t h e E d i t o r s l i v c h a r l i e

The past editors were distinct in their style, warm organised leaders and most of all welcoming. Having started my journey at Catalyst under Beatrice, Savannah, Jasper and Vivian, I felt prepared yet intimidated to get started in 2023. I just wanted to say thank you to the last editors for handing down such a well established magazine and for all their guidance in the last few months. Many people say things like “we could’nt have done it without you”, but seriously, this print magazine would not be in our hands without you four.

And to our bold designers, each and every one of you are dedicated and talented in your craft and I had the utmost trust in you all that you would do an amazing job. And still, you exceeded my expectations. And y’all are funny, and make meetings that would be stressful an enjoyable rollercoaster - so thank you for all of your hard work.

Just as my other two lovely editors have summed up, thank you to everyone who was in not only this edition but previous ones also. We are just sitting at the beginning and yet it has already been so enjoyable to collaborate with all of you!

I truly can’t wait for what this year will bring from Catalyst, and I strongly encourage anyone to sumbit and join us in this journey.

May this edition bring a smile to your face, as you indulge in the sweet, abstract and downright explicit interpretations of what pleasure means.

Pleasure is the visual manifestation of joy, so I wish that upon each and every one of you reading this, that you may find pleasure in your own life.

However, it all started for me by joining RUSU, getting convinced by the RUSU representatives to in a long line in the summer heat to meet the right people at their events who ultimately inspired me to be a part of creating the same experience to others.

Thus, as RUSU President the essence of my goals and aspirations are to make everyone’s student experience one that we carry through our lives. By ensuring that students are receiving the best quality education that we deserve. Making university at RMIT a place that we grow in ways we expect but also unexpected. Growing as people and characters that are ready to enter the workforce and succeed in them.

So I hope you all create an experience as fun and unforgettable as mine!

I enjoy speaking about sex.

The way people skirt around the topic and how they use tame words as replacements for their experiences and feelings.

I like the pauses people make before they are about to unearth the stories of their night before and the second hand excitement and nerves you feel in return.

Conversations about sex are used as a currency to be exchanged for platonic closeness. Conversations about sex are used to garner excitement and tension.

Conversations about sex spark playlists and art and new connections, embarrassing stories, wants, needs and desires.

The secrecy of someone’s sex life once received feels gratifying, an achievement or accomplishment to acquire.

The goal to have sex, the social pressure to engage in what makes us human and the need for touch. All expressed between friends.

It’s the disgust that makes us feel good and the unspoken acknowledgement that we engage in it.

It’s how people construct outfits with the idea of sex in mind, how its commodification excites us, demonizes us, creates industries, scares others and outlaws those who work for it.

It is lucrative.

Denying the fear of sin to control us, the pride in its attainment and self inflicted breaks for self development.

It’s the way people’s experiences are boiled down to looks, minor facial expressions, inflections in tone, whispers in crowded spaces, giggles between friends, hurried text messages and diary entries. Engaging in sex is exciting, conversing about sex is better.

by blue

My bed rests underneath the Fitzroy window. The small patch of Fitzroy sky passes us as we jump on the cotton bed. Sometimes we look outside, sometimes we stare, sometimes we take it for granted, and sometimes it’s just the sky. Today we show each other texts we received from one another that made us climax. The afternoon clouds float by in a pale blue lullaby.

Our heads where our feet should be, we lie on my cotton-striped sheets. In my Miu Miu lenses I say that’s a fairy floss dog. Our phones lie next to the brown boxes. You say the cloud to its right is a fart from a composer; refined, it still smells like shit. We lie on that bed for what seems like days. We ate lunch at three p.m., it’s nearly seven at night now. I don’t want to leave this, you say. I begin to put my navy EMU’s on.

The shower starts. We time it for ten minutes. We take sixteen. You came hard by the window when we were in doggy yesterday, your head is turned towards my bedroom window. I think what I have in the kitchen, there was a horse with a fairy floss tail in the sky, you say as I think cheese.

I’m sitting on the kitchen bench reading and reading your morning text: fuck my cock is so hard thinking about your hole on my face. It makes my head toasty with memory. Toastie’s with lots of mozzarella string from our mouths. Your text made me feel a certain way today, I tell you, my leg sliding up your inner Kathmandu seam.

The kitchen bench wiped, you make comfy on your dent of the mattress as I fall into mine. Mazzy Star’s ‘Blue Light’ plays on my gifted Olufsen & Bang speaker. What does a full moon mean, you ask, I say a time well spent. We lie on our stomachs, flat doggy, sharpyieing our initials under our sides of the window. Yours has a bubble heart, mine has a full stop.

I think about the boxes, about the rails of clothing. I feel you pasta make, can’t sleep, you ask do you have to move. I let silence be your answer. One last morning missionary then, my head nods yes into your chest. A glowing moon watches us.

A clump of plump clouds watches us eat waffles.

The bed stripped, boxes filled with clutter and potential, we jump on the EVA mattress, the come stain left for chemicals to try and remove. The window shut, the sky floats by us.

When I was freshly out of the closet, as a young, maybe a bit naïve 19 year old gay man, I was excited to jump head first into the world of sex and dating. Some encounters were more successful than others, but it was a true time of discovery. During my gap year, before starting uni, I was seeing a guy semiregularly for a few months. There were never any great romantic feelings between us, but any time we met up, we seemed to end up taking our clothes off. Initially we would go to either my place or his, but after a while this changed. One time after having a few drinks in the city, we ended up taking a walk in the park nearby. We snuck into the empty Sydney Myer Music Bowl and we ended up making out there. Eventually as it always is our pants started coming off. The thrill of being in public is something I never experienced before and at that time I ended up having the most thrilling sexual encounter of my life up until that point. Next time I saw him, we ended up doing the same in the Carlton Gardens, late at night, surrounded by few other couples, who I think might have had the same idea. I never saw that guy again after that, but have had plenty more of public encounters with my current boyfriend. On the beach, in the park, next to the Yarra, even on an elevator once. The thrill of public encounters is as strong now, years after the first time, as they were the very first night, when I found myself lying half-naked on the wet grass of the Sydney Myer. The second the first item of clothing comes off, the heart starts being faster, hands get all clammy, breathing gets all shaky and thoughts start rushing to the brain “what if someone sees”, “is this the time someone calls the police on us”, “don’t get caught”. The physical symptoms never stop, they only enhance the experience, but the thoughts stop soon enough, and are overwhelmed by the pure feeling of joy, thrill, the risqué feeling and pleasure.

‘How does one achieve eternal bliss? By saying dada. With a noble gesture and delicate propriety. Till one goes crazy. Till one loses consciousness.’

HUGO BALL, 1916