Just the Tip by The Tertangala

JUST THE TIP

ISSUE FOUR

We hope this issue helps you find balance between challenging yourself and embracing yourself. If you have any questions, queries or comments, please donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hesitate to email us at thetert@gmail. com

CON TENTS 4 5 6 7 8 10 10 12 15 16 18 19 20 24 25 27 28 30 33 34 40

EDITORS’ NOTE WUSA REPORT QUEER REPORT FEMSOC ADDRESS SUPPORT SOCIETY NEWS AND OPINION SYDNEY’S MURDERS COUNTING DEAD WOMEN THE MISUNDERSTOOD FEMINIST DOMESTIC TERRORISM F E AT U R E S M O R E T H A N J U S T T H E LGBT NOT YOUR AVERAGE PHILOSOPHER AN ODE TO CONSENT FILMS FOR QUEER WOMEN T H E G A L PA L PHENOMENON BOOKS ABOUT WOMANHOOD T V G AY R I G H T S DEBUNKING ‘THE SEX MYTH’ “IT” GIRLS L E T ’ S TA L K A B O U T VAGINAS!

42 43 44 46 47 48 49 50 52 54 58 59 61 62 64

REVIEWS/INTERVIEWS IT FOLLOWS NYMPHOMANIAC ANALOGUE A RICHELLE MEAD REVIEW MIDDLESEX TOMB RAIDER INTERVIEW WITH JOSH PYKE AN INTERVIEW WITH : LEO F E AT U R E A R T I S T C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G FIVE STORIES HIGH YEARS OF QUEER L A U N C H PA R T Y WRAP UP THE QUEER COLOURING IN DIC(K)TIONARY

EDITORS’ NOTE

We’ve come so far, and we have so far yet to go. Let me ask you this, what does the 60s bring to mind? Do you imagine girls in mini-skirts, political activism, The Beatles and sexual awakening? You probably wouldn’t imagine men and women being arrested for expressing love to one another and just being true to themselves, but the reality is that homosexuality and bisexuality were both outlawed until 1967. It’s looking back at times like this, which seem not too long ago, that shows us far we’ve come today. As a society, we have progressed so much in our acceptance of others and this is a beautiful thing. Life for queer individuals is closer to reaching equality every day, and we’re excited to give it a push with our annual gender and sexuality issue, adequately titled, ‘Just the Tip’. In this issue we want to reinforce the most basic of childhood lessons: treat all people the way you would like to be treated. Love is love, all love is valid and all peoples are valid. This issue is a celebration of progression and also a drive for further action.Featuring society addresses from FemSoc, Allsorts and one of UOW’s newest societies, the UOW Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse Support Society, we hope to give you the tools to seek out education, support and friendship. We’ve also featured a very personal guide to Pap Smears by Zoe Simmons and Samie Johnson, as well as the annual Dic(k)tionary of definitions you need to know. Our feature artist, Ruth Cummins gives you a sexual look into everyday objects (especially circular cushions) and our reviews section is bursting at the seams with books, films and video games that are sure to entertain as well as educate. We are also pleased to present a recap on our Tertangala x Papergirl Launch party at the beginning of the year, with lots of cute polaroids. Special thank you to all those who attended, as well as our musicians who really added to the magic.

We’d also like to give a quick shout-out to our guest editor, Queer Convenor of UOW Allsorts Queer Collective, Hayley Jean, without you this issue wouldn’t have been to the quality it is. Love, Gem & Bec

“LOVE IS LOVE, ALL LOVE IS VALID AND ALL PEOPLES ARE VALID”

WUSA PRESIDENT REPORT PE TE R MUN FORD @ peter munford93

Hi UOW Students! I hope you are settling back into the daily grind of spring session well! Whether this is your first session at uni, or perhaps your last, I hope you enjoy it and get the results that you want.

WUSA can assist you in finding any of these groups and services, so if you ever need help, just come and see us and we will be more than happy to assist you in getting support.

This issue of the Tertangala touches on a very important topic: gender and sexuality. As we do every year, UOW will hold a Gender and Sexuality Week during Week 6. This week is a great opportunity for us to have important conversations about issues that aren’t often talked about, and I look forward to seeing students engaging actively in the many events being held throughout the week.

In an earlier issue of The Tertangala, I touched on the changes made to student concession stickers. Although an assurance was provided to me that concession stickers would not be removed from Student Central, they now have been and replaced with ‘enrolled’ stickers. We have already received several complaints from students who have been fined by Transport Officers for not having a concession sticker on their student card accompanying their opal card. If this has happened to you, please contact WUSA, as we are seeking to rectify any situations like this with university administration. I have already taken this issue up with the Head of Students to seek an assurance that students will not be fined for simply having an enrolled sticker rather than a concession sticker.

A recent report by the Australian Human Rights Commission has showed that UOW is one of the most LGBTQI friendly Universities in Australia. This is a very positive sign for our University, but we can always do more to support queer identifying students, as well as female identifying students. Many of you who use Building 19 on a daily basis would walk through the corridor between the WUSA Space and the entrance to Building 19. This corridor contains our Safe Spaces- the Queer Space and the Women’s space. After receiving some complaints about offensive behaviour in this corridor, WUSA has placed signs in the corridor informing students that racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia etc. will not be tolerated in this area. To follow on with this, WUSA will be running a campaign targeted at eradicating these behaviours on Campus. Every student has the right to feel safe when they come to uni, and we aim to see this become a reality with this campaign. For students requiring support on campus on any issues of gender and sexuality, there are many avenues to turn to. Within the WUSA Structure is the UOW Queer Collective to support Queer identifying students, and the UOW Wom*n’s Collective to support female identifying students. WUSA can also provide referrals to the Student Advocacy Officer, who can provide support to students going through disputes with staff and/or students. Other support groups include the UOW Feminist Society (FemSoc), UOW Queer Alliance, and the ALLY Staff Network that is there to support Queer students and staff.

As always, WUSA’s many services are available from 9-3pm. Our Book Bank has just received a much needed upgrade, so if you want some cheap textbooks, come and see us and see how much you can save! Our Free Breakfast is available from 9-11am every morning, so come and get a good start to the day with some free brekkie with us. Our campaign against the government’s bogus university reforms is continuing this semester, as the government once again plans to bring fee deregulation before the Senate. We will continue to fight for fair accessible education in Australia. Look out for some events on this on campus in the coming months. Finally, WUSA Elections are scheduled for early October. This is an important process that happens annually to elect a new WUSA team for the following year. I encourage students to get involved in this process, even just by voting for who you want to run your union next year. Enjoy Gender and Sexuality Week, and come and see us at WUSA for some free brekkie, cheap textbooks and good old fashioned student led activism! Peter Munford WUSA President 5

SOCIETY LIFE HAY LE Y J EAN

QUEER REPORT You know what’s great? The Queer Collective! We are a collective (duh) of lesbian, gay, bi, trans, intersex, asexual, genderqueer, queer, questioning and all other sex, gender, and romantically diverse peeps that gather to create safer spaces and social environments for all us folks within the queer community. You may see us around campus at our many FREE BBQs, but don’t worry the sausages won’t turn you gay.

Tuesday - 1st of September

So far this year we have done so much; we had our Mardi Gras float under the title “Frame of Passion”; picnics, parties, our weekly Beers for Queers as well as having Laura Jane Grace, an inspirational transgender singer who is lead in the band ‘Against Me!’, come to the Queer Space to visit us!

Thursday- 3rd of September

Our Queer Space is located in building 19 and is an autonomous space for queer and questioning students that aims to create a safer place for people to express themselves, share experiences and generally have a grand time. Having queer safe spaces is very important as living in a queerphobic world like our own can be compared to being in a zombie apocalypse with the number one rule ‘no space is safe, only safer’. Being in such a supportive environment and generally knowing people with similar identities to you can improve one’s social, mental and academic life at university. Week 6 of session is Gender and Sexuality Week with plenty of Queer events to check out; parties, movie nights, free BBQ w/ fairy floss, live music and a lube slide and workshops such as:

10:30 - 19:G004 “Mental Health: Food, Exercise and the Ability to Change Your Brain” 12:30 - 24:G02 “TED TALKS; Watching and Discussing TED Talks involving Gender and Sexuality” 2:30 - 19:G026 “Kink, Negotiation and Consent”

1:30- 19:G024 3:30 - 19:1064 4:30 - 24:G03

“No, I Don’t Want To Have A Threesome With You – How Not To Be Shit To Bisexual Folk”Building 19, Room “Being in a Relationship: An Asexual Perspective”- Building 19, Room “Gay Witchcraft: Historical Perspectives and Modern Reclamations feat. Tarot readings ”

Check out the timetable on page 26 for all the times and information! If you want any more information, or want to get involved or have any questions about the collective, you can email us at uow.queer@gmail.com Hayley Jean Queer Co-convener of Allsorts Queer Collective

@UOW Elodie May

FEMSOC ADDRESS Another year, another Gender and Sexuality issue of the Tertangala. In its 60-year history, this particular issue has become a staple, and for good reason. Not too long ago, a woman’s place in the university was all but guaranteed. Even now, with no gender studies major for the Arts degree, it’s difficult to continue the legacy of the wom*n who fought to carve out feminist spaces in higher education.

FemSoc runs a weekly workshop and/or seminar during session that we’ve termed freeschool. We crowd-source volunteers from the student body, the community, academics and activists to offer a free feminist education and discussion space. Coming up this session are talks on transmisogyny, being an anarchofeminist in the workforce, craft sessions, lunches, and thought-provoking PhD theses.

This issue is a nod to the varied experiences of oppression addressed by intersectional feminism. It’s a chance to shout back, whether you’re feeling alienated, wry, confused, or angry. It’s also a chance for us writers to engage the readers of the Tert, who are students and soon to be “young professionals” (aka fully fledged adults who have actual responsibilities) with their privilege, and the ways they might be making spaces “unsafe” for marginalised groups.

FemSoc also works closely with the Queer Collective. We collaborate on events like our annual Consent Week (TBA) and their Allsorts Gender and Sexuality Week (during Week 6 of session). FemSoc is excited about the creation of an affiliated club which aims to support survivors of sexual assault, domestic, and intimate partner violence on campus.

If the Feminist Society of UOW - or this edition of the Tertangala - makes you reflect on that, and try to be an ally of feminist and LGBTQI communities, we’ve done our job. Kind of. Our society seeks to teach students how to create a safe environment for others and how to practice ‘self-care’ during the oftentimes draining process of doing feminist activism. We try to debunk myths about feminism, hear from marginalised and often silenced groups, and inspire students to fill the gaps in feminist research. How do we do all this?

We’ve recently teamed up with cool venues like Jane’s too, so watch that space. This year we’ve been raising funds for Supported Accommodation & Homelessness Services Shoalhaven Illawarra (SAHSSI) in light of the Abbott/Baird government’s ‘Going Home, Staying Home’ reforms. So whether you’re new to feminism or not, we welcome you to come to our freeschool and listen and learn, every Wednesday at 12:30, in Building 24, room 201. Kind Regards, Elodie May

SOCIETY LIFE

INTRO DUCING THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL A S S A U LT SUPPORT SOCIETY Trigger Warning: This article contains content about sexual assault and domestic violence, and may be triggering for survivors. If you are struggling with these issues and need emergency help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or contact the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Support society directly.

This session, I am very pleased to announce that the UOW Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Support Society is up and running. This idea was the product of three surprising events during my life that have continued to follow me over the past few years – a bad relationship, an unexpected internship, and the interesting experience of bonding in the bathroom on a night out. I was a little younger than I am now when I went through a particularly unhealthy relationship. I was like many of the girls I have talked to when they have been through a similar experience – young, enthusiastic and naïve. I was madly in love, and had no idea what a healthy relationship was supposed to look like. All I knew was that compromise was one of the key ingredients in a relationship; unfortunately I had no idea when compromise became control. Before 18 months was out, he was calling me 45 times in 50 minutes to find out where I was. He was telling me my family wasn’t important, and I was weak for listening to them when they expressed concern over the relationship. He was making me cry every second day, and calling me every name under the sun. We were having physical fights, which ended in him spitting on me and me having panic attacks. We broke up when I finally realized it was out of hand. I made a plan, I moved back to my hometown, and my family closed ranks and kept him out. He didn’t give up without a fight, but I was lucky. It was messy, it was heartbreaking, it was terrifying, but it did end. I’ve always been unashamed of my abusive relationship. It was what it was, and to me, that’s the end of it. I have felt the same of my various interactions with sexual assault, of which there is unfortunately too many to go into detail here. I am lucky that

@UOW BR O N TE WIN N

victim blaming has never been a part of my attitude towards these acts of violence. I liken them to an infection, and infections need air and light. So when I went out with people, after a few drinks and a few laughs, we would begin to share stories. Some of those stories would be my own experiences with domestic violence and sexual assault. And I was astounded by the amount of times people would either openly or privately (cue bathroom bonding) reciprocate with their experiences. Stories of rape, both in and out of relationships. Rape from strangers or friends or family. Stories of broken bones and emotional and financial isolation. After a while I kept count, and it got to the point that if there were 4 people (entirely female identifying), 3 would have a story to tell. It was pretty confronting. Late last year, while I was travelling through Asia, I managed to grab myself a great internship in human rights. One of the things that was impressed upon me from the outset was the importance of starting small â&#x20AC;&#x201C; when the scope is too wide, focus is easily lost. As well as this, while doing domestic violence workshops with the local Cambodian women, I felt they were searching for someone to listen to them, and give them help that they can continue to use every day, rather than turn to abstract concepts. It was these things that drove me to start the UOW Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Support Society. First and foremost, I wanted an emphasis on providing a network for survivors and family members. So the UOW Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Support Society provides a face to face referral service on Tuesdayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s between 10:30 and 1:30, as well as by appointment any time outside of that. We have a list of researched, top quality professionals who will help survivors and supporters with whatever they need; whether that is making a plan, leaving safely,

pressing charges, dealing with the aftershocks of the violence or simply having someone to talk to. We also extend this service to those who feel they may be perpetrating this violence on others. It is vital that they also gain access to professional help. On top of this, the UOW Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Support Society is gearing up to run schools and seminars, aiming to educate the UOW community about the nature of consent, the red flags in a domestically abusive relationship, what healthy relationships look like and how to support yourself and others who have survived these acts of violence. Keep an eye out for not only events run solely by us, but also run in conjunction with other clubs. We have a big session planned, and more information on these events will be released through our Facebook page. Our aim for the future is that the UOW Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Support Society will continue to provide on-theground support for those affected within the UOW community. We want to make sure that the referral service remains at the core of our society, as it is our best program to facilitate small, local assistance, while keeping the focus on practical support. On top of that, we are hoping that through our educational programs and seminars, we ensure the UOW community is at the forefront of removing the stigma and secrecy surrounding sexual assault and domestic violence.

NEWS

SYDNEY’S HIDDEN SHAME:

On June 28, 1969, the tinderbox of years of harassment by police of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) people in New York City caught flame in a big way. The riots, often known as the Stonewall Riots after the pub where they started, saw 13 rioters and four police being hospitalised.

Johnson was a 27-year-old mathematics prodigy from the United States who had just graduated from Harvard. He’d fallen in love with mathematician Michael Noone, an Australian, and moved to Canberra to study his PhD in mathematics at the Australian National University before moving to Sydney.

Nine years later, almost to the day, on June 24, 1978, saw Sydney’s own version of the riots: the first gay and lesbian Mardi Gras. What started as a peaceful vigil to commemorate the Stonewall Riots and a protest march against discrimination ended in police arresting 53 people when the protest permit was revoked at the last minute. While most of the charges were dropped, the Sydney Morning Herald published the names of those arrested in full. Jobs were lost and people were outed to their family and friends.

Johnson’s naked body was found at the bottom of a cliff at the point, near Manly in Sydney’s Northern Beaches, on December 9, 1988. Police reports stated and then the Coroner found that it was a suicide.

