Issue 86.5 – Queer Dit

ISSUE 86.5

May 25 · 12pm – 2pm Curry (vegetarian, vegan & GF options) Barr Smith Lawns Free for Members $5 non-members

#AdelUniUnion #getmore

Upcoming Issue Contribution Due Dates Hearsay: 6th July DiversiDit: 20th July We’d love to hear your ideas! Email us at onditmag@gmail.com

– On Dit –

ON DIT CONTENTS Editorial Meet Your Guest Editors Queer Officer State of Union What’s On Vox Pop Left, Right, & Centre Econ Dit

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ARTICLES Against or Athwart?

Refusing to Stay Silent: Remembering William Haines Freaky Contiki: Traveling Against Normativity Gender Failure and Learning to Learn No Hemline How to Affirm Your Status as the Problem Child Artist Feature: Felicity Jane Artist Feature: Jordan Vella Artist Feature: Clare Macpherson Some Things I Know About Myself Reds and Rainbows: Communism’s Complicated Relationship with Homosexuality Sexuality and Same-Sex In Osacr Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray A Queer History of Islamic Art Sexuality then Sex Liminal Breathe Poetry Translations

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GUEST EDITORS Aiden Bedford Ethan Penglase Nuer Deng GUEST EDITORS Darcy Mounkley Holly Nicholls Olivia De Zilva Terry Hughes SUBEDITORS Dylan Rowen Ellie Stamelos Hilary D’Angelo Kiri Marker DESIGNERS Anzelle de Kock Jennafer Milne

COVER ART

By Jacob Sunter

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On Dit is produced on the land of the Kaurna people. We acknowledge them as the traditional owners and custodians of the Adelaide Plains. Their land was stolen, never ceded.

It always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

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– On Dit –

EDITORIAL

Hello and welcome to Queer Dit 2018!

It’s fair to say it’s been a big year since Queer Dit was last published. The plebiscite was a long and arduous battle we finally achieved marriage equality.

We know that for many in the queer community that victory was bittersweet, given the impact the vote

can be a celebration of queer culture, and a testament to the fact that we fought, we won, and we’re thriving. In it you’ll read personal stories, learn some queer history and discover some queer cultural touchstones. Queer Dit is written by Adelaide Uni’s queer students, and is a place to tell stories that haven’t always been told.

had on so many of our peers.

We may have achieved marriage equality, but the fight isn’t over. It’s important the community continues to stand up for the more marginalised among us - the kids affected by the attacks on safe schools, members of the trans community, queer people of colour. There can be no equality unless everyone is included.

The Internet has dubbed this year twenty-gay-teen, and it has so far definitely delivered. Representation on film and television is increasing (albeit slowly).

It's certainly a markedly different landscape to when most of us were growing up - gone are the days of watching a two hour movie for the five second cameo by the one lesbian character.

Given the year that’s been, we hope this magazine

As editors, it has been a pleasure putting this magazine together. Huge thanks must go to all our writers, illustrators and contributors for making this edition of Queer Dit what it is. And thank you to the On Dit team for giving us the chance to guest edit and continue on what is now a great tradition in our student magazine.

To you, the reader: may you be inspired by Kylie Minogue releasing another banging album, by Beyonce putting in the performance of her life at Coachella, by Hayley Kiyoko for just being amazing.

Be inspired to be unapologetically you. We love you and thank you for reading, Your editors of Queer Dit 2018.

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– On Dit –

meet your guest editors TERRY HUGHES

OLIVIA DE ZILVA

While reading the work of remote North American queer theorists as a PhD candidate in the upper reaches of the Napier building, I have always sensed, surrounding me on the ground below, a range of local and vernacular queer energies animating Adelaide’s student body. This special issue of On Dit provides a venue for making these manifest, and it was with great pride that I could lend a hand in realising its publication this year, learning as I did from the work of its diverse contributors. In a spirit of reciprocity, I’ve tried to succinctly translate, in digestible terms, one of the most relevant lines of thought emerging from queer studies in the academy; see my “Against or Athwart?” in the pages that follow. Happy reading!

Hi, my name’s Olivia De Zilva, you might remember me from such dating apps as Tinder and Bumble. I’m just your average mom-jean wearing, cat stroking, English loving, Queer Arts Student and proud member of the LGBT+ community. For me, editing Queer Dit has been an absolute blast. I am so stoked to be part of a platform which showcases the amazing diverse voices circulating around our campus. Everyone who contributed this year should be extremely proud of their efforts as writers and artists. It has been such a pleasure to share these ideas, thoughts and experiences to the wider-student body and faculty. I hope you enjoy this very special issue of Queer Dit and that it encourages you to raise your voice in the future.

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– On Dit –

DARCY MOUNKLEY

HOLLY NICHOLLS

Hey, I’m Darcy and I’m incredibly proud to be editing for the second time. The LGBT+ community has been a real family for me in the past few years, and I want nothing more for all these wonderful people than a platform where they can be heard. It’s so wonderful to have the awful plebiscite of last year behind us and be able to share with you many LGBTQ+ voices, without that shadow over our community. Of course we have so much work ahead of us, but let us be proud of all we have accomplished together, kick back, relax, and read some great queer articles by some great queer people.

