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The Varsity acknowledges that our office is built on the traditional territory of several First Nations, including the Huron-Wendat, the Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit. Journalists have historically harmed Indigenous communities by overlooking their stories, contributing to stereotypes, and telling their stories without their input. Therefore, we make this acknowledgement as a starting point for our responsibility to tell those stories more accurately, critically, and in accordance with the wishes of Indigenous Peoples.
“A serious field of academic study:” U of T courses that explore love and sex From film to biology, students can take courses across departments and campuses to learn about love and sex
Junia Alsinawi Varsity Contributor
Sex is probably not what you expect to learn about at university. Hidden amid the various genetics, calculus, and history classes, U of T’s course listings boast a small but bold amalgam of courses focused on concepts familiar to all of us: love and sex. The theme is the only unifying aspect of these courses, which can be found across departments and campuses.
CLA222 — Sex, Death, and Poetry explores the theme of sex in ancient Greek and Roman texts across genres, from epics to tragedies, while FCS292 — Love, Sex, and Desire in French Literature and Cinema does so in French literature and cinema from the 18th to the 20th centuries.
UNI104 — Sex in the City, specifically designed and restricted to first-year students, examines “what ‘sex’ means to Toronto’s varied, multicultural communities,” while JPS378 — Sex and the State covers topics such as “neoliberalism and BDSM.”
UTSC students can take ANTC09 — Sex, Love, and Intimacy: Anthropological Approaches to Kinship and Marriage or PHLB12H3 — Philosophy of Sexuality, while science lovers can find what they’re looking for in PSY354 — The Biopsychology of Sex at UTM.
More than quirky electives
One course that covers everything from “Sexual Utopias” to the “Hardcore Pornographic Feature” is CIN213 — Cinema & Sensation II: Sex. The class is currently taught by Roshaya Rodness, a sessional lecturer at the Cinema Studies Institute.
“Not every film department has a course like this for undergraduates,” Rodness — whose syllabus lists over 45 films spanning 11 topics — wrote in an email to The Varsity, “I think our students appreciate what a special opportunity it is to
watch films so guarded by censorship and that aren’t always available for public viewing.”
Exploring these niche films with students is part of the excitement of teaching the course for Rodness.
“I [really] enjoy teaching short experimental cinema… It’s been a source of really radical sexual expression that you’re not going to see [at] Cineplex.” While acknowledging this, Rodness still noted that there are many new releases. “With Babygirl in theatres right now, I am also excited to teach the psychosexual thriller after reading week.”
economic and political spheres.”
Beyond the screen, there are many courses discussing love and sex for book lovers at U of T. In an email to The Varsity, Xianwei Wu — an assistant professor with the book & media studies program — said her goal is to “help students understand that BL [Boys’ Love] can be a serious field of academic study” through her course, BMS434 — Boys’ Love and the Culture of Desire.
“Boys Love is basically a genre of gay romance written primarily for women by women [that] originated in Japan,” Wu explained. The course covers the cultural and social implications of BL as well as, “the actual tropes of the genre and specific BL works, including eccentric tropes like male pregnancies and the omegaverse, but also serious topics like dubious consent and domestic violence.”
These courses aren’t just quirky electives to take to fulfill breadth requirements. Rodness discussed the importance of her courses in “being able to examine the cinema as a conversation we have about sexuality encourages us to consider how it has shaped
“Politicians have found an effective scapegoat in trans people to assuage the consequences of global economic disparity,” Rodness expressed, stating that her course “provides a useful vocabulary for making sense of the complexity of today’s identity politics.”
Wu wrote that her students were particularly focused on the ways “BL (also queer culture in general) has been censored or even criminalized in many parts around the world.” She shared that there were “some cases of Chinese BL authors being sentenced to prison as I was teaching the course last semester.”
But both Wu and Rodness ended on a hopeful note.
Wu hopes their class will help “bring attention to those who are facing danger or harm, so they can receive the help they need or at least know that they are being seen and heard.”
“This course is about developing your relationship to the cinema as a source of meaning,” Rodness wrote. “Sex is also an important source of meaning for all of us.”
Plus, Rodness added cheekily, “You get to see naked people screwing.”
Couples on campus: How lovebirds across U of T plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day
Exploring a few of the various relationships that can be found within our very walls
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Caught between extensive date planning and bulk discount chocolates, Valentine’s Day itself often goes overlooked. As the big day approaches, themed posters are popping up around the UTSG campus, while Instagram stories advertise upcoming holiday events.
The Varsity spoke to a couple of students to find out how they’re planning to celebrate.
Lovebirds chime in Claire Wilson, a first-year student from California, is in a long-distance relationship with her high school sweetheart back home. Having met at prom, the two talk daily over video calls and frequently exchange letters.
She clarified, “A lot of people think long-distance makes couples drift apart, but… it has only strengthened our relationship.” The two plan to
CORRECTIONS
meet up over the reading week, eagerly anticipating a sunset picnic and an exchange of gifts.
Another student, Ayshane Aviles — a secondyear studying criminology, sociology, and archaeology — plans to see Paddington in Peru with her boyfriend. Being Peruvian herself, the film’s release on February 14 coincidently matches up with the occasion in Canada.
Aviles said that despite its cliché nature, the pair adores watching movies together. Their first date was even a screening of NOPE at Fort York, and since then, it’s become “their thing.”
After they met on Tinder, the two immediately talked for five hours. Since then, Aviles said, there hasn’t been a single night they haven’t wished each other goodnight. “[Dating apps] have all these negative connotations surrounding them… but I think if you know what you’re looking for… dating apps might just be the thing for you.”
According to Tinder’s website, the app’s members will swipe an average of 100 more
times per person near Valentine’s Day than during other similar times.
Gift ideas?
But for those struggling to think of gifts for Valentine’s Day, the people The Varsity spoke to had some advice. Both Aviles and Wilson encouraged considering your partner’s specific needs or interests.
Aviles suggested that the gift “doesn’t have to be extravagant, but instead a demonstration that you [do] care.” This could be as simple as “buying snacks from Dollarama to play a board game” or buying flowers a few days early and keeping them in water.
And for those without romantic partners, Wilson offers slightly different advice: “My advice for anyone who might be struggling this Valentine’s Day is to remember that you don't need a romantic partner to feel loved. Reach out to your friends and loved ones and make the most of the day.”
In Issue 17 of The Varsity, an Arts & Culture article titled “Michelle Wang on Oma’s Bag and talking to children about Alzheimer’s” inaccurately described ‘Oma’ as a Chinese word for grandma. In fact, it is Dutch.
In Issue 17 of The Varsity, a News article titled “UTMSU emergency BOD addresses old student motions from AGM” has been corrected to reflect that Cameron Miranda-Radbord is a student member of the Governing Council, not a member of the Victoria University Students’ Administrative Council.
In Issue 16 of The Varsity, a Science article titled “‘Persistence is Key’: Student researchers’ advice and experiences” has been updated to reflect that the first photo was taken by Virag Takacs, not Medha Surajpal.
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Ford calls snap election, set for February 27
What to know about how to vote and who’s running
Junia Alsinawi Varsity Contributor
The 43rd Parliament of the Province of Ontario has been dissolved as of 4:00 pm on January 28, following Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor Edith Dumont’s approval of Premier Doug Ford’s request. This starts the countdown to the next provincial election, originally scheduled for June 2026, which will now take place on February 27.
With election day right around the corner, here’s what students need to know about how to vote, where to vote, and who they can vote for.
How and where students can vote
Only students who are Canadian citizens, residents of Ontario, and 18 years of age or older are eligible to vote in provincial elections. Voters must register online by February 17 to receive a voter information card (VIC), which must be brought, along with identification showing the name, to the polling station in order to vote. In lieu of a VIC, identification detailing your name and home address is accepted.
Students who live and study in one electoral district but have a permanent Ontario home address in another can choose to vote in either district.
Students interested in voting by mail must apply online by 6:00 pm on February 21 to receive a ballot, which must be returned to Elections Ontario by 6:00 pm on February 27 to be counted.
Those who wish to vote early can do so from February 20–22 at an advance voting location. Alternatively, they can vote any time before 6:00
pm on February 26 at their local election office.
These offices are located at 2 Bloor Street West near UTSG, the Malvern Medical Arts Building near UTSC, and the South Common Centre near UTM.
Same-day voting can be done on February 27 between 9:00 am and 9:00 pm at your assigned voting location.
UTSG candidates: University—Rosedale
Jessica Bell, a member of the Ontario New Democratic Party (ONDP), has served as MPP for the University—Rosedale riding since 2018, advocating for improved healthcare, affordable housing, and climate change action.
The Ontario Liberal Party’s Pamela Jeffery is also the founder of The Prosperity Project — a registered charity that aims to advance women’s economic prosperity through research and mentorships. Jeffery champions policies to address the cost of living and strengthen small businesses.
Ignacio Mongrell, from the Green Party of Ontario (GPO), focuses on supporting startups while advocating for sustainability and equity principles.
Progressive Conservative (PC) candidate Sydney Pothakos is the current Director of Policy at the Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks, and a strong proponent of Ford and his policies.
UTSC Scarborough—Rouge Park
Vijay Thanigasalam, a PC MPP, has served the Scarborough—Rouge Park riding since 2018. During his time in office, he helped establish the
Scarborough Academy of Medicine and Integrated Health at UTSC and contributed to the development of the Scarborough Subway Extension.
Representing the ONDP, Hibah Sidat has worked on issues such as housing affordability and aims to address the high cost of living in Scarborough— Rouge Park.
Other candidates include Morris Beckford (Liberal), Tim James (None of the Above Direct Democracy Party), and Wai Kiat Tang (Communist Party of Canada — Ontario).
UTM candidates: Mississauga—Erin Mills
Since 2018, Mississauga-Erin Mills’ PC MPP
Sheref Sabawy has helped pass legislation aimed at developing Ontario by renovating a community centre, building a school, and expanding transit services.
Also vying for the seat is Adriane Franklin, representing the GPO, who is a supply teacher
First woman First Nations judge delivers lecture about failures in addressing Indigenous rights
Former National Inquiry commissioner discusses importance of education for addressing systemic racism in Canada
Razia Saleh UTM Bureau Chief
Content warning: This article discusses violence against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ people and mentions the residential school system.
On January 20, UTM hosted a special lecture titled “Thinking Out Loud Together,” featuring Judge Marion Buller — the first woman First Nations judge in British Columbia and the former chief commissioner for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) from 2016 to 2019.
Students, faculty, and community members gathered at UTM’s Multimedia Studio Theatre to hear Buller reflect on reconciliation, systemic racism, and destigmatizing Indigenous discourse in Canadian society.
Civil discourse
This lecture was a collaborative effort between Buller and the civil discourse working group moderated by Randy Boyagoda, an English professor and U of T’s first Provostial Advisor on Civil Discourse.
The group was introduced following the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked Israel’s war on Gaza. According to the U of T Working Group on Civil Discourse website, the group aims to “contribute advice, suggestions, and insights towards strengthening a culture of civil discourse on campus, including the cultivation of dialogue across different points of view and the discussion of challenging subjects.”
As Boyagoda expressed during the conversation, “One of the reasons why we hold events like this… is in hopes of hearing from people whose ideas, insights, and experiences can help us understand how to approach difficult subjects… especially with the incredible diversity of Canada.”
The event began with UTM’s Vice-President and Principal Alexandra Gillespie welcoming attendees.
In her speech, she noted the importance of attending the event because “civil discourse matters.”
“University communities advance knowledge for the public good, debate ideas that move the world, and give students the skills to thrive in a complex society,” she said. “But we can only do that if we listen to others with the same openness and genero[sity] that we ourselves deserve. That’s how we build right relations and find and share meaning, including the truth that comes before reconciliation.”
The special lecture Buller started her lecture by speaking on the systemic failures of Canada’s institutions in addressing Indigenous rights and justice. She spoke about her experience leading the MMIWG inquiry and emphasized the need for structural change beyond reconciliation.
The MMIWG inquiry looks into and reports on the systemic causes of violence against Indigenous women and girls. In 2019, the MMIWG released its final report which found that “persistent and deliberate human and Indigenous rights violations and abuses are the root cause behind Canada’s staggering rates of violence against Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQQIA.”
The final report included more than 2,380 testimonies from family members and survivors of violence.
“So far, reconciliation seems to be a series of missteps, empty promises, scripted apologies, and recycled funding,” Buller said. Instead, she advocated for what she called “reconstruction.”
For Buller, reconstruction is centred on the government actively rebuilding Indigenous relationships and communities.
When one audience member asked about the meaning of reconstruction, Buller explained that it
who aims to foster “a healthier, accessible future” for her riding.
Also in the running is Liberal candidate Qasir Dar, a grassroots organizer focused on cost of living, healthcare, safety, and housing concerns. Michael Bayer is also running, reportedly as a member of both the New Blue Party and the People’s Party of Canada (PPC), as indicated by two separate Facebook pages where he announced his candidacy. The PPC is not a registered party with Elections Ontario, which lists him as a New Blue candidate. The New Blue party is focused on removing what they refer to as ‘woke’ activism from the government, including all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.
Also nominated is ONDP candidate Mubashir Rizvi, a lawyer at M.H.R Law Firm Professional Corporation, where he specializes in family law, real estate law, litigation, and personal injury law.
Buller advocates for what she calls “reconstruction” over reconciliation. OLYA FEDOSSENKO/THE VARSITY
involves “reconstructing a legal system that holds Indigenous laws and practices” and reforming Canada’s child welfare system.
She also suggested “practical things” to help “reconstruct” for non-Indigenous allies, including following Indigenous media outlets, wearing orange shirts for more than one day a year, and following Indigenous creators on social media.
“All of us, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, need to know the truth about our histories, our family histories, our community histories, and our national histories, in order to not make the same mistakes,” she said.
“Education is knowing the truth, and it is important because we’'ll start to learn about each other’'s humanity. We’'ll be able to see systemic racism, see systemic trans- and homophobia, [and see] systemic sexism. We will be able to move past the incorrect assumptions and stereotypes,” said Buller.
During the lecture, Buller also addressed the impacts of colonial violence and residential schools in Canada. “We assumed incorrectly that with the closing of Indian residential schools… horrific experiences of Indigenous children [would end],” she said. “However, now there are more Indigenous children in the foster care system than there ever were in the residential school system.”
The Canadian government estimates that a total of 150,000 First Nation, Inuit, and Métis children attended residential schools starting in the 1950s until the late 1990s. A 2021 Statistics Canada census showed that Indigenous children accounted for 53.8 per cent of all children in foster care and were about 14 times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be placed in
foster care.
During the Q&A session after the lecture, a member of the audience asked Buller how someone without firsthand experience of an Indigenous person could advocate for change. Buller’s response was straightforward: “Indigenous people cannot have ‘too many’ allies. We can’'t have too many educated allies… so speak up. Educate yourself.”
Indigenous people in need of support can call:
• Indigenous student services at U of T’s First Nations House at 416-978-8227, or email at fhn.info@utoronto.ca,
• Indigenous student support specialist at UTM’s Indigenous Centre at 905-8285437,
• Anishanawbe Health Toronto at 416-3600486,
• Za-geh-do-win Information Clearinghouse at 1-800-669-2538,
• Indian Residential School Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419 (available 24 hours a day),
• Hope for Wellness Helpline at 1-855-2423310,
• Talk4Healing Help Line at 1-855-554-4325.
If you or someone you know is in distress because of the recent news about residential schools, you can call:
• Indian Residential School Crisis Line at 1-866-925-4419 (available 24 hours a day),
• Hope for Wellness Helpline at 1-855-2423310,
• KUU-US Crisis Line at 250-723-4050,
• Talk4Healing Help Line at 1-855-554-4325.
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U of T drafts guide to define antisemitism on campus
Faculty and student groups express concerns over potential policy changes, draft’s timing
Urooba Shaikh & Damola Omole UTSC Bureau Chief & Associate News Editor
U of T recently released a draft of its “Guide to Law and Policy regarding Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Discrimination at the University of Toronto.” The administration later announced the start of a consultation process to collect the university community’s feedback on the guide. The consultation ended on January 31.
At the end of the consultation period, the university removed the draft guide from its website.
U of T’s consultations page previously said the guide seeks to “help our community better recognize and respond to antisemitism and anti-Israeli discrimination on our campuses, and to make our teaching, learning, and working environments more inclusive.” The university notes that the draft guide “brings together existing legal and policy frameworks” at the university and “contains no new policies.”
The Varsity spoke to U of T’s faculty and student groups to hear their opinions on the guide and the university’s concluded consultation process.
