CATALYST: 'SEX', Issue 1, Volume 70

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This publication contains more spelling errors than other student magazines. Images have been digitally retouched and often taken out of context. Rupert Murdoch influenced our content and the majority of our news stories came from press releases. Sometimes we took what someone said out of context, or made it up altogether. Statistics have been taken from Wikipedia. We deliberately set out to sensationalise. Oh, and we were so busy worrying about the supposed death of journalism that we forgot to fact-check this page.

CATALYST

editors

Catalyst Issue one, volume 70 February 2014

Alan Weedon Allison Worrall Broede Carmody

rmitcatalyst@gmail.com rmitcatalyst.com rmitcatalyst

Catalyst is proud to acknowledge that this magazine was produced on the traditional lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation.

editorial committee

We pay our respects to their elders, both past and present. We also acknowledge the traditional owners of all the lands from which the stories and artworks in this issue were sourced.

Alexander Darling Ally McManus Amelia Theodorakis Beth Gibson Cameron Magusic David Ross Denham Sadler Ellijahna Victoria Emily Westmoreland Finbar O’Mallon Jo Burnell Jordyn Butler Joshua Allen Kara Gibbons Melissa Di Giacomo Michael Walsh Roman Kennedy Sam Cucchiara Samantha Winnicki Sarah Maunder Yara Murray-Atfield

Special thanks to Andrei Ghoukassian, Tatanja Ross, Lachlan Siu, Sally Christiansen, Shana Schultz, Elwyn Murray, Tim Fisher, Don Dons, the State Library Lawn, whoever it was who discovered tea, our housemates and significant others.

Catalyst is the student magazine of the RMIT University Student Union (RUSU). The views expressed herein are not necessarily those of the editors, printers or RUSU. All material remains the property of the individual writers and artists. Catalyst reserves the right to republish in any format. © 2014 RMIT University Student Union.

subeditors

visual artists

Ally McManus Cameron Magusic David Ross Finbar O’Mallon Melissa Di Giacomo Roman Kennedy Sam Cucchiara Samantha Winnicki

Angie Pai Brett Hutton Emma Do Finbar O’Mallon Jack Callil Michael Walsh Tess Dawson Prue Stent

printers

cover image

logo design

editorial photo

Paterson Press Tripart Marketing Pty Ltd PO Box 189 Richmond VIC 3000 Ph: (03) 9429 8999 sales@patyork.com.au

Prue Stent

Lachlan Siu

Angie Pai

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Our team of talented columnists tackle everything from same-sex marriage to learning to love your body (even the bits that aren’t always flexible and firm). And we’ve got some sexy illustrations and visual art—including an astute photo essay by Prue Stent. Her works interrogate the female form, aiming to “highlight sexuality, fertility and eroticism as important creative forces rather than devices of female disempowerment”.

There’s also plenty of content that doesn’t revolve around sex and sexuality. Ally McManus asks whether a raw or vegan diet is all it’s made out to be, while Denham Sadler writes about what it’s like being evacuated due to a bushfire. And to finish it all off we have some fantastic creative writing by Scott Woodard,

editors’ note Samantha Van Zweden and Sophie Boyd.

Sex is fun, awkward, difficult, rewarding and sometimes messy—much like how we went about making this magazine. We hope you enjoy reading what we’ve sweated over for the past three months and learn something new. After all, that’s exactly what university is all about.

—Broede, Alli and Alan

1 2 3 Abortion: the long road Matilda Marozzi Sans-Pleasure Anonymous Let’s talk about sex Yara Murray-Atfield Twitter diaries of a call girl Nu Tran Splitting hairs Beth Gibson Pornography: not a how-to guide Jordyn Butler Virgin shaming Dragana Mrkaja Raw food, or simply a rip off?

Ally McManus

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Welcome to the first issue of Catalyst for 2014. This is the magazine’s seventieth birthday, and we’re proud to give you some of the best writing and art RMIT students have to offer. The theme of this issue is ‘sex’, and we were astounded by not only the quality but the variety of everyone’s submissions.

In her feature article ‘Abortion: the long road’, reporter Matilda Marozzi takes a look at women’s reproductive rights and the difficulties faced by rural and regional women. Nu Tran chats to luxury escort Gloria Van Vaulker about how social media is helping to change the public’s perceptions towards sex work. And let’s not forget the heart-wrenching (but ultimately uplifting) anonymous article on a condition known as vaginismus.

Something to cry about Michael Walsh Wibbly-wobbly bits Jasmin Ashton Fisherman-ing Brett Hutton Feminism gets naked Amelia Theodorakis Myw year without sex SLM Pack Appropriately Denham Sadler The conservative revolution: a highly accurate review Samantha Winnicki

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Old Scott Woodard You are not my universe Sophie Boyd After the end Sam van Zweden

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minutes The average number of minutes that foreplay lasts for.

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The estimated number of sexual acts that occur around the world each and every day.

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inches The average length of a flaccid human penis. The largest penis ever recorded was eight feet and belonged to a killer whale.

6

The National Union of Students has criticised the uncapping of university places, saying it has not made a significant impact and could be resulting in lower teaching standards.

Labor’s deregulation of commonwealthsupported places aimed to increase access to university for remote and rural students, and those from low socio economic backgrounds.

When the Gillard government uncapped places in 2010 there was a modest rise in student numbers. After 2012, when universities were able to enrol as many ‘qualified’ students as they could in most degrees, student numbers rose again.

Prior to this, there were only a limited number of government-funded spots available, and the ATAR system was how universities filled those spots.

The Abbott government has ordered the Review of the Demand Driven Funding System to look into “possible areas for improvement to ensure that the system better meets its objectives, is efficient, is fiscally sustainable, and supports innovation and competition in education delivery”.

In its submission to the review, the NUS—arguably the peak representative body for undergraduate students— analysed 12 years of data on the numbers of undergraduate students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and their share of enrolments at universities. They

found uncapping university places increased the proportion of university students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds from 16.7% in 2005 to 18.2% in 2012. However, this figure is close to the numbers in 2001—17.8%— when university places were capped and the Howard government was in power.

The NUS submission, prepared by the organisation’s president, Jade Tyrell, and research coordinator Graham Hastings, also pointed to fears of falling standards of teaching at Australian tertiary institutions. The submissions says this is due to increasing student numbers while staff numbers remain either static or supplemented by short-term contract tutors, with a lack of space and seating in lectures and tutorials.The submission also cited evidence showing Indigenous people, a group under-represented in the tertiary sector, still only represent 1.6% of students. This figure hasn’t really changed since 2001, with enrolments floating around the 1.5% mark for the better part of a decade.

“Indeed, the level of under-representation of Indigenous peoples has increased over the period as there is now a greater percentage of Australians self-identifying as Indigenous in the ABS census compared to 2001,” says the NUS submission. (Submissions to the review are now closed)

Capped Places Aren’t Working

Alexandra Klages has been relieved of her role as a general representative of the RMIT University Student Union after not attening any student council meetings since being elected in September last year.

According to RUSU’s constitution, general representatives relinquish their positions when a member is absent from three ordinary meetings without apology or the granting of prior leave. Klages, who ran on the Progressive Focus ticket, never filled out her payroll details with the union and was not paid for her absenteeism.

Klages’ removal was triggered on 16 January and was passed unanimously by student representatives. When contacted for comment, Klages told Catalyst her departure

was influenced by the “relatively innocuous” factor of “no longer hav[ing] the means to make the time commitment required of me as a member of the SUC”.

RUSU President James Michelmore says general representatives are provided a copy of the RUSU Constitution at their nomination and again shortly prior to the commencement of their role, which clearly stipulates the attendance requirement for all members. “It is unfortunate that Miss Klages has chosen to forgo her position for whatever reason,” he said.

The RUSU constitution specifies that general representative vacancies must be filled by the next elected alternative at the most recent student election. This means Alexandra Klages will be replaced by Yang Liu, who ran on the Connect ticket.

Gen Rep Sacked

DAVID ROSS

MELISSA DI GIACOMO

First Indigenous man to be accredited Auslan interpreter RACHAEL HOCKING

The RMIT University Student Union’s Welfare Officer has resigned due to taking part in a four-month international exchange program.

Michael Kean announced he would step down from his role in late January, about a month after he arrived in America.

In an email to student representatives announcing his resignation, Kean said he considered running events through an on-campus convener but could see how student engagement might be affected by his absence.

Kean said he told RUSU’s President and General Secretary he was going overseas about a week before the 16 January council meeting, but most other councillors were unaware he had already left the country.

Because of his absence, councillors rejected Kean’s welfare report and moved a motion to withhold his pay for a fortnight.

In an email sent to student representatives after he left Australia, Kean wrote: “I did not inform many members of the SUC [Student Union Council] of my temporary physical absence as I wanted to avoid the spread of misinformation.

“It was my intention to inform you all at this month’s SUC, however I did not receive a response from James [Michelmore] on the day of the SUC to organise my attendance.”

An RMIT graduate is the first Indigenous man to complete a Diploma of Interpreting in Auslan.

Darren Miller, 46, applied for the nationally-accredited course at RMIT after funding cuts meant he could only complete half of his certificate IV in Auslan at Kangan Institute.

The married father of three commuted to and from Numerka, Victoria, up to three times a week in 2013 to hone a skill he has been practicing his entire life as his brother’s unofficial interpreter.

“There was a lot I didn’t realise I didn’t know when I started to study Auslan. Now it’s all changed, and we’ve realised how I can communicate a lot better,” he said.

Indigenous Australians are up to 10 times more likely to experience hearing loss than non-Indigenous Australians, but only three Auslan interpreters in Australia are Indigenous, out of a total of 302.

Growing up with a brother who is deaf, Mr Miller experienced the difficulties presented by this national shortage.

“We’d have to book an interpreter two to three weeks in advance, and then we’d get a phone call saying they cancelled, so I would step in. As an interpreter they really depend on you,” he said.

Mr Miller explains that this step forward for the Indigenous population is also a step for males in a female-dominated field.

“For my brother, who has male problems and might need to go to the doctor, he’d much rather a male interpreter,” he says.

The Victorian Government addressed the growing demand for Auslan interpreters early last year, pledging $5.2 million over three years to institutions running this sought-after qualification.

Mr Miller was one of only 12 students to graduate with the diploma at RMIT in 2013.

Kean told Catalyst he wanted to attend the meeting via telephone or Skype to present a list of conditions he would adhere to while overseas, including promptly responding to union-related emails. However under RUSU’s constitution, representatives must attend SUC meetings in person.

In a statement to Catalyst, RUSU President James Michemore said to the best of his knowledge a request to attend the SUC meeting via Skype was not put to the General Secretary before Michael’s departure.

“I understand that Michael made a request after his departure,” he said. “It was explained that it was not possible to attend via phone or Skype. We do not currently have this capability in our meeting room, nor do we have regulation or policy providing for it.”

Kean applied to study film and television at San Diego University in July last year, but then decided against going overseas after running in the 2014 student elections for the position of Welfare Officer—a role which was unchallenged.

In late November, about a month after the election results were declared, Kean received a $5000 scholarship for overseas study. While Kean said he was “completely committed” to his role, the scholarship provided “too great of an opportunity to not pursue”.

Welfare Officer Resigns SAM CUCCHIARA

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the long road The only thing separating the cold steel from Kate’s skin was a thin medical gown. The doctors laid her down and one-by-one placed her feet in stirrups.“They put you in a pretty compromising position,” Kate tells me over the phone. On the cold-clinical table the gravity of what she was doing hit. “I started to cry at that point. The nurse grabbed my hand and said ‘It’s okay,’ and just patted my head.”

It’s been eight years since Kate had an abortion after an unplanned pregnancy at 19. Looking back, there were many people and circumstances that led Kate to this decision.

Kate had moved to Melbourne from a regional town in Victoria’s east. After finishing a semester of her undergraduate degree at The University of Melbourne it was time to party. With the music pumping and drinks flowing, Kate had her first one-night stand. Two week’s later her first positive pregnancy test.

“I was pretty embarrassed about the whole thing,” she says. They had used a condom, but as many people find out contraception doesn’t always work.

Statistics show 60% of women who have an unexpected pregnancy were using at least one form of contraception. One in five of those were using two.

“It was one of those things I never thought would happen to me,” says Kate. Too scared to see a doctor in Melbourne, she went back to her family GP in Gippsland. As she walked under the verandah and into the medical centre she knew her period was late.

Her breasts were sore and she was feeling pretty sick. They called Kate’s name. She walked into her doctor’s office where a cross adorned the wall. Kate told him she thought she was pregnant.

“He gave me a test on the day and it was an immediate positive result, at which I promptly burst into tears.”

He gave her a brochure for a private abortion clinic in Melbourne’s east and a bill for $60. It was only later that Kate realised her family doctor had refused to give her a formal referral because of

his religious beliefs. She had to go and see another GP in Melbourne to get the referral, to then attend the private clinic.

After 2008, however, Victorian abortion law reform means a GP referral is no longer required.

When Kate found out she was pregnant she felt having a child wasn’t really an option. “There was no way that I was physically, or emotionally, or financially capable of raising a kid.” At 19, with a parttime job and half a university degree, she was barely taking care of herself.

Adoption didn’t feel like a viable choice either. So there it was, abortion: “The better of two shit options.”

In Victoria, abortion (the termination of a pregnancy) was decriminalised in 2008. New laws mean any woman can attend an abortion clinic up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy. After that two doctors must agree the termination is appropriate.

Now, six years on, the battle over women’s reproductive rights is being reignited when in November 2013 Premier Napthine said he would consider an attempt by balance-of-power MP Geoff Shaw to alter Victoria’s abortion laws. Last year Shaw indicated he wanted to change Section 8 of the Abortion Law Reform Act, which requires doctors to refer women on if they have a conscientious objection to the procedure.

Despite its sensitivity, abortion is one of the most common and safest procedures in Australia. It is safer than giving birth.

Even with the protests, pro-lifers, the stigma and guilt, the fact remains that one in three Australian women will have an abortion in their lifetime. Depending on your postcode, the process is easier for

some more than others.

