Leandra Medine's Blog, page 11

13 Haikus About Sex in Quarantine

Let’s talk about sex, baby–quarantine sex, to be specific. We asked the Man Repeller community to dish about the sex they’ve been having over the last four months (solo sex, no sex, lots of sex, dreams about sex, old sex, new sex, great sex, awkward sex) in haiku form, naturally. Scroll below for a poetic glimpse into the minds of 13 people (and under their respective bed sheets), and feel free to share a glimpse into yours in the comments below.

Like when the pool first

opens, swimsuit on, head-first—

then once, twice a month

—Emily

Take your meds, people

I doubled my dose, and now

I’m horny again

—Görel

Phone sex locations:

His apartment in Brooklyn

My parents’ driveway

—M.

When my sex drive wanes

There’s Al Pacino movies

Then I’m good to go.

—Laurel

My Self as a lover

Worthy of all affections

Our breath is divine

—Erin

Dreamt of rubbing

Elbows with a boy, not my boy

Wow it turned me on

—Isabelle

Lazy day time sex

The most intimate sex yet

Covid baby oops

—Tulupully

I’m considering

Asking my ex for sex. I

Know it’s bad. Please help!

—India

Phallic vegetables

oh no my heart is racing

lunch break solo sesh

—K

Shhh the kids are near.

close the door, not all the way.

screen time for the win.

—Hannah

Watched Euphoria

Had sex like teenagers but

No drugs or blackmail

—Aimee

Cramped in a Honda Civic

Can you move your legs higher?

Ouch, I hit my head

—Helin

Random pre-quar date

Turned to never leaving bed

Now I think it’s love

—Al

Feature Image via  Everett Collection.

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An Excerpt From MR Book Club Pick “The Death of Vivek Oji”

Last week, Sarah Panlibuton Barnes, curator and host of our! new! book club! announced that her first pick would be The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi. The story follows the life of a young boy in Nigeria, after he one day turns up at his family’s front doorstep. Today, we’re publishing a short excerpt to give you a sampling of the incredibly moving, poetic writing within and to further encourage you to place your order—today is The Death of Vivek Oji’s publish date and the first copies are shipping out now!

On the day Vivek was born, Chika had held the baby in his arms and stared at that scar. He’d seen it before—Kavita always commented on its shape whenever she rubbed Ahunna’s feet. Kavita had been without a mother for so long, her love for Ahunna was tactile and rich with childlike affection, a hundred thousand touches. They would sit together, read together, walk in the farm together, and Ahunna would give thanks that she’d given birth to two sons and been gifted two daughters. When Ekene and Mary had their child Osita, Ahunna had wept over his little face, singing to him in soft Igbo. She couldn’t wait for Chika and Kavita’s baby to arrive.

Now it was a year later, and Chika felt something building in him slowly as he held his newborn son—like folds of pouring cement hardening into a sick fear—but he ignored it. These things were just stories; they couldn’t be real. It wasn’t until the next day that a messenger boy from the village came to Ngwa to tell Chika that Ahunna had died the day before, her heart seizing at the threshold of her house, her body slumping into her compound, the earth receiving her slack face.

He should have known, Chika told himself as Kavita screamed in grief, Vivek clutched to her chest. He did know. How else could that scar have entered the world on flesh if it had not left in the first place? A thing cannot be in two places at once. But still, he denied this for many years, for as long as he could. Superstition, he said. It was a coincidence, the marks on their feet—and besides, Vivek was a boy and not a girl, so how can? Still. His mother was dead and their family was bereft, and in the middle of all this was a new baby.

This is how Vivek was born, after death and into grief. It marked him, you see, it cut him down like a tree. They brought him into a home filled with incapacitating sorrow; his whole life was a mourning. Kavita never had another child. “He is enough,” she would say. “This was enough.”

Picture: a house thrown into wailing the day he left it, restored to the way it was when he entered.

Picture: his body wrapped.

Picture: his father shattered, his mother gone mad. A dead foot with a deflated starfish spilled over its curve, the beginning and end of everything.

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Graphic by Lorenza Centi.

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10 *Other* Things You Can Do While Listening to This Makeout Playlist

On February 28th, 2020, we ran a story entitled, “Help Me Compile the Greatest Makeout Playlist of All Time,” and bok choy, did you deliver! However, due to circumstances beyond our control, this playlist has been rendered almost entirely useless. In the spirit of our “Love Right Now” series, we decided to press “make public” on Spotify and unleash this epic, crowd-sourced playlist into the wild, alongside a list of things to do while listening to it as an alternative to the highly communicable act of making out.

In the meantime, if you’re looking for an instruction manual on how to navigate contemporary romance in these times, Nicholas Braun’s new hit single, ‘Antibodies (Do You Have The),’ parses out the nitty-gritty of dating etiquette in a pandemic.

1.

Write a fan letter to your favorite writer or artist—nothing more than telling them what you love about their work, asking for nothing in return other than perhaps a dose of good karma!

2.

Do your future self a favor and buy a boatload of stamps via the USPS while you’re at it. Nothing feels as convenient as sliding open a desk drawer and seeing a fresh sleeve of stamps. Save yourself future trips to the post office, whether you’re in bill-paying mode or sending midsummer valentines.

3.

Try out Warbly, the karaoke guessing game, and invite a fellow crooner into your virtual room.

4.

Commence that deep clean of your beauty cabinet you’ve been putting off for months, organizing the contents into three categories: to keep, to toss, and to donate. Any fresh hand creams, hand sanitizer, body lotions, lip balms, face moisturizers, acne products, shampoos, conditioners, hair ties, hand soaps, oral care products, and facial cleansers can go to essential workers via Donate Beauty. Chet Baker over Bluetooth will make it easier.

5.

