GRAPESHOT, VOLUME 14, ISSUE 3: FANTASY

Newsflashes

Women’s Football: Record-breaking Crowds and Its Significance Rental MacquarieCrisisUniversity Rises in QS Rankings

National News Federal RefugeeElectionReleased from Detention

International News Depp v Heard

Rape as a Weapon of War Macron Defeats Le Pen in French Presidential Elections

I Don’t Get It: Sexual Hygiene

POP CULTURE REWIND: 50 Shades of Grey

YOU ARE HERE: Circular Quay

Open and Polygamous Relationships

The Male Gaze or the Gays: Getting to know Intimacy Directors

God Says “No”. The Green M&M is a Sex Icon

Rituals of the Real Flight From Fantasy Spaghetti GirlsCorruption!DinneronPorn(Podcast

Review)

Nic’s Flix: Cruising Grapey Book Club: Care Horoscopes 525046434039383734322827242219161412108765

Viewsexpressedbytheauthorsarenotthoseofthepublisher.

EDITORS’ LETTERS

My dearest Grapey readers,

I hope this semester has served you well and you have enjoyed the experience of holding a copy of Grapeshot in your hand again. I write this letter with many emotions. Excitement, joy, sadness, and hope. This is sue is not only my last as Editor-in-Chief but also my goodbye to the home I have found within Grapeshot over the last three years. As I graduate, I reflect on the first issue of Grapeshot I picked up during O-week –with a scandalous cover, it was the Sex issue. So, it was only fitting that I ended my legacy by offering you, my dearest readers, Fantasy.

Sex drives the world we live in, but unfortunately, it still remains a taboo in our society today. But through our own, fun and quirky, way, we hope this issue helps to start the conversation. Fantasy is an homage to our deepest desires and our secrets which only come out in the bedroom. Through this issue, I hope to part with you the message that if you can put out your big gest sexual desires in the open – you can do anything.

I want to thank each and every one who has picked up a copy of Grapeshot over the years, and those who will continue to do so. Grapeshot has not only allowed me to discover myself creatively, but it has given me the opportunity to meet so many wonderful people, who I now call my lifelong friends.

I cannot wait to see all the magical things the team will achieve moving forward. So, hold on tight, my dearest readers, because the best is yet to come.

Signing off for the last time,

Saliha Rehanaz xx Editor-in-Chief

Grapeshot is absolutely delighted to be able to par take in Sextember, a campaign which invites people to re-invigorate discourse around sexual issues, sexual education, healthy relationships, and more. It’s both about the raunchy side of intimacy and the more social element of it.

For some people, sex is such a private thing; some thing that should be hidden away behind closed doors, whether they are ashamed of it or simply proud in a quiet kind of way. For others, it’s a way of connecting with others who are just as loud and proud as them. On a different side of the same coin, sex is often close ly intertwined with gender expression and representa tion of the self. As you read this issue, I encourage you to think about what sex means to you, and why?

With the popularity of Netflix shows such as Sex Ed ucation (2020-) and How to Build a Sex Room (2022) booming and entering the discussions of our everyday lives, sex is clearly something that’s on our minds - especially learning to understand what sex is. I think this is something that is trending especially with young people, who broadly feel that their own sexual educations have been severely limited to learn ing about condoms in Year 10 PDHPE. People want to understand their options, and know how to feel comfortable in their bodies with other people who are comfortable in their bodies (if you know what I mean).

Something I’ve been thinking about recently as Sex tember looms close is that people so often desire to label themselves and others in regards to their sexu ality. In this issue, we at Grapeshot say not to worry about labeling or fixing yourself into a particular kind of box. Sex and self-expression can be fluid.

This Sextember, think about what turns you on, not just sexually, but emotionally as well. Think about the different kinds of love that exist out there, and how you can express your love.

As Bob Katter once said, “everyone is entitled to their own sexual proclivities”. And I think he’s really on the money with that one.

Nikita DeputyByrnes,Editor-in-Chief

WOMEN’S FOOTBALL

Record-breaking Crowds and Its Significance

On the 23rd of April, FC Barcelona’s women’s team (FCB Femeni) broke global attendance records for women’s football. The team had 91,648 in attendance in their match against Wolfsburg at Camp Nou’s home stadium. This was the first leg of their UEFA semi-finals championship, defeating Wolfsburg 5-1.

The attendance record, previously held by the El Clasico between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid’s female sides, had 91,553 fans in at tendance. The previous record was held for twenty-two years in the World Cup final be tween China and the United States of America in 1999 which had 90,185 people in attendance.

With the UEFA Women’s European Championship beginning on 6 July 2022 and Australia and New Zealand hosting the 2023 Women’s World Cup, these records are reflective of the progress and investment in women’s football. However, this progress required overcoming historical and social inequities which have minimised support for professional women’s football. In the early 20th century, women’s football in the United Kingdom was on the rise with over 150 women’s teams with crowd attendance in parallel to their male counter parts. In 1921, the Football Association banned women’s football after it broke what is believed to be at the time, the largest attendance to a football match in English history before formal records began with 53,000 fans attending. For the next 50 years, women’s football was banned, reducing the support it had historical ly garnered.

In more recent years, the US women’s team, which has won the World Cup four times in 2022, reached a $33 million settlement with the national football body, US Soccer, after

suing for unlawful discrimination. The wom en’s team has consistently brought in more revenue for US Soccer than their male coun terparts, who have never won the tournament.

This rise in popularity has continued with the Italian Football Federation approving new reg ulations for Italian women’s teams in the Se ries A to be considered professionals, rather than amateur players. This removes the salary cap, which previously stood at 30,000 euros (44,465 AUD) annually.

With this continued momentum, the following recommendations from Parry et al. (2021) will assist in dismantling some of the inequities currently in football:

• Ensure within football bodies, especially in women’s sports women are also repre sented in roles of governance with the in terest of women’s sports being prioritised;

• Greater female commentators and inter viewers;

• More marketing to the quality and degree to that of male sports;

• Primetime scheduling of female football matches and;

• Free-to-air coverage of women’s football.

FCB Femini will play Wolfsburg in their sec ond leg on 1st May with kick-off at 2:00 AM AEST on DAZN.

by Jasmine Joyan

RENTAL CRISIS

As the cost of living rises while wages re main stagnant, many Australians continue to struggle to survive, forcing many families into caravan parks, cars, and some even in Thetents.cost

of renting has increased over 12 months in Australia’s capital cities:

• Brisbane: 15.2% increase in combined house and unit rentals

• Adelaide and Canberra: 14.3% increase in combined house and unit rentals

• Sydney’s: 19.1% increase in house rent als

• Melbourne: 11.5% increase in unit rent

Accordingals

to CoreLogic, an Australian prop erty data provider, average rents rose 12.9% in the two years preceding March, 7 times more than the increase two years prior that. Subsequently, there are increased expecta tions for the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates for the next few years to stem inflation.

As the federal elections are imminent, differ ent parties came up with their own solutions:

• The Greens promise to provide 1 million more low-cost homes over the next 20 years, as highlighted by Adam Bandt’s address at the National Press Club on the 13th of April

• The Labor Party promised 30000 “new social and affordable housing proper ties” over the first 5 years of scheme implementation

• The Coalition however stressed the im portance of home ownership by motivat ing regional home construction.

This comes as household homeownership rates continue on a downward trend. Accordingly, the housing issue comes full circle as both home owner ship and rentals become unaffordable, leaving many Australians stranded. For young people, this raises uncertainty about their future, as the cost of living becomes tough enough.

by Olivia Chan

Household home ownership rates 1961-2016

Macquarie University Rises in QS Rankings

The annual QS World University Rankings have been released with Macquarie Univer sity being ranked in the top 200 universities in the world. The rise in rank has been a steady increase for the university having been placed 250th in 2019. Nationally, Macqua rie is now ranked 13th.

The QS Ranking system is a global ranking system that assesses universities based on the global ranking, ranking by subject, and graduate employability. The following factors are ranked and taken into consideration in totaling the rank of universities:

• Academic Reputation

• Employer Reputation

• Faculty Student Ratio

• Citations per Faculty

• International Faculty Ratio

• International Students Ratio

Macquarie has remained in the top 50 for Philosophy and Linguistics, ranked 24th and 28th respectively with Classics and Ancient History joining their ranks at 44th this year.

Earth and Marine Science, Geology, Geography, and Geophysics have all maintained or entered into the top 100 subjects. Accounting and Finance increased their rank from 84th to 83rd as has Psychology from ranked 74th to 73rd. English Literature and Language have entered the top 100 and ranked 92nd. Although Education remains in the top 100, it fell from 78th to 92.

In light of the unsteady climate for tertiary education in the last few years with the Morrison government preventing public universities from accessing Job-Keeper, the rankings are a sound indicator of the quality of work and teaching at Macquarie.

Globally, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was ranked first as the top universi ty. Australian National University was tied 27th globally and first in Australia.

by Jasmine Joyan

Posters of party campaigns decorate the entire country. Lines shuffle along as people pile into voting booths and tick boxes on obnoxiously long slips of paper with party flyers stashed loosely in bags, eagerly awaiting a piping hot sausage sizzle afterward. Yet, do people really know who they’re voting for?

Australia’s default two-party system is obvious, with the Labor Party and Coalition (Liberal Party and Nationals) dominating the political scene. Common stereotypes attribute the former to the working class and the latter to the middle to upper classes. Furthermore, the public tends to have no clue what the minor parties promote, besides the Greens being eco-friendly and One Nation being ultra-conservative. Let’s take a look.

