CATALYST: 'UNTAMED', Issue 4, Volume 70

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the untamed issue

catalyst

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LOGICA

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FINDING RESOURCES...

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untamed

the catalyst podcast This is (most of) the crew of Cataclysm: The Catalyst Podcast. Guess which one of them is violating their parole conditions!

Whether or not they’ve been convicted of arson, they’re all RMIT students and they all chip in to create Cataclysm. Each fortnight they bring you a show that covers arts, food, arson, music, film and brings you readings from talented writers and poets. They also comb Melbourne for the perfect date spot, and talk about politics on a couch in a segment called Politics On The Couch.

Finbar O’Mallon- I’m the Executive Producer, big cheese, big dog,

cowboy, George Bush, chief commissioner, big papa, big papa Bush dog.

Matilda Edwards- I do music for Cataclysm. I chat to all sorts of young local artists and find out their musical history, their plans for the future and their thoughts on Melbourne’s music scene.

Ashleigh McMillan- I watch films and then I record myself talking about my opinions on them. Then I edit that ramble into something cohesive, so I vaguely sound like I know what I’m talking about. It’s a very hard job.

Richard Ferguson (not pictured)- I am the other half of Cataclysm’s Politics on the Couch segment. I’m 20 in face but 78 in soul.

Broede Carmody- I’m one half of the regular segment Politics on the

Beth Gibson- I do the readings for Cataclysm. Every fortnight a

Jack Callil (not pictured)- I occasionally do arts interviews for, and have sometimes hosted, the super-great Cataclysm podcast. So far we’ve uncovered some fantastic creative stirrings in RMIT, talking to students about passions in photography, fashion, creative writing and more

Rushani Epa- I’m Cataclysm’s mouth, meaning I do food and restaurant reviews. Sometimes I get taken out on dates for our Date Night segment and I get spoilt rotten, like the time Richard took me to McDonald’s.

Couch. Richard and I chat about the week in politics and the issues that affect students. There is an extreme amount of sass.

different RMIT student reads aloud their own short story or poem, just like a bedtime story (yay!).

There are others : Alexander Darling, Alan Weedon, Rachael Dexter and Darcy Oliver, but we’re always looking for more crew! facebook.com/RMITcataclysm cataclysm.podbean.com

4

colophon

editors Alan Weedon Allison Worrall Broede Carmody

subeditors 4 | 70 July-August 2014

editorial committee Alexander Darling Amelia Theodorakis Beth Gibson David Ross Denham Sadler Emily Westmoreland Finbar O’Mallon Jo Burnell Joshua Allen Kara Gibbons Melissa Di Giacomo Michael Walsh Richard Ferguson Rushani Epa Sam Cucchiara Samantha Winnicki Sarah Maunder Yara Murray-Atfield

art direction Alan Weedon Angie Pai Brad Bowden Chelsea Hickman Carly Candiloro Emma Do Jack Callil

photographers Patricia Casten (www.patriciacasten.com) Alan Weedon (alnwdn.com)

logo design Lachlan Siu (lachlansiu.com)

Alexander Darling Joshua Allen Finbar O’Mallon Sam Cucchiara Richard Ferguson Yara Murray-Atfield

proofreaders

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

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.

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

Alexander Darling Amelia Mills Alan Weedon Allison Worrall Broede Carmody Finbar O’Mallon Rushani Epa Victoria Knauf

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

with thanks to Kevin Cheung Patrick Lavery

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contents

06

Editors’ Note

Number Crunch

University News [features]

12 20

Be Nude, Not Rude

Safe as Houses

Sam Cucchiara

Michael Walsh

What Women Want

The Other Victims

Rachael Dexter

Alexander Darling

Food For Thought Alicia Barker

07 08 15 23 26

[art x culture]

32 35 42 48

Six Ways to Go

Untitled (with short spoon)

Rushani Epa

Henry Law

Fall Of The Damned

‘Labyrinths’: Artist Profile

Henry Law

Ernesto Rios

The Fight to Save The Palace Denham Sadler

Family Melange Matilda Marozzi

Let’s Talk About Threesomes SLM

An Open Letter to My Hair Harriet Conron

34 36 45 50

[creative writing]

54 56

Pieces

Animals

Paul Millar

Izzy Roberts-Orr

April

how to survive in the animal kingdom

Vince Spotswood

[rusu]

58

RUSU President’s Address James Michelmore

Francesca Di Stefano

55 57

number crunch

The estimated number of ants in the world

000, 000, 000, 000, 000

000, 000, 000 The estimated number of humans

smack

The name for a group of jellyfish

10, 7,

320 225 The number of babies the average cockroach will have in its lifetime

The number of litres an adult elephant will drink in a day

Hey there! Yes, you with the face. Thanks for picking up issue four of Catalyst.

While we can be busy worker drones here at the student magazine, we also know how to let loose every now and then. So that’s what this edition is all about.

Within these sexy pages you’ll find writing on everything from female-friendly porn to mountain lions. There is also a very on-theme piece by Harriet Conron, who writes an open letter to her curly, wild hair. Oh, and we sent feature writer Sam Cucchiara to a nudist pool party. Don’t ever say we’re boring.

However Catalyst has a knack for tackling some pretty serious topics, and this issue is no exception.

Make sure you bring your tissues because Alexander Darling speaks to two people who, while still in high school, lost a parent to suicide. Meanwhile Michael Walsh investigates the trauma experienced by someone whose father was arrested for child sex offences. It makes for pretty hectic reading, but these

are important stories that need to be told. And, if you want to find out more, get in touch with our writers over Twitter (we’ve included their handles at the start of each piece).

Like many of you, our semester break was spent slaving away for ‘the man’ to pay rent. This edition nearly broke us with the usual mid-year slump. But we made it in the end which we atrribute to a carton of energy drinks.

This means we have two more issues left, so you should probably submit now (and start prepping for the end of year bash). And we’re going to make sure they’re the best two issues you’ll ever lay eyes on.

With love, The eds xx

@broedecarmody / @allisonworrall / @alnwdn

broede, allison and alan

editors’ note

catalyst

RMIT braces for funding cuts

Doubts linger over RMIT’s smoking ban

Broede Carmody

Richard Ferguson

RMIT University is preparing to lose around $50 million in funding per year if the Government’s overhaul of the tertiary education sector proceeds.

In an email to staff on 30 June, RMIT Vice Chancellor Margaret Gardener called the Government’s cuts to higher education as outlined in the federal budget “very substantial”.

“RMIT cannot sustain such a cut in funding without facing a significant decline in the quality of education, research and services provided by the University,” she said. “The University will need to set fees to redress this situation when the government deregulates fees for domestic government funded places.”

Communications courses could lose the most funding, with industry-wide modeling indicating government contributions will drop by around 49per cent. This means communications courses would have to rise from around $6000 per year to almost $12,000 in order to make up the shortfall. If the Government’s plan to deregulate the university sector passes the Senate, course fees could rise even higher.

Environmental and social studies would also be hit particularly hard according to the modeling seen by Catalyst, with these disciplines potentially losing 43 per cent and 37 per cent of government contributions respectively.

RMIT has yet to formally announce what student contributions will look like from 2016, however in her email to staff Professor Gardener indicated the university will have no choice but to increase tuition fees due to funding cuts.

“The University has invested substantially in major new physical and virtual infrastructure to improve student learning and experience in the last decade,” she said. “There are major planned new expenditures for the next five years to ensure that students are learning in 21st century ways. This could not be sustained in the face of these cuts without an increase in student contributions.”

In May, RMIT University Student Union’s education officer Abena Dove told Catalyst the Government’s changes to tertiary education were the biggest funding cuts in a decade.

“It’s important for all student unions to mobilise against these cuts,” she said. “They will affect all students, especially those from low socio-economic backgrounds.”

Mining billionaire turned politician Clive Palmer— whose party now controls the balance of power in the Senate—has previously indicated he would not support legislation aimed at deregulating university fees.

The consequences for smoking at RMIT remain unclear as the long-awaited smoke-free policy comes into force across the university’s campuses.

Despite much publicity around the move, the only plans so far to enforce the smoking ban is the hope students and staff will encourage smokers to move off campus.

Acting Vice Chancellor Owen Hughes said in a statement to Catalyst the approach is all part of the university’s aim is to “shift the culture on our Victorian campuses”.

“We want students and staff to feel empowered to politely point out to smokers on campus that they are not doing the right thing,” he said. “We feel that implementing this initiative is everyone’s responsibility.”

It appears RMIT security will only be able to advise smokers to move-on, rather than force them off campus or issue fines to students for lighting up.

“In semester two, security staff will hand information to smokers on campus informing them on the policy and giving them Quit information,” Professor Hughes said.

The university has noted it will be harder for smokers to light-up on campus due to the removal of smoking-friendly facilities across the campus as it attempts to encourage rather than force the ban.

These measures include the removal of cigarette bins and the creation of designated smoking zones at the Brunswick and Bundoora campuses.

Professor Hughes feels this positive approach is being welcomed by RMIT students.

“Many smokers, too, have indicated that they think the policy is fair and sensible,” he said. “Smokers usually know that they have a bad habit and welcome a ‘nudge’ towards moderating or giving up.”

RMIT has been awaiting the arrival of the smoking ban since Vice Chancellor Margaret Gardiner’s announcement on 10 February 2014. RMIT joins the University of Melbourne, Swinburne, La Trobe and Monash universities in the implementation of campus-wide smoking bans.

RMIT University Student Union President James Michelmore was contacted for comment but did not respond before deadline. However Catalyst understands RUSU has previously indicated its support for the smoke-free policy.

@richaferguson

@broedecarmody

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9

news

Broede Carmody

Allison Worrall

A member of the RMIT Student Union Council labeled a female RMIT staff member a “witch” in a report presented to the SUC before the comments were later retracted.

Himasha Fonseka, city coordinator of the RMIT University Student Union, called the staff member a “witch” in his monthly report presented to SUC on 26 June.

“Looks like we might be having a smoothie party on the balcony outside of bld 8 lvl 8,” the report read. “Wicked place but it is guarded by some witch who refused to believe the place could be used by humans. Of course I will go to someone more ‘powerful’ as we should be utilising the great space.”

However in the published minutes of the SUC meeting, made available to councilors on 30 June, the comments had been edited out.

Catalyst understands a RUSU staff member read through the draft SUC reports before the meeting and discussed the wording of Fonseka’s report with him directly. Fonseka then asked for the comments to be redacted on the night of SUC, however the agenda had already been printed for distribution.

When contacted about whether it was appropriate for a member of SUC to use the word “witch” and to confirm the above events, Fonseka told Catalyst via email his report should have been amended prior to distribution.

“It was a draft report that was amended prior to the agenda’s distribution but was inadvertently overlooked when preparing the agenda,” he said. “The minutes are currently unconfirmed so shouldn’t be distributed or discussed outside of SUC.” At the 2013 student elections Fonseka won more than 60 per cent of the primary vote for the position of city coordinator on the Connect ticket.

Around 80 per cent of the books and resources at Swanston Academic Library will be moved to the Bundoora campus during upcoming renovations at the university’s city campus.

Construction for the New Academic Street is expected to begin later this year and will include the renovation of the library in Building 8.

The student union has warned RMIT existing student spaces are already struggling to service the more than 20,000 students on the city campus and there are concerns the library renovations will only exacerbate the problem.

Despite requests, an RMIT staff member was not available to interview about how the renovations will impact students.

But in a statement, a spokesperson said arrangements had not been finalised.

“There will be some affects on the Library, which is inevitable when considering the plans include refurbishing the Library and delivering 40 per cent more study spaces for students,” the spokesperson said.

Catalyst understands that during renovations, a transfer service will be available to students in the city campus who need access to library resources that have been moved to Bundoora.

Catalyst also understands the university will keep the most frequently accessed books and resources on the city campus throughout the refurbishment.

But the president of RMIT University Student Union (RUSU) James Michelmore said that while the renovations will provide more student spaces in the long term, the union was concerned about what will be available throughout the three-year construction period.

“Our real concern at the moment is whether RMIT will maintain study and meeting spaces for students during the NAS construction,” Mr Michelmore told Catalyst.

“RUSU wants to ensure students are not unduly inconvenienced or disadvantaged over the next three years of construction and we continue to lobby RMIT to this end.”