Breakdown of the guide
The five-page guide begins by establishing the “rising antisemitism at U of T and in broader society,” and its intent of reaffirming the university’s commitment to “welcoming and inclusive learning, research, and working environments.” The guide affirms that antisemitism and anti-Israeli discrimination “are treated by the University in the same way as discrimination and harassment against other equity-deserving groups.”
The section titled “Law and Policy Context” discusses the legislature that grounds its policies surrounding antisemitism, citing legislation such as Ontario’s Human Rights Code — which bans discrimination and harassment based on factors like race, ancestry, place of origin, and creed — and the Criminal Code of Canada, which outlines offences related to “hate propaganda.”
This section of the guide also outlines an exhaustive list of policies, guidelines, statements, and initiatives that affirm the university’s “commitment to freedom of speech and academic freedom,” “commitment to the ‘vigilant protection for individual human rights,’” and “the right of every member of our community to [be]... in an environment free from discrimination and harassment.”
In the section titled “Examples of Antisemitism And Anti-Israeli Discrimination At the University of Toronto,” the guide presents various scenarios that would be classified as antisemitic under the university’s guidelines. The section clarifies that using terms like “‘Zionist’ or ‘Zionism’ as a proxy for ‘Jewish’ or ‘Judaism’ does not excuse discriminatory or harassing actions.” This means that if a person disguises their discriminatory practices and antisemitic speech by using the word "Zionist" instead of "Jewish," the intent and impact remain discriminatory. The guide notes that using the terms is separate from criticisms of Israel’s government, its policies, and Zionist ideology.
Other examples include “denying Jewish or Israeli colleagues work assignments or opportunities because of their identity or because of assumptions about their political or religious views,” and using “tropes, stereotypes, and conspiracies of Jewish people.”
Faculty’s reactions
The release of the draft guide was met with a myriad of different reactions from members of the U of T community.
Ruth Marshall — an associate professor in the Department of Religion and the Department of Political Science at UTSG and a member of the University of Toronto Faculty Association (UTFA) — wrote in an email to The Varsity that the guide “claims not to be making new policy, but its terms and language amount to substantive changes to existing policy.”
Specifically, Marshall believes the guide “encourages and incites [the] conflation” of “criticisms of the government of Israel and its policies, or of Zionism as an ideology” by “singling out Israeli nationality and Zionism as ‘equity-deserving groups.’”
Marshall also claimed that the draft guide is unclear on how using terms like ‘Zionism’ will be judged as antisemitic, giving the university administration a large power to interpret. She wrote, “This poses a direct challenge to the academic freedom of the many faculty who teach and write about Israel and Palestine, or those who make their views about [Israel’s] genocide known on social media.”
Marshall believes that the guide’s room for interpretation has direct effects on UTFA members’ conditions of employment, which is in “defiance of the consultative process with faculty as outlined in the Memorandum of Agreement with [the] UTFA.”
The memorandum mentions that the university “will notify the Association in a timely way of proposed changes to or of proposed new University-wide terms and conditions of employment of faculty members and/ or librarians. The Association will be given a reasonable opportunity to respond to such proposals.” Marshall says the guide was drafted “without the required consultation with UTFA.”
When asked about Marshall’s claims, a U of T spokesperson noted that “all members of the U of T community had equal opportunity to review the draft guide and share feedback.”
They also stated that, “The university addresses matters related to the Memorandum of Agreement between The Governing Council of the University of Toronto and The University of Toronto Faculty Association directly with the faculty association and not through the news media.”
Student groups weigh in Hillel U of T’s Senior Campus Director Jenn Ferman told The Varsity in an email that “[U of T] is finally putting into words what Jewish students at UofT have been fighting for—not just over the past year but for the past decade.”
Hillel is an international organization that seeks to amplify Jewish student life across university campuses.
“Given that our campus was home just last summer to the encampment at King’s College Circle — which countless Jewish students, faculty, and staff experienced as hateful and antisemitic — this is a big deal and a step in the right direction, and [is] why this guide matters.” wrote Ferman.
On the second day of the pro-Palestine student encampment, Hillel U of T and Hillel Ontario uploaded a joint statement on Instagram, calling on U of T to hold people accountable for discriminatory actions. The post noted that they observed “chants of ‘All Zionists are racists, all the Zionists are terrorists,’ and graffiti stating ‘Go back to Europe.’”
At the time, Vice-Provost, Students Sandy Welsh wrote to students in an email that the administration planned to review reports of “concerning language” being used in signs and chants at the encampment’s rally.
U of T’s student-led chapter of Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV) responded to the guide by releasing a joint statement on their Instagram with Occupy U of T for Palestine (O4P) — the student group that led the 63-
day encampment — and the Muslim Students’ Association.
In the post, the IJV raises concerns over the “guide’s conflation of Jewishness with the State of Israel, as well as with Israeli nationality.”
Colin Pigeon Edwards — a first-year PhD student in musicology — and Lex VeldhuizenMartul — a fourth-year student studying linguistics and classics — shared a statement to The Varsity on behalf of the IJV, in which they provided further context concerning their issues with the guide.
“In good faith, we acknowledge that this [guide] was drafted with positive intentions about reducing discrimination on campus. However, both the timing of the draft… and its focus on antisemitism without acknowledgement of other forms of discrimination (like anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia) are problematic,” wrote the IJV.
In addition, O4P spokesperson Sara Rasikh wrote in an email to The Varsity that the “U of T administration continually conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism. This conflation has been widely criticized for suppressing legitimate critique of Israel’s policies and for being weaponized against pro-Palestine activism.”
“Given that students have already faced disciplinary actions and harassment for their advocacy, we fear these guidelines will further institutionalize repression and create an environment where speaking out against Israeli apartheid is penalized.”
A U of T spokesperson stated that claims “conflating anti-Zionism sentiment with antisemitism and that students and faculty are facing disciplinary action for their pro-Palestinian advocacy” have “no basis in fact.”
“We are calling on U of T to engage with students and faculty who have expressed concerns and to ensure that any definition of antisemitism used by the university does not include political criticism of a state. A truly anti-racist approach would address antisemitism without undermining the rights of Palestinians and their allies to advocate for justice,” continued Rasikh.
The Varsity reached out to the university to comment on the criticisms against the guide. A U of T spokesperson instructed all contentions to be directed towards the university’s consultations page. They also noted that IJV isn’t a recognized student group at U of T.
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Does U of T need more TCard scanners at building entrances?
Students discuss building safety, accessibility
Olga Fedossenko Assistant News Editor
Students have recently raised concerns about the safety conditions in U of T’s buildings, particularly the lack of TCard scanners at their entrances.
The university’s TCards webpage states: “Data from/on the card is used to verify/grant access to relevant services and facilities like libraries, athletic facilities, exams, meal plans, printing services and more.”
“For example, anyone can go into the Athletic Centre building or the Robarts or Gerstein buildings during open hours,” a U of T spokesperson wrote in an email to The Varsity. “But only those with a TCard can access the athletic facilities or the library collections.”
Currently, the UTSG campus requires students to scan their TCards to enter libraries like the Robarts Library, the Gerstein Science Information Centre, and the Ontario Institute of Secondary Education (OISE) Library. UTM and UTSC students don’t have card scanners at the entrances of their campus libraries.
To scan or not to scan
The Varsity spoke to students from all three campuses to find out if they believe U of T should
require more university libraries and other buildings to have TCard access.
Katerina Vovk — a fourth-year engineering science student from UTSG — wrote in an email to The Varsity that she feels “much safer in buildings where there are [TCard] scanners.”
Vovk added that her feelings of unsafety inside the university buildings are linked to the recent voyeurism cases at U of T, noting that “over the past couple of years, there have been many incidents of bathroom peeping.”
Throughout the 2023–2024 academic year, the Toronto Police Services arrested three people in connection to multiple reported voyeurism incidents at U of T’s New College residence. One of the arrested people was a U of T student. The most recent incident allegedly took place in May 2024 in the basement of Innis College.
Despite her safety concerns, Vovk wrote that having to take out her TCard every time she enters a building would be “inconvenient.” She continued that she felt “that the scanners would create too much annoyance.”
One UTSC student shared a similar opinion. Edris Formuli — a fourth-year student majoring in population health — wrote that he “would feel safer if UTSC had [TCard] scanners at the
entrances to specific areas such as student lounges, classrooms, and the library.”
He added, “If UTSC is a so-called public institution, why are we paying tuition to access classrooms, learning, and facilities that would otherwise be free to non-[U of T] students?”
Kathy Dang — a fourth-year digital enterprise management student at UTM — shared a story about having to deal with an alleged non-U of T member bothering her inside campus buildings. She said that a middle-aged man approached her the year before inside the UTM library, where she worked at the Digital Exploration Lab. The person told Dang he was a student at the University of Waterloo and worked at TD Bank.
She recalled how the man asked her whether she was looking for an internship and if she would connect with him on LinkedIn, although she had never met him before.
“I was starting to have that gut feeling like something’s not right,” she said in an interview with The Varsity . “I just felt very uncomfortable.”
The man returned later the next week when Dang was working her shift. Dang alleged that he tried to take a photo of her laptop screen.
Because of her experiences, Dang said she would prefer the UTM library to have TCard scanners installed at its entrance. “I feel like it
would be beneficial for security reasons,” she said.
Another UTM student had a different opinion. Rio McKen, a fifth-year digital enterprise management student, said that his campus, unlike UTSG, should not be required to have scanners in buildings.
“UTM has been known as a commuter campus. You would have to get out of the way to get to campus, whereas downtown, people go through buildings just to get through them, and that can create a lot of issues in terms of safety,” said McKen in an interview with The Varsity
Despite their differences in opinion, McKen and Dang agreed that if the university were to set up more scanners in buildings, U of T should devise a simpler scanning system. For example, McKen suggested attaching a PIN to each TCard to allow students to present the code at the entrance in case they forget their TCard.
After hearing students’ input, The Varsity contacted the university for a comment. A representative from U of T did not confirm if the university intends to add more scanners.
A university spokesperson noted that TCards are not generally used for building access. In an email to The Varsity, they wrote “Most access points to buildings are controlled by fobs, not TCards, and it’s mainly U of T employees who have fobs.”
They also referred students to the university’s TCards webpage.
Business & Labour
Love is Blind — and may soon be unionized
Recent legal actions against reality shows challenge industry employment standards
Michael Elsaesser Varsity Contributor
Content warning:
This article mentions sexual assault.
In December 2023, the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a formal complaint against Delirium TV and Kinetic Content, the production companies behind the Netflix dating show Love Is Blind.
The complaint consolidated individual grievances from former contestants Renee Poche and Nicholas Thompson, who alleged improper labour practices and workplace misconduct, with Poche specifically claiming that Delirium TV has begun legal arbitration seeking four million dollars in penalties against her for speaking out about onset conditions, despite her receiving only $8,000 for participating in the show.
The NLRB’s complaint challenges the legality of the show's non-disclosure agreements, arguing that California law protects workers who report workplace violations. The complaint also asserts that cast members should be classified as employees, granting them the right to unionize and advocate for better working conditions.
The production companies maintain that the dating show’s contestants were correctly classified as non-employee contestants. If recognized as employees, the cast could gain the ability to organize and negotiate for improved contracts and
protections. This change could force production companies to increase costs for labour, reduce working hours and regulations on cast members, as well as undertake policies to improve set conditions.
A series of lawsuits
In 2022, Love Is Blind contestant Tran Dang filed a lawsuit against Delirium TV, Kinetic Content, and Thomas Smith over serious alleged workplace issues during filming. According to court documents obtained by Deadline, the lawsuit alleges the production company’s negligence. The filing argued that because the production companies controlled contestants’ actions and activities during filming, the companies effectively served as their employers.
One of the lawsuit’s central allegations is that Delirium TV and Kinetic Content imposed strict and isolating conditions on contestants, keeping them under 24-hour surveillance in hotel rooms when not filming while also confiscating their personal belongings, including phones, identification, and credit cards. As a result, participants had no way to leave or contact the outside world unless they forfeited their role on the show. The suit claims that these conditions amounted to false imprisonment. Additionally, it alleges that producers controlled the cast’s food intake while providing large amounts of alcohol, purportedly to provoke dramatic behaviour for more compelling television.
A particularly disturbing allegation in the lawsuit
Supporting U of T’s student parents
Resources available for those balancing academics, work, and a growing family
Michael Elsaesser
Varsity Contributor
In January 2024, the U of T’s Innovation Hub released a report titled “Experiences of Students Who Are Also Parents.” The hub interviewed 31 student parents across the university, shedding light on their unique challenges and the resources needed to balance academics and family life.
The students expressed a desire for a community where they could connect with others who share similar experiences, exchange advice, and offer emotional support. The students also valued opportunities to provide feedback to the university, allowing them to discuss their struggles and be heard by peers and the broader university community.
A key concern was balancing parenting responsibilities with academic demands, with many voicing frustration over the university’s onesize-fits-all policies. The students advocated for more flexible and individualized resources to cater to diverse family structures.
Another significant issue was the need for more flexibility in scheduling, particularly when unexpected situations like a child’s illness disrupts class attendance. Many student parents also highlighted the financial strain of juggling education, childcare, and basic living expenses, while feeling unclear about accessing financial support such as maternity leave and childcare subsidies.
The Varsity breaks down the various resources U of T offers to support student parents in addressing these concerns.
Resources for student parents
The Family Care Office, which operates from Monday through Friday on the St. George campus, provides support to students, faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows, and their families. The
February 11, 2025
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involves multiple instances of sexual assault by co-participant Thomas Smith, with Dang claiming that the production crew filmed the incidents for possible inclusion in the show rather than intervening. Although Dang reported the assault to the producers, the lawsuit claims her concerns were dismissed, and production continued as usual. The case argues that the production company is liable under the legal doctrines of respondeat superior and vicarious liability, which states that employers can be held accountable for workplace misconduct by employees.
In response, Love Is Blind creator Chris Coelen told People Magazine that the imprisonment allegations were “preposterous” and stated that he was unaware of any sexual assault claims during filming.
The Canadian context Canada has faced similar legal battles over employment classifications in reality television. Canadian advocacy group Fairness in Factual TV has pushed for better employment standards, focusing on safe working conditions, fair wages, and proper accreditation. These efforts have been supported by the Canadian Media Guild and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.
In one notable case, Cavalluzzo LLP filed a $35 million class-action lawsuit on behalf of Director Anna Bourque against Insight Productions, the company behind The Amazing Race Canada and Big Brother Canada, for failing to provide holiday pay and overtime wages. The suit alleged that Insight Productions misclassified workers as independent contractors to bypass Ontario’s Employment Standards Act. Although the lawsuit was dismissed in 2022 due to excessive delays under the Class Proceedings Act, the judge allowed it to be refiled with a different class representative.
In another case, Cineflix, producer of reality television shows like Property Brothers, was presented with two settlement options following a class-action suit filed by current and former workers over unpaid work. The company could either pay one million dollars and establish a collective agreement recognizing a workers’ union or pay $2.5 million without the agreement. Cineflix ultimately chose the higher payout to avoid settling a precedent for unionization in the Canadian television industry. The settlement does not prevent Cineflix workers from organizing or unionizing in the future, but does delay efforts, and avoids establishing the precedent of unionization.
In a statement to The Varsity, the Toronto branch of the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) expressed support for classifying all reality show participants as employees. In Canada, reality television workers can benefit from minimum pay rates and workplace protections under the Independent Production Agreement, which governs performers in film, television, and digital media. However, these agreements only apply to ACTRArecognized productions, meaning workers on non-union productions lack the same benefits and protections.
As legal challenges against reality television producers continue to gain momentum, the classification of reality show contestants as employees remains a pivotal issue. If successful, these cases could redefine labour rights in unscripted television, granting performers stronger workplace protections and the right to unionize. The NLRB complaint against the Love is Blind production company remains open and ongoing. For now, reality television remains an industry where employment status is contested, and the push for labour rights is far from over.
office helps students navigate campus by offering information on infant feeding spaces, changing tables, and family-friendly study areas.
The office also provides guidance on planning family leave, including explaining Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, which ensures protected pregnancy and parental leave for employees. Additionally, the Family Care Office facilitates social connections between student parents through programs like the peer mentorship program, the in-development student-parent study hub, and the student advisory committee, which allows students to share their opinions regarding policies that affect them.
Additionally, the university offers limited family housing options for student parents. At the St. George campus, University Family Housing — two high-rise buildings on Charles Street West — accommodates full-time students with partners or children. Residents of these buildings also receive priority access to the U of T Childcare Centre. However, there are limited rooms at the residences, and the apartments are not ideal for families with more than two children due to their size. At UTM, three- and four-bedroom townhouses are available for students with families, providing more suitable accommodations for larger households.