FEDERAL ELECTIONS

Australian Agenda 2022:

• Cost of living

• Housing

• Health Care

•

•

• Change

The following major party policies attempt to address these issues:

Australian Labor Party

• The housing equity “shared equity” scheme will contribute up to 40% of a new home and 30% to an existing home for 10000 people $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund with the returns on investment to build 30000 new social and affordable houses

Price of medicines was cut to $12.50 to a maximum cost of $30 50 “urgent care clinics” to take the pressure off hos pital emergency departments will be funded

Aged care staff to spend at least 3 hours and 35 minutes with each resident as recommended by the Aged Care Royal Commission

More aged care staff to sector and increased wages

Will continue with the final stage of tax cuts so ev eryone earning $45000-$200000 will pay 30% tax from Investment2024 in electric vehicle chargers, hydrogen and biofuel refueling infrastructure, and an electric car Reformdiscountpartner

and parent visa subclasses and crack down on labor exploitation of people under a short-term visa

Remove temporary protection visas for refugees that keep refugees in a state of limbo

Open more places for refugees from Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Syria

Coalition

• Expansion of first home buyers and Family Home Guarantee schemes

• Introduction of regional housing scheme

• Rise inprice caps for properties by between $50000 and $250000, subject to state/territory and being in a city/regional area

• The price of medicines will be cut by $10 so the maximum cost will be $32.50

• Subsidized access to continuous glucose monitoring devices for people with type 1 diabetes

• Tens of thousands of additional home-aged care packages

• Aged care staff to spend a minimum of 3 hours and 20 minutes a day with each aged care resident, with 40 minutes of the time with a registered nurse

• From 2023, at least one nurse on shift in aged care facilities across a minimum of 16 hours a day

• Will continue with the final stage of tax cuts so everyone earning $45000-$200000 will pay 30% tax from 2024

• Low emissions technology: Carbon capture and storage, low-emission steel production, hydrogen as fuel

• Additional 16500 humanitarian visas over the next 4 years for people fleeing Afghanistan

Furthermore, here are some policies of a few minor parties relevant to current affairs:

Greens

• Build 1 million affordable public and com munity houses over the next 20 years

• Dental and mental care included in Medicare

• No tax cuts as will “line the pockets of the wealthiest Australians”

• Impose an additional 6% tax on Austra lian billionaires

• Net zero emissions by 2035 by switching to 100% renewable energy achieved by developing more batteries, upgrading, the electricity grid, and reducing the cost of electric cars, as funded by taxing big corporations

• Permanent migration program for refu gees

• Refugees to have work rights, access to Medicare, and other social security and education while their cases are assessed

One Nation

• Ban foreign ownership of properties in Australia

• Limit unemployment benefits to 3 years in any given 5-year period for people un der 50

• Build new coal-fired power stations (they believe man-made climate change is false)

• Reduce Australia’s refugee intake for 5 years

• Stricter immigration policies that only al low “highly skilled migrants from cultur ally cohesive countries” who can speak English to a “sound level”

• Net-zero immigration policy so the same number of migrants equates to the num ber of people leaving the country

What policies do you think will aid Australia’s issues? What parties will follow through? The future is in our hands…quite literally… by Olivia Chan

REFUGEES DETENTIONRELEASED from

On the 7th of April, all remaining refugees who were in onshore detention due to Medevac were released. This comes after 20 refugees were released across Australia days prior on 2 April 2022. Most of these refugees have been held in detention both offshore and onshore for 9

Theyears.refugees,

many of which were detained offshore on Nau ru or Papua New Guinea were transferred to onshore detention in Australia. Australia’s make shift detention and alternative place of detention (APODs) are based in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Northern Territory, South Australia, and Western Australia.

Onshore and Offshore Processing

Many of these people seeking asylum arrived by boat, which is considered unlawful due to their mode of arrival under the Migration Act 1958. Anyone who arrives in Australia without a lawful visa is detained until the processing of their new visa applications. However, as a matter of policy, as these refugees arrived by boat, the government has prevented any of these refugees from applying for any permanent or pathways to per manent visas since 2014. Hence, they were transferred to re gional processing facilities primarily in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. For the duration of their time in detention, there was great uncertainty about the future of the detainees who were living in what the United Nations deemed torturous conditions. Since then, at least 986 refugees have been resettled in the United States as part of an agreement between the Turnbull and Obama administrations. However, those with pending ap plications to the United States continue to await an outcome about their situation in Australia.

Due to the lack of adequate health care and facilities in these processing centres, many refugees required urgent medical care and treatment. Under the Medevac law, refugees were urgently transferred to Australia for medical support but were still detained in detention centres in Australia. Once Medevac was appealed, refugees were transferred temporarily to these detention centres for treatment; they were known as “transito ry people” under the Migration Act 1958. However, despite receiving medical treatment, they were still detained in hotel rooms with no outside access. Furthermore, in recent months detainees experienced a fire at one hotel, a COVID outbreak, and maggots in their food.

Refugees on Bridging Visas

Many from the recently released cohort will be placed on a Bridging Visa E. This is a tempo rary visa provided while visa holders make arrangements to leave Australia or wait for an immigration decision. Since the government is unwilling to provide visas for these refugees, the latter does not apply. The visa lasts six months and has working rights but no study rights for anyone 18 years old or older. Under s 46B of the Migration Act 1958, transitory peo ple are unable to make any visa applications. Subsequently, this requires the Minister of Home Affairs to ‘lift’ or temporarily exempt the bar of s 46B for all transitory people on Bridging Visa E’s. They must be done indi vidually for each visa holder via an invitation to re-apply during this bar lift. Accordingly, the bar to ‘lift’ generally lasts two weeks, re quiring all re-applications for a new Bridging Visa E to be lodged by applicants within that time

However,frame.releasing

refugees on Bridging Visa E is not a new approach by the gov ernment. The government has sporadically released transitory clients from detention and placed them on Bridging Visas. The government has provided no insight into how they choose who they release which has re sulted in greater uncertainty for those who remained in onshore detention. The release of the remaining people in onshore detention into the community on Bridging Visas has left many refugees and advocates confused and frustrated as to why the government did not instigate this option at the beginning.

Re-Settlement

Although the Bridging Visa E provides a temporary solution, many holders are awaiting respons es from the United States and Canada’s re-settlement options. These options provide refugees a permanent place of settlement. With the government’s recent announcement of the resettlement deal with New Zealand, it is certain that many will also apply to New Zealand. However, this deal, which was originally offered 9 years ago, has garnered criticism because of the timing of the deal with the upcoming election, and the fact that New Zealand had offered resettlement in

Although2013.

it has been confirmed that those under Medevac have been released, there is a lack of information from the Department of Home Affairs on whether those who arrived after Medivac have been repealed have been released. According to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, 10 refugees are still held in detention in Australia - but their fate remains unknown.

by Jasmine Joyan

DEPP vs HEARD

WARNING includes topics of domestic violence

Beginning with jury selection on the 11th of April, the infamous Depp v Heard case made headlines in every newspaper and infiltrated every social media platform. Johnny Depp, world-renowned “Pirates of the Caribbean” actor, made a claim against Am ber Heard, actress, and his ex-wife, for $50 million in damages whilst denying Heard’s previous claims of physical abuse, and suing Heard for physical abuse instead. Consequently, Heard countersued for $100 million, claiming her acts of violence as self-defense or in defense of her younger sister. The case played out in Fairfax Country, Virginia.

Context

Depp and Heard were engaged within two years of dating and married the year after in 2015. How ever, it was short-lived and volatile as Heard filed for a divorce and a restraining order against Depp in 2016. She claimed that Depp threw a phone at her, leaving a bruise on her face and that Depp was verbally and physically abusive throughout their re lationship. The divorce was finalised in 2017.

After the brief marriage, Heard wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in 2018 which elaborated on her survival of domestic violence: “I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out”.

This formed a public view that Depp was abusive despite his name not being included in the article. Subsequently, in 2019, Depp sued Heard for def amation regarding the article and claimed Heard as a perpetrator rather than a victim of domestic

Yet,violence.in2020,

following leakage of audio of Heard allegedly saying she hit Depp by The Daily Mail, a libel trial was held in the UK by Depp, who sued

The Sun for describing Depp as a “wife-beater”. The judge at the time ruled in favour of The Sun. Subsequently, Depp was asked to exit the “Fan tastic Beasts” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” fran chises.

All On Air: The Courtroom

The highly publicised trial surfaced interesting claims. One involved Heard leaving her own fae ces on the couple’s bed, or her use of a makeup palette released in 2017 to hide bruises in 2016. Revelations of Depp’s past with domestic abuse, his drug and alcohol abuse, vulgar texts between friends - “Let’s burn Amber” - amongst Depp’s lost fingertip and bloody scrawl, were all on show to the public, leaving a tang permeating the court room milieu.

Depp spent four days on the witness stand as his last opportunity to reclaim his reputation, denying Heard’s domestic abuse allegations. “Never did I, myself, reach the point of striking Ms Heard in any way. Nor have I struck any woman in my life.”

A crucial piece of evidence involved a tape where Heard could be heard admitting to hitting Depp. “I’m sorry that I didn’t...hit you across the face in a proper slap but I was hitting you, it was not punch ing Suchyou”.evidence

accorded with further testimo nies from Depp’s friends, family and employees, who stated that Heard was the aggressor in the relationship. An audio clip was played in court of a conversation between Depp and Heard where Heard appeared to taunt him: “Tell them, ‘I Johnny Depp ... am a victim of domestic violence,’...and see how many people believe or side with you.”

Accordingly, many started conversations on gen dered domestic abuse.

Furthermore, Depp denied he cut off his own fin ger during a violent fight in the early stages of their marriage in 2015. Instead, he claimed that Heard was the person who threw objects, where a vod ka bottle hit him and severed the top of his right middle finger, which he later used to scrawl mes sages of Heard’s “lies” on the walls. Accordingly, evidence was shown of his hospital visit.

“I can’t take responsibility for what I now call Little Richard, my chopped finger.”

However, Heard had a different story to tell. Al legedly, Depp penetrated her with a bottle then the next morning, she woke up to Marilyn Manson playing and noticed messages in blood scrawled

it, then slapped her two more times, which Depp “Itdenied.changed

my life. I knew you don’t come back from Furthermore,that.”

Heard stated that Depp was jealous, accused her of having affairs, and became “out of control” after he broke his sobriety. She testified that on one occasion, Depp head butted and re peatedly punched her in the face.

“He was just pummelling me. I thought: This is how I die. He’s going to kill me now. He’s going to kill me, and he won’t even have realised it.”

on the wall. Furthermore, Heard stated that she only discovered about Depp’s injured finger after the event. This differs significantly from Depp’s

Heardtestimony.also

testified that Depp ripped off her un derwear and conducted a “cavity search” for co caine during a fight in 2013. Then, in 2014, on a flight from Boston to LA, Heard alleged that Depp kicked her during a physical altercation. However, Depp and his entourage told a different story and testified that Heard was the aggressor, while Depp locked himself in the aeroplane bathroom to avoid

Importantly,her.

Heard recalled the first time Depp al legedly hit her. According to Heard, this occurred after she asked about a tattoo Depp had which spelled out “wino”, a remnant of Depp and ac tress Winona Ryder’s relationship. He apparently proceeded to slap Heard after she laughed about

Yet, Heard also admitted to hitting Depp in their Los Angeles penthouse following an argument where Heard accused Depp of cheating. Allegedly, during the confrontation, when she went into the neighbouring penthouse which Depp owned to see her sister, Depp followed her, grabbed at her, and when Heard returned to their penthouse, he threw a can at them and “bolted” up the stairs to grab the back of her head. She stated that at the time, she was afraid that Depp might push her sister down the stairs as she saw Depp raise his hand to as sault her, so she swung at him.

These were just the key moments of the dispute, with many more claims detailed throughout the trial. Was this “the performance of her [Heard’s] life”, as Depp’s legal team regarded, or were there pieces of truth about the abuse on both sides?

by Olivia Chan

ASRAPEAWEAPON OF WAR

WAR nin G: includes topics of RA pe

At the beginning of the Ukrainian invasion, drowned out by the sounds of war, were the screams of many Ukrainian women and children who were raped by Rus sian soldiers. As such, the alarm ingly increasing rate of rape has prioritised global efforts to deliv er packets of emergency contra ception to Ukrainian hospitals as quickly as possible.

