Capilano Courier | Vol. 52, Issue 6.

VOLUME 52, ISSUE NO.6

February '20 ACCESSIBILITY FALLS SHORT AT CAPU - INDIGENOUS DIGITAL ACCELERATOR ARRIVES THE NEW CSU SURF CLUB - MOVIE NIGHTS AT CAPU - TINDER WITHOUT THE D*CK PICS - ASK A SEX THERAPIST - STEALTHING - WHAT’S IN MY BAG - TELEVISION AND TRAUMA - HARRY POTTER AND THE TERFS - POLICING THE PIPELINE - DIGISEXUALITY - CUPID GOES DIGITAL - LOVE AND JOHN MAYER - HOROSCOPES - MORE

LO GAN DAVI D

@serinakairu 2

letter from the editor

making love

(unofficially sponsored by Mott’s Fruitsations™ applesauce)

RACHEL D'SA Editor-In-Chief

“Sup-p-per troup-p-per.” - ABBA Valentine’s Day. Sigh. You’ve always found it a bit much. Though you’ve put up with it in the past, this year, you’re celebrating just for you. Before you begin, you decide on a power snack. You reach for your stash of cool Mott’s Fruitsations™ applesauce in the fridge. With so many assorted flavours, it’s hard to choose. You settle on a +Fibre Unsweetened Mango — for power.

Setting the mood has never been easier now that you’re the Valentine. One spoonful of Mott’s Fruitsations™ applesauce in Strawberry Kiwi and you’re in the mood for lighting some candles. The sweet aftertaste of kiwi lingers.

You pause… what are you forgetting? Rose petals. Ah, yes — the epitome of romance.

You deserve another gift.

You dash to Shoppers Drug Mart where buy-one-get-ones apply to Mott’s Fruitsations™ applesauce from now until Mar. 2. You’re on a mission to please yourself. You’re a god. You’re an animal, you. Meow.

Whipping out your shopping list on the 239 Park Royal you notice light glinting off the tinfoil lid on your favourite mid-day soft food: Mott’s Fruitsations™ applesauce. You offer some to the driver and a few passengers.

You wish you had more to share. Adele’s “Chasing Pavements” is on a loop as you add “Mott’s Fruitsations™ applesauce” to a spare sticky note. Perhaps Pear or Country Berry this time.

Shoppers Drug Mart’s sale on Mott’s Fruitsations™ applesauce is still on so you swipe six. Your basket fills quickly: streamers, wrapping paper, chocolate and twine. You make space for yourself… to contemplate a card. Your usual Hallmark cards are there — but so are those Papyrus three-dimensional ones. You ponder over a Mott’s Fruitsations™ Raspberry Cherry Starfruit applesauce. Treat yourself. You pick three of the priciest cards you can find. Boom bam, baby. Swinging by the juice aisle, your basket strains. You giggle and only you know why.

You’re home on Feb. 14 and, as Shania Twain and Mark McGrath would sing, you’re “inviting nobody.” You have yourself surrounded — with love and Mott’s Fruitsations™ applesauce. Silky fingers tickle and smooth the wrapping paper rolls. You’re nearly done, you’re just focused on making it all perfect. Your most luxurious and final gift to yourself is an iPad Pro. Slipping in an Original Sweetened, you mutter “because you’re a classic,” to yourself with a chuckle. Packages of red, pink and silver surround you, reflective as a slivered moon on still waters. Happy Valentines Day.

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editor-in-chief

communications director

capcourier@gmail.com

community.capcourier@gmail.com

Rachel D’Sa

Helen Aikenhead

managing editor

news editor

manager.capcourier@gmail.com

news.capcourier@gmail.com

Freya Wasteneys

Sheila Arellano

associate news editor

arts & culture editor

associatenews.capcourier@gmail.com

arts.capcourier@gmail.com

Megan Amato

Ana Maria Caicedo

features editor

OPINIONS editor

specialfeatures.capcourier@gmail.com

opinions.capcourier@gmail.com

Sarah Rose

art director

Cynthia Tran Vo

artdirector.capcourier@gmail.com

Alisha Samnani

staff writer

Jayde Atchison

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS

Megan Helin, Kaileigh Bunting, Wen Zhai, Bridget StringerHolden, Mayumi Izumi, Tom Balog, Valeria Velazquez, Claire Brnjac, Joss Arnott, Teanna Jagdatt, Manjot Kaur, Alexis Zygan, Lena Orlova, Clarissa Sabile, Carlo Javier, Jamie Long

Rachel Wong, Christine Wei, Janelle Momotani, Valeriya Kim FEATURED ARTISTS

Rachel Wong, Christine Wei, Janelle Momotani, Valeriya Kim

COVER ART

Jennifer Panata COLUMNIST PORTRAITS

Coralie Mayer-Traynor 4

VOLUME 52 ISSUE NO.6

table Contents of

NEWS

OPINIONS

MSP Premiums

6

I Can't Find Myself In You

30

Accessibility On Campus

7

Gender and Valentines

31

Lens On Love

8

Disney Relationships

32

Let's Talk Sex

9

R is for Refugee

33

CapU Cafeteria

10

Safety in Sex Work

34

Indigenous Digital Accelerator

12

Harry Potter and the TERFs

35

African Heritage Month

13

Policing the Pipeline

36

International Student Campaign 14

Race for Representation

37

Surf Club

Self Love

38

15

ARTS & CULTURE

FEATURES

Movie Nights

18

The Simulated Woman

42

OK Tinder Comedy Show

19

Asleep at the Feels

44

Ask a Sex Therapist

20

Cupid Goes Digital

46

Artist Feature

22

Items From Past Relationships

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COLUMNS

Stealthing

26

Social (Media) Etiquette

What's In My Bag

27

The Long Haul

51

A Closer Listen

52

Sustainable Consumption

53

Recovering Achiever

54

ADDitude Adjustment

55

INTERESTED IN CONTRIBUTING?

Email capcourier@gmail.com INTERESTED IN ILLUSTRATING?

Submit your portfolio or examples of work to artdirector.capcourier@gmail.com

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MSP Premiums Eliminated NDP Government says good riddance to regressive and unfair tax, to the relief of many FREYA WASTENEYS Managing Editor

Almost two years after talks began on the removal of the Medical Service Plan (MSP) premiums, the BC government has stayed true to their promise and eliminated the health care tax on Jan. 1, 2020.

While tax cuts generally benefit the top one per cent by simultaneously taking away funds from public services, this recent move has been heralded as a positive step towards tax fairness.

“It’s one of the largest middle-income cuts in BC history,” said Bowinn Ma, MLA for North Vancouver-Lonsdale. “And it’s a tax cut that will benefit those of lower-income, which is actually quite rare.”

Although slashing MSP premiums will result in a $2.7 billion-dollar loss annually, these costs will mostly be remunerated through the Employer Health Tax (EHT), which businesses will provide based on payroll. Payrolls that total over $1.5 million will pay the bulk of the tax at 1.9 per cent, while those between $500,000 and $1.5 million will pay a reduced rate. Small businesses under $500,000 will be exempt from the tax. The rest, reports the Vancouver Sun, will be scrounged through increases in corporate income taxes and will also target highend, vacant real estate.

Concerns have been raised regarding the ongoing and urgent need for funding of health care services, but Ma assures the public that these new cuts will not impact funding. “In fact, we’re spending more than ever on building new health care infrastructure, hiring new staff, and providing more training,” she said.

According to Ma, feedback regarding the cut has been overwhelmingly positive. “In my own district

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of North Vancouver-Lonsdale, there are a surprising amount of families who struggle, and being able to save [the money that once went towards MSP] does actually make a big difference. It’s a huge relief for a lot of people.”

The premium has long been criticized as an unfair tax. Until recently, BC was the only province in Canada to collect fees to allow access to health care.

“We found that it was a regressive tax,” said Ma. “It was virtually a blanket cost, which was not properly adjusted according to income. Plus, most people in the upper- or middle-income bracket also had their MSP premiums paid for by their employers, so it was really those who were unemployed or struggling financially who were most negatively impacted.”

While the premium has been eliminated, the program has not, and it is still mandatory for residents of BC to be enrolled. Because the program still exists, BC’s Ministry of Finance is reminding the public to cancel any automated payments. That said, outstanding MSP fees are still being collected, and the Ministry of Finance reports that they are owed approximately $442 million in arrears, though some individuals may qualify for retroactive premium assistance.

Despite some confusion around outstanding payments during this change, the overall response has been positive.

For more information on the elimination of MSP, and next steps, visit the BC government website.

Accessibility Needs Fall Short On Campus How the Accessibility Justice Collective is fighting for the rights of all students JAYDE ATCHISON Staff Writer

The Accessibility Justice Collective, a division of the Capilano University Students’ Union (CSU), held a meeting on Nov. 14 to discuss accessibility concerns across the university. For able-bodied students, navigating the campus and meeting daily accessibility needs are not given a second thought but for others, Capilano offers many challenges outside of typical student stress.

For one student, it took a year into their program before the university fixed and added all the necessary accessibility buttons. “You’d think that when they admit someone with wheelchair accessibilities that they would get everything that is needed for that specific individual all set for the first day they’re on campus,” said Marco Dixon, Accessibility Justice Coordinator at CapU. Dixon is working with the Accessibility Justice Collective and the CSU to fight for a smoother university experience for all students, but especially for those that have specific accessibility needs to be addressed.

Throughout the semester students may require extra time to take their exams and will complete them in the Accessibility Services offices in the Birch building. Dixon is in the process of trying to eliminate locking personal belongings away from the

exam room. During an emergency—such as an earthquake—students may need their possessions to remain safe. As it stands, students are made to lock away their phone, wallet, keys and jacket. “If it’s a closed book test in the classroom, the instructor tells students to put away or turn off [their] phones. They let [them] keep [their] keys, wallets and jackets on the chair that they are sitting on,” Dixon said. He believes that the same treatment should be given to those outside the classroom.

Dixon and the Accessibility Justice Collective are trying to create a space for workshops on campus that will educate students on the different types of disabilities and how to appropriately interact with each of them. Many students live with invisible disabilities such as epilepsy, autism, brain injuries, chronic pain, mental illness, gastro-intestinal disorders and others. The workshops would educate students and staff on what the disabilities along with potential first-aid components and how to prepare for them.

Able-bodied people may have the best intentions when approaching a person with disabilities, but their actions can lead to wrong assumptions and dangerous situations. Pushing someone’s chair without permission can lead to that

individual becoming unstable in their chair, catching their fingers in the wheels or dislodging any medical equipment due to the sudden unexpected movements. Along with physical dangers, assuming someone is incapable of travelling on their own can be frustrating to people with disabilities.

Dixon instead suggests getting to know someone for the person they are and to always ask if assistance is needed.

Students are encouraged to speak out for themselves to request that their accessibility needs are met and to make their university experience the best that it can be. Dixon knows that it can be difficult to come forward to ask for the required help, but wants to make it known that he is available.

When students book meetings with Dixon and the Accessibility Justice Collective, they are adding another perspective to the campus to help the university grow stronger. “[Students] should have the confidence to speak out for [themselves] when [they] have that disability and have their voices open to the public,” Dixon said.

“They’re the ones making the rules.”

Marco Dixon is available for any students facing accessibility issues and can be reached at access@csu.bc.ca.

NEWS

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An Indigenous Lens on Love Indigenous peoples honour murdered and missing women on February 14 MEGAN HELIN Contributor

Each year, when February 14 draws near, bouquets of red roses line the stores’ shelves. Boxes of heart-shaped chocolates are given to one’s Valentine, a translation of “love” for many. A culture worsened as it is perpetuated in the media, self-worth determined by secret admirers and rose petals, now shared for likes and reposts.

Unbeknownst and under-recognized, another event is held on the same day.

Friday, Feb. 14 will mark the 29th annual Women’s Memorial March (WMM)—a day in which Indigenous peoples honour the murdered and missing women that they carry in their hearts all year round. People march in solidarity on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples– Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) Nations. The Women’s Memorial March gives people the opportunity to come together and grieve the loss of women and girls in the Downtown Eastside.

“For Indigenous people, we celebrate and honour not only the women in our lives and our community, but our families on a daily basis,” explained David Kirk, Indigenous faculty advisor and instructor at Capilano University. From the Stó:lō Nation, Kirk proudly selfidentifies as Indigenous and two-spirited.

“For Indigenous people, women are our warriors. It’s remembering how strong and powerful women in our communities are.

How important they are,” he said.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “love” as a “strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties; attraction based upon sexual desire; affection and tenderness felt by lovers; affection based upon admiration, benevolence, or common interests.” One could argue that the definition above is

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secular, colonized even. Does Indigeneity shape how one views and practices “love”?

Love can be given every day in many ways. Kirk reflected on how he was raised, which translated into the love he gives.

“You need to honour your loved ones (whoever that may be) all the time, not just one day a year,” he said. It can be an act as small as what Kirk did over winter break: checking in on his neighbour who had just undergone surgery. He noted that his offer to give her a ride surprised the woman, which is evidence of a society wrapped up in themselves. When love is given, it is too unfamiliar to receive.

On “Valentine’s Day,” communities of Indigenous peoples and allies will gather and march to the beat of their traditional songs. To honour, give freely, and stand beside someone to help lift them when they need support. The air poignant with sacred ceremonial medicines, and also a distinct wave of cathartic emotions. We will march to honour and call for justice on that day, but the drum beat of blood memory will carry in hearts and spirits all year round for generations to come.

Regardless of race, gender, or sexuality or whether or not you celebrate Valentine’s Day, attending the annual Women’s Memorial March (WMM) in the Downtown Eastside this Feb. 14 is not only welcomed but highly encouraged.

Respectfully, with honour and love, the public may join at approximately 11:30 am at the front of Carnegie Hall at the corner of Main and Hastings.

For more information, visit the Women's Memorial March website.

Let's Talk Toys, Education and Sexual Health

The Capilano Courier talks to a doctor about removing the stigma from narratives on sexual health KAILEIGH BUNTING Contributor CYNTHIA TRAN VO Illustrator

In the last few years, talking about sex has grown from shameful whispers in the corners of loud bars to the 3D cinema.

Headliners like Fifty Shades of Grey and Kinky that openly talk about sex and desire have become more mainstream than ever.

However, despite the media coverage, real talk about safe sex and sexual health in positive spaces remains a taboo topic among young adults.

According to the 2017 Report of Sexually Transmitted Infections in Canada, the rate of reported STIs has been increasing “since the late 1990s and continues to be a significant public health concern in Canada…[and] the rates of chlamydia increased by 39 per cent, gonorrhea by 109 per cent and infectious syphilis by an alarming 167 per cent.” Despite this rise in STIs among adults, the conversation around sexual health is quieter than ever.

When there are conversations, they are often negated with derogatory language that further empowers the negative stigma surrounding people with STIs. Dr. Sue Turgeon, a family physician located in East Vancouver, recognizes the importance of educating young adults on sexual health and notes how stigma can negatively impact people. “Sex education is far more than the nuts and bolts,” Dr. Turgeon said. “I think really good sex education explores the dynamics of communicating how to keep yourself safe, how to respect your body and respect the body of someone else.” Many adults — whether in long term relationships or not

— still feel shame, stigma and a lack of empowerment when it comes to asking about STI prevention, contraception and other important questions regarding their sexual health. Not only can this lead to unwanted infections, but it can add unnecessary stress on relationships in the form of distrust, dishonesty and embarrassment.

Furthermore, these infections are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Dr. Turgeon stated that unfortunately, this issue is worsening due to an increase in antibiotics used in animal agriculture and patients demanding antibiotics for inappropriate reasons such as for the flu or a common cold. Improper use of antibiotics has led bacterial and viral sexually transmitted infections to mutate and become resistant to medication. While this may alarm patients, it simply means that antibiotics need to be one step ahead of these infections — something that continues to be successful in Canada.

Asking a physician questions regarding sexual health is a great avenue for education but Dr. Turgeon realizes this might not be possible for many people. “Education shouldn’t be fear-mongering,” said Dr. Turgeon, recommending Options for Sexual Health Clinics located around Vancouver. These locations offer a safe and compassionate space for anyone interested in learning more about their sexual health and can provide free STI screenings.

Their website also offers an abundance of reliable information and an anonymous

“Sex Sense” forum where through phone or e-mail a “team of registered nurses, counsellors, and sex educators offer information and resources on sex, sexuality and sexual health.” Dr. Turgeon encourages people to take advantage of clinics like Options that offer free contraception and HIV preventative care drug pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). She also stresses that while PrEP prevents patients from contracting HIV from sex, the drug does not protect against sexually transmitted infections and other protective measures should be taken when sexually active.