The projected finish date for the NAS construction is in 2016.

Broede successfully campaigned on the Connect ticket at the 2013 student elections for the position of Catalyst editor. As a result he is an ex-officio member of SUC.

@allisonworrall

@broedecarmody

SUC member City Library moving labels female staff to Bundoora as “witch”

Features

@samcucchiara

sam cucchiara

catalyst

Be nude, not rude

feature

It’s late on a Saturday afternoon when I arrive at a swim school in Werribee. I’m a little bit early but I’m taken inside by Trevor, who I spoke to over the phone a few days ago. He runs a club that holds swim nights here twice a month. I’ve been warned against disclosing the pool’s exact location.

The centre isn’t very big. There’s a 25—meter pool with two lanes, a smaller drill pool, and a spa. There are people putting out soft drinks and snacks on a trestle table, while a group of men are draping a black tarp over the windows that look out onto the street.

As I start to scribble down notes, a woman comes up to me and introduces herself. She tells me she heard I was coming, and is willing to talk to me, on the condition she remains anonymous. Her family doesn’t know she’s a naturist.

Although it varies between different cultures and places, many define naturism as a lifestyle lived in harmony with nature. And while it’s mainly expressed through being nude in social settings, it’s generally accepted that nudism is only one part of the lifestyle.

As well as attending clothing—optional beaches and resorts, naturists can join a host of clubs that hold regular social events, like nude swim nights.

This is a weekly ritual for 29-year-old Lisa*, who’s been attending events run by the Solar West Nude Leisure group for two-and-a-half years. She’s now on the committee, and it’s her job to collect tonight’s entry fees. I take a seat next to her, and she peels off her top and bra.

A younger-looking guy walks up to us.

“Excuse me guys, I’m kind of new today.” After fumbling with his money, Lisa reassures him by saying: “I take it you’re a bit nervous, it’s cool.”

He’s wearing a jumper, track pants and a baseball cap-he’s similar in age to Lisa, and looks like a regular guy off the street.

“This pool here, the bigger pool, it’s actually warmer so my advice, take the cold one first then jump in that second so you won’t get as much of a shock,” Lisa tells him. “Sorry about the spa being out of work.”

He wanders away and gets his kit off.

We’re alone for a moment, so I ask Lisa to take me back to where it all started.

“I grew up in a country town and it was a bit of a running joke in the schoolyard that there was a nudist colony way up in the bushes out whoopwhoop,” she says. “And it was a joke within the back of my head, it was this curiosity of actually wanting to go there.”

Lisa joined an online nudist forum in 2012, before mustering up the courage to attend her first event.

“It was a bit nerve—wracking at first, but as soon as you realise everybody was getting their clothes off and you’re going to, the nerves were over. After that it was just like who cares? I sort of saw it a bit like a costume party, but the costumes are not really there, if you get my drift.”

I ask her why she’s kept it a secret from her family.

13

“My parents and I sort of don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of things,” she says. “I still love them, I still visit them, I still catch-up with them, like every good kid. From nudity to politics, you name it, I know I’m going to be involved in probably a verbal shit-storm if I did that.”

Being naked is commonly associated with sex. It’s a sensitive topic, but I ask Lisa if she’s ever been approached for sex during a nudist event. She hesitates for moment, and pulls back from my recorder.

“I really should be honest here,” she says. Lisa’s been bubbly and giggly so far, but her tone changes.

“I have been asked to join in threesomes with other couples. I just simply tell them no and report it to the committee.”

She assures me this sort of thing is “extremely rare”.

Solar West’s President, Trevor Harris, says there’s been a significant shift in public perception towards nudism over the last two decades. After the club was formed in 1993, its events would attract up to 200 people—with around 70 of those being children.

“Back then it was good,” he says. “Now at the moment if you said there was 70 naked children in a group of 100-odd adults, most people would think that something untoward is happening.

“If you won’t do it with your clothes on, you won’t do it here,” Trevor tells me. “There’s been the odd kissing and cuddling, but nothing you guys wouldn’t see at events or pubs. Anymore more than that, people get spoken to, and if we have to speak to them more than once, they’re out.”

I count a total of 21 people tonight, but I’m told it’s still a small turnout. There aren’t any families with children, and most of the nudists are much older.

It’s like any other party on a Saturday night really— everyone’s mingling and having a good time, except they’re all in their birthday suits, and they’ve swapped sofas for coloured noodles.

In Australia, nude bathing stretches far back before European colonisation in 1788. While the British were mostly unapproving of nudity, some settlers eventually adopted the Indigenous Australians’ practice of bathing in the buff. In 1833, however, sea bathing was banned entirely during daylight hours. This law was not overturned until 1902, but even then, both men and women were required to be covered in neck-to-knee bathing suits.

In 1975, Adelaide’s Maslin’s Beach became the country’s first legally recognised clothing-optional beach.

The Victorian Labor government followed suit some eight years later, establishing four clothing—optional beaches in the state: Campbell’s Cove in Werribee, Sunnyside North in Mount Eliza as well as two beaches in Torquay: Point Impossible and Southside.

While they’ve been subject to heavy criticism from opponents since their establishment, Campbell’s Cove has received a particularly bad reputation in recent years and is at risk of having its nude status overturned. The Wyndham City Council recently conducted a review of the beach, arguing it isn’t as

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secluded as it used to be. The council wants to redevelop the area, and upgrade its landscaping.

In Victoria, “wilful and obscene exposure” in a public place is illegal, and carries a jail term of up to two years. In other words, exposing your genitals in any place visible to the public is technically a criminal offence. However, under the Nudity (Prescribed Areas) Act 1983, the state government has authority—after consulting with the relevant local council—to prescribe an area as having clothing-optional status.

Trevor says if people don’t like what they see, they should look in the opposite direction.

“Why go to a clothing-optional beach? Are you there just to have a perve?”

For Lisa, it’d be sad to see the beach shut down.

“It’s one of those few opportunities you can get, that you can experience every ounce of sun on your body. I’d be ashamed it that were overturned.”

Deborah*, who’s been a nudist for 17 years, is here with her partner. She’s in the water and leaning on the pool ledge. I’m kneeling on the deck beside her, trying not to get my clothes wet.

She works in a corporate job for a large multinational company and wants to protect her identity.

She fears she’d be dismissed if her work found out.

“They’re a little bit meh about that kind of stuff,” she says. “They assume that’s where all the people that check out all the little kids are. I couldn’t cope with that.”

But then she laughs, and recalls seeing one of her co-workers at an event.

“Funny thing—there once was a guy from my work that rocked up to a swimming event, and well, I thought, okay—you’re here for the same reason as me and that’s not a problem.”

It gets even funnier when she tells me how she deals with unwanted sexual attention.

“A couple of times at nudist beaches I’ve been approached by randoms in the bushes. I fob them off and I just point and go, if you were male, then that would be bigger, and they just scurry off into the bushes.”

An older man arrives at the door, alone—he’s an hour late. Lisa rolls out of the pool to collect his entry free, joking it’s not her “best look” as she wraps a towel around her waist.

For her, being around “real people” with different body shapes has been refreshing, and in many ways, therapeutic.

“Technology has gotten so good you can fabricate anything,” she says. “I’ll go a bit personal. I’ve had my own mother tell me to lose weight. You look around and you see there’s no dead-set perfectly airbrushed body around here.”

As I’m talking to Trevor, his partner Barbara wanders over. She’s 32 and started skinny-dipping as a kid.

“I’d actually walk in to the dam or whatever with my bathers on, and then take them off and swim around holding on to them.”

Trevor, who’s 52, calls himself a “backyard nudist”—he’d frequently sunbathe naked at home in New Zealand.

untamed

I still haven’t had a direct answer from anyone about what’s so appealing about going au naturale.

I sense there’s a thrill of voyeurism in it, but I ask Barbara what she thinks.

“I find most people more truthful and more honest when you’re talking to them [naked] because they’ve got nowhere to hide,” she says. “There seems to be a lot less bullshit when you’re running around naked than there ever is when you’re at a social occasion and people are clothed.”

Unlike the others I’ve spoken to, Barbara’s work colleagues know what she gets up to on weekends, and so does her mum. But that was by accident. She says she’d frequently tell her mum she was going swimming on the weekends with Trevor. And when they were going on a holiday one time, Barbara accidentally let slip to her mum she needed to buy togs to swim in the hotel pool.

“And mum goes, ‘Don’t you go swimming all the time?’ ‘Yes mum, I go swimming naked normally.’

So yes, that’s how my parents found out we were nudists.”

I must admit I’ve myself been invited to go for a dip in the buff, both by Trevor over the phone and now again by Barbara. I don’t know how I’d go being bare-arsed in front of a group of strangers—even though they’re not really strangers anymore.

I decide to keep my clothes on. Trevor tells me I’m the odd one out.

They’ve got to be dressed by 6.30pm, as there’s another event straight after. Barbara’s about to go organise supper, but she gives me a tip for the newbies: “If it’s your first time, bring a sarong. That way you can wear the sarong, and you drop the sarong as you hop into the water, so you’re never running around outside in the air naked.”

Trevor’s tip? “Be nude, not rude.”

Hats­—I mean clothes—off to anyone who gives it a go. *Lisa and Deborah’s names have been changed

@mikehwalsh

michael walsh

feature

Safe as houses

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16

untamed

“The day that Dad got arrested, I actually knew about his crime two years earlier,” Ryan tells me. We’re sitting at a table in his mum’s open-plan dining room. There are a few tradies working on scaffolds at the house next door, but it’s quiet in here; layers of brick and plaster strip their shouts of all discernible meaning and, for better or worse, hide stories like Ryan’s from unauthorised ears.

Trigger warning: child sexual abuse

“I was about 12 or 13 when I found his child pornography,” he says.

“I watched it because I was just interested in it. So I’ve seen a lot of kids being molested and stuff. I didn’t really understand it at the time. I tried to make sense of it in my head, and when I figured out it wasn’t right, I thought maybe it wasn’t a big deal.

I thought maybe Mum knew about it,” he says with a shrug. “She didn’t, obviously.”

The police came knocking on a Thursday morning, while Ryan and his siblings were getting ready for school. “Mum actually thought the warrant was for my arrest, because I was downloading music,” Ryan says, amused. “But I was already aware they were there for my dad.”

The kids had to go upstairs to their bedroom while the police spoke with their mum. “My older sister was trying to figure out what the cops were there for, and I was just like ‘I know why they’re here.’ She eventually made me fess up,” Ryan says.

According to evidence given in court, their father had a collection of child abuse images that numbered in the tens of thousands, including a stash of backups.

Some of the children in the images were barely 12 months old, and many were violent in nature.

“I knew where they all were as well,” Ryan says, “because as a kid—well, you can’t get porn yourself, so you go looking for your Dad’s stash.” He laughs for a moment: a common teenage anecdote, made ugly by the circumstances. He sobers quickly. “My older sister wanted to get rid of the backups, but I told her not to. She was like ‘I don’t care, he’s our Dad.’ But I refused to get them for her.”

What unfolded next is sad and banal. Ryan’s father was sentenced to 18 months jail and a lifetime on the sex offender registry. His parents split up, his mum sold the family home and moved the kids to a cheaper suburb. Ryan began to receive psychiatric treatment for a number of mental illnesses, while his mum began to drink heavily—soon, he would too.

In the midst of all this, a report in the local newspaper ensured the public at large were privy to the family’s secret, further compounding their trauma.

“People would look at me like I was filth,” Ryan says. “They knew who I was. I sort of thought what, I’m fucking filthy because of what my dad did?”

“Naming and Shaming” I discovered the details of Ryan’s father’s conviction through an unauthorised online sex offender registry; websites that make available to the public the conviction records of various Australian sex offenders, ‘naming-and-shaming’ for the sake of community safety.

In Ryan’s case, the newspaper report on his father’s crime was posted online, and I was able to track him down through social media. He was willing to speak on condition of anonymity, and as such his name has been changed.

With the exception of Western Australia, every state government in Australia has been reluctant to implement official public registers of convicted sex offenders.

The rationale behind public registry legislation is

feature

that they keep communities safe from sexual violence, following the underlying premise that sex offenders—in particular child sex offenders—are untameable predators who attack indiscriminately, giving the community the right to know where they are at all times.

