Current Media Issue 11 - Breeding Season

RMIT HANOI CAMPUS ISSUE 11 JULY 2015 THE BREEDING SEASON EDITION

CurrentMedia

Current Media

Current Media is a free, student-run publication for the RMIT Hanoi community

DESIGN

EDITORIAL DANG NGHINH XUAN President s3466649@rmit.edu.vn

VU THANH HA

DAO THU HA

Chief Editor & Writer s3466645@rmit.edu.vn

HA THANH LAN

NGUYEN DIEU LINH Lead Designer s3467267@rmit.edu.vn

PHAN MINH CHI

Writer s3505969@rmit.edu.vn

Writer s3446496@rmit.edu.vn

Designer s3467281@rmit.edu.vn

NGUYEN THU HIEN

NGUYEN DANG MANH

NGUYEN DUY ANH

Writer s3461784@rmit.edu.vn

HOANG THUY TIEN Writer s3501322@rmit.edu.vn

NGUYEN DIEU LINH

Writer s3518027@rmit.edu.vn

TRAN BACH DUONG Writer s3517744@rmit.edu.vn

Designer s3503260@rmit.edu.vn

DAO CAM CHI LAN Designer s3515514@rmit.edu.vn

NGUYEN VINH GIA HUY

Designer s3344082@rmit.edu.vn

Designer huypon18091996@gmail.com

TRAN LE PHUONG THAO

NGUYEN HANH HUONG

Designer s3480704@rmit.edu.vn

Designer s3533002@rmit.edu.vn

VU QUYNH CHAU

Writer S3501321@rmit.edu.vn

Writer s3534843@rmit.edu.vn

LE THUC HIEN

HOANG THU HUONG

Writer s3413036@rmit.edu.vn

DO HAI NAM

Writer s3517752@rmit.edu.vn

NGUYEN KHANH QUAN Writer s3550574@rmit.edu.vn

CONTACT US Email: currentmedia.rmithn@gmail.com Facebook: facebook.com/CurrentMediaRMIT Website: currentmediarmit.com (*) Please note that the views expressed in these pages are the personal views of the writers, and do not necessarily reflect the views of RMIT management.

J

Contents U

L

Y

2

0

1

5

12 05 Perspective

24 Perspective

10 Voices of RMIT

27 Fun Facts

12 Insider’s Story

28 Around the World

14 The Talk

31 Entertainment

To Breed or Not to Breed

Let’s Talk About Sex

“What Life Gives Us, Prepare and Take It” Linda and Breaddie

No Sex is Absolutely Normal

11 Bizarre Animal Sexual Practices

Sex Festivals Around the World

Rated R

16 Fashion

34 Perspective

20 Cover Story

36 Short Story

22 The City

38 Comic Strip

Power of the Underneath

Big Belly and Proud of It

Into the Maternity Care

14

16

Out and About in a Gay Hookup

We Start at the End

Let’s Fall in Love

30

38

Editor’s Letter

T H E B R E E D I N G S E A S O N

When the indie Viet movie “Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere” was

the most precious thing a couple could have, when planned – not a

released last year, much of the buzz was about its uncensored nudity

hazardous end of an unprotected pleasure seeking journey.

and sex scenes, not the intriguing plot line: a young girl decides to have a late-term abortion. In Western society, such an act is likely to

So yeah, let’s talk about sex and breeding like (young) adults.

face condemnation, yet in Vietnam, the object of criticism still seems to be premarital sex. Of course the attitude is changing with time,

In this Breeding Season theme, we discuss the beauty and trials of

but until now sex is nonetheless often viewed as a “sensitive” topic,

motherhood, through the perspectives of a newly happy mother and

whatever that means, as if there was something inherently wrong or

beloved ProfComm lecturer Linda Nguyen, Ms. Ha Ta – also a new

degrading in this universally human need that brings about the con-

mom and RMIT scholarship holder, and a midwife at a maternity hos-

tinuation of life.

pital in Hanoi who has aided delivering hundreds of newborns. We also feature fascinating animal practices, festivals worldwide, stories

This unwillingness to bring sex on the table leads to irrepressible

of people with ‘untraditional’ sexual orientations - all awe-worthy as

curiosity, unguided experiments and longing physical and mental

they let us see such breadth of sexuality on earth. The issue is about

consequences. On the other hand, the misrepresentative portrayal

renewal, fertility, diversity and hope.

of sex as steamy, sneaky, vodka-induced associated with hedonistic living rampant on the media has ripped off its nearly most important

When we embrace sex, we know ourselves as humans with the

function: to deliver babies into the world. Babies should be inarguably

capacity to love, give birth and nurture. Now that is beautiful.

Dao Thu Ha - Editor in Chief 04 July 2015

?

PERSPECTIVE

To Breed or Not to Breed Written by Manh Nguyen

I

n any given conversation about having children, if a man says he has no intention of having a child, people would almost certainly roll their eyes and give him a free pass, because biologically, he doesn’t give birth and arguably putting his career first is more acceptable. A woman saying the same thing would get bludgeoned by the crowd, with questions like “What’s wrong with you?”, “The clock is ticking”, “Once you have kids you’ll change your mind” and the golden “You’re being selfish.”

Let’s face it, women are under the pressure of becoming mothers along with the idea that they were born to give birth. It’s just ‘natural’ if women choose to carry a huge belly around for 9 months and heaps of responsibilities on their shoulders for another 18 years. But in the opposite situation, the world has every means to make them feel sad, regretful and abashed.

July 2015 05

In the West Kathy Benjamin expressed on a Cracked article about how her feeds were filled with her friends’ babies’ pictures, that she felt like a horrible person because motherhoods’ sacrifices were being extolled, that she had to cling to any comedy and inaccurate reports to make her feel good about the decision, that not adopting anyone makes her feel guilty or that she had to ponder how traumatic her life will be if her spouse dies first.

In the face of such pressure, today, 19 percent of American women reach their mid-40s without giving birth, doubling that of 40 years ago. A 2012 Centers for Disease Control report indicates that among women aged from 40 to 44, 22 percent were “childless by choice” (mind the difference with ‘childless by circumstance’).

From one survey in European countries in 2012, one in five Western women will end their childbearing years without conceiving, compared to one in ten just 30 years ago.

These “voluntary childfree” cases are correlated to higher education. A research by Kansas State University concluded “people’s desire to have children is most influenced by the positive and negative interactions, and the trade-offs.” It makes sense because with education comes educated and critical thinking choices. “There are too few social supports, especially given the fact that the majority of women are no longer just mothers now, they’re mothers/workers. Yet virtually no social policy accounts for this. Interestingly, women with the most education are the ones having the fewest children, though even basic literacy has a negative effect on birth rates in the developing world—the higher the literacy rate, the lower the birthrate. In other words, when women acquire critical skills and start weighing their options, they soon wise up to the fact that they’re not getting enough recompense for their labors” - explained Laura Kipnis, one of the

06 July 2015

authors of “Selfish, Shallow, and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers on the Decision Not to Have Kids”.

But what else are people heading for? The answer is mostly independence and freedom (Duxbury, Medhill & Lyons, 2005). In spite of the idea that women’s greatest achievement is to give birth, there is arguably a surfeit of other things like adventures, skills, career and relationship development, the relief of responsibility along with others mentioned in “Having it all without having children” on Time. In a book called “We Need to Talk About Kevin”, in which a mother’s life is ruined by her psychopathic son, Lionel Shriver wrote “we are apt to look back on our pasts and question, not, did I serve family, God, and country, but did I ever get to Cuba, or run a marathon? Did I take up landscape painting? Was I fat? We will assess the success of our lives in accordance not with whether they were righteous, but whether they were interesting and fun.”

The idea seems selfish at first, but if you consider how much pressure the society is putting on women to give birth and how little voice a woman has in whether or not to do so, you would realize that we are judging people simply because they’re not yielding to the pressure and are making decision for their own sake. And how is that bad? If the same person were to make a personal choice to have children, people would say they were fulfilling their duty as a mother praising them for their noble sacrifices, not because they want to. “Not having children is seen as supremely selfish, as though the people having children were selflessly sacrificing themselves in a valiant attempt to ensure the survival of our endangered species, and fill up this vast and under-populated planet,” says writer Geoff Dyer.

But would the story be different on the other side of the planet where family values are weighted more?

What about the East The overall situation appears to be similar, in all parts of Asia, the total fertility rate (TFR) has fallen by half or more in the past 35 years. In Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore, the TFR hovers between 1.0-1.3. China, India and Vietnam also showed a drop and are maintaining at 1.7, 2.5, and 1.7 respectively. In Africa, the TFR recorded is still as high as 5.0 by 2012.

So does it mean Asian women have become more modernized and turning voluntary childless? It’s a yes from Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Thailand. And there’s a kind-of-leaning-towards-no shrug from Vietnam, China, Uzbekistan, India and many other countries. But the reason is far from women empowered by feminist ideas.

“Japan’s punishing corporate world makes it almost impossible for women to combine a career and family, while children are unaffordable unless both parents work”, Ai Aoyama – a Tokyo-based sex and relationship counselor. In Hong Kong, a research commissioned by Citibank found nearly half of married respondents agreed with the statement “Because having a kid is too expensive, my spouse and I have decided against having one/having another”. According to an in-depth study of 16 married Chinese Singaporean women who have chosen not to have babies, for the eight women without degrees and earning an average monthly pay of $2,350, the most commonly cited reason for being childless is a lack of money.