As frustrating as it can be to navigate the social waters when it comes to talking about sexual health in this new decade, initiatives at CapU are fighting to break down barriers.

The Capilano Students’ Union plans to host a Sex Toy Bingo event with the goal to instigate stigma free conversations surrounding sex. Overall, the Sex Toy Bingo event hopes to spark compassion around uncomfortable topics and promote curiosity amongst students who find themselves undereducated regarding issues of sexual health.

In all, Dr. Turgeon hopes that “decisions about becoming sexually active are made from a position of feeling empowered” and that proper education can enhance the confidence people have to start conversations with the people they are sexually active with and keep themselves and the people around them safe.

NEWS

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Behind the Scenes of the CapU Cafeteria Taking a closer look at food services management on campus SHEILA ARELLANO News Editor RACHEL WONG Illustrator

The Capilano University (CapU) cafeteria provides a substantial service to students every day, but often goes unnoticed despite significant evolutions over the past few years. From the addition of paper straws and green containers in 2018, to recycling cardboard and plastics and the inclusion of a salad bar that introduced more plant-based meal options, the cafeteria has made an effort to incorporate student feedback.

The story of food is important as it shapes a large part of the CapU community. “We’ve tried various different foods here, some have been successful, some haven’t, but we’re always looking to make a few changes and listen to what the faculty, staff and the students have to say for input,” said CapU Manager Purchasing Paul Gruber.

Prior to the current CapU food service provider, Aramark was collaborating with the university.

Today, Chartwells is on a 15-year contract with CapU, and aims to better the food service operations. “There was a lot of capital required.

We needed to renovate all the buildings, needed to bring new franchises and we don’t have the money ourselves. So with a long-term contract, Chartwells were able to finance the costs,” Gruber said.

When Chartwells was introduced to CapU, the Capilano Student’ Union (CSU), faculty and staff were a part of the evaluation committee involved in making the decision to partner with the food service provider. “A lot of the decision was based on what this new company is doing in regards to sustainability, buying local and having healthier food choices for everybody,” Gruber said.

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Making socially conscious meal purchases has been a focus for CapU in recent years. According to the 2018 CapU Business Review, the university introduced the charity program WE Special Meals in September of that year. This has given the CapU community the opportunity to gift 4,295 nutritious meals to children and families in Kenya, Africa, that support school kitchens and local farms. Chartwells at CapU donated $606, which translated into 1,400 meals.

Although the food services at CapU have improved throughout the years, there are also aspects of the CapU cafeteria that still require attention. The inclusion of gluten-free, vegan and dairy-free options could be expanded along with the overall flexibility around dietary restrictions.

“I am grateful for the plant-based options that are available at the cafeteria and would love to see more of that,” said CapU student Pablo Cordoba.

To deliver a student-first campus experience, options need to be rounded and comprehensive.

To get involved in the decision-making process around the food services at CapU, students are encouraged to include their input into the food surveys sent to them every year. A food service committee meets once a month for those interested in being engaged. There are two student representatives participating in the meetings as well as two faculty representatives who can be contacted with inquiries.

For more information, visit the CapU Chartwells website.

NEWS

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Indigenous Digital Accelerator Arrives at CapU CapU receives funding for new Indigenous Digital Accelerator project SHEILA ARELLANO News Editor

Capilano University has signed an agreement with Western Economic Diversification Canada to develop an Indigenous Digital Accelerator (IDA) project at CapU. The IDA was launched in January, 2020, with the purpose of providing Indigenous students with the opportunity to accelerate their own businesses and to allow existing Indigenous entrepreneurs to expand their businesses. The IDA will offer resources to promote Indigenous business growth in BC’s tech, digital-creative and cultural sectors while also emphasizing community development and low environmental impact.

“We did some outreach to about 20 First Nations business professionals and business owners and we surveyed them about the value of this project to their communities,” Dean of Fine and Applied Arts Ted Gervan said. “On April 6, 2019 we got the call from Western Economic Diversification, they told us they were going to come and support the project. And that was just the first part.”

The project’s cost is closer to $4.2 million. From April 2019 to date, the IDA team has been in the process of raising the additional funds. Storyhive and Telus have committed to help CapU broker deals with Indigenous media companies to co-fund the project. “Storyhive already supports Indigenous Media in production companies and help distribute and mentor and they give cash in kind for these companies to get their exposure with the project,” said Gervan. “The first year or two we will take in three to four businesses, so there could be anywhere from five to 20 positions depending on the scope of work.”

The first step involves interviewing the businesses that will be adopted in order to find out what their needs are. Once the needs are known, the programs that have

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that expertise will be approached. “The great thing is that students will actually get paid as a part of the work in the accelerator. Faculty can also benefit, it’s a new type of work.

They can actually get buyouts for teaching time to mentor and supervise students on these projects,” Gervan said. The IDA will be business-driven and faculty supervised, but it will be independent students who lead the actual work.

With CapU as a third party, the university has control of the project in order to protect students.

Co-founder of Indigenext Shane Kennedy explained the various stages to accelerate a company. “In an Indigenous company there is no exit strategy. Ultimately, if it’s an Indigenous controlled company, it has to remain Indigenous.

The end goal has to be longevity within Indigenous control.

This is a fundamental difference from any other accelerator out there,” he said.

The IDA will play a role in reconciliation. Indigenous students will be integrating into the mainstream Bachelor of Motion Picture Arts which will be one of the first times where non-indigenous students will be truly learning about and having awareness around Indigenous culture. “I think what this project gives us is a chance for our non-indigenous students to work alongside Indigenous students on real world projects and supporting truth and reconciliation through Indigenous company growth. You can’t get a more tangible and relevant opportunity to make a difference,” Gervan said.

To keep up to date on updates regarding the Indigenous Digital Accelerator project at CapU follow @ted_esg.

Discussing Diversity at Capilano University Lack of representation is a cause for concern amongst CapU students ALISHA SAMNANI Opinions Editor

Diversity can be considered a popular buzzword in education, both with universities and students alike.

Canada’s historic landscape has been shaped by people of African descent since the early 1600s, yet Black history is still underrepresented in classrooms today. Black History Month—which takes place in February each year—is a time to bring these stories into the foreground and learn more about the diversity of Black communities in Canada.

At Capilano University (CapU), the Students of Colour Collective—one of five collectives that are a part of the Capilano Students’ Union (CSU)—gathers to discuss various issues surrounding race, ethnicity and culture and advocates for social justice surrounding race-based issues on and off campus. In recent years, however, the collective has been relatively inactive. “The collective has been tough to gather, because [it] has been kind of dead for five years, so there’s no one really in it. It’s been a bit of a challenge,” said Fevan Kidane, the elected representative for the Students of Colour Collective at CapU. Kidane believes more can be done to educate students about Black history at CapU. “Being in a [ Jazz] major that stems from Black history, we did get taught about it in our first year, but in general, there seems to be a bit of racial unrest. For example, most of the professors who taught us were of Caucasian descent,” Kidane said. Engaging the broader community in shattering barriers is a goal for the Students of Colour Collective at CapU. Yet, only student interest and community engagement can make this objective a reality. “We all vote on behalf of the student body to decide what we need on campus and how to serve students better,” Kidane said.

As Kidane explained, suggestions for improving the way Black culture is incorporated into the curriculum include

the provision of racial sensitivity training to instructors, staff and administration, as well as increased representation amongst faculty and the courses being taught. “There could even be an event where they could speak to a panel consisting of students of colour to better learn how they want to be taught about their culture,” said Kidane. “It’s important for them to hear things like ‘when this happens in class, I check out because I feel disrespected’ or that it’s hard for some students to see themselves reflected in their classrooms.”

Jazz Studies is not the only field that suffers from this type of racial disparity. White, male professors still have a dominant presence over visible minorities in Canadian universities coast-to-coast even though it is generally accepted that diversity in role models can broaden career horizons for students of colour. What is crucial—not only during Black History Month, but throughout the year—is supporting students of colour in having their voices heard and strengthening their platforms to enact change.

The collective meets twice a month to check in on issues that are of concern to members as well as provide resources for students concerned about race, ethnicity and diversity on campus. The CSU will be hosting a Black History Month cabaret on Feb. 27, as well as showing films related to Black History Month.

The events’ schedule can be found at the Capilano Students’ Union calendar. If students want to learn more or have suggestions, the Students of Colour Collective is available by email at colour@csu.bc.ca.

NEWS

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International Student Tuition Campaign The campaign will include sign-up sessions and rallies throughout January and February WEN ZHAI Contributor

Capilano Students’ Union (CSU) Board of Directors approved the International Student Tuition campaign on Jan. 10, 2020.

This campaign will push the University for a two per cent cap on international tuition year-on-year increase which will benefit around 2500 international students who are currently studying at CapU. Happy Singh, CSU Vice President External, initiated the campaign in September. Born in India, Singh joined CapU last January and was elected as the Vice President External in March. “I ran for this position because I wanted to make a change,” Singh told me over the phone.

In August, he decided to campaign for the International Student Tuition Cap and formally started it in September.

For the past five years, CapU has applied a two per cent annual increase on international student tuition fees— the same cap as required by BC’s Tuition Limit Policy for domestic students. This is positive news compared to other BC universities that have seen annual increases as drastic as 20 per cent. However, without a policy equivalent to the Tuition

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Limit Policy, the university can increase the international tuition fees, at any rate, any time.

In the fall, Singh visited the parliament building in Victoria to talk to the assembly of the Alliance of BC Students (ABCS)— of which CSU is a member. Singh learned that the CSU had lobbied with the ABCS to the government before but had to wait until March 2020 for the result on whether the BC government would agree on a two per cent cap on international tuition annual increase. It was then that Singh decided to start his own campaign at the university level. By influencing CapU to implement a policy of a two per cent international student tuition cap, the campaign hopes to eliminate the uncertainty and make it easier and predictable for international students to budget their tuition.

Before he brought the campaign proposal to the CSU Committee and the Board of Directors, Singh talked to nearly 70 international students and solicited their opinions on the tuition fee increase. With the proposal approved by the CSU Board, the campaign has been allocated $4,500 to

proceed. Looking back on what has been the most difficult part of the campaign effort so far, Singh thought carefully and replied, “I think the most difficult part is to explain to international students and the board what this campaign is about.” As for the future campaign plan, Singh is aiming for at least 1250 signatures from international students — about 50 per cent of the total international student population.

Fifty volunteers will be involved in this campaign and they will try to reach as many stakeholders as possible across various mediums — newspapers, social media, phone calls, etc. — along with volunteers around the campus to raise awareness and collect signatures. Students may expect to see banners, t-shirts, caps and stickers for the campaign around campus and during sign-up sessions. Coffee tables will be set up at bus stops, the CSU office (Maple 116) and the cafeteria, where students can have a coffee with the volunteers while getting to know more about this campaign.

Volunteers will also collect signatures during a carnival organized by the school.

New CSU Surf Club From lettuce-eating to Tofino trips, CapU’s Surf Club brings together new and avid surfers

BRIDGET STRINGER-HOLDEN Contributor

To start off the spring semester, CapU’s newly branded Surf Club held a lettuce-eating contest to promote nutrition. Surf Club president, Tom Balog, joked around last year about either starting a lettuce-eating group or a surf club, so he found a way to combine the two and ensure that members are well-nourished. “The surf club is actually just a veil for Tom to pursue his lettuce-oriented agenda,” joked Theodore Abbott, Surf Club VP. Balog had thought for a while about starting a club on campus.

“This is my last semester here and I’ve always wanted to put a club together. I’ve really gotten into surfing in the past while and thought it would be an interesting endeavour,” he said. Surf Club was officially created mid-October when Balog registered the club and began to put up posters. Later that same day, Balog ran into Abbott, who was keen to participate.

There will be two surf trips to Tofino planned this spring: one early-mid March and the other at the end of April. “It’s a great opportunity to get out of town and get to know people on a more personal level and I think those experiences are priceless,” said Abbott. There will be costs associated with the trips, but various social events held around campus will be free.

“Being a part of the Surf Club doesn’t mean that you have to be an avid surfer, you don’t even need to come surfing at all. If you wanted to just come hang out in Tofino for a few days and experience the raw beauty of the Pacific Northwest, then you can totally do that… if there’s some timidity around it, then you can just come and sus out the waves and the whole landscape of Tofino,” said Abbott.

The club collected over 40 email addresses during their first meet-and-greet. “We have a lot of people interested that have never gone surfing before, honestly that’s awesome. It would be

great to have all skill levels, if we need to hire some instructors from a surf camp then we can look into doing that. The more the merrier,” said Balog who has been surfing from a young age but really got into it during a trip to Costa Rica in 2017.

“The first time I went surfing was not that long ago, it was actually Spring 2019,” said Abbott who had been skateboarding his whole life and found surfing to be a natural progression.

He and Balog have gone together to Tofino. “I just enjoy the ridiculousness of it: throwing on a cold wet suit, paddling out in the freezing cold water, and just waiting out there in the lineup in the rain,” added Balog.

So far, meetings have been held on Thursday during the open block from 12 to 1pm. However, the meeting time and location is dependent on member availability and could be modified to member’s schedules. The best way to get more information about future events is to check out the CSU Surf Club Facebook page.

There’s also a WhatsApp group and students can be added by sending a message through Facebook.

Since CapU is a known commuter campus, people seem to come and go. Although Balog feels a sense of community on campus, it seems to be dispersed. “I’ve met a lot of great people here and I think it would be cool to try to build and strengthen those relationships by going on a bit of an adventure with people.

Just try to enjoy our time together while at this school ‘cause time goes by pretty fast and it’s nice to build a memorable experience,” said Balog.

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Movie Nights With The Capilano Film Club A look inside one of Capilano’s newest clubs and the people who created it MAYUMI IZUMI Contributor

Capilano University’s Film Club was formed this past September by President Spencer Zimmerman and four other third-year film students. “We had all met through our classes in the MOPA [Motion Picture Arts] program and we used to come in late at night to screen films for fun,” he recalled. “Since then it’s grown to a lot more than just a handful of dudes watching movies every week, but that same intention and passion for films remain.”

Do you love movies too? The CapU Film Club has free movie screenings every week open to everyone, including non-students. This semester, screenings take place Wednesdays at 8:00 pm, with occasional special screenings on Friday nights.

The MOPA students, specifically Zimmerman and the executive committee — Vice President Liam Meredith, Treasurer Joss Arnott, Secretary Raine Lemay and Graphic Designer David Eusebio — often feel isolated in the BOSA building and are working on changing that. The club aims to create community by inviting students, faculty, and friends and family of both groups to the weekly screenings. Zimmerman also hopes that the screenings will enrich the lives of attendees with cultivated, art house, international and avant-garde films. He and the club want to expose us to movies that will give us a better understanding of art and culture.

“I think films and cinema are so essential to our education, and not just as film students, but as anyone concerned in exploring the arts. My biggest goal for 18

the club has been to help enrich that knowledge and hopefully show people a side of films they weren’t previously aware of,” Zimmerman said. “I think that moment when you realize that films can be more than just entertainment, that they are a means to understand the world around us and even ourselves deeper, that moment is so important and I hope we can help people come to that through the club.”

The club has new events they want to implement this year, such as opening their doors to the faculty on campus, and hosting discussions similar to those of a book club after screenings.

Their movie schedule for each month is selected by the executive committee. “We all bring together the movies that have been requested to us or films we’d like to screen and then vote on which ones will make the program that month,” Zimmerman noted.

This month, the club will be screening two special presentations: on Feb. 5 they are presenting a double feature: Francis Ford Coppola’s epic war film Apocalypse Now, and the documentary Hearts of Darkness that chronicles the making of the Coppola film through footage captured by his wife, Eleanor. On Feb. 7, the club is screening Elevator To The Gallows, a 1958 crimethriller based on a novel of the same title.

To see a full schedule of the Capilano Film Club’s screenings for February, go to their Instagram @capufilmclub

Finally, a Tinder Experience Without the D*ck Pics OK Tinder is an improv show worth swiping right on JAYDE ATCHISON Staff Writer

This past May, I was left standing on the corner of Nelson and Homer, mouth agape while watching the man I just went on a date with sprint away from me across the street, never to be seen again (the booty-call a week later is another story).