Just earlier in April, the grotesque case of the systematic rape of 25 girls and women, aged 14-24, in a basement in Bucha made interna tional headlines, with nine victims falling pregnant. Allegedly, Rus sian soldiers told them they would “rape them to the point where they wouldn’t want sexual contact with any man”. This was a ruse to prevent the girls and women from having Ukrainian children.

However, that wasn’t the only case. The Ukrainian ombudsman for hu man rights, Lyudmya Denisova, recalled receiving many calls on support helplines and information from channels on the messaging app Telegram about cases of rape.

“A 25-year-old woman called to tell us her 16-year-old sister was raped in the street in front of her. She said they were screaming ‘This will happen to every Nazi prostitute’ as they raped her sister.”

Amongst several reports, some claimed a 14-year-old girl in Bucha fell pregnant after being allegedly raped by 5 Russian soldiers, an 11-year-old boy was allegedly raped whilst his mother was tied to a chair to watch, and a 20-year-old woman was gang-raped “in every possible way” by 3 Russian soldiers in the city of Irpin, situated near Kyiv. Unfortunately, these provide only a glimpse of the mass of cases reported.

Yet, some of the cases were only discovered after post-mortem examinations of women’s bodies buried in mass graves north of Kyiv.

April 8: Women comfort each other in front of a mass grave in Bucha.

“We already have a few cases which suggest that these women had been raped before being shot to death,” said Vladyslav Perovskyi, a Ukrainian forensic doctor who, with other coroners, performed autop sies in Bucha, Irpin, and Borodianka.

In similar cases, women have been raped at gunpoint while soldiers raided their houses, with some involv ing Russian soldiers killing their husbands. One case occurred 50 km west of Kyiv, as recalled by Andrii Nebytov, the police chief of the Kyiv region. Allegedly, several Russian soldiers entered a house and shot the husband dead as he tried to defend the family. Then, two of the soldiers repeatedly raped the wife whilst threatening to harm her young son if she resisted. They proceeded to burn down the house and shot the family’s

However, Dmitri Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, denied such allegations of rape along with other reported war atroci ties performed by Russian sol diers in Ukraine. Accordingly, Russian officials claim that these reports were “staged” by Ukrainian forces as a tool when disseminated by West ern

Indeed,media.the

reports may not frame the image correctly. Yet, this may be due to the poten tial cases that have yet to be reported. According to Oleh Tkalenko, a senior prosecutor for the Kyiv region, women were more inclined to disclose acts of sexual violence to psy chologists and doctors rather than the police due to a lack of belief that perpetrators would be

“Peoplecaught.are

ashamed to talk about rape.”

by Olivia Chan

The remains of the family home

cases of rape have been recorded, in cluding those of young girls and very young children. Even of a baby!” Ukrainian President Volodymry Zel enskyy stated that investigators had received hun dreds of reports of rape in areas previously occupied by Russian troops.

“Hundredsdogs.of

After five years in power, Emmanuel Macron has again won the French Presidential elections against his biggest rival, Marine Le Pen.

Macron’s party, Le Republique en Marche (Le Repub lique), described as a centrist to centrist-right party won 58.55% of the votes whilst Le Pen’s nationalist and farright party, National Rally, garnered 41.45% of votes. How ever despite the loss, Le Pen’s party increased in popular ity since the last presidential election where she had only won 33.9% of the votes.

Prior to the election, it was unclear who would be the next president. It is the first time in France in twenty years that a presidential candidate has been able to keep their seat after their first term.

The biggest issue of contention during the election was addressing the increased cost of living in France. Le Re publique’s centrist policies resulted in criticism from both the left and the far-right in France. Macron in his term had managed to reduce unemployment, capped energy prices, and created more industrial jobs. However, this has not eliminated the issue of inflation, particularly for people liv ing in smaller towns and rural areas who have continued to struggle to be able to purchase basic necessities. He has been termed by some as the “President of the Rich” because of the lack of reforms to support those from poor economic communities. Despite this, the right has also criticized Macron for his lack of tax reforms. He has at tempted to pivot towards more right-wing social policies in response including inciting Islamophobic rhetoric but this was not enough for many right-wing voters who desired a stronger approach also to immigration.

Le Pen’s appeal since the last election has been through greater strategic and marketing policies. Le Pen, whose father Jean-Marie Le Pen, founded the National Rally (previously known as the National Front) distanced herself from some of her father’s policies. Le Pen’s father pro moted anti-semitism in his policies, denied the Holocaust, was a supporter of the death penalty and was accused of war crimes during the Algerian War. Le Pen did not use her last name on presidential flyers using ‘M’ or using only her first name Marine to distance herself from her father’s policies. Le Pen has a hardline approach to immigration and has advocated for the ban of the hijab conflating it to an “occupation”. Le Pen centered on this during her 2017 presidential campaign, but in this election focused more on economic reforms for the French people in light of the

concerns about the cost of living. Le Pen prom ised greater protectionist policies for French goods, the abolishment of income tax for peo ple under 30, reduction of the retirement age to 60, and increased salary wages for nurses and However,teachers.

Le Pen’s criticism has been on the vagueness of her policies and the concern that her social policies will cause greater division in France where anti-semitic and Islamophobic at tacks have been on the rise. Further Le Pen’s protectionist policies have also caused tensions with the EU, where her ‘France first’ ideology has come at the cost of tensions in econom ic investment and immigration policies with the EU. This has led to potential concerns of a “Frex it”. Le Pen has also wanted to pull out of NATO in a chal lenge to the West’s post-Cold War se curity architecture. With the invasion of Russia in Ukraine and Finland and Sweden’s increased interest in joining NATO, the current climate in Europe made the withdraw al from such a treaty unfavorable. Critics of Le Pen also linked her desire to withdraw with her links to Russia. In 2014, her party received a loan from a Russian bank and was hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin before the 2017 French elections. Le Pen has also favored reconciling the relationship with Russia after the war.

The rise of the right-wing is still ever present in France. Some right-wing supporters have found Le Pen’s 2022 policies too weak and have supported Eric Zemmour, leader of the Recon

quete Party, who has built on some of Le Pen’s 2017 policies. Zemmour has revived “The Great Replacement” trope that white Europeans are being replaced by Muslims from Africa and the Middle East. On CNews, a conservative news channel in France, Zemmour said that child migrant were “thieves, killers, they’re rapists. That’s all they are”. Many young people in France have been convinced of his policies and his policies for deportation to ensure France re mains for Anglo-French people despite being of Algerian and Jewish

descent.Despite Macron’s win, there is a growing systemic concern about ab staining from voting. Many people from both the left and right abstained from voting due to their dislike of both ma jor parties with only 59% of 18-24-yearolds voting in the

Forelection.Macron to re main in power, he must also win the elections of the French National As sembly from elec torates. Many from smaller parties on the left including the Republicans, Greens, and Socialists all backed Macron against Le Pen but during electorate votes, he may now not have the majority. This will require Macron to join forces, similar to a coalition, known as “cohabitation” with another party to retain the majority.

The National Assembly vote will be in June by2022.Jasmine Joyan

Disclamer

Always seek profes sional medical advice. A doctor did not write this article. Everybody has a different body that reacts differently to various products and irritants. This is to be read only a general in troduction to the world of sexual hygiene.

IDON’TGETITSEXUALHYGIENE

Was it just me who missed the day in sex-ed when they gave out actual practical advice on sexual health? No?

It seems like secondary school sex education never got into discussing things in explicit terms. One might speculate that this is be cause it’s difficult for educators to justify comprehensive sexual health edu cation to schools who stigmatise going beyond the “must know” details, or who see no point in educating students in stuff they’re supposedly too young to make use of. And of course, there’s no sex-ed session in most Australian tertiary learning environments.

But now is the time to go beyond the basic condom, pads, and tampons talk. Human sexuality is so much more diverse than penetrative sex, and the pre cautions and practices we can use in these numerous situations are simply not discussed. It’s time to break down some essential practices of sexual hygiene to ensure we’re staying safe and healthy in all our sexual adventures.

Pee-Pee

Peeing after sex is the one must-know tip my older sister gave me when I started thinking about sex. It’s one of the easiest techniques for preventing urinary tract infections (“UTIs”). This is pretty commonly known, even though it wasn’t taught in any sex-ed I attended. This is applicable to pretty much anyone with genitals! For people with vaginas, it’s even suggested to pee be fore and after any sexual interaction. That includes any sexual play involving genitals, not just penetrative sex. This helps to clear bacteria in the urinary system. UTIs can be experienced by people of most sexes, but female people are more at risk because of their shorter urethras. A UTI is an infection in one’s urinary system caused by the spread of certain bacteria. The most common symptoms are a persistent urge to pee even when your bladder is empty, a burning sensation when peeing, and cloudy urine. These can be treated by your doctor with a course of antibiotics.

Other important things to do for vagina-havers to prevent UTIs is always wiping front-to-back (so bacteria from the anus doesn’t spread to the vagina), avoid washing genital areas with any thing except mild soap and water, wear breath able (cotton) underwear, and don’t sit around in sweaty or wet clothing.

Staying hydrated will help you pee more regular ly, as well as contribute to natural lubrication for female people and sexual stamina.

CLEANING YOUR SEX TOYS!

We know how to wash our hair and brush our teeth because our families most likely taught us when we were young. But, there’s no trusted adult for guidance with cleaning sex toys, even though cleaning our sex toys is key to keeping ourselves safe and STI free. The rule of thumb is to always follow cleaning instructions on the packaging of your sex toys. A few key sex toy cleaning rules are:

• Always take out batteries before cleaning;

• Never submerge or wash electrical compo nents, especially not in boiling water;

• Store toys in a dedicated container; and

• A light sex toy clean can involve washing with warm soapy water.

There’s no general rule for cleaning sex toys, however, as cleaning depends on the material. Here’s a quick list of common sex toy materials and advised cleaning advice iii:

• Glass: wash with soap and water.

• Stainless steel: place in dishwasher or boil in a 1:9 solution of bleach-to-water.

• Rigid plastic: clean with anti-bacterial soap and water.

• Silicone: put it in the top draw of your dish washer, boil in water for 5-10 mins, wash with anti-bacterial soap and water.

• Rubber: use condoms on rubber toys, as they have a porous structure making them difficult to sanitise or disinfect.

• Cyberskin and vinyl: Yeah I’ve never heard of cyberskin either (or maybe I just haven’t been in enough sex shops yet!) but it is a soft, elas tic thermoplastic that warms with friction and feels more like human skin than other materi als. Wash this and vinyl with warm water and air-dry. You can also put some corn starch on it to prevent stickiness.