Maybe you’ve caught the organizing bug after that clean sweep: Place an order for a (free!) kit from ThredUp and start weeding through your wardrobe. You can choose to sell your secondhand clothing on the site, or donate the value to one of their charities: Feeding America, Girls Inc., and Help a Mother Out. Any items that don’t meet ThredUp’s standards will be recycled. For a break, try to recreate your favorite Michael Jordan look or Elvis outfit to a T with what you have in your closet.

6.

Attempt the wiggliest dance of all time, in secret. Treat it like an invention that’s so proprietary, it can’t even be shared on TikTok.

7.

Watch a silent film.

8.

Play a game of chess (or seven!) against the computer (it comes pre-installed on Macs). Or, tackle the Sunday crossword over FaceTime with a friend.

9.

Cozy up with your jar of loose buttons and sew those babies back on!

10.

Wallpaper your room by neatly tearing out your favorite pages of an old Guinness Book of World Records tome and affixing them to your wall.

This playlist is 13 hours and 45 minutes long—let us know how you spend that time!

Feature Image via Everett Collection.

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Having My Hair Washed Is the Intimacy I’ve Been Craving for Months

In nature, animals preen each other as a means of self-care rooted in their own survival. It’s also snack time for some. Humans preen, too—usually with help. Anyone who previously underestimated the value of hairstylists, facialists, massage therapists, and makeup and nail artists had a few months this year to think long and hard about that stance, as we were all ostensibly grounded from professional vanity.

Being groomed into my most authentic self is a magical tonic that makes me feel exponentially more capable and in my power (and I’m willing to bet I am not alone in that). Thankfully, many salons in New York City have recently reopened—which was good news for my roots, which were creeping into irreversible ombré territory. If you’re lucky enough to quarantine with anyone, maybe you’re not so starved for touch as folks like me, who live alone, but another perk about getting your hair done is that you are definitely in for a petting.

I’ve taken every CBD supplement under the sun, and none have been able to replicate the soothing calm I feel when getting my hair washed.

There’s one part of getting my hair done that I generally enjoy but didn’t fully appreciate until I’d been touch-starved for four months: Under these circumstances, the salon hair-wash is a revelation. I’ve taken every CBD supplement under the sun, and none have been able to replicate the soothing calm I feel when getting my hair washed.

Research backs consensual physical touch as one primal key to releasing all those brain-soothing, happy chemicals like oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine. When my hair is washed in a salon, the nerve endings in my scalp erupt into a sensorial fireworks show as soon as I lean back, my neck nestling into the nook of the special hair-washing sink, feeling the gentle pressure of warm water and the firm touch of someone else’s capable fingers running around my head in a froth of shampoo lather. And when they get to the little scalp and neck massage part? It’s lights out.

I know what you’re thinking: Sable, if you really just want someone to noodle with your noggin, why not just attend one of those cuddle parties or hit up the Craigslist Gig section and get some enthusiastic weirdo to do it for you? Not the same! Part of what is so soothing about it is the clinically utilitarian nature of the prerequisite salon wash—no part of my people-pleasing lizard brain will feel obligated to validate the skill of the person responsible for my wash based on its enjoyment (but that is perhaps my own neurosis). I wouldn’t doubt that having your partner tenderly wash your hair for you in the bath would feel similarly relaxing, but if you are skeptical about this in any way, try doing it for them and witness its powerfully soothing effects.

Scalps are sacred spaces! It’s the thinnest veil between your innermost thoughts and the harsh world.

Maybe it’s that normally no one really has access to this part of my body, and the head region has so many important bodily things on it—like four out of your five senses—so any caring touch there hits a trigger that connects directly into to primal “I am baby” inclinations I have buried deep beneath all the feminist self-advocacy schematics that dominate my frontal lobes. Scalps are sacred spaces! It’s the thinnest veil between your innermost thoughts and the harsh world. It sprouts a forest of hair to conceal itself. Rarely do they get the loving touch of your own fingers, let alone someone else’s. That explains why the feeling of someone’s fingernails gingerly stroking my head and neck lulls me into a temporary brain bubble in which I’m cared for, safe, and deserving of gratuitous, unearned affection. And to imagine—such soothing intimacy and tenderness can be experienced at such an unassuming establishment as your local hair salon. Tip well.

Graphic by Lorenza Centi.

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What’s Love Like Right Now?

It’s weird to be a person in the world right now, and weirder still to be a person with other people. A pandemic and a social revolution causing you to change, or at least crystallizing some ideas that you may not yet have been able to articulate, is “to be expected.” Someone said that to me recently and I think the level of tightness in my chest went from a 9 to 7. (Scale of 1-10.) It was a relief to be plainly reminded that it’s okay to change—yourself, your needs, your plans. In this particular moment, you could even say it’s imperative. Weird if it all stays the same, in fact.

The change would be much more manageable if we were single entities careening freely, wanting and needing nothing from anyone else. But of course we are completely interdependent and so every little change is felt in some way by someone else, the most, in many cases, by the people we love. Dating, which has always been weird and precarious, is weirder and more precarious. Same story for being in a relationship, really. Both things have also become increasingly lovely and intimate and surprising and charged, too. They are a lot of what they always were, but more so, and with video chat.

This week we’re going to publish stories and ask questions about love right now. How, in this very moment, is love different? How has it proven to be exactly the same? How are we getting and giving it in ways that would have seemed unimaginable before?

First, we want to start by asking about what it’s been like for you, in detail. You can answer our Love Right Now survey here. Then, later this week, we’ll share the results (anonymously) on the site and hopefully come away with a better understanding of what—in the realm of dating and relationships right now—is weird and what’s “to be expected” for all of us.

In the event that your thoughts on the matter aren’t fitting neatly into a Google survey this morning, feel free to spill/elaborate/free associate in the comments below. What’s it been like for you?

Feature Image via Edith Young.

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8 Super-Comfortable Sandals to Rest Your Weary Dogs

This summer in particular, you can get by with a select few pairs of shoes: a practical sneaker, something office-appropriate if your presence is requested at your workplace, and for kicks, one really good pair of comfortable sandals that can work double-time as indoor and outdoor shoes. The question persists: where can I find a solid pair of summer shoes that won’t compromise looks for comfort, or function as a bonafide blister factory?

