural habitat’ is often considered to be the classroom, but as our contributors show us, CSE also lives, breathes and thrives in habitats as disparate as neighbourhood parks, jobs-training centres, playgrounds and sports fields, law schools, family discussions, and digital spaces.