• Nylon: wash with anti-bacterial sensitive skin soap. You can even chuck these in the wash ing machine if you want!

• Leather: wipe down with a soapy cloth or leather cleanser.

This being said, there are some additional op tions for extra protection. You can buy universal sex toy cleaners to help prevent bacterial growth.

LUBE IT UP!

Material engineering students- I’m sure you’re all over this, so no worries here. For the rest of you, listen up: you have to use the right lubes for cer tain condoms or toys!

REGULARS

It’s always advisable to use the right lube for different types of sexual activity: vaginal, anal, or any other type of activity where reduced friction will make things more pleasant, or easier, during your first time trying out something new.

For example: Do not use silicone-based lube with sex toys made of silicone, because silicon lube will break down your silicon sex toys. I doubt you want to ruin your sex toy worth $50+. Also, not a good idea to use flavoured lubes for vaginal sex. Getting a nice flavour requires addition of glucose which can upset the bacterial balance of vaginas.

Here’s a list of different types of lubricants and their pros and cons.

PROS CONS

Water-based

Silicon-basedOil-based

• Safe to use with silicone sex toys

• Safe to use with all condom types

• Doesn’t stain fabric

• Sensitive skin friendly

• Easy to wash off

• Balanced pH- so won’t affect gen ital pH (particularly important for people with vaginas!)

• Great substitute for massage oil for your pregame

• Can go longer without reapplying than with water-based lube

• Absorbs quickly into skin and body parts, so you may have to reapply during your session Safe to use with all condom types

• Not the best option for anal sex because of the above, as that requires more lubrication than vaginal sex

• Associated with a fungus called Candida, which precipitates yeast infections

• Hard to wash out of sheets and fabrics

• Not safest option for use with latex condoms

• Safe for condoms

• Can go longer without reapplying then with water-based lube

• Not safe for use with silicone toys. Especially as the degrada tion can leave micro abrasions that are hard to clean, so can harbour bacteria

• Stains sheets and fabric

There are, of course, other options out there, like petroleum-based lube or natural ingredients-based lube. Always be sure to check lubes for potential irritants like glucose and glycerine (which upset vag inal bacteria) and other ingredients that you know don’t work for you. The best advice, as always, is to talk to your GP or the medical professionals at MQ General Health who provide sexual health services.

by Isabella Trope

REWINDCULTUREPOP

50 SHADES OF GREY

Grapeshot’s resident sexpert, Eleanor Taylor, discusses Fifty Shades of Grey and its impact on society.

Grossing over $1.3 billion, the Fifty Shades film franchise is one of the most successful ever. The first film, Fifty Shades of Grey, was released in 2015. I was fourteen years old at the time. I vividly re member seeing advertisements on billboards which showed a hot-AF Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) caging Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) against a wall with his arms. I saw another poster in which Christian Grey, in a suit, stared out at the New York City Skyline, with the caption: “Mr Grey will see you now.” That line perseveres in meme form today. I recently saw a SpongeBob parody meme which said, “Mr SquarePants will see you now”. This was how I was in troduced to the idea of BDSM and kink. I had never noticed an erot ic film before. This was the first time for a lot of people where a romance film that sexually explicit went mainstream and entered our cultural awareness.

The joke at the time was that this franchise, an adaptation of E.L. James’s book series, was cre ated for middle-aged women with boring lives. My friends and I used to say that if you saw someone reading an eBook on the train, they were probably reading Fifty Shades. In 2018 I went past a bus stop which had a poster for a Sydney Anglican girl’s school on it, and right next to it was a poster that said “Don’t Miss the Climax”. It was an ad for the final movie of the franchise, Fifty Shades Freed

Throughout this period (2015-2018) I saw countless articles titled things like What Fifty Shades of Grey Gets Wrong About BDSM, and What is BDSM? People often criticised the dynamic between Chris tian and Ana as being abusive; a toxic relationship which camouflaged itself behind progressive BDSM language and powerplay.

I think what was missing from these criticisms was the fact that Fifty Shades novels were writ ten by a woman for a female audience who want to experience a level of excitement. Erotic litera ture often focuses on the control freak dominant CEO vs submissive and meek less powerful lady dynamic because it is a genre which thrives on “forbidden” love. We all know that a relationship like that is inherently unbalanced, just like we all know that it is abusive to stalk your partner’s phone without them knowing, to exercise coer cive control over them. Erotic literature occupies a space where we can safely indulge in our fan tasies and imagination without having to experi ence their horrifying reality.

You can find way worse stuff than Fifty Shades out there. Bodice Rippers are a well-established genre with books such as Johanna Lindsey’s Captive Bride (1977).

“Bodice Ripper” is a self-explanatory term. These books generally feature heroes who will at some point rip the clothes off their heroines, probably without their consent. They feature women being “ravished” against their will. Erotic literature has a tradi tion of taking experiences none of us want to live through — like being an actual sex slave — and using them in fiction to fuel our imaginations and lust.

365 Days (2020), also based on a book franchise, has ridden the Fifty Shades pop ularity wave. It follows a young woman who is kidnapped by a member of the Italian Mafia and held captive for 365 days until she falls in love with him. Although not as successful, the film exemplifies a new common topic in erotic fiction: mafia romance.

The mafia romance trope relies on the same power dynamics as Bodice Rippers, but instead of a knight or lord kidnapping a lady, it’s a mafia don from an incredibly pow erful family kidnapping a regular girl. It’s a way of taking a dated concept — in 2022, do any of us still fantasise about knights in shining armour? — and reviving it.

Are these ideas problematic? Ninety-three per cent of women have fantasized about being dominated and having rough sex. About fifty-seven per cent have fantasised about being raped, with a common fantasy being forced into sexual intercourse to

Clinicalsurvive.

Psychologist Michael Yates has this to say: “Forced-sex fantasy may in fact be a product of a more open and exploratory approach to sexual ideas more generally and reflect a willingness to tolerate a whole range of sexual desires as part of a varied sexual life. One recent study has shown that the women who reported the most rape fantasies were also the most sexually open and self-accepting. These women also had the most consensual sex fantasies.”

There is nothing wrong with you if you have BDSM fantasies and indulge in some erotic media. In a world where women’s sexual desires are consistently rid iculed and dismissed, I think we have earned the right to indulge in some smut from time to time.

by Eleanor Taylor

YOU ARE HERE

CIRCULAR QUAY

Grapeshot’s Isabella Trope takes you through her favourite “nexus of culture” in Sydney.

Fear not, Sydney Siders, Interstate Travelers, and International Tourists! The Covid Era has seemingly subsided. For now, anyway. Until whatever the universe seeks to throw our way next, we are free to roam our usual city haunts, share bodily fluids unabashedly, and go maskless outside like the shameless people we are. And what better place to do it than Sydney’s beloved Circular Quay?

Sexual innuendos aside, the withdrawal of Covid-19 restrictions, economic packages like ‘Dine and Discover’, and the return of some workers to the city, make Sydney city the place to be. As a harborside city, Sydney is privileged with glistening water views that sparkle day and night. Within walking distance from Circular Quay station, one can access:

• Views of the Opera House and the Harbor Bridge (a must-snap for instagrammers from Sydney and out of state alike);

• A Messina ice cream shop;

• The Botanic Gardens;

• The Sydney Observatory;

• A restaurant for people with too much money (Quay Restaurant);

• A restaurant for people with enough money to buy what’s important (MacDonald’s);

• A restaurant for seagulls (stealing chips from unsuspecting outdoor dining patrons);

• The Museum of Contemporary Art (most of the museum is free!);

• No less than 3 places to take that special history buff in your life, including the Museum of Sydney, Sydney Government House, and the Justice and Police Museum;

• At least a billion trendy restaurants and chic bars (no, I haven’t counted them. But I promise you’re spoilt for choice. It’s called hyperbole, look it up.); and

• A place to take your grandma (The Tea Cosy).

It seems as though the place now called Circular Quay has had a long history of being a hot-spot. Before displacement by colonial forces, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation lived, fished, and sourced food from the waterside. Many colonial sources recorded that First Nations people referred to the area as Warrane. The Syd ney Harbour foreshore is layered with sto ries of Indigenous people, as exemplified by a planned series of public art, text, and audio installations as part of the Yananurala, or ‘Walking on Country’ walk, in cluding an artwork representing a Bara, a fishing hook used by Gadigal women.

This year, Sydney was once again graced with the lights of the winter-time Vivid Sydney festival. The festival was canned in 2020 and 2021 due to the Covid-19 Pan demic. The light installations around Syd ney are of course the main attraction, es pecially the lights around Sydney Harbour.

Winter is usually a time of reclusivity and hermitude as we bunker down to weather the cold and a final round of assessments before the end of Semester 1. However, Vivid Sydney presented a great opportu nity to get your butt off your seat, into the crisp air and delightful ambiance of Syd ney Harbour at night. Plus, there’s noth ing like a cute setting and a chilly night to make hand-holding the perfect activity for you Circularromance-seekers.Quay,tome,

is a nexus of cul ture, experience and good vibes. It’s a something-for-everyone chocolate box of surprises for explorers willing to brave the cold. And for those not yet willing: don’t worry, someone will probably drag you here soon anyway.

by Isabella Trope

OPEN AND POLYGAMOUS RELATIONSHIP

Throughout human history, the development of society and cul ture has extended our under standing of human connection and the various relationships in our life.

The explosion in the cultural rev olution in the 1960s brought the “sex movement” with a focus on sex, gender, morals and love. It challenged the ideology of tradi tional marriage and monogamy with the image of the housewife and working husband, which had been promoted as a cultural product of traditional capitalism. The thriving sexual movement of the 1960s nurtured different types of human connection and promoted the “free-love” ex pression in sexual behaviour and sexual identity. With the promo tion of freedom of love, open relationships have significantly flourished, and in the era of the internet and online dating, it is again blossoming.