Most said they desire children but feel that they cannot afford to raise a child in the costly and highly competitive Singapore. The top reason against babies for university-educated women who take home an average monthly pay of $6,250 is that they feel they cannot juggle motherhood and a job, and are unwilling to sacrifice their career prospects (The Asia News Network, Singapore). The theme seems clear for those developed countries: cost. For either financial cost or opportunity cost, those women are saying no to babies.

Low fertility rate in developing countries, however, has a different explanation. Chinese parents who don’t want kids would often find themselves in predicament.

Having more than one child would violate state’s law. But

having none is even worse: in July 2014, China issued a new law that requires immediate relatives’ permission for the elderly to attend to care services. Unless you have a child to take care of you, your few days left are not easy, like 152,000 Chinese parents in 2012. In the case of Wang Jin’e, 77, she said her only child died 15 years ago and she and her husband have been searching for a nursing home ever since.

On a social point of view, blogger IndiaFeminist101 wrote: “In Indian society, having kid is de facto, and voluntarily not having kid is so exceptional that there is very little mainstream discussion about it”. People’s marriages are devastated, one can even get mistreated by their in-laws, friends, left out of family events, criticized, prevented from seeking medical care or even starved.

Consequently, Indian women actually have to rush for having kids because soon, they will end up in some horror makeshift factory-like lethal sterilization camp like Chhattisgarh.

Likewise, the stigma for women’s choice persists in Vietnam. Beside 16% of divorces that were accounted for by infertility, numerous infertile married women fear their husband will take a second wife, with or without their knowledge. Some of these women were asked by their husband to seek out a second wife for him. For centuries, polygamy served as a way to expand lineages and to address infertility, but has been illegal in Vietnam since 1959. The 35-year-old PR agency worker in Saigon said she thought about leaving for some places where she was not known, to escape from the deep-rooted prejudices held by her husband’s relatives and neighbors. “They shout at me, saying I am wicked, and even accuse my parents of not having lived virtuous lives as the reason why I can bear no children,” she said. Tears rolled down her face.

Nevertheless, having fewer children or having no children at all because of costs doesn’t equal the freedom of choice. In any way, women’s bodies and their control over them are always belittled by outer forces, be it the time/ money pressure of fast-paced modern life or deep-rooted dogmas.

Empowerment and Independent Choice It was all along this forced alignment of biological role and societal role that assumed woman’s ultimate goal is to pop out a human. While shifting the whole society’s opinion on one thing is right next to impossible, education might lead the way. Girls can be taught to love themselves and be more aware of the fact that every choice she made for her body is entitled to her and herself only. Individual choices to embrace freedom and empowerment, en masse,

can help remove the stigma.

It’s not like our species is endangered of decreasing diversity or that more natural resources needed to be scooped out. Neither it’s the case of extinction through overpopulation. Hence, personal wishes should be, ideally, independent of any factor. Or at least, they should be able to play a pivotal role as of to breed or not to breed.

July 2015 07

CAMPUS REPORT

Campus Report

by Ha Vu and Duong Tran

A Million Dollar Project Congratulations to those freshmen and undergraduates of RMIT, since you are going to experience a brand new Hanoi campus landing in the building this semester! With a view to providing RMIT students with a modern yet cozy environment, the refurbishment plan has officially been kicked off. To deliver the message, a group of RMIT students named “The Space”, have thrown a successful event as a part of their ICP course.

For the first time at RMIT, students could experience the “Xbox Kinect” which is expected to arrive very soon at the campus.

The Reef Who says Current Medians are only a bunch of kids that publish magazine every semester? On March 16th, Current Media had held our biggest event ever titled “The Reef ” to affirm our position as students’ official multi-media channel and celebrate our 3rd year of successful operation. The event was inspired by the Great Barrier Reef - the largest coral reef in the world where all marine creatures gather to communicate as a community, showing Current Media’s goal to encourage RMIT voices to be raised and heard. In collaboration with WeEscape, we had for the first time brought a reality escape game set up inside AV theater, fascinating lots of students who heard about the hype yet hadn’t got the time to try it out.

Entertaining games about communication skills and teamwork, tasty food and drink as well as adorable handmade gifts were a big plus that contributed to the event’s success.

Table Tennis Tournament 2015 Former American football quarterback Terry Bradshaw once said, “When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge”. And last semester, RMIT Ping Pong club in collaboration with Sports & Recreation Room had offered an intense table tennis challenge for sports enthusiasts to prove themselves. On April 18th, 12 students and 2 teachers with ping pong craze running in their blood joined the tournament with strong determination to win (or not). The first 21 games in the morning went so intensely that nearly everyone in the room had their body contracted upon every strike the players made. Finally, after 8 final matches in the afternoon, the undefeated Level 7 student Tran Vinh Huan proudly took the crown thanks to his regular practice and passion for the sport ever since he was in middle school.

08 July 2015

Splash - Event Club Summer’s quick approaching in May means it is time for waterparks and spraygrounds. However, RMITers didn’t need to go too far to have some fun as Event Club had offered us their biggest event of the semester named “SPLASH” to beat the heat and enjoy playing games with their peers, with an only 10-minute ride to Hoang Minh Giam street. SPLASH consisted of 9 challenges followed by one final game, with all involving water.

Thus, whether you are the type to soak up the sun or lounge in the shade, you just couldn’t sit still during the event as you could be splashed with water from balloons, water guns, hoses, buckets of water and sprinklers at anytime. Well done, Event Club, you truly know how to dispel boredom and wake us up from final revision with such refreshing water!

Young Chef Challenge - RMIT Marketing Club Don’t you think piles of assignment leave no time for RMITers to take up any hobbies? By organizing Young Chef Challenge - the first cooking contest ever at RMIT Hanoi, RMIT Marketing Club has debunked that myth. The three heated rounds witnessed brilliant chefs-to-be with outstanding cooking skills ranging from food preservation to time management skill. More significantly, their burning passion and serious demeanor towards cooking strongly impressed the panel of judge who are all highly-recognized experts in the food industry. The prestigious title of “Young chef ” called the name of Pham Bich Diep - an RMIT Profcommer thanks to her impressive “fried chicken with sauce” dish.

The Next Chapter II – RMIT Business Club Hanoi In preparation for RMITers to get their feet into the real world, RMIT Business Club Hanoi organized a workshop named “The Next Chapter II”, in which students get to see how RMIT alumni have been thriving in their current positions. In the professional yet cozy atmosphere of the workshop, a lot of helpful tips in writing an effective CV and conducting an impressive interview with employers were shared by successful alumni. Our warmest wish to our RMITers who are soon to step into their career journey.

July 2015 09

VOICES OF RMIT

LET’S TALK ABOUT SEX written by Nguyen Linh & Hien Le

B

reeding season.

When we first heard about the theme for this issue, we looked at each other and be like WHAT? Sex, marriage and pregnancy, such intriguing topics, but how to get people to talk about them?

Fortunately, we have been welcomed with open minds that are willing to share (just another perk of studying in an international university - perhaps). Among the vast and somewhat mythical territory of reproduction, the sex and cohabitation area seem to attract the young’s attention the most.

A penny for your thoughts?

Which aspect of our issue’s theme triggers you the most?

10 July 2015

Luong Tien Dung

(Professional Communication) Delish things can easily tap into human’s emotions. It’s hard to go against it. It belongs to the art of attraction; it belongs to nature. Huh? Sex with a beautiful girl? Easy, let me describe her for you first: she will have long curly hair falling perfectly on her fair-skinned long legs. You see, making love with such a charming girl is like tasting good wine.

You need to follow four steps. First, you have to admire her. Then, you touch her and let her scent seduce you. Finally, you pour the wine out and enjoy it.

Nguyen Thi Vinh (Commerce)

I admit that I used to be against cohabitation because if things go out of control, the woman is always the one to suffer more. Currently I’m not completely for it, but I don’t oppose young couples who want to try that out, it’s their decision. Many Vietnamese people, especially the elderly, oppose cohabitation due to its being against Vietnamese habits and customs, but in my opinion, cohabitation can’t be regarded as either a habit or a custom. It’s just a trial to see whether they can really sympathize with each other so as to come to marriage or not. So I don’t view cohabitation as totally negative.

Pham Le Hoai (Commerce)

I think cohabitation is good in its own way. As my mom said, couples are completely different before and after marriage, so cohabitation would be a chance for them to understand each other better and enable them to decide whether to put a ring on it or not. It’s nothing strange when many Vietnamese youngsters today want to follow the trend under the growing popularity of Western culture. If an elderly person tells me that cohabitation is an insult to Vietnamese traditions, I’d reply to them that society in the modern era is totally different from the past. Actually, cohabitation could help reduce the chance of divorce, as the couple get to know each other better before deciding for a wedding. A divorce is not only costly but also leaves negative impressions on both sides. It could even be worse if they already have children.

July 2015 11

INSIDER’S STORY

“ PREPARE AND TAKE IT WHAT LIFE GIVES US

Story of an RMI T undergraduate in Commerce (Management), a young mother, and dedicated community-minded project executive.