I’ve been on a quest after the best summer sandals for years, and can personally vouch for every one of the below as top notch contenders. These favorites check all of the boxes: cushy soles, soft materials, and podiatric support. Don’t judge until you’ve walked a mile in these classic summer shoes!

1. The Most Classic Comfortable Summer Sandal You Can Find (It’s the Truth!)

Birkenstock Arizona Essentials EVA

I’ve been a loyal Birkenstock customer for years in my day, and their constant rotation of colors and patterns continues to tempt me. Birkenstocks are the most comfortable summer shoe I’ve found and once I happened upon these all-white ones, I felt like I’d discovered the Birkenstock to end all Birkenstocks: the EVA is a lightweight version of the classic. It’s subtle and looks good with just about any outfit. And, they’re really quite indistinguishable from the 1774 Birkenstock that goes for $430.

Perhaps you’ve worn your favorite Birkenstocks down? There’s a doctor for that.

You want a custom pair of Birkenstocks, you say?! I recently came across Sandal Factory and though I have met my responsible Birkenstock quota, I’m still intrigued.

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2. If You Don’t Want to Look Like You’re Wearing a Comfortable Sandal

Ancient Greek Sandals String Flip Flop

Ancient Greek Sandals created a Comfort Soles collection a couple of years ago, and it does not compromise style. What exactly is a comfort sole, anyway? Rather than something of the stiffer leather variety, these shoes have a 100% rubber sole. These lace-ups are perfect to dress up or to wear casually.

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3. Speaking of Dressing Up… A Tip

Clarks Sense Slide

When looking for comfortable sandals, check out to see the material of the sole. These Clarks slide with a slight wedge have a resin rubber sole, so they’re a bit less stiff when taking to the streets. They aren’t going to be your walking shoe, but they’re a great option for a dressier pair to wear with a wide-leg white trouser, light denim or summer dress. And look at that fun zebra colorway option! (They’re also 57% off in limited sizes here!)

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4. Hit 10,000 Steps with These (Good for a Boost at Your Standing Desk, too)

Camper Oruga Sandal

I think that these are SO fun and even though they have a platform, their thick nubuck leather straps hold your foot in place and the sole renders them comfortable for a long-winded walkabout.

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5. If “Fun” is Your M.O., Might I Suggest a Platform?

FitFlop Eloise Leather Wedge Slides

If you want some height but don’t want to put your feet through agony, I suggest these fun flatforms from… Fitflop! They call their technology “Microwobbleboard,” which is their thoughtful way of composing every part of the sole differently to maximize stability and comfort. I would wear these babies with a pair of shorts, a bikini top with an oversized linen blouse, and a capital S statement pair of sunglasses.

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6. A Sophisticated Mule

Dr. Scholl’s Classic Faux Wood Sandal

A few years ago, I got these Dr. Scholl’s slides and was shocked when I slid my foot into them: the sole that looked like wood was super flexible and bouncy. They are so easy to walk in (make sure you get the ones with the faux wood sole!) and they don’t slide off when you walk. With this specific sole, I’ve never gotten a blister, and I love how sophisticated these shoes are—an enduring classic.

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7. The Slipper Sandal

Brother Vellies Marabou Lamu Sandals

For those of us who like to stay home (with a dog walk here and there), might I suggest these fuzzy sandals that come in six different colorways from Brother Vellies? I had the pleasure of trying these on during a photoshoot once. While these don’t have the flexible upper sole I’m usually after, the soft, lightweight leather feels like a cozy bed for your feet.

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8. The No-Fuss Slide Sandal

Teva Olowahu Sandals

This Teva sandal comes in ten different colorways so pick your personality strap. I’m going with the “Antiguous Birch,” but that’s just me. This is the perfect comfy sandal to wear either around your house like a slipper, or on shorter walks. If that short walk happens to turn into a long walk, you’ll be totally fine with the supportive quick-dry webbing (made from recycled plastic), soft cushions and lightweight foam outsole.

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What’s your perfect summer sandal? My feet would love to know.

Feature Image via Brother Vellies.

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Recipes for a Pretty Cold Brew, Iced Matcha, and the Best Tea to Sip Before Bed

I’m convinced that there’s tea for every kind of life event. If I have somebody over who I really like, maybe a new love interest, I brew holy basil tea in my grandfather’s navy blue teapot. When my family is here, Darjeeling black tea, as concentrated as possible, with honey on the side. For friends, I alternate herbal blends, always poured in carefully chosen ceramics from Sen Earthenware. I’ve known the designer, Asia Sosnowski, since we studied abroad together in India, and collaborated to make tea cups. Just as there’s tea for all occasions, I think there’s a perfect cup for each friend. For somebody high strung, I pick one with a smaller opening, forcing an exercise in patience as the water takes longer to cool with a calming tea like chamomile. If I know that we’ll be hanging out for hours, I use a tiny cup that can be refilled with something like Genmaicha, a crowd pleaser and a pick-me-up.

I’m a naturopathic doctor with a tea line, Masha Tea, and I’ve thrown “don’t get high on your own supply” out the window this quarantine. With few new lovers to entertain and a lack of interest in having really anybody in my apartment, my tea habit has gone from being a social ritual into my best bet for structuring languorous, solo summer days.

Lately, I spent slow mornings drinking herbal cold brew on my fire escape, a New York novelty that never ceases to bring me joy. I climb outside with the tea, which has steeped overnight and sit cross legged, looking down at the community garden next door.

My naturopathic practice involves appointments with patients on issues ranging from acne to irregular periods, infertility to high anxiety. These, along with any calls pertaining to my tea line, tend to run back to back, and by the time they’re done midday, I’m ready for an afternoon matcha. The process of making matcha is one of inherent thoughtfulness because it’s prepared in a stepwise fashion. You can’t check your phone while whisking, and it’s mesmerizing to watch bright green tea mix slowly into creamy oat milk.

