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OP INIONS

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Love from afar — long distance relationships

Reading into sex and pleasure

McFogg: SFU’s sexiest

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NEWS Short film presents research on sexual lives of women living with HIV

OPINIONS Gender, sexuality, relationships, and identity: a dialogue

FEATURES Two philosophy professor prove love isn’t dead on campus

February 14, 2022

WORKERS WOES

NEWS

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CONFERENCE OF CREATIVITY

UNDETECTABLE = UNTRANSMITTABLE

News Editor Nancy La

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News Writers Karissa Ketter and Yelin Gemma Lee

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news@the-peak.ca

OPINIONS

February 14, 2022

SECRETIVE SEX

If your sexual encounters aren’t intricate dances, you need not feel ashamed. Your sexual experience isn’t the problem — the way film portrays it is.

DON’T DREAD THE DISTANCE

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OPINIONS

Opinions Editor Jacob Mattie

Between Gender and Sexuality

As a trans-person, I feel that my gender and sexuality, while separate parts of my identity, are deeply intertwined — and not always in a way that I fully understand. For a long time though, I didn’t think about how these two aspects of myself interacted. Especially as a teenager who wasn’t involved in any significant romantic relationships, I never felt these pieces collide. And why would I? I feel we often don’t engage in this type of self-analysis until we’re put in a situation where it becomes necessary.

I do clearly remember what was maybe the first moment the interaction between gender and sexuality called my attention. I was about 19 years old and I had gone out to a queer event at The Cobalt (RIP). There, I bumped into someone who I had recently met, and who I had a serious interest in.

As the evening drew to a close, this person quite bluntly asked me about my sexuality — specifically, if I was a lesbian. I was stumped, not only by his bluntness, but also by my inability to find a clear answer. No, I was not a lesbian (although, I was often mistaken for one) — but words also failed to provide a good replacement descriptor. I explained I was non-binary, and really didn’t know how to describe my sexuality because lesbian and gay held too many gendered assumptions which clashed with my self-understanding; and bi/pansexual didn’t feel like they could capture the specifics of the people I was interested in.

I later found the word queer, and I still stick to that as my self-descriptor today; but, I continue to think about that moment, and the interactions between gender and sexuality have become more present in my life as I have progressed through transition.

There is much I’m still working on regarding my sexuality and gender, and how they relate to one another. Getting to know myself as a sexual being has been proven to be quite complicated. In my youth, I was a “girly girl” and I had no doubt that I liked men. I later realized this identity was something that was reinforced, as opposed to an identity that was wholly my own.

In high school, I slowly realized I was in love with a teammate. As someone who was always interested in men, I was confused and it took me two years to realize I had those feelings for her. Once I came to this realization, I questioned whether I truly liked men. When I eventually kissed a guy, it felt the way I thought it would — good. This only made me more confused as I didn’t know someone could love men and women.

When I stumbled upon the term “bisexual,” I felt an immense amount of validation. I knew that was my label.

Although this revelation made me feel at ease, I struggled with my gender and gender expression. For a little while, I felt compelled to dress more masculinely. I had no idea I could just be me — I thought my gender expression and the way I carried out my interpersonal relationships had to change once I announced my sexuality. I thought everything would change — nothing did.

More recently, I have been questioning my gender and have pondered the use of (she/they) pronouns. I wouldn’t mind if people referred to me as such but — personally — so long as people refer to me in a respectful manner, I don’t really care what pronouns are used.

Your point about gender expression really resonates with me. I think gender expression is a place in which the intersection of gender and sexuality can be particularly noticeable. People often signal their sexuality through their gender expression in various intricate ways: such as a particular haircut, piercing, style of clothing, or mannerisms. These associations between presentation and sexuality aren’t always helpful or clear though. Because of the ways in which gender and sexuality operate separately, a person could be drawn to a particular form of gender presentation that signals a sexuality that does not resonate for them. I personally find a lot of joy in signaling my queerness through my presentation, but I think its important to keep in mind how complex these things are — and how our limited ways of communicating about these things can sometimes fail us.

I love finding new ways to signal my queerness as well but, it can be problematic when we attribute certain styles to an identity — just because someone engages in a specific behaviour doesn’t necessarily mean they are queer. That could be someone’s way of expressing themselves without any underlying signal.

That doesn’t mean there’s a lack of ways to communicate sexuality though — last semester, I asked a girl in one of my classes whether she listened to girl in red (asking if she was lesbian) and she said yes. I said I listen to “Sweater Weather” (signaling that I am bi). I find it so interesting that people can have a full blown, queer-coded, conversation. She and I are now best friends and we laugh about the bold inquiry.