For Kate the silence around abortion was isolating. The stigma engendered shame. The cost was a burden. Still, she travelled from her family home in Gippsland to Melbourne to have the procedure. These barriers didn’t stop her from terminating her pregnancy, however they did make the process more difficult.

Access to family planning services has become a priority at women’s health agencies across regional and rural Victoria in recent years. Not just access to abortion, but also contraception and wwsound information about sex and reproductive health.

Bernadette Fraser is a Health Promotion Worker at Women’s Health Goulburn North East. “Rural women are particularly disadvantaged when it comes to accessing the full range of family planning services,” she says.

Her words are echoed in anecdotes, surveys and reports—including the 2012 Victorian Rural Women’s Access to Family Planning Services survey. Five women’s health services from across Victoria tea med up to compile the report.

What they found is clear and simple.

As soon as you live outside Melbourne, accessing an abortion is impeded by an array of barriers that can be broadly separated into six categories: information, availability, travel, cost, privacy and attitudes.

When confronted with an unplanned pregnancy, having unbiased and accurate information is one of the most important factors in minimising long-term health repercussions. It’s about the freedom to make informed choices.

Family Planning Victoria (FPV) and

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the Royal Women’s Hospital Pregnancy Advisory Service (PAS) both offer an unbiased and confidential phone information service and face-to-face pregnancy options counselling for women who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant. Although these services are there, they are sometimes not known about or unable to meet the demand.

The Royal Women’s PAS receives more than 8000 calls every year, and misses many more due to demand for the service.

Those who do get through have the chance to discuss their options, and get either an appointment or are referred to an appropriate service. It is similar at FPV. “If she’s not sure about a decision and wants to talk through her options we’ve got non-directive information,” Medical Director of FPV, Kathy McNamee, explains. “[Women] can have an hour with one of our nurses and go through all the options.”

For women in small towns, where their doctor might also be their dad’s best friend, FPV or the Women’s PAS can be a good alternative to a local GP. “We do a lot of referrals for abortions over the phone,” Dr McNamee says.

The importance of information cannot be underestimated according to Annarella Hardiman, manager of the PAS. “There is very strong research that when women have made a free and strong decision … with healthcare workers providing a professional and positive service, there are less likely to be long-term negative consequences.”

Dr McNamee agrees, adding that if young people don’t get the information they need “they might delay their decision and that limits their options”.

With no pre-termination counselling, and unsatisfactory support after the procedure, Kate says there is no doubt she would have benefited from better information and support. She also says she was unprepared for the emotional aspects of having an abortion.

“These appointments were five minutes back-to-back,” she recalls. “They’re not actually giving you counselling and they’re not actually asking you medical questions. They’re just ticking boxes that the legislations needs.”

In years since she has heard of support groups where women who are considering abortion can meet with each other and trained professionals to discuss their options. “I think that would have really helped,” Kate says. “In hindsight I felt really isolated.”

“For many women in small rural towns scattered across the region, as well as women living in more isolated rural areas, availability becomes an issue,” Fraser says.

Even with the protests, pro-lifers, the stigma and guilt, the fact remains that one in three Australian women will have an abortion in their lifetime.

Availability includes access to female GPs and family planning services in your local town. When a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy decides she wants a termination there are, anecdotally, two choices: to go to Albury or Melbourne for a surgical abortion.

In Melbourne women have a choice of two public hospitals, and at least seven private providers. Only the Royal Women’s Hospital offers a free same-day service for country women, but places are limited.

Many view medical abortion as the solution to problems of access and availability. Medical abortion is the termination of a pregnancy with drugs such as mifepristone (RU486) rather than a surgical abortion, like Kate’s, which involves, well, surgery. The medicine works by blocking the hormone progesterone, which is needed during pregnancy. With RU486 now on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme it seems like a no-brainer.

Sadly, it’s not that simple. To supervise a medical abortion, general practitioners need to have done specialist training.

Training is offered in Melbourne or can also be completed online. But there are various reasons GPs may not complete the training, including having a conscientious objection to abortion or they fear others might. I heard a story of one doctor who offered abortion services fleeing a regional town after their family started getting harassed.

In her line of work, Fraser has seen how limited public transport in the country often becomes “an overarching barrier” for family planning services, including abortion.

In the country, teenage pregnancy is roughly double city rates. Researchers Sally Nansen and Deb Parkinson took a look into the reasons behind the statistics in the report A Road Less Travelled: voices of 21 teenage mothers from the country.

They found the cost and inconvenience of travelling to Albury or Melbourne “seems to have been a factor in at least some of the young mothers’ ‘choice’ to keep their baby”.

One young woman was considering an abortion but “just the thought” of going down to Melbourne was enough to put her off.

For many women—and in particular young women who are less likely to have access to cars—public transport is the only way to get to Melbourne. If you live in a rural town, this can mean a taxi to a 6am bus, which connects to a 7am train from a regional centre. Three hours later you will arrive at Southern Cross Station, in the heart and hustle of the city. After more taxis, trams, appointments and procedures then you still have to get home at the end of the day.

Fortunately for Kate, she was used to travelling to Melbourne for university.

With the brochure in hand Kate left the medical centre and drove to her best friend’s place. The door opened. When she saw Jessica’s face she burst into tears.

Jessica was the only person Kate told at the time. It was while she was at her best friend’s house that Kate rang the clinic in Melbourne.

“The receptionist was lovely,” Kate recalls. She asked a few questions about Kate’s situation and booked in an appointment for later that week.

During the phone call Kate found out the procedure was going to cost $380.

With transport and other medical appointments, having an abortion was going to cost her around $500 upfront.

“I was working part-time but I certainly didn’t have $500 lying around.”

Without any other financial support Kate ended up borrowing $100 off a roommate to help cover the costs.

Shannon Hill works at Women’s Health Grampians, based in Ballarat.

Particularly for young people, she knows the costs “definitely start adding up”.

Even before pregnancy the cost of contraception can vary incredibly from city to town. If an unplanned pregnancy has occurred you are looking at travel costs to Albury or Melbourne, plus the cost of the termination—which is usually between $300 and $500. After the procedure you will probably need a taxi, or a night in a hotel.

Before you know it hundreds of dollars are gone. A lot of women, particularly those still at school, can’t cough up that kind of cash.

A new question lingers: if they can’t afford a termination, can they afford to have a child?

Before the 2013 federal election the ABC launched Vote Compass. Thousands of Australians took part in answering questions such as, “How accessible should abortion services be in Australia?”

Interestingly almost 55% of people living in rural areas said “about the same or less”, and only 9% said abortion services should be “much more” accessible.

To begin to shift attitudes around access to terminations in country Victoria, Fraser believes we need to start taking a holistic look at the issue.

“Women’s sexual and reproductive health is a strong determinant of her lifetime health outcomes,” she says. “If a woman is unable to make a choice about an unplanned pregnancy there are long term ramifications for her and her health.”

Women’s health services are working hard to collaborate with local government and other service providers to make sexual and reproductive health a priority.

Regional health organisations are in talks with the Royal Women’s Hospital to consider how the Women’s can help support regions to develop comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services, including abortion.

At times it can seem like for every step forward there are two steps back.

Last year in Tasmania abortion was decriminalised, while in NSW, the lower house voted in favour of a law—known as Zoe’s Law—to recognise foetuses as living people. This will now be debated in the upper house this year.

The stigma surrounding abortion seems like Uluru—expansive and immovable. Together, women like Bernadette Fraser and Shannon Hill are working to change that. They are talking with local governments, sporting clubs, community organisations and the media to raise awareness and make sexual and reproductive health a priority.

Slowly but surely they are moving to erode the multi-faceted stigma that acts as a barrier for women, particularly in rural and regional areas, who are trying to access family planning services. With persistence and widespread cooperation, Ms Fraser believes they can start to break the taboo.

“This is everyone’s business,” Ms Fraser says. “It’s not something that we need to be … referring to in whispers.

Sexual and reproductive health is everyone’s business, it’s something that impacts on all of us throughout our lives and it’s about keeping communities healthy and well.”

Kate struggled with her decision to terminate her pregnancy for over a year.

She was trying to soldier on, determined that her abortion would not be the biggest thing in her life.

Still, it was a traumatic experience and one that took an emotional toll. She had trouble speaking about it. Her weight went up, and then down, and then up and down again. Then she got a phone call to say her visa had been approved to live and work in Paris.

Standing under the Eiffel Tower at the age of 21, Kate finally came to peace with her decision. She thought back to what had happened over a year before on that shiny steel table in Melbourne.

“This was not a terrible decision,” she told herself. “Look where it has brought me now. I’m doing good things with my life and I will be a good person.”

In many ways having an abortion encouraged Kate to expand her horizons.

She made a conscious decision to have “a really extraordinary life” to prove to herself, and others, that she’d made a good decision.

Now in her late twenties, Kate has three university degrees, a successful career and a house of her own. She has travelled the world “several times over” and has learnt two languages. This year she even met the man she plans to marry and start a family with.

One of the benefits of Australia’s democracy is women have the freedom to make choices. By failing to improve access to sound information about sexual and reproductive health, many Australian women are being denied the choice about when and in what circumstances they reproduce.

Although deciding to terminate her pregnancy at 19 was a difficult choice, it was a decision that gave Kate the power to forge her own path. As a single mum Kate doesn’t think she could have lived the life she wanted. *Kate and Jessica’s names have been changed to protect their identity.

Family Planning Services Victoria can be contacted on 03 9257 0121.

Royal Women’s Hospital Pregnancy Advisory Service can be contacted on 03 8345 3063.

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Kate could have avoided some of the travel costs by having the procedure in Gippsland.

“I knew that the hospital did them,” she says. “But I also knew that they didn’t do them every day. Everyone kind of knew what people were there for, whereas in Melbourne you can kind of get lost in the crowd.”

Alongside travel and availability, Shannon Hill says privacy “tends to come up as one of the main barriers specific to rural and regional towns”.

“If I go to the chemist to get a pregnancy test I might know someone at the chemist,” Hill explains. “Or if I go to the supermarket to buy some condoms it might be someone that I know at the supermarket serving me.” In this regard supermarket self-checkouts have come as an incidental blessing.

In small towns rumours spread like wildfire. When caught with condoms the message probably isn’t going to be “well done for having safe sex” but “so-and-so’s daughter is turning into a slut”.

Hill believes the issue of privacy is inextricably “linked to the feeling that I might be judged”. This was the case for Kate. The weight of community judgement felt like punishment for making a bad decision. She continued to blame herself, thinking, “How dumb was I? I got shit-faced and took a guy home.”

It didn’t help that on the day of the procedure two protestors were at the entrance of the clinic with “horrific signs”. Although she knew they were going to be there, the fact they were left her feeling “pretty pissed”.

“I think they’re making it really hard for people on the worst day of their lives,” she says.

In their own way the two young men who confronted Kate at the abortion clinic on the day of the procedure, and her subsequent visits to the psychologist, represent a pervasive attitude throughout the community. Because abortion is seen as a political and religious issue, rather than a women’s health one, they feel entitled to tell others how to live their lives and treat their bodies.

People generally aren’t blasé about abortion. They are either vehemently for or irrevocably against. Shannon Hill believes it is linked with the way people perceive unplanned pregnancies.

“People judge it as a mistake, or a bad choice, or a failure but it is not always that way.” Thousands of women (and couples), in a variety of circumstances, unintentionally fall pregnant and choose to have an abortion each year.

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sans-pleasure For a woman who can’t have penetrative sex, reading about pleasurable lovemaking is isolating. Instead of enjoying students’ sexy articles in Catalyst, this edition will remind me to feel alien among them.

I have vaginismus, a condition so unheard of some of the doctors I have seen are sceptics. My favourite definition of the term is written by academics, whose advice is to improve current medical and psychiatric definitions of sexual dysfunctions in women. This is vaginismus according to them:

*Trigger Warning: this article contains accounts of sexual assault

Persistent difficulties to allow vaginal entry of a penis, a finger, and/or any object, despite the woman’s expressed wish to do so. There is variable involuntary pelvic muscle contraction, (phobic) avoidance and anticipation/ fear/experience of pain. Structural or other physical abnormalities must be ruled out/ addressed.

All the things in the above description fit me, along with hypersensitivity. This means the sensation a vulva will usually feel from touch or pressure is much different to mine. My body is in panic mode, as there are constant danger messages sent around my brain and nervous systems.

The first four doctors I saw were perplexed about the pain and inability to have intercourse. One asked, “Do you use lubricant?” But he underestimated the unyielding pubococcygeus (PC) muscles in my vagina. Another suggested I’m not emotionally ready to have sex. Though avoiding the act only exacerbates the problem. I once had a pap smear where the female doctor laughed when I told her I have vaginismus. “Is your husband abusive?” she asked. “No. And I’m not married,” I replied. I tried to relax, but anger only squeezed my muscles tighter while she stabbed the instrument in.

Interviewing specialists and doctors about vaginismus doesn’t sit comfortably yet. I wouldn’t be a fair journalist. My ears have heard enough empty promises about cures and success rates.

I’ve been treated by eight different people at the Royal Women’s Hospital and privately, but mostly their ideas clash with mine. It took six months of going to the Women’s to convince them I don’t have a low libido. For example, during foreplay, even when I’m soaking wet my muscles won’t let anything in.

Vaginismus is more than a physical condition. I’d argue it as psychologically driven by fear of penetration. I admit it’s a sexual phobia. A year of sexual abuse at aged eight encouraged me to tense my whole body at all times, as I never knew when my perpetrator would abuse me next.

No longer a child who needs to squeeze her legs together, I’m learning to trust my own desires as an adult. To reclaim pleasure by choice is fundamental to my sense of self. “A child’s brain is quite malleable,” my pain specialist told me while reflecting on how mine developed. But she’s confident we can re-wire it.

I’ve always seen myself as a sexual person, but ironically I never touch myself.

It doesn’t help that while trying to masturbate, flashbacks disrupt me. Having a good clitoral vibrator is a nice alternative, as there are no negative associations with vibrations.