A

vivacious little girl in a black suit, hair pinned to an unruly bun, took the stage at RMIT Scholarship Ceremony last year. After 3 grueling times, she finally won a Leadership Scholarship for current students. The speech left students, parents and the management board speechless, a flicker of sympathy in their admiration for this determined student and brave young mother.

You meet her in person on a sweltering day at Gemax cafe, during a fundraising event for her organization SEALNet. Your eyes slide through the room, trying to spot her: a girl in flowing skirts with self-serious high collar white shirt, is she? Yet she is over there, bouncing around like a boxer in washed-out jeans and a blue T-shirt bearing animated characters. Her hair is pulled in a loose ponytail, nesting on a seemingly teenage face on which a steady and warm smile rests.

She is Ha Ta, her age is concealed and unspecified although you guess from late 8X to early 9X, she grins and blurts out: “I won’t tell you, I’m so old. Why do you need to talk about age?” Her companion today is her one-year son, Khang in diaper, his nickname “A Hua”, with a cue-

12 July 2015

ball head, porcelain skin untouched by worry and eyes twinkling with mischief. He fumbles around with every object he finds on the table, he nails destroying her phone by constantly picking it up and dropping it.

At times, he attempts to startle her, by suddenly roaring ‘U oa’. Obviously, he fails.

Meanwhile, a group of students is sitting in circle with some of her friends in SEALNet, discussing US College Application. She points towards her friends, “She is from Brown University, and another is from Amherst - the number one Liberal Art College. A little bit intimidating, isn’t it? But they are all down-to-earth, humble, and supportive”. She declares that she is not a glittering student and it takes her four times to win the scholarship, she confides to you that she was brutally honest by exposing all her weaknesses during interview in the first two shots and lacked a straight-A academic record. In the fourth time, she secretly funneled efforts into the scholarship application amid her late pregnancy and misfortunes sweeping through her family; and luckily, the victory in Nielsen Case Study Competition gained her an edge this time. During that time, she

“

deleted her Facebook, distancing herself from friends.

When she couldn’t withstand the stress, she burst into tears with her husband, Long Nguyen, a Business (Accountancy) alumnus. “He is very patient with me, always a source of great encouragement. He takes care of Khang when I’m busy, enduring my blind rage that I persistently and unreasonably snap at him when I’m under the pressure of studies and SEALNet’.

Ha Ta seems ubiquitous in every club at RMIT; she leaves her footprints in Student Council, Event Club, Marketing Club and SIFE. But what really defines her is SEALNet, which “stands for Southeast Asian Service Leadership Network,” she states with pride. This is an organization committed to tackle community issues and leadership covering projects from slum children to Agent Orange or sanitary and healthcare. Harking back to 2010 when she participated in SEALNet as a high school volunteer, spent time at Hoa Binh Peace Village to help autistic and Agent Orange children, attended the leadership workshops and reflection with a mentor from SEALNet. ‘I usually stay ‘til the last minute to talk to my mentor, Lisa from UCLA, reflecting on my experience today, high-school life, and family. I come to understand myself and my personal development. I feel appreciated when taking part in these activities,” says she.

In 2013, she made her way to Singapore for the first SEALNet’s Youth Leadership Summit in the National University of Singapore in 7 days. There she met prominent figures such as the professor Kishore Muhbubani, once Singaporean Ambassador of the UN. “It opens your eyes. I remember the workshop on Empathy by Mr Leng Lim that I’m strongly connected with and I have a chance to meet friends from other countries who possess experiences beyond my imagination”, she wades in stories she heard from the workshop and of her friends

about prostitution in Cambodia and ethnic conflicts in Indonesia. These stories from distinguished friends radiate great passion and inspiration to her, ‘I have to try harder, to do something to help people and community.

Not just myself, my family, I have to see beyond Hanoi Vietnam and into the world.’ She harbored a project about youth development in Indonesia. In plan, she would submit a proposal in October, land in the US in February for training, and carry out her project in the following summer.

Unexpectedly, in September 2014, Khang arrived, ‘an unplanned pregnancy’, she says with a beaming smile.

She recalls the memories when knowing about his arrival. ‘Not sure to be sad or happy’, she switched to a cocooning phase, hiding out from her parents. Her father rang her incessantly, incapable of suppressing it, she surrendered. Her father fell sick for a week. You ask her if she ever regrets it? She tells you there are pro-life and pro-choice decisions; prolife alludes to the spiritual belief that every human being should be preserved. She reveals that she is never a goal-oriented person; she sets goals and never achieves them, “what life gives us, prepare and take it. Many things await, may be they will be more compatible for me. Embrace it all, trying to make the best out of bad things. If it is good and that’s nothing more to ask for.”

In near future, she hopes that along with her peers in SEALNet, she would successfully have another child – the Youth Leadership Summit 2015 or YLS15. In distant future, she hopes to finish her Commerce degree and become a better mother who can rekindle empathy and determination in her little son. ‘By connecting with people from all walks of life, he will realize he is so small in comparison with others that he has to try harder, try his best,’ she cradles him in her arms.

Lan Thanh Ha

July 2015 13

THE TALK

L

written by Ha Vu & Duong Tran

inda Nguyen is a seemingly perfect epitome of the modern woman in 21st century: a beautiful and skillful cook, a career-driven lecturer, a loving wife and now a dedicated mother. No matter how packed her schedule seems to be, she always surprises us with new roles she takes on and how smoothly she can juggle them.

It has been almost three months since we’ve last seen Ms. Linda on our campus. Perhaps the joy of having a new member in her family has dispelled all the weariness of being a full-time PhD student with an arduous thesis to tackle.

She welcomed our visit with a warm smile, looking as robust as back in the days when she had lots of time to herself. Setting aside her work and letting Breaddie, her newborn daughter, explore the mystery of bright-colored creatures moving inside the fish tank, Linda finally had a break to sit down and share with us her first time experience as mother.

Our very first question, how are you and Breaddie after such a long break?

It was not really a long break to me until now, about three months I guess. We’re doing great. She kicked a lot during my pregnancy so many people told me she would be very naughty but she turns out to be cute, chill and mellow, which is great!

14 July 2015

Any memorable experience during your labour?

I experienced 18 hours of labour pain which was such a painful experience but the moment I saw her for the first time, I thought to myself that I could suffer all the pain, whether 18 or 800 hours, all over again just to have that wonderful bundle of joy. It was such a blessing and I feel like I can do anything just for this little person.

How has having a new baby changed your life?

Having a baby really changes me in many ways. I’m not just talking about the daily life habits or routines. Of course my routine now is filled with changing diapers, breastfeeding and other things related to the baby. However, it’s the mental change that is the biggest. Life is not about you anymore as your whole attention focuses on this tiny little person, who depends on you 100% and can only communicate with you through crying! The wet diaper cry is different from the hungry cry for example. It was all about us figuring each other out. Basically, I learn a new thing about her every day. I also feel that motherhood has lifted me to a new level of love, unconditional love, and given me more strength because I know I have to take care and protect her.

You are known for your admirable performance of multiple duties simultaneously.

What are the secrets behind balancing your study, work and family? Do you find it hard to fulfill the responsibilities of all these roles at one time?

It’s hard to balance my work and study already, now with a baby it’s really a challenge for me. Sometimes I’m so tired that all I want is just some sleep, that’s it. I know it will be much more difficult when I come back to work after my maternity leave. Also, when I first learnt that I was pregnant, I was so afraid that I would suffer from postpartum depression because I thought I had so many roles to fulfill and I wondered how I would balance all my study, work and raising my child at the same time. I keep telling myself to stay “sane” because after childbirth, there’s so much to do and I’m afraid I might forget something or be depressed. My tip, as I always say, is to be organized. Actually, I still have my to-do lists and make notes on my calendar to prioritize things during my maternity leave.

What about being a mom, did you learn from your mom?

I have the most wonderful mom in the world. She is really good with children and now is a fantastic grandma to Breaddie. She teaches me a lot of things, such as how to hold a baby in a way that makes her feel comfortable or how to breastfeed in a way that helps me relaxed. Besides all these instructions, the most important thing I learn from my mom is how you should teach your children. I think it’s very important to set in our mind a plan about how to bring up a child and stick to it. I always believe that disciplines play a crucial role in shaping up a child’s personality.

What do you consider success as a mother raising her own child?

I think successful parenting is when we raise and help our children to live a happy life. Some parents want their children to attend famous school, but maybe their kid just wants to be a baker because they love baking, for example. Parents should not set an expectation on their kids and make that a burden for them. I don’t mind what Breaddie wants to do in the future but whatever she wants to do, I want her to be committed and passionate about it and make herself happy. To me, a happy child is a successful child.

Last question, do you have any advice for new moms out there?

Being a mom for the first time might be the most nerve-racking experience a woman can go through. There’s so much to learn, so much to do and you constantly question yourself whether you’re doing everything right! What I found valuable from my experience of becoming a new mom is that you should reach out for support and talk to other new moms, especially the supportive ones! They’re the ones who might understand your situation the most and have just gone through what you’re going through. I have a few close friends who have small children like me and talking to them really makes me feel better about myself as a mom. You have to believe in yourself and give yourself some credits for your effort.