This concern illuminates one of the major flaws in our society’s understanding of child sex crimes: our focus is always on repeat offenders, who are a relative rarity, while the distressing truths about the locations and contexts that actually pose the most risk to children—as well as the systemic failures that compound their suffering—are continuously swept under the rug.

Either way, the victims—in all their forms—are constantly a distant afterthought.

“Another pair of eyes”

It’s cold and overcast, and everybody seems to have an awful story to tell; one of the women walking behind me spends much of the trek from Brunswick to the city centre sobbing loudly, at times almost shrieking. There is little chanting among the marchers until they hit Spring Street, their 130,000-signature strong petition supporting a public sex offenders register trailing in a van.

The sheer scale of the suffering child sex abuse causes is hard to put into words, but plenty of it was on show at Derryn Hinch’s Jail2Justice walk in late May, with hundreds of victims and their loved ones—some well-known, but most anonymous in their pain—joining the veteran broadcaster on the last leg of his campaign.

“I’m sure that some offenders are able to be rehabilitated,” Bruce says, “but the people that we’re really referring to who should be on the public sex offenders register are serial offenders, people who have a history of repeat offences and they usually escalate in violence.”

It’s hard to argue with someone like Bruce Morcombe, who along with his wife, Denise, has shown an almost superhuman stoicism since their son Daniel’s murder 10 years ago, which ended in the conviction of repeat child sex offender Brett Peter Cowan last March. Both Bruce and Denise participated in the walk, representing their child safety advocacy organisation The Daniel Morcombe Foundation, and they both support the creation of a public register.

“There are do-gooders who suggest that everyone

17

deserves a second chance and that’s a fair call,” Bruce tells me, standing on the steps of Parliament, “but predators against children—that is a sickness.”

Bruce is absolutely right. Repeat child sex offenders are particularly dangerous. They are often untameable, their offending typically becomes more violent as time goes on, and the community does need protection from them. But the question remains: are public registers the answer?

Queensland University of Technology criminologist Dr Kelly Richards says there is no solid proof that public registers reduce reoffending rates among convicted sex offenders. “The research evidence from overseas and all the research evidence that’s just emerging in Australia says they do not have any impact on community safety. They’re just not very well run: people can go underground, change their name and change their address,” she says.

An expert on child sex abuse prevention, Dr Richards was awarded a fellowship grant in 2009 to travel overseas to study Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA), a form of sex crime prevention that would likely sit awkwardly with many Australians, despite its documented success.

COSA are groups of trained volunteers who work with soon-to-be-released prisoners. They are trained in the criminal justice system, and are given their designated offender’s case file.

Upon the offender’s release, the circle has two main responsibilities, the first of which is to support the offender: helping them find somewhere to live, buy a mobile phone, or even enrol in a TAFE course.

“These offenders have usually burnt their bridges. They’ve most likely offended in their families, so they usually don’t have a support network,” says Dr Richards. “And we know that stress can create situations where offenders want to reoffend, partly because stress is actually a driver of sex offending.”

However, the most important aspect of COSA lies in holding the offender accountable. They monitor them, meet with them frequently, and alert authorities to any strange behaviour before a crime is committed.

“The volunteers keep an eye on the offender, and if they see anything they think is dodgy—and circles often do, they will often see offenders form friendships with people who have young children for example—they then speak to a sort of ‘out-circle’: a group of professionals, as well as the offender’s parole officer,” Dr Richards says. “Then they look at the case, and usually take the guy back to prison.”

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In Canada, where the programs are currently in their 20th year, research has shown a 60-80 per cent reduction in repeat child sex offending among participants. So, why has a COSA pilot program never been trialled in Australia?

“I think governments are worried that the population is so angry at sex offenders that COSAs would never work. They are all hoping one of the other state governments will do it first,” Dr Richards says. “But I don’t think that is actually the case.

The ‘pitchfork mentality’ exists across the Western world, so it’s exactly the same in Canada, the United States, the UK and New Zealand, and they all have successful programs operating.”

I can’t help but think of Ryan’s situation: he may not have faced pitchforks, but he certainly did feel the sting of stigma over his father’s paedophilia. As such, it’s not surprising that increasingly populist governments are reluctant to attempt COSA programs, while the policies that do get floated—like GPS monitoring, or public naming-and-shaming through registers— are often focused on punishing the offender upon release rather than achieving positive results.

“The trouble with the naming-and-shaming and the pitchfork mentality,” Richards says, “is that we know these kinds of crimes thrive in secrecy, and we know that those sorts of behaviours drive offenders into isolation. So it’s actually the opposite of what we should be doing: we should be being very open about the issue, and surrounding that person with people in a supportive way but also as another pair of eyes.”

Despite all this, it’s worth recognising that repeat child sex abusers are a minority: relatively speaking, child sex offenders have low recidivism rates compared to other offenders so the fact they are always front-and-centre when it comes to policymaking tends to obscure many of the bigger issues surrounding child sexual abuse.

In truth, it’s the systems we trust to deal with these crimes that are most in need of a thorough crackdown, yet they seem to receive the least scrutiny.

“Australia doesn’t have a justice system” “I had one young mother walk with me, and she said probably the wisest words I’ve heard in the whole 10 days,” Derryn Hinch said, addressing the crowd before the march. “She said ‘Australia has a legal system, it doesn’t have a justice system.’ And the policemen out here, they know that this is not a justice system: they do their job, but it’s a process. It’s a criminal process.”

And when it comes to child victims, it’s a process that is fundamentally flawed.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Personal Safety Survey, published in 2005, a staggering 12 per cent of women and 4 per cent of men experience sexual assault before the age of 15—yet

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the number of recorded convictions for child sexual abuse is not nearly as high. In fact, the crime has one of the lowest conviction rates of all offences types.

Dr Richards says child sexual abuse crimes largely go undetected, and in detected cases, it can be very difficult to get evidence. “For a start, you’ve got a victim who’s a child, and children, to put it bluntly, make terrible witnesses. People have all these views that children are unreliable, that they can’t remember, or that they make things up and live in a fantasy world,” she says. “You’ve also just got one person’s word against another’s and there’s a power dynamic because it’s an adult’s word against a child’s.”

To make matters worse, the majority of victims do not even report the crimes committed against them to police, and when they do it is almost always months or even years after the crime, making the collection of evidence, as well as the victim’s own recollection of events, exceptionally difficult.

This is mainly due to one distressing yet little-known fact: the biggest risk to children is not some weird man living down the street, it is the child’s immediate family circle.

According to the ABS, male relatives or close family friends commit approximately 60 per cent of all child sex abuse crimes, while 30.9 per cent are committed by others known to the victim such as neighbours, sports coaches and clergy. Strangers commit only 11.1 per cent of offences (Statistics add up to more than 100 per cent here because there are cases in which family or friends are also neighbours, sports coaches and clergy).

Intrafamilial offending usually takes place over an extended period of time, features multiple acts of abuse, and is often shrouded in secrecy, making it difficult for young children to remember the specific details of each incident by the time they come forward to police. Although revised offence categories such as Victoria’s Persistent sexual abuse of a child law have been implemented across Australia— removing the need for complainants to remember the specific details of multiple acts of abuse—these laws have ultimately been unsuccessful at raising the conviction rate: they are chronically underutilised by prosecutors, for reasons the Australian Law Reform Commission is still not sure of.

These widespread systemic flaws should be a source of community outrage. They have been well known in law reform circles since as early as 1998, and yet the conviction problem persists.

“We’ve had no voice—no voice,” said one lady I spoke to at the rally. Both of her now-adult children were abused by a family friend but police have been unable to press charges because there wasn’t enough evidence for a solid conviction. “Nobody’s listened to us, and nobody’s believed us.”

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In 1993, Helen Garner referred to a ‘forcefield that repels outsiders’—the rules of social discourse that make it difficult for someone suspicious of family violence to sound the necessary alarms “You don’t want to tear the family apart” Just as the legal system spurns victims of sexual abuse, it also ignores the trauma experienced by offenders’ families, who are often completely unaware of the offender’s crimes but must live with the consequences.

“My sister’s living interstate,” Ryan says. “She hasn’t dealt with her stuff, she just sort of blocked it out.” He cracks a wry smile. “And there’s still a hole in my bedroom wall upstairs­—I punched it in one time, when Mum tried to kick me out.”

After the trial and the embarrassing newspaper report, Ryan’s family retreated into layers of redbrick suburban normality while their shock, misery and eventual resentment was left to fester inside. Yet despite the mounting inevitability of a family breakdown, justice authorities did little to help them.

“They didn’t give two shits about us,” Ryan says.

“They just wanted to prosecute another sex offender. You don’t really get any support afterwards, you get a shrink but that’s all. They just send shrinks around to talk to you.”

Over time, tensions in the home grew increasingly volatile.“I became a heavy drinker. Mum would let me,” Ryan says. “I think she went a bit screw-loose at that time. It was weird.”

He continues very carefully. “She started attacking us, and we didn’t quite get why. I think maybe we reminded her of our dad. At times, it got physical— we’d both be drunk all the time. And I was a kid for fuck’s sake, drunk,” he says.

“I didn’t feel protected anymore by the people who should’ve been protecting me.”

As Ryan goes on, his story begins to hint towards a much darker and challenging aspect of the child sex offender puzzle: considering the amount of vitriol the community at large feels towards paedophiles, to what extent are we complicit in child sex offending remaining a dark family secret that often only gets reported to police years later?

“You don’t want to tear the family apart,” Ryan says.

“I didn’t come forward about Dad’s child pornography because I didn’t want to tear the family apart.

You don’t really feel like you can come forward… It would have been nice if I could have told someone he was a paedophile and got him into therapy or

something, and if family members or society found out, they could just be like ‘oh that’s a shame, he needs to sort his shit out.’”

Walking out into the street, I notice that all the houses are practically identical: red-bricked and double storied ‘McMansions’, with neat manicured front yards. I wonder how many of these perfectly suburban homes are hiding dark secrets.

Writing about the Daniel Valerio child murder case in 1993, Helen Garner referred to a ‘force-field that repels outsiders’—the rules of social discourse that make it difficult for someone suspicious of family violence to sound the necessary alarms. It is customary to assume the best of those closest to us, and to take for granted the safety of the nuclear family; but in truth, we can never really know what goes on behind all those layers of brick and plaster, and what desires drive the characters who live within.

Preventing child sexual abuse is all about staying vigilant, but vigilance must start at home: the place where the majority of the threats lie, and where the majority of the pain is felt.

If you need to talk to someone, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14. You can also call the Family Violence and Sexual Asssault line on 1800 737 732

@rachdexter64

rachael dexter

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What women want

untamed

“Are you sure you want to talk about porn while you’re in the supermarket?” “Of course! It’s fine.”

While weaving supermarket aisles, Catharine Lumby is talking about the juicy nuances of feminist or ‘female-friendly’ porn. Lumby is a media professor and feminist author to boot.

I’d like to think there were some eavesdropping mothers ditching their trolleys laden with goods to scurry home and google that somewhat incongruous phrase ‘feminist porn’. Because while for Lumby, female sexuality is a completely appropriate topic of conversation for the fruit and veg section, it is still fairly controversial in broader society.

Porn has become almost mundanely commonplace in youth culture. According to online data analysis site Alexa, tube sites like Pornhub and Redtube are sitting in the global rank of the internet’s top 100 visited sites. Some take out spots above Instagram, Pirate Bay and even Google Australia.

But this barrage of waxed bods, gonzo clips and money shots ain’t such a welcoming world for the ladies. Much of the mainstream smut exploding out of huge production studios in the US has an exploitative, patriarchal focus and an attitude towards women that often borders on the disturbinly violent.

Enter feminist porn, or ‘fem porn’. Back in the ’80s female producers such as American Candida Royalle started to explore the female gaze on screen, asserting the desires of women in the male-saturated industry. Now, even Oprah promotes female-oriented adult films, and here in Melbourne there is a thriving feminist porn scene that is said to rival the infamous queer scene in the bay area of San Francisco.

“So, are we talking about lesbian porn?” I hear you ask. Well no, not quite. Feminist porn caters to all sexuality preferences—gay, straight, bi and trans— but the main game is that it’s porn made by women for women; some call it ‘female-friendly’. What turns women on? What do women want to see in sex?