After the afternoon matcha, I try to answer emails and then get into my art and writing projects. Lately, a combination of journaling, poems, drawing portraits, embroidering backgammon sets, and block printing. These days, I’m rising and falling with the sun. When it starts getting dark, I check out of my work and then it’s time for my last and final cup of tea—and the end of another day.

Of course, there are recipes.

MORNING COLD BREW

This is the easiest one to make—and the best part is that you will have already made it overnight! Brewing herbs with cold water brings out different properties than hot water. Green teas, for example, are typically less tannic and bitter when cold-brewed. I made the Masha Love Tea because organic roses, organic anise hyssop grown in Vermont, and eastern red cedar, wild-harvested by Allora Flowers look really pretty floating around a glass jar.

Ingredients

Half-gallon Mason jar (or whatever you have)

3 tablespoons of herbs per half a Mason jar

Water – I’m a Berkey filter devotee

Strainer – I got mine at Muji. Any kitchen strainer will do.

Steps

To make, put the herbs in a jar and cover with room temperature or cold water. Let sit for at least 6 hours in the fridge. You can shake the jar every few hours to move the herbs around (and to enjoy the snow globe effect.) After that time, strain it into a cup over a kitchen strainer. And voila – no ice involved, and very minimal effort. This is great to prepare before bed and let sit in the fridge overnight to strain in the morning.

MIDDAY ICED OAT MATCHA LATTE

A realization that I just had is that my favorite thing to do on my block this quarantine has been to go to the bodega in search of American Party Ice for my daily iced oat milk matcha lattes. And another realization that I just had is that my idea of being adventurous these days is having two of these babies in a row. Wild! The caffeine content of matcha, while high, tends to create a more balanced energy than the sometimes frenetic feel of afternoon coffee.

Ingredients

Ice – enough to fill your cup (Please don’t let my dedication to bodega ice deter you from the more sustainable option of an ice tray)

3 scoops (1 teaspoon) of matcha powder

A cup of oat milk from the fridge (any kind of milk will do!)

Hot water

Steps

Fill a cup with ice and then fill 3/4 up with oat milk. In a separate cup, if you have a matcha whisk, chawan (tea bowl), and tea scoop, sift three scoops (1 teaspoon) of matcha into a bowl, pour enough hot water to cover, and then whisk the matcha for 30 seconds. If you don’t have a whisk, use a Mason jar and put a teaspoon of matcha in with hot water to cover and shake! Pour the matcha mixture over the ice and oat milk. You can top off with oat milk.

I recommend refrigerating high quality matcha to preserve freshness and color. If you’re not sure about the quality of the matcha that you’re using, take a bit and spread it on white paper. What’s the color like? The consistency? Ideally, the matcha that you’re buying is bright green and smooth. Organic certification is not always as important with matcha as small family farms in Japan who are practicing organic agriculture may not have the finances or desire to obtain certification. As with any tea or agricultural product, you can always chat with the supplier about sourcing practices.

EVENING TEA OVER ICE

If you do not want but NEED iced tea in a pinch—and you have ice—this is your move. This is my third and final tea of the day. The one that says, “I’m tired but still hot.” I made the Masha Calm Tea today, a blend of chamomile, lemon balm, and chrysanthemum, herbs that are classified as “nervines,” meaning they act to tonify the nervous system. If you have chamomile lying around, that’s always a great go-to. Maybe you have fresh ginger in your spice cabinet? This can also be cut up and used.

Regardless of how productive, free-flowing or lazy my day was, I consider that evening cup of tea my final exhale and prefer herbs that smell lovely and are relaxing. Whereas with hot tea in the winter months, I normally use a heaping teaspoon of tea per cup of water, I use double the amount for iced tea, knowing that it will be diluted with ice.

Ingredients

Two teaspoons of tea

Boiled water – 1 cup

Ice

Steps

Make a concentrate of two teaspoons of tea per cup of hot water. Let this sit for about 7 minutes for herbal or black tea or 3-5 minutes for green tea. Fill a cup with ice. Strain your mixture over the ice.

Enjoy!

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Netflix’s “Indian Matchmaking,” Unpacked by 4 South Asian Women

Two weeks ago Netflix debuted Indian Matchmaking, an eight-episode documentary series that follows Sima Taparia (a matchmaker from Mumbai) on her quest to find the perfect partner for a mix of South Asian people, both in India and in the U.S. While the show shared an accurate representation of what an “arranged marriage” actually is—a simple introduction—what unfolds contains some uncomfortable truths about South Asian culture: a clear preference for girls that are “tall, slim, trim, fair, and flexible”; a glaring disparity between how women and men are expected to approach finding a partner; and uncomfortable judgement of others, based on their social standing, origin, caste, religion, and color.

While entertaining in parts, the show proved to be pretty triggering in a lot of ways. As a first-generation Indian girl who grew up in the U.K., my internal battle with wanting to fit into my immediate environment without feeling like I’m abandoning my heritage is something I think I’ll always be managing. While I feel proud to be part of a culture that I truly love, it’s also the same culture that has enforced a lot of harsh impressions on me, in terms of how I see myself and the world around me. I still need to consistently remind myself that they aren’t true. And I know I’m not the only one.

This week, after we’d all binged Indian Matchmaking, I got on a video chat with three South Asian women to not only unpack the show but dig into our individual experiences and how we’re choosing to redefine how we interact with our culture in a way that is celebratory and uplifting, not burdensome.

Along with myself, the participants in this conversation were Amrit Sidhu, an Indian-Australian D.J. living in New York; Anaa Saber, a Pakistani-American creative consultant and writer from New York; and Simran Randhawa, a Punjabi Malaysian journalist and model based in London.

We had a lot to say, so let’s get into it!

Anaa, Jasmin, Amrit, and Simran ready to sound off.

Simran: I’m curious—have any of you girls been pressured or have your families tried to pressure you into arranged marriages or marriage?

