Purple Sex 2021 by AHSC Publications

sex winter 2021

purple

Welcome to Purple Sex Purple Sex is an event dedicated to supporting sexuality & gender equality, where we foster a safe space in which communities can come together, celebrate and share their experiences through writing and art. Purple Sex also reveals how the sexual experience of individuals intersect with concepts of gender, sexuality, race, class, oppression, liberation, love, courage, strength, and resilience. Purple Sex is a celebration of self, of community, and of art.

Meet our Student Writer in Residence

Courtney Ward-Zbeetnoff is Western University’s Student Writer in Residence and the Editor-in-Chief of the Arts and Humanities Students’ Council publications Semicolon, Symposium and Premier. She is in her fifth year of the Honours Specialization in Creative Writing and English Language and Literature with a major in SASAH. She was recently shortlisted for the National Bridge Prize in Fiction and her poetry and prose have been published in local and international literary magazines, including Re-Side Magazine, ang(st) zine, Cold Strawberries Collective, and Polemical Magazine. As Student Writer-in-Residence, Courtney hosts office hours every Wednesday from 12:30-2:30. To meet with her virtually, email studentwriterinresidence@westernusc.ca to receive the Zoom meeting ID. Meetings can be anything from casual chats about craft to focused feedback on your writing.

PAGE 5-6 Art by Hayley Lee The Categorization of Complex Feeling by Macaulay Davison

PAGE 7-8 Love Someone by Kaitlyn Lonnee Butterflies by bridget koza PAGE 9-10 Art by Hayley Lee Nice Ass by Rachel Fawcett

PAGE 11-12 Art by Katie Butler On Love by Courtney WZ PAGE 13-14 Milk and Money by Aman Isreal Art by Sreenidhi Jaganathan

PAGE 15-16 Art by Sreenidhi Jaganathan Does Having a Partner Make Me Powerless by Nicole Paldino PAGE 17-18

PAGE 19-20

Validity by by Éléonore Julien Art by Sreenidhi Jaganathan

text by Isabella.E.Isabage A Piece of You by H.M.O

PAGE 21-22 Pride by anonymous

photography by HAYLEY LEE

The conversations I did not have, The words I have not spoken, The things I refuse to say. “I’m bisexual” “I’m gay” “I’m pansexual” “I’m queer” But am I really all of those things? Is there a category I fit in? A box I can check? The categorization of complex feelings. Sexual, emotional, physical, all of the above. I haven’t “come out” I refuse to. I don’t believe in it. Or at least that’s what I tell myself. Perhaps I’m afraid. Or maybe undecided. I am drawn to femininity, masculinity, neither, and both. Everything and anything in between.

Any one identity category has never felt like home. Maybe besides “woman.” That feels normal. At least, I think. she/her or perhaps she/they maybe? It doesn’t feel right to me. What if I didn’t identify with anything at all, a radical act of defiance. No simple category for complex feelings. Just love, sex, and relationships. The entity of my being, all that I am, too complex to be confined to categories not made for me. text by MACAULAY DAVISON

Love Someone

s another year passes, another rotation of our lonely planet around the sun in a universe empty of other life, I am also feeling Lonely. Starved. Isolated. As another year passes, my heart yearning to be seen, my mind straining to be known, my body longing to be touched, I can only dream of a someone I might someday love. I want to love someone brave— brave in the face of what’s wrong with the world, brave enough to break every now and then, brave dreams, vulnerable, desperate, meaningful, Brave love: boldly howled from the watchtower. I want to love someone gentle— gentle hands with music in each fingertip, gentle gestures and gentle haunted eyes, gentle games with no real winner or loser, Gentle love: soft, warm, and all-encompassing. I want to love someone shameless— shameless honesty, unafraid of rejection, shameless dancing, singing, laughing, shameless moonlight desires unleashed, Shameless love: flawed hearts tangling as one. I want to love someone hard— hard kisses that plant me, like tulips, in my body, hard hugs, refusing to let go lest we drift apart, hard talks, words unsheathed but never hurtful, Hard love: strong yet supple, bending with time. I want to love someone curious— curious glances, guessing at each other’s thoughts, curious questions and clever conversations,

text by KAITLYN LONNEE

curious smiles, open to new paths, new adventures, Curious love: testing boundaries, the unknown, together. And as another year passes, I can’t help but wonder if I have already met that someone, if they sank beneath the waves when I wasn’t watching, and now, no matter how much I yearn and cry and love, I will never have them—never know the depths they inhabit. But as another year begins, I can only hope someone is still out there in our universe full of passion, a starry-eyed lover, bright and fierce in the afterglow of a cosmic storm— my wild, wonderful, breathtaking someone.