When it comes to parenting, everyone will give you different advice just because they have different experience from you, especially in our culture, there are some old beliefs that people keep using as “standards” for raising a kid. Remember that every child is different and as a mom, you’re the one who understands your child the most. Don’t let other people’s opinions upset you. As long as you’re happy with what you’re doing and your child is happy, that’s the most important thing. A child can benefit a lot from a happy mom!

Thank you for the interview and may the best come to you and your family!

July 2015 15

FASHION

Power

Underneath of the

Creative concept by Huong Hoang & Ha Dao Photos by Huong T Nguyen & Nam Nguyen Clothes by Vay Ngu Sexy 63 Bach Mai & Save YouArself Studio 115 A3A Giang Vo MUA by Bui Thao Phuong

16 July 2015

S

ome say it must be a waste of money to invest in clothing that you couldn’t show to the public. But it is exactly because lingerie is worn underneath that makes them exceptional, because “a secret makes a woman woman”, ‘nuff said. A woman may not reveal much through her daily facade, but the naughtiness and sexiness of the identity she keeps to herself can well blow your mind. Lingerie is not only about seducing men, but cultivating a woman’s self-­ esteem and characters.

In the bedroom, lingerie always show their crucial part. It’s how the milky pastel colors blend in the set with blankets and curtains. It’s how her softly tanned skin is half­revealed and half covered under the dreamy flowing white lingerie. It’s how silky textile wrap around her flesh, how the laces gracefully twisted at the side of her shoulder, how light filter through the sheer fabric to disclose the beauty of her curves.

July 2015 17

18 July 2015

So come on, treat yourself. Don’t stick with your granny underwear and your comfort zone. Welcome the tropical heat with a high cut brief. Start to get naughty with a boyshort. Or perhaps a little daring with thongs. There is no reason to hesitate, after all, it’s the little secret you keep to yourself ... or if not, all the better.

July 2015 19

COVER STORY

Big Belly And Proud Of It

“To be pregnant is to be vitally alive, thoroughly woman, and undoubtedly inhabited.” ~ Anne Buchanan & Debra Klingsporn

20 July 2015

M

y cousin and I used to debate whether being a boy or a girl was better. I used classic arguments like more celebration days, cute skirts, can eat sweet cakes and cry while in pain. He shrugged ‘Well, boys don’t have to give birth’. That shut me up.

While men often take pride in their physical strength, women in turn usually use beauty as their trump card.

And despite how sacred the responsibility of motherhood is, it is not necessarily the most appealing state in a woman’s life. On the other hand, the beauty of a new life overshadows all the not-so-pretty changes in her body.

An expecting mum has the right to ignore the buzz of touching the belly button with her hand beauty test. After years of holding in her belly, now she is finally proud to be sticking it out.

Justified Weight Gain and Chic Short Haircut I will ignore the baby arrival’s anguish and horrifying look as the woman screams ‘I hate you, husband’s name’ like Lynette in Desperate Housewives or Wendy in What to Expect When You’re Expecting. At such a crucial time, even her appearance is irrelevant. My focus is about the nine unforgettable months. Pregnancy comes with a long list of natural symptoms: fatigue, morning sickness, increased urination and stretch marks combined with a flood of conflicting emotions before, during and after childbirth. No wonder why more and more women try to evade pregnancy for the sake of their golden body ratio and anxiety-free state of mind.

It is only natural that an expecting mum goes up a few sizes and revamps her wardrobe. With a child to nurture, her food cravings are justified and weight gain is with a purpose. However, that is when she is clearly pregnant.

Those first few months when a woman may just look like she has put on weight are not that easy to overcome. No more showing-off-belly crop tops and sexy skin tight jeans for the next ten months. No, I did not miscount; an extra month is added as the minimum amount of time for a woman to get her body into shape again.

Becoming a mother brings a lot of changes. Some of those, however, are by choice. It is considered a social norm now that women tend to cut their hair short during pregnancy. Reasons vary. It might be the sudden desire for a chic short hair makeover. Most of the time though, the exhaustion of childbearing leaves her with no time and effort to preserve her high-maintenance long hair. On the other hand, it struck me that all mothers on posters, billboards and TV commercials have lengthy, glossy, perfectly styled locks. Well, just add that to the list of distorted images about women featured in advertisements compared to real life. A real pregnant woman with her roller-coaster changes is still beautiful. Brimming with life, no creature can possibly be not pretty. Pregnancy comes with some nice perks too.

Superwoman and Her Devoted Sidekicks The surge of hormones does compensate women for her inconveniences. This is not an overstatement: A pregnant woman is a superwoman. In addition to her innate female intuition, she is now armed with maternal instinct and boosted immune system to protect her child. And there are certain acknowledgeable bonuses on her look. First, long or short, an expecting mother enjoys fabulous healthy hair as more hair follicles are in the active growth phase. The increased blood volume gives her skin a radiant look, often called the celebrated ‘pregnancy glow’. And let us not forget bigger boobs. It is common that a pregnant woman goes up a cup size or two. She has a new cleavage to show off now. Everybody had better watch out!

Carrying a baby is a paramount mission. Since the pregnant superwoman needs all the help she can get, the sight of her calls upon kindness in people. They help her open doors, give up seats for her on buses and congratulate her multiple times. Everyone smiles at her.

An expecting mother is to be pampered. And the most important person who will accompany her during the whole journey is naturally the father. He is the one that will satisfy her food cravings, hunt down cute little baby clothes with her and hold her hands when she is feeling vulnerable. Showered with love and care, a pregnant woman is a happy woman. And a happy lady is always stunning.

But the most wonderful perk of them all is to create and nurture a brand new life. The mother feels her child’s every move. All the kicking and flipping remind her of how precious her bundle of joy is. She spends months daydreaming about countless things she wants to show and teach her child. Growing a baby is a blessing and the joy of it only escalates when the father gets jealous over how intimate the mother and child are. ~~~ It is undoubtedly unnerving for women to enter motherhood. Not just women, men too are intimidated by the unknowns. They also have a hard time keeping her happy, healthy and beautiful. It is a long and bumpy road but just one look at those sparkling eyes staring straight at you; you realize it is all worth it.

Scientifically, a woman’s body does not fully develop until she becomes a mother. Spiritually, a woman knows it from the day she discovers that her own baby is growing inside of her; her fate has intertwined with this tiny being’s until the end of the universe. A woman may not be in the best shape of her life during pregnancy. However, slowly and gracefully, she evolves into a mother.

And that is unarguably one of the most beautiful things on Earth.

by Nguyen Thu Hien

July 2015 21

THE CITY

Into

the Maternity Centre Written by Lan THANH HA

I

visit Dong Da maternity centre when the drab glare of blazing daylights sets in. The centre is nestled among a torpid snake of houses squatty sprawling and hustling with small business. I weave, swerve and swoop across the hectic lane to reach it when the sultry Hanoi temperature is halfway to almost 40 degree. The centre is stifling, its wall sweating, the silence over-empowers the moment we crack open the entrance door. Seems like it just wakes up.

Mrs. Chu Dieu Huong

The centre was upgraded to a three-storey building outside the desolate interiors where the lines of bed and equipment are lying neatly. Mrs Chu Dieu Huong is the doctor and manager that takes charge of difficult delivery and abortion. She joined the centre in 1989, when there were 60 nurses, doctors and midwives in the ramshackle centre that was cramped with mothers and babies. “About 30 to 50 deliveries everyday; in the past, Dong Da district also includes Thanh Xuan district at present. Before, the centre’s function focuses on childbirth; now it crosses into services before labor such as family planning, regular checkups, and giving babies and mothers diagnoses’, says she in her static voice that rattles the tidy little room.

I tour the bleak centre with a small and dedicated midwife, Mrs Lan, who is on the road to middle age with jowls and lines webbing the corners of her eyes, yet she oozes ebullient conviction with a broad smile. She shares that she likes the white hue of doctor coats, then going straight into a vocational school, joining the centre in 1989 and helping up to 20 deliveries per day. “As mothers deliver healthy babies, all the worries disappear and are replaced with the air of festivity,” her face softens, getting a dreamy look. Her soothing voice drops when recalling times of difficult delivery and deaths in childbirth. She goes on, “One thing that troubles me is that mothers can’t have surgical delivery at a local maternity centre. While they are in great pain, we have to wheel them to a car transferring to bigger hospitals.” Then she also shares a story of a 16-year-old mum who intended to give birth in a toilet. ‘Her mother brought her here, after the neighbors told

22 July 2015

her that they overheard her daughter’s painful cry. The mother wept saying that she didn’t know who the father was while her daughter groaned, already being split open. The girl was taciturn, not answering any questions”. Mrs Lan warns against young people abusing sex before marriage, leading to abortion, infection and infertility. ‘Freedom is good, but young people had better protect themselves as it will affect their future lives.”

“There are no babies today,” says my friend.

There are no high-pitched cries, no babies sheathed in cloth, and the moment of birth as a slow movement catches the beam from the flashlight, the dark round dome of the baby’s head appears. Just the grim silence.