When the date didn’t end with a kiss, I was left in a Roadrunner cloud of dust.

Was it my breath? We didn’t get closer than across the dinner table. Did I order too many sangrias? Probably. Was he just the most awkward person to ever walk God’s green earth? Definitely.

I kept that memory in my arsenal of entertaining, self-deprecating stories.

My tale got it’s time to shine while I was sitting in the audience at the OK Tinder—Swipe Right Comedy improv show. The moderator asked for one brave soul to share their most cringe-worthy dating moment to be recreated, and after a pregnant pause, I belted out my memory. Theatresports actress, Clare Filipow, played out my disinterest with near-perfect accuracy (although I would never order a mixed drink of half bellini and half hot toddy).

At OK Tinder, audience members shout out dating experiences that inspire the upcoming performances. While improv is generally a mix of random topics and situations, OK Tinder is only centred around the good, the bad and the hilarious of dating apps and modern relationships.

The four actors were asked to pitch a dating app based on an audience member’s initials and came up with Kinky Homes, Camo Girls, Calgary Guzzlers and Kitsilano Orgasms—the dating app where people can get freaky while doing yoga and eating quinoa salads.

With roughly 37 main stage actors at Theatresports, OK Tinder uses a rotation of performers available each date, making every showing unique in creators and content. “The atmosphere is really relaxed because we work well together,” described Andrew Barber, an actor at Theatresports. “We try to have as much fun as we can on stage.”

The actors used three words picked out of a jar to recreate dates, like “sang showtunes pensively,” “took out teeth”

and “texted marriage proposal.” The whole show was tied together when actor David Milchard brought back my bad date during the three-word date “I got dumped.” Looking into the audience, Milchard advised, “and if you really don’t like someone—run away from them.”

Showcasing a full spectrum of dating app users, Ok Tinder is relatable to every person with a history of online dating. The show offers a night of witticisms, laughter and an opportunity to make a cringeworthy memory into a playful one.

Tickets and showtimes for Ok Tinder— Swipe Right Comedy and other improv shows are available at https://www.vtsl. com/shows/all-comedy-shows/

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Ask A Sex Therapist Your most pressing questions about sex in all its mystery, answered ANA MARIA CAICEDO Arts & Culture Editor

AC: How do you help couples with varying sex drives find compromise?

TM: I think it’s really about understanding that sexuality comes on a spectrum for everybody.

You might like or dislike things a lot more or less than your partner in other areas as well, and you learn to navigate those things within the context of your relationship. We tend to think of sexuality as so different, but really, it’s a lot about compromises in a relationship.

We do tend to think a person with a higher level of desire is right, or should have their sexual needs met because we tend to devalue the idea that someone might not be as sort-of sexually fueled within our societal context.

But every person, based on their temperament, their genetics—a whole range of variables—will have different levels of sexual desire, of kinds of fantasy arousal that we help people navigate in the context of their relationship.

AC: In your practice, have you noticed problems that are more common for women to experience? Have you noticed problems that are more common for men to experience? If so, what are they?

TM: Women are more likely to experience physiological pain conditions, I think just because of the physiological differences between [cis] men and [cis] women. [Cis] men are much more likely to present with erectile and ejaculatory difficulties.

But you know, in thinking about this question, one thing I’ve definitely learned as a sex therapist is men and women are much more alike than different. I mean, we all want healthy and satisfying sex lives, we all experience anxiety around sexuality, we all experience insecurities, we all want to feel valued, loved, respected and desired.

AC: Is it harder for women to orgasm than it is for men?

TM: Women are more likely to experience challenges with orgasm, that is true, but I would say that the main factor that contributes to orgasm difficulty for women during coupled sex is a lack of knowledge and focus on clitoral stimulation.

There’s a really good book called Becoming Cliterate [by Laurie Mintz], and in that book she talks about the fact that only four percent of women would say that penetrative sex in and of itself is the most reliable road to orgasm, and that anywhere from 89 to 99 percent of women use no form of insertion when they masturbate.

Yet the default sexual act is penetrative sex, often with no focus on 20

On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your sex life? Do you feel at home in your own body and sexuality, or could things be better?

This past decade, intersectional feminism has propelled typically marginalized discussions into the periphery of public consciousness, challenging the way many of us navigate our world and interactions.

And yet, mainstream discussions of sex today still seem to start and end with safe sex education. We look to porn and television to show us what sex is supposed to look, feel, and be like. Inevitably, it’s hard to feel like you belong in our sexual climate.

For this Valentines issue, the Courier asked Terri-Lynn MacKay, a clinical psychologist at the West Coast Centre For Sex Therapy, to help us demystify sex.

clitoral stimulation. I talk to my clients about that and tell them that, and it makes them feel really good in normalizing the fact that their experiences are common.

I would also say that women are more complex in their sexual response. The historic model of sexual arousal for both men and women was based on [sexuality researchers] Masters and Johnson, where there were four different stages of [sexual response]: excitement, plateau, orgasm, resolution.

But the newer model of female sexuality, based on [the research of psychiatrist] Rosemary Basson, looks at female sexuality as being more responsive than spontaneous. So female sexuality is based on a range of factors such as motivation, willingness, context, arousal, psychological factors, relationship factors, emotional and physical satisfaction. Not to say that a range of factors don’t also influence male sexuality, but testosterone plays a larger role for men than women.

AC: It sounds almost like clitoral stimulation isn’t a part of what people generally have in mind when they think of sex, or it’s not a requirement. Why do you think that clitoral stimulation isn’t a part of the normalized definition or go-to thing when we think of sex, or I guess specifically, heterosexual sex?

TM: I mean, within lesbian relationships, people are more likely to have orgasms than they are in heterosexual relationships. In terms of the question of why iwt’s not front and center, I think that’s just in large part due to a historical context of female sexuality not being valued.

It wasn’t that long ago where female orgasm wasn’t even thought to be a real thing. Female sexuality has only really become front and center to sexuality in the past 20 years. And so, it’s going to take a while to catch up, because a lot of what you see in portrayals of sexuality, particularly in pornography—not that there’s anything negative about pornography—but you don’t see a lot of focus on female sexuality and clitoral stimulation within a standard pornographic theme.

AC: I was wondering how you’ve seen sexual culture and it’s narratives around what sex and sexy is supposed to act, look, and feel like represented in your own practice in terms of the clients who come to see you?

TM: Well, I think the standard narrative for men is that you’re supposed to be able to get and maintain an erection and you’re supposed to be able to orgasm within a certain period of time. And if those things aren’t functioning exactly as is then there’s something emasculating about it, that you’re not a real man if those things can’t happen —as opposed to seeing men as textured and humanistic sexual beings.

And for women as well, I think there’s a lot of narratives around sexuality. That’s why a lot of women fake orgasm, because they have

the idea—and it’s portrayed in a lot of ways—that you’re supposed to be able to orgasm through fast and furious penetrative sex, which is not the case.

AC: Are there any other common misconceptions or preconceived notions about sex that you can think of that tend to hinder our sex lives?

TM: Without knocking penetrative sex too much, I do think that’s the most common misconception. Particularly for cisgender, heterosexually-oriented couples, is that penetrative sex is the primary and exclusive marker for a sexual experience.

Sexuality can encompass such a range of experiences that are sensual and playful and connecting and stimulating and arousing and silly and erotic and engaging without putting a penis in a vagina. Non-heterosexual and nonbinary couples tend to do much better in this regard.

AC: I know this is a bit of a fraught question, but do you think there’s a relationship between being comfortable in your own gender identity and having a satisfying sex life? How can someone’s notions of gender roles influence their sex life?

TM: Well, I don’t think that qualifier applies exclusively to gender identity.

Because any discomfort in your sense of self—including gender identity and sexual orientation, body image is a really common one, feeling uncomfortable with how you smell or taste or sound or are perceived—is going to lower your ability to be in the moment and experience sexual pleasure.

It sounds like I’m dodging the question, but it’s not specific to gender identity. There’s a lot of different ways of being or not being with yourself that hinder a sexual experience. We know being women how much pressure is put on women to look and be perceived in certain ways, so there are a lot of women as well that come with different body image concerns.

A lot of what we see in sex therapy is anxiety-related. It’s related to not being able to be vulnerable and being afraid of how you would be perceived. Just not feeling comfortable in your own skin makes it really difficult to enjoy a sexual experience.

AC: Do you think hook-up culture impacts the value given to intimacy?

TM: I certainly think that there’s benefits and drawbacks. I think some of the benefits are that it does value female sexuality in the sense that there’s not as much of the slut-shaming that used to occur, and women being able to have the right and opportunity to go out and seek out sexual experiences in and of themselves can be really liberating.

But on the other hand, when you have more choices it can be really challenging to stick with the choice you have. My grandma grew up in a community where there were seven people, and you chose from those seven people. Whereas now, where you have a whole litany of options with things like Tinder or Grindr, it really does, I think, contribute to the mentality of “I’m going to find something better if I just keep looking,” which does impede someone’s investment in intimacy.

AC: Have you ever worked with someone with trauma from a previous sexual assault that hinders their current sex life?

TM: When someone experiences a trauma, or even when someone feels a really high level of stress in their life, there’s a sympathetic nervous system

response that can actually make it even physiologically difficult for the body to relax.

So we work with people to sort of calm the neurophysiological response away from fight or flight, because if you’ve had a traumatic sexual experience your body’s going to very quickly go into a fight or flight response.

That can include collaborating with other disciplines—there’s some people here in Vancouver even who are somatic sex educators—to help people feel more at ease in their body. There’s elements of that that look at some of the cognitive aspects of what someone’s thinking, some of the emotional aspects, mindfulness—so being able to be really present in your body at the time that something has happened as opposed to disassociating from that experience. The major challenge of that for the client is that it’s really scary to be vulnerable and present in your body when you’ve been hurt or violated.

AC: What kind of advice would you give to someone who feels inexperienced in sex or hasn’t had sex in a long time to improve their comfort and self-confidence?

TM: There are a number of really good books on sexuality that can be quite helpful. There’s a new book called Come As You Are [by Emily Nagoski]; it’s a wonderful book on female sexuality that’s very comprehensive. For men, there’s a book called The New Male Sexuality [by Bernie Zilbergeld].

I taught human sexuality at UBC, and quite frankly there’s a real dearth of information about sexuality and some of the physiological aspects of how your body works and the complexity of sexuality, so [those books are] a good place to start.

And then again, to move away from the goal of penetrative sex being the end all and the be all. Because that goal creates a lot of anxiety and excludes a whole repertoire of experiences that can be connecting and sexually satisfying.

AC: What advice would you give to couples in long-term relationships that are feeling bored or unsatisfied with their sex life?

TM: At the beginning of a relationship, sexuality is very spontaneous.

It’s very exciting, everything’s new, everything’s novel, and over time that changes.

There’s a sex and relationship therapist, her name is Esther Perel, and she talks about basically these two aspects of relationships that are juxtaposed to each other. On one side of that you have the desire for stability and security and for nesting, and on the other side of things you want spontaneity, you want excitement and you want novelty, and one kind of squishes the other.

And so, what I often talk to couples about is to create space for things like connection, idleness, and playfulness. Not scheduled sex, but scheduled time for being playful or sensual or intellectually stimulated or silly or excited, which are states that are very close on the spectrum to sexuality.

These are things that people really prioritize at the beginning of relationships—like having showers together and giggling and dancing or whatever people do—that fall off the map as time goes on. You know, most couples get very busy with the tasks of daily living and expect that sex will continue to be spontaneous in a long-term relationship, and it’s just not. Nor is it particularly fun to feel you have to have sex at a specific time. But what is fun is creating more ways to be in a space of being, what I would consider, connected to the vitality of life, where you’d be more likely to have sex.

*This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity A RT S & CULTURE

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A R T I S T F E AT U R E

Gianmarco Iuele TOM BALOG Contributor

Gianmarco Iuele’s photos evoke a sense of calm, as if you’ve been invited by an old friend for a walk through town. Warm colours, curious characters and serene scenes are woven together through his photos, which were taken while wandering the streets of Italy, Croatia and the Pacific Northwest. A second-year CapU communications student, he also holds a Cinematography certificate.

Iuele is low-key. Not in the sense that he doesn’t have much going on, or doesn’t do things.

Rather, he glides through the halls of CapU calm and collected, observing the happenings while not calling attention to himself. Kinda like when a poker player has a substantial hand and knows things should work out.

He doesn’t consider himself a photographer but rather someone who likes to take photos.

Equipped with his grandfather’s (then father’s, now his) 35mm camera patched up with hockey tape to stop light leaks, his photos are subtly humorous and contradictory. A nun is shown

staring through the breasts of a billboard model, a senior gazing out into space with a look of despair or boredom is captured. His work reveals the poetry of everyday moments that might otherwise go unnoticed. There’s a warmth to the colour pallet of his photos that welcomes you in gazing further into each photograph. If his film camera isn’t around, he’ll use what he has closest to him—cell phone or otherwise. “I just like to capture moments, I don’t like to think too much with what I am shooting with,” he said.

As a kid, Iuele was given an old camcorder and started messing around and looking at the world through the lens. Taking photographs can be invasive without asking for permission, but often when we do so, the magic of the moment is lost. “The world throws you an ally-oop, and you just have to finish it,” Iuele contemplated.

“Sometimes you hit the rim, sometimes you score. Impulsive, unrehearsed and instinctual— it’s like working with an unpredictable artist.”

Follow Gianmaro Iuele on Instagram @giannimarx

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THE PLANT

VALERIA VELAZQUEZ Contributor

LAVENDER SOAP CLAIRE BRNJAC Contributor

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Items That Remind You Of Your Ex

The Brown Folder

When the dust has settled after a breakup, often it’s the items left over from the relationship that haunt, pester and drag you back into the past you’re trying so desperately to move on from. Here, four contributors tell us about an item they’ve kept from a past relationship.

Mixtapes and Memories

JOSS ARNOTT Contributor

KAILEIGH BUNTING Contributor

March 18 is my ex’s birthday. I wanted to paint a mural on his bedroom wall, but I couldn’t—it would be too time consuming, he would see what I was doing and it wouldn’t be a surprise. So instead I decided to give him two succulent plants and three hand-painted pieces of wood with a sweet message on the back of each. The plants would add some life, I’d thought, to his spiritless, plain white bedroom.

He put them on the window next to his bed and kept them there until it was time for him to leave. He was not from Vancouver, and as much as we tried to find solutions to still be together long-distance, we decided it would be better if we just broke up. He would go to Sweden to do a Masters program and I would stay here to finish my Communications diploma. During the time the plants were in his room, they grew so beautifully and so much. I saw it as a symbol of how

our love kept growing every day.

When the day came for him to leave, he gave me back the plants I gifted him so I could take care of them. I had to go to work that day and put them in my backpack. When I got home and opened my bag, I saw one of the plants was broken in half. It had fallen out of the small pot, with the roots hanging and just a few leaves left attached. The other one had just been slightly damaged. I tried to bring them both back to life but only one made it.

He is one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met in my life, someone who’s taught me a lot through love. I still keep the plant on my bedroom window. I see it change and grow as time passes. For me, it’s a symbol of our relationship and a reminder that we’re both still growing—separately, but growing nevertheless.

I was 16, and I was having a meltdown in my ex-girlfriend’s bathroom.

It was one of those ‘I’m-a-teenager-and-I’m-choking-on-my-emotions’ kind of cries, one that made one of her many cats meow at the door in confusion. My ex-girlfriend hovered nervously; I heard her footsteps go back and forth, to the couch, to the piano, to my door. I sat on the floor, face pressed up against the toilet bowl, wishing I could calm down.

See, her crime was playing a song that I was extremely familiar with, the type of music I would hear playing at my grandmother’s house, just before she was in the throes of dementia. This was enough to barricade myself to the bathroom for the better part of twenty minutes. Feeling like a baby, I stole the soap from her sink and put it in my pocket before

I trudged out to see her. It was lavender-scented and left a luxurious residue when you washed your hands with it, a welcome, heavy weight in my pocket as I left. In this moment, I felt totally in control of who we were—I stole the soap, she was rid of soap, and we were finally equal after many unbalanced conversations. I still have the soap, wrapped in many Ziplocs because evidently, soap starts to weep liquid when it hasn’t been used in more than five years. Sometimes I take it out to smell it, to remind myself of the bathroom and our backs pressed against each side of the door, waiting for the other to make a move.