It is pretty fantastic that we as queer people are able to communicate so much in such subtle ways. Beyond how fun it is, these signals are also rooted in our history as queer people, and our efforts to stay safe (while still visible to each other) in potentially hostile environments.

Queer semiotics (how we use signs and signals to communicate meaning) can also still serve this function, and I think that is super important to keep in mind.

As I have started a physical transition, I’ve been increasingly experiencing the complex intersections between my gender and sexuality. Taking steps into a physical transition has enabled me to experience my gender and my body in ways that feel simultaneously more honest, and new.

Part of this experience has been a shifting understanding of my sexuality. I have long had complex feelings about my past attractions to men (for many reasons, including a concern about being perceived as cis and straight). Yet now, as my body has come to align itself better with who I am, I am realizing that these complicated feelings might start slipping away.

It is hard to pin the interface between our genders and sexualities — and the nature of this connection will appear differently for different people throughout their lives. But it is always something that I have found fascinating and beneficial to spend time thinking about. You gotta love some healthy introspection.

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opinions@the-peak.ca

The Peak sat do Dr. Nicolas Bom proving love st Burnaby camp specialising in Bommarito is a and Buddhist a began teaching department in

How did y

King: We got p school, we bot spousal hires o

Buffalo in New

Both professors have been together for 13 years.

PHOTO: Alexandra King

I was up for ten you’re up for te So both of us a that time, and

What’s yo at SFU tog

Bommarito: Th moved during t worked] online together and th experience of b

booked a place could be outsid we were stuck i before that, an

K: It’s tough be

on teaching lea to campus with

What are working to

I don’t have to explain to her what I like about philosophy, or what I’m interested in, or what the challenges and rewards are of academic life because she knows all those things.

— Dr. Nicolas Bommarito

B: With a job li invested in it. I I know is they like or they do about. To be ab have to explain helps to feel cl

I don’t have to philosophy, or challenges and she knows all t

own to interview Dr. Alexandra King and mmarito, two SFU philosophy professors till exists on the incredibly grey pus. Dr. King is an associate professor n ethics and the philosophy of art. Dr. an assistant professor teaching ethics and Tibetan philosophy. Both professors g in 2014 and joined SFU’s philosophy n Fall 2020.

you end up at SFU?

pretty lucky in that, right out of graduate th got job offers. You can negotiate or partner hires, so we were able to

w York.

nure two years ago at Buffalo. When enure, you’re generally applying for jobs. applied for a bunch of different jobs at SFU offered us jobs and we took them.

our favourite memory gether?

hat’s such a funny question because we the pandemic so most of the time [we’ve e. We had to quarantine for two weeks hat just felt like such a strong bonding being together in a small space. There

e with a balcony with the thought that we de, and then there was all this smoke, so in this tiny space. I felt like we were close nd this just made us much closer.

ecause we haven’t had a lot of time on

ave and Nic was teaching. I would come h him on days when he was teaching and I

the best parts about ogether?

ike the ones we have, you’re pretty I think a barrier for a lot of people that don’t understand what academic life is on’t understand what philosophy is all ble to share that with my partner, I don’t n those parts of my life. It’s nice and it loser.

o explain to her what I like about r what I’m interested in, or what the d rewards are of academic life because those things.

K: I agree with what Nic said about the best parts being if you had something stressful happen or if you’re under certain kinds of pressures that are work-related, you don’t have to do all this explaining. It’s a way we can relate to each other, in which it’s harder to relate to close friends who are not academics.

It’s also nice to be able to understand successes and share in those. To an outsider, all of the things can sort of look the same, like you published a paper or you gave a good lecture today, and it sort of feels undifferentiated. Whereas, because we both work in and discuss that is very valuable.

Do you have a favourite date spot on campus?

K and B: Biercraft.

B: there. Depending on how long the day is, we’ll stop and get some food on the way back.

K: The Circle K at Production Way we sometimes stop at because we don’t drive to campus, we commute.

Do you have any plans for Valentine’s Day? K: We don’t really celebrate.

B: We just try to enjoy daily life together instead of K: One thing that is nice about working together in this kind of job is that we spend a lot of time together; I think much more than other couples who have different careers.

I think part of the Valentine’s Day ritual is, “make sure to set aside time to spend with your partner,” and the reality for us is we just don’t have to make time to spend with each other. We just basically spend all our time together by default.