There’s a big emphasis on ethics. Fem porn focuses on non-violent representations of sex, independent distribution rather than selling to huge corporate studios and casting diverse body types and sexuality in actors who want to be involved and enjoy what they do on camera.

“If we’re going to acknowledge that pornography is quite pervasive and very accessible, I think one of the things we want to promote is diversity and an experimentation with the question, ‘can there be ethical porn from a female point of view?’” says Lumby. While feminist film makers are quick to defend the ethics of their profession, anti-pornography campaigners doubt that porn ever benefits women. It’s the question that feminist film makers seek to agree to and anti-pornographers severely doubt: can porn empower women?

The two categories ‘female-friendly’ and ‘feminist’ are often used interchangeably, but there are those who see a slight distinction. Many tube sites boast

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of ‘female-friendly’ clips, but these often utilise many of the common mainstream porn norms, and some are still directed by men.

Yet those who call themselves ‘feminist’ pornographers are a hugely, diverse mob. Political, queer, arthouse, inter-race, skinny, fat, cosplay, bondage; fem porn is hard to define as it tries to tickle the fancy of even the nichest of niche in terms of female sexual desire.

Anna Brownfield is one of the well-known names on the local Aussie fem porn circuit.

She calls herself a feminist erotica film maker and tries to avoid the term ‘pornographer’.

“The word pornography is a very loaded word so a lot of people make a lot of assumptions about the films you’re making,” Brownfield says. After graduating from RMIT, she set about making her first explicit film about a girl who graduates from film school and can’t get a job so—surprise, surprise—makes a porno.

“A lot of what the feminist porn movement is about is diversity in terms of representation of sexuality [and] diversity in terms of gender,” she says. Tired of the same ol’ slapdash formula of ‘corporate porn’, Brownfield tries to show diversity in “the way that people have sex”. Authentic is a word often thrown around the female-oriented porn arena. Brownfield says herself and her many peers try to portray “sex [as] being a positive, enjoyable, fun and at times a very funny activity as well”.

Before researching this article my immediate idea of fem porn was something gentle, seductive and focused on women’s pleasure. Think of your Grannie’s Mills and Boon collection, candles and extended massage scenes. And some of it is, but a trip to the local sex shop made me realise how complex the world of girly smut is.

In the early nineties females accounted for less than 10 per cent of customers in adult stores, according to the Eros association, an offshoot of The Sex Party and the peak body representing the adult film industry. But the industry soon realised the potential of the female market and now roughly half of adult retail products are sold to females, says Eros CEO Fiona Patten.

Patten accounts the advent of the internet to the boom in female-oriented pornography and adult products, and it’s a sentiment that business owners like Michelle Temminghoff agree with.

Nestled in between the pubs and kebab shops on Bridge Road is Temminghoff’s business specialising in ‘female sensuality’. There’s a rustic chalkboard outside on the pavement advertising tantric sex workshops and sweet, acoustic tunes play inside the cosy store. This is a world away from the seedy, back-entrance-only dives in the CBD of Melbourne.

There are only a few lonely ‘how-to’ DVDs sitting on her shelves amidst a tantalising array of vibrators and ‘I don’t quite know what that’s for’ gadgets.

But while X-rated videos and DVDs used to be the rivers of gold for adult shops, Temminghoff doesn’t seem too bitter about the rise of internet porn.

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“Those GIFs on Tumblr, they’re great for women because they are short and sweet,” she says talking about the proliferation of female sexual content on the internet. “Some of them are arty, more like photography.”

Tumblr, a censorship-free social media blogging site has created a porn subculture of its own.

Videos, photos and animated images (GIFs) are shared among millions of people, often with a focus on user-generated content. On this platform too, ‘feminist porn’ has a big following. But this label raises as many hesitations as it does high-fives from females involved in the industry.

Temminghoff says fem pornography is a “weird category”. “You’ve got to be careful not to box things in,” she says. ”You can still be a feminist and like a lot of different things.”

The lengths of rope, leather harnesses for bondage, dominance, submission and masochism fetishes are a testament to the complexity of the discussion about what constitutes as ‘feminist’.

In a store like this you can find titles of books like Powering your femdom relationship: At her feet’ next to ‘Men on Top: stories of male domination.

This business of fantasy, desire and ethics is hazy.

Professor Lumby calls it the “relationship between fantasy and the real world”. “What to one person might look like violence, to another person might be part of what they see as their sexual sub-culture,” she says. Desire and fantasy are messy concepts and this has contributed to the decades-old argument for and against pornography. Some see it as a healthy, sexual expression of fantasy for consenting adults but others attribute a ‘reality’ effect to porn, where issues like domestic violence, rape and body image have filtered through from porn into society.

For Lumby the two sides of the polarised debate are too simplistic. “We know from sociological studies that some women do have rape fantasies,” she says. “Now that certainly doesn’t mean that women want to be raped or should be raped. I don’t think it’s appropriate to have pornography that focuses on rape.” Lumby says she is personally very against violent pornography. “I’m giving some complex examples because I think it’s a very complex area”.

Film maker Anna Brownfield acknowledges the link between pornography and the real world, and says promoting safe sex in her films is extremely important to her, especially after living through the AIDS scare in the nineties. “People say to me ‘Oh but its porn, it should be about fantasy’ but I think you also have a responsibility to educate people, especially young people.”

Latika* is a student who watches porn both by herself and with her partner. For her, finding female-oriented pornography was a relief from the dominant ‘hardcore bondage’ and ‘teen sluts’ categories of mainstream porn. “Showing women in their natural state, masturbating, ejaculating and all that good stuff is key to showing a balanced perspective in porn,” Latika says. “It’s not about

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cuming on her face or whatever, it’s about pleasure for both people.”

So what about men? So much talk about the female gaze might have you thinking that men only want hardcore, distasteful pornography that objectifies women.

Professor Lumby says that in research for The Porn Report, her team spoke to many males who were also turned off by hyper-fem blonde barbie women and chiselled, hairless male bodies. “Their fantasies were about everyday sex, the person that they might see in the street.”

It seems like economic logic not to alienate an entire gender from your market, and Brownfield says that despite feminist porn being made with females in mind, there is definitely a market for men looking for alternative porn. “A lot of men are saying to me ‘Oh wow, thank you very much for making something that’s different, that’s sensual, that’s erotic but at the same time explicit. It’s nice to see something that has a bit of build up’.”

While Professor Lumby says there will always be those who stand by the principle “that all pornography works on the patriarchal power principle of objectifying people”, including feminist porn, it looks as though more and more people are looking for alternative images to get their rocks off.

With cheap film equipment and website set ups, Brownfield believes that grassroots, alternative fem porn has grown vastly over the last six years and will continue as young people seek out diversity. It’s women in control and representing their own sexuality, she says. That might mean something classy, it might mean something gritty. But it always is consensual and always with a bit of humour. “Whatever you want to do is fine as long as it’s safe, consensual [and you] have respect for each other and use a condom,” she laughs.

Debates over what defines something as truly feminist will undoubtedly continue as more producers, disheartened with mainstream porn, attempt to make films for women.

But in a world where pornography is now permanent in pop culture and accounts for many young people’s sex education, the on-screen portrayal of women as sexual beings in their own right is surely a good thing. *Latika’s name has been changed

@Darling_I_Am

alexander darling

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The other victims

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Michael* and Frances have been good friends for years. They live in the same suburb in Melbourne’s south-east, went to the same high school and finished Year 12 in the same year. And both, while in their teens, had parents who died by suicide.

It isn’t easy to talk about a loved one killing themselves. But between calculated sips of coffee and milkshakes, that’s exactly what the two friends do— in such a matter-of-fact way it belies the misfortune they’ve both endured.

Both Frances and Michael’s parents had a history of mental illness before taking their own lives, but that’s pretty much where the similarity ends. The circumstances surrounding suicide differ from one victim to the next, as do the experiences of those they leave behind.

Frances’ mother died on Boxing Day 2011, but had been suffering from her illness for almost 7 years.

“Because of that, as a young child, I was subjected to a lot of crap that most people my age wouldn’t have been,” she says. “When she died, my world came crumbling down—I never thought she would have committed suicide—but it wasn’t like I had absolutely no understanding why it happened. I’d kind of adjusted to not having mum in a parental capacity.”

Michael’s father died last year, in what he calls “a completely different situation” to Frances’.

“Around Christmas two years before, he had a kind of heart attack,” he says. “He never really healed mentally from that, but like, it was never really picked up.”

Michael says after his father’s health issues began he saw him make minor attempts on his life.

“Still, we never thought he’d actually do it. You can never say, ‘This is the day he’s gonna do it.’”

Michael recalls the day his father died, and how his finding out about it was foreshadowed by another death. That day, he came home on the train, which had been delayed because someone had suicided on the tracks. This also delayed Michael learning of what occurred at home. “I didn’t realise what had happened until I turned the corner and saw the police cars outside the house,” he says.

That neither Michael nor Frances foresaw their parents’ early death despite their struggles with mental illness shows that no-one is ever ready for suicide, and they both say as much.

“I feel as though you can’t prepare yourself for it,” Michael says. “Like… it’s… it’s…” “You never expect them to do it,” Frances finishes.

This inability to prepare means when a person takes their own life, people around them are exposed to a surge of strong emotions that can be damaging if not managed properly. Frances explains the direct aftermath of her mother’s death as “anger and agony and stress, and being upset and just confused”. Michael agrees. “So many things run through your head you can’t understand,” he says. “Dad was the main breadwinner in the family, and when he passed I had no idea if we’d be okay fi-

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nancially. We had a pretty big mortgage at the time, I thought I was gonna have to get a full time job.”

Statistical representation of suicide is notoriously good at taking the emotion out of a very emotional issue. When you hear that around 2100 people die by suicide in Australia every year, as a bereaved person, it can trivialise your loss. When you hear it as anyone else, it makes it even harder to understand what sufferers are going through.

But in this case, two such statistics have particular relevance. One is from Mindframe Australia, which observes people aged 40-54 have among the highest rates of suicide in the country. Both Michael and Frances’ parents were in this age group when they died.

The other, from a 2010 study by the John Hopkins Children’s Centre in the US, is even more significant: children and teens who lose a parent to suicide are three times more likely than other young people to die the same way. That study says these people are also at increased risk of major psychotic disorders.

“Having a supportive social network is really important in grieving, especially because people can feel particularly isolated when this happens,” says Louise Flynn, director of the Richmond-based Support After Suicide community. “Also to have people consider the trauma of their loss when judging their feelings and behavior. That level of understanding is really helpful but quite often it doesn’t happen.”

This is where Michael and Frances became especially important to one another. After Michael’s father’s death, Frances made sure she spoke about it with him.

“When I was dealing with mum’s death, I found a lot of peace getting my emotions out—through counseling and stuff—but also by confiding in other people who had lost their parents at a young age,” she says. “So I made it very clear to Mike that everyone copes with this in their own way, but I want you to know I’m 100 per cent here for you, because I knew how much speaking to someone who understands you on every level helps your recovery.”

Michael says having Frances there as someone to talk to was crucial. “I went to footy the night after it happened, and a few guys at the club had been through similar things. So to have Fran and people at the club come and talk to me was good, if only because I saw how you could actually cope with it and how it heals over time.”

Having a solid routine to fit into is also an important distraction for people in the first few months afterward, according to Flynn. Michael both embodies and endorses this theory. “I was always doing something after it happened,” he says. “I got really heavily into footy. I was training maybe three times a week, going to the gym four times. It was a good withdrawal, and like, I think you’ve got to have people around you all the time you can talk to as well.”

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“When a family member suicides, you not only have to deal with the fact they’ve passed away, but also with the fact they were in a position mentally where they chose to do that.”

Michael says talking to both his best friend and girlfriend at the time was also beneficial to the healing process.

“Just constantly texting me, keeping my mind off it was super helpful. I used to talk to her for like two hours before I went to bed just so I didn’t keep reminding myself about it.

“And I’d call up my best mate all the time to see what he was doing—and it’d be 12 o’ clock at night, he’d never be doing anything—and I’d ask, ‘Do you wanna come over and just hang?’ and he would. It was just good to have that connection, because it’s when you’re alone, that you feel it most.”

Frances turns her attention to the stigma towards suicide. As it turns out, she has some bones to pick with the way society handles the issue, and how relatively little they understand about it.