Buried deep within the bottom drawer of my Ikea cabinet lies a nondescript brown folder. A small cougar sticker seals the folder and protects what’s inside: the first and only love letter I’ve ever received. It’s from my first girlfriend; she gave it to me on our one year anniversary.

Against my better judgment, I can’t get rid of this folder. I’ve moved three times since she gave it to me three years ago, but I can never find the courage to throw it out. It's a standoff between me and a fucking folder.

It’s not that I’m hung up on my ex—I’m hung up on her words.

The letter is special to me because it’s proof that once upon a time, I wasn’t lonely. I was loved. Knowing that letter exists gives me hope that someday I’ll be loved again, that someone will come along who smiles

at my dumb face and laughs at my awful jokes.

Even though the folder gives me hope, I know the letter’s words are likely sharp and liable to open up old wounds. I’m not the person that letter was written for, and I haven’t been for a long time. So despite my depressing reliance on this folder, I can’t summon the nerve to open up the damn thing again. That cougar continually taunts my ineptitude, but it’s probably for the best. Some things are better left buried.

I’m locked in this stupid stalemate with a brown folder. Unable to open it, unable to part with it. Perhaps one day, when I find love again, I’ll finally be able to part ways with this pesky relic. But until then, I’m stuck with my bland brown folder and it’s little cougar sticker.

When I broke up with my boyfriend of almost three years, I was shocked at the sense of total weightlessness and freedom that accompanied the dumping. I found that breaking up wasn’t the hard part—the hardest part was when the endless stream of objects that had to be returned or evacuated from both our lives in the weeks following.

What I didn’t expect was for him to return all the little things I’d made for him over our three-year relationship: every birthday card, Christmas card, anniversary photo album, love letter and mixtape I’d crafted. He returned them because he “was going to throw them out otherwise,” and I think that was the most hurtful thing he could have done. I show my love through my actions and through the quality time

I spend creating things for other people. These letters, photos and CDs gave him joy, and he threw them back in my face as if they had never meant anything at all.

Of course, almost eight months later, I understand that for him, it was because of that joy that these objects were too painful to keep. Now, I’m grateful he gave them to me instead of discarding them. To me, they represent a relationship I will always be thankful for.

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Inside non-consensual condom removal and its impact on victims TEANNA JAGDATT Contributor ALISHA SAMNANI Opinions Editor

About one year ago, *Grace had given consent to her current boyfriend, deciding that it was the right time for them to have sex. She finally felt comfortable with him and figured that they would be together for a long time. Both had discussed the contraceptive approach they wanted to take beforehand, and she insisted on using a condom because birth control was not an option for her. It wasn’t until the day after they had sex that her boyfriend revealed he had removed the condom partway through.. “He told me that he figured we would keep going anyways, so he didn’t feel the need to mention it to me,” she recalled. “He claimed it had broken on its own.”

Unfortunately, Grace’s story is not unique.

On the website The Experience Project, one man created a forum for other men to share a “comprehensive guide” on how to commit this act, commonly referred to as “stealthing.”

The website was created by the “Bareback Brotherhood,” a group of men who share tips and detailed instructions on how to secretly remove a condom during sex.

As Alexandra Brodsky, a legal fellow at the National Women’s Law Center describes in her report for the Columbia Journal of Gender and Law, “the act of stealthing is known as one partner putting on a condom, 26

and then removing it either before or during sexual intercourse without [their] partner’s knowledge or consent.”

Cases of non-consensual condom removal have become more common in Canada and the United States. A 2017 CBC report followed Haley, a 20-year-old woman from Edmonton who, after consenting to sex with a man she trusted, realized he had removed the condom intentionally.

While the focus tends to be on female victims of stealthing, it’s important to recognize that women are not the only ones affected. In an interview for NBC news, vice president of victim services for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) Brian Pinero explained that stealthing is a problem in both gay and heterosexual communities. “We need to talk about everybody, not just one group because sexual assault affects everybody,” said Pinero.

Stealthing poses risks regarding sexual health. Victims can be exposed to sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancies. In 2006, a Nova Scotia man named Craig Hutchinson attempted to save his failing relationship with his thengirlfriend by poking holes into her condoms to get her pregnant. Once impregnated, Hutchinson revealed what he had done in a

series of text messages, causing his partner to take him to court. In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled 7-0 to convict Hutchinson on one count of aggravated sexual assault, on the basis that Hutchinson’s partner was deprived of her ability to consent. Hutchinson was sentenced to 18 months in prison, and his name was placed on the National Sex Offender Registry.

It’s clear that the shame and sense of violation felt by Grace and Haley is a shared experience amongst many victims of stealthing. “After that experience, I couldn’t even look at guys the same,” said Grace. “It was like trust wasn’t an option for me to give to anyone. I was kind of just stuck with it.” The exposure of stories like the above resulted in enough awareness to get The Experience Project to take down and block all access to the stealthing forum.

Whether stealthing has happened to you, or someone you know, it’s important that stories like these don’t go unheard. Talk to someone and tell your story. You’re not the only one. *Name has been changed to protect the identity of interviewee

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Andrea is a Communications student who has been studying at CapU since Fall 2018.

andrea, 20

Photos and text by WEN ZHAI

Andrea opened a little red bag with delicate colourful blocks from Japan (a gift from her mother) and took out a rosary (I had never seen or heard of one before). “It’s supposed to be like God is always with you,” she explained to me. Andrea is Catholic and the Holy Rosary was originally given to her mom by a priest from their church.

“It’s supposed to be for protection—spiritual protection,” she said. “I keep it with me always.”

Andrea carries this photo with her every day. “She’s my best friend since we were in the second grade, and so we’ve been friends like over ten years,” she said, chucking at the number “ten.” For someone who’s only 20 years old, having a friend for more than ten years is a real blessing. “We’ve never grown apart because she’s back home and I’m here and we still talk every day. We’re always in contact and we know everything about each other. She's like my biggest support system.”

Andrea’s notebook has shiny silver intricate patterns on a fluorescent blue cover. She writes her feelings in it when she’s angry or sad, and it makes her feel better after. The diary, which is also from her mom, is just two years old, but Andrea has been writing about her feelings like this for six years.

As a music lover, Andrea carried a pair of earphones, also from her mom. “My mom gives me everything!” she laughed.

To take care of her hair and nails, Andrea takes green tea pills daily and carries a little red Fortiplex Omega-3 pill case with her every day.

At the end of my interview with her, I asked Andrea if she would be comfortable with me taking a photo of her. Without me even raising the camera, she blushed and shied away immediately. “No…but you’ve got my photo there,” she smiled, pointing to the polaroid.

Good friends allow us to try things we’re too shy to do alone, but don’t mind doing when they’re around.

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H eath er h au g h n

@haughnsy 28

CYN TH I A TRAN VO

@cynthiatranvo FEATURED ARTI ST S

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I Can’t Find Myself in You How I learned that my self-esteem can’t come from others’ bodies MEGAN AMATO Associate News Editor

Sex and I have a very complicated relationship. It was often an unhealthy one, based not on mutual pleasure but on whether or not a person wanted me. I had little to no self-esteem, undiagnosed mental health issues and a family who had taught me that love was conditional. I treated my body as a commodity that I traded for a temporary kind of love. I looked for who I was the only way I knew how to find myself—through other people. It took many unsatisfying and often humiliating sexual encounters and a couple of abusive relationships to realize that what I was looking for couldn’t be found in others. I couldn’t trade sex for my self-esteem and self-worth. I had to find those things in myself.

I’m not slut-shaming those who are sexually active, who love sex and find pleasure in variety. Instead, this is criticism of using sex as a tool for sex-validation.

Simply stated: sex won’t make someone love you, but more, it won’t make you love you.

Self-love doesn’t come when you do—and I rarely did anyway.

I hate clichés in media about loose women having “daddy issues.” I may have deep-rooted issues with my father but those issues come primarily from the worst daddy of them all: the patriarchy. Sure, my father told me that he hoped I wasn’t a slut because that’s all I would amount to no matter my accomplishments, but that was just wisdom passed down from big papa patriarchy.

Women are criticized as both the virgin and the slut; there is no winning when it comes to sex, and the harder you try to find that self-worth in others, the more elusive it becomes.

I was 15-years-old the first time I had sex with my boyfriend of one week—and he dumped me the next. The second time was with a slightly older guy who was very sexually experienced—to this day I don’t know how he got so many girls to sleep with him because it was the most unsatisfying sexual experience I’ve ever had. I had sex 30

with him because I ached to feel wanted, and for those two days leading up to it, I did.

He stopped talking to me almost as soon as he was done. After that, his friend messaged me on MySpace to kindly inform me that I was a whore. It was the second time I’d ever had sex but because it was with a guy who was promiscuous, I was the slut. Boys will be boys and all that rubbish.

Unfortunately, I didn’t learn my lesson.

I kept handing my body over to people in hopes that I would feel some sort of connection that would provide me with a sense of self. I questioned my self-worth and value daily. I choose romantic engagements over friendships because they made me feel more immediate and hurt people who cared about me. When I turned 19, the bar scene made sex more easily available. There were some fun interactions, but I realized that I wasn’t hugely turned on by the person but by my own power and I slept only with those who chased me. It didn’t last long.

It was six months before I was tired of the club scene and my self-esteem had hit an all-time low. I crashed and burned, hurt someone I cared about and began living with someone. That short relationship was emotionally abusive and he made me think that I owed him my body for every kindness he had given me. For a while, I thought it was my punishment and stayed until one incident made me fear for my safety.

After that, I spent six months with myself and away from the toxic relationship I had with sex. I entered a long-distance relationship and being separated from the person and unable to throw my body at problems allowed me to discover who I was, what I liked about myself and my complicated sexuality. In the end, being alone made me confront myself and my issues and opened the door in a way that sex or other people never could. Find who you are by yourself. You’ll thank yourself later.

Love without rules?

Valentine’s Day isn’t the only time for love VALERIA VELAZQUEZ Contributor

Every year since I was 11, I would hope for a boy to show up on my doorstep on Feb. 14.

I would imagine this boy carrying a bouquet of roses, a box of chocolates, and, if possible, have a Mariachi band serenading me in the background. After a song or two he would declare his eternal and unconditional love to me and we would live happily-ever-after.

Eventually, I realized that was never going to happen to me—or to anyone for that matter. Not only because no 11-year-old kid can actually afford all of this, but because as I grew older, I realized that this is not the only way to show love.

Love comes in different forms, can be shown in many different ways and shouldn’t have any rules or restrictions. When Feb. 14 approaches, we can see that there are some rules still imposed on us as to how a relationship should be conducted. If we go to a mall or high street like Granville or Robson, we can observe the storefronts full of objects displayed for consumption on this special day. Lingerie, chocolates,

fragrances; most of which are for men to buy and women to consume. Men are seen as the ones who should protect and provide for the woman so that the woman can show her appreciation. Expensive dinners and exuberant material gifts are given and then they expect to be rewarded with a kiss, an acceptance of a proposal or even sex. Objects are not just objects, they are turned into symbols of what and how our behaviours and actions should be.

The approach taken on Valentine’s Day in this capitalist system is also very narrow. There is very little representation of the LGBTQ+ community. Everything or most of the things we see going around are designed for a heteronormative society.

Couples are not always formed by a man and a woman and we can see how on Feb. 14, the people who do not fit the norm are excluded. This is supposed to be a celebration of love—of all types of love— yet things as simple as Valentine’s cards struggle to feel inclusive. The pronouns,

labels and the images on most of them are programmed to fit heterosexual relationships. Recently Hallmark released a series of cards representing same-sex couples. They are one of the first big brands to take that step towards inclusiveness, and although there was some controversy, it was considered a very important step for the LGBTQ+ community.

I personally don’t see a point for the existence of this festivity. It seems like it only serves for unnecessary consumerism, gender roles reinforcement and heteronormativity. Besides, it also sets a date to show love to your special people when you don’t actually need a specific day to do that. Love is to be shown to whoever, however and whenever we want. There shouldn’t be any barriers set to it, so we can start taking steps towards breaking those barriers and making Valentine's Day be the Love Without Rules Day.

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But I Love You How abusive relationships are portrayed in Disney movies

TEANNA JAGDATT Contributor

Growing up, I loved watching Disney movies. I remember wanting to dress up in fancy dresses, go to balls where I would meet my prince charming, and eventually live happily ever after. As cliché as that sounds, all I wanted to be growing up was a Disney princess. What I didn’t realize was that those movies didn’t resonate with real life as much as I wanted them to. I got so lost in the elegance of it all that I never acquired an understanding of the social issues hidden within those stories. The true vulgarity that Disney was able to hide so well from young people has become more obvious with the help of the remakings of these films.

The portrayal of domestic abuse within the Disney Princess movies has been known to us for a long time, but with the latest live-action recreations of the movies, we are exposed to seeing levels of abuse in many of these relationships. The movie that stood out to me the most in regards to this topic was Belle and the Beast’s relationship in Beauty and the Beast.

Undergoing this type of abuse is normalized, due to society stressing the need to always “do better.” Belle does this not because she doesn’t truly love herself, but because she is seeking kindness and safety in the Beast, and she hopes he will make her worthy of it. She gives up her entire life in order to gain what we see as a fabricated version of love. In the remake of

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this movie, the main change I noticed was how obvious they made the abuse. Emma Watson’s representation of Belle hides any real emotional or mental abuse with a lot of its moral ambiguity being tampered with.

We see this in many other relating stories, specifically in relationships where power dynamics are tested, such as Ariel and Prince Eric in The Little Mermaid, Cinderella and her step-mother, and of course Snow White and her prince (who she hadn’t even met yet until after he non-consensually kissed her). All of these couples show some tell-tale signs that their relationship somehow possesses either emotional or mental abuse. With that being said, Disney is telling us to seek our worth in an abuser, which is not healthy.

We all have a story that we know and love, and even when the relationship dynamic gets a little uncomfortable, we still get lost within the story. I have a tendency to put on rose coloured glasses when it comes to love stories. In fiction, there is this idea that power is wielded by one person within a relationship filled with toxicity. You may not have noticed the divide in dominance in many pop culture relationships, but some are more obvious than others. If you still have trouble noticing the abusive and toxic relationships portrayed in some pop culture movies, I suggest you buy Disney Plus and do research for yourself.

R IS FOR REFUGEE Just how helpful is a television show in dealing with trauma?

MANJOT KAUR Contributor

With the ongoing war in Syria, the international refugee crisis has broken the record set in World War II and is still rising. In addition to those disappointing reports, the average length of refugee displacement is over 20 years. That’s 20 years of hoping to meet their basic needs of safety, security and survival. While most of us take these for granted, these psychological and safety needs may be missing from the life of a refugee child, leaving them deprived of the resources to cater to needs of love, belonging, esteem or self-actualization.

While hope of refugees returning to a safe home is yet to be accomplished, treatments and secondary solutions for the traumatic experiences of refugees are frantically being sought out by NGO’s worldwide. In 2016, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) teamed up with experts in children’s educational media at Sesame Workshop, where the creators of Sesame Street developed a strategy to help the youngest of the Arabic speaking refugee children cope with toxic stress.

Children cover almost half of the total refugee population, and early childhood development (ECD) plays a crucial role in a child’s life as it sets the building blocks for their intellectual potential.

During this time the MacArthur Foundation set up a competition with a prize of $100 million to grant to an organization that was able to present an efficient solution towards the global refugee crisis, as deemed by their board of judges. TV show Ahlan Simsim (Arabic for “Welcome Sesame”), won the $100 million grant in 2018, with the proposed aim to handle “trauma, [and] toxic stress among refugee children in the Middle East,” as stated by the head of the IRC, David Miliband, in an interview with CBC News reporter Lesley Stahl.

Because of the studies supporting the positive correlation of improvement in academic standing and watching Sesame Street, and the alarming lack of funding towards ECD for children of war torn areas from humanitarian aid, the creation of this TV show is innovative and forward thinking, and I am optimistic to see how it may evolve education through mass media.

A 1970’s study showed that children who had access to Sesame Street were far more likely to do better in school, and less likely to fall behind when compared to children who didn’t have Sesame Street on their home cable.

While mass media is a major component of the work carried out by this collaborative program, there is additional, direct support provided in the form of home visits by IRC educational facilitators. With the restrictions made by the Syrian government against humanitarian aid in Southern Syria, the program is optimistic in its hopes of reaching out to more than Northeast and Northwest Syria.