Mrs. Lan

The hallway is sprinkled with some mothers with swelling belly and their escorts, anxious faces gaze blankly. Opposite them sits a board that reads ‘Abortion Timetable’ crowded with names of doctors. Inside, a woman is being checked for an abortion. ‘There are up to 400 or 500 abortions every month, this is due to the low awareness among young people who are scared to go to medical centre during pregnancy and abuse abortion. Some in late pregnancy that can’t abort, bear babies and leave them here’ - Mrs. Huong says pitifully, flashing steely-eyed stonewall expression. “The functions of the maternity centre are changing. Nowadays, childbirth is migrating to big hospitals, where mothers opt for surgical delivery so that they can choose time their children are born,” she adds. “Surgical delivery is worse for the children’s health in comparison with natural delivery, as they couldn’t strengthen the children’s immune system to avoid lung diseases. I usually tell them that if all your children are to be presidents, who will be ordinary citizens?”

These words bob in the air. The harsh reality strikes. Now, the maternity centre morphs into an abortion centre, while the hospital morphs into a place where babies are pulled out in accord with their parents’ wishes or following mystical fortune tellers. The nature of motherhood is distorted. Who to be blamed here? The lack of sex education, low awareness of young people who enjoy the creamy waves of ecstasy dangling in each other, their parents, or even the abortionists? Is the thirst for bearing prominent figures or ideal physique after childbirth bigger than the health of babies?

I ask her if she advises them. “Yes, we do consult.” Do they ever listen? “Most don’t. They are determined.” She pauses, ‘Some do; I tell them abortion is evil’. After that, some mothers come to Mrs Huong bringing their children here, expressing gratitude to her, “Thanks to you, fortunately, I have this child, or else there wouldn’t be him.” Finally, a glimmer of joy spreads across the face of an abortion doctor.

July 2015 23

PERSPECTIVE

NO SEX IS ABSOLUTELY NORMAL

Asexuality Demystified Four months ago, “Fifty Shades of Grey” came out with quite a hyperbolic entrance.

Today, the movie has made worldwide $569,651,467 – becoming the highest grossing Rated R movie.

Xvideos.com, the largest porn site on the web with 4.4 billion page views per month, triples the size of CNN or ESPN, and doubles the size of Reddit. Along with YouPorn, Tube8, and Pornhub, those dwarf almost everything except the Googles and Facebooks of the Internet. It kind of gave us a glimpse at how sex-driven our society is up to this day, and how people have become much more open towards sex.

That is a big part of reasons why I usually get wowed, and scrutinized when I come out with people that I’m an asexual. People are actually fascinated by the fact that one can sustain not having sex rather than the concept of asexuality itself. Growing up, I was vaguely aware of my asexuality but it wasn’t until I found out that 1% of the population is also asexual and discovered asexual communities to answer my concerns that I actually felt relieved that there was nothing wrong. written by Manh Nguyen

24 July 2015

Say What Is Asexuality Again?

So let’s get the terminology out of the way. Those terms were coined by the asexual community as part of building their own culture and serve to identify among each other. Some would argue that by inventing their own terms, we asexuals are essentially isolating ourselves from the rest of the community, but those people didn’t think that the terms were made for asexuals and that they serve the asexual society rather than other people.

Asexuality indicates someone’s sexual orientation, which is not being sexually attracted to anyone. That being said, it’s pivotal to recognize the difference between the lack of sexual attraction and the lack of sexual ability.

Asexuals are physically and physiologically the same as other people. What’s more important is that asexuality describes what type of people one is sexually attracted to (in this case, none), not indicating any gender the person may have.

Hence, one asexual can be agendered (no gender at all), cis-gendered (being a male/female conforming to their biological sex), gender-fluid (changing gender), etc.

Like other identities, there is not a single litmus test to confirm if you’re asexual, because it’s just your orientation and who you’re attracted to. Some may develop asexuality straight from their birth while others may develop this orientation later in life. Either way, it’s up to the ones’ choice to use whatever identity to describe himself/ herself as long as it makes sense to do so.

The first thing you need to do when talking about sexual orientation is to distinguish it from romantic orientation, which determines what genders the person feels romantically attracted to and may form a romantic relationship with. Those are often aligned with one another but still possible to be decoupled. If he/she is not aromantic (lacking the desire for romantic love) then they are perfectly capable of falling for somebody else. Asexuality describes one’s sexual orientation, not their romantic orientations. Many aces claim to lead a happy life with their partners, just excluding the sexual parts. An asexual can be aromantic, bi-romantic, hete-romantic, homo-romantic, pan-romantic, etc.

In fact, according to AVEN - Asexual Visibility and Education Network, the spectrum of sexual orientation ranges from asexual - gray-A/demi-sexual - sexual.

Those who identify themselves as “asexual-ish” “sexual-ish” and “semi-sexual” can all be called Grey-A. Meanwhile, demi-sexual describes a person who does not experience sexual attraction unless they form a strong emotional connection with someone, which is way more specific than Grey-A. The thing is, people often confuse asexuality with celibacy. Celibacy portrays someone’s behavior, in which case

means voluntarily abstaining from sex and romantic relationships altogether, like monks and nuns. Orientation differs from behaviors, attraction is not the same as action which explains why some asexuals do admit themselves masturbating, engaging in sexual intercourses in their romantic relationships for the sake of pleasing their partners or reproduction. In fact in a research by Lori Brotto in Canada at University of British Columbia, she said “masturbation doesn’t make you sexual, about half of asexuals stimulate themselves on a fairly regular basis”. It is, once again, not something of our genuine desire, and more like an itch we have to scratch.

Aces (how asexuals call themselves) in 4 colors of the asexual pride flag

An Insult To An Asexual?

Things people would say can range from “Asexuals feel so much peace, not having to worry about those things,” “Asexuals seem like they have a purer kind of existence,” to even “Asexuals seem like they’d have such unique perspectives on humanity, since they’re not swayed by the same baser human instincts as the rest of us.” It felt like an insult because from the way I see it, not having desires towards other human beings doesn’t transcend us to the next evolution and “praises” like that actually make us look like freaks. Humans actually have a plethora of stuff to do other than having sex. Plus, not wanting sex creates just as much sex drama as having it.

Since it’s obviously out of the norm, I get a lot of comments like “you’ve got to have sex, like real good sex,” “you need to wait for the right one”, “is it curable?,” “it must be some kind of disorder,” “are you just doing it for attention?,” and many more. It’s important for both the offender and the victim to recognize the insults. With the pace of increasing visibility in these days and the fact the asexuality is still a new concept among society, asexuals and non-asexuals alike, should start paying attention to how their otherwise considered “normal” jokes could offend someone. And the victim, by being aware of those insults, can spread understanding and self-appreciation among others.

July 2015 25

you’ve got to have sex, like rea l good sex

what is wrong

is

with

you?

it

CU

E? RABL

t it mus

e be som

f kind o

asexuals feel so much peace, not having to wo rry about those th ings

RIGHT one

First off, asexuality is NOT a choice. It is an orientation people develop intrinsically, and hence can’t be turned on or off at will. An asexual doesn’t just simply take a sip of Starbucks while walking down the street thinking “You know what, I think I’m gonna stop being asexual today” and start hunting for sex the very night. By denying their sexual orientation, (saying that they need to find ‘the one’ while they are, at their very core identity, not sexually attracted to anyone) you’re offending them. Imagine advising a straight male he hasn’t find the right man yet and need to keep on trying and you’ll see how an asexual might feel.

And third, having sex isn’t some magical life-changing milestone that dramatically veers someone’s sexual orientations. You don’t need to have sex to know what your sexual orientation is. Reportedly, sexual attraction pops up through puberty (or even way before it) and the person will start feeling attracted to someone. I was an asexual before I had sex, still an asexual now and might be for the future (I do embrace fluidity).

Finally, saying someone coming out of the closet “just for attention” is straight-forward agonizing for the person.

Many of asexuals had to suffer this confusion that there were something wrong with them, not that they were simply different when others around them find the strong sexual attraction towards particular gender. Others go through hormones treatment doubting their relationship.

And the fact that gay or lesbian people sometimes actually suffer more from social stigmas doesn’t justify that we do not deserve the same right. One’s happiness should not be dictated and belittled by some measures on how much others are suffering.

26 July 2015

to wait for the

ER DISORD

It’s an insult to an asexual person or literally anyone else in the world to tell them their orientations need curing.

Empirically, in a research of over 18,000 students in UK, hormones don’t show increases of sexually arouses in recorded asexuals. In the same research, female asexuals can be aroused the same way other females does, just with less pleasure from orgasm and that they don’t think about others while masturbating.

you need

are you just doing it for attention?

The Final Word There are people from the LGBT+ community who deny asexuality as part of the community. The LGBT+ rights were hard-won and it’s understandable for people to defend it but again, people should be free to identify themselves anywhere outside of the “normal” spectrum set out by cis-he (cis-gender heterosexual) people. The best way to show your support for asexuality isn’t in trying to think of it as a compliment, but just understanding what it is, correcting misconceptions, including asexuality in discussions of possible orientations, and in understanding that asexuals are just people.

I think with more visibility, people will start to understand that the fixed binary system for genders and sexuality is inevitably inaccurate and constraining.

Through these varying orientations, we finally understand that what we desire is complex, multifaceted and often unpredictable.

This may sound strange to anyone associate themselves with the “normal” definitions set by the societal rules and stigmas, cooperating with the gender-aligned lust spectrum. The questions with this very spectrum are: how much do other people inspire lust in you, and what people, and in what way, and how quickly, and does it line up with what you were taught to feel, and how comfortable are you with that?