“What many people don’t understand about suicide is when a family member suicides, you not only have to deal with the fact they’ve passed away, but also with the fact they were in a position mentally where they chose to do that,” she says. “My mother left my brother and I two notes before doing what she did, one at home and one on her person, and you could tell from it that she wasn’t in her normal place mentally. But you could also tell she felt everyone else would be better off with her gone.”

Frances says suicide is often portrayed as selfish.

“Most people view suicide as an act on face value without considering the different circumstances and reasons why people choose to end their lives,” she says. “They’ll be like, ‘How can they leave their loved ones behind? What a selfish thing to do—’” “It’s not selfish, not at all,” says Michael, staring down into his empty glass.

“No, not at all,” says Frances. “In fact a lot of suicides are committed when people are thinking irrationally and that everyone will be better off if they do this.”

Louise Flynn agrees the public perception of suicide lags well behind the reality.

“There is a stigma around suicide still, and many people have simplistic or incomplete understandings of suicide,” she says. “That then results in an inaccurate judgment on those who take their own lives, which of course, then affects those left behind.”

I ask Michael and Frances what they think of people saying things like “I know how you feel” or “It must

feel terrible” to try and comfort them. The response is unanimous.

“Don’t do it,” they say. “You don’t know how we feel.”

Flynn rolls her eyes when I ask the same thing of her.

“I know people are trying to be supportive in saying that, but they’re really not. The depth of the experience is such that no-one else can really understand it, so it sounds simplistic and trite to say that.”

Flynn isn’t as worried with people saying the words “I’m sorry”.

“Some people don’t actually mind hearing that, it depends. It’s difficult to come up with a response that works in every situation, it really depends on how well you know the person in question.”

There’s a parallel from the literary world to understand how Michael and Frances are moving on from their parents’ suicide present day. For English in their final year of VCE, both studied Life of Pi, the tale of an Indian boy who survives eight months at sea with only a tiger for company.

Having survived great suffering and grief, Pi, the protagonist, thinks of his experiences in a way that allows him to move on productively with his life, something both Michael and Frances have had to do.

“My mother put herself in front of a train: when I found that out, I had to sit and think for a while about why she chose to end her life that way,” Frances says. “I concluded that mum did it that way because she knew no-one who loved her would have found her—because she wouldn’t have wanted that for anyone—and by doing it that way, she was sure she’d be successful.”

Michael explains his experiences in a similar way.

“I’ve kind of come to terms with it now,” he says.

“I have no anger towards Dad at all because, in the end, he did it for me: he thought that if he took his life the rest of our family would be happy and get to keep all we had.

“As much as I hated this happening to me, there’s kind of an upside, because like, I’m able to help my friends if something like this ever happens to them.

I’ll know how they feel and what they need to get through it, and they can see I’ve gotten through it so that might give them hope.”

For help or information, contact Suicide Helpline Victoria on 1300 651 251 or Lifeline on 13 11 14. *Michael’s name has been changed

@AliciaLBarker

alicia barker

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Food for thought

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In a country emerging from 60 years of civil war and where a third of the population live on less than two dollars a day, a food truck isn’t the first thing you might recommend to bridge the divide between different ethnicities. But Meg Berryman believes Harmoneat, a “food truck for peace” in her words, will reduce sectarian violence and civil unrest in one of the world’s most ethnically diverse nations, Myanmar.

The RMIT International Studies graduate co-founded the food-centric social business. The idea started as a joke with her husband Dave Hale, but has now grown into a crowd-funding campaign with over $30 000 to its name.

“Originally it was going to be a tea shop, a little restaurant where people could come and talk about tolerance and we’d serve food around the country,” Berryman says. It was her husband who then thought of a food truck. “And that idea just kind of stuck and now we’re here.”

Harmoneat hopes to sell dishes originating from different areas of Myanmar to the people of Yangon, in order to ease tensions between different cultural and religious groups. Myanmar is one of the world’s most diverse countries and has a long and bloody history of sectarian violence.

Once the Harmoneat truck is up and running in December this year, it will be a “social business” meaning the profits made will be re-invested into staff, supplies and other expenses to ensure it is self-sufficient. The business will not be foreign-owned, but locally-run

by Yangon people and the Harmoneat team.

Berryman says the idea of using a social business model for the project was an approach borne out of frustration with the bureaucracy of large-scale charity organizations. “The social business for me is quite new,” Berryman says. “I’ve worked in the not-for-profit sector for 10 years and I was really drawn to the idea of making it something financially sustainable and building the capacity of Burmese people to meet challenges they face head on using social business.”

Berryman and Hale have brought in a group of RMIT International Studies students to work with Harmoneat. Most of the students involved have already been involved with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or charity organisations dealing with refugees and international aid. Berryman says she understands the pressure facing young graduates and students to build their skills, and wanted to help students “gain access to opportunities to further their careers and interests”, while also growing Harmoneat’s volunteer base.

Emily Westmoreland, a second year currently on her semester abroad program in Chile, grew up in Myanmar and has a strong connection to the place. She says social businesses like Harmoneat are “the new wave of international development”.

“It’s a step away from the charity model which has been consistently proven to be unsuccessful,” she says. “I know that there are a lot that exist under the

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facade of doing good, and they do a good thing, but because [Harmoneat] is locally run, it’s designed to be self-sustaining. I think that it will do a really wonderful job without being a Western white saviour.”

This care to avoid condescension towards the locals is central to Harmoneat’s values according to Berryman. “In some of the projects I’m seeing here, some of the NGOs are sitting people down and saying ‘you really should be nice to each other’ or ‘you should really learn how to just get along’ and we know that that just doesn’t work here,” she says. “It’s not where people are at, it’s not really respectful.”

Instead Berryman hopes that the simple act of serving meals from different regions in Myanmar will help bridge the gaps created by differences in culture and religion in Yangon. Each meal will come with a small information card containing information about the ethnic origins of the dish and its recipe. “Even if it’s as subtle as drawing attention to the fact that this recipe came from someone’s grandma in the northern Chin state, while the person’s eating it they can reflect on that and maybe have a positive association with that state whereas previously they’ve had a negative association,” Berryman says. “Even if it’s something really subtle we will have achieved our mission and that’s building communities.”

Sectarian violence goes back decades in Myanmar, but more recently the Saffron Revolution in 2007, a series of anti-government protests led predominantly by Buddhist monks, saw mass-shootings of protestors by government forces, and then a widespread cover up of the events by the authorities.

In 2012, ethnic Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims were involved in the Rakhine State riots, with the Burmese army and police thought to have played a major role in targeting Muslim groups through large-scale arrests and arbitrary violence. There were a reported 88 casualties, and an estimated 90,000 people were displaced by the conflicts. As a result, ethnic tensions are still at a high in Myanmar today.

Non-governmental organisations have existed for years in Myanmar using a charity based model.

But Berryman says these organizations, based around providing aid and money nationally, just don’t work on a local level. What makes Harmoneat different, she believes, is its focus on communities.

“In a country coming out of 60 years of civil war, the trust between communities is so low and it plays out regionally; you can kind of see it in offices, between different groups and in the media,” she says. “And we were saying ‘who’s actually trying to change those individual realities?’”

Part of the way Harmoneat will aim to try and change these “individual realities” is by hiring Yangon locals to run the truck. Berryman calls it “building the capacity of local youth”. With a population of roughly 5 million people, Yangon is home to Indian, Barmar, South East Asian and Chinese groups, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet.

Disadvantaged young people living in Yangon often

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cannot finish high school and are in need of jobs.

Harmoneat is currently in the process of recruiting team members to help run cooking classes out of the kitchen the organization is looking to purchase. “We’re really looking for people with diverse ethnic backgrounds with interesting stories [who] maybe don’t have the opportunity elsewhere to get these types of jobs, so our team in itself is going to be a shining example of inter-race and inter-ethnic collaboration,” Berryman says.

Yangon team members will be on 12 month contracts and Berryman hopes this will “economically empower” the local staff, and potentially encourage them to start their own businesses. Westmoreland says that while this plan goes against what many major charities do, it might change the lives of these Yangon citizens. “It’s a model that allows for the future to be in your own hands,” she says. “It’s about taking charge of your own future; it’s about giving an opportunity as opposed to giving money.”

Harmoneat’s month-long crowdfunding campaign began on May 20 and raised just over $30 000 but did not meet its ultimate goal of $56, 580. Despite not making enough money to buy the truck and get the project running immediately, Claudia Lang, first-year RMIT International Studies student and Operations and Food Education Manager, says the money raised will help to get the ball rolling. “It’ll be enough to hire the team and start buying our basic supplies. Once we hire the team we should be able to find other ways of sorting [funding for the truck] out,” she says.

Harmoneat’s Partnerships and Donor manager and second-year RMIT International Studies student, Maddie Gange, says it will be part of her role to apply for grants to make up the extra money to get the truck up and running, and to create partnerships with like-minded businesses back on home soil.

Social business is not foreign in Australia; there is a ‘Social Enterprise Awards’ and many large organizations like the Salvos and smaller businesses like Good Cycles, a Melbourne cycling shop that trains people in bike-repair to help get them into employment, exist here already. Lang says that even though the idea of “social enterprise” was very different from the standard charity model, Australians would embrace Harmoneat and what it’s trying to achieve.

“I think the whole food truck idea is something we can relate to. It’s a fun way to approach peace building, I think,” she says.

Harmoneat also plans to run cooking classes for tourists out of a kitchen, which will be purchased with its crowd-funding money, from September this year. The Yangon team will teach backpackers about Burmese food and culture and show tourists “Myanmar is about more than Aung San Suu Kyi”.

Myanmar has only just opened up to tourists, and the burgeoning market is mostly focused on higher-end travelers. Berryman hopes Harmoneat’s cooking classes will help introduce tourists to a more realistic and true version of Myanmar; a country that is struggling with its identity after

catalyst

the mass shootings and cruelty of the Saffron revolution. “There’s a lot of culture, ethnic diversity but also a lot of cultural history that people need to be aware of, we think that’s important,” she says.

Of the 274 contributors to Harmoneat’s crowdfunding campaign, most were Western who weren’t familiar with Burmese food or culture. “We’ve promoted Harmoneat as something tourists can go and experience later on when it’s finished as well so it’s something they can engage with in the future as a customer,” Lang says. Tourists won’t be able to work with Harmoneat as part of a ‘voluntourism’ holiday, a trend that’s become fashionable with Western travellers in nations such as Vietnam and Thailand. No tourists will be working as volunteers in the truck, and Harmoneat won’t be asking for handouts from travellers.

One of the biggest challenges facing the project in Myanmar is gaining approval from the Burmese government. Street vendors are a large part of life in downtown Yangon, but since 2011 authorities have been restricting street trade in order to clean up the city’s image. Berryman says getting the all clear from the government will be the biggest challenge to face Harmoneat in its early stages. “I think we’re going to have to face the red tape with the government in terms of getting all the approval necessary and making sure that the money in that process is going to the right people,” she says. “Burma’s still quite corrupt and it’s difficult to know sometimes where your money goes.” She also says Harmoneat will be careful in choosing their suppliers in order to make sure they’re not contributing to the existing problems of corruption and exploitation in Myanmar.

The Harmoneat team hopes that if the Yangon food truck is successful, similar projects might spring up around the country and around the world. As the project gains momentum Berryman says she and her partner don’t want to be the only ones behind the steering wheel.

“We have no interest in being the owners or the face of this project. We think that if we can demonstrate that this works in Myanmar, it might work in other conflict affected areas. We think Harmoneat might become a movement.”

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untamed

HONG KONG Your Choice of Exchange in Asia Student Exchange Programmes and Scholarships available Don’t miss your chance of a lifetime! Check with your home university’s exchange office today.

Also visit http://studyinhongkong.edu.hk

Create Your Future Career .indd 1

Information Session on “Exchange and Career Opportunities in Hong Kong” Date: Monday, 18 August 2014 Time: 12:15-1:15pm Venue: Room 12, Level 5, Building 80, RMIT University Speakers: Mr Bernard Lo, Deputy Director, Hong Kong Economic & Trade Office Ms Anielle Leung / Ms Sandy Burriss, Student Mobility Advisor , RMIT University

Don’t wait until graduation to think about your career.