UTSC currently does not offer family housing options.
Academic leave policies for student parents
There is no standardized leave policy for undergraduate students needing time off for parental responsibilities. Instead, they must work with their registrar to arrange academic accommodations and individual leave plans. Graduate students, however, can apply for a parental leave of absence for up to three sessions per person, with a combined maximum of four sessions for both parents. This leave must be
completed within the first year following the child’s birth.
During leave, students are not academically registered and do not have to pay fees, unless they specifically choose to opt into certain services. Students on leave are also unable to connect with their supervisor regarding their research unless exceptions are made by talking to their individual departments. However, taking an academic leave can impact financial aid, including university financial assistance, government loans, and Ontario Student Assistance Program eligibility.
Financial assistance
The School of Graduate Studies offers a parental grant for PhD students, covering up to 100 per cent of their monthly living stipend, with a maximum of $9,000 per academic session. In 2025, the school’s support was extended to postdoctoral trainees, with a maximum of $4,167 per month. Some individual colleges also provide additional aid, such as Woodsworth College’s June Straker Award, which supports single parents. Students from any college may apply, though Woodsworth students are given preference.
The Family Care Office has a pool of funds
available to help students cover childcare costs, enabling them to participate in extracurricular and academic activities. However, this funding is only available to undergraduate or graduate students at the St. George campus. At UTSC, the Scarborough Campus Student Union provides a daycare bursary of up to $500 for student parents in financial need. At UTM, a childcare grant is available for eligible undergraduate and graduate students.
At St. George, the University of Toronto Students’ Union (UTSU) provides a Dollar for Child Care Grant for full-time and parttime undergraduate students. The UTSU also organizes an annual Family Fun Day to help student families build community. Despite these available resources, student parents at U of T continue to face systemic challenges. Many are unaware of the support available to them, and institutional policies remain rigid, making it difficult for student parents to balance academic and family responsibilities. For those seeking support, the Family Care Office is one of the best places to start, helping students navigate the university while balancing their roles as both students and parents.
CHLOE WESTON/THE VARSITY
February 11, 2025
thevarsity.ca/category/science science@thevarsity.ca
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder among underrepresented disabilities in medicine and research
PMDD affects as many as 475,000 people in Canada
convey the lived experiences of people with PMDD.
The study results from a then-McMaster student’s undergraduate thesis and is built on concepts of feminist disability theory. Serena Habib — who is now pursuing a dual-degree Master’s in Public Health and Social Work at Columbia University — spoke in an interview with The Varsity about her motivations.
of their clouds for years. Maintaining normalcy while battling this level of emotional and mental strain can only add to the intense fatigue that people with PMDD face. When combined with the perpetual dismissal of women’s voices in healthcare, it seems near impossible to find support from professionals.
Content warning: This article contains mentions of suicidal ideation.
Everyone knows about Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS), the typical scapegoat for any woman’s unexpected behaviour (this is sarcasm, delete that angry paragraph). While PMS is commonly discussed or at least known about, a more severe disorder remains unknown to most adults, including women.
Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a cyclical mood disorder that an estimated 475,000 Canadians suffer from. In the week before menstruation, PMDD presents as extreme mood shifts that can affect one’s relationships, work, family, social responsibilities, and overall quality of life. Other symptoms, which include low self-worth, suicidality, and self-harm typically alleviate during menstruation. The impact of PMDD is likened to that of major depressive disorder.
Feminist disability theory
Could you imagine dealing with a crippling condition every month but not being able to get help from a professional? PMDD is such an under-recognized illness that patients take an average of 20 years to get diagnosed. I can only describe this lack of diagnosis as disappointing but not surprising since I have faced the same dismissal from the doctors I went to about the same issues.
Normative theories or definitions of disability do not account for our physically and mentally diverse bodies, and they are often inflexible in comparison to how varied an individual’s experience of a disability can be. Feminist disability theory — a
branch of philosophy and sociology which aims to address the power dynamics in disabilities — challenges the idea that disability looks the same for everyone, regardless of what ‘category’ they fall under.
On paper, normative views label a person as either abled or disabled. In reality, ability and disability are not distinct categories. They are intertwined and fluctuate depending on the individual’s body, mind, and prior experiences. It is unreasonable to expect one definition of disability to fit every single person, so feminist disability theory offers a more fluid approach.
Similarly, time can also be defined according to one’s personal schedule. Crip time is an alternative to the normative definition of time and is an extension of feminist disability theory. In PMDD, one’s crip time describes one’s personal schedule and life experience as a result of the disorder.
PMDD is an episodic disability, which means that its symptoms surface in cycles, ebbing and flowing in time with one’s menstrual schedule.
The Canadian government — which recognizes temporary, permanent, and episodic disabilities — uses ‘disability’ as an umbrella term with no harmonized definition, outlining the complexity of disabilities in line with feminist disability theory. It’s hard to assess what a regular month looks like when one lives with PMDD.
Lived experiences with PMDD: From the temporal cloud to invisible suffering Awareness and support for those with PMDD is low, and it can be a devastating disorder for both affected individuals and those around them. Though there is still much research to be done on causes and treatments, one 2024 study published in Women’s Reproductive Health attempts to
Can the pill stop you from finding the ‘right’ partner? What happens when women stop taking hormonal contraceptives?
“There were just so many gaps in awareness and knowledge and access to support, I really struggled to find a clinician that would work with me, and I just felt really desperate in my own experience,” she said.
Through qualitative interviews with 10 Canadians living with PMDD, Habib uncovered three main themes: the temporal cloud, the ‘mis-sings’ — misdiagnosis, mistreatment, misunderstanding — and invisible suffering. The temporal cloud involves the imagery participants used to describe the phases of PMDD. Habib splits the rhythm of PMDD into two phases, one in which “the dark cloud descends” and the other, “the calm before the storm.”
When the dark cloud descends, participants describe a sudden intense self-hatred, brain fog, lack of self-control, low self-worth, dissociation, overwhelming fatigue, and an intense feeling of being ‘trapped’ by the anxious pressure associated with the overall experience of the PMDD cloud.
All 10 participants experienced suicidal thoughts during this period and described the calm before the storm as a return to their normative selves.
The length of a PMDD episode varies by the individual, but severe symptoms typically occur during the luteal phase, leading up to menstruation — two weeks out of every month. With nearly half of one’s life being impacted so regularly, it may seem shocking that PMDD is misdiagnosed and mistreated.
Habib found that “oftentimes there is a lot of medical dismissal [around PMDD].” These ‘missings’ led participants to feel invalidated and often prompted them to hide their symptoms for the two weeks they occurred.
All of these together create a very unwelcoming space for those with PMDD to exist, leading to Habib’s last finding: the invisible suffering. Two participants reported that they internalized their symptoms so well that their partners were unaware
in Evolutionary Psychological Science. The aftereffects of discontinuing the pill were examined in two studies, which looked into the potential increase in attraction to alternative partners and its impact on long-term relationship satisfaction.
The premise of these studies is that when partners form a connection, they tend to safeguard the relationship by diminishing the appeal of alternative mates.
When you’re perfectly capable of fulfilling your roles half of the month, how do you explain what’s really happening? How do you get help?
“Advocate for yourself and talk about it”
Habib has been an advocate for PMDD for years since she started an Instagram account to find others with the same experiences. The page spreads awareness of the disorder, as well as resources and support for those with PMDD. Habib also recommends the International Association for Premenstrual Disorders website to anyone wanting to further educate themselves.
Habib offered this advice: “you might find that other people have similar experiences, and you'll find support and people that can help you.”
For anyone who identifies with this disorder, you are not alone. Experiencing suicidal thoughts right before your period may be regular to you, but learning more about your body is always worth it. You do not have to suffer alone.
If you or someone you know is in distress, you can call:
• Canada Suicide Prevention Service phone available 24/7: 1-833-456-4566
• Good 2 Talk Student Helpline: 1-866-9255454
• Ontario Mental Health Helpline: 1-866531-2600
• Gerstein Centre Crisis Line: 416-9295200
• U of T Health & Wellness Centre: 416978-8030
• Toronto Suicide Crisis Helpline: 988 If you or someone you know has PMDD, you may contact:
• LOVE YOU by Shoppers Drug Mmart Women’s Clinic 905-430-4055
• This is an outpatient women’s health clinic that can provide support for PMDD.
• Toronto Women’s City Alliance
• 416-483-1873
self-reported measures of attractiveness from romantically involved women and only measured correlations, not causality.
It is important to acknowledge that expressed preferences may not necessarily align with realworld behaviour. Future studies, spanning a longer duration, that examine relationship status and satisfaction during and after HC use are needed to draw more confident conclusions.
Maria Ehsan
Varsity Contributor
The longstanding debate of whether love is a chemical reaction or an instinctual feeling takes on a whole new meaning with hormonal contraceptive pills. Emerging studies suggest that contraceptive pills may prevent more than just reproduction — they could also hinder one’s ability to choose a genetically ‘compatible’ partner.
The role of hormonal contraceptives in mate selection Without the pill, menstruating women experiencing a natural ovulatory cycle tend to be attracted to genetically diverse partners, or partners with varying features and traits. This evolutionary preference exists because greater genetic diversity is generally correlated to improved survival and reproductive success.
Low genetic diversity can lead to harmful mutations, making populations more vulnerable to diseases and less adaptable to environmental changes. This preference can manifest as an
attraction to particular body odours, which are thought to signal immune system diversity — variation that may foreshadow better offspring health.
Contraceptive pills work by suppressing ovulation, including a hormonal profile closer to that of pregnancy, which results in non-permanent fertility loss. Due to this hormonal shift, heterosexual women on the pill may be more inclined to choose a partner based on qualities associated with being a ‘better father’ rather than relying on their evolutionary instincts to favour genetically compatible partners.
This shift in preference can also extend to body odour, where women on the pill become more attracted to scents resembling those of their close genetic relatives. Theoretically, the scents evoke a sense of familiarity and reliability, rather than prioritizing genetic variation.
To what extent does stopping birth control affect attraction?
A recent article in Psychology Today explores this phenomenon, drawing on research published
To test this, the first experiment examined committed women who had used hormonal contraceptives (HCs) when they met their current partner but later stopped. The researchers wanted to know if these women were more likely to express sexual interest in an attractive ‘bad boy’ — an alternative partner — over the average, dependable option, particularly during their highfertility phase. The second experiment focused on visual attractiveness, excluding any mention of character traits in the alternative partners.
The study found that women who had discontinued HCs were more likely to prefer attractive alternative partners, suggesting that discontinuing HCs may be correlated with a lower motivation to protect relationships by devaluing potential mates.
Caution amidst compelling findings
Despite the compelling nature of these findings, caution is needed before embracing them as definitive truth. The two prominent studies driving this discussion come with their own set of limitations. For example, the studies relied on
Though hormonal contraceptives are used for the intended purpose, their impact extends beyond contraception into the realm of partner preferences and relationship dynamics. Since its creation, extensive research has highlighted the biological side effects of taking birth control.
MEDHASURAJPAL/THE VARSITY
Medha Surajpal Science Editor
Santhija Jegatheeswaran Health Correspondent
Have you ever noticed yourself being drawn to the same type of person over and over again?
Maybe it’s the mysterious bad boy, the bubbly social butterfly, the tortured artist, the deepthinking intellectual, or the ambitious gogetter. Or perhaps it’s always the sarcastic but secretly sweet type or someone your friends warn is a red flag. If so, you’re not alone. Many of us develop a ‘type’ without even realizing it.
The existence of a dating ‘type’ suggests that our romantic preferences are not random; rather, they stem from a mix of deep-seated psychological traits, social conditioning, and evolutionary biology, all of which shape who we’re drawn to.
Does your childhood influence your adult relationships?
One of the strongest predictors of romantic attraction is attachment style, which stems from early relationships with caregivers.
According to John Bowlby’s attachment theory, people develop one of four main attachment styles that influence their romantic preferences, including:
• Secure attachment: Comfortable with intimacy and independence; tends to have healthy relationships
• Anxious attachment: Craves closeness but fears abandonment
• Avoidant attachment: Values independence and may push partners away to avoid vulnerability
• Disorganized attachment: A mix of anxious and avoidant tendencies, often resulting from severe trauma
If you find yourself repeatedly attracted to emotionally distant or unreliable people, it might be because these patterns reflect familiar dynamics from your childhood attachment. Research shows that one’s attachment style is linked to their relationship patterns as an adult.
The mere exposure effect
Another reason we keep falling for the same type is the mere exposure effect, a psychological principle suggesting that we prefer familiar things — or people. You may have heard the theory that some people are attracted to partners who share characteristics with their parents. A study published in Evolution and Human Behavior explored how childhood relationships with parents might shape attraction to certain facial features in others.
This study specifically examined heterosexual attraction, focusing on whether children preferred romantic partners who resembled their opposite-sex parent. The researchers found that children with a positive relationship with their mother or father were more likely to be drawn to faces resembling that parent in adulthood.
So, does this mean you’re destined to date a parental lookalike? Not necessarily. The researchers suggest that the effect may arise from spending more time around close relatives, making their features more familiar and comfortable. However, if your childhood relationship was rocky, you’re less likely to develop that preference.
This challenges traditional assumptions about parental imprinting in partner preferences, suggesting that other factors may play a stronger role in attraction.
Beyond stereotypes in same-gender relationships
Attraction is complex. A study exploring qualities of attraction in same-gender
Why you keep falling for the same type
The science behind dating ‘types’ and why we’re drawn to certain people
relationships found that traits like kindness, humour, and intelligence ranked highest for both men and women. Agreeableness and qualities such as being supportive and considerate were the most valued, while material success and financial stability were the least important
The study also debunked the idea that same-gender couples mimic traditional heterosexual dynamics, where one partner takes on a ‘masculine’ role and the other a ‘feminine’ one. Instead, people were drawn to a mix of qualities, showing that attraction isn’t confined to rigid gender roles
Interestingly, the research also found a pattern of ‘fatal attraction,’ where the very traits that initially draw people in later become a source of frustration. For example, a partner’s humour might later feel like a lack of seriousness, or confidence might start to seem like arrogance.
Do opposites attract or do we seek similarity?
The question of whether we are more attracted to people who resemble us or those who balance us out has been long debated, especially in pop culture. We see this in movies like The Notebook , where Allie’s refined upbringing contrasts with Noah’s working-class passion, or how Katniss and Peeta develop a strong connection, partly because they share the same background of poverty and struggle.
While you might think opposites attract because they fulfill each other’s needs, research suggests that we are more often drawn to those who are similar to us. A 2021 study found that this pattern — called positive
assortative mating — happens for several reasons. For instance, people from similar backgrounds tend to meet more often and naturally prefer partners who feel familiar or compatible. Couples can even become more alike over time through shared experiences.
How media shapes our ideas about love
Whether through Disney movies, rom-coms, or social media, we are constantly exposed to messages about what love is supposed to look like. But many of us don’t know how to translate that into the real world. A lot of these portrayals idealize passion-driven attraction, like love at first sight, rather than friendships that develop into romance or relationships that may take years to progress. Some fairytales don’t acknowledge that people may have other priorities in life beyond relationships.
A study in Social Psychological and Personality Science found that media often emphasizes love at first sight over friendships that evolve into romance. However, in reality, many people prefer relationships that start as friendships. The “Friends-to-Lovers Pathway” meta-analysis found that about two-thirds of adults and university students favoured this approach over immediate attraction.
Television further reinforces these ideas. A content analysis of prime-time TV shows found that comedies depict relationship maintenance behaviours, such as open communication and shared responsibilities, more frequently than dramas. However, comedies also show more negative behaviours, which can shape viewers' perceptions of what is ‘normal’ in relationships.
Additionally, research on undergraduate students has shown that men and women
interpret love on television differently. Women are more likely to believe TV portrayals of romance are realistic, while men are more likely to see sex on television as a reflection of real life.
Learn your patterns and keep them in mind
It’s important to ask whether an attraction is truly about compatibility or simply familiarity. Sometimes, a person might feel ‘right’ because they fit a pattern we’re used to, not because they’re actually a good match. Expanding your social circles and interacting with different personality types can help shift attraction toward healthier relationships. Taking time to truly get to know someone before jumping into a relationship can also help prevent repeating unhealthy cycles.
If you often find yourself drawn to toxic or unhealthy relationships, seeking guidance from a therapist or relationship coach can be helpful. They can help uncover hidden patterns in your romantic choices and offer strategies for building healthier, more fulfilling connections.