Fighting vaginismus is part of fighting trauma. This may not be the case for other women, but certainly for me. Hypnosis might work, but being in control is priority.

Suppression only snubs the unconscious. If I don’t address my feelings, they intrude my dreams. Psychotherapy has been excellent to explore such things.

During the height of my vulva hypersensitivity, my partner going down on me was terrifying. A soft kiss provoked sharp pains. It was hard not to scream and thus too easy to stop sex altogether. Sometimes I’d lay in bed at night and notice the feeling of hundreds of pins and needles tingle my vulva. I couldn’t get them to go away.

Seeing my partner’s face when I told him this was heartbreaking. He’d no idea how badly the sensitivity had escalated. We shed many tears together over these months and tried to find experts to help us. He was so patient and supportive, but I

I snorted cocaine one night, and it erased the pain for two days. But I was devastated when I noticed.

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A NO NYMO U S

still felt I was letting us down. I suggested he leave me to make love to a real woman.

But I discovered penetration isn’t the most important part of our relationship.

I’ve made desperate attempts to cure myself. I used to buy expensive lubricants and candles to help relax and feel sexy again. Lingerie lay in my drawers with the tags still on. My partner and I had a pattern of avoidance.

Dilators are my enemy. They are pushed into the vagina, even when the muscles are in spasm. Apparently they’re the most effective. After using them I’d curl up in agony for hours, take a few Panadol, and cry myself to sleep.

Vulva pain endured though my first and second years of journalism at RMIT. In tutorials I would shift in my seat and adjust the fabric of my trousers to let any pressure off the area. Lectures were the worst. Even cotton knickers under an A-line skirt could make me flinch. I’d leave classes early or not show up at all. I felt so ashamed and alone.

Social environments became difficult. I might confess to friends I have a weak bladder now if they notice, but before I took meds, I’d urinate every few minutes after drinking something. This is another symptom of vaginismus due to the PC muscles being overworked.

Before discovering the benefits of pain medication, I found recreational drugs numbed my sensitive vulva. I snorted cocaine one night, and it erased the pain for two days. But I was devastated when I noticed. Instead of relishing in the opportunity of foreplay, I yearned for pain to return. My partner felt betrayed, as my response to pain relief contradicted our fight to get rid of it.

I see a good psychiatrist every week. Irrational fears of being attacked are part of who I am. Other fears, like women being assaulted can also hurt my vulva. There have been journalism tutorials when rape cases are discussed and students describe brutal assaults. The muscles in my vagina go into a fit as a vision of the crime plays out in my mind. I’m still working on detaching from situations like these.

It’s easy for me to get angry with students who talk about sexual assault sensationally. But really, I hate myself for having such a sublime relationship to it too. There have been years of self-inflicting pain, as pain was my friend. Pain reminds me to distrust men, knowing what they can do to me. But I must take responsibility for my own feelings.

Finally, I convinced a doctor to put me on nerve pain medication—which is also used to treat other things such as epilepsy. Why it works is due to my vagina having frequent spasms, similar to epileptic fits. The meds calm them down and stabilise my mood. Just like when I took cocaine, my pain has vanished.

Now I have amazing orgasms with no consequences, and my vulva is not inflamed or swollen. Having chronic pain and muscle spasms all the time made me despise this part of my body. I felt it poisoned my day-to-day life. But it was really a wound from traumas unaddressed. My vulva felt mine again after I truly listened to it, learnt about, and medicated it.

There is a happy ending to this story, pun intended. For the first time in two years, my partner and I just made love. I’ve been prescribed a compounded vaginal cream to relax. I can enjoy sex for the first time.

There will be a day when I can stop taking meds. They have their side effects, but for now, the benefits are making me happy again. I feel so excited about my future sex life. My loving partner and friends close to my heart know what’s going on, and they’re fantastic. I can only hope to stir some curiosity among students who knew nothing about vaginismus before.

Sexual dysfunction is embedded in the identity of the person experiencing it. I’ve learnt to see my bodily responses to sex as mirroring who I really am. Discovering this was a challenge. Only now it’s a pleasure.

DO A

That was the main lesson Sarah took away from her sexual education classes in high school.

“They kind of implied bleeding serves as a reminder for us women not to give into temptation,” she says. “It was never directly said but certainly the way I felt. I still feel a little guilty when I’m riding the crimson wave.”

Sarah and her peers were taught the basics: men and women make babies when the penis enters the vagina. Boys have wet dreams. Girls bleed monthly.

Jordyn went to an all-girls Catholic school and was “taught and encouraged that sex was for marriage and sex during marriage was for babies”. If the sex ed class experiences of many of my peers are to believed, that’s all doing the deed ever is. For babies, between a man and woman. Preferably married. Probably in the missionary position.

Yet the 2008 National Survey of Australian Secondary Students, HIV/AIDS and Sexual Health found more than one in four Year 10 students had had penetrative sex, and by Year 12, that number was one in two. The same survey found 27% students had at some stage had unprotected sex and nearly 38% of females had experienced unwanted sex.

Somewhere between the classroom doctrine of abstinence and the estimated 28% of teenagers living with chlamydia, something is going wrong. That’s where comprehensive and inclusive sexual education is vital.

The UNAIDS 2008 global report found strong worldwide correlations between lack of information about sex, and rates of HIV and AIDS. With this lack of information in schools, it’s no wonder gaps in knowledge are often filled in by pornography for anyone with five minutes and an internet connection.

“There’s stuff that’s missing from pornography,” says Justine Kiely-Scott. “You don’t see people feeling shy or awkward, talking nicely to each other, discussing mutual pleasure, using condoms or giving clear consent.”

Kiely-Scott has over 15 years experience as a teacher and works for Sex Education Australia, providing sexuality and relationship education for students and parents.

“It’s not like [the students] are doing anything that’s terrible, but really it’s important for them to understand that pornography is not a good place to learn about sex, or healthy relationships,” she says. “It’s fantasy, it’s not reality.”

Cyndi Darnell, a sex therapist and counselor, says the visually spectacular moves in pornography set standards that are neither realistic nor pleasurable.

“It’s designed for the eye, not for the body,” she says. “So when we try and make our bodies do the things that are designed purely for the eye, what’s going to happen is there’s going to be an absence of pleasure. And this applies to all genders.

“Everyone goes, ‘Oh it’s porn that’s making them do this.’ But it’s not porn, it’s an absence of information that sends them on a quest. How do we combat that? We provide them with better information.”

Sex Education Australia runs programs from primary school to university. Their focus is on age-appropriate discussion—from body parts in early primary, to puberty later on, and consent and contraception later still. The aim is to leave the participants confident and informed about sexuality, the law, consent, and healthy relationships.

S M

“Girls bleed because Eve was a little skank. If she didn’t eat the fucking apple I wouldn’t be shedding my insides through my vag every month.”

EM

16

LET’S TALK ABOUT

X YARA MURRAY-ATFIELD

reduce rates of STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and sexual assaults.

Without resources or speciality teachers, some schools are ill-equipped to provide comprehensive sex ed classes. David, who went to a co-ed public school, says one year his teacher was supposed to show them how to put a condom on a banana. Instead, he just talked about the time he dressed up as Elvis.

“Nothing they taught us was really useful beyond ‘use a condom and your common sense’,” he says.

Easier said than done.

“Talking about safe sex and STIs and that side of things is fairly straightforward, it’s fairly clinical. But we think it’s really important to weave into all of that the importance of making the right decisions for you,” Kiely-Scott says. “Sometimes it’s very easy to talk about but not easy to do, like negotiating how to use a condom—it’s really easy to say, ‘You must use a condom.’ But when it comes to the moment it can be really awkward or hard to do.”

Michael, who went to an all-boys school, says the focus in his Year 10 classes was on protection.

“My school was actually pretty good at sex ed,” he says. “Consent was covered in detail, but one issue would be that the majority of kids had already had sex by that point. It needed to be a lot earlier.”

Although some parents may not want to admit it, young people are having sex.

Research by the Burnet Institute from 2008 to 2010 found girls aged 12 to 15 tested positively to chlamydia at a higher rate than older women.

Sex isn’t always the vanilla portrayal in the Where Did I Come From? videos. Far from always being between a married man and woman, for the purpose of a baby, people are having sex for fun. When there’s not enough information, people are having sex and then contracting chlamydia. And it’s not always a man with a penis doing the deed with a woman with a vagina, yet sex ed often fails to incorporate queer relationships and sex.

“There was no discussion of non-heterosexual sex,” says Michael. “The focus was on babies and how to avoid them, which is incredibly worrying considering the rising rates of STIs among young queer people.”

A 2005 Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society study suggests samesex attracted teenagers are five times more likely to contract sexually transmitted infections than their heterosexual counterparts.

“I think sometimes same-sex attracted young people are really left out of the conversation,” says Kiely-Scott.

The heteronormative view of many sex ed classes not only excludes queer teenagers from discussions of safe sex, but also provides a narrow view of sexuality in general.

“I guess it’s just this idea that sexuality is a fixed thing,” says Cyndi Darnell. “And when that fixed thing is based around heterosexuality, we limit our capability for understanding the diversity of different sexualities.”

It’s this diversity that needs to be discussed and celebrated in sex ed, rather than repressed and ignored.

“I wish school taught me about contraception. I wish I had the opportunity to apply a condom to anything,” Sarah says. “I wish they had anticipated that most of us would have sex before marriage.” As for Jordyn, she says she accepts the fact her Catholic school didn’t want to delve into the finer details of sex.

“But I do wish that there was someone I could speak to about what to expect during sex,” she says. It’s discussion that makes sex ed successful.

“The more age-appropriate discussions we have with young people, delivered in a matter-of-fact way, the more we demystify things and increase confidence,” Kiely-Scott says. “We give students a chance to clarify and openly ask questions about their health. I think the ability to talk to a teacher in a school is really vital. And for them to understand that they’re not the only one thinking about these things.

“Lots of other people are thinking the same thing as well. The hardest thing when you’re growing up is, ‘Am I normal? Am I the same as everybody else?’”

One of the most important things sex ed can convey through discussion and accurate information is that ‘normal’, especially when it comes to sexuality, doesn’t actually exist.

As Darnell says: “Everybody’s experience with sexuality is inherently subjective and abnormal. And that’s what’s actually normal about it.”

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As the Victorian Department of Education’s Catching on Early: Sexuality Education for Victorian Primary Schools detailed in 2011, quality sex education has been found to

18

twitter diaries of a call girl Social media is changing the way businesses interact with clients in every industry, including sex work. Nu Tran chats to luxury escort and student Gloria Van Vaulker about her Twitter feed and doing “slutty things�.

“The media like hookers in Australia.

The past couple of years there’s been a huge influx of articles pop up that are pro-sex work. I just think the global public perception has changed. Obviously the stigma will always be there but as the generations go by, Gen X and Gen Y, they’re becoming more liberal.”

When I asked Gloria how she thought we could combat the stigma toward sex workers she said, “It’s kind of strange for me to comment because I really don’t give a fuck. If a person has a problem with my job it’s their problem not mine.”

The only time she fears judgement and discrimination is when speaking to authorities or medical professionals.

“I suffer from depression. When I got referred to a psychologist they tried to blame my job and my job actually makes it better because it keeps me busy and gives me a sense of stability.”

Gloria believes that people who don’t understand sex work attempt to use it as a scapegoat for other issues. She’s aware of the discrimination that’s ingrained in society as public perception of the sex industry has only changed on the surface.

Sex work may be more tolerated, but the widely held belief that sex work is inherently wrong is still rife.

Many believe that sex workers have the highest rates of STIs and diseases among the population because they are more likely to encounter a lot more genitalia due to the nature of their work.

However contrary to this belief, it’s been proven that sex workers only make up about 17% of the population of those who have sexually transmitted infections.

“STIs among sex workers are onesixth of the general population”, says Gloria. “Even when I get a sexual health test I never tell them I’m a sex worker because I don’t need my GP to lecture me about my choices. There’s a lot of misinformation even among medical staff who dispute that sex workers are cleaner than everyone else.”

Christopher Fairley, Professor of Sexual Health at Melbourne University, says you’re at a lower risk of catching an STI if you have sex with a sex worker than if you have sex with a member of the public. However, the medical proof hasn’t reached the ears of many of the population because people don’t want to hear it. People don’t want to think that sex work can be part of the norm.

“Everyone thinks they’re an expert on sex work. Everyone likes to say we’re fucked up or were raped by our daddy or molested but they get their statistics from crisis centres where everyone’s been abused. People don’t

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“It’s just sex. It’s not a big deal unless you choose to make it one.”

Gloria Van Vaulker has been working as a luxury private escort on-and-off since her first year of university. That was five years ago. Now 26, she doesn’t see herself quitting in the near future due to an expanding client base.

With over 3000 followers and more than 11,000 tweets, Gloria has become a well-known face for a sex industry that is changing public perceptions one hashtag at a time.

Many businesses are taking advantage of the accessibility that Twitter provides and its rising popularity among young people. The ease of interacting with anyone from Zac Efron to Leigh Sales is a game-changer in a world full of PR and media releases. These days, we’re being exposed to the intimacies of everyone’s lives without the fear of being labelled a stalker. Ironically, the people who have benefitted from this form of social media are those who are perceived to be the most elusive: sex workers.

“I was actually kind of late to get on Twitter for work,” says Gloria. “I was on Facebook a lot initially and got a lot of time-wasters and fuckers, and a friend suggested I get Twitter because it’s really good for clients and networking.”

Turns out, her friend was right. Gloria’s clientele continues to expand thanks to the power of the Tweet and retweet. As her humour, wit and sass is shared across the social media sphere, her followers garner her more business as the face of sex work evolves through each catalogued thought.

“People who’ve never considered sex with a sex worker start thinking about it and learn more about it. I’ve gotten a lot of first-time clients that way.” Gloria says having people see who you really are “humanises” you.

“People follow you on Twitter and they start to like your personality. It exposes people to the sex industry and it shows that these girls are funny, they’re normal, and they can be engaging. People come to Twitter to find out more about you and to make you more real.”