An open relationship can be identified as an intimate rela tionship in which both primary partners approve that they can have amorous and romantic emotions with others outside their relationship. In a healthy open relationship, permission is the most important factor, because monogamy is, in most cultures, the status quo. Without any clear agreement between

two primary partners, any other sexual activity outside the rela tionship is likely to be classed as “cheating”. Moreover, permis sion is also essential for all other outside parties who also need to be informed and permit their involvement in an open relation ship. Any vagueness could pump toxic chemistry into these human connections with the unsecured

woman can have more than one husband. Therefore, for the po lygamous relationship, commit ment is essential. In feudalism, polygamy was usually practised all around the world mostly by the monarchy with polygyny. In contrast, only very few so cieties, like Sparta in Ancient Greece, respected the freedom and the power of women who could practice polyandry. How ever, polygamy has generally been rejected its legitimisation by modern societies and is now considered an outdated custom. Polygamy does not only describe a type of human connection but also an unlawful marriage; but, it is still legal in some countries based on the beliefs of some groups, like in Singapore where polygny is legal only for practic ing Muslims, who may have four

feeling of jealousy. The open relationship represents outer expansion of free expression in emotion and sexuality, releasing humans from the structures of

Bymonogamy.contrast to the freedom of an open relationship, polygamy provides the power of the mar riage with one individual in the partnership. It portrays a state of marriage in which an individual can marry many partners and di vides it into two cases: polygyny means a man can marry many wives, and polyandry means a

Withwives.all the kinds of human re lationships that have been dis covered, it is not about the pro motion of any ideologies, but more about humanity. In modern capitalist societies with more encouragement regarding the freedom of individuals, I believe that it is the right for everyone to explore their hidden desire in love and sexuality and act right fully to be truthful to themselves. by Nam Do

THE MALE GAZE OR THE GAYS:

I sat with my best friend in her vi olet wallpapered bedroom, her mum’s 2010 Macbook pro propped on my lap. Pulling up an incogni to-mode-tab, we typed “Lesbians kissing” into the YouTube search

Eyesbar.

stared into the floor and we fiddled with our sweaty hands awk wardly. Our 14-year-old baby gay dreams were shattered. Scrolling through an endless amount of soft porn created for the eyes of straight men, we searched for something that would give us real answers as to what intimacy and love looked like for a gay person.

As an adult, there are still so many questions about what intimacy looks like for someone like me. Sure, the LGBTQ+ community has seen some great wins in terms of media representation within the last few years. The likes of Sex Education (2019-) and Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) have made waves when it comes to rep resenting queer intimacy appropriately. But for every good piece of representation, there are about ten godawful, sacrilegious ones.

Katherine O’Keefe, Los Angeles’s first lesbian intimacy coordina tor, feels this same pain. In our respective homes, we both huff and roll our eyes as the talk turns to Game of Thrones. “They just chuck a couple of tits up on the screen for the dumb-masses”, she scoffs. O’Keefe thinks that intimacy onscreen needs a massive overhaul - but more so for LGBTQ+ people who are always either over- or under-sexualised. The way sex is portrayed for people who are LGBTQ+ is either ‘porny’ or boring. Or both. But O’Keefe is creating the change that the screen industry desperately needs. She is turning sex, something normally used to boost ratings, into a storytelling tool.

“Sex is a very powerful and emotional thing,” says O’Keefe. “Intimacy is a thing that humans crave — I think using it as a part of storytelling is really underutilised”. We all know ‘that scene’. Two characters: they make eye contact across a bar, then it cuts to them fucking in a cab. It’s incredibly overused. O’Keefe believes that with any intimate scene, the audience should walk away learning something about the character that they didn’t know before.

I speak with Leah Pellinkhof, an Australian lesbian intimacy coordinator, about her process when choreographing a sex scene. She explains to me that when she walks onto set, the first questions she asks herself are: “What does the story mean?”, and “What do we need to tell the story?”. Wearing a shirt with “Shakespeare” printed on its front, she chuckles while giving me a demonstration of ‘horse sex’. Clapping her hands at a slow rhythmic pace, Leah explains that she uses this as a tool to help actors with characterisation. When she commences working on a show, she asks the actors: what an imal do they think their character would look like when having sex? As I cock my head to the side, Pellinkhof gives me an example of an actor she worked with who decided that their character would have sex like a horse because of the animal’s stocky and tough nature.

Pellinkhof changes her speed to show me dog sex, clapping her hands quickly as if applauding. She explains that it’s the pacing and length of thrusts of the animal that help drive characterisation the most. Pellinkhof thinks for a second as she takes a sip of water.

“It’s also about keeping your personal and private stuff, per sonal and private.” Pellinkhof speaks thoughtfully. Having ac tors associate with an animal means that they aren’t obligated to discuss their personal sex lives in a professional environ

Intimacyment.

coordination is still a relatively new thing. It first came to light during the 2017 #MeToo movement. Both Kath erine O’Keefe and Leah Pellinkhof are aware that the most important part of their jobs isn’t about representation, but the safety and comfortability of actors.

Pellinkhof uses both of her hands to point at herself. “I mean, I am the lesbian inti macy coordinator.” She grins. Because of this, she has been lucky enough to choreo graph the majority of queer shows she has worked on. Leah knows that the best way in creating comfortability is clear commu nication. She informed me that consent is the key to ensuring the safety of actors. Be fore a scene is choreographed, she invites the actors that are involved in the scene to stand opposite each other. One actor will ask their scene partner:

“Is it okay if I touch your shoulder?”. And if they consent, the other actor would reply with: “Yes”.

This exercise continues until both parties are comfortable with touch. The actors then better understand each other’s boundaries, and Pellinkhof can then choreograph with Katherineconfidence.O’Keefe’s

process is different. She smiles, saying she knows that she has done a good job when people on set wonder why she is even there. But it is a hefty process to achieve this. In the United States, there are guidelines enforced by the Screen Actors Guild to ensure the safety of actors. For O’Keefe, the process of keeping actors safe comes in the form of paperwork and meetings. Prior to stepping foot on set, she meets with the director to discuss their vision of the scene. “In as much detail as possible”, she accentuates. From there, she sits with the actors individually to gain an understanding of their previous experienc es with intimacy and walk them through the plan for the scene.

This is to make sure that everyone is on the same page. “And then there’s the least excit ing part which is doing all the paperwork,” Katherine says, letting out a breath. This comes in the form of simulated sex waiv ers that need approval from legal teams and agents. When on set, O’Keefe is a firm be liever that if there’s time to check a lighting position, there’s time to check in with those involved in an intimate scene. She always emphasises to actors that there is nothing wrong with saying “stop”.

Katherine believes that when she works on intimate scenes involving LGBTQ+ charac ters, people do not deliberately foster an uncomfortable environment, but they often do so unintentionally. “It’s the jokes. That kind of thing,” she points out. She says that although people are not purposely being homophobic, these actions make actors feel objectified and uncomfortable. O’Keefe advocates that teaching students in film school about approaching intimacy appro priately on set will ensure the safety and comfortability of performers. She hopes that by teaching this in schools, the practice will filter into the industry.

I ask O’Keefe about how we can gain a more accurate depiction of LGBTQ+ peo ple on screen. Thinking for a second, she smiles. She then proposes that in order to move forward with both the safety and rep resentation of LGBTQ+ people, casts and writer’s rooms need more diversity. She maintains that even if straight people have friends who are LGBTQ+, they still don’t necessary understand how queer people have sex. Diversifying the screen industry in all departments can also remove the ‘male

gaze’ trope that queer sex scenes tend to have. O’Keefe believes that it is important to have LGBTQ+ people helping in creating these stories because it brings authenticity to a new Pellinkhof’slevel.eyes

brighten as I ask her to share her thoughts about achieving authentic representation of LGBTQ+ people in the media. Leah firmly stands by casting queer actors in queer roles. “It’s about cre ating heroes,” she says, before asking me if I’d ever Googled an actress who played a lesbian to see if they were queer, only to discover that they have a husband. “It’s like, ‘damn!’, right?” she asks in a mock dis appointed tone, still grinning. We share a laugh as I admit that finding queer actors who play queer characters is like striking gold. Pellinkhof pauses to think for a sec ond, before laughing again as she describes a time when she experimented with choreo graphing a ‘straight’ sex scene. “I straddled my best friend, as you would with a woman. Between their legs. And he was like - you’re about to knee me in the testicles!”

Pellinkhof’s expression changes as she makes a realisation. She says that both she and her friend were very uncomfortable. So she could only imagine that this is what an actor experiences when a heterosexual per son choreographs a queer sex scene. Leah stops and takes another sip of water. She says that at this point, it’s better to have an intimacy coordinator of any sexual orienta tion, than none at all. Leah and I both agree that Australia needs to learn to embrace in timacy coordination in the entertainment in dustry, before the authentic representation of sex can even be discussed.

Sitting with Katherine, we move back to the topic about sex as a sto rytelling tool. I learn that the accurate representation of sex doesn’t start with an intimacy coordinator. It starts with the writing. To learn more about this, I participated in a Zoom class co-run by O’Keefe about writing intimate scenes. The class broke down the stereo types of sex on screen. We also discussed the tropes of LGBTQ+ sex scenes, that tend to do more harm on representation, than good. ‘Coming’ several times during lesbian sex was a cliché that saw many nods and noises of agreement from every student. These young and passionate writers were all determined to change the way intimacy is currently written, which gives me high hopes for a better depiction of sex onscreen in the future.

As I wrap up my questions, I ask O’Keefe what her favourite part of intimacy coordination is. Her lips widen into a full smile as she confesses that of all her jobs, the most favourite ones she works on involve young people straight out of film school who are not forced to hire her. “They’re so thankful that you’re there,” Katherine beams. “They think that intimacy coordination is important, and they are im plementing that early in their career which is the most amazing feel ing. They’re the next generation. They care.”

by Ashleigh Ho

GOD SAYS “NO”

I blame my mum a lot for my late blooming. My childhood was weird: con servative and liberal at the same time. Unlike most Asian households, I was allowed to pick my hobbies, spend my free time picking flowers and digging up worms, and academics were hardly a concern. However, at the same time, our household was very Catholic. Every Sunday, there was always a new list of dos and don’ts. Don’t swear. Say your prayers every night. Don’t ask why, just do it because God says so!

I never got a full explanation about the purpose of my period until I learned about it at school. Anything about changing bodies or sexuality or even love was tucked away, and my brother and I were shushed if we even made a squeak about these forbidden subjects.

I didn’t go on my first date until the age of 22. I didn’t know if we should have hugged, or shaken hands… or kissed? I didn’t even know how to talk about why we had come to eat sushi together after matching on a dating app. Was this friendship? Was this a date? That same night, I really wanted to call my mum and ask her: What does love feel like?

But, of course, there was an extra barrier.

Being queer and Asian has many challenges. Talking to your family about what it means to love another woman is awkward. Trying to discuss any LGBTQ+ issues – exhausting. Somehow the religious discrimination bill is my fault. When I first came out to my mum, her biggest concern was my sex life. I was instructed not to have sex until I got married. The issue: I came out before marriage equality was a thing. It was one big, fat catch-22. I spent many restless nights convinc ing myself that my sexuality was not only about ‘sex’. It took a big move across the country away from my family and many new connections later to help me learn that being queer was also about community, friendship, and love.

As a child, I thought that love was sinful and dirty. According to Catholicism, love was this thing that you didn’t get to experience until you got married. But love isn’t and shouldn’t be sexualised. Love is caring so much about a person, you walk them home late at night even though you have work in the morning. Love is creating so many memories that you can think back on and smile to yourself about. Love is accepting a person no matter who they are.

My mum has gotten better in recent years. I’ve been talking to her about the news and how we should be treating people with compassion, not judgement. She’s been coming ‘round to the idea that the world is changing rapidly, and quite frankly, we have bigger problems to worry about than who we love, how we dress, and pre-marital sex.