These two events are cited as the beginnings of gay liberation in the United States and Australia, and are undoubtedly important in the history of these two movements. But the events in the years surrounding these two are just as important. For Sydney, it is the twenty or so years that followed. There were big wins for LGBT rights in NSW, especially with the decriminalisation of homosexuality by a private member’s bill by late premier, Neville Wran, in 1984. But between the late 1970s and the late 1990s, 80 murders of LGBT people can be identified as hate crimes. Of this, 30 remain unsolved. The unsolved case that has attracted a large amount of attention recently is that of Scott Johnson. His death is now being investigated a historic third time by the New South Wales Coroner. The Coroner’s Court declared his death first a suicide in 1989, but threw that ruling out in 2012 and said there was the potential that the death was accident or murder. The Sydney Morning Herald reported in April that the Johnson family’s counsel, John Agius SC, told the court that there are no less than 50 different people of interest and at least “five gangs or loose groups” who were known to have been assaulting gay men in the same area at the time Mr Johnson was found dead. 10

In an episode of Australian Story, Noone’s sister, Marguerite Riley, describes the last day she saw Johnson: “I remember him telling me he was about to become an uncle. We were in the kitchen one morning, and he was beaming and very happy that there was a new niece in the family. The next thing I heard, his body had been found dashed up on the rocks at Flying Fish Point in Sydney.” Johnson’s brother, Steve, found it hard to believe. In 2007, he launched an investigation with the help of Newsweek investigative journalist, Daniel Glick, in an effort to prove that Scott’s death was a murder, not suicide. Glick says in the Sydney Morning Herald that he found on day one of his investigations that the place where Johnson died was a ‘gay beat’: a place where men who have sex with men find hook-ups. Police had told the coroner otherwise, that they would have known it was a beat, and that formed crucial evidence that there were ‘no suspicious circumstances’. Johnson’s story is not unique. In a turnaround from the sordid headlines of the morning of June 25, 1978, the Sydney Morning Herald has published the investigations of Rick Feenley into this case, and the many others of LGBT people who died in suspicious circumstances in the following 20 years. Two such deaths were those of Ross Warren, a 24-year-old WIN TV presenter who disappeared near Bondi in 1989 and John Russell, a 45-yearold man, who fell at the cliffs at Tamarama. Police investigations found that the two had fallen to their deaths accidentally. But in

NEWS A ND R E C HARADIA @ a ndrecharadia

T H E 3 0 U N S O LV E D MURDERS OF LGBT SYDNEYSIDERS

2005, deputy state coroner Jacqueline Milledge found that those investigations were “lacklustre”, “disgraceful” and “shameful”. Instead, she found that they were murders: Warren was murdered and Russell was pushed by gangs of ‘poofter bashers’.

ment of DCI Young will make it very difficult to regain the confidence of the key stakeholders in the inquest and may have a tendency to detract from the real issues, namely the determination of the manner and cause of Scott Johnson’s death.”

It was this ruling that lead to doubt being cast on Johnson’s death being a suicide. In June 2012, deputy state coroner Carmel Forbes threw out the original finding of suicide and declared the case open, either as an accident or as murder. On April 16, 2015, the coroner ruled that there was a chance that the court could come to a different conclusion and ordered a new investigation.

DCI Young also told Lateline that she didn’t believe that homophobia had come into the original investigation. This is despite the 50 persons of interest in the Johnson family investigation, including ‘Freddy’, a former member of a gang who regularly assaulted gay men at North Head, stating that the place where Johnson was found dead was a known gay beat, and evidence an investigating police officer had asked Marguerite Riley whether she still loved her brother knowing what she knew about his sexuality. The Star-Observer reported that the DCI has been removed, and replaced by DCI Penelope Brown.

But the investigations devolved into controversy when the detective chief inspector in charge of the investigations, Pamela Young, told Emma Alberici on ABC’s Lateline on April 22 that she believed the evidence suggested Johnson had committed suicide, despite the Coroner’s finding that it was no longer a possibility, and accused former NSW police minister Mike Gallacher of ‘kowtowing’ to Steve Johnson, who is a wealthy businessman, and reducing resources to other unsolved homicides. “I saw a lot of what I would describe as kowtowing by the minister and his staffers to Steve Johnson,” she said. “Steve Johnson arrived with very high expectations about finding that Scott had been murdered. And my role is to help them see that that might not always be possible if there’s not the evidence there,” she said. “But I did see the former Police Minister encourage and invite him to do more media and to go along the lines of the - what I would call not representing all the facts of matter in the media.” Fairfax, the publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald, reported that a letter from the Police Force from senior Crown solicitor Naomi Malhotra, claimed DCI Young had not followed standards of conduct by what she had told Lateline. Coroner Michael Barnes requested that the DCI be replaced. The Star-Observer also reported that he had concerns that the “continued involve-

Investigations by Feneley uncovered evidence had been erased about the bashing of a gay man in Surry Hills in the early hours of Saturday, May 6, 1989 by police officers. Their investigations at the time had found that the man had been bashed unconscious by skinheads, but it has emerged that it was police officers with batons. The historically fraught relationship between the NSW Police Force and LGBT people has thawed in recent years, but a case of police violence at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 2013 and DCI Young’s denials of homophobia have concerned many, including openly gay independent Sydney MP, Alex Greenwich, who wrote in a letter to Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione: “There is serious community concern about this officer being biased and dismissive of historic homophobic treatment.” The investigation is ongoing, but with new evidence emerging and a new chief investigator, there is hope that we will learn exactly what happened to Scott Johnson, and his family can have the closure they desperately seek.

NEWS ZOE SIMMO N S @I tBeg i nsW i t hZ

COUNTING DEAD WOMEN: WHEN WILL THE VIOLENCE END? On e wom a n p er we e k i s k i l l e d b y a f o r m e r o r current partner i n A ust r al i a . O n l y n i n e t e e n w e e k s i n t o 2015, 37 w om en had suff e re d v i o l e n t d e a t h s , 2 5 o f w hich have l ed t o c onvi c t i o n s . Tw e n t y -f o u r t i m es, the cul pri t wa s a m a l e— 1 9 o f w h i c h w e re e i t h e r a c urrent, o r fo r mer, p ar t ner o f t h e v i c t i m . A u s t r a l i a n a ctivist gro u p D est roy t he J o i n t t h o ro u g h l y i n v e s t i g a tes ea ch case t hroug h t hei r Co u n t i n g De a d Wo m e n c a mpa ign. Acco rdi ng t o a st ud y b y t h e Wo r l d H e a l t h O rg a n isa tio n, do me st i c v i ol enc e a ff e c t s 3 0 % o f w o m e n w o r ldw ide. T hi s vi ol enc e c an t a k e m a n y f o r m s i n c l u d i n g : • • • • •

Ph y si c al b a t t er i n g E mot i onal a nd ps y c h o l o g i c a l a b u s e F i na nc i a l c ont rol S ex ua l ab use S pi r i t ua l ab use

Whi te Ri b b on est i m a t e s t h a t w i t h i n A u s t r a l i a , 1 in 3 wo me n wi l l ex p er i en c e d o m e s t i c v i o l e n c e w i t h in their l i ves, a nd a s wel l as 1 i n 3 c h i l d re n . Do m e s t i c v io lence i s al so t he p r i nc i p l e c a u s e o f h o m e l e s s n e s s f o r w o men and th ei r c hi l d ren, a n d i s t h e l e a d i n g c o n t r i buto r in death , d i sab i l i t y a n d i l l -h e a l t h i n A u s t r a l i a n w o men aged 15- 44. T hi s i s a n e p i d e m i c . S o w h y d o n’t w e hear a b out i t ? Is i t b e c a u s e t h e s e a re i s s u e s in the pri vate sp here, r at h e r t h a n t h e p u b l i c ? O r i s i t simply th at sub c onsc i ousl y o u r s o c i e t y a c c e p t s t h e belief th at w om en, a nd v i o l e n c e a g a i n s t w o m e n , is so no r ma t i v e t ha t i t i s n o t i m p o r t a n t . Are we so d esensi t is e d t o v i o l e n c e ? T he re sul t s f rom a re c e n t c a m p a i g n s u r v e y, T he Line, wo u l d sug g est as mu c h . I n t h i s s t u d y, 3 0 0 0 i n d i vidua ls, betw een t he a g es o f 1 2 -2 4 , w e re i n t e r v i e w ed. The resu l ts were ex t rem e l y c o n c e r n i n g : • 1 i n 3 b el i ev ed “e x e r t i n g c o n t ro l o v e r s o m e o ne” is no t a f or m of v i o l e n c e . • 1 i n 4 d i d not t hi n k i t w a s s e r i o u s i f a m a n , w ho w a s no r m a l l y g ent l e, s l a p p e d h i s p a r t n e r w h e n drunk. • 1 i n 6 resp ond ent s s a i d w o m e n s h o u l d k n o w their so -ca l l ed “ p l a c e” . • 1 i n 4 t hi nk i t ’s no r m a l f o r m e n t o p re s s u re w o men i nto sex . 12

Co mpa re this to Co unting D ea d Wo men: from a yo ung a ge, w e a s a so ciety a re co nditio ned, whether it’s subco nscio us o r no t, to believe certain things a s no r ma l. This must be era dica ted, beginning with educa tio n pro gra ms f o r yo ung peo ple. Tina Fa ng, 25, w a s the f irst A ustra lia n woman to die f ro m this silent, “ priva te” killer; her t hroat was sla shed in a n A dela ide ho tel ro o m. R ina bel Tigla o Bla ckmo re, a ged 44, died on January 2 a f ter jumping f ro m a mo ving ca r o n New Year’s Eve. She did this o ut o f f ea r f ro m her lif e f ro m partner Sha ne D ickinso n. Ja nua ry 17, 26-yea r-o ld Leila A lvi w a s sta bbed in her ca r in A ubur n by her estra nged husba nd, des pite ha ving a n A pprehended V io lence O rder. Fa bia na Pa lha res, a ged 34, died in hos pital on Februa ry 2nd, a f ter her ex-pa rtner a tta cked her with a n a xe—she w a s 10 w eeks pregna nt. Sim ilarly, on Februa ry 28th, Ta ra Co stiga n a ged 28, w a s killed with a n a xe a t her ho me in Ca lw ell by ex-pa rtner Marcus R a ppell. A lso o n f o und in bo dy o f the ca r. suicide.

Februa ry 28, 22-yea r-o ld D ia nne Chi, was the bo o t o f her ca r in O tw a y R a nges – the her pa rtner Pa ul Pha n a lso f o un d intis de Po lice a re investiga ting a po ssible murder

O n M a rch 2, Kris-D ea nn Sha rpley a ged 27, was hea vily pregna nt w hen she w a s sho t dea d with her seven-yea r-o ld so n Ja ckso n by f a ther D erek Sharpley. M a rch 7, Pra bha A run Kuma r w a s sta bbed to death w hile w a lking ho me f ro m w o rk thro ugh Parramatta Pa rk. These a re just 8 o f the 58 ho rrif ic murders that ha ve a lrea dy ha ppened. W hen w ill the next woman be f o und dea d f ro m do mestic vio lence? It’s only a ma tter o f time.

OPINION R E BE C C A W IG G IN S @yo uf ound b ec

Fo r year s, t he f emi n i s t m o v e m e n t h a s w o r k e d t irelessly to pro m ot e g end er e q u a l i t y a n d re m o v e p rejudices and i n j ust i c es a g a i n s t w o m e n . U n f o r t u n a t e l y, ma ny peo pl e are m i si nf o r m e d a n d d o n o t b e l i e v e this is what fem i ni sm st a nd s f o r. F e m i n i s m h a s b e e n la belled ‘o utda t ed ’, ‘ex t rem e ’ a n d , a b o v e a l l , ‘ m a n -h a t ing’ , o n mo re than one oc c a s i o n . T h i s i s b e c a u s e , d e s pite the no bl e c ause femi ni s m p e r u s e s , i t h a s b e e n re p ea tedly mi sre p resent ed b y a n u n s y m p a t h e t i c m e d i a tha t ha s create d a v er y n e g a t i v e s t i g m a s u r ro u n d ing the mo ve ment . Whi l e f emi ni sm ha s t a c k l e d d i ff e re n t i s s u e s f a cing wo me n d ep end i ng o n t h e c o n t e x t o f t h e t i m e , it ha s al ways remai ned t h e s a m e a t i t s c o re s e t o f va lues. T hi rd w a v e f emi ni st , Cl a i re S n y d e r, d e f i n e s h e r ca use as o ne t o “c reat e c o n d i t i o n s o f f re e d o m , e qua lity, j usti ce, a nd sel f - a c t u a l i z a t i o n f o r a l l p e ople by fo cusing on g end er-re l a t e d i s s u e s i n p a r t i c u l a r.” Tha t i s to say, f emi ni sm i s t h e re s i m p l y t o p ro m o t e gender equal i t y. T hi s i d ea ha s b een p ro m o t e d t i m e a n d t i m e a ga in by co n ser v a t i v e me d i a p e r s o n a l i t i e s s u c h a s Christine Ho ff S om mer s. Som m e r s i n s i s t s f e m i n i s m d o es no t ai m for eq ual i t y a n d f e m i n i s t s a c t u a l l y h a te men. So mm er s ev en g oe s a s f a r a s t o s a y t h a t “ f eminists hate m en so m uc h t h a t t h e y a l s o h a t e a l l t h e w o men who re fuse t o hat e m e n .” T hi s neg at i v e rep res e n t a t i o n o c c u r s d u e t o a v a riety o f reaso ns. For i nst ance , i n m e d i a o u t l e t s a n d e s pecia lly newsro oms, t here is s t a t i s t i c a l e v i d e n c e s u ppo rting th at w hi l e women a re c l o s e t o e q u a l l y e m plo yed, th ey are emp l oy ed i n p o s i t i o n s o f l o w p o w er a nd deci si o n mak i ng . T h i s m e a n s t h a t t h e y r a re l y g iven the o ppo r t uni t y t o d eci d e w h a t c o n t e n t i s b ro a dca sted, creati n g a mal e d om i n a t e d m e d i a s p a c e . A s A sso cia te P ro fessor of P r ac t i c e i n J o u r n a l i s m a t t h e U niversity o f New Mex i c o, Mi c h a e l M a rc o t t e e x p l a i n s , “ w o men make up 51% of t he p o p u l a t i o n , s o t h e i r p re sence in medi a shoul d b e co m p a r a b l e . Wh e re i t i s n ’t ( a nd it i sn ’t) , d i sc r i mi nat i o n m a y b e i n p l a y.” T h e f a c t o f the matter i s t hat wom e n j u s t a re n ’t b e i n g a l l o wed the same op p or t uni t i es t o e x p re s s t h e i r s i d e o f t h e sto ry th at m en are a nd , a s s u c h , t h e i r p o i n t s o f v iew a nd wo rl d p er sp ec t i v es a re o f t e n i n a c c u r a t e l y p o rtra yed. 14

M a rco tte f urther expla ins tha t “ W hile media is the mo st po w erf ul eco no mic a nd cultura l f o rce today, it still f a lls f a r to o sho rt in its representa tio n of women ... the numbers demo nstra te tha t the glas s ceiling extends a cro ss a ll media pla tf o r ms ... w e’ re s till not seeing equa l pa rticipa tio n. Tha t mea ns w e are only using ha lf o ur ta lent a nd usua lly hea ring h alf of the sto ry.” D ue to this bia s in emplo yment a nd the subs equent mino rity sta tus o f w o men behind the scenes in media, it’s unsurprising tha t w o men a nd f eminis ts often f ind themselves bla ta ntly sla ndered o ver media. In 1992, o ne co nserva tive, Pa t R o bertso n, in famous ly pro cla imed tha t “ the f eminist a genda is n ot about equa l rights f o r w o men. I t is a bo ut a so cialis t, antif a mily po litica l mo vement tha t enco ura ges women to lea ve their husba nds, kill their children , practice w itchcra f t, destro y ca pita lism a nd beco me les bians . ” Tha t sa me yea r w a s w hen the ter m “ f eminaz i” was po pula rised by ra dio ta lk sho w ho st R ush Limbaugh. These cla ims w ent uncha llenged since f eminis ts were lef t w itho ut a vo ice to respo nd w ith. They weren’t o ff ered the sa me o ppo rtunities o r pla tfor ms to express themselves a s these peo ple w ere. Ev en today this ca rica ture o f a n “ evil f eminist” is still referred to w hen representing f eminism, tha nks to the huge inf luence these media perso na lities ha d on their a udience. This ha s been hugely da ma ging to the po pula rity a nd depictio n o f the f eminist mov ement. A key element in the misrepresenta tio n o f feminis m is distinguishing tha t f eminism a ppa rently does not a im to a chieve equa lity: it ha s a lrea dy ac hiev ed equa lity. A utho r, pro f esso r a nd pro ud f eminis t Toril M o i suggests tha t this is a n eff ective a nd compelling a tta ck beca use ma ny f eminists ha d “ succeeded in ga ining mo re rights f o r w o men tha n ever before. Beca use equa l rights ha ve beco me generally a ccepted,” a nd tha t this “ implies tha t demand c an no lo nger def ine f eminism. I nstea d, f em inis t are presented a s irra tio na l extremists w ho w a n t far more tha n equa l rights: they ha te the f a mily, de tes t their husba nds ( if they ha ve a ny) , a nd go o n to become lesbia ns. … Feminists, the messa ge is, are full of ha te.” Tha t is to sa y, by ta king f eminism out of a co ntext o f a struggle f o r equa lity, f eminist demands