B u t t e r f l i e s art by BRIDGET KOZA

I don’t know who you are. I don’t know your name, or what you look like. All I know is that you were in a black sedan, driving down 80th Ave. and when you saw the two teams warming up on the ball diamond, you slowed down, you watched us, and you shouted.

“Hey 13, nice ass!”

The call came sharp and loud. Your voice echoed off the white and teal walls of the high school next door. It jolted through my system and for a moment, I didn’t know if I should be flattered or offended. Then I realized what had happened and settled on offended. You made me question my uniform. Something that was supposed to say I was a

photography by HAYLEY LEE

NICE part of something good had been reduced to a cat call. Now whenever my dad jokes about being able to see the face of a coin in my back packet, I think of you. I hear your voice echo through my mind, and I question the black cotton tightly gripping my quads and I wonder, what if? What if they made women’s pants looser, would you have still said that? Would looser pants make us feel like we’re just being handed what the boys wear? I mean, either way, we’re sexualized, aren’t we?

Since that day, whenever I slide into my uniform and look the mirror, I make sure there aren’t any lumps from my tucked in jersey or creases from the pair of sliding shorts compressing my thighs, and for what? To please the eyes of those who are watching?

I’m not the only one who does this, countless numbers of female softball players come out of the washroom double checking everything, not to make sure the uniform follows code, but to make sure it’s aesthetically pleasing. We have to look perfect even when we’re playing a sport that involves diving in dirt. Now, anytime I walk into the dugout on diamond 2 at Fleetwood Park, I think of you, and wonder if you’ll drive by ready with another dehumanizing comment about my body because when I’m there, my body doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to your voice, to your eyes, and mind.

AS S . Funny thing, I was 13 in age and number, but what’s that to you? I was just something to look at. I doubt you care much for the age of those you call out. I suppose you think we like it, being jeered like that. I just wish you had slowed down enough to hear my coach call after you. She would have pulled you from that car given the chance. Hell, I wish she had, then I could have showed you that my ass isn’t something you can have.

text by RACHEL FAWCETT

11 art by KATIE BUTLER

the word erodes, proceeding in a slow scraping of time. its effect moults, snaking like a river, leaving oxbow lakes. it is a moth that smokes out in flame, dissipating to become sky. it is a bear woken from winter and reminded of its hunger. it is an epicentre— a memory of something that once moved us.

text by COURTNEY WZ

text by AMAN ISREAL

In the land of milk and honey I’ve hunger pangs at night, waking from the trance of day. To feed the hole in my stomach, left by vyvanse and productivity, for Glass Table Girls and the white man’s burden.

The length of me is burning, indentured by man-hands and a bird brain. Curious hairs proceed from skin My mind fixed in bondage, my eyes fixed on bondage, talentless ooze proceeding from my kin.

Dawn’s rosy fingers force my days to begin, Starting the odyssey I don my outer skin.

art by SREENIDHI JAGANATHAN

LÉO NOR E JU

LIE

I am out “loud and proud” But out in the world, no one notices. I am outspoken, But it does (not) matter.

by É

fit the definition of a few labels: Bi, pan, queer. I know I fit in any of those categories. But I am not seen as any.

text

My long hair, my painted nails, my femme look They seem to cover up my identity. How could I be bi if I don’t look butch? My history, uneven. The wonderful long-term straight relationship. “How could she be bi if she’s with a guy?” I don’t belong to any of its stereotypes I have the privilege of passing. But that raises its own questions. “Really? I wouldn’t have known.” “You don’t look like one of them.”

My appearance and my history are personal to me My identity is visible and valid No matter how others see me. I belong.

t photography by SREENIDHI JAGANATHAN

photography by SREENIDHI JAGANATHAN

P M

H D A PA VIN OE R S T G MA K A ME NE ER R L E PO W ESS My mother always said You don’t need a man. Men are the dessert after a filling mealYou can still choke it down But you might have regrets later. They are a pair of Louboutin’sNice to look at but won’t let you run When all you want to do is fly. She told me that You are a queen before he is a king You are a warrior With a tongue that cuts like a whip Who can conquer any kingdom. But I had to rule by myself.

Why couldn’t I be a queen With a doting king? Why couldn’t I have a man That steadied me on my ladder As I reached for the stars? When did being a powerful woman Become synonymous with being alone?

My mother always said Without saying anything at all Find a man Who your father does not understand Because the man he does not understand Means you found the one My mother never told me You don’t need a woman.