Anaa: Oh my God. All the time, are you kidding me? Like “When are you getting married? It’s time to get married. You’re getting older now. It’s time to get serious. Do you know anyone? Have you met someone?”

Simran: “It’s time to get serious” stuff, that’s so triggering!

Anaa: I feel Indian Matchmaking has showcased how transactionally marriage is viewed. Seeing how South Asians think that as a woman you’re going to truly get to live your life once you get married—that’s absolutely not the case. And it sucks that that’s still the conversations people are having. For me, marriage is just something that… When it happens, it happens.

Jasmin: Have you had that conversation with your family? That this is your viewpoint on it?

Anaa: A lot, my family is very understanding of that. But I’m sure that there are so many people and so many women whose families don’t understand. And they’re forced into getting married, and they’re forced into this compromise that was talked about so often on Indian Matchmaking. And even, we can take a look at what-was-his-name? With the crazy mom?

Simran: Akshay.

Anaa: Akshay! It didn’t seem like he wanted to get married. He was pretty content doing his own thing. But his family pressure was so much [that] he got engaged.

Jasmin: Not that this is a good thing, but we’re seeing more examples of South Asians openly getting divorced earlier on, as a result of feeling like they had to get married in the first place. People spend all this time worrying about who they’re going to get married to. They force themselves into a situation to please everyone else. The family spends so much money on the wedding and all of that. And then if it all goes to nothing in a couple of years, was it really worth it?

Simran: And it’s so telling the way that Sima herself described it. She didn’t say it was a wedding industry. She said it was a marriage industry. It freaked me out so much. I think for a second, I kind of forgot that I was—I am still part of that culture, but I’m also not. I’m kind of removed from it because I don’t really go to family events that much, I don’t really go to the temple. Don’t really have the community around me in the sense that I’m sure all of those people in the program did. And obviously half of my family are majorly into stuff like that. But I don’t know—for some reason watching it, I was watching like, “Fuck this, fuck marriage.” It’s too much. It’s so intense.

Akshay, his mother Preeti, and ex-fiancé Radhika at their engagement (which was broken off shortly after filming)

Jasmin: Does it ever feel like a shame that you’re not able to connect with your culture in that way? [Not] going to the parties or to the temple because people in our communities behave in a way that you don’t enjoy being around?

Simran: No, not necessarily. I’ve always said that the way my mom interacts with her Punjabi culture is going to be different to the way that I interact with it. I don’t think it’s some textbook, clear-cut case. And at the end of the day I still have Punjabi friends. I still have South Asian friends. I can still make jokes and eat the food and watch the movies, I don’t necessarily have to go to the Gurdwara [ed. note: Sikh temple] to do that. And while my mom might choose religion and language as her priority, I might choose movies, music, and fashion, for example. I don’t think it’s a sad thing that I don’t go to the Gurdwara and stuff.

Jasmin: There’s no right or wrong way to connect with your culture.

Anaa: And also if someone doesn’t believe in the same things as you, you can have conversations about it. It’s not like you just completely shut that part out of your life. You know?

Simran: Exactly.

People ask, ‘Is your life really like that?’ I’m like, ‘No, it couldn’t be further from that at all.’

Amrit: For me, the frustrating thing about the show was that as much as it was really entertaining, and I really enjoyed having these conversations with people who never normally reach out to me, it was also really frustrating because I felt like it was reinforcing all these stereotypes that I never really grew up with. I grew up with my mom and my sister in Australia. My mom’s family is a huge melting pot of everything, because we were born in Singapore. My dad’s the Punjabi one—he wasn’t that present in my life. I went to Hindi school, and I went to temple and stuff in the early days, but then I didn’t really have that growing up later on. Seeing these stereotypes be reinforced in the show and having people ask, “Is your life really like that?” I’m like, “No, it couldn’t be further from that at all.” My mom never pressures me. The idea of her having a conversation with me about arranged marriages is so foreign. That’s not a conversation she would ever even think to have with me, ever.

Anaa: And that’s the thing, I feel like it’s so flawed. The representation on screen is so flawed from reality. It was just one type of representation on screen.

Amrit: It’s also a very elitist perspective because that’s such a small sect of wealthy Indians, and the majority of India is not like that at all. That’s definitely not the India my dad came from. They didn’t come from money like that. It was a very interesting perspective that people who are now only seeing that are like, “Oh, that’s what it’s like.” It’s like, “No, it’s not.” But similarly, I felt the same when Bend It Like Beckham came out, and everyone was like, “Are you allowed to play sports?” I’m like, “Yeah, I’m allowed to play.” Why is everybody asking me these weird questions? I’m just like all of you.

Simran: Nadia, Vyasar, and Rupam from the show, I feel like they were their attempt at trying to sprinkle in some Indian diversity into the show. With Nadia especially, I think that really hit home because I’m Malaysian Indian, so that raised so many questions about who gets to be Indian. Also their individual stories, like Vyasar’s dad being in jail. The way that that was portrayed was that all these things were working against him. I especially felt this with Nadia being Guyanese—I hated the way that that was portrayed as such a deal breaker. It was almost like a secret that she needed to disclose. I think even just by the way that they edited and portrayed those people, who were meant to be the attempts at throwing in some diversity, did them such a disservice.

Anaa: Yeah, they painted them in such a negative light. It’s so prevalent, especially in media—they continue to show us such a one-sided representation onscreen, which is very Hindu-centric. So, anything outside of that is considered foreign and wrong.

At the end of the day, classism, casteism, all of that is so deeply rooted in South Asian culture.

Simran: Sorry to interrupt, but even with the show, the way that they viewed people like Ankita, Nadia, and Vyasar in comparison to the rich, like Pradhyuman and Akshay. Sima said, “Oh, I’d give him 95 out of a hundred” or whatever. They viewed them as easy, desirable matches. Whereas the other ones, Sima was like, “Oh, I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

Anaa: Yeah, because at the end of the day, classism, casteism, all of that is so deeply rooted in South Asian culture.