OPINION

THE MIS UNDER STOOD FEMINIST fo r mo re p ower for w o m e n c a n s e e m o v e r l y a g gressive and power hung r y, e v e n t h o u g h t h i s i s n o t t h e ca se. To day, new t ec hno l o g y a n d o n l i n e m e d i a a re a lso ai di ng i n t he d est ru c t i o n o f t h e i m a g e o f f e minism. T hanks t o t he sel f -p u b l i c a t i o n c a p a b i l i t i e s o f the i nte r net , any one c a n p o s t c o n t e n t o n l i n e a nd la bel any be l i ef t hey wa nt t o a s f e m i n i s t , l e a d i n g t o a lo t o f mi su nd er st a nd i ng i n t h e p u b l i c re g a rd i n g f e m inism’s true int ent i ons. T h i s “ f a k e f e m i n i s m ” m o vement has be en c a l l ed p o p -f e m i n i s m a n d i n c o r p o r a tes a ny mate ria l wi t h a fe m i n i s t l a b e l t h a t l a c k s feminist i deal s. Ove ra l l , t he neg ati v e p o r t r a y a l o f f e m i n i s m in the medi a has b een i n c re d i b l y d a m a g i n g t o t h e entire mo ve ment . Bec a us e p e o p l e h a v e b e e n m i s i n f o r med abo u t what f emi ni sm a c t u a l l y s t a n d s f o r, m a n y peo ple have shunned t he m o v e m e n t , h a l t i n g a n y pro gress and d em oni zi ng a n y s u p p o r t e r s o f t h e f eminist cause . In a rec ent s t u d y re p o r t e d o n b y j o ur na list Sadi e W hi t el oc k s, s u b j e c t s w e re a s k e d h o w they react t o femi ni st s a n d a c t i v i s t s . I t w a s re v e a led tha t th e pu b l i c most l y s e e s f e m i n i s t s a s s i m p l y “ ‘ ma nhati n g ’ and ‘unhy g i e n i c ’ ” . A c c o rd i n g t o W h i telo cks, th i s i s v er y b ad n e w s f o r t h e f u t u re o f f e m inism. “R e se arc her s sa y t h e s e c h a r a c t e r a t t a c k s ‘ p l a y a key ro l e i n c reat i ng res i s t a n c e t o s o c i a l c h a n g e .’ ” What t hi s m ea ns i s t h a t , t h a n k s t o t h e s t e reo types su rro und i ng femi n i s t s , p e o p l e a re a c t u a l l y being scare d off from f em i n i s m a n d a re t re a t i n g i t , a s M o i says, a s t he ‘F- wo rd ’ . M o i h a s s e e n t h i s e ff ect o n peo pl e fi r st ha nd in t h e F e m i n i s t Cl a s s i c s c l a ss she te aches a t D uk e Un i v e r s i t y. S h e s a y s t h a t o f t e n , w hen her stud ent s a re e x p l a i n e d w h a t f e m i n i s m actua lly stands f or t hey ’l l a g re e t h e y s u p p o r t t h e c a u se but al ways t a c k on “ b u t w e w o u l d n e v e r c a l l o urselves fe mi ni st s, ”. Moi ha s s i n c e d i s c o v e re d t h a t mo stly, her stud ent s refuse t o l a b e l t h e m s e l v e s a s f e minists because t hey b el ie v e t h a t “ i f t h e y w e re to ca ll th emsel v es f emi ni st s , o t h e r p e o p l e w o u l d t h ink tha t th ey m ust b e st r i d e n t , d o m i n e e r i n g , a g g re s s i ve, a nd i nto l er a nt a nd – w o r s t o f a l l – t h a t t h e y m ust ha te men,” . T hi s i s ob v i o u s l y v e r y h a r m f u l t o t h e feminist mo ve ment b ec ause , w i t h o u t y o u n g n e w m en a nd wo me n b ec omi ng f e m i n i s t s t o c o n t i n u e t h e ca use, fe mi ni sm c oul d a c t u a l l y d i e o u t . A l s o , w i t h out the

suppo rt o f the public behind them, ho w ca n feminis ts ever ho pe to enco ura ge a ny cha nges to make our lives mo re equa l? They rely o n the ba cking of the peo ple in o rder to ma ke a ny pro gress. Moi adds tha t “ W ha t I f ind unsettling is tha t there are s o few [ f eminists] a t a time w hen a t lea st so me feminis t view s a re sha red by mo st w o men a nd men … y et they a re deter mined to keep the drea ded F-w o rd at ar m’s length. We a re w itnessing the emergence of a whole new genera tio n o f w o men w ho a re ca ref ul to prefac e every gender-rela ted cla im tha t just might c ome a cro ss a s unco nventio na l w ith “ I a m no t a feminis t, but…” ” The media is very much so respo nsible for the stigma surro unding f eminism to da y and their misrepresenta tio n needs to be rectif ied. Feminis m is a mo vement f o r gender equa lity a nd t o label it a s a nything else is ina ccura te. A s lo ng as women rema in the mino rity behind the scenes in th e media, ma le perspective a nd o pinio n a s w ell a s a ntifeminis t pro pa ga nda w ill co ntinue to be bro a dca ste d. And as lo ng a s the public rema ins uneduca ted a bout what f eminism is a nd is f ed f eminism sla nder, feminis m w ill co ntinue to struggle. U ltima tely, this pers is tent depictio n o f the “ evil f eminist” stereo ty pe s pells disa ster f o r the f uture o f f eminism a nd women’s rights, a iming o ur so ciety o n a ba ckw a rds path. 15

NO JUSTICE FOR DOMESTIC TERRORISM Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz graduated recently, but unlike other students, she walked onto the podium to receive her degree carrying a mattress—the mattress she was raped on. The incident was alleged to have occurred in her sophomore year in 2012 by one Paul Nungesser. As part of her senior art thesis, Ms Sulkowicz carried that mattress around with her in protest until she graduated, or Nungesser was expelled. Sadly, it was the former which came first.

Many people have been vocal about their support for Ms Sulkowicz, but many more have inundated the internet with dissent, disgust and disbelief. Various articles attack Ms Sulkowicz, some claiming her ordeal is utterly fabricated. In one instance, even Ms Sulkowicz’s Facebook grammar became a source of ridicule. Meanwhile, Nungesser is often characterised as the victim with strong feminist beliefs—because a feminist couldn’t possibly commit a crime. Proving a crime is important. But how that crime is reacted to is equally important. The backlash that one woman standing against rape has received is disgusting. This is why most sexual assault crimes are not reported by both male and female victims. People who have experienced sexual assault are less likely to come forward over fear of ridicule and backlash. Even if somehow miraculously their case manages to reach the courts, they will have to reexperience the trauma through meticulous cross-examinations and confront their attackers.

Ms Sulkowicz’s senior performance project titled Carry That Weight is powerful, empowering and devastating—a visual metaphor for her pain. “The past year of my life has really been marked by telling people what happened in that most intimate and private space,” she told Columbia Daily. “I was raped in my own dorm bed, and since then, that space has become fraught for me. I feel like I’ve carried the weight of what happened since then.”

Rape and sexual abuse is a major issue in our society. Here are some Australian statistics from the Centre of Abuse and Sexual Assault to put it into perspective for you:

Ms Sulkowicz filed a complaint against Nungesser in April 2013. Two other women also came forward with similar accusations (though they wished to remain anonymous). Despite this, Nungesser was found “not responsible” in Ms Sulkowicz’s case. Even when a further complaint was launched against the University, as well as with the New York Police Department, nothing changed. In fact, Nungesser has called her performance as a very public, very painful act of bullying.

Furthermore, according to the Australian Government:

1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men will be sexually abused before the age of 16. Only 1 in 6 reports of rape to the police are actually prosecuted. 1 in 4 children will experience family violence

57% of women will experience some form of sexual abuse within their lives. 75% of male victims and 87.7% of female victims knew their attacker.

OPINION ZO E S IMMON S @ I tBegins W ithZ

In another study by the Australian Government, young males represented the highest portion of male victims—particularly those aged 0-9, and that males aged between 10-14 have an 86 in 100,000 chance of being abused. These are our men and our women. Our young girls and young boys. And they’re at risk of such an unspeakable thing. This needs to change. Victim blaming needs to change. Prosecution rates of offenders must increase. Education programs must be further instituted into schools from an early age—the cycle of violence and abuse must stop. So, what can we do about it? Solutions to curb sexual abuse and domestic violence can be viewed from the same lens, after all, their core is the same: abuse. Australian of the Year, Rosie Batty, calls abuse “family terrorism”; and she’s completely right.“Let’s put it in its context: this is terrorism in Australia,” Ms Batty said. “If we look at the money that we spend on terrorism overseas, for the slight risk it poses to our society, it is disproportionate completely.” “Let’s start talking about family terrorism. Maybe then, with the context and kind of language, we will start to get a real sense of urgency.” Feminist philosopher Claudia Card’s theory of rape as a terrorist institution melds perfectly with Batty’s ideologies. In Card’s 1991 “Rape as a Terrorist Institution”, she explains that rape is used as a deterrence, just like deterrence from a crime is a punishment. Only in this case, the major task of rape is the subordinance and subservience of men to women—abuse can be viewed in the same way. “Like other terrorisms, rape has two targets: ‘bad girls’ and ‘good girls’, those who are expendable…and those to whom a message is sent by the way of the treatment of the former,” the

article reads. “As reward, they [good girls] are granted ‘protection’”. However, Card explains this “protector” may be even more dangerous than a stranger—the statistics of victims knowing their abuser significantly support this idea. Card’s ideologies are somewhat outdated, and also need to include the perspective of male victims, too—but her ideas are still completely valid. For woman, abuse sends a message that she is not welcome; that she must tread carefully in life so as to not anger another and risk abuse. For men, due to the stereotypes that men must be strong, it sends the message that they must be quiet, conform or risk further abuse or ridicule. Our very own legal system impedes productivity in terms of prosecuting abuse. Our adversarial system of innocent until proven guilty often lacks the ability to gain justice; abuse and rape is incredibly difficult to provide evidence for. For crimes to be prosecuted, they must also include two elements: the mens rea (the guilty mind) and the actus reus (the guilty act). If one party believes they are entitled to abuse another, or genuinely believes their actions genuinely aren’t abuse, it becomes very difficult to prove the crime. A more proactive response is needed to the issue of family and interpersonal terrorism. Rosie Batty believes positive results can be achieved through the federal budget committing more money to long-term prevention and awareness procedures— particularly more Legal Aid. Crisis centres and hotlines must also be funded. What’s the point of having facilities if no one answers the phone? If there’s no room to house victims? If victims cannot afford a lawyer? The fact of the matter is that things as they are, clearly aren’t working. So what are you going to do to promote positive change? Speak out Australia. 17

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F E AT U R E CLA U D I A POPOSK I @ cla u diapop13

MORE THAN JUST THE LGBT

Even within minority groups, there are minorities and in the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer/Questioning Intersex and Asexual community, it is the QIA part of the acronym who are the minority. Previously, this minority included the transgender community, but with the group gaining visibility thanks to women like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner, it is no longer as unrecognized as the others. This is not to say we should stop promoting and recognizing LGBT rights – that is the opposite of what I am trying to say. This is to ensure that people understand the whole acronym and what it means. Questioning is essentially the group that are unsure where they stand in terms of gender and sexuality. They suspect that the life they are currently living isn’t entirely suited to them. Do they enjoy dating women, or would they prefer dating men? Are they dating these people because that is the alleged social norm? Do they feel comfortable in their own skin? Does their heart and mind match their sexual organs? Everyone in the LGBTQIA community stood at the Q part at one point. Intersex is a term for those who physically fall between ‘male’ and ‘female’ with sexual organs belonging to both categories. It is essentially a combination of physical attributes, genetic attributes and hormones, which don’t necessarily adhere to one or the other ‘category’. Being an intersex person has no standing on gender identification, with Organisation Intersex International Australia constantly reinforcing on it’s website, “Intersex people have the same range of gender identities as non-intersex people. This means that there are intersex men, intersex women, intersex people with non-binary gender identities, intersex people who are both male and female, and other gender identities.”

Asexual is someone who is not interested or does not desire sexual relationships. Let me be clear – this does not mean that those who identify as asexual do not feel love (although some asexuals also identify as aromantic). Many asexual people are in healthy romantic relationships, but they just aren’t interested in sex. Of course, with everything, there are varying degrees of asexuality. Some asexuals are in relationships with people who are sexually active; some asexuals do not have an issue with masturbation. If you’ve ever seen the word ‘ace’ on the Internet in regards to sexual orientation, it probably means they identify as asexual. The LGBTQIA+ acronym does not even cover all sexual orientations or gender identities. There is aromantic (which is not experiencing romantic love), gender fluid (which is identifying as both male and female genders and moving between which one they identify with more at any given moment), pansexual (which is essentially someone who can experience romantic and sexual feelings for anyone no matter what they identify as) and demisexual (which is a lack of sexual attraction unless a deep romantic connection to said person). People can be in polyamorous relationships or be happy with being on their own. The point is; there is an abundance of sexual orientations and gender identities. There is more than just the LGBT community. It is an expansive and quite interesting place. In order for this world to be truly understanding and accommodating, we must educate ourselves on each one. Each group deserves their own kind of awareness and it is only when people understand the vastness that this can occur.

F E AT U R E ZOE SIMMO N S @I tBeg i nsW i t hZ

“Do you mind if I eat my noodles?” The woman before me holds up a cup of instant noodles—home brand. “I’m too poor and lazy for anything else,” she laughs. Dr Louise Richardson-Self isn’t what you’d expect from your average philosopher—her office and meal choices can tell you as much. In lieu of books, her shelves are adorned with a few choice Disney figurines—Maleficent and Meridia among them. Strong female characters: fitting. “I’m getting there,” she explains, motioning to the empty shelves as she takes a bite of her noodles. Louise works on a contract at the University of Wollongong, teaching two days a week, and researching for three. A fulltime position is hopefully on the cards for the future. “That’s the dream!” she says, “Job security!”. Louise was born in Tasmania to parents Ian Richardson and Jenny Self, where she lived with her mother and step-father, Greg Self, constantly moving houses—around 20 times, she estimates. Louise’s childhood and location influenced her greatly, and would continue to impact her for the rest of her life. “It’s kind of a strange place to grow up for me personally,” she begins. “I’m not much of an outdoorsy person. Most activities that are available for kids involved some kind of sport or hiking or boating or something. Instead, I did a lot of book-reading and movie-watching.” The effect this had on Louise was two-fold. Firstly, Louise became determined to leave Tasmania for a bigger place with greater opportunities. And secondly, she became interested in popular culture, how it affects the world, as well as people’s relationships within it. This love of writing and the world would become the ground on which her career was built. 20

Despite the strangeness of the so-called small-town Tasmania, life was good. “I mean, nothing super traumatic happened to me as a child. You know, like my parents didn’t both get murdered, and I didn’t turn into Batman.” Batman? Maybe not. But a strong, inspirational female (and queer) philosopher? Definitely. But that comes later in the story. After completing high school, like most teenagers, Louise admits she didn’t have much of a direction in mind. “My mum told me when I finished school that I could either go to university, or I could get a job. And I didn’t really feel like getting a job, as most eighteen-year-olds don’t.” And then Louise made the remarkable discovery that universities offered philosophy as a study subject. Having taken some classes on the subject during high school, Louise gave it a shot. “I was like: that’s insane! Philosophy is an academic discipline? Who knew? I didn’t know. I just kept on doing it . . . I just thought it was fun!” And the rest is history. In 2010, Louise finally left Tasmania in order to undertake her PhD on same-sex marriage and human rights discourse at the University of Sydney. The 80,000 word piece took approximately three-and-a-half years to complete, plus an extra six months to make additional changes before final submissions. “Basically, I just analysed a bunch of arguments people use to say we should have same-sex marriage, and I pointed out which ones were flawed and shouldn’t be circulated anymore, and which ones should be endorsed, because they would be more likely to promote the LGBTQI community.” Louise believes the arguments against same-sex marriage are utter nonsense, and refused to waste her time on them. Instead, she formulated a comprehensive, rather than an assimilative, response to the treatment of those in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) community.