While critics of this show may point to the dilution of mass media as a crucial weak spot in the show’s impact, prioritizing children of displacement and of war torn countries, along with increasing awareness, may prove to have a sizable effect on the early development of these children, and give them the support needed for adversity faced in their lives.

Ahlan Simsim may not tackle the root problem of the Syrian war itself, nor do away with the game of chess being played at the expense of innocent civilians in the Middle East. However, the show offers a temporary solution for the stress placed onto the impressionable young minds of refugee children, and for that aim it is a step in the right direction.

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Safety in Sex Work It’s time to provide sex workers with the basic rights afforded to other professionals ALEXIS ZYGAN Contributor

Sex work in Canada has a long history of criminalization, and yet it’s a service that fulfills a need within society.

Paying for an orgasm should not be a crime if experienced by two consenting adults—especially when there are half-naked models plastered on billboards.

We’ve all heard the idea that sex sells. Strippers dance on film screens, while the internet has led to the widespread accessibility of porn and hookup apps. Sex is everywhere.

According to Bill C-36, the act of selling sex is exploitative and dangerous, but it’s the bill itself that makes it so. It strips sex workers of the ability to advertise their services safely by criminalizing the purchaser and erasing online communities that have formed to advocate for said safety.

The only thing risky about sex work is the treatment of sex workers. Bill C-36 erases harm-reduction efforts that have formed a safety net of resources to ensure protection and security. Removing the online storefront forces sex workers to seek clientele on the streets, increasing the likelihood of violence. Making something illegal does not mean fewer people are seeking out sexual services. In fact, between 1991 and 2014 alone, 294 deaths were recorded among sex workers.

One shortcoming of Bill C-36 lies in its failure to differentiate between exploitative sex and consensual sex.

While many individuals forced into the trade are victims of rape and abuse, viewing all sex workers as victims is inherently misogynistic. Failing to acknowledge a woman's right to choose what to do with their bodies, and treating sex workers all as unskilled victims is problematic. Of course, it is important to acknowledge that not all sex workers are women—many are members of the LGBTQ+ community. Transgender and other marginalized folks enter the trade due to discrimination in traditional workplaces.

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Advocacy groups vouch for decriminalization and autonomy to give sex workers the rights of business owners and entrepreneurs. Like any other business, sex workers need to invest money to make money—they purchase hotel rooms for calls and sex toys for camera work. Decriminalization would also mean adhering to both health and security rules and employment standards, ensuring safety on the job. Third-party sites allowed sex workers to veto clients with a background check. They required from the client government ID and at least two references from coworkers. The structure set-up by community-based outreach protects the dignity and equality of all sex workers more than Bill C-36.

Sex work could be the reason someone can sit in a university classroom, eat a meal, sleep in a warm home or pay their bills on time. Bill C-36 demeans the person providing the service, while also banning sex workers from using third-parties to advertise their services.

It’s time that the government changes its narrative towards sex work. With films like Hustlers representing sex workers on the big screen, and celebrities like Cardi B, Chris Pratt and Amber Rose speaking openly about working in the sex industry, sex work is becoming increasingly normalized. Instead of pushing sex workers into dangerous situations and providing hefty fines for the buyer, the Canadian government should follow in the footsteps of Las Vegas by decriminalizing and treating sex workers as the business owners and independent contractors they are. When a sex worker faces harm, they should have the right to acquire services from WorkSafeBC just like anyone else. People deserve safety in their workplace regardless of whether they are part of the sex trade, serving tables or working construction.

Harry Potter and the TERF-Supporting Author Can people support the LGBTQ2+ community and still be fans of the wizarding world?

JAYDE ATCHISON Staff Writer

One of my earliest memories is standing outside of the Chapters bookstore in Park Royal, (now Chatters Salon). I was shuffling my feet from left to right while my mother stood behind me and dozens of other avid readers stood to my sides. All of us were hoping that one of the employees would slide the gate open earlier than the mall’s opening time. Our prayers were answered and the manager told the crowd, “children can come in first!”

I left my mom to fend for herself outside of the gate and pushed my little legs as quickly as possible to the new release section. I grabbed a hardcover edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as if I were running to the supplies in The Hunger Games and ran back to the gate to show off that I was successful in my mission.

When the store officially opened for business, my mom brought in her purchasing power, and we were able to take home the second book that shaped my love of reading.

Memes used to rise up on the internet such as, “if you have not been assigned a sexuality, please take a number and J.K Rowling will be with you as soon as she is available.” However, on Dec.19, Rowling tweeted in support of a known trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF), Maya Forstater, and the memes switched to an anti-Rowling theme. Forstater was a researcher with the non-profit think tank, Centre for Global Development, and was not given a renewed contract following her transphobic tweets. She made allegations that “men cannot change into women", a statement that is toxic for the LQBTQ2+ community, especially trans identifying people.

Following Forstater’s firing, J.K. Rowling came through with a disappointing tweet that reads, “Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya #ThisIsNotADrill.” This is an obnoxious stance against the trans community, from someone that created a series that preached it is

okay to be yourself. The question that is on people's mind now–is J.K. Rowling cancelled?

From 1998 until 2011, I eagerly devoured each book immediately upon release date and lined up to see the movies on opening night. For so long J.K. Rowling was the one person, living or dead, to have dinner with because she influenced so much of my childhood and adolescence. As it stands today in 2020, I am unsure I would even want to be in the same room as the author. I went from buying her standalone novel, The Casual Vacancy, solely out of loyalty to struggling with the idea of rereading my favourite series.

How does one separate a person from their creations? This debate exists for actors that have been exposed through the #MeToo movement, musicians that have been exposed for being repugnant excuses for human beings, and now for Rowling and the bigotry she is associated with. Am I supposed to forget about the magical tale that got me through the darkest times of my life?

Throwing out my copies of Harry Potter is not going to make any changes for the trans community, nor will it impact Rowling in any way.

Each person is entitled to how they want to handle this situation, and for some it may be to disassociate from all Rowling’s creations.

For others, it may mean to forgo any future support of Rowling, but keep their books and movies on the shelf to be returned to when they’re ready. Perhaps the next time I reread Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets I will become uncomfortable with the Dec.19 memory overpowering my Chapters memory, and I will have to slide the book back on the shelf.

We can only hope Rowling can learn and grow from this incident, realize the impact she has on people and apologize for her hurtful words. Until then, we should do what we can to stand up for the rights of marginalized people and fight for a world where things like this are not projected aloud from people in power.

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Policing the Pipeline We should be focused on natural resource preservation, not economic benefits MANJOT KAUR Contributor

The Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline’s planned site of construction is on Wet’suwet’en traditional territory. The unceded land has a population of around 5,000, and is composed of five clans: Gilseyhu, Likhts’amisyu, Laksilyu, Tsayu and Gidimt’en. Defendants of the project praise the economic benefits of the pipeline, but overlook the long and short-term damage to the environment.

During a time of heightened awareness and education surrounding Indigenous peoples and the intensifying climate crisis, it’s entirely unjustifiable.

The Wet’suwet’en Nation, along with most Indigenous people in British Columbia, never signed treaties to hand their territory over to the Government of Canada—yet on Dec. 14, 2018, the Provincial Court of BC granted TransCanada (now known as TC Energy) a mandatory injunction to access the pipeline construction site on Wet’suwet’en land. While certain elected officials of the First Nations peoples have signed off on the construction of this pipeline, the inherent Chiefs, and more importantly, the “caretakers” of the land, have not. The planned site for the pipeline runs over Morice River which many of the clans rely on.

In response to Wet’suwet’en sovereignty being breached and the territory being invaded, protestors formed the Gitimd’en checkpoint at Unist’ot’en camp, and put up a roadblock to prevent TC Energy from gaining access to the site. The protestors held their position for weeks, throughout extreme weather conditions.

This checkpoint is on Gilseyhu clan territory, and is operated by the people of the headwaters. On Jan. 7, 2020, the RCMP took on the responsibility of eliminating 36

resistance, and argued for the need of full force against the peaceful protestors, among which children were present. These orders allowed for “shoot to kill” action.

Upon notice of these reports, human rights activists reached out to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination for immediate action to prevent further violence against the Unist’ot’en. Grand Chief Stewart Phillip acknowledged that the recent progressions are a “significant development,” but that it is “somewhat frustrating and embarrassing that the UN has to chide the government of Canada and the provincial government with respect to what the rule of law is in this country in regard to Indigenous land rights, Indigenous human rights.”

Despite these developments, the RCMP have increased their personnel and equipment in the area in the past year. As of the second week of Jan. 2020, they have declared the area an “exclusion zone,” by denying access to reporters, and restricting the delivery of critical food, medical and winter supplies to land defenders, posing threats by government drones and helicopter surveillance.

What right does the government of Canada have to allow for the construction of an environmentally damaging project on the unceded land of the Wet’suwet’en nation in the first place? This is a fine example of government twisting the law to their benefit. The hereditary Chiefs have urged Premier John Horgan to meet with them to discuss the matter, rather than force their hand through the RCMP. Premier Horgan’s public statements declared the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as “forward looking,” and not applicable to the CGL. This is in stark contrast to Horgans

speech at a Witset, Mar. 16, 2019 balhats (potluck), where the Wet’suwet’en people collectively witnessed Premier Horgan commit to “genuine cooperation” with the Wet’suwet’en Nation.

In the Delgamuuk-Gisday’wa proceeding, the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that Wet’suwet’en Nation territory has never been signed off to the Government of Canada, and that development operations must be with the consent of Indigenous hereditary Chiefs. By this right, Premier Horgan also has publicly lied about having permission to operate on the project, when permits to operate on the territory were never given by the Wet’suwet’en people.

This injunction alone is itself a violent act of colonialism. The instruction given

by RCMP officers to use violence and permit lethal action is ongoing proof of the Canadian government’s violence towards Indigenous people.

Economic benefits achieved through these aggressive means are no longer beneficial when weighed against the emotional, physical and environmental damage of this project. In this selfproclaimed green-minded society, there should be more awareness in areas that concern the depletion of the world’s natural resources. It’s time to take our “green” practices further than having municipally run recycling programs. The surplus of jobs created by the CGL project amount to nothing when, eventually, there are no natural resources left for us to feed off of.

Updates are being posted on the Gidimt’en checkpoint Instagram page, @gidimten_ checkpoint.

The Race for Representation Why racial representation in Hollywood goes beyond casting directors ALISHA SAMNANI Opinions Editor CHRISTINE WEI Illustrator

As a mixed-race woman, I had quite the identity crisis growing up. I often felt like I didn’t belong. When I was a kid, it was challenging to find myself represented on the big screen. Where I could see parts of myself on a superficial level, they weren’t things I could relate to.

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words—so what was I supposed to think of my worth when I wasn’t even in the frame?

In her book Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism, sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen pointed out that “racism, in the form of job exclusion and racially stereotyped roles, has defined the Hollywood film industry since its birth in the early 1900s.” Indeed, horrifying—at least, by modern standards—caricatures and blatant examples of yellowface and blackface ran rampant in early Hollywood. From the release of the film Birth of a Nation in 1915, stereotypes surrounding people of colour have been interwoven into a startling amount of visual language that some are now attempting to undo.

For example, minstrel shows popular in America at the time often satirized black people as dim-witted, lazy, or buffoonish—not exactly an ego-boost, now is it?

While it is challenging today to find the share of movies and television shows that have non-stereotypical ethnic characters, what can be found are the number of non-Caucasian actors cast in popular media, as well as the number of directors and writers of colour that see their projects come to fruition.

Although the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism

has chronicled an increase in racial representation in mainstream Hollywood, the 2019 UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report shows that only 19.8 per cent of lead roles were played by people of colour in 2017, while a minute 12.6 per cent of movies were led by directors of colour. If we make this pool more diverse, then there are more opportunities for women, POC, LGBTQ+, and other marginalized groups to see themselves represented not only on the screen, but in all facets of society.

Consumers of film and television have more of an impact on representation than you may think.

Actively supporting and demanding media developed by, directed by, and made with marginalized minority groups in mind can push inclusion and real diversity of — not just perception—across the board in Hollywood.

My lack of interest in movies as a child seems abundantly clear. Entertainment exists so that we can find connections between ourselves and the world around us. During our formative years, seeing ourselves reflected in the media we consume can play an important role in discovering who we are, and what kinds of things we can accomplish. During my formative years, I wondered how I was going to contribute to a society that didn’t seem to know I existed. In 2020, it’s naive to claim that these alternative perspectives don’t already exist— but it’s time to push them to the forefront. It’s time to have art imitate life.

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The Greatest Love of All It is time to stop waiting around for “the one.”

You’ve already found them JAYDE ATCHISON Staff Writer JANELLE MOMOTANI Illustrator

From Dec. 26 all the way to Feb. 14, we are bombarded with heart shaped decorations, chocolates and stuffed animals. A constant reminder that Valentine’s Day is on the horizon, and that we should be celebrating it with our ~special someone~ or else we are just sad people on a sad day.

This is a ridiculous expectation that is constantly perpetuated in the media. Women are depicted as needing a man on the big day. People are still creating posts about hoping to find a date this year. We need to stop putting pressure on people to depend on another person to feel love. For us single pringles, our internal dialogue may have us wondering why we are still single, and ultimately, will we ever find love?

There is a massive difference between being alone, and being lonely. It took me a long time to separate the two, and discover that while I thrive on alone time, it doesn’t mean that I am lonely.

Loneliness crawls up our spine, inches toward our heart and makes certain days harder than others. We want someone to offer the storybook romance, take away the pain of every heartbreak and reveal what inspired all those love songs. That kind of love exists (so people tell me) but until we stumble upon it, we need to focus on falling in love with ourselves.

An important thing to remember while becoming self-partnered (thanks Emma Watson) is forgiveness.

If we don’t get the high mark we were hoping for, let’s learn from our mistakes and move on. If we skip another spin class to watch The Witcher, we have to allow ourselves the rest. Reminding ourselves that it is okay to fail, it is okay to bail and it is okay to need a break from the challenges we constantly face.

Waiting for someone to take us on that perfect date is akin to waiting for a body of water in Vancouver to freeze over; it may never happen.

Instead of feeling defeated and grumbling on your

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couch, take yourself out. If you have been wanting to check out the new exhibition at the art gallery, try that new vegan restaurant or see the new Star Wars movie – go on your own. It can be liberating to do activities for and by yourself. Unlike when you go on a date (and you’re trying to impress someone) you do not have to alter plans from walking the seawall to going to the bar or pretend to care about the renaissance paintings when you’d rather look at the Indigenous pieces. When activities are done alone, we take full control of the situation.

Social media hosts a barrage of #selfcare posts, and while it might seem cheesy or a hoax—it is not something to completely brush off. Self-care can take the shape of bubble baths, weekly therapy sessions, hiking, reading, running, trying new restaurants or anything else that gives people a sense of accomplishment, happiness or relief. Whatever it is that sparks that Marie Kondo level of joy, make time to do it as often as you can. When a significant other takes care of us, love bubbles up and suddenly we’ve fallen head over heels. Who is to say that we can’t do that for ourselves through self-care?

The cherry on top of finding self-love is finding confidence. Confidence to put yourself first, to be alone and to be unapologetically you. “Fake it until you make it” is not just for starting new jobs, it is for holding ourselves in a new light. It is a slow road, learning to love every imperfection we have, but it is more achievable than finding a fairytale romance. It is time for us to hold our heads high, repeat self-affirmations and work on making our needs and wants top priority. Whether we are single or in a relationship, self-love should be included in a weekly, if not daily routine. Life is too short to wait for someone to love us the way we are able to love ourselves right now.

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SARA N G U YEN

@sarasnnguyen 40

Mar i n a S u bac h

@subcch FEATURED ART

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Fuck You, I’m Gonna Date a Robot Modern love is an absolute cluster fuck.

Enter: the Digisexual

JOSS ARNOTT Contributor VALERIYA KIM Illustrator

There’s a twinkle in the eyes of Akihiko Kondo when he’s talking about his wife Hatsune Miku. Kondo and Miku got married last November and have been living together ever since. Despite the fact that their marriage was held in a white chapel with all manner of pomp and circumstance, however, their union isn’t legally recognized by the government of Japan. That’s because Hatsune Miku is a hologram.

This mixing between romance and technology is the core of an emerging sexual identity called digisexuality; a word that has come to describe how we as humans interact with and use technology to form romantic connections. The idea comes from a paper written by Dr. Neil McArthur and Dr. Markie L. C. Twist, and breaks the trend into two waves.

First-wave digisexuality is the use of technology as a go-between for forming connections with other people.