Amrit: It never fell on the men though. It was only on the women. They were difficult or they were hard work to show options to, but I didn’t feel like she was like that when showing options to the guys. The onus was only ever on the women to be accountable to anything. They kept being like, “She has to be flexible. She’s just inflexible.” I’m like, “What is she? A gymnast?”

Simran: They never actually explicitly said, what does being flexible mean? And especially in the context of Akshay’s mother, flexible definitely meant a daughter-in-law who would do whatever she wants and run the house in the way that she wants. It was like a woman who had no agency. I think this is my whole point. In the whole show, the women were so stripped of their agency.

Jasmin: It all starts with expectations that are put on the women—they’re positioned to start from a place of weakness. They’re not told, “You’re great as you are. You’ve got so much that you should be proud of.” They’re told, “It’s going to be more difficult for you.” That being said, I’m often inspired by how many brilliant South Asian women I meet who really defy these stereotypes, and I feel like they’re much easier to come by than boys.

Amrit: Well, we have so much to prove. Because when you’re a woman you’re a second-class citizen. So for us, just to even be considered in anything, we have to be the best.

Jasmin: All of us have really chosen really non-traditional paths with where we’ve taken our careers. What are some barriers you came up against being a South Asian girl in your industry?

Vyasar (a.k.a the world’s sweetest man) on his first arranged date with Manisha

Anaa: My entire life was to battle to break into the fashion industry. I was a black sheep of the family. I liked art. I like drawing. I like painting. I was a very creative person. And throughout my life I was told, “You have to be a doctor. You have to be an engineer. You need to focus on business,” all these things. And I never wanted to do any of that. They didn’t necessarily know what my career path was going to be, but they were like, “You need to make it. Whatever it is, you need to make it.” What I do right now is super non-conventional, so when I meet someone that’s South Asian and doing the same thing, I’m like, “Oh, we can connect on so many things,” because it wasn’t easy for us. We weren’t very privileged. I didn’t have access to the same things that my white counterparts did. So for me personally, it was a really long battle.

Simran: One thing I always say is I never intentionally intended to go embark on the career that I’m on. I kind of stumbled onto it. I had pressure, but I also had freedom. I was lucky in the sense that my parents had never told me what to study or who to be friends with. When I got into modeling, they were always very supportive. I think a lot of my “struggle” has mostly more so come from extended family as opposed to my immediate family. Initially there was a lot of passive-aggressive comments. Now that they’ve seen how successful I’ve become, they’ve become a lot more supportive.

Jasmin: It’s a shame when it’s like, you really have to struggle through things alone and only get support from your community when you’ve proven to be successful. It’s like we like to be associated when you’re winning, but when you’re struggling, we won’t be the ones to openly support.

Simran: A hundred percent, 100 percent. And they’ll be the first to criticize.

Jasmin: It’s very common in South Asian culture to bring each other down instead of lifting each other up—there isn’t a sense of camaraderie between us as a community. Almost like we’re competing to be the only Brown face in the room. Or feeling like you really have to prove something to differentiate yourself from the other Brown people.

Amrit: Say I’m on hold for a job, and I find out my other Brown friend got confirmed. In my mind, straightaway I’m like, “Okay, I didn’t get the job,” because there’s never space for more than one of us, because to them there’s only one type of us. I, similarly to Simran, grew up in a very matriarchal society. My mom was strict, strict like any other South Asian parent. She was doing the best she could, and we were just running around thinking, “But we live in Australia, we’re not really that Indian, so why can’t we do this?” It wasn’t until I achieved relative success that my family paid attention to what I did. Before, they were like, “Oh, she’s just run off to the other side of the world without a visa. We don’t know what she’s doing.” And it wasn’t until things panned out in a way where I proved that I could stand on my own two feet—and I’ve been doing this for over a decade and I’ve navigated everything on my own—that they came around and were like, “Do you need help now?” I’m like, “No, I needed help 10 years ago,” when I was broke and had no health insurance. That’s when I needed help, and now I don’t need help. It always comes a little too late because they want to be associated with success. But that’s what they know, and that’s so intrinsic to our culture. In the same way that [news about a] divorce or any type of family that doesn’t follow the blueprint for success is never shared.

Simran: Yeah. Like when my dad went back to jail, my mom didn’t tell extended family for over a year. And I was like, “You literally need a support group.” But then I think it was also definitely that element of shame that informed it. And also, to go back to what were you saying about having to struggle before getting recognition: Part of me gets it because I guess that in that generation, things—things which are vocational courses, such as being a lawyer, such as being a doctor—has a clear end goal, and it also has immediate results and immediate benefits. Because of the lack of awareness of creative careers, they can’t see the end goal. They can’t see what that immediate or eventual success is going to look like. So then they don’t know if they should support you or not because they literally don’t even know what they’re supporting. But I think then that comes down to having faith in your child.

Amrit: Even as a creative entrepreneur, it’s hard for even me to explain what I do to people because it changes every day. To them it’s such a foreign concept. All they have to measure is the success. And for them the success is you not being financially dependent on them. Because I know if I asked any of our parents what we did, they would struggle to describe it, even now.

Jasmin: My dad called Man Repeller “Man Repellent” for the first year I worked here. I’m like, “Sure. Close enough.” It’s a situation that first-generation kids are all too familiar with. My mum and dad were both born in Punjab, and even though they’re now very familiar with Western culture, I have to remember that the way my dad grew up on a farm in Punjab before having an arranged marriage is wildly different to how I grew up and am now living alone in New York. Instead of being frustrated by it, it’s also about empathizing with where the disconnect is coming from.