F E AT U R E

NOT YOUR AV E R A G E . . . PHILO SOPHER “I really think that the world is not going to be a better place if only some gays are accepted. The ones with the white picket fences in white, middle-class suburbia, while you still have trans people being bashed and lesbians suffering corrective rape”. “It really just fucked with my head. I was like, hang on. If I’m dating this guy, I can get married, but if I’m dating this girl, I can’t. I am the same person, irrespective of who I’m dating. How is this actually a thing that is illegal? It’s mind-boggling.” Louise’s passion seeps through her writing. In fact, one of her papers was awarded the Lucy Firth Publication Award, which basically means her writing (while still being a PhD student) was up to scratch in comparison to well-established scholars. It includes a certificate which acknowledges the work being done, as well as a cash prize of $1000. “I nearly fell off my stool when I saw how much money I was winning. Because, y’know, being a poor uni student at the time, I was like: holy shit! But it’s nice to see that people appreciate your work.” A recent publication by Louise further demonstrates her undying passion for the area—in a unique light compared to traditional arguments. The publication, entitled Same-sex marriage: the road to social justice?, argues that while same-sex marriage is undoubtedly justified, social justice is best served when the normative importance of marriage is undercut.

The article explains how, in western society, the importance of marriage is paramount—particularly the ideas of marriage being the ultimate goal to happiness in life. “In short, marriage is good, and it is good to be married,” the article reads.On one hand, this does in fact render those who aren’t enabled to marry (same-sex couples) as second-class citizens, though Louise points out that many forms of same-sex relationships are recognised, such as de facto relationships in the 1975 Family Law Act (Cth). Louise proposes the intrinsic worth of marriage to be denied, and a recognition that other intimate associations are instrumentally valuable society—these alternative institutions need to be emphasised and endorsed in order to achieve true social justice. Same-sex relationships are not Louise’s only area of philosophical passion. She’s a feminist. The big scary “f” word: a word so often misconstrued within today’s society. In actual fact, feminism is simply the attainment of equality for women, as well as men. “I was always kind of a feminist. I just didn’t know I was,” Louise states. “I’d noticed the inequalities between men and women and I thought it was arbitrary and unfair.” University was the turning point: “When I got to my first gender studies class, I was like: fuck! This is everything I’ve been noticing. I’m so glad other people have been noticing, too. And that we can talk about it and attempt to do something about it.” “Oh, I’m a feminist,” Louise says as she recalls her first semester. “Look at that. Who knew?” Louise insists she has never had a problem with the label of being a feminist, but that she has certainly been dismissed as a result of being one. “People think: oh, you’re just a feminist. I don’t have to listen to 21

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you, man-hater! They refuse to accept that I’m making logical and consistent arguments.” Thankfully, that doesn’t often happen in the academic realm as much as it does in the social realm. Positive thinking would suggest that’s simply because people are evolving and growing as a whole, though Louise thinks it’s most likely that she now simply chooses to associate with different kinds of people. According to a 2008 study by the Australian Association of Philosophy, women are significantly underrepresented, making up only 23% of full-time and fractional full-time work contracts— though the participation is steadily rising. For instance, in 1981 the percentage of female philosophers in continuing positions was only 8%; as of 2006, this had risen to 23%. Gender inequality is also incredibly prevalent in every facet of our society—from social norms constructing gender (what is a woman?), to abortion laws, to the gender wage gap, which in Australia currently sits at 18.6%. This is true even for women who do not leave the workforce in order to pursue a typical family life. It annoys Louise that people try to dismiss these issues (and many, many others) as not specifically women’s issues. In order to address and improve the situation of minorities in philosophy, Louise believes minorities (like women) should be specifically hired, which would in turn attract other minority candidates, as well as offering more units on feminist philosophy—perhaps even making them core subjects, therefore indicating their importance. Ilusha Moroz, Louise’s partner for almost 3 years, is not intimidated by Louise’s passions. “She was very opinionated, interesting to talk [to] and also quite beautiful,” he said, recalling his first impression of Louise. The “incredibly passionate” Louise wasn’t the biggest fan of Ilusha when they first met, which Ilusha attributes to arguing on certain subjects. However, he has always thought she was “pretty cool…and funny”, particularly due to Louise’s knack for shutting down bigoted individuals in social situations. Ilusha shares Louise’s views on same-sex marriage, as well as feminism and equality. 22

Louise is certainly unique: a doctor of philosophy who sports a fair few tattoos, red hair, a tongue piercing and the occasional ear spike. In a world where society deems individuals with body modification as “unprofessional”, Louise admits she hasn’t really had any issues with discrimination—which she believes is specifically because she works in academia. “So long as I show up and do what I’m supposed to do, people seem not to mind so much.” Besides, she likes the fact that it makes her stand out. Louise’s left arm reveals a woman reading with a stack of books. The three-and-a-half hour job “hurt like a bitch”, but Louise feels like the artwork reasonably represents her interests. The inside of her arm is adorned with a compass, and on her chest, a star. “I got the star when I was about 19 because I thought it would make me look hot. Like, actually. That’s what the nineteen-year-old me thought. I don’t regret my decision though.” This 27-year-old has accomplished quite a bit for one so young. “People used to ask me all the time [what I’d do for a job], especially studying philosophy. And I would be like: I don’t know, why do you care? Because obviously, it’s no one’s problem but my own.” Though she admits it’s difficult at times—particularly the first few years out of the PhD. Socialising with other philosophers, too, is difficult. Other than philosophy, what could a 27-year-old discuss with a 56-year-old? Rap music? Rap, by the way, is Louise’s favourite genre of music—though she often feels contradicted—like she’s a “bad feminist” for it. “I’ll be listening to music in the car and hear a quip and I’m like: ahhhhh, now I can’t listen to this song anymore. But I still like the beat! Oh, no! Don’t listen to it, turn it off! Turn it off!” “Till We Rich” by Krayzie Bone and Ice Cube is probably her favourite songs; mainly because it’s really positive and about

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how awesome it is to be alive, and to chase dreams, rather than the typical “bitches and hoes” rap music. Lil’ Kim is also another favourite for Louise—mainly because Lil’ Kim is a badass and a “ball-buster”. You never stop being a philosopher, or a feminist. It impacts every aspect of your life—you will always be finding new things to read, or combating inequalities and ignorance in society. It’s this passion that makes the job so exhilarating to Louise— particularly teaching her passion to others. “The thing that makes the job exciting for me is being able to teach, and teach things I love, and see other people get excited about the things I love. That’s cool.” To be in a class run by Louise is a unique, and admittedly hilarious thing—any excuse to make a class entertaining, whether it be cracking jokes, intelligent quips, reading children’s picture books about fish larceny, or playing rap music—in particular, Live 2 Crew’s “Me so Horny”. She shows that it isn’t just old men with long beards and monotonous voices who can be into philosophy, and that in fact, philosophy can be pretty cool—not to mention intellectually stimulating and incredibly informing. Louise doesn’t think she’s a particularly interesting person: she describes herself as a work-a-holic who, when not working, is trying to convince everyone that they should be a feminist. But her own beliefs of herself aren’t what make Louise so interesting—it’s how she inspires those around her. And to answer the first question of this article? Yes, I told her. She could definitely eat her noodles during our interview.

F E AT U R E SAMIE J OHN SON @mssa m i ej ohnson

The first time my boyfriend and I became intimate, something happened that had never happened before with any previous non-sex, sexual encounter. He asked permission before touching my breasts. Now this was such a small thing, and any normal, consent loving human would say, ‘well of course! Consent is essential! You should always ask permission before touching someone sexually!’ But, take a small recall through some of your sexual encounters, and especially during younger years. A lot of the time, there will be a grope or whatever, and yeah, sometimes you want it to happen and that’s ok, but how many times has there been express permission asked by the person you’re being sexual with that they’re allowed to touch your body? That they’re allowed to cross the line from non sexual to sexual? Chances are that the words ‘can I?’ Or ‘is this alright?’ Haven’t been uttered before, with perhaps the exception of virginity loss. Now many people will argue, ‘but then it won’t be spontaneous!’, and this is somewhat true . I will admit that at first I was a little taken aback; I was ready and willing, all the “yes” signals were happening. However, the fact that the person you’re about to get sexy with takes the time to ask ‘are you sure?’, ‘is this ok with you?’, ‘just checking in that you’re definitely feeling the sexiness’, ‘can I touch you?’, it means that you’re with someone who not only cares about how much you want to be there and your wellbeing as a person, but is also much more likely to listen to you if you want to stop.

AN ODE TO CONSENT

Consent during sexy times is the most important thing for sexy times to stay sexy, so how sad is it that we allow ourselves to be in sexual situations when the person you’re trying to be sexy with hasn’t considered checking in on whether you’re ok with what’s going down and vice versa? So go with this rule of thumb, the people you want to be sexy with are the people who ask to touch you, or kiss you, or even ask what the deal with contraception is, and what you want out of your sexy times. They’re the people that are going to care about you during sex. My advice, make it a habit to always ask before getting sexual. Even a quick, “do you wanna?” before getting into it. Because as much as we expect the other person to take your feelings into account, they’re there too, and everyone should have the option to opt in or opt out of sexy times. Lead by example and have sexy, consensual sex.

F E AT U R E YE SI M K ARASU

Audiences were stunned last night at the premier of a light- hearted comedy exploring the romantic relationship between two women. The film, starring queer identifying actors of diverse ethnicities, maintained an upbeat atmosphere, delighting audience members with its light-hearted portrayal of the queer female experience. “I’ve been a raging queer for years!” stated 83-year-old Margaret Lace, rubbing her glasses in disbelief. “And I have never seen such a light-hearted lesbian film.” Jessica Cho was amongst many teenage queers who had been eagerly awaiting the film’s debut. “I was quite excited to find out what new romantic misjudgement I would be collecting and later projecting onto my future relationships.” The teen proclaimed. “It got around halfway through the film when I realised that just wasn’t going to happen. They managed to showcase the queer female experience without any sudden death or sickness of a lover, absolutely no lesbians threw themselves off of a roof, none were pregnant and I almost had to cover my ears when the protagonist clearly stated that she was bisexual instead of leaving her sexual identity up for dismissal.”

FILMS FOR QUEER WOMEN

As the theatre cleared one lonely man, who was dragged along to see the show, sat sulking in a corner “I didn’t like how little they sexualised the main chicks in the film. Not once did I see them suck each others tongues or fingers like a penis and I have to say, I was extremely disappointed in that. Basically, I resented how they treated the women’s relationship like something that existed outside of male involvement.” No word has come from the directors about a sequel, but some call for a second movie. The cries come from confusion about the happy ending and sincere resolution at the close of the film. The screenwriters have publicly apologised for the healthy relationship model they have written for female queers and say that they “sincerely regret not making the main characters suffer more.” The film is currently undergoing some adjustments to make it acceptable for mainstream media, including an era change to Victorian times and replacing most talking scenes with whimsical and unrealistic sexual positions.

F E AT U R E CLA U D I A POPOSK I @ cla u diapop13

THE G A L PA L PHENOMENON The Gal Pal phenomenon is something that has surfaced in mainstream media referring to women in relationships with other women. It is essentially a phrase used by hetero-normative people to avoid the idea that women can be in a romantic and sexual relationship with other women. To me, this is extremely offensive as it blankets LGBTQIA relationships, shoving them under the carpet so that people can pretend they don’t exist. How is it fair that to be seen holding hands, kissing, going on dates with and laughing with another woman and to be told it doesn’t count, that you’re only friends? That is the same as telling a little girl that her obsession with soccer and superheroes is ‘just a phase’. That is why I think we should put the term to rest. It would be the same as referring to a male being in a romantic and sexual relationship with another man as a ‘bromance’. A gal pal is your best friend, a purely platonic friend that you may love, but not in a romantic or sexual way. A gal pal is not your female partner. In an interview with The Sunday Mirror, Kristen Stewart’s mother allegedly confirmed that the Still Alice actress and Alicia Cargile are dating. Before this though, news organisations like the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail insisted on publishing articles with headlines like, “Going public? Birthday girl Kristen Stewart holds hands with her gal pal Alicia Cargile in downtown LA.”

How about you just say, ‘her rumored to be girlfriend’? This isn’t the only news organization to use this particular phrasing and begs the question, when is the media going to be comfortable with identifying particular relationships for what they are? I mean, I do understand labeling the relationship as ‘lesbian’ or ‘bisexual’ could be problematic, as the couple in question may not identify as either – but pal implies friendship. Just call them girlfriends. It’s easier. Alternatively, some in the LGBTQIA community have adopted the phrase, using it as an umbrella term for women in relationships with women. This is use of the term is fine as they’re defining their own relationships. However, there is an issue when people who do not identify as LGBTQIA use this phrase to describe platonic relationships with female friends. This undermines the importance of LGBTQIA relationships, reducing them to nothing more than friendships in the same way that calling romantic female relations ‘gal pals’ does. It is a phrase for the LGBTQIA community to decide to use, if they so please, and not for nonLGBTQIA peoples to adopt. The phrase gal pals infuriates some and acts as a term of empowerment for others, however, the mainstream media should simply address LGBTQIA relationships for what they are and not actively avoid calling women in relationships with other women anything but girlfriends.

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BOOKS T H AT TA U G H T ME ABOUT WOMAN HOOD I have always loved literature. Books are where I have found my solitude and haven, and as a young woman, they have educated me in my path to becoming a better female and downright human being. So, here is my list of books that I think all young women should read in order to explore women in all of their wonderful forms:

Girl Stuff by Kaz Cooke

Harry Potter series by JK Rowling

I first read this book when I was 12, after my cousin bought it for me the christmas before I started high school. Although a more relevant read for teenagers, it still has a lot of excellent life advice for women. From sexual health, to writing a resume, Girl Stuff is an encyclopaedia of everything a girl will face growing up and making it as a woman. Bonus: it is also the book that taught me what feminism is, and I have been a convert ever since.

Although this series isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t female centric, it has some of the most diverse female characters of any book series (with the exception of perhaps Game of Thrones, which I also recommend). Hermione is one of the few female characters in history whose appearance and allure to boys hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been her primary focus. Instead, her intellect and brains have been, which is incredibly empowering for any young girl to read. As a fellow frizzy haired girl with large front teeth and a love of books, I really connected with Hermione, and she is a literary heroine I can get behind. On top of this, Luna Lovegood is the poster child for self acceptance and resilience. Ginny Weasley I think we can all appreciate as well for defying gender norms and being generally a badass in her Quidditch playing as well as standing up for her sexuality when Ron tries to tell her not to go kissing so many boys. You go Girls!

F E AT U R E SA M I E JOHN SON @ mssa miejohns on

Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham

Outlander by Diana Gabaldron

Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta

Now this book has garnered a lot of controversy, before it even came Dunham’s sizeable book advance was a topic of controversy. However, most things Lena Dunham does is controversial: from being nude a lot in her TV show Girls (another recommend), to being comfortable in her body and sexuality, to her politics. But let’s be honest, when a woman gets a voice and what she is saying relates to feminism and women, there are gonna be haters, and haters gonna hate. To be honest, yes, there are some confronting themes in this book, as all good books should have. However, there is also a seriously wonderful depth and honesty that comes from it, as well as some incredibly helpful advice about body image, sexuality and mental health. Dunham writes in a way that you either love or hate and this book is no exception, but give it a go, you might surprise yourself.

This was made into a tv show, which I watched first after reading a review describing it as the historical smut of your dreams. Which it is. The book delivers a pretty similar experience to the show, except you don’t get to gaze on the dreamy male lead in HD (the only downside). The book gives you a headstrong and intelligent female lead who, as well as being a badass former army nurse who was on the frontline in WWII, is completely in charge of her sexuality and isn’t afraid to tell off any men who find themselves superior due to societal customs. The premise is bizarre but enjoyable: 27 year old Claire, an englishwoman in Scotland post WWII, accidentally travels back in time to the 1740s, leaving her husband, Frank, behind. She encounters the handsome and adorable Jamie Fraser and there are shenanigans regarding the English army who are occupying Scotland at the time. It’s a history lesson with sex, and some profound lines about male virginity you may not have considered. Watch the show as well for some delicious binge watching.

This book has been a staple of English classrooms for years, but aside from the obvious themes of ‘belonging’ (vomits), it takes a look at class, religion, race, death, family and finding one’s self when they don’t fit the ideal mould of their surroundings. Looking for Alibrandi also shows a very honest look at virginity and sexuality, especially when influenced by a religious background.

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While watching the news coverage of the Supreme Court ruling for same-sex marriage, it became hard not to recognise the important role that television has played in paving the way for such a momentous decision to occur.

