Pitch List – Love & Sex

Hello! Thank you for being interested in writing for The Strand! We are taking pitches for our Love & Sex issue. Feel free to review the pitches from each of our sections, and claim any you’re interested in by emailing the attached section editor. Our pitch list is meant to be guiding and generative, not prohibitive, if you have an idea not listed, feel free to reach out to the section editor, or email editors@thestrand.ca with any questions.

Pitches are open to any and all students, of any level of experience, confidence, and access (or lack thereof). The Masthead and Section Editors will readily and enthusiastically help contributors in reaching out for interviews, guiding their article structure, finding resources, and solving any other relevant issue!

When emailing a section editor to claim a pitch make sure to include:

  • HED (the main title)
  • DEK (the subtitle)
  • Description (let them know what you want to write / the angle you will take with the article)
  • Visual Request (what photo or illustration you would like attached to the article)
  • Word Count (how many words you plan to write)

Pitches are accepted on a rolling basis, with articles due on Sunday, January 26th!

News

Claim a pitch or send your own to Karim at news@thestrand.ca

Opinions
  1. The Myth of the College Hookup Culture
    • Is hookup culture as pervasive as it’s made out to be, or is it a myth perpetuated by media and stereotypes? Explore the gap between perception and reality when it comes to college students’ romantic and sexual behaviours.
  2. The pressure to find a relationship (or love) throughout university years
    • While some students embrace the single life, others feel pressure to maintain a relationship throughout their college years, believing it’s essential for stability or personal growth. But is staying in a long-term relationship during this transformative period always necessary or the right choice?
  3. Swipe Fatigue: the pros and pitfalls of online dating
    • Online dating apps promise endless possibilities, but for many students, the reality is far more complicated. Given experiences such as ghosting and superficial matches to the emotional toll of constant swiping, is the convenience of online dating worth it?
  4. Sex Positivity vs. Peer Pressure: Striking a Balance
    • College is often a time to embrace sexual exploration, but does the push for sex positivity sometimes lead to pressure to conform to behaviours that may not feel authentic?

Claim a pitch or send your own to Romina at opinions@thestrand.ca

Features

Claim a pitch or send your own to Manuela at features@thestrand.ca

Culture

  1. Under the eyes of God
    • Did your religious upbringing or current religious affiliation impact your relationship to love or sex? How can religion or spirituality strengthen or weaken our relationship to love and sexuality.
  2. (Dis)connected
    • In a post- COVID-19 lockdown world, Generation Zs loneliness pandemic persists. In what ways does online discourse on dating, incel culture, or social media/ technology in and of itself contribute to this?
  3. As seen on screen
    • How is love and sex depicted in popular media? This pitch can explore how depictions have changed throughout the years, what is positive about current representations or what should change about how love and sex is conveyed to the masses.
  4. (as said by saoirse ronan in the film little women) “Women!”
    • Strong feminist writers have strongly informed our modern progressive culture surrounding loving relationships. bell hooks is of the most influential of these writers. What has she taught you about love and sex?

Claim a pitch or send your own to Alexa at culture@thestrand.ca

Science

  1. The Summer of Love… and Mushrooms
    • Shroom stores have been popping up across Toronto, so much so that the funky print on the outside almost makes you feel like you are walking through the 70s. Psilocybin, the active psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms, has been the centre of debate for many decades now. This article can examine the history of medicinal mushrooms and where the future lies.
  2. Power Couples
    • It’s no hidden fact that in science, there have been a number of power couples. From Pierre and Marie Curie to Rosemary and Peter Grant, love has sparked and supported a number of scientific discoveries. This list-style article can highlight some of these pairings and the work they have contributed, together.
  3. Colourful Dichotomies Breaking
    • Too often, wildlife biology has focused on the male sex as they are deemed flashier, cooler, and more interesting. However, the females of species are just as interesting (if not more). This article, either a traditional article or a list-style, can delve into how female animals are just as flashy as their male counterparts.
  4. The Technology of Love
    • Technology has made advances in many aspects of our world, including our love lives. With a multitude of dating apps on the app store now, it is hard to escape an idea of instant gratification with dating now. This article can examine how new technology is changing the world of dating and, potentially, how it is changing us.

Claim a pitch or send your own to Silas at science@thestrand.ca

Poetry
  • Helene Cixous wrote an essay called “Love of the Wolf,” and I’m going to quote it: “a language [langue] that makes of two but one, especially when it’s your tongue [langue] that I have in my mouth.” I think we’re talking about that hard, untranslatable core that necessitates but disappears from the lyric poem. Some suspended images. A three-dimensional blind point that’s largely inaccessible.
  • Susan Sontag wrote an essay called “The Pornographic Imagination.” You should write an interesting and exciting pornography. Sex is a compositional resource. Sontag mostly references Story of the Eye. I think that’s an excellent starting point. Dennis Cooper’s novels are also great. Sontag goes on: “[h]e who transgresses not only breaks a rule. He goes somewhere that the others are not; and he knows something the others don’t know.”
  • The recipient of your love poem isn’t able to respond – that’s a limitation of you or your medium. Robert Creeley’s “For Love” is an interesting expression of the failure to express anything meaningful. I like these dramatizations of the poem’s own inability to generate any reciprocal energy from even the most tender or erotic acts of artifice. I’m going to quote Ben Lerner quoting John Ashbery quoting James Tate: “Everything is relevant. I call it loving.” The formal process of integration of language into a poem is necessarily going to dissolve any of the possibility of combination that makes love interesting. But it’s still relevant.

Claim a pitch or send your own to Patrick at poetry@thestrand.ca

Stranded (Humour)
  1. Dear Stranded: Dating Advice
    • Calling the love doctor! Write a satirical advice column to fix the woes of annoyed lovers and the heartbroken or perhaps make their problems even worse. Here are just a number of poor souls who need your help: Dear Stranded, I found a fursuit in my husband’s closet. Dear Stranded, my partner toots during sex. Dear Stranded, I think I’m in love with ChatGPT. So many love ailments, and only YOU know the cure!
  2. Write a Silly Love Poem
    • Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate, for global warming hast made our earth a scourging, uninhabitable fiery pit.
  3. Dating Profiles
    • Everybody needs some love! Write a dating profile for characters or celebrities or basically anyone you can think of (unfortunately, professors and The Strand masthead are off-limits).
  4. Kiss, Marry, Kill: UofT Colleges
    • Would you give UC a big, wet smooch? Are you and Vic together ‘til death does you part? Are you putting Woodsworth in a Saw trap? Dish it all out, don’t be shy!

Claim a pitch or send your own to Audrey at stranded@thestrand.ca