We want to help you to create your future career right from your first day at RMIT. Find out more: www.rmit.edu.au/ students/yourfuturecareer

24/06/14 11:35 AM

Culture

@theoriginalEPA

untamed

rushani epa

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Six ways to go: a guide to alternative burials

culture

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1. Green burial

In a day-and-age where climate change is a hot topic, it’s always better to take the eco-friendly option. If you’ve been using green bags and saying no to plastic your whole life, why stop at death? Green burials offer people the option to keep on recycling even when they’re six feet under. The body isn’t prepared with any chemicals as it usually is, and is placed in a biodegradable coffin or shroud. It is then taken to a gravesite, which can be on private property, and is placed within a grave shallow enough to allow the body to “compost” naturally. It’s the most common alternative method of burial, and is carried out like a normal funeral.

2. Diamonds

If you’ve been heavily influenced by Rihanna and want to shine bright like a diamond, now you can, thanks to LifeGem. LifeGem is an American diamond company, which can turn hairs and ashes into dazzling diamonds. Humans, and even their pets, can be turned into these gems, so your dog who used to be your best friend can now be a diamond, which can also be your best friend! Bliss! The carbon remains can be converted to graphite, which is then put in a diamond synthesis press to recreate your loved one in the form of a piece of jewellery. The process is expensive because diamonds ain’t cheap, and can cost anywhere between $3499 and $24,999 USD.

3. Space Burials

Did you dream of being an astronaut as a child but failed to get the entry score to university … or just got over it? Well, now you’re in luck. Space burials allow an individual’s cremated remains to be shot into space on board a sealed spacecraft. There are three options for those remains, which go on scheduled missions: they can either orbit around the Earth then burn-up as they re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere, go to space momentarily before returning to Earth safely, or go all the way to another planet (namely the Moon).

The procedure is very difficult to organise, is uncommon in Australia, and can cost upwards of $1000 USD.

4. Cryonics

There is a rumour that Walt Disney was cryonically preserved, however this may be just an old wives’ tale (but it would be so great if he came back to life soon). Cryonic preservation is something you might have witnessed in the animated series Futurama, but it’s a viable option in real life too. If you’re suffering from a terminal illness, which has no cure at the moment, you can opt to be cryonically preserved in hopes that a cure is created one day. Upon that day, it is thought that those who have been preserved can be unfrozen and brought back to life using the cure. You must be pronounced clinically dead before you are frozen with liquid nitrogen, and are then preserved in a chamber. It’s a way to hold onto your life, but patients must know that there’s no certainty that cryonic preservation works. So far around six Australians have been preserved in total, and the procedure can cost anywhere between $30,000 USD and $200,000 USD.

5. Body farms

Imagine stumbling across a forest filled with decomposing bodies strewn around everywhere. It sounds like something from a horror film, but places like these exist, and they’re called body farms. If you’re a fan of author Patricia Cornwell, then you’d be familiar with her novel Body Farm—inspired by these research facilities. Five of these facilities currently exist in USA, and their primary focus is to study human decomposition in a variety of different settings. There are open areas and woods filled with trees, where those who donate their bodies lay decomposing naturally. After a body has fully decomposed, the skeleton is collected and cleaned, then stored for further research. The natural decomposition process isn’t the most glamorous thing­—as bugs assist in the process—but it contributes to medical research and involves no money whatsoever.

6. Body worlds

If being admired after death sounds like something you’d be interested in, then Body Worlds might appeal to you. Started up by German anatomist Gunther von Hagens, the travelling exhibition showcases preserved bodies, revealing their inner structures to the general public or those who pay for a ticket. There’s bodies stripped of their skin, baring all their muscle, positioned to be doing things like kicking soccer balls, riding horses, and there’s even a couple structured to be having sex. Bodies undergo a procedure called plastination, coined by Von Hagen, which includes five steps. A body is immediately embalmed, then dissected and placed in an acetone bath that dissolves all of its fat and water.

Then the body is placed in a polymer solution, where the acetone turns into silicone. Finally, the body is then positioned and cured, which hardens it. People can donate their bodies to the program, but can’t donate their organs to transplant recipients—a major downside.

henry law

art

untitled (with short spoon)

cargocollective.com/Coffinbirth

art

the fall of the damned

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art

Mexican-born artist Ernesto Rios’ practice spans photography, painting and drawing, three dimensional work and digital media. He holds a Masters Degree from Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and has exhibited extensively both in Australia and overseas, including 17 solo exhibitions and 60 group exhibitions in major cities such as New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Valencia, Sao Paulo, Melbourne and Mexico City. He is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Art at RMIT University.

His work draws on the ancient symbols of the labyrinth and the pyramid, the latter having particular significance in ancient Mesoamerican cultures which clearly resonate with the artist.

Rios says his personal fascination with these ancient forms “is not a new one. More than thirty years ago as a young child I populated the pages of my notebooks with obsessive drawings that had the same structure: a single entry, multiple traps or dead ends and a single exit”.

His earliest love was photography, perhaps not surprising as both his parents were photographers and his father gave him a camera when Rios was only three years old. He grew up surrounded by Mexico’s artists and intellectuals, and had the opportunity to travel throughout the country from a young age. His love of travel and exploring shows in much of his work in both representational and abstract forms. He has a strong interest in architecture and how we interact with the built environment, often incorporating sensual, tactile elements into his work to see how space shapes us and vice versa. In an earlier collaborative multimedia piece Yarra2, he followed sound artists

and writers around Melbourne’s City of Yarra, photographing their journeys and incorporating their responses to these spaces into the work.

Rios continues to explore the intangible qualities of space and time and their concrete manifestations in his thesis, such as architect and theorist Bernard Tschumi’s idea of an “architecture of the senses and of the mind”. He investigates labyrinths and pyramids both as structures and mythical symbols across multiple cultures, eras and art forms. As well as their religious and spiritual functions, the ancient Mesoamerican structures served as clocks and calendars, measuring astronomical events with an accuracy that still astonishes us today.

The thesis also refers to a variety of modern artists and works including music and social theory to further examine the fundamental human desire to document our experience of passing through space and time. Perhaps this desire changes only in the form those documents take, and Rios is interested in both their ancient and modern incarnations.

He moves seamlessly between indigenous Latin American cosmology and contemporary digital culture, experimenting with metaphors of electronic circuits, digital social networks and how we interact with each other in physical and virtual space. Some of these works are pixillated, dot-matrix, even Morse code-like, tracing patterns of motherboards which themselves echo the layouts of the labyrinth or maze. Rios’ research incorporates new technologies with traditional media, encouraging new forms of interaction between the viewer and the work and generating new labyrinthine metaphors and readings.

labyrinths

ernestorios.com

ernesto rios

Foreword by Amanda Wallace

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@denhamsadler

catalyst

denham sadler

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The fight to save the Palace Theatre

culture

A man’s voice booms across a busy Melbourne street, pleading for a cause that many believe to already be lost. He is ignored by most.

A handful of musicians don acoustic guitars and serenade the passing workers on their way home after a long week. Others hold makeshift signs out to the passing peak—hour traffic, receiving the occasional honk of approval.

The man speaks passionately to those gathered, before turning to an adjacent tram stop and imploring the commuters to listen to his arguments.

A police motorbike flies past in a flurry of sirens, briefly drowning out the man’s words.

It’s five o’clock on a typically cold Melbourne evening, and a gaggle of around 20 people are gathered outside the Palace Theatre, holding a vigil for the doomed venue. These are the people who still have hope despite almost everyone else resigning to defeat.

The man is Ezekiel Ox, a local musician who has been helping to organise these gatherings for the last three months. He is confident, self-assured and articulate; he doesn’t shout, but his voice resonates across Bourke Street.

“This building is a symbol now. We are not fighting for something we can’t achieve,” he says. “Big business reigns supreme while live music dies.”

It’s a far cry from the political demonstrations seen recently just across the road at Parliament House.

It’s not really even a protest. It’s hardly loud, not disruptive and rarely angry. It feels more like a memorial held outside a venue on its deathbed.

Passers by hardly take notice of the group. One older man in a suit begins to clap along with the music, a rare sign of recognition.

Scrawled in concrete on the sidewalk outside the theatre are the words: “Save live music. Save our culture. Save our heritage. Save the Palace.” It’s merely walked over by most as it slowly fades away into the pavement, perhaps an apt metaphor for the dwindling support for the historic building.

The Palace Theatre has been abandoned by nearly everyone. Its owner, development company Jinshan Investments, announced plans late last year to demolish the building and build a luxury hotel in its place. After a long struggle, the operators were forced out, and the venue ceased to host any shows.

The last, and perhaps most damaging loss was the public’s support. After much outcry following the original announcement, it seems most have given up on the venue, resigned to it being another victim of gentrification and urbanisation.

But not all have given up.

Rebecca Lesley runs the Save the Palace group, which formed after plans to demolish the theatre were announced last year.

Lesley has received some good news on the day I speak with her, but she’s learned not to get too excited about any seemingly positive developments.

She’s been disappointed before. Melbourne City Council planning officers had made a recommendation to reject the building proposal, but Lesley is skeptical.

“Am I supposed to be happy? You can be happy for a minute, but don’t get too excited,” she muses.

It’s another step in what’s been a long and arduous fight to save the Palace Theatre, one that’s seen far more setbacks than positives like this one.

Speaking from her 9-5 job, Lesley says she began running the group after attending a community meeting that was called following the announcement of the building plans.

“Once it became known that it had been sold to a development group that wanted to demolish it, a kid started a Facebook page, and within 24 hours there was like 20,000 people on it,” Lesley says.

“The original rally following the community meeting was scheduled for August [last year] and it got cancelled, so we all went ‘what the hell’s going on?’

So that’s when we got involved.”

“I remember before the community meeting I was thinking, ‘Oh will I go or won’t I go’, and it was a shitty night too. But then I thought, ‘no, I actually care about this, I really care’. So I went along to the community meeting, and that was it.”

The Save the Palace Facebook group now has over 35,000 ‘likes’, and regularly posts updates surrounding the ongoing struggle to prevent the venue being transformed into a high-rise hotel and apartment complex.

“I think you always watch this stuff, with things keeping getting closed down and the problems with live music in Melbourne when we’re supposed to be supportive of it, and then I saw this. I love the Palace, it’s my favourite venue in Melbourne and I’ve seen my favourite bands there.”

“It’s not just a live music venue, it’s an experience.”

The Palace Theatre is one of Melbourne’s most historic buildings, one that has transformed and adapted along with the constantly evolving city it inhabits.

It began operations in 1860 as the Excelsior Hotel, featuring a main hall that showcased performances and boxing bouts. In 1911 it was transformed into a theatre, with seating on three levels and bedrooms on the first floor. After extensive remodelling in 1923, it was rebranded as ‘The New Palace’, until it became a cinema in 1940. After operating as the Metro Nightclub from 1986, it was sold in 2007 and reverted back to The Palace that we know now.

The loss of the Palace would leave a gaping hole in Melbourne’s live music landscape. It’s a beautiful, unique venue to witness a show, featuring three levels, multiple balconies, and numerous vantage points. But most of all, it has something that is sorely lacking from most music venues: character.A statement by the operators earlier this year read: “Effective from the 31st May 2014 this building and its previous incarnations...which started trading in 1860, will cease trading to make way for a proposed apartment and hotel development”. The Palace had been defeated.

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In a final humiliation for the once proud venue, a ‘closing down’ sale took place in May, with everything from furniture and light fittings to audio and lighting gear up for grabs. This offered a chance to “purchase a part of history”, but it seemed more like a final recognition that it was all over.

The venue has played host to some of the biggest Australian and international bands of our generation, with over two million punters visiting The Palace over the last eight years it has been a music venue.

It’s also a crucially important venue logistically for the Melbourne live music landscape. With a capacity of just under 2000, it’s one of only two venues capable of playing host to mid-sized international bands, those that can’t fill Festival Hall or the cavernous Rod Laver Arena, but are far too large for smaller rooms such as the Corner Hotel or Prince Bandroom, which each hold less than 1000.

The weekly vigils began after the former operators left the venue, and have now been going for more than 11 weeks.

“It’s giving people a place to come and actually say that even though they’ve kicked out the operators, this building is still significant to Melbourne and the live music lovers,” Lesley says. “You don’t just replace 100 year old theatres. You don’t just replace a three-level theatre tomorrow, you can’t lose it.”