TV PAV E D THE WAY FOR G AY RIGHTS

There is a very strong interplay between television and the changing attitudes of a nation. Although the case was facilitated by judges, politicians, activists and lawyers, it also involved new ideas across the nation in regards to same-sex relationships. Television is very present within our lives. As an audience, we develop one-sided relationships with television characters, whether intentionally or not, that soon they become a tangible part of our lives. They direct our conversations, our online alliances and, at times, our perceptions of the world in which we live. Whether we agree with them or not is beside the point. We know the characters and understand them on some level otherwise we would not be watching them. Unlike a character of colour who is always going to appear as such, characters of varying sexual identities were a lot easier to conceal. Gay characters were often employed as one-off comic relief, or were shrouded by multiple layers of coded language so as not to offend those of a conservative disposition. However, it was in 1997 that saw comedian and television personality Ellen DeGeneres utter the words which were once seen as a death sentence for television shows. The words ‘I’m Gay’ had the power to cancel Ellen’s show as well as condemn her to an existence of public scrutiny. The episode titled ‘The Puppy Episode’ saw the first lead character to ‘come out’ in the history of American television. The episode began production just 6-months after the Defence of Marriage Act was passed by a large majority of the Senate and was signed personally by Bill Clinton. It was declared as an affront to the strong ‘family values’ of the time and as a result the ABC ran ‘viewer discretion’ cards before each half of the two-part episode, which continued on for the rest of the series.

F E AT U R E KU R TI S HUG HES @ K urtLogan

The contentious episode challenged the very fabrics of the culture in which it was aired, and played a pertinent role in breaking down the concept of television taboos. The episode, although wrongly considered as contrary to the ideologies of American society, acknowledged and explored the very real barriers that have forced homosexuality to be branded as abnormal, and thus forced into submission. Ellen, although during the first three seasons of the show lived the ‘ideal’ life of a single woman, cleverly parodied society’s homophobic convictions throughout the series. Though conducive to society’s understanding of the experiences of the LGBTQ+ community, the series was soon characterised as being overly dominated by gay issues and was cancelled. However, the premature death of the show can be considered as a diminutive price to pay for the awareness and progress that DeGeneres has made for the LGBTQ+ community. Ellen DeGeneres used her TV celebrity and elevated public status to demand acceptance of her sexual identity, whilst simultaneously remaining as an entertainer. The episode, which was viewed by 42 million people, was seen as the climax of a mass-media stunt which lasted for months after, provoking discussion and inspection into an issue which was not only disregarded but repeatedly degraded. A year later, Will and Grace adorned our screens with two gay leads. The show drew some criticism, surprisingly from not only right wing but also left wing viewers. Jack was presented as the dominant image of the ‘gay community’, characterised as highly flamboyant and flippant, whereas Will represented the traditional male lead whose love life was practically uncharted territory. Regardless of these criticisms, the show soon became a remarkable hit and made tremendous bounds in normalising gay characters and their relationships to an audience who had very little exposure to it previously.

Will and Grace skyrocketed in popularity around the same time as the cable drama business. With this came an influx in shows from varying genres and tones depicting same-sex characters and relationships. From shows such as ShowTime’s Queer As Folk, The L Word and the ground-breaking HBO prison drama Oz, it was apparent that society was not only tolerant of gay culture, but enjoying it. Gay characters and personalities didn’t take over television, but they were present in far greater numbers than before in nearly every genre of programming. It was these shows which not only made society more comfortable with gay culture, but also gave men and women the confidence to accept their own sexualities. Today, shows involving LGBT culture have become just as frequent as those which don’t. Whether it’s a single character, or a premise firmly grounded in LGBTQ+ issues, television in the 21st century has opened its arms out wide to the inclusion of a once ostracised group of society. From shows such as Modern Family and Netflix’s Orange Is The New Black, LGBTQ+ culture is not only becoming accepted but also a normal part of our television experience. 16 years after Ellen’s highly contentious and courageous episode, and as the movements against the ‘gay agenda’ lose their support whilst conservative nations like Ireland legalise same-sex marriage, sympathetic television shows and leading LGBTQ+ characters probably deserve some of the credit for changing society’s mind and altering the media landscape in which we consume on a day-to-day basis. Correlation doesn’t always mean causation, but in this case it is very difficult to argue otherwise.

F E AT U R E GE ORG IA HOL L O WAY @grum p y g eorg i a

She lives in New York and writes about sex – a lot – yet despite the obvious parallels, Rachel Hills is no Carrie Bradshaw. Rachel Hills is a passionate feminist, critic of pop culture stereotypes, and a sceptic of the media’s portrayal of sex. Her work has been featured in countless publications, both in print and online, and most recently she landed a book deal with major publishing company Simon and Schuster. Her first book, The Sex Myth: The Gap Between our Fantasies and Reality, was released in Australia in July. She states that at the core of her writing is a “desire to explore ideas”.

“submitting articles to publications”. She says that it was working with other young writers, writers that she describes as extremely talented, that made her realise that she “could do what they did”. A lot of her freelance work was for magazines such as Cosmopolitan, which she believes is the perfect venue in which to discuss feminist ideals. Hills explains that women’s magazines are “essentially a media conversation about what it is to be a woman” and by being a contributor to such publications you can create new conversations, “ones that I think can be really helpful for people”.

We’ve spoken once before; we pinned it down to around 3 years ago. Back then Hills was living in London, Skyping me from her flat; she was interviewing me for research for her book. This time around, it’s me asking her the questions, hoping that my nerves don’t show through too much. As the Skype call connects, I remember the sound of Rachel’s voice, and my nerves relax a little. This time she’s in New York, I hear some noises in the background, and I imagine she is at a swanky Manhattan event. Hills appears to have the dream career of any journalism student. However, it didn’t happen by chance. She’s successful, talented, determined, and incredibly hard working. Hills began her career, after graduating from the University of Sydney, as a freelance journalist. Over the last decade she’s written hundreds of articles, all while working various jobs, making appearances for public speaking events, and studying her post-graduate degree. Hills’s work has taken her from her Australian homeland, to London, to New York- where she currently resides. Although Hills says that “it didn’t quite happen as directly as that”.

I ask Hills what it felt like releasing her book , “very exciting and very scary” is her response. It’s been 8 years since she came up with the idea, and 7 since she began working on it. She says it’s funny in retrospect, recalling an old blog post in which she says, “this book could take an entire year or two to write, surely it should only take six months”. She reveals that she felt a sense of hopelessness at times, and that the lengthy writing process often led her to question her value as a human being. “To understand that sometimes things don’t happen as quickly as you want them to”, was a personal lesson, says Hills. It wasn’t until after a late night conversation with her friend Monica, that Hills turned her pen towards the topic of sex. They were walking home from a party together, Hills recalls Monica confessing that she hadn’t had sex in almost two years. She turned to Hills and said “you know Rachel come May, it will be two years since I’ve had sex, and it will be one year since I kissed someone”. It was this revelation, eight years ago that led Hills to the concept of The Sex Myth. Hills admits that she never believed the sensationalised narrative of young people hooking up with strangers every weekend, which the media portrays as normal.

Hills reveals that things didn’t go quite to plan after graduation, but “it never does” she laughs. She describes her entrance into journalism, as “non-traditional”, or at least that’s how it was considered then. In 2004 she worked as the Editor in Chief of a project called electionTracker, which sent four young journalists around Australia in campaign buses alongside the major political parties. Hills says that it was around this time that she began 32

However she did buy into the more “subtle, insidious undercurrent, that to be a socially successful young person meant being sexually active”. When someone who Hills perceived to very socially successful, “wasn’t having sex in the way we were

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RACHEL HILLS: DEBUNKING ‘THE SEX MYTH’ told we were supposed to”, she was shocked. Hills has spoken in past interviews that in her 20s she felt like sex came easily to others, while describing herself as a “secret sexual loser hiding in the corner and hoping that no one would notice that I wasn’t ‘normal’”. Hills undertook her own quantitative research for the book, including over 200 interviews and over one thousand emails. Her research found that not only is there not really a ‘normal’, pretty much everyone is normal, in that most people worry they are doing something wrong when it comes to their sex lives. Hills says the motivation for her research was to find out the thoughts of twenty somethings when it comes to sex. “The point is not for you to parrot my theories back to me. The point is for you to tell me what you think”, she says. Hills’ understanding of sex changed her in more ways than just one while researching The Sex Myth. She says she wasn’t alone in her realisations, lots of those interviewed worried that they weren’t living up to the media’s portrayal. “It made me realise that I wasn’t alone, not just in feeling frustration and anxiety about not living up to the media ideal… but in my more specific insecurities about being a 20+ virgin”, recalls Hills. Her experience as a twenty something virgin wasn’t the average; most people have sex for the first time in their late teens to early twenties, but it happened more than what she thought. She’s sure that she had a few friends that shared her experiences, but “it just wasn’t something we talked about”. Hills argues that sex isn’t bad at all, however, it is the inflated ideal of sex as a measure of a person’s success, that causes so many people to become anxious around the subject. “It’s the fact that sex is positioned in our culture as being something that is so vitally important to who we are”, says Hills. Hills also argues that the media’s sensationalised view of sex is too narrow and excludes particular types of sexual activity. She says while researching she learnt a big lesson, which would have

allayed a lot of her younger self’s anxieties, and Hills believes it would also help a lot of other people’s insecurities. It’s that too much importance has been placed on penetrative sex. “Penis in vagina sex isn’t the only valid – or most important – type of sex. Knowing that would have helped me because I wouldn’t have been so concerned about whether I’d done or not done that particular sexual act”, Hills explains. Again Hills reiterates, “I’m not saying intercourse is bad, just that we, as a society, would benefit from not placing so much significance on it”. Hills says that by doing this not only would we destigmatise sexual acts that aren’t considered heteronormative, but it would also “reduce the pressure people feel to orgasm” in that particular sexual act. Hills also believes this is important for couples as they tend to “measure their intimacy through how often they engage in penetrative sex”. Now that she has a book under her belt, I asked Hills if she feels like she’s ‘made it’. “It’s really funny that you ask that, because I actually don’t”, she replies. She confesses that she felt more like she’d ‘made it’ when she was still living in Australia, five years ago. Hills feels that in terms of making the book a success, she has another mountain to climb. She says, “It’s this kind of scary precipice of will my dreams come true, or will they kind of fall into oblivion?” Hills hopes the book connects with an audience and opens new doors for her, in terms of different types of writing. Hills says she’d like to write another non-fiction book, but chose to keep the subject a secret “it hasn’t got anything to do with sex” she adds. Hills believes that The Sex Myth is better, in terms of writing and research, than anything she’s written before. “It’s the most worthwhile kind of writing that I could be doing” concludes Hills. Rachel Hills’ first book, The Sex Myth: The Gap Between our Fantasies and Reality, was released in Australia on July 29th (Penguin Books), and was made available in America from August 4th (Simon and Schuster). 33

F E AT U R E PH O E BE ADAMS

“IT” GIRLS Writer/director Jessica Bendinger’s 2006 film, Stick It, belongs to a small, peculiar subgenre shared by Bring It On (2000), Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and Whip It (2011). They are alike in many ways, sharing the enigmatic “it” in their title, the central theme of girls in sports, and homoerotic subtext of varying intensity. I planned to focus equally on all four of these movies in this article. However, while “researching” (read: procrastinating from uni work by rewatching these movies) it struck me as odd that Stick It, while being the film I had seen the most, was the one I had gone the longest without seeing. Why did I go from watching this movie every day to not seeing it for nine years? Out of the above films, Stick It was the first that I watched . . . and watched, and watched. I must have rented this movie a couple of times a month for the entirety of fourth grade. I even initialled the inside of the DVD jacket in tiny Sharpied letters for reasons that are indecipherable to me today (I’m trusting the readership not to rat me out to Video Ezy for this unscrupulous act of vandalism). For the uninitiated, Stick It centres on rebellious ex-gymnast Haley, played by Missy Peregrym (who I had confused with Kristen Stewart for at least half a decade). Haley saunters into the gym (and into my heart) wearing her mid-noughties halfmesh trucker hat and cargo shorts, welcomed by girls in spandex staring daggers at her from balancing beams and pommel horses. The combination of hot temper and pure talent within Haley make her unpopular amongst her fellow athletes. The camera has gratuitous affection for the honed bodies of the gymnasts. Joanne (Vanessa Lengies), campaigning for sleeveless leotards, flexes her biceps and proclaims her “right to bare arms”, an example of the movie’s sharp wordplay. And of course, in one of the film’s most memorable moments, Haley takes an ice bath while Green Day blares over her snarky monologue. 34

Oh god, that scene. Intercut with a montage of Haley performing increasingly terrifying stunts, we see her prepare an ice bath and then gingerly lower herself in. As a ten year old, I was transfixed. I watched her dip into that bath time and time again with rapt fascination. My crush on Haley was innocent, unadulterated – free from the panic and complication that came with my realisation of what being attracted to her meant. Fear and shame were dormant in my mind then, hibernating. This internalised homophobia was informed by the attitudes regarding queerness, both implicit and explicit, which had surrounded me until that point. Implicitly, I had not been exposed to any sort of positive representation of queer people. In Bend It Like Beckham, the idea that Jules could be gay is portrayed as ridiculous, an impossibility – there is no counterpoint saying that if she was, it would be fine. In Bring It On, the snarky cheerleaders call Missy an “uber-dyke”. Whip It, despite having a number of out queer women in the cast, has no out queer women as characters. For impressionable audiences, this lack of representation has resounding effects. Movies and TV taught me a lot, as they do for most people, and the gap left in my knowledge was filled by questionable sources. I still remember asking a classmate what the word “lesbian” meant after he sneered the word at my friend. “It’s like, you’re sick,” was his reply, “Like a pervert.” It was years before I could watch a film or TV show without being hyperaware of my reactions towards any woman on screen. I would police my thoughts, desperately trying to direct my attention towards the inevitable male love interest that shares a victory kiss with our heroine. There are none to speak of in Stick It, Haley’s interactions with the knuckleheaded dudebros who squabble for her attention are aggressively platonic. Maybe the lack of shoehorned heterosexual romance, a quality that elevates Stick It above the other films in our weird subgenre, made me avoid it for so long once my internalised self-hatred had surged to the surface. Stick It is now a happy relic from my childhood. Unlearning internalised homophobia takes time, but I can watch it now with the same freedom and lack of guilt that my younger self did. It’s bittersweet looking back on that time, having been completely unaware of the turmoil I would go through to reach that point of innocence again. With the knowledge that countless others are still experiencing that turmoil, it’s really important to continue to push for better representation of queer identities in the media, and to teach others how to reclaim texts without queer representation as their own.

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L E T ’ S TA L K ABOUT VAGINAS! F T. L E A R N I N G & LOVING YOUR VAGINA

Learning your vagina

Let’s talk about vaginas. No, but seriously; let’s. We really don’t talk about them enough— especially in a non-sexual context. The word feels strange to write, and even stranger to say out loud. Even my phone corrects “vagina” to “cagina”, as if an inanimate object could also feel awkward. Well, that taboo ends here! This is an important issue that could save your life—and a lot of young women really don’t have a clue about it. Now that is awkward. Okay, brace yourselves, ladies (and any men who were unknowingly lured into reading this through the word “vagina”) here it comes: pap smears. What a terrible name. Smear. Smear. They really don’t make it sound appealing, do they? But in all honesty, It’s not that bad. The procedure takes probably less than thirty seconds in all, and it doesn’t hurt even slightly. But it’s something we really need to know—and to feel comfortable enough to talk about. Hopefully this article can clear it up for you! So, what the Pap smear actually does is test for any abnormalities in the cells around your cervix which can eventually lead to cervical cancer, as well as testing for the Human Papillomavirus (HPV), which is present in 99.7% of cervical cancer cases. HPV, which is an infection of the skin around thick, moist linings of the body (like the nose, mouth, throat and genital) results from close skin contact, isn’t something to be overly concerned about: 4 out of 5 people will have it in their lives, mostly with no symptoms. Your body will usually clear it naturally in 1-2 years, but in some cases, it can stay longer and lead to cervical cancer.