Is there a never-ending philosophical you two?

B: I feel like so many. I feel like there used to be more.

If you talk to the same person for a long time, you get to know that person’s outlook in a certain way and then you understand their point of view.

K: With two philosophers, any conversation, if you have it long enough, will turn into a philosophical

conversation. Any argument you have about anything will eventually turn into a philosophical argument.

B: I think because we’re both in philosophy, we’ve absorbed the same technical vocabulary and that kind of creeps into your everyday talk. But since it’s the same for us, we have the same kind of way of working out or thinking about those issues. It makes it easier to resolve the issue because we have the same way of conceptualizing it.

K: I think for me, that’s actually the best part about having a partner who’s a philosopher. You learn to disagree in a way that’s not offensive or unproductive.

You learn to understand other views and [ . . . ] learn a kind of way to talk about those things. I think we’re getting very good at disagreeing with each other.

I’ve come to think that a lot of doing philosophy well is about communication, and that’s also a lot about what having a good relationship is about.

Since we have, because of our careers, really similar communication styles and we are good at understanding and diagnosing the source of disagreements that we have, we can navigate those more productively.

What’s your favourite memory with each other?

B: hard. Graduate school is a really weird time. Moving and starting a job in a new place is a really weird time.

Moving in a pandemic to start a new job in a new country is a really weird time. The amount of different experiences that we’ve had together is kind of mindblowing and it feels like we’ve shared different lives.

We had a grad school life together. Now we have this life together and so it’s just so much that we went went through it with is Alex.

K: Almost 13 years, we’ve been together. There are so many different kinds of experiences and kinds of things [we’ve] gone through together.

We used to go twice a week to a diner that was in downtown Providence, which is the city that Brown [University] is in. It was off-campus, so it felt like a little bit of an escape to go there. We would walk 15 minutes to this diner after morning class or after working in the library for a while.

The waitresses knew us and we had regular orders and they’d be like, “Oh, is it the usual?” It was the be a “the usual,” and that was just really fun. I just really enjoyed being able to take that break. We did that for a year.

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ARTS & CULTURE

Arts & Culture Editor Sara Wong

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arts@the-peak.ca

February 14, 2022

ARTS & CULTURE

Written by Dove

“Silk Chiffon”

By MUNA feat.

Phoebe Bridgers

“Bisexual Anthem”

By Domo Wilson

“Fast Car”

By Syd

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Sports Editor Isabella Urbani | Sports Writer Greg Makarov | sports@the-peak.ca

SPORTS

What do you like most about the culture of softball competitively?

RK: I like how every game is different. One person could be dominant in one game, and it could be a completely different person [the next].

In one game, it could be a pitcher’s duel where it’s a low-scoring game, and then all of a sudden it could be a 10–10 ball game, so it can flip very easily.

Schwartz laughed.

LS: Yeah, I guess that’s both a pro and a con in some ways.

I like how relaxed it is, but then the moments of excitement are super exciting. Especially playing outfield, you are mostly standing around, but when you have to make a play, it's super important.

What do you do to feel ready beforehand?

LS: Music keeps us all loose.

Is there a misconception about softball that you’d like to clear up?

LS: There’s always the baseball/softball comparison everyone makes.

I don’t know, at this point, I’d say they’re hard in different ways.

RK: People think baseball and softball are really slow sports, so they must not be as physically exhausting. But they are very physically exhausting! We play double headers, so we can be out in the field for 12 hours.

What’s your most memorable moment competing in tournaments?

LS: My first thought would be in my last season of club softball, we won provincials. We were down seven-nothing in the last inning, and we came back and won it. That’s always been a memorable one for me.

RK: For me, it would be from my freshman year here. Six of us that are on the team right now played in something called the Canada Cup. We ended up playing junior team Chinese-Taipei in the finals, and we ended up winning. It was pretty cool because Team Canada and Team USA were watching us.

RK: Baseball and softball are actually really superstitious sports. If you’re doing well, you have to put your bat in the same position.

Is there a particular superstition around something that you [can’t] do?

LS: Foul line.

RK: Yeah, you can’t step on it. You always have to hop over it. Honestly!

What seniors have left the team?

How has that affected you?

LS: We had two important seniors leave last year: Amanda Janes and Kate Fergusson. They contributed a lot — Amanda, especially, was a huge leader on the team. I only knew her for four months, but you could tell she was really prominent on the field. We miss that a lot, but it was only two people. With the incoming freshmen, we have a lot of talent!