“Digisexuality is just anytime you’re using technology in sex or relationships," McArthur explained in an interview with the CBC. “Whether it’s through Snapchat or Skype, or meeting people online through Tinder or Bumble, everybody’s more or less a digisexual in this first wave sense."

There are also more unique aspects of firstwave digisexuality such as teledildonics, which, as McArthur and Twist mention in their paper, “allow users to ‘feel’ one another virtually, through sex toys that are controlled remotely by a partner or that are responsive to a partner’s movements.” If two people are linked by technology, and in the case of teledildonics I do mean linked, it’s probably first-wave.

Second-wave digisexuality is where things get a bit more interesting. The 42

second-wave forgoes a human partner in favour of a purely artificial one. This idea is still a bit on the bleeding edge. Sex technology is evolving and sex dolls are getting more realistic every year. But there’s still a long way for the technology to go until it’s anywhere close to looking realistic.

Most modern-day sex dolls are more of a turn-off than a turn-on. After aesthetics, the biggest barrier to getting yourself a robot partner is the cost. Most robotic sex dolls cost upwards of $10,000. That’s a lot of money for a less helpful, less sexy version of Siri. And while, yes, you could invest in a body pillow like my targeted ads keep suggesting, that feels more like a last-ditch option than a viable alternative to dating.

So why would anyone forgo real-life humans in favour of next-gen blow up dolls?

Well, it’s less an attraction to technology and more like scratching an itch. As humans we will always crave intimacy, it’s how we’re wired. When you can’t turn to other people for companionship for whatever reason, technology can offer an alternative.

“When you look at people who’ve had difficult sexual experiences, they often find trouble having human partners,” McArthur explained in an interview with CNN. “People wonder why they’d have sex with a robot or a love affair with a hologram because it’s passive, but having a partner who is safe and predictable is often very helpful therapeutically.” Coined by McArthur and Twist, the term “digisexual” denotes an emerging group of people who choose to love technology over people.

With that in mind, is becoming a digisexual even possible using modern-day sexual technology? That depends. While sex technology is developing rapidly, barriers

still exist before it can become a viable option for people who want to become truly intimate with technology. Right now, most robotic sex dolls are little more than talking heads with posable bodies.

Take the sexbot Harmony. Made by Abyss Creations, Harmony’s head alone goes for anything from eight to nine thousand dollars. The body will cost you extra. Harmony is a very limited AI, she can respond to basic questions and even ask a few of her own, but that’s about it.

Essentially, she’s a life-sized barbie doll that resembles a wax figure in the worst way possible. If you aren’t interested in physical beauty or real people, Harmony is an excellent companion for all those lonely nights. If you’re interested in getting to know this robotic beauty, you can download the company’s app and get to know her yourself. At this point though, you may as well just cuddle up with your Amazon Alexa or Google Home.

Sadly, the male sex doll industry is pretty much non-existent. For some odd reason women just don’t seem interested in getting it on with what I can only assume would be a very unruly vibrator. The good news is that sex dolls aren’t the only field where sex technology is moving ahead. Dildos and vibrators just keep evolving with time.

Along with teledildonics, there are a slew of new-age sex toys bringing self-pleasure out of the dark and making it cool.

At this year’s Consumer Electronic Show (CES), a company called Crave was showing off its vibrators. Crave’s mantra is to “embrace your own pleasure on your own terms.” Their product, the Vesper, is a vibrator you wear as a necklace that’s surprisingly stylish and exceedingly bold.

Another cool up-and-coming sex product is the Myhixel, which is essentially a gamified artificial vagina. The product aims to help men deal with premature ejaculation through a “personalized scientific program.” By using gamification and varying levels of stimuli, the fancy fleshlight helps men better acclimate to the rigours of the vagina. It’s like a coin box in Super Mario: the longer you hit it, the more coins you’ll get. This treatment makes it possible to overcome the five-and-a-halfminute average that plagues mankind.

One of the most popular and practical new developments in the sex technology field is the Osé, a state of the art vibrator capable of delivering a blended orgasm by stimulating both the clitoris and the g-spot simultaneously. According to the company’s website, the device “mimics all of the sensations of a human mouth, tongue, and fingers, for an experience that

feels ‘just like a real partner.’” The wait time to get an Osé is around four to six weeks. So there's obviously a demand for avant-garde sex technology. Or maybe it’s just getting close to Valentine’s Day. Today, who can say? Oh, did I mention it’s waterproof?

Finally there’s Hatsune Miku, the 16-year-old hologram with long turquoise pigtails. Miku isn’t a sex toy, she’s a Japanese smart-assistant. She lives in a Gatebox, a hologram projector that’s about two feet tall and looks something like a futuristic instant coffee maker that’s brewing a very tiny anime girl. The product is unique to Japan and has similar functionality to a traditional smart-assistant. Miku even has the ability to text your phone and let you know she misses you.

At first glance it’s difficult to understand why Kondo would choose to marry Miku.

The reason is a lot more human than you’d expect in a story about artificiality. “She really added color to my life,” Kondo said in an interview with CNN. “When I talk with her I use different facial expressions and feel something. That’s made a difference.”

Kondo struggled with depression for years and felt alienated by women after he was bullied mercilessly by a female colleague to the point that he quit his job and became a hermit. Staying at his childhood home, Kondo didn’t leave his room for two years. Miku saved him. “[Miku] lifted me up when I needed it the most. She kept me company and made me feel like I could regain control over my life,” he said. “What I have with her is definitely love.” Miku and Kondo’s relationship isn’t in service of a sexual desire, it’s a true connection that Kondo has formed with the person that was there for him when he needed it most. That person just happens to be a hologram.

As sex technology continues to evolve, so does intimacy.

It seems a little out there right now, but second-wave digisexuality is inevitable at this point. Look at how technology has fundamentally changed modern romance.

Just ten years ago it was considered pretty shameful to have met your significant other online, but nowadays apps like Tinder and Bumble have become mainstream.

Ghosting, sliding into DMs, swiping right—it’s completely revolutionized the game. So it’s not so crazy to imagine that in a few years people like Kondo won’t be shunned, but accepted for their choice to love something artificial.

While devices like sex dolls and

holograms are still seen as deviant, companies like Crave and people like Akihiko Kondo are blazing a trail. By bringing sex technology like vibratornecklaces and artificial vaginas into the light, Crave is helping to dissolve the stigma around sex technology. Kondo’s bravery in openly marrying a hologram is the first step for an emerging form of love. I know it sounds crazy, but one of these days all of this is just going to seem normal. In the interim, however, we’re stuck with the likes of Harmony. And while I’m sure she’s a lovely girl, she’s just not my type.

Ever since technology was introduced into the world of romance, things have gotten a lot more ambiguous. Finding love in 2020 is hard work. Yes, technology has made it a lot easier to find a date, but it’s also made things a lot more complicated. It’s the curse of choice. The dating pool has grown so large that you can conceivably hit on people in Egypt if you have Tinder Gold. I have no idea why you would want to do that, but it’s possible nevertheless. So instead of dealing with a handful of potential suitors that happen to be in your immediate life, you now have the option of dating pretty much anyone who also uses technology to score a date. This is all the direct effect of first-wave of digisexuality, and it’s still evolving. “We should not imagine that the development of first-wave digisexualities is complete,” McArthur and Twist write. “On the contrary, many of these technologies continue to develop, and new ones continue to emerge.” While I doubt any of these new technologies will debut in time for you to get a date for Valentine's Day, it’s interesting to think of how meeting people will be ten years down the road.

While the idea of second-wave digisexuals seems strange today, as the world continues to evolve, tomorrow’s normal is becoming increasingly unclear.

One thing that will never change is the absolutely magnificent cluster fuck that we call love. Love is messy, it’s confusing, it’s convoluted and yet it’s wonderful. Yes, technology has significantly changed how we find love and make connections, but it hasn’t changed what we're looking for at the end of the day. Whether it takes the form of a terrifying sex-doll, a beautiful Japanese hologram, a cozy body pillow or even a real life human, we’re all just trying to find someone or something that we can be happy with.

The extent to which technology will change the fundamental ways we navigate sex and romance remains to be seen, but at this point, I won’t rule anything out. If I know one thing, it’s that humans are a lot kinkier than we let on.

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Asleep at the Feels When “falling” in love is a literal problem.

SARAH ROSE Features Editor

“Sleeping around” takes on a whole new meaning when living with the neurological disorder called narcolepsy. Navigating the confusing world of intimate relationships is hard enough as it is, but studies show that throwing a chronic disease into the mix dramatically lowers the chances of romantic success. In the case of narcolepsy, falling can happen quite literally— although not everyone who suffers from it experiences this abrupt loss of voluntary muscle tone that is commonly associated with the disease. Medically referred to as cataplexy, its symptoms range from minor (knees buckling, head nodding) to severe (sudden onset of paralysis). The problem with cataplexy is that it is usually triggered by emotional arousal—a bit problematic when falling in love (which is arguably the most intense emotional arousal there is). There is also the misconception that people with narcolepsy “fall asleep” when they experience intense emotions.

Rather, they experience the paralysis that is characteristic of REM sleep while being fully conscious.

Neurotypical brains sleep in a series of cycles through non-rapid eye movement (REM) to REM and then back again. It usually takes about 90 minutes to get to the REM cycle which is characterized by muscular paralysis that prevents us from physically acting out our dreams.

But since we are already asleep, this paralysis is usually irrelevant. However, the brains of people with narcolepsy can abruptly and unpredictably enter REM and experience cataplexy which is usually and inconveniently brought about by certain triggers, like sexual desire. Sufferers have described this paralysis as terrifying because they are awake but unable to move.

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Reilly Johnson, a 22-year-old University of British Columbia student with type 1 narcolepsy says that in order to avoid cataplexy episodes, he removes himself from emotionally stressful situations. “I try my best to explain to everyone beforehand that it might happen. To me, sitting in my room listening to music is always healthier than a cataplexy episode. I say this because emotionally, it’s already terrifying, but then people around you are scared—to the point one of my ex's would just break down and cry every time I had an attack—and you just are there listening to them panic or yell or continue their [emotionally] charged argument.”

For people with any kind of chronic disease, the decision to disclose their condition to prospective romantic partners can be hard. For those who suffer from narcolepsy, it is essential because symptoms can be both physically dramatic and dramatically misunderstood. Johnson feels that it is important to make his condition public because narcolepsy is one of those “mostly invisible” diseases— invisible until something, like cataplexy, happens.

“I have always been very upfront with everyone in my life about my narcolepsy and it's one of the first things I talk about after getting to know someone I'm interested in.

I put it in my bio on Tinder and Instagram and wear a bracelet everywhere so it's not like I try to hide it,” he said. “I would say that telling people about my narcolepsy is very important and is a great first step in the direction of a healthy relationship.”

Though, he does concede that, “there is a lot of anxiety and loneliness that comes with having narcolepsy as there is a lot that feels taboo to mention.”

Although cataplexy may be the most dramatic symptom of narcolepsy, the most frustrating symptom may be Excessive Daytime Sleepiness (EDS). Imagine not being able to stay awake when you want and need to—or as you develop a personal relationship with a romantic interest, not being able to stay awake when your partner wants or needs you to. And then there is the worst-case scenario of finally achieving an intimate exchange with a person and, suddenly and inexplicably, falling sound asleep. EDS can produce feelings of isolation because the symptoms can be interpreted as laziness and due to symptoms often beginning during puberty, it is easy to dismiss them as normal adolescent behaviours. This is one of the reasons that people with narcolepsy usually wait 8-15 years for a diagnosis.

Johnson thinks it is important to keep a sense of humour about his condition which helps him combat some of the anxieties that accompany the work of forming romantic relationships. “I've had lots of funny experiences, most of them involve me falling over when someone says something emotionally charged. Like the first time, a partner of two years told me she loved me, I just passed out in her arms in bed instantly. I've had people hit on me while I'm dancing and suddenly, I get cataplexy and a knee buckles and I just flail around like I intended to do that.”

Like other people with narcolepsy, Johnson depends on drugs to avoid cataplectic events, to stay awake during the day and to sleep at night. The side effects of these medications can be difficult to manage at the best of times. However, when the “best of times” includes a relationship, juggling both drugs and intimacy is

a challenge that can get in the way of fostering the profound connections we seek when we look for a romantic partner.

Johnson has tried various medications to help manage his symptoms—including trialing different amphetamines to help him stay awake—but he found that some side effects were unmanageable and none of the drugs perfectly controlled his sleep/ wake cycle. To help him stay asleep at night, he takes a prescription called Xyrem or GHB. “If you truly have narcolepsy and you don't get awful side effects, this is like night and day in terms of difference,” he said.

“You do have to wake up after 4 hours to re-dose, and even though it tastes like someone collected all the juice from the bottom of a dirty gym towel bin, the effects come on very rapidly and it usually knocks me out cold for two and a half to four hours.”

While medication does help reduce some of the more debilitating symptoms of narcolepsy, it can also have terrifying side effects, especially for those starting the drug for the first time. Johnson explains that if you don’t fall asleep after taking Xyrem, “you are in for a ride that you probably won't remember. Effects during this "blackout period" range from excessive hunger, enhanced music enjoyment, hypersexuality—I do mean hyper—a general good feeling in muscles especially when moving, loss of all coordination— not a good mix those two—lowered inhibition, confusion/delirium and trouble getting thoughts out via words or writing.

I have had times where I do my normal pre-bed routine, brush my teeth and tuck myself in and when I wake up, I have an ex in bed with me. This can be terrifying

but fortunately, I've come a long way and things like that don't happen anymore.”

Because of this vulnerability, Johnson says that the scariest step in any romantic relationship is not the first date, the first kiss, or even the first sexual encounter. It’s the first sleepover. “I'm exposing myself in a way that very few people ever see. I have to sleep with a machine and dose myself on Xyrem (GHB) because it really helps me the next day. I've definitely felt used and violated by people while on my Xyrem. It is essentially making you feel super drunk and super horny, so if you don't sleep, you basically agree to anything someone else suggests. Obviously picking who gets to see me while I’m in that state is a big thing.”

Having narcolepsy tends to put a strain on romantic relationships but Johnson is quick to point out that a lot of the issues that ended both of his long-term relationships were due to communication or lack thereof and not his narcolepsy per se. Being able to effectively communicate your needs to your partner is a cornerstone of any successful relationship, chronic diseases or not. Trying to form long-lasting, meaningful romantic relationships is hard work, but if you have a chronic disease like narcolepsy the task can be monumental.

Johnson would like to encourage everyone to be kind to each other because people are often struggling with issues that are not necessarily perceptible to the naked eye. “I'm hoping that by sharing a little about me that others can gain a bit of an understanding about narcolepsy and be a bit more understanding to everyone who has something going on, visible or not.”

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Cupid Goes Digital The true love and false promises of matching algorithms in online dating LENA ORLOVA Contributor JENNIFER PANATA Illustrator

Match, eHarmony, Plenty of Fish, OKCupid, Badoo, Grindr, Hinge, Tinder, Coffee meets Bagel, Her, Down, Happn, Bumble, Feeld, Clover, Pure, The League, Tastebuds, Hater, Sapio, Wingman, Zoe, Dig, with sprinkles on top. Take your pick a-la-carte off the menu of online dating platforms. There is something for everyone. The serious. The not-so-serious.

Straight, gay, bi, tall, short, likes Friends, hates football. Dig matches you with fellow dog lovers. The League only invites you to use the app if you make the A-list of upscale people in your area. Hater connects haters, so they can hate the same things.

Hey, misery gets lonely too.

One thing is clear: people want to connect. These services engage our most basic, biological need for human relationships. The fulfilment of this need is “one of the strongest predictors of happiness and emotional well-being” concluded Ed Diener and Martin Seligman in their 2002 study on the “very happiest people.” By this token, any invention that gets people together will likely be popular.

Whereas the desire to be closer to another person hasn’t gone away, the way people go about connecting has radically changed. In the past, our gossiping relatives – those nosey match-making grandmas – set us up on blind dates with people they intuitively felt would be a “good match” for us.

Internet changed all that because it allowed access to a vast number of potential partners without intervening mutual contacts.

The first computer-aided dating service sprang out of UK in 1964 under the bold entrepreneurship of Joan Ball; a woman weathering homelessness, joblessness and mental illness who developed a talent for making connections. Her marriage bureau used a system of punch cards to record likes and dislikes about a potential mate. The client then received 46

a list of the good matches with their names and addresses. It saved time, energy and became a popular avenue for singles seeking marriage material.