Attraction isn’t random; it’s shaped by psychology, biology, and past experiences. By becoming more aware of these influences, you can break free from automatic habits and make more thoughtful choices about who you pursue. For university students navigating modern dating, self-awareness is key. Recognizing these unconscious patterns can help you build relationships based on true compatibility rather than just familiarity.
So next time you feel drawn to someone, take a moment to reflect: is this true love, or just a familiar pattern playing out once again?
Is love truly blind?
Tiffany Chien Varsity Contributor
Whether it’s the momentary feeling of bliss in a budding relationship or the profound connection in the deepest of relationships, love is something we have all experienced in one form or another.
The age-old adage ‘love is blind’ suggests that when we fall in love, we become oblivious to the flaws and imperfections of our partners. While this notion may seem merely poetic, there's a scientific basis behind it rooted in the complexities of human brain chemistry.
Love: an evolutionary perspective
As a scientific theory, evolution describes environments and events that shape our biology to increase our chances of survival as a species. Interpersonal bonds serve as an adaptive mechanism that enhances the survival and further reproduction of a species’ offspring and could explain why love is a ubiquitous and defining human emotion.
During the Pleistocene Epoch — also known as the Great Ice Age — the early stages of human evolution required the forming of strong social bonds beyond mating, which were essential for survival. These bonds allowed food and shelter to be shared to help individuals survive when resources were scarce. Group cooperation aided in the protection from predators and rivals and the collective effort of communities in nurturing offspring ensured the survival of children.
This early mechanism extends into adult relationships, shaping the formation of romantic bonds. Pair bonding is characterized by attachment, trust, and emotional fulfillment, contributing to the experience of being “in love.” For example, mother-infant bonds provide the evolutionary foundation of pair bonding in humans.
Evolutionary biologists argue that choosing partners with different genetic traits can result in healthier children who are more adaptable to their environment. A diverse mix of genes can strengthen the immune system and increase the offspring’s chances of survival.
Other studies suggest that we might prefer seeking partners who possess attributes that complement our own strengths and weaknesses, thereby enhancing the overall fitness of the mating pair. Complementary
Exploring the science of our most intimate connections
traits can bind couples together when they have similar ideological values, morals, and shared vision for the future.
Love in Homo sapiens
Human relationships encompass a range of behaviours shaped by both socio-cultural and psychological mechanisms. While stereotypes and gender roles suggest that women are more expressive and nurturing and men more stoic and competitive, human behaviour is far more nuanced. For example, cultural and societal factors heavily influence what men and women deem attractive, and how they select and express love.
In many South Asian cultures such as Nepalese Hindus, arranged marriages prioritize compatibility in socioeconomic status, family background, and religious beliefs. In other
Chemical love: The brain chemicals that underlie our relationships
Recent advancements in neuroscience have attempted to examine the neurobiological reasoning behind love and attachment.
Brain imaging studies have shown that regions associated with reward and motivation are triggered in response to romantic stimuli — such as kissing, cuddling, or enjoying a hobby with your partner — which motivates us to bond with our partners. Moreover, the release of neurotransmitters — brain chemicals that modulate brain function — such as dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin play a crucial role in bonding and attachment.
When we engage with someone we find attractive or emotionally stimulating, dopamine levels rise, leading to feelings of euphoria, excitement, and intense pleasure.
When we engage with someone we find attractive or emotionally stimulating, dopamine levels rise, leading to feelings of euphoria, excitement, and intense pleasure.
countries and social groups, partnerships value individual autonomy and romantic love, which shapes relationship dynamics.
Perhaps you are more familiar with the halo effect, a psychological experience which denotes how individuals perceive their partners positively in one aspect and extend that perception to other characteristics. Individuals enamoured by their partner's appearance may selectively ignore the negative traits and assume their partner is also kind, intelligent, and trustworthy solely based on initial attraction.
As such, the halo effect can contribute to the perception that love is blind by blurring the boundaries between rational evaluation of qualities and emotional attachment. Evidently, human relationships transcend biological imperatives, reflecting the richness of cultural, social, and individual experiences.
This fosters feelings of closeness and connection.
Interestingly, studies have shown that individuals in romantic relationships, especially early on in the relationship, go through the ‘honeymoon phase,’ and have serotonin levels similar to those with obsessive-compulsive disorder. This finding would support the commonly used expressions where the state of falling in love often makes one ‘lovesick,’ or obsessed with their partners.
In the midst of a budding relationship, our brain is flooded with neurotransmitters which overshadow the areas of our brain that focus on rational thinking and decision-making. As the jitters of the honeymoon phase wane, we are better able to realistically assess our partners.
However, long-term companionate love
is characterized by increased activity in brain regions associated with attachment and long-term bonding and increases in hormones such as oxytocin that are more intimately related to attachment and bonding.
What about other species?
Vasopressin — another neurotransmitter associated with relationships — and oxytocin also support social bonding in other species. Studies show that a surplus of vasopressin and oxytocin receptors — proteins that ensure hormones and neurotransmitters are functional — promote monogamous pair bonding in prairie voles — a species of vole native to central North America.
When the release of these chemicals is blocked, this bonding behaviour changes and the animals become more sexually promiscuous. Unlike prairie voles, montane voles — another vole species native to western North America — have fewer oxytocin and vasopressin receptors, explaining their promiscuous behaviour. As a result, unlike prairie voles, montane voles do not develop partner preferences or form attachment bonds.
While current evidence does not strongly support a link between oxytocin and vasopressin receptor densities and human promiscuity, ongoing research in nonhuman primates offers valuable insights that could inform future studies. These studies suggest that further investigation into the distribution and function of these receptors in humans could create further evidence of the connection between certain chemicals and our romantic behaviours.
Anecdotally, love may be a matter of the heart, but it is in fact the brain that creates the experience of love. From navigating the whirlwind of feelings associated with new relationships to deepening our appreciation for existing relationships, we’re all on a quest for intimacy and belonging. Understanding the science and neurobiology of love provides valuable insights into the complexities of human connection and can help foster better long-lasting relationships.
Tiffany Chien is a Science Writer for the Raw Talk Podcast. This article is influenced by Episode #108 of the podcast, titled “The Psychology of Love and Relationships.”
Stephanie Deng Varsity Contributor
Will I B mine?
This Valentine’s Day, give yourself some
The month of February often emphasizes romantic love, but it’s important to remember that self-love is just as vital for your mental health, if not more so. Amid the chaos of cards, flowers, and grand gestures, taking a moment to nurture your own well-being is a powerful act of self-love in today’s fast-paced world.
What is self-love?
Self-love is often seen as synonymous with selfesteem. According to Kristin Neff — a researcher of self-compassion at the University of Texas, Austin — self-esteem can be defined as “an evaluation of our worthiness as individuals, a judgement that we are good, valuable people.” Self-esteem often hinges on external validation — feeling good about yourself using others’ approval — whereas selflove focuses on internal validation.
Sometimes, self-love can be conflated with vanity or selfishness; however, it is in fact regarded as a cornerstone of positive emotional well-being.
According to Deborah Khoshaba — a clinical psychologist in Irvine, California — self-love is not just a state of feeling good, but a “state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological, and spiritual growth.” She explains that nurturing our self-love promotes self-acceptance, self-compassion, and self-fulfillment.
Self-love manifests differently for each individual, though it usually encompasses behaviours and
self-luvin’
attitudes that nurture a compassionate connection with yourself. It may unfold as positive self-talk, such as forgiving yourself when you make a mistake.
Self-love also includes elements of selfcompassion, a closely related construct that involves treating yourself as you would a good friend during times of adversity. You can practice this by acknowledging and celebrating your achievements, whether they are big or small.
The psychological science behind self-love Although the term “self-love” is not new, there have been very few scientific studies on the concept.
In a paper from The Humanistic Psychologist, Eva Henschke and Peter Sedlmeier endeavoured to develop a model for self-love and concluded on three main themes as its foundation: self-contact or giving attention to and being aware of oneself; self-acceptance or being at peace with oneself; and self-care or protecting and caring for oneself.
Within the pillar of self-contact, the researchers emphasized the importance of mindfulness — listening to your body and understanding what feels good and what doesn’t — and awareness of your emotions. For self-acceptance, the researchers described the significance of being able “To accept oneself the way one is, even if you know for sure that you do not please everybody or that everything is great, because nobody is perfect.” The authors explored the value of accepting one’s shortcomings and flaws and being okay with making mistakes. Instead of cultivating an ideal image, self-acceptance can be nurtured by identifying and welcoming all emotions, even
negative ones.
The pillar of self-care focuses on taking care of oneself, which includes treating yourself to things that are good for you, taking care of social relationships, and being kind to yourself in times of suffering. Overall, self-care focuses on doing what makes you happy.
How self-compassion impacts health
Research shows that individuals who practice selfcompassion are less likely to experience symptoms of depression and anxiety. Instead of criticizing yourself, offer understanding and patience which can lead to greater emotional stability. Selfcompassion has also been consistently linked to better engagement in various health-promoting behaviours, including regular exercise, nutritious eating, healthy sleep habits, and effective stress management.
Self-compassion has also been associated with reduced cortisol, a hormone regulating the body’s stress response. Rather than spiralling into self-blame or negativity, those who practice self-
The double-edged sword of emotional intelligence in our modern world When does managing emotions become a burden?
Osheen Kalra Varsity Contributor
In a world where emotional intelligence (EI) is hailed as the golden ticket to career success and personal fulfilment, few ask what happens when the pressure to ‘manage emotions’ becomes a source of exhaustion?
A 2022 study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that nearly 40 per cent of employees with high emotional intelligence report experiencing burnout. From nurses masking despair during COVID-19 surges to customer service representatives forcing smiles for hostile clients, the dark side of EI is quietly fuelling a burnout epidemic.
The increasing demand for emotional intelligence
Emotional labour — the emotional and mental effort required to regulate emotions to meet certain expectations — is often framed as a valuable skill in both professional and personal life. However, it can become a silent tax on mental health, disproportionately affecting those expected to perform it.
Consider the flight attendant who must stay calm when facing difficult passengers or the teacher who suppresses frustration to maintain classroom harmony. These roles demand surface acting or faking emotions, and acting, or internalizing them, both of which deplete emotional reserves — the mental and emotional ‘energy’ we use to manage stress, interact patiently, or regulate feelings.
Here’s the paradox: EI helps us navigate emotions, but it also heightens our sensitivity to others’ feelings. A 2024 study published in BMC Psychology reviewed multiple research studies and found that employees with high EI, measured by objective psychometric tests, often face greater emotional demands. They are frequently tasked with resolving conflicts or soothing distressed colleagues, blurring the lines between professional and personal boundaries.
Despite this, EI is increasingly considered a nonnegotiable ‘soft skill’ sought by employers across various industries. Platforms like LinkedIn glorify EI
as a hallmark of ‘successful’ individuals, creating pressure to curate emotionally polished online identities — digital personas that mask vulnerability to project constant composure and positivity.
For instance, a corporate professional might post, “Thrilled to lead another high-stakes project,” while concealing their burnout. These performances, rewarded with likes and career opportunities, blur the line between emotional labour and self-worth. The result? A generation of over-performers who equate their value with the ability to appear perpetually composed.
Job postings increasingly list EI as a requirement, pressuring employees to adopt personas that align with organizational expectations. A 2024 study in the Frontiers in Psychology found that Romanian managers operating in hierarchical work cultures experienced heightened burnout. Top executives with high EI faced greater emotional demands as their roles required constant emotional regulation to maintain authority and morale.
The rising demand for EI is reflected in educational practices, with universities now teaching it as a career-prep tool and incorporating it into résumébuilding seminars. However, in Nurse Education Today, students report anxiety about ‘failing’ to meet emotional benchmarks in academic settings. These expectations — maintaining positivity, demonstrating empathy, and managing conflict — are often subjective and unattainable, leaving students vulnerable to self-doubt and exploitation.
Unlike academic benchmarks, emotional benchmarks are open to interpretation, creating a high-stakes environment where students feel judged on their ability to perform emotional labour rather than demonstrate concrete skills.
This pressure is particularly evident in group projects and internships, where students often overextend themselves emotionally to avoid being labelled ‘difficult’ or ‘uncooperative.’ The absence of clear boundaries or institutional support exacerbates this vulnerability, leading to emotional exhaustion and burnout. Framing EI as a success metric risks reducing it to a tool for compliance, perpetuating a culture that prioritizes performative emotional labour over genuine growth and well-being.
The hidden costs of emotional labour
To be clear, emotional intelligence and emotional labour with our environments and the people in them are not the problem. The issue arises when EI becomes a burden or an undue expectation. Specifically, EI becomes problematic when certain social, cultural, and environmental pressures push individuals to perform emotional labour and manage both their own emotions and those of others in ways that undermine healthy emotional experiences, processing, and negotiation. As decades of psychological and social research have shown, emotions are essential to human flourishing, and suppressing or mismanaging them can lead to destructive tendencies and mental health issues.
However, not only is suppressing emotions unhealthy, but overextending them is as well. In environments and professional or gender roles that demand certain emotional qualities, emotional exhaustion and diminished authenticity are common outcomes.
For example, a 2024 study published in Behavioral Sciences examined how EI moderates the relationship between nurses’ preparedness to care for COVID-19 patients and their quality of work life. The study found that those with high EI experienced higher burnout rates. Their ability to empathize with patients’ suffering led to chronic stress, while hospitals relied on their emotional labour to compensate for systemic understaffing.
Additionally, in the context of parenthood and under patriarchal gender roles, mothers are expected to be masters of EI when raising children and creating a safe, nurturing home environment. The widely expected norm for fathers, however, is to provide materially and financially, but not necessarily emotionally. This leaves the emotional labour to the mother, and an overemphasis on EI can create a dissonance between genuine feelings and performed emotions.
A study by Jill Zambito titled “Octopus moms: the lived experiences of college students who are mothers” explores this phenomenon. The study examines the challenges faced by student mothers as they balance academic responsibilities
compassion may be able to maintain perspective, regulate their emotions, and return to a balanced state more quickly.
Self-love may have powerful physiological effects on the brain. According to Paul Gilbert — a psychology research professor at the University of Derby — self-compassion may enhance well-being by engaging the self-soothing oxytocin-opiate system.
Oxytocin — often referred to as the ‘“love hormone” — plays a key role in connecting with others and promoting positive feelings. In this way, self-love helps individuals feel cared for, connected, and emotionally calm because feelings of safety and security override feelings of insecurity and defensiveness.
Self-love isn’t about being perfect or having everything figured out: it’s about showing up for yourself, embracing your worth, and treating yourself with the same kindness you’d give others. Valentine’s Day is a great time to remember that your relationship with yourself is the foundation for all other connections. Take time to honour that!
and motherhood. One participant described managing multiple tasks as being a “robot.” This sentiment reflects the emotional dissonance many mothers encounter as they strive to meet societal expectations while suppressing their authentic emotions.
So, what happens when empathy — a common expression of EI — is weaponized by workplaces and centuries-old norms and expectations? Throughout history, empathy has helped our survival by enhancing interpersonal and community bonding and facilitating connections. But when empathy and other forms of emotional labour are weaponized solely for survival, rather than connection, it can lead to unintended consequences, such as emotional cynicism — distrust and pessimism towards others’ intentions.
Rethinking the narrative of EI
A groundbreaking 2024 study on the misuse of emotional labour in workplaces discusses how EI can be harmful to workers, specifically related to burnout and motivation. This challenges the prevailing view of EI as a purely positive force, revealing its potential harm when exploited by our workplaces. It also highlights the need to shift the conversation on EI — from viewing it as an individual responsibility to addressing systemic factors, such as unrealistic workload expectations and poor organizational support.
So, what do healthy emotional skills and intelligence look like in an emotionally demanding world? And how can we harness the benefits of EI without burning ourselves out? By redefining success, we can set and normalize emotional boundaries that are tailored to individual needs.
Also, systemic support and changes to address workplace inadequacies — such as understaffing, unreasonable demands, and lack of mental health days — can help distribute emotional labour more equally and justly across a team. Workplaces should also implement metrics to measure emotional workloads alongside traditional productivity measurements. As the saying goes, “If we can quantify it, we can manage it.”
These changes, paired with individual practices of self-compassion and rest, can truly foster healthier individuals, and, ultimately, healthier workplaces. True EI lies not in suppressing emotions, but in creating environments where authenticity and wellbeing coexist with professionalism.
An enactment of a student looking in the mirror. ABBY RUSSCHEN/THE VARSITY
Why does everyone want a mid white boy?