I’ve also learned some things. I’ve come to realise that everyone’s opinion is valid and that ed ucation is the key to change. It’s easy to just tell someone that their opinion is wrong and leave it at that, but everyone with an opinion has a justification for it. By finding that justification, it is much easier to discuss issues openly. Even today, I still find talking about sex awkward with my mum. But now, I’m glad that the discussion no longer ends short at “no sex before marriage”.

by Ashleigh Ho no no no no no no no no nono

THE GREEN M&M IS A SEX ICON

Ms Green: if you haven’t fantasised about her, you’ve most certainly eaten her. Because how do you sell a small piece of colourful chocolate? You sexualise it, of course!

Ms Green is an animated, anthropomorphic character used in M&M advertisements along with her other five delicious friends. Her classic look, which she’s sported for years, is white gogo boots, thick lashes, sharp brows, and green, glossy lips. She’s the manic pixie dream girl of the candy world, who, according to her Fandom Wiki page, likes simple candlelight dinners in Paris and dislikes men and women who stare. Touché, girl!

She has even landed multiple Sports Illustrated covers: standing in the icy Arctic, she is photo graphed unzipping her green shell, her chic snow boots matching a pair of gloves, sleek brows arching over a pair of sultry lashes. In another, her naked chocolate body sits in a steaming hot spring (how did she not melt?), teasingly holding up her rumpled green shell above the water. Her eyebrow is cheekily arched, suggestive, and she pouts her glossy ganache lips. Ms Green’s beach photoshoot resulted in multiple poster-worthy snaps: Ms Green crawling on her hands and knees across the white sand; Ms Green kneel ing in a rocky beach alcove, clutching her green shell, glancing at the camera as if she’s just been caught off-guard; Ms Green peaking wistfully through a gap behind some palm fronds, again holding – not wearing – her green shell.

So how did this sex icon rise to fame? What brought her to rock her round, brown bod on the global screen, feeding fantasies and stomachs alike?

In the 1950s, when television advertisements be came popular, Mars created their first two M&M characters to star in their advertisements – Mr Plain and Mr Peanut, “the good guys”. They were lifeless characters, who didn’t do much ex cept exist. But the advertisements, which want ed to showcase the ingenious purpose of the candy shell which encases the small pellets of chocolate, had an unforgettable slogan: “Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” Innuendo, here we come. In the 70s, an M&M urban legend bloomed, claiming that the green ones made people horny. As the kids who excitedly recited this legend to one another grew up, “horny” mor phed into “pregnant,” and the legend died out.

In 1995, advertising and copywriter superstar Su san Credle was recruited to create a new cam paign for M&M, because by now, Mr Plain and Mr Peanut were mostly forgotten. She recalled the mischievous urban legend of her childhood, and decided, in the name of new characterisa tion and sophistication, to create the first-ever female M&M. Enter: Ms Green. Credle herself described her vision of Ms Green’s character as confident, strong, and sexy.

In one of Ms Green’s early T.V. appearances, she flirts with American talk show host Dennis Miller while being interviewed on his show. When he remarks about how busy she’s been, she says, “Well, my new movie’s opening. And no, Den nis, I don’t remove my shell.” Her voice is sultry, sweet, alluring. In another ad, she seductively speaks over an exotic soundtrack, introducing new M&M flavours like personal offerings.

Since her inception, Ms Green has achieved incredible stardom and success. She has no bio logical female parts – physically, she cannot have sex – and yet she is deemed by the male gaze as extremely sexy. Her anthropomorphism isn’t uncanny, but beautiful; she literally embodies the gendering of candy, confidently flaunting the relationship between food and innuendo in a flawless and dazzling plight of consumerism.

But on June 29, 2015, her character went beyond gender and was actually assigned, in the eyes of the public, a sexual identity. The M&M official Twitter tweeted a picture of Ms Green and her other female team member Ms Brown. The former has eyelashes and the latter has glasses – the only two ways women can exist, right? The picture was accompanied by the caption, “It’s rare Ms Brown and I get to spend time together without some colourful characters barging in,” and upon reading this, the internet went crazy. It was immediately assumed that the two M&Ms were dating. It was the perfect lesbian relationship: the academic, coy, glasses-wearing woman and the playful, daring, heal-clicking chick. These candy characters were now entrenched in the theories and ide ologies of sex, gender, sexuality, identity, and relationships. And it doesn’t stop there.

Remember Mr Plain and Mr Peanut? The boring dudes? Well, Mr Plain was red and Mr Peanut was… green. Facing this discovery, the internet came immediately to the conclusion that Ms Green is, in fact, the transitioned version of Mr Peanut. Yes, Ms Green is a trans lesbian icon.

It would be a stunning happily-ever-after if this was, indeed, the end. As a character, Ms Green is exceptional. Her catchphrase is “I don’t melt for no one,” and her age is listed on her Fandom Wiki page as “old enough to know better.” Her skills are management and intimidation – okay, girlboss! – and she has an “outwards character who always has something to say.” She’s out to impress. She’s self-aware. She’s annoyed by boys’ lack of confidence and in general, she steals the spotlight – officially, she’s “too busy shining to throw shade.” What’s not to love?

Actually, Mars has an answer to that. And their answer is: everything. In re cent photoshoots of the entire M&M team, Ms Green poses with the gang plain, white sneakers. Her go-go boots are gone. Cue emotional breakdown. Mars has robbed her of her feminine mystique in the name of “progress” and “the interests of Gen Z,” but as Rolling Stone so aptly put it: “Let the green M&M be a nasty little slut.”

By desexualising Ms Green, Mars has completely robbed her of the sexual agency her fans had come to love, an agency that was feminist, powerful, queer, and celebratory. She was body-positive and openly vulnerable, unafraid to strip her shell and reveal her true self beneath all the makeup and bright green. Ms Green is the bastard child of consumerism and the male gaze, but she hasn’t let that define her. Instead, she transcended the boundaries of her character stereotype. As she once drawled, she is “everything your heart desires.”

RITUALS OF THE REAL

They approach and they retreat.

Here and in the distance.

On this hill, the enduring pattern Can be witnessed… The sights and sounds of those Preceding and ensuing.

There is the lament that right here I am unable to remain. Duty taps gently, I cannot ignore. Yet fortune lies in the Prospect of a return.

Those existing in eons before, Could seldom gaze in awe. Or sometimes even reach this site, Where I now shiver and Reflect in twilight.

Arising now, do I, Taking one last look. Aware that I am not Departing for good.

Walking away, I am but A small figure. I reflect on rituals that Both frighten and nurture. by Stephen Bavaro

FLIGHT FROM FANTASY

To the outdoor dance floor they proceed. The veneer of its surface. The lights hover And watch intently. Two, five, ten and more, They gravitate towards the music,

TheirEntranced…dancing,eyescastat each other.

There is the temptation to Join the gathering. The music does not excite, Yet their manner of encircling Does allure.

My eyes, however, veer away. Ahead, lies the vastness. No presence of others, No music, no lights. Ambling, then shuffling Towards that empty darkness…

The sounds of those behind me fade. Isolated am I, Yet excitement also greets. Others will announce their presence, And what draws us will be real.

by Stephen Bavaro

CORRUPTION!

I.

Will you look at him, his face discern ible through both windows of his car and my kitchen and coming to see me, coming to see me come, coming to come to me. Not handsome and not ugly and not particularly big or small-dicked either, yet right there, beautiful, getting out the driver door. A faint close and the headlights fade, leaving the night tangible for a mo ment, the summer wisp enshrouding his body for six entire seconds.

Then my house security lights him up again, beaming volatile white on his face. He smiles at the intercom cam era, not knowing I’m watching from my little window stool in my over sized tee and the rippable lingerie, head on fists and smiling back.

I open the door to an embrace so tight it

“Who“Guesshurts.who.”elsecould it be?”

We squeeze as if trying to take each other down: the door closes itself and the sensor lights click off again. For a moment, there’s near silence – I close my eyes to nothing but the rustling of clothes in a vulnerable

backrub, sharp sips of little kisses on my Tearingneck.myself

from him, we head upstairs, legs frantic in movement; and will you look at him, it’s like he’s chasing me down in one of those pornos that cross the line. We dive into bed, get our pocket fillings and clothes asprawl on the carpet then ourselves asprawl over the sheets.

It’s not been five minutes!

The tumbling and the yanking and the giggling and the creaking and the kissing and the feeling and the

Youfucking.know

how it goes.

Though he never does rip the linge rie apart, and when he knocks my head on the bedframe he kisses me and apologises. In that violent dark we can’t see each other but we smile and we have fun and we get louder, and cars go by and the world turns round and the night goes on. I dab the sweat off his nose with the edge of a pillow, and we go, and go, and will you look at us – we are primitive. As life gets.

CREATIVES

And as our energy surges upward amid our clammy flesh melded together, I have a shrieking orgasm and he climaxes like a head throb, and we fall over and pin each other down and groan and go limp.

We don’t mind the cum and sweat slicking up our bodies. We lay there in a rhythmic pant, faces indiscernible in the dark, thumbing each other’s chins and getting drowsier by the minute. We flit between the fantasy worlds of tonight’s dreams and that wisp in the summer night - outside, the world turns round, cars go by, other people have sex, the night goes on.

II.

And why can’t that be it? Why can’t it be as it could, bodies merging into one like whoever’s gods intended? Why can’t we come and go and come and go, and see each other, and fall asleep in our arms, and feel each other’s faces, swallow each other whole?

Must it have something else?

Perhaps the breaking of a hymen, innocence unwillingly lost. Perhaps sex without love, or a government dystopia, or a commentary on patriarchy.the

Maybe interracial taboo, or snarky jabs at caricature women. Maybe religious connotations. Biological essentialism. Purple prose. The contrast of lust and love.

Incest. Erectile dysfunction. Erectile dysfunction because of incest. Sex and isolation. Underage pregnancy. Subtle aggressiveness.Revengesex.

Maybe the illegible signature of teetering disaster. Maybe symbolic links between dreary existence and the phantoms of perfect happiness. Maybe confessions of white widowed males.

Perhaps blood and broken skin and nerve-tearing agony.

by Clara Kristanda

Podcast Review GIRLS ON PORN

What better way of honouring Grapeshot’s “Fantasy” issue than by reviewing a podcast that explores the many fantasies people are experi encing in 2022? Girls on Porn is a podcast first released on streaming platforms four years ago. Its hosts, Laura and Rachel, dissect and discuss popular search terms found on porn sites and discuss where these terms originated and how they are received. At Grapeshot, we listened to several episodes, ranging from the show’s commencement in 2019 to current episodes, and we’re here to give an uncensored review of how Girls on Porn discusses these fantasies, and whether it’s worth a listen.