FUN FACTS

Bizarre Animal Sexual Practices

by Hien Le

Hello earthlings – welcome to the animal kingdom, now you are free to marvel at those weird and wonderful practices that perpetuate renewal and reproduction here.

Do prepare to be shocked, bemused and cracked up, because they are anything but vanilla.

After all, ‘weird’ is a totally human concept that is totally inapplicable in territories of birds, insects, sea creatures and so on. When it comes to mating, they will stop at no length to ensure the continuation of their lines. Thanks to those oddities and also the animals’ boldness, we have such a diverse ecosystem here on Earth.

When a male octopus finds a mate, he rips off his penis and throws it at the female so she can inseminate herself. He then grows a new penis.

To mate with the queen honeybee, a male (worker) honeybee has to compete with the rest of his brothers in the clan. His seed alone is passed down to the next generation; meanwhile he leaves his genital in the queen’s body to prevent the sperms from falling out, resulting in his death.

If a hen dislikes the rooster that forces her to do it with him (forced sex is common among chickens), she may re-eject the sperm he leaves behind.

When 2 banana slugs mate with each other, they chew off the other’s penis (they can act as both males and females at the same time).

Since barnacles can’t survive without sticking to a hard surface, male barnacles have penises up to 8 times longer than their own body to reach their mates without moving away from the boat or rock.

Female Adelie penguins trade sex for more stones from other nests to protect her eggs.

A female Macaque monkey screams when she has sex to increase the male’s chance of ejaculation.

Female squids don’t have vaginas - when a male ejaculates, the female releases a chemical that dissolves her skin, allowing the sperms to enter her body.

Who has the biggest little boy? Of course it’s the blue whale, the king of the deep blue sea. Their penises can reach up to 3 mettre at length, roughly 23 times bigger than the average size of a human’s.

If a female snake mates with multiple males, she can control which sperm to use for fertilizing her eggs.

July 2015 27

Around the World

SEX

Festivals Around the World written by Quan Khanh Nguyen

“

- While guys like Ted and Marshall may hide their porn...

- Marshal does not porn.

- Ha ha ha, that’s sweet.

”

(How I Met Your Mother – Episode 12, season 9)

Some of you would have watched porn for the last few days, I guarantee it (I’d love to say “most of you”, but well…).

But there is a way to keep it a secret and publicly say it out loud at the same time. Sounds like a too good of a deal to be true? But it can happen, yup, because there is something called sex festivals around the world. Intriguing? Japan is not the only kinky country with weird TV shows and festival, walk with me through this and you will get lots of unnecessary facts but you will, under the table, love it.

In fact, you could probably build a pretty entertaining annual calendar around these types of events. You can be in France partying if it’s May with the adult film stars in Cannes and laugh at the rest of the entertainment world chasing celebs at the annual artsy film festival. If you’re looking for a freaking hot July, the top choices include Indiana and Finland, the former for would-be nude beauty queens, the latter for a soup to nuts tour of all things sexual. Or you can head down to South Africa, or maybe even go down under to join the Aussies at Sexpo, a dual event that’s gained a considerable international audience. October means Halloween, of course, which means it’s time to head to the Left Coast and San Francisco, where the bizarreness that is the Exotic Erotic Ball happens before the witches and goblins come out to play. And if you’re into the trade show side of the equation, in November you should be in London for Erotica to restock your collection of sex products. There goes a basic plan for all the kinky, weird, sex-related stuff tour. But there is more:

Erotica

LoveParade

It’s consistently recognized as the largest erotic festival over the world, this massive sex-oriented trade show features exhibits from over 230 erotic vendors plying their wares, along with an erotic jewelry boutique. The casual atmosphere at this festival makes it perhaps the ultimate pickup spot for those taking in the sights, sounds and couplings at the shows.

Technically, this is a techno festival that celebrates the sense of unity, peace, love and understanding that helped get the East and West Germans back on the same page after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Regardless of the purpose of the celebration, it’s a fine excuse for approximately a million and a half young Germans and their friends to engage in all sorts of lewd sexual behavior while the local law officers basically just stand around and watch.

(November, London, England)

KinkyCopenhagen

(July, Berlin, Germany)

(October, Copenhagen, Denmark)

Did you know that adult films are legal in Copenhagen? If you’ve got a fetish for unusual intimate festivals, put this one at or near the top of your list. The intent here is to explore the world of BDSM, fetishes and unusual sexual behaviors, so this festival represents the dark underbelly of the adult festival industry. Also, if you’re into body art, piercings and other “modifications”, this is the festival to get your bodywork done or updated.

28 July 2015

KutemajrviSexFestival (July, Berlin, Germany)

Oh, those wild and crazy Finns. Freezing Finland up North might seem like an unlikely destination for an erotic celebration, but this festival has a well-earned reputation for, shall we say, covering all the sexual bases. It features lectures on sex and sexuality that run the gamut from straight to things you never thought people could do together, with or without their clothes on. And the exhibits are known for presenting the latest and greatest (and in some cases, the weirdest) when it comes to sex products. Oh, yeah, the dancers and performances are pretty good, too. Personally, we’re hoping that someday they integrate it with Finland’s annual wife-carrying contest.

Hot d’Or

(May, Cannes, France) Held just down the coast in the same city where one of the world’s most famous film festivals takes place, Hot d’Or is the industry’s annual bacchanalia blowout. Oscars will be handed out to the best and, well, steamiest of the adult industry, and you’ll probably see enough silicone here to supply a semiconductor company for months.

The post-award parties, which take place not only in hotels but on yachts parked off the coast, have a notorious reputation as big league parties. Just about every adult star you can name has won an award here — Evan Stone comes to mind as an example — and they annually gather on the beach and pose nude for impromptu paparazzi and media group photos.

July 2015 29

ENTERTAINMENT

EVIL MUSIC Let’s take a detour from traditional lounge music and annoyingly smooth saxophone – here we have dream pop, techno, R&B and everything else that inspires you to do very, very seedy things. by Ha Dao Ultraviolence by Lana Del Rey (2014)

Echoes of Silence by The Weeknd (2011)

Lana Del Rey is the provocateur of the 21st century that you either detest or adore. If you happen to like her modern Marilyn Monroe persona, you’ll definitely fall in love with her music as well, which is everything from upbeat to depressing and always full of sensual imagery. Lana’s latest album, Ultraviolence, is representative of her theatrical melancholy fused with fleeting drug-fueled ecstasy, soaking its listeners with all those ambivalent feelings of a life lived on the edge. Take a look: “I’m a dragon, you’re a whore/ Don’t even know what you’re good for” (F*cked my way up to the top). The lyrics only seem absurd until they are sung with their creator’s breezy siren-like voice, because it is when the songs become forlorn anthems of girls who hold a love they can’t retain. Those darkly shaded ballads will give you an urge to give everything you have for your bae for one night, and mourn about it the next. Because “you are pretty when you cry”, darlings.

The Weeknd, or Tesfaye in real life, seems to be a man of every girl’s fantasy: cloaked in an air of mystery, flaunting a masculine beauty, yet exposing his vulnerability in his arts and able to articulate subtle emotions so well. Like most modern day music, The Weeknd’s trademark is tales of drugs, parties, love and sex, yet told in details so intimate and have ups and downs so extreme. He will lead you to his dark places with his slow jam, cracked voice, humming bass and lovelorn echoes – there’s a tear in my beer kind of mood: “Nothing’s gonna make me feel this real/So baby don’t go home/I don’t wanna spend tonight alone/Baby please/Would you end your night with me”. His self-destructive tendencies are expressed in an elegant, sexy way - whether this causes a healthy impact in listeners is questionable, but the songs are undeniably atmospheric, urging you to lay bare and unfolded, gasping for a touch.

The Great Gatsby OST by various artists (2013) The album features both remixes and new top hits by top artists - including Beyonce, Jay Z, Sia, The XX and Lana Del Rey. Why does the director of Great Gatsby put such significance on the soundtracks? The answer is obvious, as in the world of parties, danceable music is the lingua franca. The plot-driven songs offer a nice mixture of music representative of the Jazz age when the story is set, but with a modern twist to refresh its relevance, having touches of rock, hiphop and techno here and there. They play a significant part in setting the atmosphere for the story, which is full of aspirational energy, sexual tension and hedonism (in today’s language, the yolo spirit). They speak of a haunting story of doomed romance, reminding you how fleeting happiness can be and the tighter you wanna hold your love, the more quickly it will slip through your hands like sand. Get loose and let the songs take you for a bumpy ride from breath-taking adventures to post-party blues, even though you know well an emotional hangover is waiting in the cold light of day.

30 July 2015

Settle by Disclosure (2013) You probably have known about Disclosure only by the hit Latch ft. Sam Smith and its MV featuring ridiculously beautiful people making out, but it’s a waste not to listen to the whole album. Dance music and the album format don’t often go hand in hand, but the smart sequencing produces an artwork that demands to be enjoyed in its entirety. Like a classic 3-act structure screenplay, the album offers a an masterful sense of pacing, from the jacking drive of “When a Fire Starts to Burn” to the devastating closing song “Help Me Lose My Mind”. Beside their catchy melodies, the lyrics don’t entail lyricisms – they are simplified imaginary conversations in tune with the rhythms, full of you-can-do-it encouragement and teenage pickup lines, like “Confess to me, make me feel it/ Confide in me, don’t resent it” or “You lift my heart up when the rest of me is down”.