An East Asian woman’s reflection on the ‘Oxford study’
Charmaine Yu Opinion Editor
Dating is hard. Dating is even harder when you’re racialized.
I’ve encountered white men who would comment on my cultural foods, remark how good my English is, and refuse to learn how to use chopsticks. Upon learning that I’m from Hong Kong, they would go on a long spiel about how Wong Kar-wai is their favourite filmmaker and how they love the ‘Eastern meets Western culture’ vibe of the city. With a white man, I’ve never felt fully understood for who I am. Admittedly, I also found it difficult to understand them.
Things were different when I met my current boyfriend, an East Asian man. As he walked me home from our second date, hand-in-hand, through the late-evening chill, we talked about the different ways our families celebrate the Lunar New Year. I told him how, if only we had met a couple of months earlier, we could have celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival together — maybe even shared a mooncake.
The ease that came with knowing and understanding each other made me feel silly for trying to search for love in seemingly the wrong places; for the strange things I was willing to overlook in exchange for a love that felt more like a superficial prize than authentic intimacy. When we’re curled up on the couch, sharing a pot of oolong tea, I wonder what all of it was for.
It’s probably worth prefacing with some sort of qualifier right now. There is absolutely no problem with loving who you love regardless of race — to argue otherwise would be a recession of the rights that racialized people and interracial couples have fought for in the past century. At the same time, I think it is important to interrogate why racialized women might crave the white man’s validation in a society profiled based on their race and how the pursuit of being desired by the white gaze can warp sexual capital.
The ‘Oxford study’ phenomenon
The ‘Oxford study’ is in reference to a supposed study that claimed that interracial couples are commonly composed of an East Asian woman and a white man. In fact, it is so prevalent that the shorthand WMAF — white male Asian female — has also been coined to refer to this type of relationship.
The intermingling of East Asian women and white men began with a history of colonialism and imperialism: whether it be from Europeans colonizing Asian countries — such as what the British did to Hong Kong in 1841, or white soldiers being stationed at international base camps, such as American soldiers in post-World War II Japan. These events not only gave more opportunities for white men and Asian women to meet but also solidified the white man as the dominant subject within those relationships’ power dynamics. East Asian women, limited by economic opportunity, taking up sex work around base camps thus contributed to the stereotype of hypersexualization.
Simultaneously, history and legislation also played a part in the desexualization of Asian men, suggesting they lack sexual character or qualities. Due to xenophobic tensions between white Americans and Chinese Americans during the US’ Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, as well as laws that prevented Chinese women from immigrating to America as a result of suspicions
that they are sex workers, Chinese men were confined to more traditionally ‘feminine’ jobs, such as laundrymen. This removed the Chinese men from fulfilling traditional jobs that would allow them to perform masculinity.
In the media, Asian women are depicted as submissive to white men, and are even portrayed as grovelling for their attention, favouring men’s validation over relationships with other women. For example, in episode 10 of the second season of Sex and the City, main character Samantha — a white woman — dates a white man with an Asian woman named Sum as a servant. She is implied to be Thai, is soft-spoken, and bows her head in every interaction. Samantha’s boyfriend adores Sum’s servility and cooking, and defends her when Samantha reveals how Sum mistreats her in his absence.
Eventually, he breaks up with Samantha and the final scene shows Sum sneakily smiling at Samantha while pretending to cry in his arms.
This is one example from an episode that aired in 1999 that depicts the harmful stereotype of Asian women as caterers to men and eager to please, which appeals to patriarchal standards of femininity and masculinity.
Today, you might see comments on TikTok or Instagram which refer to the Oxford study under videos featuring WMAF couples. When the Oxford study became a meme, Asian women became the butt of many online jokes, with comments referring to them as “race traitors.”
From my experience clicking on the commenter’s accounts, they are usually Asian men whose comments seem to come from a certain sense of resentment over Asian women frequently having white — instead of Asian — boyfriends. Though, I’ve also seen white women refer to the Oxford study in a disparaging comment against WMAF couples, to suggest that white men go for Asian women because we are ‘easier’ to impress. According to them every Asian girl is a “white worshipper.”
Despite the prevalence of WMAF couples, there is no actual such Oxford study that proves that East Asian women are most attracted to white men, or that white men are most attracted to Asian women. Many may assume its validity upon hearing its academic-sounding name, but it’s a hallucinatory source.
This misnomer has permeated our culture so deeply that memes circulate the topic, WMAF couples are harassed online, and some people may feel determined to enter into a WMAF relationship due to its online romanticization and fetishization. An obsession with half-white, halfAsian babies — ‘wasians’ — probably also fuels this determination.
I’ve even heard Asian friends joke about white men they have a crush on, saying that they would “let him make me his Oxford study.”
Why do we love being loved by white boys?
Our societal obsession with pedestalling white men is evident in our media — even if some want to believe we’re heading toward a post-racial world. The online trend #whiteboyofthemonth on X is a self-reflexive meme imbued with irony to point out how often women fixate on white celebrities who are men — even if they’re mediocre in comparison to incredibly attractive, racialized celebrities.
Even in its light-hearted irony, #whiteboyofthemonth does the very same thing it attempts to critique. This meme is supposed
to be self-cynical yet continues to worship a new ‘white boy of the month’ by indulging our algorithms with photos of them. It feels a lot like a snake swallowing its own tail when trying to confront our platforming of white men.
We can talk for ages about the white male gaze’s fetishization and hypersexualization of Asian women in Western societies: how East Asian women are seen as cute, submissive, family-oriented, and generally have ‘desirably’ small and slender frames. The ugly side of all this is that racialized people can also fetishize whiteness and are willing to fetishize themselves for the white male gaze.
Some part of me always understood that the desire for men’s validation existed in myself, but white men’s validation was its own separate, more complicated experience, burdened with histories of colonialism, diaspora, and race. In a culture that perpetuates the notion of white men as the ideal image of masculinity through subconscious social norms and media — while Asian men are emasculated and asexualized — being desired by a white man feels like you could be desired by any man.
In a very honest conversation with my boyfriend, he admitted to feeling similarly about receiving attraction from white women. I can’t even fault him. I understand that if a white woman could be attracted to an Asian man — a group
When the Oxford study became a meme, Asian women became the butt of many online jokes, with comments referring to them as “race traitors.”
that is systemically overlooked in the dating pool — then he might feel like he is “beating the system” or “winning at the white man’s game.”
It’s also no secret that beauty standards have a strong correlation with race, including within Asian communities: large eyes, tall nose bridge, and pale skin. To me, they’re undeniably reminiscent of white features. It’s no wonder why an East Asian person would want to be pursued by someone who embodies physical traits that are considered ideally beautiful — even if it means a 10/10 Asian girl gets with a mid white boy.
White men desiring you is not only validating but more importantly, a form of sexual capital.
Fractures within the Asian community
Another reason I’ve heard Asian women being hesitant to date Asian men of their own culture is a gap in feminist views.
From my experience, I’ve seen no strong
direct correlation between a man’s race and his personal beliefs about feminism. I’ve met some Asian men who carry the patriarchal traditions rooted in their culture, but I also feel that my Asian boyfriend deeply respects my thoughts, opinions, and positionality as a woman. I’ve also met plenty of white men who have expressed many microaggressive ideas about gender. In any case, entering the dating pool is inherently a coin toss between meeting feminist and misogynistic men.
However, in an interview with The Varsity, Aksaamai Ormonbekova — a Kyrgyz secondyear student at U of T studying political science and visual studies — wrote that she finds it difficult to imagine dating a Central Asian man because they tend to have a patriarchal mindset. She adds, “That doesn’t mean… there are no Central Asian men that [have progressive views],” just that she wouldn’t be with a Central Asian man as long as he was “brought up” with traditionally patriarchal views like “putting women in the kitchen and pumping them with children at
“I definitely know that when an Asian man likes me it is not really because he thinks I am different,” said Ormonbekova. “[W]hereas I’ve had more senses of curiosity coming from [white] men I’ve talked to.”
The alternation between Ormonbekova’s encounters with white and Central Asian men demonstrates the implicit differences that Asian women experience when a white man is attracted to them. Moreover, it was interesting to see Ormonbekova talk about Asian men’s patriarchal mindset because I see these men growing resentful towards WMAF pairings and only responding to Asian women with more misogyny.
Members of the Asian Men’s Rights Movement (MRAsians) are a subculture of Asian-American men who often target and harass Asian women dating white men. While I think there are valid questions to ask about standing in solidarity with the men of your own race, to suggest that Asian women should only date Asian men extends into policing the bodies of Asian women.
Jake Takeuchi — a third-year JapaneseCanadian student at U of T studying English and political science — said in an interview with The Varsity that he believes MRAsians have “misplaced anger” and suggests there are other areas of the “power structure” we should be critiquing.
For example, he doesn’t see the same “emotional reaction” by MRAsians to how “Asian art has been appropriated.” This begs the question of whether Asian men’s resentment truly stems from an expectation that women should be culturally faithful, or specifically faithful to the men of their culture.
An article published in the 2021 Journal of Asian American Studies argued that MRAsians misuse theories of gender and race to critique the role that whiteness plays in ideals of masculinity, while positioning “Asian American male grievance in
fundamental opposition to feminism.”
The advocacy of wAsian men against racial discrimination should not oppose feminism; ideally, it stands in solidarity with it.
Rather than policing the sex lives of Asian women, attempting to dismantle the racial hierarchy would have a more structural impact if we examine how Western media emasculates and desexualizes Asian men. They are often portrayed as the nerdy comedic relief rather than the disarming leading man.
As Takeuchi notes, Asian men’s resentment against Asian women is probably “rooted in the male loneliness epidemic” and a “desire to be wanted sexually.” He adds that MRAsians’ feeling that the WMAF pairing is “unfair” is because of “some sort of ownership” over Asian women.
I believe this gender fracture within the diasporic Asian community is yet another symptom of white supremacy itself. It’s the classic ‘divide and rule’ tactic that made colonialism so successful. For example, when Asian men suggest that Asian women only date white men for money, they perpetuate long-standing stereotypes about Asian women and sex work, stereotypes that have contributed to horrifying rates of sexual violence and mass murder against Asian women.
For example, the 2021 Atlanta Spa shooting shows how the hypersexualized perception of Asian women being sex workers has led to violence perpetrated by white men.
I don’t think it’s difficult to understand why racialized men, particularly Asian men — who statistically receive the least attention on dating apps alongside Black women — grow resentful of a system that upholds white men as the pinnacle of masculinity. It’s also understandable to me why Asian men, feeling powerless within white supremacist structures, would feel an extra sense of betrayal when they see Asian women regularly
dating white men.
But Asian women are not the ones who can dictate the hetero-racial hierarchy; they too are marginalized. White women continue to be seen as the pinnacle of femininity, and when I’ve been attracted to white men, I’ve had to ask myself terrible things like, “What if he’s not into Asian girls?” or “Maybe he’d like me more if I were white, or hell, even half-white.”
On the other hand, being hypersexualized as an Asian woman and positioned as favourable or desirable romantic and sexual partners should never be seen as a ‘perk’ of the hetero-racial hierarchy. Desexualization and hypersexualization are two sides of the same coin, both carrying devastating consequences. While being systematically rejected in the dating pool is painful, it’s equally painful to be reduced to a mere porn category.
No theory for love
Love is complex and untheorizable. My own experiences cannot be generalized to every member of a racial group. As Takeuchi pointed out in one of our other conversations, perhaps I had just met “shitty white men.”
My past struggles with connecting with white men do not mean that interracial relationships between racialized and non-racialized people can never work. Takeuchi mentioned that he never felt a racial “disconnect” that affected his relationships with white women. If anything, it was the “relationship with [his former partners’] parents” that made things difficult. He believes “our generation is more tolerant and [has] seen more interracial relationships in their lives and media.”
Ormonbekova also said, “I am usually open to any race and can find any race attractive but I do see myself dating someone of mixed race or of
Asian descent if I want our cultural bond to be the premise of the relationship.”
There will always be limitations in interracial relationships involving a racialized and a nonracialized person, as the white partner may never fully understand the racialized experience, which can affect their perspective on the world. However, limitations are not unique to racial or cultural differences. They can arise from gender, age, religion, class, or family structures.
You simply have to ask yourself if you’re willing to accept that your partner may not fully comprehend your cultural or racial experiences and whether their other ways of understanding and relating to you can compensate for it.
Undeniably, the marginalization of Asian men reveals a history of systemic emasculation. As an Asian woman, it’s disheartening for me to see Asian men feeling undesired and unattractive. It’s certainly worth examining the complex relationship between race, social status, and sexual capital.
If you’re a racialized person who finds yourself seeking validation from white men because it feels more meaningful than other forms of sexual validation, I encourage you to reflect on why that might be. Ignoring racial dynamics and pretending we live in a post-racial, colour-blind society only reinforces white power structures.
It might be unfair to blame either Asian men or women for the Oxford study phenomenon, given that we’re both living under a societal framework built around whiteness. However, Asian men and women can start unpacking the hetero-racial structure by recognizing that we can be both victims and complicit in upholding it.
I’m no ‘reformed Asian woman’ for dating an Asian man — it will probably always feel different to be gazed upon by a white man. But, now, I don’t really feel the need to look if they’re gazing at me.
Arts & Culture
February 11, 2025
thevarsity.ca/category/arts-culture arts@thevarsity.ca
Finn Meiklejohn Varsity Contributor
The twink. You’ve likely seen him around campus. While I wouldn’t necessarily identify with that label, it’s been notably used on me in the classroom. Who exactly is the ‘twink?’ What does he want from me? From you?
The twink as myth and mirror In 2018, online discourse about the twink proliferated after the New York Times published an article by Nick Haramis, the Ontario-born former editor-in-chief of Interview Magazine . “Five inches shorter, naturally smooth, with a pronounced clavicle and a concave torso,” Haramis wrote, “twinks are young, attractive, hairless, slim men.”
Many queer writers responded to this, critiquing Haramis for his ahistorical viewpoint, lack of discussion of race, and unquestioning inclusion of straight celebrities as models of the twink. While I am not particularly interested in naming off so-called celebrity twinks, I am sure you can picture a few who stand in proximity to Haramis’ constructed idea.
Brian O’Flynn — a freelance writer at The Guardian — responded to Haramis, arguing that the twink is an afterlife of pederasty, an imaginary that allows for the continued reproduction of an adolescent, youthful innocence, always waiting to be deflowered.
Kadji Amin — an associate professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Emory University — defines pederasty as “any male same-sex relation… built around an eroticized differential of age or generation,” tracing its origins to ancient Greece. In his 2017 book, Disturbing Attachments, Amin explores pederasty’s willed detachment from age-differentiated gay relations, which create figures like “the daddy” and the twink for the political purpose of shaping a coherent “modern homosexuality.”
A friend of mine who plays in a gay volleyball league frequently
Divine Angubua Arts & Culture Editor
Apophasis
Content warning:
This article mentions the f-slur
you came wrapped in that special black dress, in uniform of the night, my Blackhole, Blackrocket, Blacklight my black of terror of soft light belly under lardy large hand, my black fag of anarchy dressed in the shape of my mourning of my nights, my animal, my sin
Loving the ideal of the ‘twink’ What does he demand of you?
recounts being called a twink by his older teammates. Is it a mix of desire and bitterness, fuelled by their own anxieties about a ‘lost’ adolescence in a gay culture that valorizes youth above all else? Perhaps this saturated feeling of both envy and erotic longing is what gives meaning to the modified term “demon twink.” His beauty adorns him, but also taints him. Such assumptions may lie in psychoanalytic narratives of homosexuality as inherently narcissistic — a search for the self in the other. Following one of Sigmund Freud’s delightful 1905 footnotes, the twink is seen to take “themselves as their sexual object… they proceed from a narcissistic basis and look for a young man who resembles themselves and whom they may love as their mother loved them .” Here, Freud theorizes on the origins of homosexuality — from self-affirming object choice and men's effeminacy — as arising due to an overbearing mother and absent father. Take that as you please.
As to whether alleged twinks are just looking to love each other, Jack Slater’s erotica novels may have an answer. In a 2023 article examining the work of queer thinker Leo Bersani, Slater explains that as the homo-narcissist subject searches
for the self in others, he “necessitates an identification of some parts of the world as too dangerous for the maintenance of the self.” This process perpetuates the othering that pervades contemporary cultural discourse, as seen in phenomena like racial bias on dating apps and the proliferation of clone-like queer men aesthetics.