Tattoos – April 2019

One of the first episodes released was on the search term ‘Tattoos’. The premise of each ep isode is that the hosts discuss a popular term found on porn websites and why it has become a fantasy that many people around the world wish to explore. This episode comes after ‘tattoo’ was found to be the seventh most searched porn cat egory in 2018, much to the surprise of the hosts who initially didn’t think this topic was worth dis cussing. The subject of the episode is supported by relevant statistics to justify the popularity of the topics, such as how the term ‘tattooed wom en’ grew in popularity by eighty-eight per cent, and how studies suggest tattooed women were almost fourteen per cent more likely to be solic ited by men. Other useful data included a study that found women believed men looked healthi

er with tattoos, but not necessarily more attrac tive. The podcast continues as the hosts discuss their own tattoos, before going into a segment titled ‘homepage hoedown’ in which they dissect porn titles featuring tattoos in the tags to show how different terms are used to get clicks in this Myindustry.biggest

criticism of this episode is how a large portion of the episode is dedicated to the hosts dissecting various videos at great length. Whilst this may be engaging to some audiences and I found their analysis humorous, it was not particularly helpful or engaging as they often strayed from the topic of the episode and got lost deconstructing the videos in unnecessary depth. The episode was engaging but at times lacked substance, leaving this listener confused and waiting for the end.

Movie Sex Scenes - June 2019

When looking for episodes to review, I made sure to find ones that could resonate with read ers with a variety of experiences and not any kinks or genres. For this reason, the movie- and TV-sex scenes episodes would be the episodes I recommend for listeners looking to get start ed with this podcast. They were easier to fol low than an episode that focusses only on one search term and includes relevant discussions as to why sex scenes on the big screen have an impact on so many viewers.

The movie sex scenes episode took a different direction to pre vious ones as the hosts were not discussing porn at length.

Instead, they looked at how movies depict sex, contrasting it to the possible reality of that sit uation. They begin by discuss ing how movies are often the first time people are exposed to sexual content, leading to many people’s sexual awakening. They include relevant data such as how the movie The Kiss (1896) was considered to have the first sex scene on camera, despite it not depicting sex in an upfront way. They contrast this to works such as the Czech film Ecstasy (1933), which was one of the first movies to show nudi ty and examine female pleasure.

They also include some recom mendations of films that they enjoyed and were meaningful to them. The range was extensive and included suggestions from both hosts and their listeners, including films like The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) The Shape of Water (2017), Deadpool (2016), and Titanic (1997). In addition to this, they also discuss the heteronorma tivity of movie sex scenes and how different components of sex are rarely explored in mov ies. I found this episode more engaging and appreciated how they incorporated their audi ence’s perspectives as well.

TV Sex Scenes - March 2022

In 2022 the hosts visit TV sex scenes and evaluate how TV has influenced sexuality in both dramas and main stream viewing. Whilst the conversation is largely based on American television, the insights discussed are still valuable and applicable in an Australian context.

They begin this episode with a segment titled ’69 sec onds of sex news’ in which they discuss news events that have a sexual component. I really enjoyed this fea ture, especially learning of how many accidents occur because people experience overbearing sexual urg es whilst driving. They begin their discussion in 1955, considering how I Love Lucy contained one of the first instances of pregnancy being depicted on TV. They dis cuss how networks brushed over the idea of conception through scenes such as Lucy pushing her bed together with her partner. It wasn’t until 1964 where audiences saw Samantha in Bewitched share a bed with her part

Thener.

notion of censorship is considered when they dis cuss how The Muppet Show was banned in Saudi Ara bia in 1979, specifically for Miss Piggy’s “piggyness”.

Similar events continue to take place in 2022 with the ban of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) in Saudi Arabia due to the fact that the charac ter, America Chavez, explains that she has two mothers. The podcast discusses how censorship policies dictate what makes it on to TV, highlighting how content that may be understood as indecent or public nuisance is more likely to be rejected. Some notable TV shows exploring sex included Pose (2018-2021), Bridgerton (2020- ) Outlander (2014- ), and a personal favourite, Sex Education (2019- ). I enjoyed this episode for the hosts humorous takes on TV sex scenes and the dis cussion on LGBTQ+ representation in shows such as Queer as Folk (2000-2002) and Orange Is the New Black (2013-2019). This episode is well worth a listen.

This episode, Laura and Rachel are joined by guest host Almaz Ohene who is a professional sex educator focused on giving young people the facts about pleasure. She states how “liter ature is full of raunchy bits” and that erotic material usually comes from a place of desire. The most interesting theme raised in this episode is that erotic material is often written poorly because “good sex scenes are hard to write”. This idea emerges when the podcast gives audiences a taste of poorly written sex scenes in the segment ‘Bad Sex Awards’.

They argue that because society is generally sex-negative, many authors rely on biological terms to describe any sexual experienc es. This results in many writers incorporating poorly used meta phors to describe pleasure. Some interesting facts included in this episode were that the ro mance-erotica genre of literature makes over $1.4 billion every year, and that one of the oldest love poems was dated back to 2037 BC. While I really enjoyed this episode, I found the lack of discourse on fanfiction - a very prominent form of erotica that in spired the likes of Fifty Shades of Grey (2015) and After we Collided (2014) - to ignore a

significant part of erotica’s tar get audience. I also felt that the hosts didn’t utilise guest speaker Ohene enough despite her being very engaging and experienced and providing insightful commentary. Instead, much of the podcast was based on a super ficial love for a written sex scene where it would have benefitted from more of Ohene’s commen tary and insight.

To Finish… Girls on Porn gives an authentic and funny insight into the world of sexual fantasies and creates a space for porn and various kinks to be discussed freely and ret rospectively. Most episodes in clude factual components to jus tify why the subject is important, with Laura and Rachel providing additional commentary on how popular some search terms are. The episodes have a tendency to get side-tracked, but, overall, the podcast is interesting for anyone wanting to learn more about the porn industry or their own sexu ality, making it a perfect recom mendation for Grapeshot’s fan tasy issue.

Girls on Porn is available for streaming on Spotify and Ap ple Podcasts with new episodes byweekly.Jackson Robb

Erotic fiction with Almaz Ohene – July 2020

William Friedkin’s CRUISING

is a Flawed, Moody and Misunderstood Masterpiece of Kink and Corrupt Law Institutions

The fetish scene has a fascinating place in history. In the context of the fight for gay liberation in mid-20th century America, leather and S&M culture emerged, and it was a place that promoted sexual liberation and freedom. It took a while for us to de velop a better understanding of kink culture, and we’re still up in arms over its place in Pride Month. Such a dis course has stemmed not only from right-wing commentators, but also some members of the LGBT commu nity. Kink is a world for adults only, and it encapsulates sadomasochistic sexuality, fetishes, and freedoms, but it has also been part of queer history, and both kink and LGBT scenes have worked together to fight against stigmas, homophobia, and misunder standing. To erase kink from Pride is to ignore a relevant part of history and exclude members of the LGBT community for celebrating their iden tities while fuelling homophobic and sex-negative discourse.

Interestingly, the production of Cruising (1980) was protested by gay activ ists, who believed the film would depict them as depraved and violent, further stignatising them. Especially since Cruising was written, produced, and directed by straight people, there is

some merit to why activists were wor ried about how the film could affect public views on gay rights. However, a careful viewing of Cruising proves that it was unfairly maligned before it even hit the screens. What used to be a controversial look at a stigmatised subculture is now a moody, raw, time capsule that offers the rare kink rep resentation, mixed with sleazy horror, murder mystery, and Giallo elements. Judging by the current direction of mainstream cinema, there may never be another film like Cruising.

In New York City, there’s been a series of amputated limbs being disposed of in the Hudson River, and the pat tern happens to be occurring near the Meatpacking District, where the mun danity of life plays out during the day time. It’s only when night approaches that the kink community shows up, most of them wearing a variety of fetishistic gear, and embracing their sexual liberation. Whenever they walk the streets, though, there are cops that patrol them, and it’s a daunting sight. Their misunderstandings and feelings of disgust and homophobia claw their way into the atmosphere, making it as alluring as it is oppressive. A myste rious figure walks into a leather bar, observant of the kinky action, and is

This sexualTWspoilerscontainsreviewofCruising.thisarticlecontainsreferencestoviolence.

approached by an actor, Loren Lukas (Arnaldo Santana), where they briefly converse, and then later hook up at a cheap motel. We don’t see the sex scene play out, but the mysterious figure threatens and ties up Loren, who’s emotionally paralysed enough to realise there’s no way out of this harrowing situation before he’s stabbed to death. Amidst the subliminal imagery of gay anal sex playing out during the stabbing, the last words Loren hears from his killer are, “You made me do it.”

As the police identify Loren’s remains, Captain Edelson (Paul Sorvino) realises the current case will lead to media pressure and backlash from the gay community if the murders remain unresolved, so he assigns officer Steve Burns (Al Pacino) to explore the gay S&M and leather bars in the Meatpacking District and track down the murder er, purely because of how he resembles the vic tims’ appearances. As he can’t tell anyone about the case, Steve creates a double life, posing as a single gay man, John Forbes who puts on the leather and begins exploring the bars at night. He’s unfamiliar with the scene he’s exploring and he’s unsettled, but as he gets more exposure, not only is he getting closer to finding the murderer, but he’s losing himself in the night and comes to a gradual realisation that he may not be who he originally was.

The world wasn’t ready in 1980 for what Cruis ing had to offer, even with the excision of 40 min utes of footage for the MPAA to grant it a wide release. It does not condemn the kink scene, and it is not judging its members for their choices. When Friedkin and cinematographer James A. Contner capture the action early in the leather bars, there’s a genuine fascination in the way these sequences are shot. The camera is up-close to the X-rated ac tion that’s severely limited by R-rated boundaries, yet Cruising manages to create such a sensual, titillating atmosphere that it takes over the frames.

There’s a sense of livelihood, community, and sex ual freedom that it recognises, utilising location photography to create a sense of docu-realism

and authenticity within these environments. The extras were real members of the S&M communi ty that supported Cruising, and it is worth noting this rarity of representation in a Hollywood film that portrayed their subculture.

Upon learning the context that Cruising’s script was inspired by a series of unsolved killings in gay leather bars in the 1970s, it is easy to accuse the film of being exploitative. Friedkin cleverly cir cumvents this issue by using its murder mystery elements and S&M subculture backdrop to shed a brutally scathing light on law enforcement. Cops were employed during production to protect the cast and crew, which creates an inseparable iro ny in its social commentary, but that doesn’t stop Cruising from being critical of police institutions. Throughout the film the majority of cops express disgust about the rebellious nature and fetishistic appearance of the leather subculture and are un willing to understand how their community works. They express little concern for the harassment, vi olence faced by the queer community as a conse quence of persistent stigmas. The police only care when they face looming pressure from gay activ ists and possible media outrage, and even then their investigative methods are deeply flawed.