Gloria believes social media definitely helps break down the negative perceptions about people in the sex industry. The public generally associates sex work with desperation, perversion, and debauchery. However this image is slowly lifting. Stigma and whorephobia dilute as we see a cultural shift through the positive representations of escorts in TV shows like Secret Diary of a Call Girl and read and hear more from the mouths of sex workers themselves.

EMMA DO

want what you say to be true and they don’t want you to change their opinion.”

As much as Gloria wants to believe she’s impenetrable toward the attitudes of others, being discriminated against makes her feel vulnerable.

“Sometimes I feel I should say or do things but I don’t because I don’t want to be judged for them. I shouldn’t have to lie to a mental health professional, but it’s not their place to spout personal judgment about your job and it’s irrelevant to the personal problems you’re coming to them with. It’s not their place to say it’s damaging to you unless you’re saying that yourself.”

Gloria says New South Wales has the lowest STI rates among sex workers despite the fact there are no laws about what they can and can’t do.

“You can suck cock without a condom, you can go down on them and let them cum in your mouth and it’s been proven that there’s no correlation between sexual acts and sexual health risks in the community.”

In NSW sex work is far more tolerated and there’s a lot more support because decriminalisation means sex workers aren’t living in fear. However, sex work definitely isn’t part of the mainstream yet. Sex in general tends to be a very taboo topic; that’s why there’s a whole vocabulary of euphemisms to accommodate it.

Because we associate sex with sin, it’s hard to extract sex work from the negative connotations that terms like ‘prostitute’ produce. Sex workers tend to steer clear of the term because it classifies them as a job and not a person. By referring to a sex worker as such, and not a ‘hooker’, ‘harlot’ or a ‘prostitute’, we’re getting one step closer to integrating them into mainstream society: as normal people with a normal job.

Social media has given these marginalised voices a megaphone. And it’s saying they’re #NotYourRescueProject.

You can follow Gloria on Twitter @GloriaVanVaulke

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splitting hairs BETH GIBSON

21

“I’ve stopped shaving my underarms,” I told her one Friday afternoon. I knew Laura would not be thrilled. I tend to announce my decisions like grand moments in history; after 15 years of friendship surely this had become tiring. Still, I expected an “Oh Beth”, a laugh—nothing more. I even hoped a little she’d object; maybe we’d have a lively debate about it. But her face dropped and she turned to me with piercing eyes. “That is disgusting.” She wasn’t joking. “I don’t want to talk about this. End of conversation.”

Laura and I are 21. We’ve known each other since prep, and our friendship has always been one of impassioned disagreement. We enjoy arguing though, and no matter how heated we get, it usually turns to laughter in the end. This was not so on the topic of underarm hair. That incident was left untouched for two years, largely because I was so hurt by her reaction (I went home and shaved that night). And then recently, Laura made an announcement of her own, though told with far less self-importance.

“I’m getting laser hair removal on my Brazilian,” she said.

“What?” It was my turn to be judgemental. How could my best friend—this intelligent, interesting woman—be so invested in beauty culture?

It took me a while to see the parallels between these two events: the judgments made both ways, the damage doubly inflicted. I decided this needed to stop. We were going to reconcile a war that had silently waged for too long. I was going to open my mind to my friend’s decision, and try to make her understand mine. On a sunny afternoon in the St Kilda Botanical Gardens I told her my plan: I’m going to write an article about us. It’s going to be a comparison between two women and two different approaches to body hair. It’s going to be honest, but it is not going to be judgemental.

It’s going to be about choice. Why do people make certain choices? Why do some women choose to remove body hair, and others don’t?

“Ok,” she said, laughing, though concern flashed across her face. “Let’s do it.”

I stopped shaving my underarms, in part, because I could not be bothered any longer. I am a hairy girl, and it was beginning to feel like I was battling an army of miniscule soldiers that would not die. Their weekly miracle was my despair; I resented the time, effort and money it was costing me.

It was also an act of rebellion. Why did it matter if women were hairy or not, I thought, and why did I feel so much pressure to conform? I hated shaving, I hated the idea of doing something just because everyone else did it, and I hated the message I was sending myself when I forgot to shave—that I should be ashamed of the way I was born. So I stopped.

I’ll be clear though: it wasn’t easy. I felt self-conscious—wearing cardigans in 40-degree heat while telling myself what I was really feeling was liberation. I had to retrain myself to find my own body hair attractive—slowly, very slowly, I came to see it as a symbol of independence. Now I love it. The same cannot be said for my leg hairs,

22

which come in and out of glorious existence. Ideally I wouldn’t shave them at all, but I’m not immune to social pressure, and legs are much harder to conceal on days you’re not up to being called a hairy-hippy-feminist-freak.

Laura waxes legs, underarms, pubic hair—the lot. She is not alone: this trifecta is common among young women, and women who grow all three are rare. Her decision to start laser was entirely practical. The economist in her (she studies economics) was thrilled at the idea of saving the time, money, and pain of monthly waxes. The question was not to remove or not to remove, but rather, how to remove most efficiently. So when I asked her why she removed her body hair, she was initially stumped.

“Me? Oh nah, I just don’t like hair.” But as we teased it out, reasons emerged. The first was hygiene. “Personally, I get sweatier and smellier if I don’t shave.” Then there was her aesthetic preference: “Something about smooth lines and symmetry”.

She likes looking feminine, she likes looking clean and she likes being wellgroomed, “because it sends out the message: I care”. There were other reasons too.

The sex was better, and her boyfriend liked her hair-free. She was clear on this point: “He doesn’t put any pressure on me, but I don’t have a problem doing something that the person I love likes, and I happen to like too.”

Feminism today is pro-choice. Women can be hairy, or hair-free—it’s up to them, as long as they’re not doing it for men. But my personal experiences—underarm hair incident included—made me wonder. Is it really a free choice? It’s true that no one is actually forcing us to remove hair.

As one feminist wrote, “No woman gets marched off to electrolysis at gunpoint.” But the pressure put on women to be hairless is astronomical. The media is full of images of hairless, perfect women. In fact, the media almost never show women with hairy legs. Even in commercials women are shaving legs already smooth. If you choose not to shave, you’re branded—or fear being branded—a lesbian, or an angry feminist, or just dirty. You will, at the very least, have to deal with judgment—often from people whose opinions you value the most.

In The Beauty Myth (1991), Naomi Wolf argued that as the oppressive housewife ideal was challenged, the beauty ideal rose as the dominant form of oppression for Western women. The more “legal and material hindrances women broke through”, the more physical appearance came to matter.

And, so the argument goes, the more time and energy we spend waxing and plucking, the less time and energy we have to invest in other things. What the beauty ideal also does—according to Wolf—is make women insecure. Seventy years ago it was unheard of for women to remove their underarm hair. Now Brazilians are pretty much expected.

What constitutes a normal beauty routine is ever-expanding, requiring women to invest more and more time and money. If you don’t conform, you risk being seen as unwomanly, or worse, unattractive.

It raises the question: would women choose to remove all that hair if it wasn’t expected of them? Looking back to when Laura and I were teenagers, it’s obvious we started because of peer pressure. We didn’t wake up one morning before school and think: “Hair, I’m just not that into it. Maybe I’ll spend my pocket money on a wax.”

Laura agreed. “When we were 13, it’s like, everybody’s looking down at your legs.”

She argued that now she was an adult—past the insecurity of adolescence—it was a choice she made freely. But was it?

At this point I was entering dangerous territory. My “nonjudgemental” article was becoming really judgemental. I found it impossible to read books like Wolf’s without at least entertaining the idea that what women call a free choice isn’t free at all. Rather, we’re internalising an oppressive force designed to keep us insecure and preoccupied with the trivial. When I put this to Laura, she did not take lightly its implications: that somehow my choice was the “right” one and hers the “wrong” one. To be honest, neither did I. It seemed the battle was raging worse than ever, and argument ensued: “The problem is,” said Laura, “you act like you don’t care, but you do—a lot”.

She was right. In my effort to resist the pressure put on women, I was actually spending more time thinking about body hair than Laura was. Laura just removed it and got on with life. I, on the other hand, was obsessed with the idea that body hair was some insidious form of oppression, at the same time terrified of being judged for growing it. I had to ask myself: who was the greater victim? And was body hair that big of a deal? If it took—paradoxically— more effort not to remove it, maybe I was better off spending my energy elsewhere. It was about picking battles, and Laura, who considers herself a feminist, agreed: “I think it’s a secondary issue. Workplace rights, abortion rights—those are more important.”

If you choose not to shave, you’re branded— or fear being branded —a lesbian, or an angry feminist, or just dirty.

There is one thing I’m still sure of though: choosing not to remove your body hair is the harder choice to make. There are joys either way and I wish they were equally accessible. I feel bad for girls who don’t want to shave but think they have to.

“I don’t really think there is that much pressure for someone who’s quite comfortable with themselves,” said Laura. And she’s right, a little confidence works wonders—but how many 21-year-olds are “quite comfortable with themselves”? It’s so much easier, I thought, if you have understanding friends.

“Laura, I have one last question.”

“Yeah?” I sat at her kitchen bench, watching her kneed pastry. The war was over— just in time for Christmas.

“Can we never talk about body hair ever again?”

“Oh God—I thought you’d never ask.”

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Another friend took an even harder line: “Choice is an illusion anyway.” You can’t step outside culture, and I would never be immune to social pressure. I still wanted to be found attractive by men—it’s part of the reason I shave my legs. And I couldn’t argue that my decision to grow my underarm hair was somehow beyond beauty. I’m as vain as the next 21-year-old and my underarm is, in many ways, still an aesthetic choice. It says: “I’m independent, I’m a bit weird and different.” Maybe I was just conforming to a feminist ideal, or a counter-culture one, rather than to the mainstream.

I also wasn’t taking context into account, and I didn’t have to go far to find it. When I asked my mother, she didn’t hesitate: “I’ve always considered myself a feminist. I didn’t shave in high school—I think it was about rebellion.” Laura’s mother, on the other hand, was less certain: “I’ve never described myself as a feminist, but I grew up in a female-dominated household with a full-time professional mother—I just always assumed women could do anything.” And on the topic of body hair? “I’ve never thought much about it. I guess I think it’s a secondary issue.”

It said a lot about the importance of environment, and this extended to our friendship circles. Laura works in retail—a notoriously beautified industry—while I have lots of friends who think it’s awesome to have underarm hair. I just so happened to be in a social environment that made it easier, and more likely, for me to choose not to shave.

As the idea of pure free choice fell apart, I remembered something Helen Garner once wrote. Before anyone expresses an opinion, she had said, they should first disclose all personal factors that might influence that opinion. So we tried it, and I went first: “My mother doesn’t shave her underarm hair. Plus, I’m pretty hairy, and I’m also lazy. And if I’m honest, I like the idea of being different.”

Laura nodded. “I highly value cleanliness, and I like feeling feminine. I also value my appearance but I don’t feel like I’m forfeiting anything—I still see myself as a feminist.”

Something had crystallised. The snap judgments made each way now seemed ridiculous. There were so many factors—rational and non-rational—behind our choices that it was impossible to judge either as “right” or “wrong”, as if some clear-cut reason was behind them. It made much more sense just to be understanding.

It was our final interview, and I had a confession to make. “So something’s happened,” I said. “I kinda interviewed a laser beautician, and then one thing led to another, and she gave me a free laser session on my chin hairs.”

“Your beard!” said Laura. “But you love your beard.”

TESS DAWSON “I know, but you know, I kinda liked how I looked without it. And it was so enjoyable, being pampered by another woman, and you know what? I felt clean. And it felt good.”

When I brought up the underarm hair incident again, Laura said, “Two years ago I was definitely more vain, working with just girls in retail. I actually hadn’t developed my thoughts about it at all. It was an arbitrary reaction.”

Now, things were different. “I’ve made that transition from looking at someone and being like ‘you should shave’, to looking at someone and being like, ‘I don’t give a crap.’”

And then she said something interesting. “I think if I saw a chick with underarm hair at a party I’d want to talk to them—they’d probably have something more interesting to say than the chick in the corner taking selfies.”

It seemed a miracle. Somehow, with a little open-mindedness, we hadn’t just accepted each other’s opinions. Ever so slightly, our own positions had shifted.

(not a how

24 As more and more people grow up learning how to have sex through porn we need to ask two important questions: 1) Are we at risk of a moral and social a-porn-calypse? And 2) Can our university student noodles handle all these internet doodles? (And vaginas. We aren’t sexist it just didn’t rhyme).

At the age of 13, Louise Kelly*, now a 20-year-old Australian Catholic University student, had no idea what porn was, until one day she googled “pink”. What initially was a very innocent search for all things pretty and pink, turned into her finding out her brother was searching for porn on their shared computer. “I blackmailed him about it for weeks. I was like, ‘I’m going to tell mum!’”

That day Kelly discovered not only what her brother had been up to when the study door was closed, but that the internet is a whole other universe. And in that universe is an infinite stash of wank banks. Increasingly, porn is becoming something difficult to avoid on the internet. Emily Lucin, a 20-yearold hospitality and tourism student at William Angliss, agrees. She says, “You’ve seen it. You might not have gone out and planned “Oh let’s watch porn,” but everyone has seen it.“ Bourke Wills is the owner, producer, writer and director for Australian porn website Adult Voyeur. He says, “The internet has had a drastic effect on the porn industry”.

The internet and by extension: Vine, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and other social media apps, have made it easier for people to broadcast their own content and activity. It’s the tale of a modern day porn star. In a matter of minutes you can get an enormous

P O JORDYN

following without even stepping out of your bedroom.

Horny adults and teenagers worldwide enjoy porn on smart phones, tablets and laptops. Pornography’s success is partially owed to the advent of the internet. Without it, porn would still be stuck in the brown paper bag. But if we look at history, porn has played a major role in the rise and popularity of the internet and digital technology.