Amrit: Because they’re only projecting what they know. And you always have to check yourself and remind yourself of that. My mom was my age when she was raising us alone. I’d get frustrated with her when she’d be like, “Stay out of the sun. You’ve been in the sun way too long. Don’t get so dark.” But only because in the way that she grew up, having lighter skin afforded her different privileges. My sister’s really fair skinned. I said this on my Stories and so many people responded to me, was that we go to family gatherings and people would look at my sister and be like, “So beautiful,” and then look at me and then go to my mom, “What happened?” in front of me. And I was so young that I never understood what that meant.

Jasmin: Did that experience make you feel bad about it? Like not being able to see your dark skin as attractive?

In Bollywood, I never saw an actress who looked like me. And then in Hollywood, I never saw an actress who looked like me.

Amrit: Especially in representation in Indian media, we never saw ourselves. In Bollywood, I never saw an actress who looked like me. And then in Hollywood, I never saw an actress who looked like me. And then growing up all my life, I was being told, “Stay out of the sun. Stay out of sun.” It becomes indoctrinated. It’s just something that you don’t even question. Watching the show, as frustrating as it was, validated so many feelings I didn’t even know I had.

Anaa: Things are so based on looks that it’s so frustrating. Fair skin, slim, trim. You hear these words and they’re actually so triggering. As much as people think they’re funny on the show, they open up so much trauma.

Simran: It’s crazy how normalized things like Fair & Lovely were in my childhood. To me, for a very long time, it was literally just another cream on my shelf or it was just another cream that I had. Or turmeric masks. I remember my sister doing turmeric masks religiously before her wedding because they helped her get fairer. And it’s like, all of these things were just normalized. Part of me is like you can only really look back on it with the luxury of retrospect and realize that a lot of stuff you did was fucked up.

Sima from Mumbai, the matchmaker, discussing horoscope alignments of her potential matches

Anaa: And a lot of it goes back to our colonizers and these Western standards of beauty. So the fact of the matter is that that’s still prevalent, especially in India, especially in Pakistan. You name it. It’s because of that, that it’s so ingrained into our society.

Anaa: I don’t know if you guys are so frustrated by it, but I am so frustrated by the representation of South Asians in media. Never Have I Ever, the show that Mindy Kaling just released, I was so excited for that show, and it was so disappointing. Every single Brown person is painted under the same stereotypes. All arranged marriage, curry, food, all these things. And it’s like, when do I get to see someone on screen who’s like us? I was literally joking with Amrit and Simran before this, I was like, “Netflix needs to give us a show because we would kill it.” We need some real actual representation in the room.

Amrit: But I think most minorities feel that way. I feel the same way when I watch Black movies, I’m like, I want to see a Black love story that’s not ridden in trauma. Or not ridden in something so painful. It doesn’t have to be Moonlight and it doesn’t have to be If Beale Street Could Talk. I want to see a happy love story and a normal life that’s not so washed in stereotypes.

Simran: You have to think about the average Netflix users, probably like a white North American. And so when they’re watching these shows of us, like Never Have I Ever, like Indian Matchmaking, in their mind all it’s doing is perpetuating stereotypes. They’re not going to look at these shows with the same nuance that we’re going to look at it and be like, “Oh look, this joke is rooted in casteism, colorism and colonialism.” They’re not going to think that. They’re just going to think, “Oh, this confirms all of my stereotypes before about what I was thinking, that Asians have arranged marriages.” When I was at university, I can’t tell you the amount of times white boys asked me on nights out, “There’s no point in me getting with you because you’re going to end up having an arranged marriage anyway.”

Jasmin: It comes down to not just seeing South Asian people doing stereotypical things. We have progressed. We’re living proof of that progression.

Feature Image via Netflix.

The post Netflix’s “Indian Matchmaking,” Unpacked by 4 South Asian Women appeared first on Man Repeller.

Look, Over Here! It’s Our First Book Club Pick!

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the Man Repeller Book Club! Before I spill the informative beans and tell you about our first novel, I want to tell you why I, your longtime resident astrologizer, have closed up horoscopes shop and started peddling my brain-wares in the form of book clubbery—and why this is not your mother’s book club (although she can join too, I LOVE moms).

WHY!?

When Mallory at Man Repeller asked me what I would do if I could do whatever I wanted, I realized that more than anything, I wanted to feel less lonely.

It’s hard for me to talk about how lonely I’ve felt because I would never want to imply that those who love me are somehow insufficient company—that’s absolutely not the case. Loneliness is not about the amount of love that other people pour into us, but rather, it is about how our own hearts can suddenly feel strange, unknowable, untouched by all that the world offers us.

Before the pandemic created the space we now must put between ourselves and everybody else, before even brushing elbows with a stranger as you passed through the same doorway became dangerous, loneliness was called an epidemic. But now that we’ve spent months six feet apart and smiling through screens, there is even more talk about how incredibly lonely so many of us feel. I had read about ten of these articles when the inspiration for this book club hit me with the intensity of a Sunday morning waffle craving. I realized that my calling as a lifelong sadgirl who, in spite of it all, wants desperately to live in this world, is to invite our loneliness into the open and offer play, curiosity, and friendship as an attempt at alchemy. I want to transform the raw material of our shared loneliness into a beautiful new thing.

The goal of this book club is to create a shared world for us that does not just live in words on paper or a screen. Every month, the selected book will guide our experience, but instead of just taking in the story, we will do experiments with visualization, mini art or journaling prompts, games that connect us to each other. I want to move our community out of the regular-degular internet friends who hang in the comments section to co-collaborators in the creation of our own intimate world. Look, I grew up with you, the community of MR readers. I started reading this site when I was in high school and it inspired me and made me feel less alone. The site has changed since those days, and so have I. Writing the horoscopes for you every month felt like passing notes in class and I loved it. Now, I want to cut first period with all of you and hang out in the parking lot smoking doobies and reading Ntozake Shange.

But Wait, What’s So Special About This Book Club?

TLDR; This is basically like a book club / performance art project / month-long game / secret society of many-gendered mystical heauxs.