It is the treatment of two supporting characters that solidify Cruising’s anti-cop sentiment: Da Vinci (Gene Davis), a cross-dressing sex worker, and Skip Lee (Jay Acovone), a suspect who has a reputation for being violent. When Cruising in troduces DaVinci, they’re with another sex worker,

and both of them get harassed by two cops, who coerce them into their car and force them into having oral sex off-screen. Before we meet Steve, we learn DaVinci is an informant for the police, passing on information that’ll help them catch the murderer, and hopefully ease tensions between the S&M scene and the cops. However, when DaVinci tells Edelson about their sexual assault, he accuses them of lying, threatens and dismisses them. That alone shows the overwhelming power cops had over the queer community.

But Cruising hasn’t yet unleashed its quiet anger at law enforcement institutions until Steve’s inves tigation causes the cops to hastily arrest and then brutally interrogate Lee. They use homophobic slurs, accuse him of lying, and bring in a Black cowboy in a jockstrap to slap him, a technique that the cops use to discredit any testimony the suspect may have against them. They then co erce Lee into confessing and masturbating into a cup so they can test his semen against those found in the victims’ bodies. His despair increas es, insisting he’s innocent and he wants to see a lawyer, only to be denied this request. Eventually, his fingerprints do not match those on the murder weapon, and he’s free to go, but the trauma can’t be undone. He no longer appears for the rest of the film, but that scene doesn’t minimise Lee’s trauma, suffering and discrimination and contrib utes to Steve’s disillusion about his involvement in the case.

It showcases a bleak reality that the S&M scene had to face, and looking forward, we’ve gradually learned how fetish and hookup cultures function and their emphasis on boundaries, consent, rules, and limitations. Even then, there’s still a lack of un derstanding amongst those who fear and stigma tize the kink community. Police brutality still oc curs towards minorities and it demonstrates how relevant Cruising’s social issues are. It may not have been written and made by people involved in the kink community, but Friedkin has done his research and shown respectful sympathy towards

the people portrayed in Cruising, and whilst its controversies are understandable, to call it a ho mophobic work of art is to ultimately dismiss its thematic layers.

The actors playing the killer and victims keep ro tating, adding psychological surrealism to Cruis ing’s fever dream nature and fuelling its murder mystery. Whenever a murder sequence takes place, there’s subliminal, split-second imagery of hardcore gay pornography, associating the mur derer’s brutality with his sexual lust. While this is an artistic decision that can be taken out of context, Friedkin draws upon the complex forms of homophobia, both institutionalised and inter nalised. When you learn about the murderer’s possible motivations, it elicits pity and a sense of understanding but never a justification for his actions. He enjoys being attracted to fetish and yet he despises it. He’s compelled by the scene, building his self-loathing, hatred and knowledge of surrounding judgments, and he’s compelled to act out his violent desires. Rotating the actors between killer and victim not only creates ambi guity but a truly terrifying realisation that, no matter who gets caught, the real evil is homophobia. Simplifying the murderer to one character would strip Cruising of its effective tragedy and horror. The cycle of violence, hatred and shame will nev er end for at least one person.

Steve Burns is a fascinating character to think about in hindsight. There’s not much we know about him and he appears hollow, but his ambigu ous nature does make him an intriguing character. He’s willing to go undercover if it gets him a pro motion and a gold shield, and it’s where his career ambitions are juxtaposed against his personal life with his girlfriend. They’re both distant. Steve can’t tell Nancy about the case, both because it’s confi dential and because its nature will lead to her op position. It’s easy to see the story through his per spective as, due to Cruising’s partial commercial appeal, the audience is as new to the kink scene as he is. Al Pacino’s performance is there to hold

the audience’s hand, guiding them through the immersive, kinky imagery that shocks and intrigues. Whenever Steve is undercover, Pacino slightly exaggerates his facial expressions and movements to remind us his character is essentially acting, yet he still plays into Steve’s unease, confusion, and familiarity as he explores the scene, further enhanced by Cruising’s nocturnal mood and occasional point-of-view shots. Even the sexual and sadomasochistic activity from Steve’s perspective is shot in a hazy manner, his gaze highlighting how sexual fetishes are being expressed in unexpectedly open ways. Only through repetition, montages and a great punk-rock soundtrack do we see Steve learning the ins and outs of the kink scene, and as he loses himself into the night, the action grows irresistible and attractive.

We never see Steve kiss a guy or engage in homosexual activity, and that’s where Cruising’s missing footage may have affected the cut a bit too much. Friedkin claims it consisted of only male pornography, despite some story twists that would affect audience views of the characters, but it still feels frustrating that Steve’s views of S&M subculture don’t always feel explored, and there’s a notable shift away from the clubbing action once Cruising hones in on its primary suspect. It’s a genuine shame that a director’s cut will forever remain lost, but it still leaves Cruising open enough to interpretation that its ambiguities become genuinely skin-crawling.

Cruising’s action is tame and not as perverse by today’s standards, but its sensu ality and steaminess turn it into a powerful mood piece. It tackles a subject matter that most studios were unwilling to, and, in retrospect, Cruising has become a time capsule of what the night kink scene was like in the eighties. The internet age we live in has led to the prominence of hook-up apps and adult social media platforms like Recon and FetLife, allowing kinksters to connect online. Because the spotlight has shifted to some extent from kink clubs and leather bars, that scene is starting to feel like a relic of the past. Evaluating Cruising retrospectively is compelling, especially to see how progress has been made and that general social attitudes toward kink have become more understanding.

Cruising is a messy, flawed film. Its issues stem from its production controversies and MPAA-imposed censorship that affected the film’s narrative. It gets a lot right about the kink community and a few things that would be considered outdated, but Cruising’s legacy highlights how starkly underrepresented it remains in today’s cin ema. It was audacious, raw and brave, especially in its portrayal of leather and S&M subculture, and we need more stories like Cruising, a stylish and terrifying murder mystery that pulls you into its rich atmosphere and focuses on being a mood piece rather than providing easy answers. Never has the imagery been so up close that you almost smell the sweat from the mens’ bodies, and hear the alluring creak of their leather gear. Its style overwhelms, its imagery titillates, and its material terrifies and intrigues. Cruising may not be perfect but it was far ahead of its time, and is worthy of greater recognition.

by Nicholas Chang

GRAPEY BOOK CLUB

by Brooke CAREMcAlary

Brooke McAlary’s Care: The Radical Art of Taking Time (2021) is an homage to the origins of self-care, before it caught on as part of the materialist and capitalist mechanisms en gaged in ever-growing profits and consump tion cycles. Care, she writes, is the ultimate antidote to life in a world that is fraught with disconnection and division.

McAlary believes there are two types of care: “Big Care” and “Small Care”.

“Big Care” relates to those global, gargantuan issues that are rarely solved by individuals. Issues like climate change, institutional poverty, war and violence in traditionally pillaged countries. Some individuals hold the weight of those worldly concerns in their hands, and on their shoul ders. The solution to that mind- and body-crippling weight, McAlary supposes, is “Small Care”.

“Small Care” are the tiny acts of kindness and attention that are everywhere. Smiles between strangers; small moments of physical touch between loved ones; time spent mindfully in nature; a home made meal shared with friends. These are the acts that regenerate our individual strength to revisit “Big Care” and participate in change – “Small Care” is what powers our abil ity to contribute to things that seem impossible. More than any thing, McAlary wants to emphasise that she thinks “Small Care” is actually the solution.

I would not characterise McAlary’s book in the genre of “self-help” –whenever I hear that phrase, something in me shudders and recoils for some reason. This book, much like Hugh Van Cuylenburg’s The Resilience Proj , fits into a much more specific category of “revision of the self”. In my mind, these books work together because they encourage reflection and reconstruction, like when your home has termites and you need to strip the plasterboard away in order to revise (and often replace) the foundational structures.

That is how McAlary writes about “modern life” – an infestation that doesn’t quite work for us because it works against our minds and bodies. McAlary advocates for a return to nature, a return to the roots of self-care before it became about face-masks, yoga retreats, and media

Care: The Radical Art of Taking Time explores what it means to care in seemingly insignifi cant, and yet emphatically powerful ways for ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities, in ways that do not have to cost us our well-being. In any case, these are the things that can improve our welfare and connection to the world. She writes: “Community offers an antidote to

Iloneliness”.listenedto

this book as an audiobook, and I think that is the best way to read it! McAlary reads it herself, and her voice is soothing even as it is categorically Australian (which made the expe rience even more enjoyable).

This book advocates for the same philosophy as that line from Savage Garden’s song, Affir mation, that “we place our happiness in other people’s hands”. It’s not such a bad thing, as so many would have us believe. With compassion, empathy, and understanding that stems from one’s newfound connection to the environment and to others, McAlary encourages us to see that caring – even in the smallest of ways – has ripple effects, and that no one needs to go it alone.

by Nikita Byrnes

ARIES

You’ve been dancing to the song of life lately, Aries. Try not to twist an ankle.

HOROSCOPES

CANCER

Have you been thinking about taking a holiday? Now may not be the time, have you seen the lines at the airport late ly? Saying that, a few hours with only your thoughts in a crowded airport may prompt you to invent a better personal ity. Go for it.

TAURUS

It’s time to ask for more in life. Don’t split the bill, run to the toilet when it’s time to pay. When you reach 500 fol lowers on Instagram, become an influ encer. Start walking like Zoe Kravitz in The Batman. Main character energy, bestie.

GEMINI

It’s time to let your intuition guide you. Is your gut telling you that you should move to Europe, delete all your social media and block your ex? Maybe your intuition is right, and all your problems will go away when you are finally isolat ed from your support network.

LIBRA

You’ve been alone a lot recently, Libra. It’s okay because that’s what you want. Recharging your social battery and all that. But maybe you can invest in a por table charger so that your friends don’t forget you exist.

LEO

Some bad news is coming your way. Prepare yourself, it will be worse than the misinterpretation of the Gilded Age Met Gala theme. Buckle up.

VIRGO

A guest may arrive soon in need of sup port. Dust off the guest room, Virgo, and find a way to make people believe you care.

CAPRICORN

People in your life are claiming you lied to them and gaslit them. Is it because of your tendency to deceive and gaslight those around you?

SCORPIO

Is it IBS, or the fact that whenever you go out you hardly eat anything and drink excessively?

SAGITTARIUS

Life can be so dramatic for no reason. Assignments, class participation and timed exams. It’s almost shocking to you that degrees require work.

AQUARIUS

Major career moves are on your mind of late Aquarius. You’ve worked so hard, and it will all pay off, so long as you stop saying slay. It may be another day, but it is not another slay.

by Harry Fraser

PISCES

Long-term plans are on your mind. You binged Heartstopper in a day and are now searching for your Nick Nelson. But Pisces, Nick Nelson is not looking for you babes x.