In 1994, Playboy Enterprises launched a website. Not only was it was one of the first to push porn into the online realm, but it was one of the first big businesses to have an online presence. On its launch, 802 000 people visited the site and by 1997 it was one of the most popular sites online—with traffic of up to five million visits per day.

Author Peter Nowak says in his book Sex, Bombs and Burgers: How war, Porn and Fast Food Created Technology: “The

anyone with a bit of time and nothing to do with their hands, it can be a constant repetitive reel of porn and wanking. With a few clicks you can start all over again. Free pornographic content is both an issue for pornographers and consumers.

In a world were sex sells but porn is taboo, we should understand why so many people grow up confused about sex, sexuality and their bodies. It’s a culture of double standards. We all enjoy sex and, yes, both males and females enjoy porn.

But we are taught to be self-conscious and embarrassed about it.

Zac Frevo, video content producer for Melbourne gay porn website Bentley Race, is travelling through Germany at the moment. Talking to me from his hotel room in Berlin he says when it comes to porn, generally Australia is quite closed-minded and very conservative.

“In Berlin, sex it’s not frowned upon. It’s something that is enjoyed and talked about quite freely amongst all ages of people.”

reasoning was pretty simple—porn is very much a visual medium, and the web removed the biggest obstacle to selling pornography and sexual services: the But do our viewing habits affect our appetites shame of being discovered.” and expectations in the bedroom?

Do you really want to cum on Porn opened up new opportunities. Endless someone’s face or experience anal fisting? opportunities. But like a lot of industries Or is that just what porn has told you? it has also struggled, and is still feeling Kelly, a student of psychology, says she the effects. Wills explains that in the late has felt the pressure “to look attractive” ’90s porn websites didn’t understand how and look like she knows what she is doing to build an audience and make a profit when it comes to sex. Like many she also. “To try and get page hits, what they wondered, “I’ve never done the stuff that started to do was give their content away I saw in porn so am I doing something for free. Which lead to tube sites, most of wrong? Then you think what should I be which are packed with stolen content. And doing?” it’s this idea that porn is free that has most Lucin has also felt this burden from affected my industry. Because no content porn. She laughs, “You hear like—from porn is ever free.” and even from movies—all the screaming Free content and unlimited access and the noises and the groaning. Sometimes to porn can be a recipe for disaster. For I just want to sit there quietly.”

25

BUTLER

Frevo—who is shooting new content for the Bentley Race website— acknowledges often people watch porn before they experience sex. “When you have sex yourself, for the first time you’re like, ‘This is not how it was. Or my penis isn’t as big. Or her boobs aren’t as big. Or we didn’t last as long as they did.’”

He remembers the first time he watched porn. He says he was about 16 and had had a girlfriend for a couple of

Do you really want to cum on someone’s face or experience anal fisting?

Or is that just what porn has told you?

years. “We had sex not long after that.

And now that I think about it, I remember feeling the same way going, ‘This isn’t what I remember watching.’”

Often people are watching porn and expecting it to be the same as having the real experience of sex. Or are finding themselves doing sexual acts that they get no pleasure out of because they think that is the way sex has to be.

Cindy Gallop is the founder and creator of MakeLoveNotPorn.com and MakeLoveNotPorn.tv.

An advertising consultant and businesswoman, she

launched MakeLoveNotPorn at her TED talk in 2009. “I was having sex with younger men. I was encountering a number of sexual behavioural memes,” she says. “I went, ‘Oh I know where this behaviour is coming from and if I’m experiencing this then other people must be as well. And I’m going to do something about it.’”

Porn is omnipresent. It’s universal and ubiquitous. And it’s accessible anywhere with Wi-Fi. It’s the age of the digital. And that means even people who don’t engage with porn are affected by it. Unless you are Amish, its ramifications are reverberating.

At her home in New York Gallop clarifies, “The issue isn’t porn, the issue is the complete lack in our society of an open, healthy, honest, truthful conversation around sex in the real world.” She concedes, “Everybody wants to do it right, so you make the mistake—because nobody has ever told you otherwise—of getting into bed for the first time with a real life boy or girl and going, ‘And now I have to act out what I saw in porn because that is the way you do it.’”

Gallop believes people are misguidedly mistaken into thinking that what they see in porn is the way you have sex— because nobody has told them otherwise.

We suppress and ignore it. We refuse to speak openly and honestly about porn.

We refuse to tell our boyfriends, our girlfriends and our friends what we like and don’t like in the sack.

It seems the issue isn’t porn or the lack of censorship and internet filters (Iceland—I’m looking at you!). Rather it’s the way we treat, talk and educate about sex and most importantly porn.

No different to an Indiana Jones or a Star trek film, Frevo says it’s important to understand porn is like any other

-to guide)

R N

production. “And if [people] are taught that, then they can understand that, ‘Well I can enjoy what I am watching, but it’s not realistic.’”

Porn is a production of fantasy. It takes sex from the real world, edits out all the blunders, the awkward pauses and embarrassing moments for an audience’s entertainment and above all pleasure. It is not designed to demonstrate how to have sex.

But sex education is now porn education. “Once upon a time, back in my day, if you were a parent prepared to have the actual conversation it use to be purely logistical,” Gallop says. “So the conversation used to be, ‘This goes into this, when a man loves a woman, the birds and the bees.’ The conversation to have today as a parent goes, ‘Darling we know you’re online. We know you’re looking at hard-core porn. We just need to explain to you that actually not all women like be tied up, bound, gang-banged, raped, choked and have men cum all over them.

And actually not all men like doing that either.’”

Porn is, ultimately, a production and so we need to speak and educate about sex honestly. We need to ask ourselves, are we striving to make our sex lives pornos? And do we really want this? Those who don’t agree; don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll cum around. *Louise’s name has been changed to protect her identity.

26

The human body has always existed as an object for judgement—a battleground for criticism or reward. Apparently, your body and your choice to have sex for the first time—and every other time—mean a whole lot to everyone else. Religious groups tell us virgins are precious, sacred and honourable. Porn sites tell us virgins are fragile, rare and worth a special price. Those closest to you are varied in their views, and yours may rarely be taken into account.

virgin shaming

DRAGANA MRKAJA

*Leila, a 20-year-old psychology student, sits by the window, strong yet nervous.

“I’m just not ready,” she says. She has been told her ‘virgin-status’ is bullshit. She was at a house party when the conversation led to sex. “Honestly, I was mortified; I felt so small and insignificant. It was my first month at university and people already thought I was a freak.” Coming from a small town full of gossip, Leila thought university would be a welcome escape. She had always viewed RMIT as an open institution that was fun and accepting of all. “I had no problem telling people I am a virgin, but the stares of judgement I received afterwards made me wish I had kept quiet. Soon enough, everyone was talking about the reserved, weird girl—they still have a lot of trouble comprehending why [I’m a virgin].”

On average, Australians lose their virginity at the age of 17. Research indicates most people are either in a relationship or looking to experiment.

This number has remained stable over the last ten years, but recent polls show nonintercourse activity is happening a lot earlier than it has in previous generations.

“Non-intercourse activity is like taking those first few steps towards sex, without the pressure of actually having sex,” Leila says. “I still needed to build up a lot of trust and courage when I had my first sexual experience, but pleasure through the use of hands, fingers or mouth felt a lot less intimidating.”

Through these sexual experiences, Leila felt open to the idea of sex, but she gradually changed her mind. “I was with someone for about eight months, and we did everything apart from sex. I felt comfortable with him and thought he understood my wish to wait—only until I was completely ready—but it soon became an issue and it contributed to our recent break-up.” Instead of weakening to the pressure her partner was placing

on her, Leila became more confident in her sense of self. “I felt really offended, that someone I cared about could treat me in such a way. It really hurt.”

While sex can be an important part of a relationship, it should not define the couple. Nor should it define the individual.

According to Dr Lauren Rosewarne, a political scientist who writes about sexuality, gender and feminism, evaluating or limiting sexuality to a specific value is dangerous. “There’s still a disparity that has to do with the slut/stud dichotomy where men are considered to be studs and perceptions are made about their attractiveness based on how many sexual partners they’ve had. Women, on the other hand, have to be very careful regarding sex because there are perceptions that if a woman has had too much sex she’s a slut or that her virtue is somehow compromised.” It’s exactly this kind of stereotyping all sexualities fall victim to.

Traditionally, a virgin would be defined as a woman who hasn’t undergone penilevaginal penetration, and whose hymen is still ‘intact’. The female hymen, also known as ‘the cherry’, is a thin membrane that partially covers the opening of the vagina. Using the hymen as a symbol for virginity is problematic as it is often broken through other day-to-day activities, such as horse riding, the use of tampons, doing gymnastics or having a gynecological exam. Perhaps the most concerning aspect of this generalisation, though, is the ignorance shown towards men.

Rewinding to the 1950s, the white bridal dress becomes the indispensable symbol of purity, limiting civilians to heterosexual relationships and in turn making homosexual relationships taboo. Such narrow traditional definitions of virginity are incompatible with queer sexualities.

The question of homosexual virginity is worth considering. By traditional

27 definitions, homosexual men and women are virgins unless they have ‘normal’ heterosexual intercourse.

“It’s laughable,” Dr Rosewarne says.

“It raises other questions like if a girl was raped—is that virginity loss?”

Research indicates the woman would still consider herself a virgin, that the force of sex would not prevent her from thinking about virginity in a spiritual sense. Anal sex and masturbation are also forms of sex that neither many men nor women think of as contributors to virginity loss. This tells us we need to change the way we think about virginity; we should not be defining the sexual act as merely physical, but mental too.

When one thinks of spiritual values and thoughts, religion is often placed front and centre. Dr Rosewarne believes religion plays a major part in abstinence today. “It seems that to refrain would need a good reason, and therefore the assumption is that either they’re religious and they’ve taken a chastity pledge or that perhaps they’re undesirable.” But choice does not have to be defined by religion, and the perception of undesirability only adds to the virgin-shaming men and women are experiencing. Leila is constantly asked about her faith and religious beliefs. “I don’t have any,” she laughs. “We always point to religion when something goes against our highly sexualised society, but my choice has nothing to do with religion. I respect my body and I listen to it—that’s it. I’m not ready to have sex with five or ten people, and I never will be. It’s as simple as that.”

Emily*, a masters student at Monash Univerisity Caufield, is influenced by religion but in a more modern way. “I’m very spiritual,” she says, “I just think sex is very sacred and beautiful.” She believes opinions regarding virginity can be both positive and negative depending on who you surround yourself with. “There are a lot of people that are so naive and

they think it’s stupid to be religious because they have those thoughts in their head that people are going to go to hell if they have sex before marriage and that’s not what they’re brought up with.”

Although Emily was raised in a religious family, her values are mixed with those she has gathered throughout her life.

Emily lost her virginity at 20, but was emotionally scarred from the experience. As a result, she has not had any sexual experiences since. After three months of kissing and foreplay, Emily chose to have sex with a man she was developing feelings for. “I thought it was progressing, but I was making love to him and he was just fucking me.” Although the man was hesitant to have sex with Emily at first, she quickly warmed him up to the idea—a consequence of the pressure she felt coming from his group of highly sex-orientated friends. “He didn’t want to go anywhere near me.

He didn’t want me to get attached. He didn’t want to be in a relationship. And I thought it was more of a privilege so I found it really offensive,” Emily explains.

Emily thought she wouldn’t get attached. She’d convinced herself she wouldn’t, but by the end of their time together, Emily felt ruined. “I was just so absorbed, and then the last time we did it, he really fucked me up. He made it really romantic—it was never properly romantic—he took care of me, he was very soft and gentle and then I was about to leave when he kissed me from my forehead down to my lips.” He ignored her after that point, and after tireless attempts to contact him, Emily woke up to the truth of her situation. She now feels empowered by her choice to wait until she is in a committed relationship and she knows the person will love her for who she is.

Leila feels the same. “Choice is power. That choice could mean you have a lot of sex or no sex at all. People

think sex means nothing, but to some people it does and that’s okay.”

Either way, it seems you will be judged for sexual preferences or experiences.

Dr Rosewarne says this has become the norm. “Our culture always reverts to going back to the body and using the body as a grounds on which to attack or praise.”

While society has changed the way we perceive relationships, old values and stereotypical definitions still limit the way we think about sexuality. A liberal woman is not necessarily one who has a lot of sex; this is also true of a man who is choosing to wait until he is ready. On the other side of the coin, someone who chooses to have sex—with whomever or with however many people—should also not be profiled. We need to be more sensitive towards the choices people make regarding their sexuality, instead of placing people in boxes of thought that are simply untrue and unyielding.

While being physical, virginity can also be a spiritual experience that many wish to cherish. Virginity is not an insult against one’s character, but a personal choice all should respect. *Leila and Emily’s names have been changed to protect their identity.

28

Living a vegan or organic life can have its health benefits. To some it’s clearer skin, more energy, lower cholesterol and apparently the cure for a migraine. But to the skeptics, the financial and emotional toll of this lifestyle may not outweigh the pursuit for veganism or an organic diet.

Let’s face it—we’d all love to live the life of supermodel Miranda Kerr, practicing yoga while her organic produce is home delivered. This is on top of running a certified organic skincare line. But in reality, this is limited to a minority of individuals with the money, time and effort to maintain this healthy lifestyle. It would seem unrealistic for some students to even consider affording and having the capacity to accommodate this lifestyle—so is it really all it’s cracked up to be?

Eating organic is consuming food as close to its natural origin as possible. Organic food is any free-range products grown without the use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides or other artificial chemicals.

Veganism is slightly more extreme to this and is not consuming anything animalderived. This means no meat, no eggs, no dairy and some exclude foods even processed with animal products. So no refined white sugar or types of wine for them.

Social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are huge drivers of such health crazes. It’s a common day-to-day ritual for one to become a vegan or organic eater. There is also a common cycle of how they operate.

This begins with making a delicious meal out of organic, raw or wholefood products.

This aesthetically pleasing meal is then placed on a table in photo-shoot mode ready to post on aforementioned social media sites. Hashtags are used like #cleaneating #whatveganseat #organiclife #plantbased #fullyraw #dairyfree #glutenfree. This creates not just a series of photos online— but also a lifestyle that can be so great to some, yet so detrimental to others.