According to the Cancer Council, about 1 in 10 Pap smears reveal abnormalities, though less than 1% of these abnormalities lead to cervical cancer. Even so, all women, regardless of age, sexual orientation or number of partners, should be tested every two years from the ages of 18-70 (or younger, depending on what age she became sexually active). In 2017, based on recommendations from the Medical Services Advisory Committee, the Australian Government will make some changes to the Pap test. Women aged between 25 and 74 will undertake a HPV test every five years, which may also include various other tests. These changes are estimated to reduce the number of cancer cases by a further 15%. Hooray! However, until then, Pap tests are absolutely necessary. Soldier through that awkwardness, and it could potentially save your life! Eighty per cent of women who develop cervical cancer had not had regular check-ups. Cervical cancer is one of the most preventable cancers with a simple test—these tests have halved the mortality rate. Can you really ignore that? Listen to your vagina, and don’t be afraid to talk about any problems you may have, no matter how seemingly miniscule. Don’t become another statistic because you were too embarrassed to ask. After all, happy vagina, happy life. Preach it, ladies! - Zoe

F E AT U R E ZO E SI M M O NS & SA M I E JOHN SON @ I tBegins W ithZ

Loving your vagina

Ok vagina owners, if you’ve ever bonked or turned 18, there is something unpleasant yet entirely necessary that you all need to get onto: Pap smears. We’ve already given you the facts in part 1, but now I’m here to give you a first-hand walkthrough of what happens during a Pap smear. Now I have to tell you, I’m a little terrified. I’ve done my research and it doesn’t sound all that pleasant, mainly because of this instrument called a speculum and also the smearing aspect of it. But, I’m already a year overdue (yes I know, very bad and hypocritical), and the time has come for me to woman up and get it over with. Here goes! Ok, so I’m at my GP, sitting in the waiting room. My Doctor is running late as per usual, she came out five minutes after my appointment was due to start and called another lady’s name. The suspense is killing me. My hands are only shaking from the coffee I had earlier, I promise. Ok lady doctor comes out for me. It’s my time guys. It’s my time. Doctor sits me down, confirms I’m in for a Pap smear. “Yes”. Asks if it’s my first Pap smear. “...Yes”. Asks a bunch of other questions: Do you know what’s involved? Yes. Have I been having any issues with the pill I’m currently on (we have a chat about other reproductivey issues) When did I became sexually active? etc etc Then my lovely lady doctor tells me she’s going to show me the equipment to make me not freak out too much. Cheers lady doctor. She pulls out a speculum: that’s the bit they put inside you that opens you up. It’s like a plastic ducks beak that gets put in your vagina so it gives your doc a clear view of your cervix. Then she shows me the swabs: they are the scary bits. Both are on long sticks, one has little rubber swab bits that look like a small, pointy shaped basting brush (the thing you rub butter on to pastry with) and the other is a tiny bristled brush that looks like the end of a pipe cleaner.

After I’ve seen the torture devices (I mean medical equipment) she points me towards the little bed like thing and gives me a sheet to drape over myself and tells me to take all of my bottoms off; this shouldn’t be weird if you’ve ever been waxed because to be honest you’re less exposed at the doctors than the beautician. After you’ve popped yourself on the bed with your sheet over you, the doc asks you to put your legs slightly apart, and she inserts the speculum. The key is to not freak out that a bit of plastic is being put in your lady bits and try to chill, it makes it harder when you tense. The speculum isn’t that bad, but depending on how your cervix is placed it might take a minute to get where it needs to be. Then comes the uncomfortable bit. Your doc will get the swabs and brush them over your cervix. It only takes a second and depending on the sensitivity of your cervix it probably won’t hurt. I apparently have quite a sensitive cervix (I may have squirmed) and it barely hurt at all: more like a tiny scratch than anything. And then you’re done. Your doc will take the speculum out and you’ll be able to sit up and put your knickers back on (yay, you earned it). After that you’ll probably sit down and have a chat with your doctor about when you’ll get your results which are being sent to pathology to to make sure your cervix is a happy one. And bam. You’re done! No more cervix swabbing for two years! Lucky you! So it wasn’t that bad, really. Just a tiny bit of discomfort for a lotta piece of mind about your health. Totally worth it really. My advice is to get a really good doctor who’s non judgey and makes you feel comfortable. My doctor was female which was a personal preference but it’s all about whatever feels right for you. Just remember, safe sex is sexy sex. So keep your sex sexy and take care of yourself! - Samie 41

I NTE R/ //EVIEWS

REVIEW TYLE R HEYCOTT @theyc ott

Sex and horror are pretty inextricable things. As Scream pointed out back in 1996 with it’s rules for surviving a horror movie, number one is always abstain. While movies like Scream, and more recently The Cabin In The Woods, point out these tropes in a lambastic way, few contemporary horror films subvert them in a truly unique way. That was until It Follows. Without spoiling the film too much, the main premise is that there are people cursed by an ever pursuant, shape shifting demon that, if caught up with, will ultimately end badly. The only way for this to be hindered is to have sex with someone else, passing on your misfortune. However, if the person you transfer this to “expires” somehow, it rears it’s deviating head back at the next link in the chain. It’s a truly inspired premise, a ‘Sexually Transmitted Demon’, one that works on both a thrilling level but also in a sort of knowing wink to the medium. That is, on paper. While it has been promoted and may share some trace elements with other films in the genre, this is definitely not a horror movie, at least not an effective one. While it builds tension with it’s haunting score and off-kilter opening, it falls flat as soon as the script does. The characters show little to no motivation in stopping the ambling ghoul that is such a huge threat on their lives. There is very little dialogue to the film, mostly taking a second seat to the admittedly wonderful cinematography, which was a let down as the film did little in way of action or pacing to fix this. While it does feature a really dreamy atmosphere, it’s not fully absorbing. These are characters which are truly hard to care for and become a chore to put up with as they constantly make worse and worse decisions for themselves. While this might be amusing in a whole host of other horror films, it’s the fact that It Follows has higher aspirations which it seems inept to meet. Many reviews have compared the film to the eighties oeuvre of John Carpenter, and yes, the soundtrack is kind of similar. However, what marks this film as less noteworthy than other recent films in the same vein (The Guest, Nightcrawler) is that the aesthetics and general outline come above the real substance of the material. If you’re going into this movie expecting horror, it has it’s scary moments but it’s watered down by constantly shifting logic, fairly poor dialogue, and on over emphasis on imagery that rarely becomes symbolic. However, if you want to watch a movie about apathetic teenagers who care little about impending doom and would rather just chill out on the beach then you should speak with this film’s marketing team and help them from getting the hopes up of horror fans everywhere.

IT FOLLOWS FILM REVIEW 5

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REVIEW PAUL T UOHY & G EM M A J A M I S O N @fenowi k @g emm c r a f t

What do nymphomaniacs want out of sex? Joe (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the female protagonist of the film, wants chocolate, adventure, and more sex. But why does she want sex? Well, Joe doesn’t know why. She just wants the right to be horny, and to not be questioned. But being horny (the character, not me) for 4+ hours throughout the film’s two parts is a tiresome act to bare. It’s an intensive examination, with both macro and wide angle lenses, into the damage that accumulates on a nymphomaniac’s genitals. Nymphomaniac is an intimate account of a character’s sex life that bewilders the senses and violates your understanding of sexuality.

Gender is a shell in this film: the characters are no more male or female than the actions they perform. Even the many (many) shots of genitalia seem disembodied. Gender serves as a costume to drive the actors into surreal circumstances. It’s like they put it on, inhabit a stereotype, and perform a theater improv show. This is why I felt the scenes seemed fake, despite the intense emotional performances from the actors. The resulting tone leaves no question about the fictional quality of the film: it’s Joe’s story, and we must believe all of her tales no matter how surreal.

After two parts, I understood why Joe felt sinful towards her own nymphomania, but unfortunately I still don’t understand what nymphomania is. How do you engage in sex, when no one else relates to it in the same way? In fact, it’s a question I could ask about myself too. The film addresses this gap of understanding by setting up a secondary narrator, Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård), an asexual virgin that relates sex to fishing, music and mathematics. Sexy, I know. The film is very aware about the explicit juxtaposition.

The leading men were conventional and it’s a refreshing twist in contrast to Joe. They acted like Hollywood men: pure and moralistic - except for Mr. K, who provided a BDSM service for professional women. The contrast between Joe and the men could have presented a standard “the female cheated on the man, game over” conflict. I’m glad it didn’t. Instead, it relied on the people that were innocent in Joe’s relationships for conflict, like Joe’s child, or Mrs H’s children. The issue is the film presented Joe as a monster that can’t or doesn’t deserve to ever have a family. It was refreshing to see women and men remain ambivalent towards the act of sex, but the suggestion that Joe could never have a relationship because of her Nymphomania was frustrating.

Seligman ponders that sex for a nymphomaniac is like the musical notes that form a chord; Joe concurs, it is the sum of all her sexual experiences that form her satisfaction. It’s why Joe’s partner, Jerome (Shia Lebouf), remarks that Joe is a tiger: not one person could satisfy her sexual needs. nymphomaniacs are sex-addicted and, like all addictions, the difficulty to reach satisfaction escalates after each act. This forced Joe to find balance, accept her own condition, and explore her sexual desire. I know that sex and love can be separate, but for Joe it was never a question. Love was humiliating and painful for Joe, she just wanted whatever she desired. “The erotic is saying yes, love is just being nice.”

The closest depiction of a relationship was Joe and her three partners (like the notes in a chord). The men formed a symbolic holy trinity: Lust, a man that takes control; Cherished, a large man that provides pleasure without expectation of return; and Intimacy, Jerome, the ‘almost’ love in her Triangle. For Joe these are the values of a relationship she can’t acquire in one person. It’s why she’s a Nymphomaniac. - Paul 3 words to describe the film: Pseudo-European. Sentimental. Genitals

REVIEW

*spoiler alert

NYMPHOMANIAC VOL. 1 & 2 I had always thought of nymphomania as something provoked and mediated by human culture: treated with drugs and addiction meetings, in rehab centres and function rooms. But Nymphomania recontextualised the condition through a poetic, novel-like pace (the film being segmented into chapters) and through the contrast between the dullness of urban life and the vivid wonder and comfort associated with nature. Although Joe (the film’s main character) experienced so much of her nymphomania and resulting pain and loneliness in unnamed and difficult to situate urban areas, nature constantly brings us back to the innocent wonder found in Joe’s discovery of her condition (and her ‘cunt’, a word so brutal to the ears when heard in the same context as childhood) and the simple beauty inherent in an orgasm (the little death; ‘le petit mort’). What challenged me the most in this story was how isolating, lonely and demanding living life as a nymphomaniac is. Joe’s condition demands almost total devotion throughout her early life, almost completely determining her career and life choices. It causes her to lose her child and drive away her husband, and lose her sense of self when her sexual drive and genital sensitivity disappears. Despite the fact that the film completely revolves around sexuality and sex, the story becomes so removed from my understanding of sex and intimacy that it became mostly a lesson in the violence, sadness and desperation of addiction. The film would be totally devoid of the expectations placed upon women as sexual beings if not for the main character, Joe, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. She appears almost gender-neutral: squarish jaw and flat gaze paired with a girlish fringe and soft brown eyes. She’s given colour via a meandering river of stories which paint a life of lust without the intimacy of love. And yet, in her summaries and philosophies concerning her long, drawn-out tales of erotica, she diminishes herself and relies on the concept of sin as a way to explain her behaviour. At first I was confronted by this, but it was refreshing to understand a concept of sex and sensuality free from the baggage of gender.

I felt affection towards the character for daring to treat men in the same way as men are culturally expected to treat women: disposable. It was almost like journalistic balance; a new addition to the history of love and lust, without the label of the ‘village whore’ or ‘slut’. It was indulgent, as a person identifying with the female gender, to drink in the reckless abandon and empowerment of her approach to sex. As Joe narrates, “the trick with this method was that I didn’t have to care about the individual relationships, but instead became completely unpredictable.” Although the inclusion of images of genitals and sex was vivid and occasionally erotic, what surprised me was how stark in contrast they were to porn. Porn sets more than one unrealistic expectation. Not only does it determine the way that sex sounds and feels, it also determines the way we expect it to look. To see so many penises and vaginas as natural, unplucked, limp, hairy, small, big, black or white, completely diverse in appearance, was oddly and embarrassingly confronting. I felt as if I had walked in on someone’s private space and should say sorry. How strange it is to be shocked by something I thought I had already become accustomed to seeing. - Gemma

3 words to describe the film: Profound. Raw. Subversive. 45

REVIEW ANGU S B AIL L IE

ANALOGUE: A H AT E STORY “Namjon yeobi. Men are honoured, women are abased. If you can only remember one thing, remember this phrase.” Apparently I have been playing a lot of visual novel-style games lately. On the Tertangala website a few months back I reviewed the gay dating sim Coming Out On Top, which I found to be charming, funny and a bit steamy. This week I am reviewing Christine Love’s trans humanist epistolary Analogue: A Hate Story, which I found to be tragic and painfully compelling. The story of Analogue: A Hate Story is presented as a series of log entries written 600 years ago by the last people to inhabit the interstellar ship ‘Mugunghwa’ before it disappeared. With the help of 2 conflicting A.I. partners found on board the ship, you are tasked with finding out what happened to society and the ship’s crew. What follows is a gradual understanding that, for whatever reason, society aboard the Mugungwhwa reverted back to a period in Korean history known as the Joseon Dynasty. This is a society in which women are denied education, valued only as wives and child-rearers, and often have their names erased from family trees and records. From here players are taken deeper into the tragic lives of several women who are married off young as a means of strengthening the social power of their family. Each log entry is a short, private transmission that reveals one or two key events and thoughts at a particular moment in the narrative. The logs switch between multiple authors, giving the player access to a range of perspectives and biases – allowing drama and horror to unfold as the player becomes aware of the bigger picture that’s starting to gather around them. It’s a little bit like watching a tragic event unfolding over a live Twitter stream and knowing there’s nothing you can really do about it. All the while one of your A.I. companions will remain by your side to provide commentary and context for many of the entries – even asking you at times how you feel about certain events or characters in simple yes/no questions. In some unexpected ways I actually feel a lot of parallels between 46

10 Analogue: A Hate Story and games like Bloodborne - both are rich and rewarding experiences that can become slightly challenging to get into at times due to the overwhelming way both games kind of drop you in it. I love both these games, and what they have achieved, but if I were to recommend either of them to people I would end up saying the same thing: “Just stick with them, push through the difficult bits and it will all be worth it, trust me.” In fact I think the word ‘trust’ is almost the core ingredient for finishing either of these games. You need to trust in Christine Love’s ability to tell a story. And, you also need to trust that the payoff for each of these experiences is worth it. Christine Love developed Analogue at a time when she was studying Korean history, as a way of trying to understand how it must have been for women during this 500-year period of severe patriarchy. In the process of researching and writing in response to this period in history, Love found the subject matter so reprehensible that she felt that being drunk whilst working on the game was a necessity. For players, however, the game offers a lot of insight into the complex and insidious ways that individuals and societies institutionalise sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and classism. At no point in the game does any character explicitly state “I hate women”, but attitudes of that nature are woven into the very fabric of Analogue and consistently bubble underneath the surface throughout. If you can trust in Christine Love’s writing enough to push past a few rough patches in design early on, you will get to experience one of the most harrowing, yet important stories I have ever experienced playing video games. The fact that I was willing to push past my reservations about reviewing another visual novel so soon after reviewing Coming Out On Top is testament to just how impressive and unique I think Analogue: A Hate Story truly is. It may not always have the most flawlessly executed mechanics, but I think Analogue is one of the most important and impressively video game experiences I have ever had. Even five years after its initial release, Analogue: A Hate Story still holds up as a landmark moment in video game storytelling.

REVIEW ZO E SIMMON S @ I tBegins W ithZ

A RICHELLE MEAD REVIEW: WOULD YOU LIKE A SIDE OF BADASS WITH T H AT ?

“I’d seen weirder things than a haunted shoe, but not many. …There was a moment’s silence, then a high-pitched male voice snapped, “Go away, bitch.” Great. A shoe with an attitude.”

Richelle Mead’s Storm Born is the first instalment in her riveting Dark Swan series, and is a work of pure genius and absurd humour. After all, who doesn’t love a touch of wackiness?

Storm Born follows shaman-for-hire Eugenie Markham who dedicates her life to protecting innocents from vicious creatures of a parallel universe—the Otherworld. Death threats and violence, she can handle—Eugenie wields a gun and shamanic magic with ease. In other words: she’s a total badass. That is, until every Otherworldly creature is trying to get into her pants— the downside of an age-old prophecy. As a result, Eugenie is forced to confront her enemies, as well as the dark, unknown powers swirling within her. Mystery, intrigue, betrayal, action and love. Storm Born has it all, complete with haunted shoes, a half-kitsune who gives a new meaning to the phrase “animal attraction”, and a fairy king with a taste for bondage. Urban fantasy author Richelle Mead is well-renowned for her strong (and incidentally hilarious) female leads. Mead perfectly mixes her wacky brand of dark humour into smoulderingly sexy—not to mention empowering and inspiring—lead ladies and compelling storylines. Mead’s most recent venture is the mind-blowing Age of X series, which is set in a futuristic world nearly destroyed by religious extremists who unleashed a deadly virus. As a result the Republic of United North America (RUNA) banishes Gods from their society—but these Gods return with a vengeance. It’s up to implant-enhanced super solider Mae Konskein and her genius (and alcoholic) partner Dr Justin March to maintain order with the utmost secrecy.