Understandable, because the two producers are just over their puberty and secondly, it’s the general sentiment of the urban youth. The album is all about getting your feet wet, about loving and risking affection. So next time you see a cutie, well ...

“Yea, grab her/Yea/Yea, grab her.”

ENTERTAINMENT

RATED R

by Ha Dao & Chau Quynh Vu

R

omance isn’t always bedrock for sex. Even when it is, a humping session doesn’t always happen in slow motion with ‘Careless Whisper’ as background music. And we blame Hollywood flicks for this expectation. ‘If sex on screen were in any way representative of what sex is like in real life, it’d be miserable to watch’ - Stuart Heritage of The Guardian has justified this popular skirt around realism. But what if it is exactly the thing we want onscreen? The scope of human sexuality is broad, maybe too broad and curious, and we want a proper peep. But if you come to “50 Shades of Grey” for the raw and rough, poor little fellow, you have come to the wrong place.

Lust, Caution by Ang Lee (2007) Sex can be driven by a killing scheme, lust, fear, and only very much later, attachment. Like the name suggests, Lust, Caution is as breath-holding in the boldness of unsimulated love scene as the suspenseful plot. As the movie dangles betweenan erotic drama and a spy thriller, the couples also struggle between passionate bed play and the given task to kill the other. The story is set during Japanese occupation in Shanghai, where young and beautiful student (Tang Wei) and her patriotic friends plan to assassinate a special agent for the Japanese government (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) by seducing him to be her lover. Without much dialogue, their body language coherently speaks the protagonists’ characteristics as well as how their relationship develops. Candid, expressive and brilliant as they are, these literally painstaking sex scenes that take 100 hours to shoot have earned Tony Leung the best actor award and Ang Lee the best director in Golden Horse Film Festival.

Nymphomaniac by Lars Von Trier (2013) If the movie was categorized into a porn genre, it would be hardcore, and it promises to make you feel physically tired thereafter. But let’s get it straight: Nymphomaniac is downright neither romantic nor erotic, despite showcasing lots and lots of naked bodies in an act. Divided into 2 episodes, the 5-hour long sequence tells a life ruled by insatiable desire of a female self-claimed sex addict named Joe (Stacy Martin), unfolding her story in a conversation with a stranger.

This linear narrative begins with the precocious child Joe who soon discovered her particular interest for sex – pure sex, not lovemaking nor reproduction; as these two concepts remain incomprehensible to Joe ‘til the rest of her life. So she went on various pleasure-seeking adventures, knowing well that after climaxes only emptiness awaits her. This is a tale about discovering loneliness, a kind of universal, humanly and destined loneliness that no intimacy could ever distract us from. Each chapter of her lifetime addiction was seamlessly woven with philosophical musing from the stranger who happened to be a lonely bookworm, which gives it a bizarre quality of mixed roughness and poetry.

July 2015 31

Blue is the Warmest Color

by Abdellatif Kechiche (2013) When it was first premiered at 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival, the explicit French coming-of-age drama La vie d’Adèle, also known under the name Blue is the Warmest Color, unanimously made a buzz among experts and finally took home for Kechiche the top honor Palme d’Or. The lasting ten minutes straight of lesbian love-making between two arising stars, Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos, immediately became a topic of controversy; it’s been believed Kechiche went to no limits depicting the characters’ gender identity-seeking process through the rawest aspect of all, sex. In the story, sex played a vital role in expressing Adèle’s feelings about societal neglect and her loss of identity as a teenage stepping in the world with ‘forbidden’ wonders. She sought for herself in sexual adventures with a boy she dated at school, only to find out that she solely felt emptiness being with men, either for love or for sex. Instead, when she was with Emma, a handsome blue-haired sparkplug, without much dialogue, the two young girls enthusiasticallyand candidly discovered each other. In order to make Adèle & Emma’s famous ten minutes of raw, intense and never-seen-before sex to happen on screen, it took the filming crew to work in a five-month-long process and gain as a result over 800 hours of footage. Even though it has been a hot-debated talk that the two actresses were in fact “suffering” to complete Kechiche’s demanding shoots, no experts even the Cannes Film Festival president, Steven Spielberg, could deny their chemistry.

A Frozen Flower by Yoo Ha (2008) This is an agonizing, almost tortuous tale of love and betrayal loosely based on a historical figure, the King of Goryeo dynasty in Korea. The movie is provoking not only in its explicit sex scenes, but also the two hush-hush topics it deals with of homosexuality and adultery. The King (Joo Jin-mo) has total devotion for Hong Lim (Jo In-Sung), the chief commander, who willingly fulfils the royal orders in court and in bed with unquestioned loyalty expected from a Chief. Besides fleshy pleasure, the two also indulge in sophisticated entertainment day by day like musical jam, horse racing and archery competition. The bliss of togetherness seems eternal until the King has to confront with a mission impossible of impregnating the Queen (Song Ji-hyo) to continue the royal blood, which he secretly entrusts to Hong Lim, the person most close to him. After much hesitation and shyness, the repressed longing of a man and a woman finally comes to the fore, from which romance blossoms. This forbidden affair lingers as the love-making increases in intensity, cloaked in an air of haste, secrecy and impending catastrophe, which make their short-lived romance all the more emotional. On discovering the truth, the King’s love for Hong Lim soon descends to unbridled madness, driving him to violent resorts. The audience is left to navigate this maze of love, lust, faith, rage and pain, the only logic being that the heart has its reason.

32 July 2015

L’amant

by Jean-Jacques Annaud (1992) L’Amant (The Lover), named under the same novel of Marguerite Duras, became such a hit since its first release in 1922, not only for its graphic love scenes, but also for its original, moving points concerning materialism, colonialism and racism. The story started with the image of a 15-year-old French schoolgirl wearing an outworn silk dress and a fedora, standing on board back to her boarding school in French Indochina. There she met a wealthy Chinese man of 32. A ride in his chauffeur-driven limousine to Saigon quickly escalated into a forbidden affair that took place mostly in his rented bedroom used for mistresses. There was a significant contrast between the scenes of them passionately making love and those including their awkward conversations.

It gave Annaud’s film a deep sense of sorrow and honesty, for it portrayed how unthinkable the future might seem when a white girl sought for marriage in the soon devastating French colony.

There, sex was both a tool for the girl to express her will of freedom, and a nail that stunned her down to the former stereotype that any French girls sleeping with an Asian at that time were prostitutes. Marguerite Duras said she was disappointed with the all too attractive casting, which might distract viewers from the seriousness of the story. Nevertheless, the general opinions were that Jane March, a model under 18 making a debut as this central role, became an essential voice of adding the softness and delicacy to the film’s raw and controlling sex scenes. With her innocent piggy tails and innocent face, the girl appeared to be a yet unharmed flower, whose beauty went from mature to withered.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

by Philip Kaufman (1988) Long gone as it has been, one of Kaufman’s most prominent adaptations The Unbearable Lightness of Being still remains their position in Top 100 Love Stories in American Cinema, according to American Film Institute. The reason is that, while the original novel of Milan Kundera was already beautified with complicating sorrows in the matters of relationship attachment and societal collapse, the film version succeeded in adding to the formula a touch of graphic truthfulness. Czech brain surgeon Dr. Tomas was a charming man with extra-domestic sexual affairs. He was famous for ‘involving’ with a lot of women, but never letting one of them sleeping over. One of his favorite mistresses was Sabina, who was an equally carefree artist in Prague pursuing for a nostring-attached relationship. In one of his work vacation off town, Tomas encountered Tereza, a dissatisfied waitress with a strange beauty – as if life was bursting underneath the swimsuit worn by the girl gliding like a mermaid in the swimming pool where they first met. While the womanizer was mesmerized by the innocent downtown girl, Tereza herself started growing a lesbian affection toward Sabina. Though, to the end of the film, the focus did not lie only on the complicating relationships of three main characters, the explicit sex scenes portrayed a sense of human free will that vastly contrasted with the ongoing inhuman war. In a chaotic world, the only thing, which was even rawer and more physical than love, and therefore resorted to define humans, was sex.

July 2015 33

PERSPECTIVE

- Hi. How about a quickie? I just want to hook up so normal look is acceptable.

(Naked photo in front of mirror sent)

Y

ou know it when conversations of gay people spark on Tinder and OkCupid, one of the world’s highest-rated dating sites and apps, it can only mean one thing: hookup offers. Yes, not flirting around whatsoever, just casual sex.

But if you don’t? Cheers to that, buddies. Because nothing says welcome better than a bubbling story, fresh out of my memory lane.

- So you are not looking for someone to date?

- Of course not. I don’t want to get involved in any relationship. Besides, I’m horny. How about meeting up at Thegioididong on Le Duc Tho street at 6pm tomorrow?

‘What is the difference between hookups stemmed from random meetings and online chitchat?’ So glad you asked.

Everyone can practice their come-on with the hope of spicing things up with their targets, but what if those ingredients aren’t just enough to brew up a heated temptatio n, or at least a stirring convo? The risk of hitting on a stranger is that their knowledge about the other party is sheer blank, except for the eyeful impression that urges them to make some moves. So to speak, in order to increase the chance of sealing the deal within one night, they may need to know beforehand two things about the hotties: who he is, and what he wants.

It’s simple as that.