Lucinda Hancock is an Accredited Nutritionist and Executive Officer of the Victorian Division of Nutrition Australia. She tells me the vegan diet must be undertaken with the appropriate supplements, especially for those during tertiary study when their bodies haven’t completely developed yet. “Veganism comes down to choice… we would want to work with them to make sure they’re getting all the nutrition through the foods available,” says Hancock.

Eating organic produce might be more expensive than vegan, but it can sometimes require less effort to prepare. Veganism involves preparation, knowledge and first and foremost good health to begin with. “There’s obviously a lot to consider when planning a vegan diet and you need to be very careful to make sure that you’re getting all the nutrients you need,” Hancock tells me.

Arielle Zinn is a 21-year-old commerce and law student who likes to eat healthy, fuelling her passion for nutrition. She tells me clean eating and consuming wholefoods have been her main objective for the last 12 months.

“Healthy eating can be just as good as unhealthy eating, and that it’s really delicious,” she says while chuckling. Zinn began her Instagram account Cocohealth in February of last year, and now has over 12,000 followers. On Cocohealth, she promotes her healthy eating daily by posting photos of her meals. Arielle tells me she believes her account is “inspiring people to cook more nutritious meals”.

She is also humble about being on social media. “Being on Instagram you’re exposed to so much more, so that’s definitely inspired me to be a bit more adventurous with my superfoods,” she says.

Zinn also doesn’t think this healthy lifestyle has been at the expense of her savings. She reminds me that most seasonal fruit and vegetables aren’t outrageously expensive. She tells me how home cooking can be much more enjoyable and less costly than eating out too. “I think if you shop smart and shop in season it can be a lot cheaper.”

Sarah Morgan, a 20-year-old veterinary science student, attempted the vegan diet but found it difficult to sustain. She began with vegetarianism after she was exposed to animal cruelty in Thailand for a few months.

Upon returning home to Australia, she got in touch with a vegan friend regularly posting about her lifestyle on Facebook. From this, Sarah attempted the vegan lifestyle “to try and make a difference”.

Morgan was full vegan for about three months but then was unfortunately diagnosed with glandular fever. Even

though she was eating lots of superfoods such as lentils, she was very deficient in iron. “I was trying to supplement my diet as much as I could naturally,” she recalls. But it got to the point where vitamins and mineral tablets weren’t enough—the goodness from meat was imperative to consume.

Morgan was still living at home while vegan and this complicated meals with her family, as they didn’t attempt veganism with her. “It was always hard going out for dinner, we’d have to go to specific restaurants that catered for it and to try and find meals that were vegan.

It was hard,” she says.

Upon reflection, Morgan admits veganism didn’t improve her health or wellbeing. “I did it for the right reasons, but health wise, it wasn’t a good choice.

I’m not sure if that was just for me, or if it’s an unhealthy choice in general, but it didn’t really benefit me at all.”

Morgan tells me she wouldn’t attempt veganism again, but “I’d probably go for an organic one… only eating animal products that have come from a trustworthy source.”

It seems her faith in good food origins is enough to be a carnivore again. “I see too much benefit in meat to give it up again,” she says while laughing.

She acknowledges where the accessibility to healthy eating on social media can go pear shaped. “It’s definitely a positive that people can use social media to encourage healthy eating and healthy lifestyles, but I think there are some things that may work for some people that won’t work for others. A lot of these diets, juice cleansers and raw diets – you really need to speak to someone, a nutritionist with experience to make sure it’s the right thing for you to be doing for your body, as well as that you’re doing it properly. If you’re not eating enough of something then you’re probably going to get sick.”

Zinn sees the warning signs too.

“People can interpret it in the wrong ways or become obsessive about it.”

She stresses the need to be stable about your healthy eating and to look at it as a lifestyle, not a diet. “As long as you have a balanced approach, it’s not the be all and end all if you don’t stick to your lifestyle 100 per cent.”

29 Social media sites like Instagram can be motivating, but they can also lead to unhealthy obsessions. “People become wary when they are on social media and looking at what other people do… what’s good for one person isn’t necessarily going to be good for everyone else,” says Zinn.

Lucy Stegley, 31, has been the manager of the RUSU Realfoods Cafe at RMIT University since 2010. Her interest in raw and organic produce began as a child growing up on a farm in the Mornington Peninsula. She eats vegan, raw and organic where possible and tries to make this lifestyle accessible to students through RUSU Realfoods. “We deal direct with the suppliers as much as we can,” Stegley tells me. Her passion for health foods is obvious as she chats to me, bubbly about her career.

Her support staff at RUSU Realfoods are mostly RMIT student volunteers, who support “trying to beat the stereotype of what people would presume vegan and organic means”.

It is, unfortunately, common knowledge that organic produce and some health foods are more expensive than regular choices. So to allow students to afford these healthier choices, RUSU Realfood’s prices match the other foods available at the RMIT cafeteria. “Hopefully the food and the experience can speak for itself,” says Stegley.

As a result of social media, eating organic and vegan is becoming a popular lifestyle.

So much so that even nutritionists are jumping on the bandwagon. The wellknown food pyramid that many people live by could soon be applied to veganism, with one already suited to vegetarians.

“We haven’t developed one in the past for vegans, but it’s not to say that we wouldn’t in the future,” says nutritionist Lucinda Hancock.

Green smoothies or cocoa brownies can sound great to many. But limiting your dietary choices can develop into a real obsession. It can also create conflicts during social situations. Social media can provide inspiration, but sometimes healthy eating aspirations can turn into an unhealthy addiction.

raw food, or simply a rip off?

ALLY McMANUS

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FINBAR O’MALLON

2 middle

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g n i h t e som t u o b a to cry MICHAEL WALSH

One day my parents said to me, “Hey kiddo, we’re going to give you whatever you want for your birthday and we’ll spend just as much as we do on your brother, but we’re not going to wrap it for you. We’re still wrapping his presents, just not yours.” Whatever their underlying reasons, it’s safe to say I was pretty pissed off. Wrapping paper is fun, and if he got to unwrap presents why didn’t I? It was simply not fair, completely unjust.

Of course, it didn’t matter to me that my presents were just as good as his— so it’s not as if I was being materially discriminated against—but it was the principle of the situation that sucked.

So naturally I raged and raged at my folks until they relented and gave me my fucking wrapping paper, and that made me happy. But what did I really achieve?

Wrapping paper is pointless. It’s colourful, and it feels nice to tear off, but it only functions to illustrate the fact that my brother and I had nothing over one another anymore. I was an equal member of the family endowed with the right to unwrap my birthday presents, congratufuckinglations to me.

Same-sex marriage legislation is wrapping paper. It should be passed in Australia—it’s only fair and completely inevitable at any rate—but we should be careful not to overstate its importance.

It will not signal the dawn of a new era more accepting of sexual diversity because society consists chiefly of sexual bigots who never learn. Same-sex marriage is just the queer community’s

acceptance letter into sexual bigot high society—and that’s an association we need to be extremely wary of.

Before you grab your pitchforks, let me explain. The acceptance of queerness as a normal expression of human sexuality in much of the Western world is not progressive—in fact it’s totally static.

It does not blast open the definition of normal sexuality, boldly asserting that all sexualities are essentially normal and that some are simply more common than others: it only extends the definition of normal to encompass the gay community.

This is not progress because the underlying flaw in reason still remains.

I grew up in Geelong, where I was not just a gay dude—I was the fucking gay dude. As such, if one more straight guy ever says to me, “You’re gay but that’s cool with me, I accept your sexuality” I might actually glass the prick.

Aside from the fact that the above insight is just a reflection of how gay culture has been homogenised in popular consciousness, whether a straight dude is ‘cool’ with my

sexuality is beside the fucking point.

An individual’s sexuality is none of your business. Absolutely fucking none.

And that is why the much-celebrated acceptance of queer sexuality—which will presumably be heralded as final in Australia once gay marriage legislation is passed—is a hollow victory at best.

Even if we are accepted, there are plenty of other people out there with far less common expressions of sexuality still being actively discriminated against.

What would be truly progressive is if we all decided to stop passing judgement on what gets other people off, how they get off, who they get off with, and how many people they get off with.

That is the real lesson to be learnt from all this acceptance bullshit, yet it’s the lesson constantly ignored.

Similarly, the idea of the queer community finally being accepted by the heterosexual majority is patronising at best. It’s like all the popular kids in high school—once they started listening to Triple J or some shit—deciding that you were cool enough to sit with

33 MI CH A EL WA LSH

An individual’s sexuality is none of your business.

Absolutely fucking none.

them at lunch. You’re not that weird kid anymore, you’re just like them.

The queer community needs to observe that, contrary to the popular rhetoric (I’m looking at you Modern Family), we are not just like them. No-one is just like anyone.

Sexuality is fluid and most importantly relative, and as such exists beyond the judgement of outsiders to that sexuality.

In other words, I don’t care if you’re cool with queers because what consenting partners get up to in their own bedrooms is nobody’s business. Butt out, arseholes.

This is the difficulty of a culture of acceptance—it’s fucking piecemeal.

The floodgates of sexual diversity have not been blasted open to wash away societal bigotry, because if you love more than one person, love one person but have sex with others, want to marry, love and have sex with more than one person or simply don’t want to have sex with anyone at all, you are still considered a freak.

The queer community needs to stand up for the validity of any and every

expression of consensual sexuality, no matter how uncommon or reviled, because it would be unconscionable to contribute to their discrimination as newly minted members of the normal crowd.

One day soon, when we are holding our partner’s hands in public in any street, in any city—even fucking Geelong— comfortable in the knowledge that we will not be discriminated against, the stigma against polyamory should haunt us.

The acceptance of our sexualities stands for nothing if we perpetuate the same sorts of discrimination that have been traditionally committed against us.

We may be sitting with the popular kids now, but we should never forget what it was like to be on the outside, and to be the other.

If how we get off is deemed okay, then the same applies to everyone else—and if you disagree, you’re a hypocrite.

EMMA DO

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y l b wib y l b b o w bits JASMIN ASHTON

Sex is commonly performed naked, and therein lay my initial issue. I’m undeniably fat and it’s taken me a good few years to embark on my own personal Tolkien-like quest to learn to love my body. (In this analogy Smaug is the fat-shaming media.)

Once I finally reached a place where I could look at my reflection and say a) I am awesome and beautiful and b) my appearance does not define my worth, I spent most days feeling pretty darn bulletproof against all the crap that used to get to me. That is, until it came to letting someone else have an invested involvement with my body.

The first person I was with, in retrospect, had a lot of his own issues that were perpetuated directly onto me. It’s a pretty common story actually: people don’t realise that—for the most part—boobs aren’t gravity-defiant, perfectly round airbags.

Your partner is not there purely for your pleasure and no, odds are you aren’t going to be James Deen or Stoya and the other person is probably fine with that. Hair grows places; it’s not dirty. It’s just hair. Not every person has the sex drive of a randy teenager and some people just won’t bend certain ways.

There’s a quote from Margaret Cho that sums up my feelings about bodies during sex: “If they care what you look like when they’re fucking you, they shouldn’t be fucking you in the first place.”

There’s something to be said for the old standard of loving yourself first, accepting your wibbly-wobbly bits, hard pointy-bits and spotty and scarred parts.

It’s another thing entirely to hold your partners to that same standard, and learn to appreciate their fabulous bodies as you have your own.

When it comes to loving your body, it needs to be said that if you ever want to alter your body in any way, let it be your choice. I have a friend who decided getting laser surgery on her pubic hair was essential to keeping her boyfriend happy. She didn’t have a problem with her own hair, but felt she had to do the (expensive and painful) treatment because, hey, “The things you do for love!”

Yeah, no.

I’m a fan of the Roald Dahl belief that “the people who mind don’t matter”. Not just regarding body hair, but every part of the human body. If you are invested in altering another person to please yourself, you need to step back and look at what you’re doing.

The same belief applies to sex.

Fucking is primal and sweaty and kinda messy. It’s not pristine and it’s definitely not proper. Even the Queen of England has done it, multiple times (feel free to thank me for that mental image later).

During sex, bits that you might not normally pay attention to can wobble far more than you’re used to. Things make noises upon impact and yeah, sometimes bits don’t do what they’re supposed to or automatically go where you command. It does not mean there’s anything wrong with you. Porn-worthy sex is not a mandatory requirement of life. TV and movies present skewed images of sex—a simple example being that images of women receiving pleasure are widely considered more obscene than similar footage of men. The double standards of censorship also become more incredulous and offensive as soon as you stray from the heterosexual representation of sex (check out This Film

is Not Yet Rated for more).

This has contributed to the creation of society’s expectations of what sex should be (think of a conventionally attractive heterosexual couple who are both flexible and firm, always having the time of their lives while looking impeccable and making all the right noises).

This image is damaging to our social mentality. It’s usually a subconscious, uninvestigated habit to visualise what you must look like during the act. We have become so accustomed to viewing sex from a third-person perspective (as the camera), that we’re actually concerned about how we would appear to a voyeur in the room, hoping not to fail expectations.

Here’s a newsflash: if you’re only having sex with one person, odds are they aren’t viewing the scene in wideangle panorama HD, nor are they zooming in and out. They’re probably focused on the parts of you they can see and feel, and focused more on the act itself rather than mentally writing a critical essay about all your flaws.

If they are that critical, then they don’t deserve to access your body. If someone treats you cruelly because of your appearance—or makes you feel less worthy because they think you’re too big or small or too anything—then they don’t deserve you and you definitely don’t deserve their mistreatment. Part of loving yourself is surrounding yourself with people who love you too, and pushing away the toxic ones.

In the meantime, don’t be afraid to let your wibbly-wobbly bits do their thing.

HUTTON

35

BRETT

36

I’m not what you’d call a Miley Cyrus fan. I grimaced during her Wrecking Ball video when I saw her roll over on the rubble and show me her wedgie, and every single cell in my body radiated with scorn when I saw her tongue hanging out, bending over to let Robin Thicke rub his dirty crotch against her arse at the Video Music Awards last year.