Another of Mead’s works, Georgina Kincaid series, follows a reluctant succubus with a terrible love life but great shoes through a series of unexpected, dangerous and often heartbreaking events, though Georgina overcomes these through her sassy humour and intelligence. Perhaps Mead’s most well-known venture is her best-selling young adult series Vampire Academy (which in 2014 was also adapted into a film). It follows the snarky half-vampire guardianin-training, Rose Hathaway, who is charged with protecting the last Dragomir moroi (living vampire) princess, Lissa Dragomir— who also happens to be her best friend—from a race of ancient, undead and bloodthirsty vampires—the strigoi. Meanwhile, in Vampire Academy’s spin-off series Bloodlines, witty, resourceful and pragmatic Sydney Sage is the protagonist. Sydney is an alchemist, a super-secret human agency which is tasked with concealing the existence of vampires. That is, until she falls in love with one. Whether it be through brains, brawn or empathy, Mead’s characters prove ladies can kick butt—especially in a maledominated, patriarchal world. So, have you ever heard of a succubus who occasionally moonlights as a Christmas elf? An angel who drinks with demons and dresses like a homeless man? An overly-aggressive table? No? Read Richelle Mead’s masterpieces. You will be enlightened—thank me later. 47

REVIEW CAI T L IN MO RHAN

MIDDLESEX BY JEFFERY EUGENIDS

“I was born twice: first as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960, and then again as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.” Don’t be fooled by the front cover of this novel. The steamboat actually has nothing to do with the plot of the actual story (a euphemism? A metaphor? Maybe) and it isn’t until the first two chapters we realize we are starting way, way back in time, covering three generations of misplaced Greek tradition before dealing with our narrator. ‘Middlesex’ is the story of a girl who grew up as Calliope, but realized in adolescence she was actually more of a Cal than a Calliope. Middlesex (the title taking on a whole new meaning now) is an epic about an American immigrant family, following three generations and the progression of a single gene. Cal suffers from an extremely rare genetic disorder. While she is chromosomally male (I’ll continue with the female pronoun to avoid confusion) she is incorrectly labeled at birth as a female and is consequently raised as a girl by her entertainingly neurotic, upper-middle-class Greek-American parents. Until she reaches puberty and the male hormones kick in, and it’s clear Calliope is no generic female. For one example, she doesn’t menstruate, instead faking her way through the ordeal (“I did cramps the way Meryl Streep does accents.”)

It isn’t until an accident lands her in hospital that Calliope and her family learn how different she really is. The novel is certainly a slow burner. Eugenides paints a bleak picture of 1920’s America, far removed from the glamour F. Scott Fitzgerald promises in Gatsby. The chapter on the Detroit riots is particularly brutal, Eugenides classic pointer that he isn’t the kind of writer to hold back. He frequently uses the term ‘hermaphrodite’, which led to scathing backlash on the political incorrectness of the title, ignoring the more accepted term of ‘intersex.’ This aside, Eugenides doesn’t apologise for his brashness, and it makes for a raw, humbling read, and a glance into a world some of us can only begin to understand.

REVIEW ZOE SIMMO N S @I tBeg i nsW i t hZ

TOMB RAIDER: DEFINITIVE EDITION —YES, YES AND MORE YES!

If you are yet to experience the magnificence of the Definitive Edition of Tomb Raider, you’re seriously missing out. Better yet, since it was released in 2013, it is fairly affordable—you can get it from EB games from around $36-47, depending on whether you want a new or pre-owned copy. This game is absolutely fantastic, and you can sleep well knowing your money was spent on possibly the best game to feature an awesome female action hero. The story follows heroine Lara Croft, an ambitious archaeology graduate, through a game of survival and instincts in the fictional lost island of Yamatai, just off the coast of Japan. Croft, following in the footsteps of her highly-esteemed and late archaeologist father, believes she’s cracked the mystery of Yamatai and their benevolent Sun Queen, Hemiko. However, when wild weather suddenly appears out of nowhere, Lara Croft and her team are shipwrecked and must fight for their lives against the untamed wilderness, and a crazed, sacrificial cult—the Solari Brotherhood— bent on slaying anyone who dare oppose them. The quality of the Tomb Raider games have come a long way since their release in 1996—this game is no exception, with fantastic graphics and easy-to-learn gameplay. Furthermore, the characterisation of Lara Croft is very pro-feminism: while she is a gorgeous woman (based on model Megan Farquhar) it is not her looks that contribute to her freedom. No, Croft is brilliant because of her mind, her survival instincts and dedication to those she loves even in the face of grave danger. Croft shows compassion, intelligence and teaches us that emotions are okay; they can be conquered. I especially liked the fact that, despite her looks, the game does not call any unnecessary attention to her breasts or other female body parts that are typically sexualised. The only thing I can criticise, honestly, is her hair—it’s always perfect, despite the weather or gruesome occurrences. I’m totally jealous my hair isn’t like that. Croft begins this rebooted origin story as a startled, unexperienced woman, before conquering her own fears and becoming a badass warrior and unlocking the strong woman within. Surprisingly, the game actually features quite a bit of gore—as one would expect with a sacrificial, bloody cult and an ancient merciless Sun Queen. Tomb Raider is by no means a “fluffy” female video game. It’s gory, action-packed and kick-ass! Lara Croft is the ultimate female action figure. I rate this game a 4 out of 5 stars. My only complaint? I wish it lasted longer!

JOSH PIKE

INTERVIEW WITH JOSH PYKE Ex UOW student, Alexandra Smith chatted with Josh Pyke. Here’s the interview:

Good work with making your 5th album, I can imagine the next few months are going to be pretty flat out with the release and shows. It’s a hectic time, I don’t think people realise how much is put in for promotion of a record. A whole lot goes into it, and I obviously don’t mind doing it but it’s definitely busy! So you’re feeling pumped about the release? Josh: Yeah definitely. It’s good to have something to focus on, and as a musician you spend a lot of time in your own head, kind of writing songs, creative stuff and dreaming. But it’s good to have something solid and real to focus on. I read in an interview that writing and making this record has been “one of the most pleasurable and creatively challenging things” you’ve ever done. Out of all the albums, why this one? For me, the last album I did (The Beginning And The End Of Everything) felt like a closing of a chapter. It was the last record I was doing with my previous record label, which was a wonderful relationship, but it was time to do something new. So signing with a new label, Wonderlick, just felt like starting again. It felt like I could kind of do whatever I wanted and push myself a bit more. And having my studio at home allowed me to be creative in an unpressured way. So yeah, it just felt like a really liberated time for writing. I wish I could comprehend how musicians can not only write a song, but albums of songs. How do you lyrically change it up each album? I wish I knew the answer to that one. It’s just a process of experimentation, I think. My whole life is music now, it has been for 10 or so years, it’s just kind of like putting on an old suit that you’re comfortable with ...You just do it cause it feels right. It’s a matter of honing your instincts and knowing how to cull early so you don’t pursue things that aren’t worth pursuing. Have you worked with any other artists lately? Whether it be for your music or theirs? Yeah so I’m sort of collaborating all the time. I’m doing a co-write with Busby Marou next week, did one with Lior last week and another with a young band called The Little Sea. I also collaborated on a couple of the songs on this new album with Marcus from Jinja Safari and Dustin Tebbutt and Patrick James as well. 50

Did you grow up around music? Or was this just some incredible talent that you were given? Haha, it was a pretty musical household I grew up in, in the sense that my folks were really passionate about listening to music. Singing and listening to music was part of our family life. My dad was a real music nut. I think it was something I was just drawn to as it was the easiest thing that came to me. I always think of it in the same was as some kids grow up with being really good at sport for whatever reason and music was that for me. I just understood it and from there it was just a process of learning I guess, like learning to play guitar when I was 14 years old. But before that I was writing lyrics and singing. Over the years have you felt as though there’s a sense of ‘music community’ that you’re part of? Or is this just a dream I want to be true? Haha I think it could be a little bit of a dream, I mean they’re are pockets. I’ve been doing music for over 10 years and I could count the musicians that I call proper friends with two hands. Although I know that, for instance, in Perth every musician knows everybody, and the same in Melbourne...I think Sydney has less of a music community but that could just be me. You’re an ambassador for ILF (Indigenous Literacy Foundation). Nice work. Do you still have a lot to do with the foundation? Yeah definitely, I try and do an event for them every year called ‘Busking For Change’ if it fits in to my touring. I’ve raised $50 000 for those guys through that. I like to keep in touch with those guys and I massively support what they do in remote indigenous communities to raise literacy levels. What’s in store for you next? Where do you see yourself in the next few years? Tough question! It’s hard as a musician, you kind of put your life in album cycles. I’ve done an album every two years for the last ten years so I don’t know if that will ever stop or if I’ll have a break. I’m renovating my studio at the moment so I would like to focus more on producing for other artists, so yeah, doing that kind of stuff would be good. But beyond that it’s always been a bit difficult to predict what I will be doing because it’s such a strange and unpredictable industry. It’s part of the charm but is what also leads to a bit of stress from a musician’s point of view. But ...there’s definitely a lot of appeal to the future being unknown.

INTERVIEW A LE XA ND RA SMITH

LOCAL MUSIC AJ CO RRAD IN I

AN INTERVIEW WITH :

INTERVIEW

LEO Leo is a Wollongong-based singer/songwriter from Central Western NSW. She’s 24, has been around the Wollongong muso block with several bands and is now turning to solo work. In June, Leo released her debut single Daniel and is now recording her EP. Leo’s also an out lesbian and her relationships with women inform many of her songs (including ones about me). To me, her voice is like a jar of ocean water that’s been sitting in the sun and then had someone come up and shake it – it’s warm and full-bodied, but sort of clouded and there’s also a bit of sand in it.

Daniel is a very honest and direct song. It deals with domestic violence that manifested in a particularly violent act in a small country town, but an act that’s still ambiguous for a lot of people. It’s also personal for you. What was it like working on that song in your spare room, and then in the studio, and now in public? Well, it actually happened on my lounge room floor, then on my bed, then in the studio and then in public (Yes, I’m still talking about songwriting). Daniel fell out of me one night while doing my usual jam alone while being depressed. It felt different to other songs; it was intense and happily private at the time. In the studio I had to let the producer, Lindsay Martin, into that space. It kind of felt like having a strange man read my diary then ask if certain emotions were necessary. Lindsay was (and continues to be) awesome though. He understood how important the story is and not only helped me develop Daniel but my songwriting in general. Releasing the song to the public was farkin’ emotional. People from that part of my life started contacting me and sharing their reactions. It was really cathartic. At the moment, you’re recording a song called Let Her Go. It’s not a cover of the Passenger song, but a song that, among many things, deals with pronouns – and letting go of the she/ her ones. What does that song mean to you and what do you hope to offer with it? Let Her Go was written when my first girlfriend/now ex and close friend told me she was going to transition from Tiffany to Tristan. Tiff and I experienced a lot of life changing stuff during our time together but we hadn’t seen each other for a while when I was told, so we’d both changed in a lot of ways. When I thought of the “her” in my memory not being there anymore, I felt like I was losing something. Let Her Go is me working through the questions I had, my reflections on hints in the past and coming to terms with letting go of that physical body and all the emotional attachments I had to it. I think we all react differently to conflicting situations so I don’t know that this song will be comforting to anyone… I hope it is. If anything, Let Her Go offers insight into the mental process of people (or just me) who care for and love a transgender person. How does being a lesbian inform your work? Is it just like being brown-haired and left-handed, or is it more than that? I forget that being left-handed is sometimes weird to people. When someone sees me writing and yells surprised “You’re

left-handed!!” I’m like “Oh yeah!!”, equally surprised. It’s kind of the same with being a lesbian. It’s such a comfortable part of me that I forget it’s a big deal to some. I write songs about my life, my love, my sadness, my lust, and all of those things are drowning in women (yeah, I said it). I’m not going to alter or censor my outlet to broaden my audience or make people comfy with my sexuality. Being a lesbian makes me want to write with honesty because it’s part of me and part of a community that deserves to have its stories heard. It’s so much more than “I kissed a girl” too. It’s openly identifying as a lesbian and singing about life experiences everyone has. You grew up in a small town in New South Wales. I’ve seen it. It’s small. Kandos has very much affected the content of your writing and your music. What was it like growing up gay in Kandos, with the technology of your time, and also wanting to get music out into the world? When I came out in Kandos I was 15 and sick of pretending to like guys (and not like my bestie). Overall people were accepting and I became the new plaything for all the curious girls within a 50km radius. It was a bit lonely. I was figuring out what it was to be a lesbian and there were no openly homo peers in sight. The net was awesome because it meant I could connect with people having similar experiences (like this one Italian gay girl in Wollongong who I made friends with online, met in person, took her innocence and now she’s writing an article on me for the Tert). Kandos is so small, I was lucky to connect with musos in school, explore songwriting and performing with mates and continue that journey when I left that place. Unfortunately some of those moments were captured in photos and videos and should be burnt. Lastly, give me 5 songs from your Queer Desert Island Playlist. You Only Hide Depreston Overlap Drive Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover

- Missy Higgins - Courtney Barnett - Ani Difranco - Melissa Ferrick - Sophie B. Hawkins ( don’t judge me) Follow Leo on social media facebook.com/leooriginalmusic Instagram: leo_o_music Twitter: @LeoOMusic soundcloud.com/leomusic-5

F E AT U R E A R T IST

F E AT U R E A R T I S T GE M MA MOL L EN H A U E R @GE MMAMOL L E017

‘ S U P E R S H E L L’ BY RUTH CUMMINS Here’s our artist feature- Ruth Cummins, I sat down with her for an interview, here’s the transcript:

Who are you and what do you do ? I’m Ruth and I’m an art student, currently in my second year of studying a bachelor of Fine Arts (painting) at VCA in Melbourne. How would you describe your art? I think most of my work slips between painting and sculpture. I like to make work that takes on figurative elements in unexpected and sometimes uncomfortable ways. I think sometimes I go out of my way to make things that people might have a real love hate relationship toward.

influence on sewing becoming a big part of how I make things. My grandma has sewn all her life and only does so by hand. The time and labour embedded in the objects she makes, whether those are quilts, garments or otherwise became really fascinating to me and thinking about what visibility of labour or ‘effort’ can do in an artwork sort of became really important to me from there.

What is your creative process? Because I’m at uni, I’m in the studio a lot. I generally do most of my work there, though things happen by accident all the time outside of this. I’ll usually work through ideas by reading/ writing and drawing but sometimes certain things become more obvious through making.

Which artists inspire you? I have some real heroes like Kurt Schwitterz, Meret Oppenheim and Joseph Beuys. Lately I’ve been looking a lot at Sarah Lucas as well as more of Richard Tuttle’s works. There’s some really fantastic artists in Melbourne that inspire me too. I really adore the work of Alex Vivian and Sarah CrowEST who’s works are quite dramatically different from one another but I think have influenced my practice a lot.

How do you view gender/sexuality within art? For me issues of gender and sexuality within art often come back to issues relating to the body and how people are treated in relation to their appearance. I think this is something so potent in both general society as well as the art world. By no means am I dismissing other gender or sexuality issues but this has been the sort of terrain works I’ve made have tried to venture upon. As well as conceptually, I definitely feel as though there is a relationship between the materiality of my work and gender. When processes linked to traditional female labour are visible in a work it’s immediately a reading that comes to play. I don’t necessarily think gender and sexuality are always dealt with in my work, but I can acknowledge that sometimes when I’m making things with a similar materiality it still carries with it a history of loaded gender connotations. I think this has become a big realisation for me,

What is your most successful moment? I think I know about exciting moments more so than “successful” ones. I’ll be travelling to Venice in September to visit the Biennale and there are some shows I’m involved in coming up in October and January, all of which are pretty exciting too. I don’t think there’s been one sort of ‘moment’ at this stage. I think I’ve been really fortunate to have met some great artists and at this stage wouldn’t really consider a sort of measurable success to be important to me at all. A teacher did tell me he hated my work at the start of the year though which is kind of a real success. I think we were talking about this big figurative lump I’d made out of sewn together bikinis and bathers and he said something along the lines of ‘ I don’t just hate it, I hate it with a passion’. if you can get somebody to go so far as to hate your work that’s pretty fantastic. So maybe that’s my most successful moment.

Where did your passion grow from? I was always a keeno for drawing and making things from a really young age. But I think spending a lot of time with my grandparents when I first moved to Melbourne had a really big

What do you hope the future is for you ? There’s a few projects/shows that I’m working toward at the moment, but I’ll be looking forward to hopefully travelling after my degree.