With tracking devices searching for available users of the same gender interests on radius, OKCupid - or Tinder - offers a quicker way for Vietnamese gay people to reach out for potential partners anytime and anywhere.

But what is actually special about these websites being the best rated dating sites on Earth is that their users’ eyes are not on the dating but rather, flings. Truth is, unless anyone is a newcome r in this field then just by glancing at any bio on OKCupid, they already can identify those who seek for an overnigh t shelter. And good news, most of them are.

Bios focusing on body and facial features with hard ly no characteristics criteria or straight-to-the-poin t ones like ‘Fun comes when we both do’, ‘Top wannabe’, ‘Loo king for non-flimsy bottom’, etc popping up dens ely around Vietnam cities are just what I am referring to. Asid e from personal details, they can also look into othe r categories to decide whether to pull the trigger or not such as relationship level (diplomatic or above), opinion tests (to find their closest matches and enemies) or getting acces sed a list of their ideal body types. Here in OKCupid , privacy is out of concern as all users’ data function to be published for easier ‘stalking’ yet on Tinder, only when both parties liked each other’ photo can they do the talks .

And finally? As a favor to themselves, rather than venturing out to the favorite watering hole, sit at the bar and try, once again, to project the illusion that ‘I will definitely get that man for tonight’, why not first give it a go with the social media to be both a smart user, then a smart beauty? Just hit the ‘Friends’ button and enjoy the ride.

34 July 2015

Wild and no strings attached, out of de speration and in ne of relationship prom ed of acceptance, or ises that can never because they grow be fulfilled? Becaus night, even though tired e they jump at the the only thing the ch ance to sex it up fo two of them have in beginning of a bad r the common, like Stuc dream’? Whatever k’s Holly and Guy, the reason, it is viab hard to last long, le is ‘th e le to say that relations ft alone marriage or hips of gay people kids, so they look warmth and pleasu ar e no further than on re. e night stands for tr Gay, straight, bi ansient or trans, we’ve al l been pressured your head, you kn by our overactiv ow you’ve been (o e brains to seek ou r will be) there an you might or mig t sex. Don’t shak d done that - that ht not later regret e , being a one nigh . When I asked on the reason gay pe t stand that e of my Vietnam ople choose hook ese gay friends (a ups over datings That’s being said narcissist one) , his answer was , because we are pr et ta ty legit: their ow lking about males they are susceptib n sexuality. ’ instinct, the pe le to sexual man rk of being allure ipulation, and ev lovers’ physical ne d by en sex is that tu ally find themselv eds are unfulfille es inclined to ch d and hormones for the new appe eat. When run high, they ch tite. Relationships eat, lose faith then plus relationships the same. As the end up seeking , the players may circle goes on, on change but the ga e-night stand is tethered, bitter an me remains what helps them d party of one’. to avoid the pain Maybe it’s the sa of be ing an ‘unme for relation ships in general cuss than those when people’s of sex. Take role expectations of s. To the top? O people will get love are harder r to the bottom a sense of contr to dis? That is the on ol as both parti sex will always ly question. In es al be a yes compar ways know wh th is way, at they and thei ing to datings, r partners wan where the maz t. And e of love is so h ard to navigate.

We all know that regardless of gender, the thirst for sex is our instinct; and there is nothing wrong with one-night stands - fulfilling our basic needs in our most suitable way. Reality may put gay people to think that desaturation of relationships - or expectations thereof, can be consoled with transient bedding; yet they should note one thing before signing up for any hookups series: All of their dating problems comes from themselves. It may be painful to hear, but it is them and their loss of faith in relationships that keeps them in the bottomless mud of playing around, not getting anywhere. One-night stand is always the matter of choice, and any relationship mess can not justify that.

Everyone heading for this road knows the rule of thumb: it’s stupid to expect anything more than temporary. Is it the perpetual pessimism that fixate their expectation on gays’ relationship as merely for fleshy fun? It’s hard to say, and we as 20-something millennials with such freedom to do what we want are also weighed down with the responsibility that comes along.

July 2015 35

SHORT STORY

We start

a

written by

He stood there, watching the silence of the night…

Him Little Hanoi! That thought was flying around his mind when all his consciousness felt like being thrown in a lucid dream.

His mind moves around with the speed of sound but the body stays at the same place, day- dreaming (or night-dreaming due to the current period of time?) about old memories, old thoughts and old strikes of emotions. Little here, little there towards a girl he could never had. Unfulfilled state erupted to the nose, dragging a bag full of unanswered questions, he was left with the most undying curiosity. Trying to wrap his thoughts up like rolling a cigarette cover, with such care but piece by piece of tobacco still fell out like it was meant to be.

Her Releasing one long buff of cigarette, she tried hard to keep herself from saying f*** off to old couples sharing a fed-up headshake regarding her act. Really? What era are we in now that we still have to deal with this s***? Drawing her phone out like she could not care less, she opened the Zalo app and accessed the ‘search around’ tool. Yup, this act could be even more provocative that she wished to herself that they know somehow. But why should she care? And why should anybody care?

Him It is always good for a beginner in this particular field to state clearly how lonely he is, by posting a status or pulling himself towards someone with such stage, he thought to himself while drawing the phone and opened the Zalo app.

Things go easier than what he had thought. Conversations moved in a slow pace ‘til he got an address on TDH street. Not everything is in need of being in such grueling stage that he was deep in for now. Moving forward to the door, a little confusion tingled in his mind. Henceforth, his hands just continued to knock on the door, three times, the sound is too sonorous in the brooding silent of the night.

Her “I heard you the first time, what a wuss!” She thought while opening the door. At awe, a man stood there, too humble for her taste, something so outstretched from this kind of world she was in deep. The hell with the handshake and the bow?

Such uncommon gallantry in this s***ty world, is he for real? Come quick, she asked of him, with a small sigh, is this truly how I chose for the last time of mine? Somehow she secretly hoped for a Caucasian male to jumped out of nowhere and took his place. But who is she for such pray anyway?

Him She is not ugly, that is for sure. But her face is disorganized in a way, what should be here is not and what should be there just vanished in vain. But her breasts are exceptional, that is undeniable. He took a quick glance at her from behind.

Turning off the light, who cares about the face anymore? But no more time for thoughts, she grabbed him and pushed him down to the bed, with the attitude of wanting to end things as quickly as possible. Her lips are just too extreme with the red, her breath is full of smoking leftover, her hair silky and smooth...

36 July 2015

Quan

the end…

at

Khanh Nguyen

Her

“Hard-on already?” she just touched him… Geezz. She could foresee the whole thing would end within a blink of an eye. Going against all her predictions, on the contrary to all her prejudices, he did well comparing to that innocent look.

Someone with a gentle manner, who put in and asked “does it hurt” usually leads to unsatisfied desire. But not him, he had the shape that she thought was enough, and merge in her with such ease. One, two, three,… time flowed magically.

They changed position. One, two, three,… all her thoughts went up in the air. They exhaled at the same time, like things were in conjunction somehow. She was finished before they stopped. He nodded like he would have if she asked him to open the door when wanted one more time. Things were smooth…

Him He was all out after three times. “This is nice”, he wondered out loud, being careful with neglections. But none was offered, it looked like she was about to say something but stopped. The silence came nearly towards awkward level. She looked up to the ceiling, and he stared at her, finding a way to fire up a conversation. Time flew and no intentions were made in reality. He should have said something, about him finally opening a new gate, something about the gut to walk the walk he had never set foot on before. But the real world is harsh and his mouth was shut the whole time. She stood up, out of the blue, got in her pants and was ready to storm out without hesitation. Must he do anything?

Her Now she knew his secret. He made love with her, but his eyes spoke differently. His mind was full of someone else’s image. Patient and precise, and such time length, he was not in the present time with her. His body was here, doing all the work, but his mind must have been stored in some place far away. She got up with no hesitations, she should have said something, interacting with that busy mind somehow. She would have but she did not. It was a nice final blow before her turning into something else completely, this should not be a caring wind sparked her fire once again and pulled her back to this world. She wanted none of that, and she must do what she had set her mind up with. Door slammed behind, she stormed out without saying anything. She should not make any more connections with this world, she thought to herself.

But he was such a rare human being…

Him He was left with no words. Maybe things were better this way, somehow he felt that in the air. He laid down again, letting all the left smell go through his senses. This should end like this, and the earth goes round as usual. He wandered alone in the night, but his mind came back to him with all its consciousness. They met, and they fulfilled each other in a way, and then they left, knowing there should be no words. No more contacting, no more crossing in one’s life, just silence. And they moved on with different paths.

Her “This was a nice touch!” She thought to herself while watching he left, from the far corner of the street. A part of her wants to chase him down, pulls him over and yells at him with all she has, all is contained inside her. But the distance is just too vast. The other part of her stays here, watching her own, and holds up what she has left. To open or not to open, is that the real question? But the cat stays mostly alive if she doesn’t open the box, it’s the schrödinger cat all over again, or is it?

And then she just stood there, watching the silence of the night…

July 2015 37

COMIC STRIP

38 July 2015

inspired by “Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love” by Cole Porter

Give Birth to a New Issue Every Semester Online Application via f Current Media Deadline: July 14 2015 Contact: Ms. Tran Bach Duong Tel: 0902166091 Email: s3517744@rmit.edu.vn