When homegirl told BBC Radio she was “probably the biggest feminist in the world” I swear I heard a fairy die somewhere.

Miley Cyrus isn’t exactly exhibiting behaviour that behooves a respectable feminist, but then again, I don’t think respectability is what she’s aiming for.

It’s clear she’s out there with her shaved head and Doc Martens to ruffle some feathers. I’ll concede that Miley probably does have good intentions in donning the feminist colours—even if her main case for feminism involves women being able to “show their titties on the beach” like men do. At least that sounds like something approaching a discussion about equality, right?

Miley is obviously reinventing herself from her tweeny-bopper days, and like some other celebrities she leapt onto the feminist bandwagon because it’s trendy.

But she’s kidding herself if she believes that getting naked—for a multi-billion dollar industry controlled by men, who profit from the exploitation of women’s bodies—is a feminist act just because she’s choosing it for herself.

Popstars like Miley, Rhianna and Nicki Minaj aren’t doing anything new in their provocative video and stage performances. Madonna was getting her kit off for the cameras a good thirty years before Lady Gaga ever stepped out in her meat dress. It feels like modern female musicians are willing to strip down

for their ‘art’ without first considering in whose hands the power lies, and the ramifications on their fans when they do so. There’s no substance or meaning in celebrity nakedness; it’s a hollow call for attention that contains no message other than ‘look at me, I’m sexy’. The shock-factor has worn off and that curiosity they call ‘raunch culture’ has become an everyday part of entertainment in the mainstream media.

Dubbed by Ariel Levy, in her book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, raunch culture is

a discourse of feminism that encourages the expression of female sexuality through behaviours like pole dancing, stripper heels and hairless vaginas.

Raunch culture seeks to remove itself from ties to a supposed passé style of feminism that wants women to protect their bodies from being the subject of male scrutiny by encouraging them to cover up. Raunch culture allows women the freedom to express themselves whenever and however they want.

I completely endorse the notion that women should have complete control over what happens to their bodies. End of story.

Raunch culture is about returning the female body back to the woman, but to me

it seems like a big cosmic joke, tricking women into thinking that objectifying themselves is somehow empowering.

The major flaw of raunch culture is that it seeks to empower women in the same ways that modern culture successfully degrades them. Say hello to the everpervasive ‘male gaze’.

Perhaps for the individual woman performing a feathers-and-dance routine in a burlesque club is a thrilling and validating experience. But her performance does not exist in a vacuum; modern culture already feeds on the objectification of women’s bodies.

Corporations use women’s bodies to sell everything under the sun—from lipsticks, cars, alcohol, underwear and perfume to holidays, magazines, movies and records. Much of the time women’s bodies are semi-naked, cropped off at the neck so their heads are removed. The images are photoshopped to within an inch of their lives, and the women are passive, lacking agency or character.

Psychotherapist and feminist Susie Orbach calls this “an international mining of women’s bodies for profit”.

Women are turned into objects selling objects. The worst part of this is that we learn to compare women’s bodies to these unattainable ideals we see in

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m s i n i m fe d e k a n s t e g A MELIA T HEO DO R A K IS

the media, and this is so damaging for a woman’s body image. A woman can try exploring her sexwuality through a burlesque show but she cannot ignore the fact that her body is fair game to every critical, leering eye in the room.

In stripping down to free herself she is incidentally reinforcing the notion that her body is not her own, but a piece of property for public consumption.

This feels like the opposite of empowerment to me.

Then again, every argument contains an exception to the rule. Meet Amanda Palmer: solo musician, and one half of the Dresden Dolls duo. Amanda paints on her eyebrows with eyeliner, keeps her armpits hairy, swears like a sailor, and has been publicly naked more times than I can even count.

Amanda wrote and performed a song in London last year called ‘Dear Daily Mail, Sincerely Amanda Palmer’, in which she literally said “up yours” to the Daily Mail for choosing to write an article about how her boob “escaped” her bra during her performance at the Glastonbury festival, rather than reviewing her music that day. The article insinuated that Amanda would have felt ashamed and ridiculous following the incident. In the song Amanda tells the Daily Mail that if they’d “googled [her] tits in advance,”

they’d have realised their photos of her boob-slip weren’t that unusual. If you’re a fan of Amanda Palmer’s you’d know that naked photos of her on the internet are a dime a dozen, basically because she put them all on there. The song has a dual message: it is derisive of the fact that something as trivial as an exposed breast became the article’s main focus, while Amanda’s music and career were barely mentioned. It also contains a message about how female bodies are exploited by media outlets then used to shame women. The high point in the song came when Amanda threw off her kimono with a flourish and played the rest of the tune behind her keyboard stark naked.

Nakedness has proven itself to be an excellent way for celebrities to get noticed, whether it’s good or bad attention they’re receiving. In Miley’s own words: “Every time you talk about me you’re bringing more awareness to me.” Amanda Palmer is a woman who uses her naked body to express political and social ideas surrounding concepts of autonomy and freedom of expression and sexuality.

Sure, it probably doesn’t hurt her record sales either. Even Miley Cyrus had a go at meaningful nakedness when she stepped out of her usual hypersexual persona and flashed her breasts on Twitter. The act was

in support of a new documentary called Free the Nipple, which is about censorship

around female nudity in America.

Sex sells, nakedness gets attention.

But the important thing is where the attention that nakedness attracts is directed. Nakedness is a powerful tool that continues to influence audiences but few music artists seem to use it to any great advantage, other than to increase record sales. In the pop industry it is only ever erotic; it is gratuitous and done to death.

But then again, there is Miley Cyrus: biggest feminist in the world, giving it her best shot. She is a young and sexy woman with money and power, and she’s here to talk about gender equality and getting ya tits out.

I guess you could say that’s empowerment.

38

my year without sex SLM

I built my own bed. It rattles a lot when I roll over, so I strung lanterns on the white frame to distract from the homemade look. I chose a bed with a frame for one reason: to tie someone to it using handcuffs. When I assembled the bed, I imagined all the notches I could scratch into its surface. I placed it in line with the windowsill because it’s perfect for me to lean on while someone fucks me from behind.

39 MICHAEL WALSH

None of these fantasies have played out. The most action I’ve had in that bed is cuddling my Darth Vader plush doll.

Four years ago I was 19, and my sex life was different. Not only was it active, but it was new and exciting. I lost my virginity to a slightly older man, and he was the perfect introduction to the world of sex. He took away my insecurities and allowed me to express myself without fear of judgment. He found my innocence endearing and through him I discovered a kind of power I was not aware I possessed.

The years after him became less about what I wanted to do, and more about who I could do. For two years I participated in a mix of terrible and wonderful sex.

I discovered I didn’t need someone to guide me through the act anymore. Making mistakes was the best part.

I had high hopes about moving to Melbourne. I was 22 and ready to start my degree in a city filled with bearded men and girls in floral-patterned dresses. I imagined university being filled with endless specimens who could stimulate both my mind and my clitoris.

Although university was filled with remarkable people, I was distracted by the demands of everyday life. I travelled to Europe during semester break in my first year and tried to fuck an American guy in Amsterdam. He came in my mouth and after I swallowed he collapsed asleep on the bed. I left his hotel room with the realisation I might be done with one-night stands.

My last sexual encounter before the year-long drought was a clumsily arranged booty call with my v-card taker. I craved a familiar body and I needed things done to me that I only felt comfortable asking him to do, and although the sex was good, it left me empty and resentful. I had moved on from him.

The months after this event passed quickly. A few potentials came and went, but the chemistry felt wrong. I didn’tw get the feeling they’d be comfortable lightly strangling me during sex. It took time for me to understand this lack of chemistry was my mostly my fault because I had no idea what I wanted.

My drought was finally broken in November. I developed an annoyingly persistent crush earlier in the year on a guy I assumed was unattainable.

Before it became clear we were going to fuck, I confessed my year without sex to him. He was amazed, and failed to understand how my sexless year had more to do with me and less about the people who had failed to notice how fuckable I was.

This crush became the exception to my misgivings over one-night stands. He gave off a confident vibe and intimidated me; a rare occurrence in my sex life. Although he met all my expectations I failed to fulfill my own. I was laughably out of practice and felt sluggish and self-conscience the entire time. I’d spent hours giving this man the idea I was confident in bed, but now I was finally in his sheets I couldn’t overcome my nerves. He intimidated me so terribly it affected my confidence and unfortunately I had no opportunity for a follow up sexual encounter. He moved away, and now I’m facing another potential year without human contact.

I spent the aftermath of this left me feeling embarrassed and silly. I spent hours complaining to friends about how much I had failed to be a successful young person because I wasn’t having regular, clit-throbbing sex.

If only I had realised then that societal pressures trick us into believing sex is the be-all and end-all of young adult life. You’re still a student? Still eating leftover ramen for dinner? These things can be ignored as long as you’re fucking away your anxieties.

Sex shouldn’t be on the list of things you or I need to feel inadequate about. My understanding of the act has changed considerably since I lost my virginity, and will continue to change as I grow older. There is no right or wrong way to have sex, as long as it’s consensual. There is no ‘minimum’ I need to complete before turning 30 in order to define me as sexually competent, just as there is no ‘maximum’ that defines someone as a slut. Sex is a conversation you need to be having with yourself on a constant basis to discover what you’re comfortable with.

My year-long drought taught me that you can wait until it feels right to have sex with someone you’ve been crushing on forever, or you can go forth and have sex with a hundred people. What matters is not letting anyone else, society or otherwise, tell you what’s acceptable when it comes to your sex life.

40

DENHAM SADLER

pack appropriately One siren goes past.

Probably a false alarm.

Three sirens go past.

It’s probably far away from here, it usually is.

Ten sirens go past.

Something’s probably going on.

Twenty sirens go past.

Something’s definitely going on.

There’s nothing quite like living in a dangerous area during bushfire season in Australia. You’re constantly on edge, and there’s a lot more to worry about on searing hot days than where the closest pool is and a bit of back-sweat. The horrific Black Saturday fires have put to rest the ‘It Won’t Happen To Us’ mindset; living on the outskirts of Melbourne, there’s every chance it could happen to us.

Hot, windy days are usually comprised of the CFA website on refresh and emergency radio in full blast, and lately it’s seemed like only a matter of time until one gets close to us out in Kangaroo Ground (it’s not as country as it sounds).

The day finally came on Tuesday 14 January, a stifling hot but not all that windy day, with most regarding the next few blustering days as the real threat.

It’s never good when a pop-up fire icon on the CFA website appears directly above your house. Luckily, the coordinates are bit off, and the ‘small’ brushfire was about two kilometres up the road, on the other side of the street.

But living directly on the main road, it’s pretty easy to tell when something serious is going on. The constant roaring of fire trucks and their sirens going past is usually a good indicator of the threat of the fire, and after at least 30 had gone

past, we knew it wasn’t good.

With news helicopters soaring above for the best vantage point, and police quickly closing off roads, smoke started to billow across the street. It crept over a small hill, gradually filling the sky and resembling heavy clouds on an otherwise cloudless day.

The winds were pushing the fire marginally away from us—but when you’re sitting precariously across the road from a raging brushfire, relying on wind patterns is never an ideal situation. After receiving a warning text message advising us to “seek shelter now” and a phone call that started with just an air horn blaring, we realised it was time to get out.

Still in a bit of a daze that any of this was really happening, I rushed back inside to pack my essential belongings in a bag. But what are my essential belongings? How do I pack my whole life in a single backpack? Laptop, phone, wallet, passport, that’s a good start I suppose. After adding a hard-drive and some keepsakes, and still wondering why my passport was so cut up and shabby, we quickly drove off, with smoke billowing above us and sirens overwhelming our senses.

I would later realise that my cut-inhalf passport with a 12-year-old picture of Denham is not in fact valid. I am not good under pressure.

For all the hyperbole surrounding social edmia and how it is dumbing down our generation and somehow magically making us unable to interact in the big bad world, it has truly revolutionised how we cope with, and gather information about, emergency situations. A simple Twitter search of ‘Kangaroo Ground’ revealed aerial photographs from the news helicopters showing the true scale of the fire just across the road, CFA warnings and

advice, and many others evacuating in the exact same manner as I was.

After posting some simple updates on what was going on and pictures of the smoke, mostly to keep those that I know in the area up-to-date, I was contacted by some journalists for an interview and had my innocuous Tweets appear in an article about the fire. While I would have much preferred it was one of my awful puns, it typified how quickly information can travel these days, and how much this can assist with coping in terrifying situations.

It was a surreal experience watching the news reports stating the fire was heading directly for our street from our evacuation point, perhaps made a bit less surreal by every single network getting the street name wrong.

Mercifully, the fire was downgraded to a ‘Watch and Act’ after a few more painful hours, and was eventually contained before it could spread any further, saving our house and much of the suburb. There aren’t really any words to describe the bravery and professionalism of every single person fighting these fires on a daily basis. And although the heroism required is obvious, it’s something that can only truly be appreciated when you witness it firsthand. The CFA volunteers and firefighters deserve every shred of recognition they receive, and much more.

Returning to my house, something that I’m only still realising may never had happened, really makes me appreciate my little paradise away from the bustling city that I inhabit on most days. But even that isn’t worth risking the lives of your family and loved ones, something that you quickly learn during an emergency.

And to pack a passport that isn’t cut in half.

SAMANTHA WINNICKI

a highly accurate review The married life

EMMA DO

Because I follow the bible to the word, I also know that it is important to never sit where my wife sits during her period. Now, as a fundamental Christian who only accepts manwoman marriage, it is only logical that I don’t give up any of the other rules proposed by the bible, including this important one aforementioned. For those who have wives, I suggest you buy a man-chair and forbid your wife to sit on it while she has her period.

Alternatively, confine her to a room for five days: this means you can sit wherever you want.

Cory Bernardi is many things: friend, lover, father, Liberal senator and complete dickwad. Now, I am open to everyone’s opinions, but I personally believe this guy needs to go right back to the Stone Age so natural selection can work its magic.