-Sincerely, Does Having a Partner Makes Me Powerless

tex

ICO

text by H.M.O

Standing in the sweltering heat As the summer sun shone down And music echoed all around Blending with laughs and cheers Creating a one-of-a-kind melody That I wish I could hear everyday Almost as beautiful as our love song That plays on repeat in my heart

To keep in and hold onto that joyful harmony But instead I was met with loud shouts And a new nickname, devil’s child I was thrown between acceptance and hatred They think I’m what’s wrong with the world But what’s really wrong with the world Is that they don’t want love and happiness for all I spent years wishing that one day it’d all be okay

For the rest of time I wished to stay I was wrapped in the same acceptance That you bring each and every time That you wrap me in your loving arms And I fall victim under your charms Because pride felt like another world Where I was not simply existing I was almost as alive as you make me feel

It is and has been since you entered my life Encompasses by light and soothing my soul I believe nothing could ever compare To the love and acceptance you bring That look in your eyes when you stare into mine Makes me feel like we exist on a different plane And the feeling of your lips against mine Somehow makes everything feel fine

I used to be lost in self-doubt Scared of the judgment, fearful about Being abandoned by those who helped built me So I decided my life couldn’t crumble If a closet fortress was where I would stay But overtime the walls started to decay And I couldn’t breathe, but the bad way Not the way that you take my breath away

And some other people don’t know How special it feels when the one Holding you also holds acceptance Who understands the pain and tears And yet can still erase your fears Who can give you hope of life And make you truly happy everyday Because every time we touch, I know I’m alive

I tried to change to a bubble, to float free But that didn’t work either because in the end Bubbles can be popped and suddenly Come crashing down to the solid ground And on the very day my soul started to float The bubble of joy was burst by one lady As I was sitting on a bus still with a rainbow Did I forget to take it off, or did I want to keep it?

Before you that never happened Every touch was empty, feeling wrong And I thought that I was meant to live in fear But now I know that’s not true Because as the summer sun shines down The heat it brings is all so familiar To the feeling that you bring As I get lost in a beautiful melody

text by ISABELLA.E.ISABAGE

here are many things I’m proud of; being LGBT is not one of them. To me, that’d be like being proud of having brown hair. No one asked me if I want brown hair or not, I just have it. In saying that, I’m not ashamed either but I am nervous. I know I should be. Public harassment and derogatory slurs are not stories on the news, they’re memories. With my experience, I thought I was immune from being one of the many –obias geared against us. I wasn’t; I’m not. The T in LGBT represents the transgender community. There are several subcategories, but I’m going to focus on two: binary and non-binary. Binary trans people are typically more well-known and are usually referred to as transgender men (hello, that’s me) or transgender women. Non-binary is an umbrella term for any gender beyond this. I’ve been a member of online trans groups for years. They provided community and comfort since I didn’t know any other trans people. In these groups, abolishment of gender, dysphoria, and neo-pronouns were common hot topics. As time passed, I realized I disagreed with more and more people, usually non-binary members. Around then, gender entered mainstream discussions and backlash, typically aimed at non-binary people, rocked the trans community more than I’d ever seen before. My annoyance turned into blame for the increasing incidences of prejudice I endured. I didn’t want to be associated with them or any messages they stood for. I justified my disgust by pointing at the new wave of transphobia. I saw non-binary people as dangerous to the LGBT community. Some LGBT people agreed with me, but few within the online groups I

used to confide in. I turned away from the trans community, avoiding anyone who challenged my views. Last summer, I was talking with my best friend about the trans community while we were having a picnic. Cool wind blew past us as we had a casual conversation under a fairly cloudy sky. Of course, I shifted into a mini rant about non-binary people. I spoke freely, in a way I only do with my closest friends. There was no worry of saying the wrong thing, I said whatever I wanted and did so quite passionately. At some point, though, I paused. Sweat begun to drip down the sides of my head and neck, so I went to wipe it away. As I was about to begin talking again, it occurred to me that I wasn’t moving and it wasn’t hot out. I realized I wasn’t just annoyed, I wasn’t mad. I was furious. We wrapped up our picnic, not discussing anything further about the trans community. I thought about this for weeks. I spent several long conversations talking about my thoughts, removing my anger from them, with a couple of my friends. For the first time, I acknowledged what I’d come to genuinely believe: “If these people just acted and looked normal, people wouldn’t hate us.” After this, I was able to admit to my transphobia. I don’t believe many people are proud of their prejudices, or even comfortable acknowledging them. With me, excuses felt better and made more sense. A trans person can’t be transphobic, right? I chose to believe that for a long time. I wanted to believe I couldn’t be ignorant since I was educated, but more than anything I wanted to believe I was a “good person,” and being prejudiced wasn’t a thing “good people” did. With that mindset, it was difficult to not think of myself as simply a, “bad person.”

Nothing is ever that easy. It implies this was all bound to happen because I’m bad.

I wasn’t a bad person; I’m not a bad person. But I did make mistakes, and I was wrong.

YMO

I make no excuses for what I once believed. Months later, I’m still sorting my thoughts and sometimes I think in ways I’m not proud of, but I’m working on it. I’m trying to be better. That, I am proud of.

t e xt b

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