More than anything, though, this book club is an experiment in how to form new kinds of intimate communities at a distance. We are up against a lot: the limitations of internet life, a pandemic, etc. I want to create opportunities for the world of our monthly novels to penetrate our lives so that we don’t just take them in, we are transformed by them.

We are going to read very good, rich, brilliant stories together, of course. But I am also going to offer you experiments to make these stories live off the page and more deeply in your life. Then at the end of the month, we’re going to have a little disembodied virtual party and, yes, of course, there will sometimes be a dress-up theme and/or show-and-tell and probably some games and a mystery. I want us to find ways to connect with each other beyond the comments section, too: I’m talking massive secret Santas and pen pal networks and seed exchanges and scavenger hunts and all kinds of stuff that I have not yet schemed up a way to accomplish!

Okay, Sarah, We Get it. We’re in. Tell Us What the First Friggin Book Is!

The first book club selection is The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi

Pre-order it riiiiiiiiiiiight here.

This multivocal novel is a masterful winding and unwinding of the tethers of love, shame, identity, intimacy, and violence. Vivek, a queer boy born to a family in which gender and sexuality are rigidly defined, is the gravitational center around which the rest of the story orbits. We see Vivek’s life and the lives of those who loved him form intricate webs of cause and effect, of possession and loss, like a game of Cat’s Cradle—we know the strings will come apart but we are captivated by the shape they make in the air.

I chose this book because it made me want to live. It made me understand my own life as not a fixed possession that I am given at birth and take with me when I die, but instead as a dynamic, fluxing thing that is fed and shaped by so many other lives.

The story takes us into the intimate worlds of each character, with chapters moving fluidly between consciousness and the voice that sees all of them moving and making choices. In reading this story, I felt myself wriggle out of the lonely constraints of my own body and mind as I moved into the electrified heart of Emezi’s characters.

The book comes out on Tuesday, August 4th. You can pre-order it from Bookshop.org right now and it will ship out as soon as the book-birthing gates open next week. By the way, if you’re not sure you can afford a new book right now, keep an eye on our Instagram—we’ve got something coming for you. And speaking of Instagram, the author has quite a handle of their own (long story short a cat named Güs is involved). Wanna give them a follow too?

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guess what came in the mail!

5 Days, 5 Ways: Vintage Sleep Shorts You Can Do *Checks Notes* Everything In

A pair of vintage blue plaid Bill Blass sleep shorts from Etsy has become a staple in my outfit rotation since entering quarantine, steadily rising in the ranks of the small faction of my closet I still wear routinely. I am now fully convinced that the ease of wearing cozy, stretchy pajama shorts is undeniable when occupying the space in limbo between my apartment and the great outdoors.

I’m not immune to craving some variety, though, which is why I’ve been challenging myself to style them in different ways that broaden my understanding of contemporary comfort in the quarantine era. It may or may not be an excuse to simply keep some portion of my pajamas on all day (because yes, I actually sleep in the sleep shorts), but I’ll let you be the judge. Below are five different styling approaches to this unconventional wardrobe hero.

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WFH

For a day of WFH, I typically don’t give a fruit whatever ensemble manifests; prioritizing comfort has been an invigorating daily self-care practice. My approach when greeted with my options involves a pair of sleep shorts, a semi-legit long sleeve top and exactly one piece of jewelry for added flair. Rolling my sleep shorts twice at both the waist and hem felt cheeky, so it stuck. The look was completed with a beachy Gimaguas necklace and two hair accessories, the jaw clip serving as an emergency backup.

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Pup Walk

Walks through Brooklyn Heights Philo have become a great excuse to briefly sport a favorite item or accessory when seeking the thrill of human validation. For this particular outing, I paired my sleep shorts (rolled once) with a favorite vintage terry top and fancy socks-plus-sneaks combo. This is a formula I’d wear a million times over. With a functional hat and my pup in tow, I was out the door.

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Date Night

Hello, Friday night, let’s up the ante for a living room date night with my partner. I’ve never had the right opportunity to wear these vintage Moschino mules outdoors, so I’ve enjoyed reaching for them at home when the desire to put on nice shoes overtakes my physical being. Staying inside for the evening ironically lends itself to wearing impractical shoes. I remained in my semi-legit WFH top but added an artfully placed colorful vintage scarf for failsafe summertime accessory elevation. It’s allegedly now the weekend, so I transitioned the look to evening wear with a pearl-necklace-as-anklet and sneaky crimson lip to demarcate the end of the work week.

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To the Grocery, and Beyond

These days, my local Trader Joe’s is my primary opportunity to see and be seen by other people, so when I’m there, I try to pull out the quote unquote outfit goods, but it’s also a risky environment in regards to close contact, so I stop short of anything I can’t launder soon after. My trusty sleep shorts were up to the task, along with a vintage T-shirt and, critically, a mask. You can count on me to roll up with my own reusable tote for bagging groceries; in this case, it’s a formerly identified airplane carry-on. My favorite part of this look are the recycled rubber boots, my only purchase of quarantine. Wearing boots out-of-step with the sunny forecast creates a friction that feels just right.

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Outdoor Adventure

Seeking any excuse to test-drive my partner’s recent button-down buy, I snuck it on and layered it with a scarf-as-top. Behold the saucy inward waistband tuck of the sleep shorts–perfectly suited to a socially-distant outdoor adventure strolling in my local park. I love sunglasses and treasure my small collection; this vibrant oversized pair makes me feel instantly empowered.

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Styling sleep shorts for a range of indoor and outdoor pursuits presented a new challenge to dressing that felt invigorating to tackle. By the end of the week, my dressing perspective felt thoroughly refreshed; I was pleased to uncover a summer wardrobe hero item moonlighting as a pair of sleep shorts that made me feel comfortable and confident with each wear. I’ll be sticking with Sleepleisure for the foreseeable future and look forward to adding sleep capris and camisoles to the rotation.

The post 5 Days, 5 Ways: Vintage Sleep Shorts You Can Do *Checks Notes* Everything In appeared first on Man Repeller.