LS: I’m really excited to see our freshmen play. I think they’re going to have a lot of success this year. Our sophomore class, too, [who] didn’t get to play last year. Our pitcher has been doing a lot of good things in practice.

What do you think your strengths are as players?

Do you have any advice for students wanting to play softball in university?

LS: One thing I can always control is my energy on the field. I guess that would be a strength — no matter how I’m playing, I try to keep that energy up.

RK: You have to work harder than anyone else, and want it more than anyone else. Even if you aren’t the best on your team, or you are the best on your team and aren’t getting noticed, you have to put yourself out there. Make contacts and go talk to people. A lot of good athletes, especially undersized athletes, get [overlooked] easily, so you have to be the one winning for yourself.

RK: My strength is more of the mental side of the game: I know a lot of strategy plays, so I bring more of the mental aspect of the game.

SPORTS

February 14, 2022

(NOT SO) SMOOTH SAILING

Wakeboarding was challenging because it was nothing like the other watersports I’ve tried.

A tight grip and good balance weren’t enough.

TAKE A SWING

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DOGGY STYLE

McFogg the Dog voted

SFU's Sexiest in 2022

Outrage and infatuation runs rampant throughout campus Sara Brinkac, Humour Editor

Just in time for Valentine’s week, the votes are in and former mascot, McFogg the Dog has been officially voted SFU’s sexiest representative for 2022. This news will come as no surprise to most SFU students as it would be hard to deny the tight assed beauty that is the Scottish terrier. However, select student groups across campus are furious their candidates were overlooked for the position.

In a recent statement, SFSS president Kay Ninelove assured students she took “every measure necessary to assure a fair decision was reached” and “took a personal interest” in each candidate in order to confirm the right choice was made. To maintain complete transparency with student groups, Ninelove cited the following criteria as the basis for her judgement: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Hot bod Dreamy eyes Luscious hair A jawline that could cut glass Best smile Cutest toes

McFogg — as sexy as ever (toes too sexy to picture).

ILLUSTRATION: Hannah Zaitlin / The Peak LAYOUT: Kitty Cheung

One simple look at McFogg and you know he delivers on all of these qualities paw over fist. No student across the SFU campuses can deny that they haven’t had at least three daydreams about being held in McFogg’s burly arms. Just the two of you, twirling his luscious moustache, eating strawberries off each other's bodies, and making love on various white sand beaches in the summertime. It’s also not uncommon for students to have consistent wet dreams of McFogg building you a warm log cabin on Burnaby Mountain during the snowstorms with nothing but his cute toes keeping you warm.

While student advocates for other sexy candidates admit they each have had these dreams multiple times, they refuse to agree these qualities beat the sexual relevance of their canditates.

“It’s a complete outrage” says Charles Sexsmith, advocate for a rat they found in the dining hall. “This rat is the complete package, I don’t think anyone can deny that, much less McFogg.” Sexsmith argues that while McFogg and the rat equal in much of the decision criteria, this dining hall rat’s chiselled jawline and “eyes you could swim in for weeks on end” surpass McFogg’s sexual credibility entirely.

Other student groups, such as the advocacy group for “that one giant seagull in the AQ,” have taken to a campus wide petition in order to demand a revote. Their petition claims Ninelove’s personal involvement with the candidates clouded her judgement and ruined the sanctity of the award. “Look at this bod and try telling me McFoggs is hotter,” enraged student Dixon Chix demanded, shakily holding a picture of a massive seagull deep-throating a Donair Town wrapper.

When asked to comment on her involvement, Ninelove refused to acknowledge that the objectivity of her decision was compromised in any way. She once again restated the decision criteria and pulled out various pictures of McFogg highlighting how each of the previously listed attributes were more than present in this candidate.

Amongst the many photos and between long pauses in her speech, Both Ninelove and The Peak seemed to forget an interview was being conducted. Instead, they both sunk deeper into the pictures of McFogg’s dreamy eyes and were whisked away from the SFU office to an Italian Riviera. They found themselves in a shared vision of shirtless McFogg with a red scarf feeding them fresh grapes on a boat, while softly bag-piping Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” Each of them softly embraced each other for a moment, shed two tears of complete satisfaction and went on their respective ways.

COMICS BY SARA BRINKAC

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DIVERSIONS

Business Manager Yuri Zhou

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business@the-peak.ca

CROSSWORD

SUDOKU

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