These vigils usually feature a similar array of people, along with the odd newcomer, as well as some enthusiastic passerbys. They attract a wide and diverse range of people; it’s not just young gig-goers.

“There’s a girl that comes every week and brings her three kids with her. Every week she turns up with a wad full of objection letters that’s she’s gone through shopping centres and had completed,” Lesley says.

“You realise that there are other people that are out there fighting for this, and that’s an incredible thing.”

But is it hard to maintain hope and enthusiasm when seemingly everyone else has given up, resigned to the venue’s fate?

“Not at all,” Lesley simply replies.

But actually getting people from the 35k-strong Facebook group to leave their laptops and campaign on the streets has proved to be a much more challenging issue.

“You care about it, but it’s how much you care about it, whether you’re prepared to get off your arse and do something about it,” she says.

“We don’t want to dishearten them, there are still so many opportunities to save it. It was really hard to come back from when the operators said they were out. It’s been really hard to maintain momentum on it because it’s not over. Yes they’re out, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other operators waiting on the sidelines if it does get saved.”

Back outside the theatre, the weekly vigil is coming to an end. A brief chant of “hands off our city” sees the small group united in voice, while also deliver-

catalyst

ing a clear message to bystanders: “we’re here for you”.With an agreement to return next week at the same time and a resolute confidence to never give up, the small but dedicated group slowly disperses, fading away into the dreary Melbourne night.

But not before one final message from the group’s ringleader. “If we win this one, we’ll be back to fight for the next one. If we lose this one, we’ll be back to fight for the next one.”

Rebecca Lesley knows that it’s a tough battle. She knows that all the odds are against her. But she also knows that it’s an important one, a fight that she won’t give up on until the building is in rubbles. “It’s a battle just like any other. It’s just another battle.”

And it’s one that a select few have refused to lose.

@marozzi_m

matilda marozzi

culture

family melange

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untamed

The sun slides between the yellow leaves on a perfect April day. It’s around 26 degrees. So warm, I can hardly believe I am getting married in Ballarat. It’s a simple ceremony. At the tender age of 19 I arrive with my parents and two younger brothers.

There wasn’t much time to plan the celebration—we only had a month. Still, Mum and I found a day to go dress shopping. We stumbled upon a gown made for a Greek goddess, with golden straps and flowing cream fabric. Its unfamiliar elegance makes me feel both delicate and strong.

In a separate car my fiancé, Sunny, pulls up with his sister, her husband and his ten-year-old nephew.

Their skin is like milk chocolate, their hair black and shiny.

As soon as I lay my eyes on Sunny in his silver suit my heart swells. We are “one soul, two bodies” as he likes to say. With our love, nothing can separate us.

But it does. There are oceans between Australia and Bangladesh. The physical ocean is easy enough to bridge—it’s just a plane ticket. The cultural one is proving more difficult.

As the product of a multicultural marriage I feel like I should have learnt more from my Mum and Dad. Twenty-two years ago, on one of those bitterly cold and wet days at which Ballarat excels, Grandpa walked Mum up the aisle. It was July 13, 1991. Mum’s family is as Australian as white people get. Her ancestors moved to “the colony” from the United Kingdom years ago. In the earlier days of white settlement it was said Australia rode on the sheep’s back.

Well, Mum’s parents still did exactly that—running a sheep farm in Gippsland.

On the other hand, my Dad was born of two Italian immigrants. Nonna and Nonno migrated to the “lucky country” after World War II. My grandfather, Phillipo Marozzi, came to Australia with a handmade wooden suitcase, Catholicism and a good work ethic. Shortly after meeting my Nonna, Maria, they were married. Settling in the Murray town of Mildura, Nonna and Nonno worked hard growing grapes on the block.

Growing up as an Australian-Italian hybrid I didn’t see any cultural conflict. When someone asks me where I’m from, I say Australia. Their brow usually furrows, confused. I haven’t answered the question they wanted to ask. “My Dad’s Italian,” I’ll add. This response usually makes them content. I say my

Dad’s Italian, even though he’s never been to Italy in his life.

In the summer of 2011, I got a job at the Coffee Club.

It was a pretty boring job for really shit pay, but it was something. Together with my other position as dish-pig it was going to be enough to get me to American summer camp in June. The motto at the Coffee Club is “Where will I meet you?” And sure enough that’s where I met Sunny.

At 25, confident, mischievous and outspoken he was hard to miss. Particularly when he’s your boss.

One thing led to another—first a dinner followed by a long, dull movie (Sanctum). Later dusk walks along gravel tracks at Williamstown beach. Eventually, I decided we were probably dating.

As the relationship became increasingly serious it occurred to me our cultures might not be compatible. Sunny identifies as Muslim, while I was born and raised a Catholic. Sunny grew up in the “developing” Bangladesh; I’d hardly left “first-world” Australia. He had been born in the ’80s; I was a ’90s child. One night I sat him down at Noodle Box. “You’re old and Muslim,” I told him. His black eyes became stern. “I don’t know if this is going to work out.” We ate quietly, and after that I didn’t hear from him for a week.

Soon enough we started talking again, but still my head and heart were moving in opposite directions.

Prevailing logic told me our relationship didn’t make sense. It was when I left to backpack around the United States for five months suddenly something clicked. My heart had won—we were different, but we were in love. That was three years ago. Now we are married and planning to buy a house.

Marrying Sunny, I knew the West and Islam were literally, and metaphorically, at war. When we started dating, friends told me stories about educated young women being indoctrinated, forced to wear the vale.

Oppression, domestic abuse, and jihad—I heard it all. In dubious looks and glib remarks I sensed that while Australia is multicultural, Muslims are still outside the accepted Australian identity.

As the so-called “war-on-terror” winds down in Iraq

culture

and Afghanistan, Muslim immigrants today know that their religion is quickly associated with extremism and violence. Muslims are commonly seen as the “enemy within” and I had the audacity to bring one into our family.

My best friend was born and raised in India, a country neighbouring Bangladesh, and even she sat me down—“Are you sure he’s not using you?” I don’t think you can be 100per cent sure about these things, that’s plain naivety, but from my perspective I had two choices: to marry him so he could stay with me in Australia, or to let him go and always wonder if things would have worked out. Anecdotal wisdom says you regret the things you didn’t do in life, not the things you did, and so far that has certainly been my experience.

Partly to allay people’s fears I will openly admit Sunny isn’t a very good Muslim— just as I have to say I’m a below-average Catholic myself. He drinks alcohol, eats pork and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him pray. For me these things were important. Not because I am against people who do these things, but negotiating a middle ground between these two extremes would be difficult to say the least. After all, Catholics have wine at church and pork is an Italian staple.

Although religion may not be important to Sunny and I, the imprint of Islam and Catholicism remains, if latent, on both of us. It’s still important to our families. They might not expect us to follow the Qur’an or the Bible, but they do want us to understand and respect their beliefs.

After living in Australia for eight years, Sunny gets our culture. He managed to slide into my family like a slice of salami into a sandwich. He laughs with my brothers, drinks with my Mum, and Dad helps him service the car.

But his ability to fit in and other’s ability to accept our relationships are two different things. My grandparents are a bit bewildered by our coupling, but even if I asked I don’t think they’d be able to articulate why. Interracial marriages weren’t as common or as accepted back then. Today “white” meets “coloured” is not unheard of.

So for my peers, I guess they are shocked I got married so young. It’s like they are expecting me to drop out of uni, have a kid and resume my rightful place as housewife—because that’s why teenagers get married right? After almost two years of marriage, people’s reactions haven’t changed. I often introduce Sunny as my partner because I’m sick of the judgement and consternation. The shock, the ensuing questions it just sticks like a thorn in my side. The next time I say “this is my husband” to a raised eyebrow and exclamation of surprise I think I might scream, or ask the eyebrow raiser if there is anything they’d like me to judge them for.

Dealing with the outside world doesn’t compare to dealing with Sunny’s family. At least I don’t have to care what the outside world thinks. After initial op-

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position I’ve learnt from my mother that it’s often better to stay quiet, conform and keep the peace. I wear clothes I don’t like and ask questions I don’t want to know the answer to. I am trying to adapt to my in-laws’ home environment, but by god it is difficult when the common ground seems, at times, so small. Luckily I only have to conform when I am in their home. I can’t imagine not being able to make my Nonna’s meatballs or have a drink at my own party.

Before my wedding day I was in the paddock with my Dad. The muted grey sky made the dry grass look particularly bleak. As a rule Dad leaves any “life-lesson” speeches to my Mum, but this was important.

“Matilda, I want you to realise marriage is like a rose bush.” I lean against the old Nissan Ute we’d got from Nonno. I’m not good at gardening, so this could be trouble. “There will be flowers, but there will also be thorns.”

Since we said “I do” on April 15, 2012, Sunny and I have had both roses and thorns a plenty. Sometimes, with bloodshot eyes and tear-stained cheeks, I wonder if there would be fewer thorns if Sunny were an Italian-Australian hybrid like me, or if I was born and raised in Bangladesh. Surely it would be easier if we were just fighting each other—as it is we often have to fight judgement, discrimination and consternation. We have to fight to bridge the cultural ocean between Bangladesh and Australia.

While our differences can be a source of conflict, when they unite us the results are worth fighting for. Against the odds, against expectations, Sunny and I are together—enriched and extended by our differences. The days when a rose blooms it is beautiful, delicate and unique.

“Marriage is like a rose bush.” Truer words have never parted from my Dad’s lips. Hopefully with more multicultural roses, the thorns will lose their edge.

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catalyst

slm

let’s talk about threesomes

culture

There’s a strange moment of silent shock that occurs when you tell someone you’ve had a threesome. I hate it.

It’s not like I immediately tell people as soon as I’ve met them, but I like talking openly about sex; if you ask, I’ll tell. The most negative reactions I’ve had are always from men I’m interested in. The events that follow have gone in two ways: once, the guy was so intimidated he went home.

“I was going to invite you back to my place,” he says.

“But now I think I’ll just bore you”.

The second gentleman I told reacted in a seemingly positive way: his eyes lit up and he said, “Oh cool!”

During the sex however he seemed bored. I was having a great time, and my 21-year-old mind was going through a mental checklist of what I was told guys liked: “I’ve done oral, we’ve been through multiple positions, he just doesn’t seem into this at all”.

Afterwards he sighed and said, “For someone who’s had threesomes, I thought you’d be better at this.”

To this day I still have no idea what he was expecting—maybe an acrobatic performance of some sort.

Either way, I was shattered. Now I don’t tell prospective partners this part of my history anymore.

This is a shame for the simple fact that I had fun, but for some reason people can’t comprehend that girls seek out and enjoy threesomes. Those sorts of people exist in a fantasy.

I understand this mental reasoning when it comes to threesomes. I only found out that you could have sex with multiple people at once when I turned 19— the same year I lost my virginity thanks to my sheltered upbringing. The concept made me blush at the very thought, but I was curious. I pushed threesomes to the back of my mind, assuming this was something that could never happen to me.

For my 21st birthday I travelled to the United States on a tour. I’m not one for parties and the money I carefully saved up definitely looked better in Vegas than the local football club’s function room. Our tour group was passing through a small town in Santa Barbara, and in 2010 the US economy was so terrible that virtually all the suburban hotels were empty. I was drinking by the pool with a Scottish girl and a young guy from Australia. In my comfortable drunk haze I noticed how attractive they both were, and when they started making out I took a rather big risk and kissed the guy. I didn’t even think about it.

I was so wonderfully unattached to both of them, and what followed was fascinating. I got as much enjoyment out of watching as participating, but I felt oddly exposed. It was like losing my virginity

49

as I did things I had never done before. This was the first time I had gone down on a girl, and I was relieved to hear her enjoying it. I learnt quickly that having the same genitals doesn’t mean everyone enjoys the same movements; pleasure is an individual as the person. My mind was reeling with discovery and things that seem so obvious to me now.

A very common question people ask me is, “How do you avoid being left out?” In my experience, you can’t. About a year after this event I was asked by a couple to be their third. Threesomes were something they wanted to try together.

I had dinner with them first to establish if I was suitable—did we all get along? Did I find them attractive? I had two glasses of sparkling before I decided to spend the night with them. I overthought the event quite a bit: I didn’t want to focus too much on one partner and create problems. They were great though, and assured me they wouldn’t have done this had they not felt their relationship could handle it. The night became a rotation of two parties pleasuring the one, of watching and encouragement. I had fun, and I was grateful for the opportunity that just seemed to happen to me out of luck.