Cory is famous for saying things like, “I can remember, as a student at school in the 1970s, we were being warned about an imminent Ice Age after three preceding decades of falling temperatures!” (This is a very clever argument he has on denying climate change).

He also says things like, “Islam is the problem—not Muslims.” Which totally makes sense, because… oh wait. It doesn’t make sense.

He has also had his fellow Liberal colleagues call him some really lovely names such as “deluded”, “without intellect”, and (my personal favourite) “one of the least effective or important members [of parliament]”.

My favourite bit about him is that his wife says that their marriage works because “we’re both in love with the same man”. So that’s just great.

Finally, Cory hates swearing, so fuck that shit.

Because I have no real abilities except for being able to make fun of dickheads, I have taken the liberty of summarising Bernadi’s new book and renaming it Cory Bernardi’s Guide to Love, Sex and Relationships (and also how to generally be a prick).

When parenting I am a proud parent of two boys. Now, make sure that when you have sons, show them that their mother is your property. This will have them grow up to be respectable men, who have respect for women. Remember; always tell them that it’s wrong to be gay. Never be a Brony. Don’t allow creativity.

This is certain to make them not crazy and avoid therapy in the future.

Some notes on the death industry Obviously back in the old days there was no such thing as “unplanned pregnancy”, and thus, I see no reason for the human race to become sophisticated and have these so-called family planning clinics. Let’s be clear here—unplanned pregnancies are always the woman’s fault, so if a woman “accidentally” gets pregnant, she probably should have become a nun. I think this is perfectly logical.

On step families Here’s a fact I just made up: if you aren’t brought up by your birth mother and father, then you are pretty likely to become a prostitute or a delinquent or both. I know this because this one time when I went to a strip club (a friend forced me to go, okay, I only ever look at my wife, I swear) a stripper said, “Hey, will you be my sugar daddy?” I have taken this to mean that all children in non-traditional families are going to be super messed-up lumps of sugar.

Being politically correct I just hate it when people get insulted when I tell them that they’re acting like a black person. I’m not a racist, just not politically correct. Also, what is up with not being able to say “faggot”? Am I right? While I’m at it, I would also like to say that anyone who is same-sex attracted is probably also going to have sex with animals and we are one day going to legalise having sex with animals because of this “gay rights” thing.

The Green agenda Planet of the Apes was like a real documentary to me. I feel that the Green agenda is placing too much emphasis on plants and animals, and this means that one day the plants and animals will rule over humans. Preventing the extinction of flora and fauna should be stopped because of this. “Get your hands of me, you damn dirty ape!” will no longer be something that we can say to gorillas at zoos; perhaps it will be our calling card of solidarity when the animal kingdom takes us over. I fear the day that we worship trees more than we worship coal mining. That and when we see humans having public sex with animals is when the apocalypse shall come.

41

The Conservative Revolution:

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P R U E

43 PHOTO ESSAY

S T E N T

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JACK CALLIL

3 end

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L

D

“Please come home,” says my wife in my ear. “I’m scared.”

The World Health Organisation believes mobile phones are not carcinogenic.

But once an idea gets into your head it grows like a tumour.

“This is not the apocalypse,” I say. My voice echoes around the bathroom; eight steps long from sink to urinal. The freshener on the lip of the toilet bowl drools a lucid blue smear into the pool.

“Africa is underwater,” she says in her nagging mother tone. “There are fireballs raining on Europe. You can’t tell me this is normal.”

The World Trade Organisation defines environmental crises as “largely unexpected changes in environmental quality that are difficult if not impossible to reverse”. This is optimistic. The known but unmentioned truth is that the environment has always been doomed. Look at The Club of Rome’s Limit’s to Growth. Look at how the first world cannot bring itself to lower its standard of living to save the third world or even to save themselves. Last week my wife told me she was saving the environment because she recycled the egg carton.

Then she drove to the shops for more eggs.

We have always been in an environmental crisis. So when the religious nutjobs call this the apocalypse it is not really.

“I can’t come home. They need me here. This is the opportunity of a lifetime.

We were right! No-one can deny climate change now. The people will throw their money at us. The government will give us unlimited power. This is the day we can finally start saving the environment.” I start pacing again and let the patter of steps control my breath. She is acting so human. This is bigger than that.

“I’m putting your daughter on the phone,” she says, “And maybe you can explain to her why you don’t want to spend your last hours on Earth with your family.”

There is a rustling as I am shaken around in my wife’s fist. The bathroom door opens and Caldwell comes in with his fly already undone and a blood-red slit of underwear winking at me. Without looking at me he moves across the room to a urinal. I don’t break stride.

“Daddy?” says that soft, milky voice. “I’m scared.”

“Darling,” I say, “don’t be. Nothing is ever as bad as the man on the television makes it seem.” I hear a gentle stream of piss hitting the urinal. He is trying to piss quietly so he can listen in. “Humans have been surviving for tens of thousands of years. Whenever something bad happens they think of a way around it. It’s called neoliberalism. Do you want to be scared or do you want to be an explorer of the future?”

51

SCOTT WOODARD I feel like a traitor justifying neoliberalism to an eight-year-old while my boss listens in.

“What is he telling you, Emily?” My wife’s voice in the background.

“He says I’m an explorer of the future.”

“Give me the phone back,” she says. I stare at the bathroom tiles as I pace and wonder why we don’t get anyone in to clean it.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she growls.

“Do you really want me to tell my daughter that we’re all going to die, because not only is it bullshit but it’s not helpful.” My voice is a coarse whisper trying to hide under the hiss of urine.

“Have you ever considered why people try to save the environment? It’s not for their children’s future but because they have the absurd delusion that they will live to see some difference made. It’s all bullshit.”

He hits flush. His urine begins the journey along 30 kilometres of piping, through the pump station, inlet screens, extended aeration tanks, sludge filtration systems and UV disinfection ponds until it becomes water again.

“Well it’s been lovely to talk to you, honey,” I say over the hiss of the tap.

“But I need to get back to work now. I’ll see you tonight. I’ll pick up takeaway on the way home. Goodbye.”

Caldwell is watching me in the mirror reflection.

“Everything all right?” he asks.

“Oh, you know. Marital troubles.”

“I hear you. Don’t you miss the days of chaining ourselves to bulldozers and sleeping with those free love chicks?”

“I suppose we’re getting old.”

I follow him out of the bathroom. We walk through reception past rows of empty offices to the boardroom. The gaggle around the coffee machine dissipates as they see us arrive.

“Membership has gone up four-hundred per cent,” Caldwell tells me. “The government is offering us a record-sized grant.” The boardroom is quiet, waiting for him to address them. I take my seat at the end of the table and he stands by the whiteboard.

“Ok,” he tells the room. “We’ve got the resources, now what do we do?”

He looks at me. I’m not sure what to say.

52

YOU ARE NOT MY UNI VERSE There is a reason ribs cage delicate hearts: careless fists and nebulas painted by coarse fingers.

Shattered bones ache like piano keys as galaxies of dust infiltrate capillaries.

White ash forms pebbles, weighs down the basin of hearts beneath skin hiding coal instead of ivory.

Sometimes life hangs so heavy on postures aged by gravity.

Your love is too expansive to hold on to.

SOPHIE BOYD

The fallout from the rain was the cruel daytime frost. Huddling close to the fire despite the daylight, our knees touched. Your breath was shaking, a jagged gasp, and the embers were not enough to fight off the frozen air.

We had maybe a day or two of sap and cinnamon before we would become too weak to find more food. Desperation was the driver of my plan.

“I know how to pickle,” I told you.

You looked at me like I’d just quoted an obscure mathematical theorem. I pulled you to your feet and made you follow me over the scorched earth to a house whose windows were all blown out, and whose bricks were blackened.

Everything we touched crackled and snapped. I went to open the door, and you made a weak move to stop me.

“It’s okay,” I told you. “I came earlier, while you slept.”

THE

After, you and I travelled in search of anything or anyone and we found nothing. It had been days since we’d eaten. We were chewing on sap and cinnamon bark that we’d found in an abandoned farmhouse. The tins had all been cleared out by others who came before us—they never show themselves, but everywhere we go there is proof they exist.

Dead pets picked clean and empty cupboards. In an effort to conserve energy, we took foraging in turns.

END

Just acid rain.

Crouching next to the body, I pulled my knife from my belt. I pressed it into the man’s upper arm, which offered the most meat. His skin was the colour of steel, but its consistency was all slow-roasted meat. I pushed the blade straight in and soon hit bone. I twisted my knife to pull the meat away. A strange sucking noise before flesh, muscle, sinew, all released its grip on the dead man’s arm.

I thought of Nonna, her lamb and herbs, tended for hours and served with love.

I thought of my family gathered around our table, loud and happy. Gone now.

There was a dehydrated splat as the meat hit the bottom of a clay pot. I collected the meat quickly, before pouring vinegar over the top.

I stepped out of the house, and you followed me. I picked rosemary and dandelions, and using a stick, I muddled it all. I replaced the lid, then cleared my throat and turned to you. I held out the jar—I wanted you to take it. I wanted you not to be repulsed.

“I know how to pickle.”

AFTER

We entered. There in the corner, near the freshly-dead embers of a pitiful fire, were the remains of a newly-dead man. You became rigid too, reflecting the dead man’s stare. When you realised his bluish hue, you relaxed and turned to me, waiting for an explanation.

SAM VAN ZWEDEN

53

The end was a darkened sky and rain that burned. We had expected more. It doesn’t sound like much, but what a thing to be—just black clouds.

From the President’s Desk So, you’re beginning an exciting new chapter of your life and starting university, or you’re back again for another year to see if you can keep that age-old promise to yourself: that you’ll study hard all semester this time! Whatever the case, 2014 is going to be a big year and the student union, RUSU, is going to be right there with you.

Called many things at different universities across the country (union, guild, student association, representative council, etc.), RMIT University Student Union (RUSU) is your voice and support at university. We’re here to ensure you are treated fairly, that your opinion is heard, and that you enjoy your time at university both inside and outside of the classrooms.

JAMES MICHELMORE

Each year, a council of 26 students is elected by the students of RMIT to represent, support, and advocate for you. Although funded in part by the university, we operate independently of RMIT and its bureaucracies. This separation allows us to be critical of the university, to hold their administration accountable, and to ensure the students of RMIT receive a fair go.

We also offer a range of free events on and off campus, have a huge volunteer program, and facilitate everything from student clubs and associations, to the Realfoods café and even this magazine. If you want to get the most from your time at university, get involved with your Student Union—there’s literally something for everybody.

This year we’ve got a spectacular year planned for you. We’ve got parties, a ball, ReOrientation Week, World Week, conversational classes, yoga, a new student lounge, and more. We’ll also be expanding our presence on every campus with more free food and on-campus events to keep you going each week.

And if ever times get tough at university or you need advice, you can come to us. Our primary services such as student rights counselling and representation are free to all students, but for just $10 a year you can reap all the extra benefits of becoming a financial member. These include discounted or free entry to our events, tonnes of giveaways, a fortnightly newsletter, and the ability to stand for election yourself. So what are you waiting for?

James Michelmore is the President of Visit our information counter on your campus or go to su.rmit.edu.au/signup to join. the RMIT University Student Union.

Wominjeka is a word meaning ‘welcome to our land’ in the local Woiwurrung language.

New to RMIT?

Get to know your turf during Orientation.

First stop, Getting Started: www.rmit.edu.au/students/gettingstarted

Should RMIT be smoke-free?

MICHAEL KEAN

Michael Kean is the former Welfare Officer for the RMIT University Student Union and wrote this article before his resignation.

Universities worldwide are slowly adopting smoke-free policies that prohibit on-campus smoking or tobacco use.

Since 2010, the University of Adelaide, The University of Sydney, Curtin University, Macquarie University, and The University of Newcastle have become some of Australia’s first tertiary institutions to fight tobacco use. Last year, Swinburne University of Technology became the first Victorian university to implement a campus-wide ban on smoke and tobacco use.

Should RMIT be a smoke-free university too?

Researchers are becoming increasingly aware of the dangerous effects of secondhand smoking (SHS). SHS is the involuntary inhalation of the smoke from the lighted end of a cigarette, as well as the smoke exhaled by a smoker. According to the Cancer Council Australia, it is a “known human carcinogen” (a cancer-causing agent).

A report from the US Surgeon General 2006 states that there is no “safe” level of exposure to tobacco smoke. Any exposure is harmful. SHS includes over 7000 chemicals, of which 70 are known to cause cancer. In fact, non-smokers’ exposure to SHS significantly increases their risk of cancer, heart disease, increased risk of miscarriages and stillbirth in pregnant women, more severe asthma problems, and an increased risk of stroke.

RMIT has announced that its three Australian campuses will be smoke-free, starting on World No Tobacco Day on 31 May. Students and staff will not be able to smoke within three metres of building entrances and air vents. There will be small, designated areas for smokers on the Brunswick and Bundoora campuses.

Smoke-free advocates could argue not having a smoke-free policy is insufficient in providing a healthy work environment for staff and students. If, as research suggests, exposure to SHS significantly increases nonsmokers’ risk of developing serious health problems—and if, as research suggests, there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke—then it seems fairly straightforward that any SHS on campus is not safe and not without risk.

However, smoke-free policies such as those implemented at other universities can be met with some contention. It is a person’s right to smoke. It is very difficult to get people to comply with smoking bans.

However, smoke-free policies support the right for all individuals to breathe smoke-free air, rather than hinder the rights of those who choose to smoke.

Moreover, universities that have implemented campus-wide smoking bans have reported success. Following a campus-wide ban, The University of Michigan reported a significant decrease in incidences of smoking. A 2011 study by Indiana University also concluded that smoke-free campus policies are effective in reducing tobacco use among college students.

Above all, the university has a duty to provide its staff and students with a safe and healthy working environment. There is no reason anyone should be exposed to unnecessary secondhand smoke, and there is no reason the university should shirk from its responsibility to combat health and safety risks.

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