The twink as racialized ideal As standard and norm, the ideal of the twink is always already racialized, even as he swishes his little bum down Church street or Ossington avenue.
Mikelle Street — former digital editorial director of PrideMedia — critiques Haramis’ failure to address the racialization of the twink, explaining that it is a “type of nuanced identity that Black men have historically been denied.” Street also points out that tropes of Black men as hypermasculine have hindered them from inhabiting the twink as an “alternative [effeminate] form of masculinity.”
my death, my devil come to drink this Afric’s Moor like golden milk from my shiny core take off that little black dress I said give me that froth of colour let me punish it, until the pink is so dark, so it is close to black the black is so black, so it is close to light, til our bodies are blown to heavenly bits, — nothingness. on those perfect blue sheets.
Applying British-Australian writer and scholar Sara Ahmed’s seminal 2007 article, “The phenomenology of whiteness,” the figure of the twink, imbued with whiteness, can be seen as the “unmarked… centre against which others appear only as deviant, or points of deviation." Queer men are conditioned to seek and valorize the twink, to find him in glances on the subway or reflections of a torso in a Grindr tile — above all, to place greater value on his body than others.
The figure of the twink, and his unmarked place as a central ideal of queer men's culture, must be understood historically. My so-called Hinge ‘standouts’ are insistently those who most closely approximate him.
The twink is relentlessly at work, attempting to hierarchize queer men's bodies through racialized, gendered, physical, and classed demands. He beckons you to become him. If I may rephrase the words of eminent queer American writer Edmund White: “[his] beauty [stands] between us like an enemy.”
CHLOE WESTON/THEVARSITY
SIYA SHARMA/THE VARSITY
Love and Colonialism: VCDS’s 71 presents a story of home and hopelessness
71 explores forms of love less often talked about: love for a language, culture, and homeland.
think it’s important for us to know,” she shared. “I grew up in Bangladesh, and it’s an important time we’re taught about every year.”
understand,” said Mahmood.
Content warning: This article describes violence and mentions sexual violence.
Birds sing, and light from a window passes through a pale ghost, reflecting off glistening brown skin. Naznin lies on her bed, listening to soft rock. The spirit rises up from her fetal position, and her two roommates begin quarrelling about the music.
Victoria College Drama Society’s (VCDS) 71 explores less common forms of love: love for a language, culture, and homeland. Written and directed by third-year psychology and drama major Mashreka Mahmood, the play follows Dhaka University student Naznin (Fifi Chowdhury), her friends and family, and a petulant Victorian ghost (Artemis Riedmuller) as she navigates her role during the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971 — the year that gives the play its title.
Before the war, modern-day Bangladesh— then known as “East Pakistan” — was part of Pakistan. For three decades, the more politically dominant region of West Pakistan culturally marginalized and economically exploited the region. Rising tensions between the region culminated in a nationalist uprising, during which Operation Searchlight — a brutal military campaign by the West Pakistani junta — resulted in the death and displacement of millions of Bengalis. Bangladesh ultimately declared independence in December 1971.
What stood out from the very first scene was the production’s captivating atmosphere. Despite being performed on a black box stage, the sound of birdsong, delicate lighting, the clinking of cooking utensils, and the noise of rickshaws and spirited protest — combined with a rich array of props — lent itself to an immersive, nostalgic experience.
The play follows the charismatic 21-year-old Naznin as she grapples with her identity and family responsibilities while joining a militia group at her university. When a demonstration goes awry, the invading Pakistani army abducts her. After managing to escape, she seeks refuge with a rural Bengali family before the invading army tragically murders them too. Naznin stabs the infiltrators and escapes once more. Upon returning to her house in Dhaka, she finds no one home.
The Varsity spoke with Mahmood about why this story mattered to her. “My grandfather was a freedom fighter. He doesn’t like to talk about it. Part of it is the trauma, but part of it is that he doesn’t
71 featured emotionally intense portrayals of the war’s violence and brutality, immersing viewers in its harrowing reality. Among the most devastating moments is Naznin’s abduction, which marks her as a victim of one of the most horrific instances of mass sexual violence in recent history. This raw intensity culminates in Chowdhury and Riedmuller’s hauntingly sincere and fearful exchange during the prison scene in a devastating back and forth.
While I initially questioned the effectiveness of the unsubtle ‘colonial ghost’ character, the thoughtful handling of the role and Riedmuller’s compelling performance convinced me of the character’s importance to the story.
The show effectively portrayed the horror of sexual violence without restoring to vulgarity or compromising the grace of the performances for mere shock value. “The people that understand,
We learn in the show that one of the great motivators for the uprising against the Pakistani state was the Bangladeshi people’s struggle for the legitimacy of their language... ” “
Despite its grand historical setting, the play focuses on Naznin’s personal experiences of nationhood. After escaping from her abductors, she takes refuge in the home of a rural Bengali family. Her time with the family gives us a heartfelt look at the Hindu-Muslim fraternity. Here, we get a few serene moments as Mother (Tahsinmah Ahmed Aria) oils Naznin’s hair on the porch.
We learn in the show that one of the great motivators for the uprising against the Pakistani state was the Bangladeshi people’s struggle for the legitimacy of their language, which had been suppressed in official capacities.
It was a powerful decision, then, to have much of the play performed in Bangla, with — at times, inconveniently placed — captions projected for the audiences to read. Interestingly, scenes performed in English were also given subtitles in Bangla.
“Finding a Bengali speaking cast was the
biggest challenge… Most of the cast are on stage for the first time.” Unfortunately, this was apparent in some moments. Despite not speaking the language, I could sense the hesitancy of some actors — both linguistically and dramatically.
While the decision to incorporate so many scenes in Bangla was imaginative and somewhat bold, parts of the extended cast seemed visibly uncomfortable on stage. Sacrificing acting ability for language proficiency, or vice-versa may have been worth it — but to settle was mediocrity in both I felt, was not a good decision.
Still, some first-timers managed to pull themselves together, delivering respectable performances during key emotional scenes. David Omar, as Baba, was bumbling and aloof when needed, yet powerfully captured the pain of a father limping through the rubble, desperately calling out for his daughter, whom he would never see again.
Sulaiman Hashim Khan Theatre Columnist
The show effectively portrayed the horror of the sexual violence without compromising its grace. COURTESY OF DUA SIDDIQUI
Kinks:
Are we really more open?
Truly embracing unique fantasies requires more than just removing outdated medical labels. ” “
Sexual openness is no longer taboo, but outdated stigmas may still be holding us back
fetishes. Films like Babygirl, television shows such as Normal People, and podcasts like Come
health, identity, and sex positivity without diluting their importance.
acceptable.
Discussions about sex and relationships are more normalized than ever — or at least, that’s what we like to believe. TV shows and movies like Euphoria, The L Word, and Bottoms promote sex-positive messages, showcasing diverse expressions of desire and intimacy. But does this openness extend to all kinks and fetishes, or do certain fantasies still face judgment and stigma beneath the surface?
From stigma to acceptance
Older generations often prioritized tradition and privacy over open conversations about sex, particularly when it came to anything outside societal norms. Interests beyond conventional sex were frequently dismissed as ‘abnormal.’
For many years, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders categorized kinks as mental illness, disregarding the possibility of consensual and positive exploration. This perception persisted despite research from Psychology Today showing that consensual Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism (BDSM) practices enhance relationship satisfaction. The manual was finally updated in 2013 to correct this, but the International Classification of Diseases did not revise its false classification of kinks and fetishes until 2022.
These medical classifications reflected societal fears of deviating from traditional relationship models and forms of intimacy. Increased sex education for younger generations has helped unlearn many of the deep-rooted judgments society perpetuated over time.
Although progress has been made, stigmas around sexual fantasies still persist. Truly embracing unique fantasies requires more than just removing outdated medical labels.
From Sex Education to social media
It’s undeniable that mainstream media plays a massive role in shedding light on kinks and
As You Are have introduced these discussions to broader audiences. These depictions help reshape opinions by framing sexual interests as a complex aspect of identity. Social media platforms such as Reddit, TikTok, and X also foster the space to engage these complexities through meaningful conversations. Here, individuals share experiences and seek answers to explore their interests and curiosities.
One of the most notable examples of this shift in mainstream media is Netflix’s Sex Education. Praised by critics and audiences for its refreshing approach to diversity and sexuality, the series skillfully explores a wide array of sexual interests, from BDSM to asexuality. Its humour doesn’t come from mocking these topics but from portraying the relatable awkwardness teenagers face while navigating relationships. The show thoughtfully examines themes of consent, reproductive
Sex Education sparks discussions around these subjects much like Sex and the City explored sexual liberation, Fleabag confronted complex relationships and desire, and Secretary challenged traditional ideas about BDSM and power dynamics.
Beyond the taboo
Despite increasing openness about sex, interest in BDSM or foot fetishes still often raises eyebrows. People tend to follow unspoken rules about what is and isn’t sexually acceptable, and conversations about kinks or fetishes are frequently seen as inappropriate, depending on the time and place.
Research from the Westland Academy of Clinical Sex Therapy reveals that cultural and gender norms significantly influence perceptions of when and where discussions about kinks and fetishes are deemed
Mini crossword: A Truth Universally Acknowledged
ACROSS
1. Catchy song, in today’s slang 4. “______ is a promise that May is bound to keep” 7. Knightley of the 2005 adaptation of 3-down 8. Bestow 9. Two out of nine?
DOWN
1. Prepare, as a cake 2. Word before house or book
3. Austen’s ______ and Prejudice 5. Press 6. The Ten Commandments, etc.
Ashley Wong Varsity Contributor
For most people, the biggest barrier to selfexploration isn’t a lack of curiosity, but the fear of judgment. Concerns about rejection or discomfort often discourage individuals from sharing or exploring their kinks with partners, underscoring that many fantasies remain excluded from mainstream acceptable despite societal progress.
University students are often at the forefront of self-discovery. For many, being in university is a time to push boundaries, redefine what is acceptable, and transform conversations about sexuality.
Despite progress toward greater acceptance, we must move beyond surfacelevel acknowledgment of these topics. What we need most are education, respect, and open minds. A world where desires can be explored without shame is closer than ever. We may not be there yet, but we’re definitely moving forward.
WINTER KRAEMER/THE VARSITY
Ashley Thorpe Varsity Contributor
Opinion
February 11, 2025
thevarsity.ca/cateogory/opinion
opinion@thevarsity.ca
The Varsity asked three students to reflect on financial dating expectations
Kamilla Bekbossynova, Mckenzie Duffy & Meagan Mellor
Varsity Contributors
Social media has caused a frenzied discourse surrounding whether you should split the bill and go 50-50 on a date. Some people refuse to go on a second date when their date asks to go 50-50. Since men covering the bill is a social construct with hetero-patriarchal roots, how might the dynamics of financial expectations play out in straight and queer relationships?
The Varsity asked three students, offering straight and queer perspectives, whether or not they support going 50-50 on a date.
Splitting the bill feels like a scam
When women are already economically disadvantaged, I believe it is simply unfair to expect them to split the bill on a date with a man. According to Ontario’s Pay Equity Office, the gender wage gap persists, with white women earning only 87 per cent of what white men make on average — and the disparity would be even larger with women of colour. The expectation to go 50-50 on dates is emblematic of a society that hasn't yet fully acknowledged or corrected its systemic gendered economic inequality. If women don’t earn equal pay, why should they be expected to pay equally on a date?
In addition to the unequal financial aspect, there’s the reality of unattainable beauty standards. Women are held to unrealistic ideals of beauty and are expected to spend countless amounts of time and money on makeup, grooming, and attire. Yet, men aren’t faced with this expectation — at least not nearly to the same degree. They don’t have to deal with the pressure
of meeting societal beauty standards in the same way women are expected to look ‘effortlessly perfect.’
Moreover, there is the issue of safety. While men worry about how much they’re spending, women on dates have to assess whether the venue is safe if their date is trustworthy, and if they’ll get home safely — especially at night. Asking women to go 50-50 when they’re already carrying this mental load isn’t just financially unfair as it ignores the reality that women’s safety, autonomy, and comfort are compromised in ways men don’t have to consider.
Expecting women to financially contribute equally without acknowledging these extra responsibilities overlooks the broader inequities they navigate daily. Until we address the deeper and systematic gender imbalances, splitting the check feels like a misguided ‘step toward equality’ that fails to tackle the larger inequities at play.
Kamilla Bekbossynova is a fourth-year UTM student studying English. She was the UTM bureau chief for The Varsity’s Volume CXLIV.
I’m there to meet you, not your money
The automatic expectation that your date should pay for everything undermines what I believe is the true purpose of dating: getting to know each other and forming a genuine connection. While many people — including myself — appreciate when a date offers to pay the bill, I think it is ridiculous to expect that they will.
I believe a healthy relationship is built on mutual respect and communication, not financial obligation. When you approach dates with the mindset that each party is responsible for paying
their own costs, you create a more authentic experience that is based on compatibility and human connection instead of rigid financial expectations.
If your decision to pursue someone after the first date is entirely dependent on whether or not they pick up the bill, I think you should reflect on your reasons for going on a date in the first place. Are you looking to form a genuine connection with someone or are you looking for a surfacelevel experience and a free meal?
I’m always prepared to pay for my share of whatever activity a date entails. If I know I can’t afford it, I try to suggest that we do something else when planning the date. It’s okay to enjoy having a partner cover your expenses, as it's a sweet gesture that demonstrates they appreciate your time and company. However, if upholding this expectation is essential for your partner, I think this should be established later on in a relationship once you’ve gotten to know each other better.
Going 50-50 should always be the financial norm, especially on the first or second date. It demonstrates respect for the other person’s financial resources and allows for the development of a connection based on who you are as individuals, instead of what you can provide.
Mackenzie Duffy is a first-year student at Woodsworth College studying social science.
Consider cost-free options
As a queer person, dating has a layer of complexity that heterosexual dynamics don’t. As someone who is ‘masc-leaning,’ men that I go on dates with typically assume I want to ‘go Dutch,’
while women assume I should pay because it’s expected of ‘men’ to cover the bill.
To avoid awkward conversations, I prefer dates that are either free or have an element where both parties contribute to the bill. Personally, I love pot-luck picnics for these exact reasons: you can meet in a convenient public space, see how much effort someone puts into what they bring, determine their tastes, and get a good idea of their budget.
A more winter-friendly option is to have people over for dinner and ask them to bring something to enjoy too. Obviously, they’re the dessert, but for the main meal, it’s nice to share a meal you’ve both contributed to.
Overall, I think dates should be about connecting and spending quality time with someone you’re interested in, not breaking the bank. Love is free, so why shouldn’t we find dates that are free, too? I don’t think you should feel forced to pay for someone just because it’s expected of you, no matter if you’re in a queer or straight relationship. If you can’t afford to or simply don’t want to, you shouldn’t feel pressure to pay, especially if you’re not in a relationship with that person. Paying for someone fosters a sense of commitment and dependence, so you don’t have to spend more than just your time on someone you’re unsure about. If you commit, I think it depends on your relationship’s unique dynamic. For example, the bill could be split according to disposable income rather than gender.
Femininity shouldn’t automatically equal receiving free stuff. Your partners who are men and masc deserve to be spoiled too!
Meagan Mellor is a second-year student at New College studying English.
AUDREY KIM/THE VARSITY
Yes, the Aphrodite Project works
A testimony from someone who found love
Cypress Chernik Magazine Assistant
February 14: the fateful day of hopes, expectations, and sometimes let-downs.
Last Valentine’s Day, I had seven straight hours of lectures that ended with food truck poutine in Sidney Smith at 8:00 pm. My Wednesdays normally felt interminable, but not that day — my dinner was accompanied by a text conversation with my Aphrodite Project match, which felt like I was talking to someone that I had been looking for my whole life.
The Aphrodite Project is a match-making service launched in 2019 that matches participants to each other from their own or other post-secondary institutions worldwide. Participants fill out a questionnaire with their privacy guaranteed and their most compatible match — or sometimes two — gets revealed to them on February 14. Participants can then choose to reach out to their matches or not.
Clicking a few buttons on a questionnaire has turned into a relationship that I am happy to say is nearing its one-year point — a fact often met with surprise. When my boyfriend and I started seeing each other, my friends questioned the longevity of the match, as it seemed an unlikely match.
Moreover, I know many people who signed up for the project who never reached out to their matches either because they didn’t like their profile photo, or they had no motivation to do so. To me, this seems like a big loss. What’s the worst that can happen? I believe that anyone would benefit from taking a chance by reaching out to their match — even if they aren’t their usual type — and being open to this unique experience.