In many ways, Ball’s service was the precursor to modern matching algorithms, which work on the premise that sharing common interests is a good predictor of hitting it off with a person. That’s why clubs, associations, and organizations exist.

Common values draw people together. It’s a lot harder to bond with a person who disagrees with you. You don’t see a lot of vegans at Burger King chatting casually about food culture. eHarmony asks users to complete a questionnaire of more than 100 questions as well as “29 Dimensions of Compatibility”. This section assesses areas like temperament, physicality, and style of interaction. Users also get to choose which questions hold the most value to them.

However, there are drawbacks to this method of matching.

“The matching algorithms that are used are based on personality adjectives, and on similarity. The algorithms are typically not published because they are proprietary, so we don’t really know how good they are.” pointed out Dr. Sally Walters, Capilano University Instructor of Psychology. “We don’t know whether or not they are capturing essential elements of compatibility and incompatibility, and these differ from person to person.

The success rate is not published in peerreviewed journals.”

Indeed, these algorithms are difficult to deconstruct, and every company has its own. Plenty of Fish (POF) refrains from sharing details about their custom software.

“The true purpose of great matching is not to find romantic suggestions that will definitely work, but rather to avoid those that have a large chance of not working” said POF Head of Research, Michael Dermott.

Kate MacLean, POF Public Relations Generalist, explained that it’s difficult to quantitatively assess the success rates of online dating.

In general, users do not indicate whether they’ve found a relationship when they remove their accounts. While there are many testimonies of people having found their perfect match, there is much more to learn

about user experience and what they want out of these dating services.

One surprising finding is that the modern dating culture is less promiscuous than one would think. “The vast majority of first year university student either report zero or one sexual partners in the previous year,” said Dr. Jocelyn Wentland, UBC Adjunct Professor “Most people are not out having indiscriminate sex with whomever they can find so that doesn’t support this idea of a rampant hook-up culture.”

Algorithms would invariably affect how people approach dating, because of the vast number of singles that rely upon them today. For example, Plenty of Fish – originally a Vancouver start-up – is now used by over “150 million registered members worldwide and available in 11 languages and more than 20 countries” shared Kate MacLean.

To begin with, the process of meeting a person online is very different than face-toface. Anonymous viewers can see a user’s profile any time of day, anywhere, akin to online retail shopping.

“I can pick and choose; I can choose what size I want, it’s like buying a car, what options am I looking for. I can test drive it, eh it’s not really my fit, I’ll put it back and go try another car… You might say I only want to look for redheads today, so I’ll save the search where all my other criteria are the same, education, professional, but I only want to look for people who have red hair,” said a regular online dater quoted in Scripts for Online Dating by Bridget L. Long.

A profile has any sort of information: photos, bios, music preferences, zodiac signs, and emojis. It’s a two-dimensional snapshot of a person, and this snapshot isn’t always accurate. People strategize about the ways they can present themselves most attractively. A study of close to 22,000 online dating profiles by Hisch, Hortacsu, and Ariely in 2010 showed that women online were slightly thinner than the reallife average, while men online are slightly taller.

We want our best side to show and if not the best, then the embellished side.

In a 2014 article for the Guardian, James Bridle writes, “the development of online dating tells us more about our relationship with networked technology than with each

other.” He refers to the way that altering our online identity can have a massive impact on the people we contact. He isn’t far from the truth.

Apps like Tinder track user behaviour as well as preferences. “Internal desirability” rating registers the number of right swipes a person gets. This means that the person in your queue shows up because your interests match and because they’ve been yes-ed by other users too.

This is the dark side of some algorithms: rewarding the most popular while marginalizing others.

Online dating services are most useful to those with barriers to finding a mate offline. These obstacles vary from low accessibility – living in a far-away place – to just being shy about self-promotion.

“Some people have ‘low matchability’ which is unfortunate because these might be the people who have the hardest time finding partners in the real world,” reflects Dr. Walters.

The filtering software can also propagate bias.

“When it comes to real humans on real dating apps, the algorithmic bias is welldocumented. OKCupid has found that, consistently, black women receive the fewest messages of any demographic on the platform. And a study from Cornell found that dating apps … [by their filtering options] reinforce racial inequalities in the real world,” writes Arielle Pardes in Wired. Biases influence not only our dating preferences, but whom we choose to interact with in day-to-day life.

As users become entangled in a world of their own preferences, they are less likely to be exposed to new information.

We may become unknowingly entrapped in a narrow view of relationship culture as dictated by what’s popular on dating apps, and what could be wrong in reality.

The dating game is changing with evolving technology, but one thing stays the same: people want relationships.

To be completely sure the online user is the person that fits your criteria, is best checked in person.

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C H AR I S WAN G

@charis_chinyu 48

N ao mi Evers

@nomi.evers A RT S & CULTURE

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Social (Media) Etiquette

Social media won’t save all your memories for you CLARISSA SABILE Columnist

Social media is the modern-day photo album. Countless images of celebratory events and informal moments alike are uploaded every second of every day, to share with friends and family. By putting all their trust in social platforms like Facebook and Instagram to serve as their digital scrapbooks, users are devaluing their videos, photos and messages by posting for the sake of selfaffirmation through likes and comments. If everything stays on the internet, are your memories actually treasured and preserved forever, or is it just a matter of time before they’re buried and lost in the algorithmic networks?

I think it’s safe to generalize that everyone has gone through the disaster of accidentally losing something digitally at one point or another. Whether it’s forgetting to save the most recent edits of your essay, having a water-damaged phone after dropping it into the toilet (it’s more common than you think), or getting an account hacked, nothing is more depriving than losing a whole span of time’s worth of hard work and snapshot souvenirs into cyberspace. Although our excessive trust in technology is broken when corrupt files and errors strike, it is immediately restored after coming to terms with the fact that you can’t really do anything about it. This rapid surrender to technology and our general incapability to fix these situations is what makes technology so powerful and profitable. You can pay a fee to desperately restore what was deleted, or move on from the hardship and start over—most people choose the latter. This helplessness makes abandoning photos and assignments easy, and as a result, has fostered the habit of uploading files into a digital memory instead.

In March 2014, Facebook introduced ‘On This Day’, a feature that displays a past status, ‘Friendversary,’ and other major events from a user’s activity history that occurred on the same day.

Facebook ‘Memories’ was launched in June 2018 to compile these recollective posts into a designated page, and recaps content into a personalized video. In the media releases for these new features, research was shown indicating that these daily highlights of memories had a “positive impact on people’s mood and overall well-being.” The reason? They provide another digital space to share important moments from their life and help users re-live their experiences. No one really wants to scroll through thousands of Facebook statuses and comments as a source of nostalgia, but if the platform presents your awful webcam selfie from 2009 or anything from the “LMS (Like My Status) for a TBH (To Be Honest)” era to you, you will likely want to see more and reminisce. But, this is also the problem with social media turning into our digital photo albums. Our memories are adopted and maintained by multinational media corporations and reintroduced according to what they consider to be a major event,

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often based off of the level of post interaction it once received.

How do Facebook’s algorithms know what is most ‘significant’ to you, and what do they dismiss?

I created a ‘Finsta’ (Fake Instagram) in my last year of high school with the objective of uploading photos that I would want to look and laugh at in five years. My most common use for this secondary account is to share personal and candid content with a smaller, trusted following. There is nothing wrong with privatizing information from the masses (the peculiar concept of organizing pictures according to what is ‘main-worthy’ is an article in and of itself to be written another day). Regardless of it being a private account, I’ve realized that the online memory capsule is not the safest place to gather notable photos. The same invisible, algorithmic ownership of content is evident on the timeline: Instagram prioritizes specific posts and advertisements that are tailored to what a user likes and posts. For example, if you spend a lot of time watching David Dobrik clips, the algorithm will probably prioritize Dobrik’s most recent posts or ads for his merchandise instead of posts from family members and friends that you would prefer to see first. Instagram also introduced ‘Archive’ in June 2017, a feature that allows users to temporarily hide rather than delete posts and control the arrangement of their profile. This media release described it as “a space just for you, where you can revisit moments without having to keep them all on your profile,” implying that the update provides users with an ability to sort out important memories according to aesthetics or changed minds. In developing this component, Instagram displayed their understanding of the relevance of digital presentation, and allowed users to consider what they show and hide rather than concentrating on the substance of these posts.

I have this constant fear that one day social media platforms will get hacked and thousands of accounts and their content will be deleted instantly. If Facebook and Instagram hypothetically shut down, I’d be able to recover everything I took in 2019 thanks to my iCloud instantaneously downloading my photos and videos. But, anything dating much further back would be gone for good. The internet, although immortal, is an unpredictable space of too much information. Without social media, where would your memories go?

the long haul The sex-less edition

MEGAN AMATO Associate News Editor

Keeping your sexual relationship thriving in a long-distance relationship (LDR) can be difficult in any situation, but it’s nearly impossible when you’re a biromantic demisexual. Simply stated, I am romantically attracted to all genders but I don’t feel sexual attraction unless there is a strong emotional attachment. This is not a problem when my husband is in the same country as I am, but the disconnection of time and space means that sexual encounters online don’t do much for me. However, my husband is more traditionally sexually inclined and so we both make compromises to ensure that both of our needs are being met while our boundaries are not ignored.

I like to consider myself a writer—a decent one, if not a natural one. Despite this self-proclamation, I am absolutely terrible at sexting. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m an awkward person or if my lack of sexual attraction just makes everything seem awkward. But whatever the case may be, I don’t seem to have the ability to sext without turning it into a research project. I often start by looking up “sexting examples” on Google then cringing at the wide array of responses ranging from absurdly obscure suggestions to the vanilla classics. I’m sure my husband would love the more... uh...creative examples, but as they make me either laugh or Google further to see how they can be anatomically possible, I often settle for the staider option (which is still more eloquent than the eggplant or the donut emoji). One of my good friends is exceptional at sexting—so good that I think she should charge people to do it for them. I for one would pay a great deal of money for her help. But for now, I just have to find the words myself. Whether that means that I copy and paste the message point-blank from whatever website, or tweak it to suit my and/or my husband’s needs is my little secret.

More often than not, when I’m feeling a bit naughty (or more often so, when my husband is) but I don’t want to put the work into Googling sexy messages, I will just send a cheeky picture—sometimes literally. I don’t know what strange voodoo it is but sending those pictures can sometimes bring me further into a romantic mood. There is something about getting dolled up and seeing my ass in some lacy underthings or as the focal point of a photograph that turns me on a bit. I don’t know if that’s narcissism, or if going through the motions lends me a libido that I don’t usually have, but sexy photos are by far the most successful way that I’ve managed to maintain a sexual relationship with my husband.

There is a small part of me that is afraid of those images disappearing into the cloud and being used against me one day, so I do try to keep my face and identifiers like tattoos out of the more risqué ones. Something that worries me

more than the cloud, however, is accidentally sending a photograph to one of his relatives. Listen, people in the UK love Whatsapp. I am in about 15 Whatsapp chats involving the same members of his family in different combinations.

We’ve made a Whatsapp chat specifically for naughty moments with many emojis in the title so that I don’t mix it up, but boy, does it give me anxiety. I think any gains I make in turning myself on can sometimes be lost in the process of triple checking that I am in the right convo.

Being a full-time student and working two jobs (both mostly remote work to be fair), maintaining friendships and general laziness can often get in the way of a healthy long-distance sex life. Especially when that person is an introvert who needs days of disengagement to recharge after all the aforesaid activities. Add in the complicated sexuality and well, I really have to work at it. I can go days, weeks and even months without thinking about sex. My husband, however, is the opposite and thinks about sex rather often. This means that we have to work together to find solutions that don’t make me feel less sexual than I already do and that he doesn’t feel neglected. It’s a fine balance that often gets forgotten about when I’m in the midst of exams or recharge periods. Our latest solution— after some very intense talks—is to find “date nights” with the hope that (like the instances with taking photographs) the preparation and anticipation of those moments will lead me to feel a bit more sexual.

LDR’s are a complicated business and that holds true about sex too. Finding a balance that works for both you and your partner can be tricky, and often awkward.

But vocalizing your needs and concerns will help your relationship in the long run. I love my husband, and when we are together the issue of sex is a lot less labourous since he as a person turns me on. However, the 4000 miles between him and I, and the differences in our sexual needs, can cause friction—and not the good kind—in our relationship. In the end, it’s that old cliché of communication that keeps it strong, even if one of us is almost perpetually frustrated.

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A CLOSER LISTEN

Musings on love, heartbreak, and John Mayer CARLO JAVIER Columnist

Of all the different versions of “Daughters” you can find in John Mayer’s discography, I like the one in Where the Light Is the most.

Like the other live renditions, this one starts with a preamble where slide guitarist Robbie McIntosh plays an impressive 30-second blues lick as Mayer eases his way into the opening strums of the song.

One of my favourite moments of this version happens during a sliver of silence in between the plucks of the strings on McIntosh’s blues guitar. As a note dies down, you can hear an audience member saying: “We love you, thank you so much!” In response, you can hear Mayer whisper back with “I love you, too.”

There is both a suspense and elation that comes immediately after you say the words “I love you” to someone. It reminds me of the egg toss game where you hope that they catch the egg with enough tenderness so that the shell doesn’t shatter upon contact, and you hope that they toss it back with the same tenderness so that you can catch it too. I like to think that this is exactly why hearing the words “I love you, too” feels so inexplicably magical.

I especially like this interaction because it can take a few rewinds to really grasp the warmth of the exchange and because ironically, “Daughters” is a song about the failure of love, and not the blooming of it.

John Mayer is ubiquitous enough in pop music that I have always been semi-aware of his work. What this means is that I have also always been semi-aware of his tainted celebrity stature.

I feel that I had been quick to believe that Mayer is just another industry-manufactured pop star, armed with catchy hooks and a bevy of sing-along-friendly singles. Over the past year that I’ve found myself consciously seeking more of Mayer’s body of work, I felt validated to see that his music—especially Continuum— had been the recipient of some retroactive acclaim for its craftsmanship.

I rediscovered Mayer’s music under the stress of immense grief. I turned to Continuum, believing songs like “Slow Dancing in a Burning Room” and “Dreaming With a Broken Heart” would help explain the harrowing things I was feeling in a reality that never felt as tender as the love songs we put on our Spotify playlists.

I had experienced an especially agonizing breakup at the start of spring, when my then-partner of nearly four years decided it was over. I had always imagined heartbreak to be debilitating, but I felt a seemingly inescapable and desolate type of melancholy as I watched the blossoming spring and the bright days of summer pass me by.

In the summer, when time felt too abundant, I took to long bus rides as a means of coping. I found it easier to acknowledge my sadness around strangers, where I felt no mandate to put on a mask. It felt oddly comforting to be sad in the ambiance of strangers. I found it easier for tears to flow while waiting for the next bus, or the coming train, than it was around my dearest friends.

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Where the Light Is runs a little over two hours long and perfectly fit my affinity for aimlessly long commutes.

I had shared a conversation with a friend that while “Daughters” is sonically-comforting, it is not exactly a model track in regards to subject matter. There are many contentious points in its lyrics and the song’s ethos is both patronizing to women and a reinforcement of heteronormative gender tropes. The lines that always get me come towards the end, when Mayer shifts the focus of the song to the boy, singing: “boys you can break, you’ll find out how much they can take / boys will be strong and boys soldier on / but boys would be gone without warmth from a woman’s good, good heart.”

At some point in my many months of long bus rides and endless repetitions of “Daughters,” I started to consider our intrinsic juxtaposition of masculinity with strength.

One of my coping mechanisms was to scour the internet for breakup advice as well as stories about relationships that failed but found new life. While I came across a copious amount of heartwarming stories, I found more anecdotes and advice that were laden with contempt. Reading about breakups and heartache from people who’ve wronged one another made me feel pressured to expend energy I didn’t have, but reading about having to be strong and having to fight through the loneliness made me feel all the more helpless.

Another favourite part of the Where the Light is version of “Daughters” comes at the end of the first verse. Typically, Mayer ends the first stanza with “Maybe it’s got nothing to do with me.” Hypothesizing that the collapse of his relationship was not something he could have prevented by having been a better version of himself. I like the one in Where the Light Is because he modifies this line ever so slightly by singing: “Maybe it’s got nothing at all to do with me.” Sometimes I wonder if this seemingly innocuous change is driven by rhythm. More often I wonder if it’s driven by lived-experience and an openness to surrender.