F E AT U R E A R T I S T

C R E AT I V E WRITING

C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G

FIVE STORIES HIGH My parents got divorced, mum and I moved from our home into a small apartment, and then the fire. Everything we tried to rebuild was burning in our apartment. Who got me this eighteenth birthday present? It wasn’t what I wanted. The heated windows edge filled my feet with warmth on the cool winters night. My toes dangled five stories high. The small mustard coloured men held the catch net below and waited for me to leap. A cool breeze floated over my un-covered shins; a faint smell of smoke lingered in the back of my throat. The blue and red emergency sirens ran across my burning room, my back was hot but not too bad, there was still time. But would it have been better to be suffocated and scorched to death than if I fell and the fire fighters misjudged my jump? Either way if I died on my birthday, it was ironic, in a disturbing way. There wasn’t much time. I must take the risk to leap, a slim chance to survive or accept my death. To be engulfed by Satan’s flames or saved by the contemporary angels. Time, there is never enough of it. I always wanted more but I feel I don’t need it anymore. I stared back at the orange and yellow dancing flames that burned through my schoolbooks, and the photo of dad – spreading onto my bed. I face outside. I don’t look back not regretting to grab anything. Loud screams echoed from below, “Jump Ben, quick!” yelled Mum, which had been outside of the apartment when the fire started. Behind me, Mother Nature’s flame of death ready to engulf me and below my Mother’s unconditional love with open arms. With each breath the smoke tasted more like my melting bed sheets – I had to leap. I closed my eyes, and took the unthinkable step out of the heated window edge. The sounds of: the emergency sirens, people yelling, and the static voices communicating through walkie-talkies and crackling fire.

C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G

You were given to me on my seventeenth birthday when I was ruled by the court as ‘unruly’ and ‘disruptive to society’. You were meant to be a replacement ‘mother figure’. I resented you. You were not my mother. You were a being. A rude, unforgivable being who spoke to me only when I had a question. You gave no warmth, no hand on my shoulder or comforting words in the most horrific time of my life. I misread this as evidence for cruel, spiteful acts. I did not know you as I do now, and for that, I hope you can forgive me. You did not want me as I did not want you, but you took me. You taught me, guided me and refused to allow my temper to affect yours, though I am still unsure as to how. Do you remember the first spring we shared? The garden we worked on, that you made me work in weekend after weekend with you. It finally began to sprout the flower buds I’d planted. There were butterflies and ladybugs and little worms that I fished out of water and back into the dirt. I remember, because it was the first time I saw you smile at me. We were covered in dirt and I was a mess and you smiled as if it didn’t matter. You told me I was good, that I was going to be okay. I didn’t believe you. I still missed my mother. You let me write her a letter in the autumn when I got my first ‘B’ in class. I’d written her many I couldn’t send – her address had moved after the incident – but you found her. I disposed of all the angry letters, all the spiteful ones I wrote and I know you read them all. I left them for you to. I told my mother about you, about the garden and how spring was different there then it was where I grew up. I found that first letter I wrote to her, the other day. She kept all my letters. Looking at it now I should have noticed then what I knew now. I was nineteen when I fell in lust. She had blonde hair and blue eyes with freckles across her nose. I still ache when I think about her. I brought her to you, to show you I was okay, I could be by myself now – though I had no job, no money to support me and nowhere to live except with you. You didn’t like her, I remember that now. At the time I thought it was because she was a girl, I thought it was because of the beer or the swearing, how I seemed to backtrack with a girl who wasn’t bad, just broken. The fact is that I thought of so many excuses because I couldn’t bear the truth about why.

DEAR GUARDIAN, Not because of what it meant for you. You and I both know that my world is very small around me, I care little for that what doesn’t affect me directly or doesn’t occur to me at all. Had I know what it meant for you, maybe I would have been careful. But I wasn’t. You were always there to hold me together when I didn’t notice. To put the pieces of me back one by one. You’d stop me from shattering again, you’d give me the boundaries I needed and never had. I moved out at twenty, do you remember? My first apartment that you moved me into. We’d known each other for roughly over two and a half years. When you left, leaving me with my boxes to unpack, my roommates staring, laughing as they teased me, I knew. I knew what I’ve always known since that day I saw your smile. I love you, I love you irrevocably, and terribly so. I love you, but I cannot have you, as you were simply a guardian, and I was your ward to keep safe. You kept me safe, and I understand now why you won’t answer my phone calls. I’m twenty-six and you’re afraid that you’ll run out of excuses for why we cannot. It’s okay, I understand. But I don’t care for your excuses any more. I love you, let the world hear it or don’t. But you are a part of the very small world I care about. I love you and I’m yours.

C R E AT I V E W R I T I N G

Trigger warnings: sexual abuse, bullying, verbal abuse, psychological abuse.

YEARS OF QUEER

Primary school. I was different, strange. The other kids thought that too. The girls didn’t want me to play with them if I didn’t play with Barbie dolls; the boys quickly outgrew Pokémon. Over the years, some came that were like me a little, but either they left the school or left me behind. I finished primary school not knowing different. Middle school. Still different. The other kids hated that. Too smart and too much into Doctor Who and not enough into makeup. A boyfriend, most popular boy in the year, boosting my popularity little by little. Senior school. An interest in girls. “You’re going to hell”, “First reference the Bible”. Boyfriend not happy. Boyfriend got jealous. And possessive. “Bad enough sexual experience can turn you off that sex.” He actually said that to me. I didn’t believe him then. I do now. I thought I could change. He could change me. Turn away the thoughts of that girl. A break up, many tears and many years of looking over my shoulder and blocking my nose. Too long went by those two years. HSC. Disaster. Out. Hatred from the teachers in addition peers. “Rethink your life choices” followed by “forget the rumours and just knuckle down and study”. Study. Dropping grades. Declining mental health. A decent despite the years.

to my about Right. ATAR

Autumn Session, first year. Social anxiety. Depression. Dysphoria? Gender? All sorts, friends, my Collective family. Support around me. Parents learning, accepting, helping me to understand. Everything is beginning to look a little brighter.

PA R T Y O N GE M MA MO L L EN H A U E R

T E R TA N G A L A X PA P E R G I R L L A U N C H PA R T Y W R A P U P In celebration of the release of the third issue of The Tertangala, along with the launch of Wollongong’s very own art distribution service, Papergirl, we decided that it was high time to gather together for a night of colouring-in, colourful banter and of course, beautiful friends and family. The night began with a certain anticipation of things to come. The venue, with additional Le Flaneur styling, can only be described as ‘on point’ and with the colouring-in competition for the raffle prize of a brand spanking new Reid Vintage Ladies well underway, excitement was building. Acoustic cover artist, Timothy McDonald, further brought the night to life with covers of all our favorite chilled-out tunes, paired with his trademark angelic voice. Next up was Wollongong’s famous singer/song writer, Jessica Allen, who 110% lived up to the hype surrounding her reputation. DJ and mix master Jake Walker pulled in the rear of the event, shredding funky tunes and preparing the attendees for the next part of their night- the announcement of the coloring-in competition and, of course, bicycle giveaway. With excitement building, the Papergirls- Michelle Pinkis & Josephine Cox along with myself, took to the stage after deciding the winners for the colouring in competition, along with ex-Tertangala editor Belinda Quinn. For their innovative designs and colour distribution/technique Chelsey and Briana McKeogh won the first prize of a lunch for two at Lower East and a Swell keep cup and coffee voucher! This was followed by the most anticipated part of the night, the Reid Cycles bike giveaway… drum roll please. Ticket B05! The winner being our lovely friend and worthy recipient Hayley Jean! As the night drew to a close we exchanged our ‘thank yous’ and colouring-in tips for next time. See you all at Viva La Gong! Thank you all who attended, and a special shout out to Reid Cycles, Swell Coffee, Lower East, Music Farmers and especially to Janes for the venue, Belinda Quinn for the booking and Le Flaneur for the vintage styling. You guys rock. We would also like to give a special thank you to our much loved artists who submitted their line work for our colouring in competition, these include Marco Scarelli, Chassenberg, Nicola Dowse, Casey Maree, Alice Truong, Melissa Vella and Emily Gunthorpe. 62

PA R T Y O N

Ally A heterosexual and/or cis-gendered person that confronts heterosexism in themselves and other out of self-interest, a concern for the wellbeing of the queer community and a belief that heterosexism is a social injustice Abrosexual An individual that has a fluid and/or rapidly changing sexuality that fluctuates between different sexualities Afab Assigned female at birth Amab Assigned male at birth Note: the two above terms can also be called coercively assigned, e.g. camab or called dfab/ dmab for designated rather than assigned Androgyny An androgyny gender experience, which may be neutral (lacking gendered traits), mixed (feelings a mix of gender traits), o a gender experience which is completely separate Agender The experience of a lack of gender Aromantic An aromantic person can be someone who doesn’t experience romantic attraction, and/ or has little interest or desire to form romantic relationships. Assigned The gender a person is assigned at birth, usually Gender by a doctor or midwife. In the global north, gender assignment is usually based on arbitrary measurement of the clitoris/penis Asexual Also known as ace, ase, a, nonsexual, AVEN (asexualaity.org) defines an asexual person as “someone who does not experience sexual attraction”. Asexual people have the same emotional needs as anyone else, and like in the sexual community; we vary widely in how we fulfill those needs. Some asexual people are happier on their own, others are happiest with a group of close friends. Other will date and seek long term “partnerships”. Asexuality can also include people who misidentify with standard sexual culture, as we don’t feel like we fit in with the socially dominate framework of thinking about relationships, attraction, intimacy, design, pleasure, attractiveness etc. in terms of sex and sexuality. See also aromantic, demisexual and gray-a.

Barebacking Unsafe, unprotected sex. Most commonly used in Sex reference to gay sex. Biological Separate from gender, this term refers to Sex the cluster of biological chromosomal and anatomical features that determines whether a person is assigned male, female or intersex. It is important to note that the idea of sex is socially constructed. Bi/Bisexual An orientation that refers to the romantic and/ or sexual attraction of individuals to other individuals of two or more genders. Cis/ Terms to describe people who are not trans, Cisgender/ genderqueer, or sex and/or gender diverse. Cis Cissex people’s assigned gender, gender presentation, gender identity and sex tend to align in the way trans, genderqueer and intersex, sex and/or gender diverse people’s do not. These terms are designed to make cis peoples identities visible, instead of simply referring to them as ‘normal’ or ‘not trans’ Closest Queers who are not public about their sexuality and said to be “in the closet” Compulsory Compulsory heterosexuality refers to the idea the Hetero- heterosexuality, as a default sexual orientation, sexuality can be adopted and forced on people regardless of their sexual presences Coming out To come out of the closest by being openly queer Cupiosexual Subsets of asexuality and aromanticism. A and cupiosexual is one who does not experience Cupiormanic sexual attraction, but still desires a sexual relationship. Likewise cupioromanic does not experience romantic attraction but desires a romantic relationship.

Drag or in Wearing clothes considered appropriated for Drag someone of another gender. Originally used in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre to mean Dressed As or Dressed Resembling a girl. Referred to male actors who play female roles. Demisexual Refers to an orientation where a person only experiences sexual attraction to another based on pre-existing emotional or romantic attraction or connection Feminism Feminism is the advocacy of social, political and legal equality between all genders, understanding that historically the feminine has been considered to be worth less than masculine. This also involves understand that this cause intersects many other causes against racism, transphobia, homophobia, ageism, ableism and classism Gay A male-identifying person with an sexual orientation exclusively towards other make identifying persons. However ‘gay’ has also been used as an umbrella term referring to the person identifying as a member of the same-sex attracted community Gender A social construct of masculinity and femininity brought on and imposed by society. Gender is NOT the same as sex and is more interpreted n the interacted by the individual gender and should be viewed as a spectrum Genderfluid A gender experience, which changes in nature over time Gender Refers to the ways which people externally Expression communicate their gender identity to others through behavior, clothing, hairstyle, voice and emphasizing or changing their bodies characteristics. Gender expression is not necessarily an indication of sexual orientation

Gender This is the idea that there are only two genders, Binary man and women and these neatly correspond to two biological sexes male and female. The gender binary represents a system under which individuals are divided into those two categories, thereby prescribing gender roles that dictate a range of attributes and behaviors that are considered to be acceptable. The queer community does not embrace these binaries. Gender- A genderqueer person is someone who doesn’t queer fit into the traditional gender binary system, an might not identify as either being male or female, or may identify as both. Some genderqueer people may se themselves as possessing a little of both binary genders, while other may identify as having no gender, or perceive their gender as being something completely separate from the two binary genders. Grey-a Refers to an identity that acknowledges the grey area between asexuality and sexuality. This can include people who only occasionally experience sexual attraction, or people who have low sex dive, or people who experience both sexual attraction and sex drive, but don’t want to act on them, People may identify as grey-a for any number of reasons. Hetero- Used to describe the manner in which many normative social institutions and social policies reinforces particular beliefs, including that human beings fall into two distinct gender categories (women and man) and that sexual marital relations are normal between two people of differing genders. Heteronormativity is the norm and that other sexualities are peripheral. In the words of Dorothy Parker, “Don’t confuse normal with common.”

Hetero The name given to the system (sometimes also sexism referred to also heteropatriarchy) by which heterosexuality is privileged and promoted, and non-heterosexual ‘lifestyles’ are dismissed and marginalized. It is the broader privileging of heteronormativity. It also attaches a series of different meanings to those sexualities it draws itself in contrast to. Intersex Intersex is physical difference in anatomical sex. That is, physical differences in reproductive parts like the vulva, clitoris, ovaries, testicles, penis and so on. Intersex is also the physical differences in secondary sexual characteristics such as muscle mass, hair disruption, breast development and stature Lesbian A femaleidentifying person with a sexual orientation exclusively towards other femaleidentifying person’s Non-Binary A gender experience, which stands outside the binary genders of ‘man’ and ‘women’. Non-binary individuals may feel like neither men nor women, something else entirely, or any combination thereof simultaneously, or some of these things some of the time. Patriarchy A patriarchal society is where men and masculine are considered to have more value that women and the feminine, and are given social and institutionalised privilege Pansexual A sexual orientation that can be attracted to all gender identities. Gender is not a contributing factor for the person sexual attraction to other individuals Polysexual Polysexuality is attraction to some, but not all, possible genders. This is not to be confused with bisexuality, which is attraction to the two binary genders, or pansexuality, which is attraction regardless of gender. Polyamory Loving more than one person. Used to refer to all unexclusive relationships that deliberately and openly involved more than two people.

Pink Dollar Describes the purchasing power of the Queer Community. Often associated with political donations, but also extends to entertainment, consumables ad property, with some companies tailoring productions or services directly to this demographic. Things can be marketed towards the Queer community to achieve the ‘pink dollar’ Pink The symbol gay men were forced to wear in Nazi Triangle concentration camps. It was reclaimed later by the queer community and became a symbol of gay pride. Queer A term used in a number of different ways. A sexual identity that acknowledges and embraces diversity of sex, gender and sexuality and rejects socially imposed categories. An umbrella term for lesbian, gay, bi, tans, intersex and all other sex and gender diverse people It is also used as a way of reclaiming a once derogatory term of abuse Queer The irrational fear of queer people that phobia manifests itself in overt discrimination and more subtle behaviors that you may not immediately recognise. Queerphobia is an extreme manifestation if heterosexism, and in many ways this is only the outward expression of a problem woven deeply into the fabric of many societies. Internalised queerphobia is a way if describing how queer people themselves act in queerphobic ways because of external queerphobia. Queerphobia can exist within the queer community between different groups. Quoisexual A sexual orientation where one experiences something between romantic and sexual attraction (or platonic and sexual), cannot differentiate between types of attraction, or does not know what sexual attraction feels like and therefore does not know if they experience it Sexism Socio-cultural institutional, ad individuals beliefs and practices that privilege men and subordinate and denigrate people according to their gender.

Sexual A term coined by vlogger Laci Green, to promote Debut understandings of first time sex that are nonshameful, gender and sexuality-diverse and destabilizing of normal, normative notions of what it means to have, or not, have sex. Stonewall Stonewall was a bar in New York City renowned as a queer hangout. In the summer if 1969 New York police raided the bar in an attempt to arrest patrons engaging in illegal ‘homosexual acts’. Patrons fought back and rioted, and the event is often attributed as having a critical importance in the beginning of a new radical ad militant agenda for queer people in resisting oppression. TISGD Stands for Trans, intersex, sex and gender diverse. Transgender An umbrella term that refers to individuals who do not identify with their biological sex either some or all of the time, and/or do not conform to a gender binary. Many identities can be included under this umbrella such as transgender, transsex, genderqueer, bigender, androgyny, third gender, non-gendered people and many more. It is important to remember that there is o stereotypical trans person’ – some trans people alter their bodies while others so not, some aim to be perceived as men or women while others are comfortable presenting an ambiguous appearance. In addition, gender identity is a fluid thing for a lot of people so what may be true for someone at one point their life, or week, or day, will not necessarily be the way they identify or perceive themselves at other times. Trasition Using resources, medical or otherwise, to present as something other than one’s assigned sex. Transphobia The irrational fear or hatred of those individuals who transgress or blur the dominant gender categories in a given society. Trans The negative attitudes, expressed through misogyny cultural hate, individual’s and state violence and discrimination directed towards trans women and trans people on the feminine end of the gender spectrum.

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