Origins of the Aphrodite Project
Based on psychological and economic principles, the match-making questionnaire incorporates the five ‘OCEAN’ personality traits, which measure participants in five categories: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The project uses the Gale-Shapley algorithm by matching up each participant’s preferences with each other.
At first, it seemed dystopian to find myself in a relationship predetermined by an algorithm that knew only basic facts about my personality. Love is complicated, but during the first few months of my courtship with my boyfriend Dwhanil, I felt like there was something magical in the way our values and lifestyles lined up.
There were a number of facts about my boyfriend that would have made me reject him if he had approached me in person — him being four years older than me and a business student being the main offenders. However, this is exactly why I think the Aphrodite Project works.
In an interview with The Varsity, project founder Aiden Low said that his motivation was ultimately to create a more organic online dating platform.
“People just felt disposable on dating apps,” he said, referring to existing matchmaking services. He also described seeing a transgender friend struggle with dating, which pushed him to “Create a place where people could come as they are and meet someone.”
Dhwanil used dating apps for about a year before we met and he similarly said that they “Always made me feel sort of incomplete even when I was going out on dates with a lot of people… instead of focusing on things which you can pick and choose to make it work, you are left picking and choosing things that are going to be the end of the relationship.”
However, as the Aphrodite Project’s process focuses on romantic compatibility as shared values and compatibility, there is less room for human prejudice, which is a near-inescapable flaw of the typical dating experience.
Visual anonymity
Though the Aphrodite Project’s team is accepting feedback on ways to incorporate appearance into the matching process, I believe that there is no way to do this without compromising the inclusivity that the platform fosters. Low recalled how his team received five hate emails in 2021 when they included height specifications in the questionnaire.
On the other hand, people sometimes take issue with the project’s disregard for physical attributes when creating matches — a feature that has evidently been difficult to implement in Aphrodite. However, I would argue that visual anonymity is one of its strengths.
“You don’t see the picture of the person… until you’ve already matched with them. So you’re not necessarily selecting the person based on how they look,” said Dhwanil. In the same way that it allowed me to take a chance on a person who I probably would have never interacted with based on superficial traits I had preconceptions about,
sometimes someone’s appearance needs to take a secondary role to other aspects they possess.
Connecting with others and yourself
Low has participated in the project every year, once in the romantic stream and in the platonic stream all other times. He says, “I think something really uncanny is how well two people can connect. I felt it myself too.”
Now, when I re-read messages with my boyfriend and me from the first day we matched, I am always struck by the way we connected. Despite having different upbringings and cultures, we related to each other in a profound way. “I could see that eventually, this is going to be the person I can create our own little vocabulary with,” Dhwanil told me while reflecting on our first few days of chatting. The Aphrodite Project ended up being extremely worthwhile for me. I met someone who is now an irreplaceable part of my life, but even if I hadn’t, I would have still learned something about myself through the questionnaire.
Cypress Chernik is a second-year student at Trinity College studying political science and Slavic languages. She is a magazine assistant for The Varsity.
Romance is placed above friendship in almost every aspect of our lives.
To be in a romantic relationship is undeniably compelling — nearly all of us want it at some point in our lives. At least, we feel like we should want it, and why wouldn’t we? In this highly individualistic society, a romantic relationship provides us with another person who we can depend on.
You are devoted to each other, potentially share a home, have a dog, maybe kids — the list goes on. Being in a romantic relationship is an agreedupon shorthand for having someone who will help you deal with the stress of life, someone who will prioritize you and your relationship above all else.
The line between friendship and romance appears at first glance to be clearly defined. You might be friends with your romantic partner, but you’re definitely not romantic with your friends. In heteronormative societies, the core friendships in people’s lives are between them and members of their same gender, while their romantic partners are people of the opposite gender, forming a clear distinction between the two.
As a lesbian and for many other queer people, this distinction is no longer as apparent; my closest friends are women and my hypothetical
Friendship
is
romantic
Reconsidering the place of friendship in our lives
romantic partner would presumably be a woman as well. Another common difference between friendships and romance is sex and physicality, but as an asexual person, that is not a factor in my life either. Regardless, friendship can be just as fulfilling as romantic relationships — it just depends on how we frame its value.
The role of friendship remains unstable
If romantic relationships are defined by a commonly agreed set of norms about how those relationships function, friendships are left nebulous and uncertain unless clearly defined by the participants. In a monogamous romantic relationship, it is implicit that you are each other’s ‘person’ and love them dearly.
From the media we consume to popular culture around us, romance is placed above friendship in almost every aspect of our lives. We can see this when eight of Billboard’s top 10 songs of both 2023 and 2024 featured romantic themes.
What is a friendship then? There is no clearly defined role for how a friend functions in our lives. A friend can vary from someone you grab a quick lunch with to someone who knows you and supports you better than anyone else. A friend can be a major source of community and support,
but that close relationship is not implicit in the word ‘friendship’ the way it is with ‘romance.’
In Canada, for example, it is much easier to designate legal responsibilities and benefits such as healthcare between spouses or common-law partners. While romantic relationships have a place in our legal system, a friend is seen as too arbitrary to define.
Queering friendship
In our modern day, there is pressure to avoid burdening your friends and to never ask too much of them. Where it is socially acceptable to expect a romantic partner to take care of you when you are sick, it can feel like too much of a burden to ask that of your friends. Yet, when I have been at my lowest, it has been my friends who have helped me, even at an inconvenience to themselves, and I would gladly do the same for them.
My best friend is one of my favourite people in the world. We live together, we share resources, and I want to be a part of her life for the rest of mine. We don’t have a physical component to our relationship, but our friendship otherwise appears to fulfill many of the established norms of a romantic relationship. Where do we draw the line between friendship and romantic relationships?
The difference, I argue, is intent. The way that society is structured provides an accepted script and infrastructure for the role of romance but not for friendship, which is not taken as seriously. If we make a conscious effort to prioritize the friendships in our lives, would those friendships not become as important and fulfilling as we currently hold romance up to be?
There is only such a stark divide between friendship and romance because we have constructed one — and we can deconstruct it as well.
If we let ourselves be a burden to our friends, and let them burden us in return; if we take our friends out to dinner and co-parent a cat with them; if we create a framework in which we treat our friendships with as much care and priority as we currently afford romantic relationships, we won’t feel such pressure to fit ourselves into a romantic relationship in order to feel complete. The line between friendship and romance is fake. Let’s do what we want with it.
Joni Maguire is a first-year student at Victoria College studying English and creative writing. They are an editor for LOAD and The Muse Magazine.
When I re-read messages between my boyfriend and I from the first day, I am always struck by the way we connected. VIRAG TAKACS/THE
ANTHONY GRECO/THE VARSITY
Joni Maguire Varsity Contributor
Hookup culture betrays women
Casual sex boasts serious consequences — not liberation
Kallea Bes Varsity Contributor
Hookups have become a common part of modern sexual dynamics. Whether you’ve experienced one, know someone who has, or have seen it online, hookups have become a big part of today’s sex and dating cultures. University students have been one of the biggest advocates for this form of sexual behaviour.
While our media often promotes hookup culture as a symbol of sexual liberation — especially for women — I believe it ultimately upholds many of the same patriarchal values that it claims to challenge. Far from being a symbol of sexual freedom, hookup culture reinforces traditional gender roles, perpetuates double standards, and creates a pseudo-feminist environment that ultimately degrades women.
Double standards and contradictions
When I started university, I felt an overwhelming pressure to embrace my sexuality and experiment. It felt as if being sexually active was a way to gain autonomy in my sexual identity and myself. The men around me were praised for having multiple sexual partners, while women — myself included — were labelled with derogatory terms like ‘slut’ and ‘whore,’ for being sexually active, regardless if we were actually having sex.
Sexual double standards become especially apparent when looking at the social consequences of casual sex. A 2015 study conducted on sexual double standards in American colleges shows that both men and women tend to view women more negatively when it comes to sexual behaviour. Researchers found that participants who are men and women both belittled women who hooked up while drunk, calling them “diseased” or “slutty,” while men faced little to no negative judgement for the same actions.
This unequal treatment reveals the deeprooted gender biases that shape discrimination, even in spaces that are supposed to be progressive and liberated such as universities. If
we want hookup culture to truly be a sexually liberal space, people must not contradict themselves by simultaneously shaming women who participate in it.
Ambiguity of language and sexual scripts
When a friend tells me they’re hooking up with someone, I usually wonder what that actually means. Is it a one-night stand? A recurring late-night booty call? Or have they entered the murky waters of a ‘situationship?’ I think the fact that the term ‘hooking up’ is intentionally vague reflects how our modern hookup culture uses ambiguous language as a shield to protect participants’ identities from the potential social embarrassment attached to casual sex.
I believe there are a few reasons for this ambiguity. For men, it helps preserve their ‘masculine’ status. In today’s society, having a higher amount of sexual encounters is often seen as proof of a man’s ‘dominance’ and masculinity.
Yet for women, the ambiguity helps protect their reputations by allowing them to engage in sexual activity without being labelled as promiscuous or losing their ‘good girl’ image. This ambiguity ultimately perpetuates hegemonic masculinity: the cultural idea that men must assert power and dominance — particularly in sexual relationships — while women are expected to be passive and compliant.
The ambiguity of ‘hooking up’ also reinforces the ‘unspoken assumptions’ around gender roles in dating scenarios, by following what sociologists specializing in gender and sexuality studies call “sexual scripts.” These are unwritten, culturally ingrained expectations for how men and women should behave in romantic and sexual contexts, enforcing gender stereotypes by labelling men as ‘pursuers’ for being dominant and favouring casual sex while women are the ‘gatekeepers’ who favour relational sex.
The sexual script is additionally dangerous because it perpetuates the idea that if women are sexually assertive, it poses a potential threat to men’s social dominance. By belittling and enforcing the idea that women should be
Online trends and internet advice are ruining real-life relationships
Is comparison killing connection?
Evelyn Ritsaki Varsity Contributor
I think we can all agree that we’ve found ourselves scrolling through the internet, asking ourselves “why aren’t they paying attention to me?” or “what am I doing wrong in my relationships?”
In today’s digital age, it seems like the internet has become our best friend. Social media apps like TikTok have become our virtual confidants, shaping opinions, influencing behaviours, and even redefining how we approach relationships. As the internet continues to serve as a modernday relationship guru, blindly following algorithmdriven advice is harming real-life relationships more than helping them.
Buzzwords and TikTok wisdom
Online relationship advice talks a lot about “never settling for less”, or that “if he wanted to, he would” — which involves constant discourse on ‘red flags’ that cause random strangers on TikTok to question relationships based on these arbitrary, generic guidelines.
While it might seem that these mantras support and uplift neglected partners, it disregards the complexities of human behaviour, emotions, and context. It is true that people sometimes neglect their partner because they aren’t interested enough. But other times, people may simply lack the emotional capacity, be unaware of their partner’s feelings, or struggle with unresolved internal conflicts. To generalize all behaviour into one basic formula is not only unfair but
also ignores how complex and unique human relationships really are.
A study by the dating app Flirtini found that 46 per cent of participants experienced relationship struggles after following TikTok dating advice, with 23 per cent reporting that such advice directly contributed to a breakup. People prioritize social media validation over genuine communication with their partners, resulting in misunderstandings and unnecessary breakups. We have a tendency to forget how important communication is with our partner and instead create imagined scenarios without seeing their perspective.
Internet approved behavior undermines authenticity
Real and lasting relationships require a lot of tolerance. Loving involves recognizing that the other person has flaws and moments of doubt
ashamed of their sexual desires and histories, it keeps them in an inferior position, allowing men to stay on top — pun intended. And, in my opinion, hookup culture is not actually freeing until we stop judging women’s sexual choices.
When it comes to destabilizing the foundation of social scripts, I think it’s important to consider how we speak and think about women’s sexual autonomy, so that there is less fear around women being sexually assertive and pursuing sexual relationships.
Illusion of liberation
I used to think hookup culture offered women the chance to experience sexual liberation, but over time, I have come to realize that it’s more of a pseudo-feminist ideal. It gives the illusion of liberation without enabling true freedom since the rhetoric around women who hook up with others simply perpetuates environments where women continue to live in fear and shame.
This idea makes it seem like women are allowed to have casual sex without the fear of
social judgement — but when their behaviour becomes publicly known, they are judged nonetheless. The pseudo-feminist ideal reflects a broad misunderstanding of what I believe true sexual liberation looks like — deconstructing the gendered expectations in sexual contexts, so both men and women can explore their sexual desires without gender-based judgement.
I’m not saying that there isn’t a place for hookup culture in today’s society — if you want to have casual sex, friends with benefits, or a situationship, then by all means, go ahead.
My argument is that calling hookup culture ‘sexually freeing’ and believing that it does not produce any negative repercussions for women is naive. While hookup culture may seem like a step in the right direction towards sexual liberation by allowing women to express their sexual desires, it still perpetuates gender inequality by reinforcing traditional gender roles and harmful sexual double standards.
True sexual liberation would mean everyone could explore their desires without judgement or societal pressures — something hookup culture often fails to provide.
Kallea Bes is a third-year student at University College studying global health and English.
just like you — and the only way to solve issues is by communicating it.
Advice trending online often undermines authenticity in relationships by encouraging individuals to adopt behaviours or personas that don’t align with their true selves. Instead of enhancing our individuality, we replace it with behaviours that fail to reflect our values or needs. I believe this disconnection from ourselves ultimately leads to feelings of emptiness and isolation, despite the temporary sense of control it may give us over our relationships.
On the other hand, I acknowledge that taking advice from the internet can have a positive impact on us at times. The “Let Them” theory has changed my perspective.
By adopting this theory — suggesting that if someone wants to be with you, they will put the effort in to do so and if they don’t, they wouldn’t — I saved myself from unnecessary disappointments and helped me invest my energy in people who truly value me. Many relationship struggles stem from wondering “Why didn’t they text back?” or “Why are they distant?” It frees you from overanalyzing small things and learning to respect yourself. Instead of clinging to relationships out of fear of being alone, you trust that the right people will stay without being forced.
Lessons in self-worth
Personally, I have only been in one relationship in my life back in high school. There may have been arguments, but the main issue in our relationship was the constant confusion. I often questioned whether he felt the same way about me as I did about him.
My feelings for that person were so intense that I lost myself. In the end, I was holding onto a relationship where my feelings were not reciprocated in the same way. I gave many chances, made compromises, begged, and broke down, only to humiliate myself by chasing after a love that wasn’t mutual. Instead of clinging to relationships out of fear of being alone, trust that the right people will stay without being forced.
Watching online advice videos has helped me understand my worth and how important it is to have boundaries. However, at the same time, I won’t deny that it has also made me lose my sense of identity and authenticity. Many times, I’ve caught myself pretending to be indifferent so I can show that I’m ‘irresistible’ and that I don’t really care if things don’t end up going somewhere because ‘it’s his loss, not mine.’
Deep down, I knew that wasn’t truly me. I’m a person with feelings, not a robot, and it’s normal to feel sad and hurt when a relationship fails. How beautiful would it be to simply let ourselves love, hurt, and experience every moment without fear and overthinking, while still remembering our worth?
In the end, relationships aren’t built on trends or viral advice but on genuine connection, communication, and self-respect. While we can learn a lot of things through social media, we should always stay true to ourselves and embrace relationships authentically, without outside influence causing us to lose who we are.
Evelyn Ritsaki is a fourth-year student at UTSC studying marketing.
SIYA SHARMA/THE VARSITY
VICKY HUANG/THE VARSITY
Sports
February 11, 2025
thevarsity.ca/section/sports sports@thevarsity.ca
What I talk about when I talk about baseball A love letter to the Tokyo Yakult Swallows
Jake Takeuchi Sports Editor
“Like a mallet lightly tapping the edge of the universe, There’s a slight plunk. It makes me wonder — Why in the world do I cheer on a team like this? This itself is a kind of — Riddle as huge as the universe.”
“The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection,” — First Person Singular, Haruki Murakami
I don’t remember the moment I fell in love; it’s just always been. Like any good childhood memory, all I can present to you are a few fleeting vignettes.
Grandpa presents an orange towel in one hand and an umbrella in the other, like Neo from The Matrix
At each stop, the carriage would pick up more jerseys, umbrellas — inexplicably —, and young hands clutching baseball gloves. Watching the copy sway to the beat of the tracks.
The outdoor sky is a pristine blue, the kind you can only find in summer. Watching it slowly fall into the sunset, the way my grandparents’ kimonos flowed from the ceiling in the shop window. Getting sleepier with each inning, slowly blinking to find the bright floodlights turning Meiji Jingu Stadium into a lucid spaceship.