I think about the expectation of strength amidst breakups and how maybe being strong isn’t only needed to come back from agonizing grief, but maybe strength is more important in knowing when a love that once existed has come to an end—even at the cost of agonizing grief.

Maybe in the same way we now look back to John Mayer’s Continuum with adoration and respect, I will someday look back on this past year with gratitude and tenderness. It feels absurd for me to think I will reflect on harrowing experiences with kindness, but it also feels absurd that we would toss an egg to someone hoping they would catch it without breaking. Yet we toss it anyway.

THE SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION SERIES Who grew this?

JAMIE LONG Columnist

Where was that apple grown? What species did the harvesting of that quinoa impact?

What human rights violations were impeded in the growth of that avocado? What is Azodicarbonamide? These are all valid and pressing, but sometimes difficult questions for consumers to answer. With the desire for convenience food skyrocketing, and globalized food-trends increasing, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly where the food you eat comes from, let alone how it was produced. When most of us haven’t had to think about the geographical origin of our meals, it proves difficult for consumers to actually conceptualize the efforts (and controversies) that exist along the supplychain of each ingredient.

Before I go on, I want to be very clear that this article is not meant to make anyone feel bad about consuming the food that they do.

The intent of this article is to raise awareness regarding where the food that we consume comes from and the impact that it makes.

This way, we can all begin to work collectively towards having healthier and more sustainable roles in the ecosystems that we all exist in. Besides, we need food to survive —how could I rightfully shame anyone who simply doesn’t know the importance of monitoring where their food comes from?

Aside from the consumption of meat and dairy (which is an entirely separate and controversial subject), the purchase and consumption of fresh, packaged or processed fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts and seeds typically require little-to-no thought concerning food origin in the Western world.

Speaking for most of us who were raised in a society of thoughtless over-consumption (think Christmas dinner), the majority of Canadians have the privilege of almost always having our favourite foods available for purchase at any given time of the year in local grocery stores or restaurants. Want strawberries in December? No problem.

Bananas year-round? Not an issue! Coconut milk, dates, cashews and even guava fruit? As

long as you have the money, it’s all yours! We haven’t had to care in the past, so why should we start caring now?

The benefits of understanding the production processes of our foods are endless.

Speaking directly to my fellow members of Gen Y, as well as to the generation to follow, it is us who are left with the earth in our hands. We are the ones who are soon to be the household decision-makers (giveor-take 10 years), and the choice is ours regarding how and where we want to spend our money. In understanding where our food comes from, what was used to grow it, and who was involved in the process, we are not only able to acknowledge the human health impacts of the food we consume, but the environmental, economic, and human rights impacts of the food we purchase. Beyond the ecological impact of food production, present-day globalization has made food from across the earth available at our utmost convenience in the Western world, leading to huge environmental and health impacts from transportation, packaging and preservation.

Understandably, you may be thinking at this point ‘how can I possibly keep track of where everything I consume comes from?’

Well, this becomes much easier the more you choose to purchase locally and adapt your food consumption behaviours around these choices.

Because our culture has been built around everyday convenience, this shift may seem difficult to fathom at first, but if you’re anything like me, you might believe that the power of the people is strong. By starting small, we present ourselves with great opportunities to transition into this shift, even if just in our own households.

Start by making a mental note of what is available in your area, and making decisions based on that. For us on the West Coast of British Columbia, we are privileged to have the Fraser and Okanagan Valleys so close by providing us with beautiful, nutritious, and sometimes even organic (yay for the

preservation of bio-diversity!) fruits and vegetables every year. Once you’ve surveyed what can be purchased in your area, perhaps consider home-based preservation methods to keep your locally-purchased food safe and consumable throughout the year (such as the ones our ancestors used for centuries).

If you choose to consume dairy and meat, avoid heavy Costco runs to ‘save you money’ as your parents might have done, and instead consider purchasing from a local farm or butcher. For those items that you simply can’t see yourself going without that are not available in your local geographical area, attempt to consume mindfully. For all food items, attempt to waste as little as possible, and for what can’t be consumed, compost!

Overall, as much as it may seem like the small steps we take on an individual level only minimally contributes to the global impact that humans have on global food systems, the more we come together as conscious consumers, the smaller the footprint we leave in the ecosystems we are involved in becomes, the healthier we are, and the healthier the local economy is. Besides, who doesn’t enjoy trips to the farmers market and time spent eating delicious home-preserved, package-free food throughout the winter season? Haven’t tried it? I highly recommend!

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the recovering achiever Dancing with myself LENA ORLOVA Columnist

It was an uneventful Monday evening in October the first time I stepped into Scotiabank Dance Centre’s seventh floor dance studio. After months of unrelenting worry and waning health, I decided to go alone to an event my friend gently recommended I check out.

“It helps with stress,” she said.

So, alone, I walked up the stairs, treading my anxiety. An angelic woman hovering behind the registration desk table guided me to complete some forms. On these I read words like “unfacilitated,” “freestyle,” “intentions,” “intuition,” and “embodiment.” “This isn’t a class,” she crooned. In that room, I was allowed to move, sit, and be whoever it is that I am. The rules are: no drugs, no alcohol, no phones, no talking and no unsolicited contact.

Huh? Then what are we doing?

From around a corner, a man came up to me with a welcoming hug, gazing into my eyes like into an engrossing book. He opened with, “Hello” and asked my name. I fumbled “Lena” in return. I stepped through glass doors while noting ten people in pajamas or gym getups stretching like cats below the dimmed lights of the studio—safe so far.

On the one side, a track mixer sat on the floor in front of the hosting DJ with perky blond hair. The Silent Observer that I am, I sat in the farthest corner closest to the exit doors.

In minutes, the room evolved into a soundscape of lulling flutes and hypnotic beats. People moved like sea corals to waves of sound: slowly undulating, swirling, stretching arms, and spiralling spines. Someone sat and meditated.

Another did yoga poses.

I did some intricate hands waves pretending to be an enlightened mermaid dancer. Then, the music picked up in a slow upswing to the thick staccato of electronica—a familiar energy of a late-night concert. A contrast to the sacred space that existed just minutes before.

The dancing sea anemones became a storm of pounding feet, tussled hair, smiles and shouts. Following this catharsis the music lulled. Tired bodies returned to the floor like sand settling after burling water. The event ended. We gathered in a circle for a closing goodbye. Everyone went home.

I returned the following Monday. And the Mondays after that.

Growing up in Ukraine, every week or so in the summer, I put on my bright blue tights, old roller skates and safety pads. I rolled in tow through the streets of our city hanging onto my dog’s leash. My Grandpa ran close behind. My favourite place was a lake a few blocks from our house, which wasn’t really a lake so much as an engineered pond in the middle of university grounds. Without prompt or music, I’d let go of my dog’s leash and dance out in circles. I swirled and twirled with the imagined grace of a professional figure 54

skater. Whether or not I looked otherwise— it was all the same to me.

At some point, I gave up spontaneity for precision and polish. I became who I thought was a good “grown-up.”

Stand up straight. Sit at a desk. Walk forward. Lay down to sleep. Go to the gym: repeat movements, get stronger, get faster, get healthier. Go to dance class: follow instructions, imitate, trip, return to start, imitate, repeat, imitate, get better. Go for a run: run more, run faster, run slower, run uphill, run downhill, stop, walk, repeat. I believed that the only usefulness of a body is to perform functions. Every function must follow a trajectory of improvement.

Yes, I’m obsessive about improvement. I didn’t believe that anything worth doing could be done for its own sake.

Everything was some sort of exercise, some sort of work.

It’s not to say work is bad, but for everything in life to feel like work is stressful.

There is a reason some people say that the best part of ourselves shines most brightly when we are kids. Kids embody joie de vivre without self-consciousness born of mistakes and their consequences.

In conscious dance—the event I attended—there is nothing to follow but your own, internal instructions.

To dance is to move to the beat of your own drum, emboldened by the DJ’s consciously chosen soundtrack. It can be a medium for self-expression, a practice of intuition and inner wisdom.

In time and with the heart-warming reception of the dance community, I became more comfortable with being myself. Dancing became my ritual of non-improvement. A ritual of returning to a sweet moment of pure creativeness and joy. I danced how I wanted to, if I wanted to, and allowed myself to be that spunky roller-skating kid again.

The effects of my dance practice rippled out into my real life. If I felt called to say something, I said it. If I felt called to be silent, I was silent. If I wanted to try something new, I could call on my bravery and creativity to do it. I was more a person practicing free will than a person stuck in a regime of expectations I set for myself. Ironically, like all skills, being free is a skill. And it takes steady practice in order to build it from a one-time occurence to an everyday experience.

Lifelong dancer and founder of 5Rhythms dance movement—Gabrielle Roth—observed, “It takes discipline to be a free spirit.”

additude adjustment The idiogenic nature of love SARAH ROSE Features Editor

The crusade against the feminine in psychiatry began with the father of psychoanalysis himself. In Studies on Hysteria, Sigmund Freud first introduced the notion that hysteria was idiogenic: an idea or memory that makes one ill without physical disease at cause.

Part of rejecting the female experience of ADHD is an overarching rejection of emotional affect. Puzzling, when the frontal cortex and limbic system which are central to mood lability and emotional regulation constitute two of the four functional brain regions most strongly impacted by ADHD. The limbic system contains three interworking structures: the hippocampus, amygdala and hypothalamus. If laid bare from its counterparts, the amygdala only sees the world in binary, monochromatic shades of emotional values, like viewing life with total colour blindness. The hypothalamus takes the emotional code received from the amygdala and manifests it within the body: a pounding heart, hitched breath, skyrocketing blood pressure. Throughout this process, there is only how—the hippocampus is responsible for imposing a why. To the body, there’s no differentiation between a stomach twisting from fear or excitement. It takes memory regulated by the hippocampus to inform us that the excitement of going on a date is different than the fear and anxiety of failure… Isn’t it supposed to be?

Vis-à-vis, emotion and memory are inextricably linked.

That said, relationships can feel like a holy elixir for the ADHD brain. They’re a nonstop biochemical symphony of dopamine, and stimulation that disrupts the everyday feeling of ricocheting off the walls like a giant pinball machine of sadness. Ultimately without proper treatment, that too will cause long-term pain. The key to successful relationships with ADHD is successful treatment.

The go-to approach in therapy is usually Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and it’s a good example of the masculine-centric approach of modern psychology. CBT assigns primacy to rationality over affect, to the unconscious, and the alleged “irrational”

emotional (a language code for “feminine”) aspects of experience. It seeks to break down the phenomenological into a cool, decidedly mechanistic approach. There’s a Cochrane Review worth of evidence to support that it may improve core symptoms of ADHD— but for whom? We know ADHD research has chronically excluded women. Prior to being diagnosed, CBT often sent me spiralling into self-flagellation. “You are in control of your emotions,” it asserts. (Then why couldn’t I think or stop myself before I called my boyfriend an asshole and slammed the door?) “Recognize how negative thoughts lead to rumination,” it touts. (So why am I unable to stop thinking about them to the point of obsession?) It’s not to say CBT doesn’t work, rather it doesn’t address the fractured ADHD limbic system from the start.

My mom enjoys casually joking about how the principal’s office was her second home when I was in school. Most of the time, she was there campaigning for my right to do things like get up and walk around the classroom because: “I don’t know, that’s just the way she is. Is she hurting anyone?” Apparently, I was. Those messages are cemented in my memory, creating the destructive language I used to describe myself. This is a core feature of ADHD: sensitivity to criticism.

I went on to fail three grades, but I did learn the important lesson that girls don’t have an equivalent to the accountability cop-out of “boys will be boys.” Classroom criticism extended naturally to peer rejection.

Male behaviour seems allowed to exist on a continuum of social acceptance, and the negative is rarely ever attributed to personal affect.

Instead of a diagnosis, girls especially will often drown in an endlessly expanding grave of criticism and rejection from their teachers, parents and peers. Without context, the symptoms of ADHD read as carelessness and neglect. Socializing becomes a nightmare, symptoms resemble and even overlap with autism to the observer: struggling to interpret socially appropriate behaviour, particularly nonverbal cues like body language and eye contact, interrupting, invading personal

space and having meltdowns.

A 2017 study found that 31 per cent of girls and young women experience symptoms of anxiety, compared with 13 per cent of boys and young men. Girls feel more pressure, and endure more of the physical symptoms of psychological strain. Chronic stress takes its idiogenic toll, increasing the risk for related diseases like fibromyalgia (also predominantly affecting women).

Despite research that shows ADHD affects girls and boys in nearly identical distribution, girls are far less likely to be diagnosed (a rate of 1:7) or even seen as symptomatic. Instead, symptoms are written off as personality and even gendered problems. Inattentive girls are ditzy, dumb blondes. Hyperactive and impulsive girls are weird, aggressive, overemotional.

When you’re young and struggling to figure out who you are, the one thing most kids try and hold on to is individuality.

Not unlike the way DNA expresses in our genes, one’s sense of self can be warped into something positive or negative depending on the environment. For ADHD kids who face an average of seven times more criticism from authority figures than their peers, the environment is overwhelmingly negative and even hostile. When you’re also an undiagnosed woman whose symptoms are viewed instead as personal failures, fostering self-esteem feels impossible.

ADHD is not in and of itself maladaptive, self-hatred is. The ability for the ADHD limbic system to feel things more deeply, intensely and longer than others isn’t defective or volatile, it’s a variation. We need to let go of the ridiculous notion that we must internalize criticism and rejection, and instead embody the radical idiogenic idea that we are loved.

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CALENDAR

sat

sat

1

(February 1 – 29)

6-8 PM, Massy Books Free

8

This vintage market is sure to be filled with cutesy things, so if you’re cynical, avoid it. I would also recommend avoiding the vintage soap.

Upstairs of Massy Books is a cute little art gallery that is switching out its display tonight. Mike Alexander’s latest series “reflects the artist’s practice as a process of decolonization,” and is only there until the end of the month, so make sure to stop by! They may even have those cute little sandwiches.

sun

sun

2

7-9 PM, Guilt & Company Pay-what-you-can

9

Sadé Awele will be performing for the good people of Gastown this fine Sunday evening, so get some drinks, bring some friends and enjoy!

Plus, with a song called “Apple Pie” you already know it’s going to be sweet. (Sorry, I hate that I did that too).

10 PM-3 AM, Republic Nightclub $20-25 Never have I ever seen an event offer “complimentary LED foam sticks” but here we are.

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7-9 PM, 808 Beatty Street $55 At first glance I assumed this was a vegetarian pizza night. Then I thought, oh PAINT night. But then I discovered, no, it is in fact plant night. Your ticket includes a succulent terrarium that you plant in. At a Boston Pizza.

fri

fri

7

12-6 PM, Woodwards Atrium Free admission

14

I’m going to leave this one up to you.

sun

sat

15

5 PM (Women’s team) 7 PM (Men’s team) CapU Centre for Sport and Wellness $2 with CapU student ID Tonight the fifth-year players will be competing in their final home games with the Blues! Go celebrate with the brave men and women who have risked their knee skin on those glossy, glossy floors for the past five years.

23

7 PM, Vogue Theatre $34.99 Tonight a huge room of people will be screaming the words “disco tits” over and over and I just think that’s really beautiful.

fri

28

7-9 PM, Studio 580 $40 Little painty paint? Little sippy sip? Sounds nice!

Good clean fun. All the supplies are provided and no experience is necessary.

mon

17

sat

29

fri

21

Free The universe said we could have a little bonus day, as a treat.

sat

22

3-6 PM, Drunken Chocolatier $75 This one goes out to all the Bon Appétit fans (of which there are many in this office).

CALE NDAR

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Horoscopes

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YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, AND YOU’RE WORKING HARD TO ACHIEVE IT. AND WE’LL BE THERE TO HELP YOU EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.

YOUR FUTURE. YOUR WAY. CAPILANOU.CA/READY

is an autonomous, democratically-run student newspaper. Literary and visual submissions are welcomed. All submissions are subject to editing for brevity, taste and legality. The Capilano Courier will not publish material deemed by the collective to exhibit sexism, racism or homophobia. The views expressed by the contributing writers are not necessarily those of the Capilano Courier Publishing Society.

THE CAPILANO COURIER

​ e acknowledge that the work we do and the W institution we serve happens on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the territories of Musqueam, Squamish, Stó:lō and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

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CAPI LAN O COU RI ER VOLUME 52, ISSUE NO.6