From the start I knew this arrangement wouldn’t last forever. They were clear from the beginning they wanted to have a threesome just a few times with the same person. I met with the couple on two more occasions before they told me they had completed their fantasy and would no longer be having sex with me. Although I was sad not to see them again, I knew it was part of the deal. I walked away happy with the additional experience I had gained: both sexually and emotionally.

I haven’t participated in a threesome since then.

I’ve encountered couples that are very much in love that told me after a few wines that a threesome is something they really want to try. I always ask them the same thing: “Do both of you want it? Or is one individual more enthusiastic about the idea than the other?” If it’s the latter, or if they’re not sure, I tell them to wait.

If a threesome is something you’ve always wanted to do, remember the physical act is very much real.

It is not a construct of pornography (although the industry has made it appear rather robotic) and it definitely doesn’t have to be a fantasy. A threesome is not for everyone, and not wanting one doesn’t make you any less sexually liberated than someone who does want one. Since having my last threesome almost four years ago now, I can’t say I’ve been tempted back. Maybe that time of my sexual life has passed: I never say never, but for now I’m finding more gratification having one person pleasure me at a time.

@harrietconron

catalyst

harriet conron

50

an open letter to my hair

51

culture

Dear Hair, We’ve shared a lot of memories over the last 19 years. You have managed to get me into trouble fairly consistently, and for that I thank you—things would have been so boring if it wasn’t for you.

substance lurking among my split ends. A tentative taste-test revealed it to be Vegemite, which had been maturing since I’d had toast for breakfast two days earlier.

When I look back on pictures of myself as a child, I barely recognise you as the mane I know and sometimes hate today. In my pre-school years, I was crowned with fine, blonde, relatively-straight locks.

I can’t remember much about you back then; despite the fact you were attached to my head I think I ceded all responsibility for your angelic tendrils to Mum. My most-requested kindergarten hairdo was a very ’90s fountain ponytail, which I liked because it made me feel like a whale…. kids these days.

My DNA is widely available to anyone who wants a Harriet clone, because I leave a trail of strays behind me wherever I go. My friends kindly inform me that they find bits of you in their books, clothes, cars and beds. Despite the sheer volume of hair I shed, by some twisted sorcery your thickness never decreases. This year, I shed enough hair in a month to clog the drain in my shower. I was completely oblivious to this until my Dad retrieved a rodent-sized clump of soggy strays, and left it in the shower for me to mistake for a dead rat. Because, why not?

Something strange happened when I hit primary school. In the space of two years my Barbie-style tresses transformed into something that resembled the neon fuzz on top of one of those naked troll dolls. At seven, I wasn’t quite rebellious enough to dye my hair fluoro green, but you had become thick, knotty and 100per cent unmanageable. I felt like I was suffering from the follicular form of childhood obesity. Tears flowed whenever my Mum tried to attack my out-of-control mane with a brush, and soon enough we were off to see my cool, bald, 50-year-old hairdresser-with-an-earring, Ben, to get the whole thing lopped off.

My new short hair coincided with a lengthy, Bend it Like Beckham tomboy phase where I was regularly mistaken for a boy. I rode my bike to school and didn’t worry about getting helmet hair. I tried (and failed) to emulate my neighbour, who used to gel his fringe up like a ski jump. I wore the most boyish clothes I owned, developed a love for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and never brushed you. I loved it.

Eventually though, the weird blended magic of starting high school and the onset of puberty made me realise I no longer wanted to look like a boy. As a mature 12-year-old, I announced I was growing you out and would take full responsibility for your maintenance. Seven years later, I’m yet to live up to that promise (sorry, Mum). As you grew your fuzz-levels decreased, only to be replaced with sheer thickness.

And boy, were you heavy. To this day, I can’t tie my hair up if I haven’t visited Ben-with-the-earring in a while, because the weight of my ponytail gives me a headache. He has upgraded his credentials from hairdresser to bariatric surgeon in my honour.

Since I grew you out, we’ve gotten into plenty of (literally) sticky situations. Sometimes I like to say that you’re more than just a mass of keratin proteins, because there’s usually some kind of foreign body hiding in your depths. One day last semester I arrived at uni bright and early for an 8.30am lecture, only to discover a mysteriously viscous, brown

Hair, I really have tried my best to control you through my teenage years. Despite hair straightening, industrial-strength conditioner, heavy-duty scrunchies and attempting a regular brushing routine, I’ve never quite achieved my dream of having the silky locks of a Pantene model. I’m more degenerate mermaid than modern-day Rapunzel. These days, I’ve come to accept the fact that a good night out usually means detangling dreadlocks the following morning.

As I get older, I’m sure the fantasy of a ‘professional’ haircut will tempt me, even though I know you’d never co-operate with a steely coiffured bob.

I’ll be subject to your caprice until the day I go bald or die, but don’t forget that we’re in this together.

Your unruly tendrils will never be world-famous if you confine me to the life of a frizzy-haired recluse (with or without cats), so cut me a little slack!

Yours in hirsute glory, Harriet

Creative

catalyst

5 / 3 / 1 4 The mountain lions can’t see from here that it’s too late. They’re standing on this little outcrop of rocks, patting the ground with the pads of their feet and craning their necks to see. They can see plumes of smoke whipping into the air. The faint smell of ash. Little black specks moving away from the tunnel of smoke. The mountain lions can’t hear sirens or engines or the thunder of cracking wood. The burning will not reach up the mountain for them. Another smell on the air—deer. This is a smell that means something. The stalk, dash, slash and give a throaty growl as the deer hits the ground, kicking the air, eyes rolling back white.

Dusk is blazing red tonight. The cubs feed and the mountain lions lick the blood off each other’s fur.

1 4 / 3 / 1 4 Whale song is the only thing that gets me to sleep these days. I built a tank in the backyard and ordered a miniature humpback whale online.

I dragged my bed out next to the tank, and for a time it worked a treat. I slept like a baby. I rubbed my whale’s sides in the morning and I fed her extra krill. But it’s beginning to get to me. Now I sit here nights with the sheets wrapped around my head looking wide-eyed through the window on the side of the tank and she won’t stop swimming in circles and she won’t stop banging against the sides and she won’t stop singing. In the days, as well as the nights. She just won’t stop singing.

1 6 / 5 / 1 4 Claws skitter on slick pavement, darting back from the swing of headlights growling past again. Brush tail between legs, ears pricked and fur bristling.

Peeking out from behind a parked tire, waiting for an opening—SLAM. There is a crack and for a moment the air is heaving open, the road is splitting in two, the whole scene falling to pieces. Strings of letters, mostly consonants, trailing around the wreckage. Flecks of profanity falling into the spray of glass, dancing over dented metal. Two pieces of furious meat step out of their vehicles, faces red in the whip of rage. Movement slicing the dying dusk, everything spinning and lurching but the road is finally still. Hear the thuck of flesh on flesh as fist and head connect. A brown fox bolts across the road and disappears into the park.

izzy roberts-orr

animals

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creative

pieces I knew him in edges.

He moved panting through the hollow places, crowd-fat and faceless; worm-blind beneath the earth.

That night he danced like the drowned, his fingers mouthing shapes with splintered nails stained to the bone with the wet of white bulls torn bloody under Bacchic stars.

And his crown dripped heavy on his head and his robe hung stinking in the air and as I stared through red-webbed eyes the light cut him to pieces.

paul millar

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56

untamed

april Trespass in your wasteland, maze of wilting, broken tombs; marble moons.

Ich, ich, my ankles itch.

Under pine trees you find me, in a desert of the dead.

Under pine trees I leave you, untaken, unwed.

Ich, ich, my ankles itch.

Do roots sink into your home?

Will you follow me home?

Don’t follow me home.

Ich, ich, my ankles itch.

Your journey’s end five decades ago, and my itching ankles have far to go.

vince spotswood

creative

57

i’ve learnt not to approach things without my haunches raised. maybe that’s why you said you couldn’t love me. that’s alright. you can still see the flesh of a boy i tore apart last week wedged into the cracks of my teeth. stay with the pack! i’ve watched from the sidelines as those who limped or lagged were thrown into the river. one day they’ll come for you. a pack of wild animals, wearing glossy masks of men. they’ll hold a knife to your genitals. it will feel cold against your skin. without moving their mouths, they’ll threaten to take everything away. if you’ve got any guts you’ll drown in the sea of picketed signs and you’ll howl until your throat is raw. they’ll break your legs and hang you from hooks in cages. and they’ll look you straight in the eye when they tell you they’re doing this for you. that would make me so fucking mad. you buried your claws into my flesh once before, so i know you’ve got them. why don’t you give them something to remember you by? or do you only carve your name into the ones you love? sorry, you never loved me. i keep forgetting. i’m gutless. i’ll run until my lungs explode or my legs give out. a boy walking home from school will point his tree branch at me. he’ll shoot me dead. it’s a hard world for wild things.

francesca di stefano

how to survive in the animal kingdom

every memory i have is tangled in the nettles growing on my back. they had me by the throat when they shaved me. with only three clicks of metal kissing metal they left me naked in the street and now i carry nothing but what i can hold in my hands.

rusu

RUSU is kicking off semester two in a big way, with orientation week featuring student clubs and parties for every campus.

james michelmore

We’ll also be announcing a huge line-up of semester two events including a ball, a pub crawl, our annual World Week festival, plus all the usual parties and weekly events. There’s a lot more to what RUSU does than just fun and games though, and we’ve got a variety of news for students in second semester.

With the announcement of the New Academic Street construction we have been consulting with RMIT about the temporary relocation of essential student services such as RUSU lounges and meeting rooms, RMIT Link, CityFitness Gym, the Swanston Library and the prayer rooms.

While it is clear RMIT is making every effort to ensure the “temporary” relocation of these facilities is smooth and amicable, the Student Union has great concern for the long-term provision of these services. At the end of June, there has still been no confirmation from RMIT that these facilities will be replaced in the New Academic Street.

The only confirmed facilities are a library that is 50 per cent larger and a large new student hall with more retail and food outlets than the current cafeteria. Where this space will be cut from is unclear.

RUSU is also concerned that there is not yet a plan in place to ensure students have access to affordable food on campus while the current Building 10 cafeteria is closed throughout 2015.

RUSU has offered to double the quantity of free food given out at weekly events, but this will only go some way to feeding the thousands of hungry RMIT students on the city campus. The Student Union will continue to lobby for the maintenance and improvement of current facilities to ensure RMIT students have an enjoyable and engaging experience both during and after the New Academic Street construction.

This semester will usher in a new era of campus life at RMIT Bundoora with the introduction of a common lunch hour on Wednesdays. The Student Union recently secured this initiative after almost a year of lobbying. The common lunch hour will provide an unprecedented opportunity for Bundoora students to socialise on campus and engage with the services of RUSU and RMIT Link. RUSU will also be doing more to engage with students at the Bundoora and Brunswick campuses during second semester with more outreach events on campus as well as more free drinks and parties for members.

Another recent win for RUSU and students is the news that the College of Design & Social Context is looking to begin recording all timetabled lectures where the facilities exist. This is a significant step toward an improvement that RUSU has been championing for years.

RUSU representatives have also been working with RMIT on a review of Student-Staff Consultative Committees with a view to improving accountability and ensuring student concerns are integrated into the annual review of each program. At present, not all programs have a functional SSCC and most students do not even know who their SSCC representative is.

RUSU’s recommendations would see the contact details of all SSCC representatives made available to their peers and the integration of better feedback and discussion methods into Blackboard.

While RUSU is always working hard to improve RMIT for all students, we really love our members and we give them priority access to our events as well as regular prizes and giveaways. You can show your appreciation for RUSU and become a member online for a cool $10 at su.rmit.edu.au.

is the president of the RMIT University Student Union, RUSU

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59

untamed

CHILL GRILL N

* FREE BEER * FREE CIDER * ES * * FREE BBQ * FREE TUN ONS) (WITH HALAL & VEGE OPTI

* ON YOUR CAMPUS WEEKLY * * CHECK POSTERS FOR DETAILS * www.su.rmit.edu.au

RUSUpage

RMITSU