If you’ve ever been to a stadium before, you’ll know this euphoric sensation. That moment your stomach drops, the wall of noise hits you, the ecstatic anticipation builds. It’s a religious experience. The stands, the stadium lights, and the monochrome seats are arranged around this holy, blank, theatrical space. The pop of the crowd after a goal, home run, or game-winning basket — like falling in love. I think I’ve been chasing this high my whole life.
But with the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, it’s different.
Romantic and sexual metaphors are not apt. Maybe it’s because — true to Swallows form — I’ve never actually seen the team win a live game. Maybe it’s because I fell in love at an age when I was still impressed by anthropomorphic cars, trains, and rodent newspaper editors. Whatever the case, the love I feel for the Swallows is a familiar kind of love. I left Japan before I hit puberty, playing soccer adjacent to their stadium, picking at scabs and fishing turf infill out of my socks. I miss it all.
The Tokyo Yakult Swallows are a professional baseball team based in Shinjuku, Tokyo, playing in the Nippon Professional Baseball league.
The team was founded in 1950 and is owned by Yakult, the company known for its sweet probiotic drink in those small one-shot bottles. The Swallows have a reputation as the plucky, perennial underdogs, with consistent success being rare throughout their history.
Baseball is a big deal in Japan. It leads soccer by a significant margin as the most popular sport in the country. The ‘Koshien’ high school baseball championships are a national cultural event. Over 40 per cent of Japanese households watched every game of the 2023 World Baseball Classic, despite the games being held early in the morning. Baseball occupies a similar cultural space in Japan that of ice hockey in Canada.
My love for the Swallows is inseparable from their ballpark, Meiji Jingu Stadium. Meiji Jingu is the second-oldest stadium in Japan and one of only four ballparks remaining in the world where Babe Ruth has played. It’s an outdoor field with no towering skyline in sight from home plate, its seats and walls faded by the sun, exuding a certain quaintness you won’t find in North American ballparks. Even our iconic celebration with umbrellas and chanting ‘Tokyo Ondo’ is a little unstylish, but undeniably charming. Unfortunately, there is a frankly absurd redevelopment plan that would see the city demolish Meiji Jingu. While there is significant resistance and the timeline remains unclear, Tokyo could lose an iconic stadium in the near future. It would break my heart.
In many ways, the Swallows’ story is defined by their rivalry with Tokyo’s other baseball team, the Yomiuri Giants. The Giants are ‘the’ baseball team in Japan. With 22 Japan Series titles compared to the Swallows’ six, the Giants are by far the most successful, dominant, and popular team in the country. Their home stadium, Tokyo Dome, is a massive indoor arena with a futuristic design; it looks like the giant hat with a visor my grandma wears when she plays golf. Built in the heart of towering mansions and skyscrapers, the opulent ballpark is connected to a theme park with rollercoasters and a massive ferris wheel.
The nominative determinism of it all isn’t lost on me. I will say that, at least in terms of size, the ‘Swallows’ is a literal infinitesimal upgrade over the team's previous name, the Yakult Atoms. Our perpetual mediocrity suddenly begins to make sense.
The worst part of it all is that, while the Giants are our biggest rivals, their true nemesis is the Osaka Hanshin Tigers. This rivalry reflects an underlying regional dynamic in Japan, where personality, class, cuisine, and humour are divided into broad east versus west archetypes. It’s the biggest rivalry in Japanese sports. Tigers
fans are passionate, raucous, and, historically, even violent. They stereotypically despise the cold, reserved, cosmopolitan nature of the snobby city folk.
So, the Swallows find themselves playing second-fiddle in their own greatest rivalry. The little brother dynamic persists. Analogous relationships include baseball’s New York Yankees vs New York Mets, basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers vs Los Angeles Clippers, and soccer’s Paris Saint Germain vs Paris FC. Rumour has it that the team’s owner, Takashige
“And under the Yakult Swallows’ flag I raise my plaintive cheer.
I’ve been away from my hometown for such a long time, and My heart aches here
On this tiny, solitary island in the ocean current.”
“The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection,”
First Person Singular Haruki Murakami
Negishi, is actually a Giants fan.
The Swallows’ star player is infielder Munetaka Murakami: a truly majestic powerhitter. While he has a solid but unexceptional career batting average of .270, when he hits, he hits big. Murakami holds the single-season record for most home runs in a season by a Japanese player and won the Triple Crown in 2022. In 2021, he led the team to a Japan Series title, the one and only in my entire lifetime.
At 25 years old, Murakami is set to make the jump to MLB next year. In my dream of dreams, the Toronto Blue Jays — the Swallows’ avian cousins — sign him for an emotional one-way reunion with my favourite player. But I doubt that will happen. Like fellow countrymen Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Roki Sasaki, the Jays will have to compete with the American Goliath, the Los Angeles Dodgers, for his signature.
Ohtani and Sasaki were both heavily rumoured to join the Jays, with Toronto as one of the finalists for both players before they ultimately signed with the Dodgers — a frustrating outcome for Jays fans. Regardless of where Murakami lands, baseball fans, mark my words: he is going to be a star.
Speaking of Murakami, my love letter would not be complete without mentioning the other Murakami in the Swallows-phere — writer Haruki Murakami. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle author is a ‘loyal supporter’ of the team, and he even has a series of poems titled “The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection,” featured in his short-story collection First Person Singular In the introduction to his debut novel Hear the Wind Sing, Murakami wrote, “The satisfying crack when the bat met the ball resounded throughout Jingu Stadium… In that instant, for no reason and based on no grounds whatsoever, it suddenly struck me: I think I can write a novel.”
The Swallows are quite literally why we have Murakami books in the world. Something about the Swallows inspires Tokyo folks. I get why. I think people see themselves as the underdog, always up against it. Although personally, I’ve never felt an inclination to write a poem called “Outfielders' Butts” — yes, this is real — but then again, I’m no Murakami.
“And under the Yakult Swallows’ flag I raise my plaintive cheer.
I’ve been away from my hometown for such a long time, and My heart aches here
On this tiny, solitary island in the ocean current.”
“The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection,” First Person Singular, Haruki Murakami
The Giants are the glitz and glamour, the sparkly billboards and shining glass, the hustle and bustle of metropolis, the modern shopping malls, and game arcades — the Tokyo people imagine and travel to. It’s the shots of the city’s steady glow in Lost in Translation, neon blood, and crowded crosswalks.
The Swallows are the hundreds of suburbs that exist nestled between the tourist attractions and sprawling urban heights. The local market street, the smoky pachinko parlours, and the fading primary colours of playgrounds and school walls. It’s the view of the tracks from the back of my grandparents’ shop.
I will never love a sports team the way that I did when I was eight years old, gazing into the empty sky and wondering when the rain would come.
Jake reminisces about his journey as a Swallows fan. KAISA KASEKAMP/THE VARSITY
Cupid’s arrow in Room 202
A love letter to the 2014 Team Canada women’s ice hockey team
Sahana Gunaratnam Varsity Contributor
I didn’t know a love like this could exist. Once I did, I felt the rush and the passion instantaneously. It wasn’t a parent or grandparent who turned on Hockey Night in Canada and allowed me to stay up late on Saturday. I didn’t know the ins and outs of hockey, nor did I understand the rush on the ice. I didn’t even know who I was supposed to cheer for.
Cupid’s arrow struck my heart in Room 202. My love for the game of hockey began in my sixth-grade classroom.
It was a cold day in February of 2014. I disliked mornings because I knew my school day began with seeing my nemesis, the bane of my existence: math class. I didn’t understand it then and I still don’t understand it now. I had no choice but to prepare to listen to my teacher, Ms. S, as she explained how I needed math in my adult life. I was mentally preparing how to pass the time until recess as I was stuck under the bright fluorescent lights in Room 202. All I needed to do was get through the math lesson of the day and then I was free.
But that didn’t happen.
Ms. S had suggested watching the 2014 Sochi Olympics women’s hockey gold medal game between Canada and the US. At this point in time, my only experience with hockey has been using the foam hockey sticks in gym class. The only thing I had to think about was making sure I didn’t swing too high or hit my classmates.
Like most sports fanatics, I didn’t imagine myself or model my gym class hockey play after some of the greats, or the legends, or the icons of the sport because I simply didn’t know they existed. The greatest hockey players have always been my classmates during gym class and I looked up to them. That was, until I watched my
first professional sports match that day in math class in the sixth grade.
Ms. S provided the option of learning math that day or watching hockey. Of course, I chose hockey even though I knew nothing about how the sport worked. I remember thinking to myself, ‘Flag Bearer Hayley Wickenheiser wasn’t using a foam hockey stick. Is she even a hockey player?’
We sat on the generic blue and grey carpet, situating ourselves in front of the high-tech smart board located in the corner of the room as Ms. S set up a spontaneous hockey watch party.
I thought this was going to be a regular, simple sports game. It was anything but that.
The US scored the first point in the second period. I felt gutted. Is this what heartbreak feels like? The despair of having to witness my newly beloved Canadian team lagging. The heartbreak grew even more as the US scored again on their powerplay in the third period.
As Canada was now 0–2 with only three minutes left in the game, I leaned closer. As if leaning closer to the screen would give the boost that Captain Hayley Wickenheiser and the rest of Team Canada needed — from Scarborough to Sochi.
Then, a miracle happened. A shot by Canada’s Brianne Jenner results in a goal. The roars and cheers that erupted throughout the game, I am surprised other classrooms didn’t check on us. We were still down by one goal and had less than a minute left in order to tie the game so we could go into overtime.
As a freshly new hockey fan, I never felt more fear. Mind you, I still had to learn and understand math every single day. The US managed to get a hold of the puck and shot it toward the empty Canada net. I was holding my classmates and thinking this was it. I was already seeing the medal ceremony with the US wearing their shiny gold.
Varsity Blues Women’s Volleyball sweep the Excalibur on road to playoffs
An apt celebration of U of T’s Senior Day for final-year players
With playoffs approaching playoffs season, the Varsity Blues women’s volleyball team swept Trent University’s Excalibur in straight sets on February 8, matching their 3–-0 victoryresult from February 7 to completefor a back-to back-sweep of Excalibur. The Blues now look ahead to their next away game, their final Ontario University Athletics (OUA) match before the quarter-finals.
The game coincided with U of T’s Senior Day, where the team paid homage to four Blues players looking forward to their graduation. Infinite thanks must go to Varsity Blues seniors Natalia Souza, Robin Melnick, Julia Murmann, and Anna Gadomski for a great season.
What happened?
The Blues took the first point of the opening set. Once both teams had reached a tied score of 4–4, the Blues pulled ahead, forcing the Excalibur into a timeout at 8–4. The Blues continued to advance, extending their lead to 14–8 thanks to a service ace by outside hitter Souza. Undeterred, the Blues closed the set swiftly, finishing 25–15.
The Excalibur opened the second set with their serve, and both teams traded points evenly until the Blues tied the game at, once again, 4–4. The Blues’ hitters showcased their consistent offense, maintaining an advantage even through a setter change. Second-year setter Anna Arellano swapped in near the end of the set at 20–14, and the Blues took it 25–17.
Starting setter Melnick swapped back in for the final set, and the Blues held a strong lead until 13–5, when the Excalibur began to catch up. The
I am happy to report that my calculations were wrong.
The puck hit the post and managed to stay out. I didn’t think at 11 years old, I would be experiencing cardiac arrest.
But with 55 seconds left on the clock, forward Marie Philip Poulin is the equalizer for this nailbiting game, sending the game into overtime.
My classmates and I were screaming, hugging and crying tears of joy. The Team Canada passion, the red and white, was bleeding through all of us in Room 202. The game was neck and neck, like any Canada-US game. The US continued to attack, but was shut down by Shannon Szabados who was in the net for Team Canada.
A breakaway by Wickenheiser began to emerge. I was too scared to breathe. I felt the adrenaline. The cold rush of every icy stride that she took was one step closer to the net for a shot, but she wasn’t alone.
The US’ forward Hilary Knight was right behind her, gaining speed. She brought both herself
and Wickenheiser, leaving Knight to slide across the ice. The referee raised their hand with force, calling the penalty and sending Canada into a power play.
With just over 10 minutes left in overtime, the puck continued to be passed back and forth among the Canadian players. With only five seconds left on the powerplay, Poulin scored!
The game was over. The gloves, sticks, and helmets began flying, as players on the bench began rushing the ice. I never felt this type of love. Watching the women’s 2014 gold medal game in Room 202 has altered my life, and my love for the game and the team continues to grow.
In high school, math classes continued to provide a great venue to watch hockey games, but I stayed quiet to avoid any detection. This was the match that altered my life. My love for the game, and for the team, only grew.
As I turn on every hockey game, I am reminded of how my heart was struck by Cupid’s arrow in Room 202 all those years ago. Thank you Team Canada for teaching me what real love feels like.
Ola Kim Volleyball Columnist
Julia Murmann in the middle of a powerful spike. COURTESY OF ARU
The 2014 roster celebrates their gold medal. COURTESY OF M. SMELTER CC WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
ACROSS
1. HI, IN, OH, etc.
6. ______ and flow
8. Flat-topped hills
14. Does some modelling
15. Zero
16. Bone cavities
17. Leaves out
18. Genetic strands
19. Tart fruits
20. Ski lift
21. Mental processes
23. *The first day of lent
25. Roman general who defeated Hannibal
28. Old PC screen, in brief
29. *American Tex-Mex tradition
33. Charlie’s Angels (2000) director
36. Like many wines
37. ______ date
38. Honolulu’s island
39. Alternative to white or sparkling
40. *LIX will take place on Feb 9
44. Band’s booking
45. What archipelagoes are made of
46. *Office dress code trend
52. Incorporate
53. Sudden impulse
57. Clutch, etc.
58. Google Maps feature
59. What a tree may provide
60. Indigenous group in New York
61. Suffer
62. Free-for-all
63. French cup
Letter from
the Editor
Things that make us angsty, sad, infuriated, devastated, and eventually despondent have always existed. But it is easy to become disenchanted and cynical with the present and the current state of the world, especially at an age where these perennial struggles are particularly magnified to us. The Doomsday Clock hasn’t been closer to metaphorical midnight until this year, and some say democracy is dead. Apocalyptic anxieties drench our generation, and we are intertwined with heightened cynicism stemming from the accessibility of the world’s pains to the average person.
Shockingly, this is a note in celebration of The Varsity ’s annual Love & Sex issue. Whether you’re reading this note off of a paper left on a coffee table or standing next to our stands across
Eleanor Yuneun Park Editor-in-Chief
campus, I hope you know this issue is a sign of hope. The people who contribute and write for our paper are all students at U of T. Despite all of what is happening in the world, students ponder on, grapple with, and exude love. Every article and visual pitch we’ve received has been a testament to how much love has conquered students’ lives and consciences. It seems to me love always wins.
2024 Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Han Kang said during her Nobel Lecture that, upon tracing back on her 31 years of writing full of pain and the darkest histories of South Korea, she now realized that “love was in fact [her] life’s oldest and most fundamental undertone.” I see similarities in our generation of students too. This issue is a celebration of you — who, while exhausted and terrified of what comes next, tirelessly loves.
64. Alternative to coconut or cashew
65. Tiptoe, maybe
1. Fitting name for a Dalmatian
2. Indiana Jones setting
3. China setting?
4. Any mammal, reptile, or amphibian
5. Start of September?
6. Subsidize
7. Watch a whole season in one sitting, say
8. Like crackers and rice
9. Complete control
10. Recruit
11. “My Life Had ______ a Loaded Gun” (Dickinson poem)
12. Rogers Centre, etc.
13. Audacious
21. Chinese dynasty of Confucius: Variant.
22. ______ Empire
24. Pull up a chair
25. Movie rater’s unit
26. Zoo enclosure
27. ______ coffee
30. Fine fragrance, for short
31. Take to court
32. German “the”
33. Whipped up
34. A little back-and-forth
35. ______ and Dolls (1950 musical)
38. Condition for a specific time
40. Blue-eyed cat breed
41. Wrinkly fruit also known as the Jamaican tangelo
42. One of 10 on a decagon
43. It has 50 1-acrosses
44. Pretenses
46. Louis V’s successor
47. Demonic being in Hindu mythology
48. Mood disorder medications, in brief
49. Pet peeves?
50. 10 to one, etc.
51. Where the battery was invented
54. Fit
55. Inkling
56. Docile
59. Texting format, for short DOWN
Milena Pappalardo Short-Form Video Editor
“365”
Ashley Wong Varsity Contributor