Hey there! I’m Holly and it’s been an absolute honour to guest edit Queer Dit this year. It’s recently come to my attention that I may be forging a persona as a Notable Lesbian. So I’m here to tell you how you can apply a basic Lesbian skill to get the most out of this magazine. You’ve just picked it up, right, so it’s basically your first date with the mag? Do what a lesbian would do and hire a U-Haul, and move straight in. Read it all. There’s no time like immediately after meeting someone to commit for life.

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– On Dit –

STATE OF THE UNION Words by Patrick Stewart AUU Board Director

One of the core values of our Adelaide University Union is diversity. We recognise that within the community of students are many different communities, and that “Each community possesses a unique student experience and we value, embrace and promote that diversity”.

Your University years can be a great time to find your identity, and express yourself in whichever way you want. That is why the Union and so many other organisations work so hard to create a safe, inclusive and positive space for queer people, and to make sure the incredible diversity among the student body is reflected on campus.

The Pride Club works hard to create a thriving queer social culture, events like the SRC’s George Duncan Memorial honour defining moments in queer history, and so many student societies do their bit to support queer members. I’m proud that our Union is at the heart of it all. Our Union works closely with clubs, societies and individual students to support and foster this inclusive culture.

The Union brings students together, provides affiliation and funding to clubs, and helps to create a strong experience for all students.

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Yet we need to acknowledge some tough realities as well. Queer people, including students, still face higher rates of mental illness, homelessness, and other significant challenges. Bigotry against all forms of queer identity is still too prevalent.

The Union is here to help in this regard, too.

When you feel like you’re facing a wall of problems, get in touch with the incredible team at Student Care. University can be a tough time – particularly for queer students – and there are experts on hand to help.

No matter the challenges we face, I’m proud to be a queer student on campus. It fills my heart with pride to see my fellow students embracing their identity as they go about their business. Our campus is made up of so many different student communities, coming together in our diversity.

So I urge you to get involved in campus life, to go to events and functions, to join clubs and societies, and most importantly, to join your Union. When we come together, we can overcome challenges and make our campus a place in which we can all thrive.

– On Dit –

SRC QUEER OFFICER Words by Ricky Stocker-Johns

On 7 December 2017, parliament passed a bill introducing equal marriage into law and 61.6% of Australians proceeded to celebrate and revel in this triumph. This day and also the day the marriage equality survey results were announced will be forever ingrained in Australian history. A day remembered and shared fondly by members of the Australian queer community for generations to come.

Its legalisation will hopefully open a door to a more accepting and comforting society for queer youth to flourish in.

It’s in the months following this win, however, I’ve found the need to reflect on what exactly this win cost us. Whilst of course this win was “the big one” and the most politicised aspect of the fight for queer rights, the legalisation of equal marriage wasn’t actually the be all and end all of the movement. Let’s not forget that this triumph came as the result of an unnecessary tumultuous three-month process that placed the LGBTQI+ community under the scrutiny of millions of Australians.

Helplines such as ReachOut reported a 20% increase in access to LGBTQI+ support service during the debate—an increase on top what was already a dismal mental health record

when compared to the general population.

The success of results doesn’t at all mean we need to forgive and forget the harm the process caused, nor the years of inequality before.

When talking to someone about this recently, I was confronted with the interesting question: You got marriage, what else is there to complain about? Whilst somewhat blunt, I think this represents the inner questionings of many. Imagine you had a friend and every couple of seconds you jabbed a pin in their back and did so for fifty odd years. They did their best to ask you to stop but you refused and continued to jab them with that pin.

Suddenly in 2017 you stopped doing it. You expected that friend to get on with their life—as if you hadn’t been persistently jabbing them for a few decades. The injuries are representative of inequality. No, they won’t be forgotten; they need time to heal, time to fade, but they’ll forever remain as scars for those who experienced them, scars from which those who come later can hopefully learn.

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– On Dit –

ADELAIDE BIENNIAL OF AUSTRALIAN ART: DIVIDED WORLDS 8th May @ 10am-5pm daily. Free.

Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art Tilted Divided Worlds presents an allegory of human society, one that meditates on the drama of the cosmos and evolution; on the past and the future; and on beauty and the environment. Featuring artistic visions from creatives all over the country, this exhibit will amaze, daze and faze you through a fantastical scope of human life. This free exhibition will be running till the 3rd of June, so don’t miss out on seeing some amazing emerging Australian artists.

PUB QUIZ 10th May @ 7pm. Free.

The Goody Come down to The Goody for a good, old, unadulterated pub quiz! You think you know your history? Your geography? Your pop culture? Why not stretch those quizzing muscles for a night of pure fun, competition and pub banter!? This annual quiz is a sure fire way to make new friends and start new rivalries! It’s free to play from 7pm with great prizes and grub ($15 selected jugs and $14 pizza slabs till late!).

LIFE DRAWING SESSION 12th May @ 2pm. Free.

The Floating Goose Studios This fortnightly life drawing session allows anyone from the general public to try their hand at portraiture! Make magic with your pencil at this relaxed session with different models every two weeks. For two hours, stress less and express yourself on the canvas!

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– On Dit –

THE SEED BEGINNERS FLORISTRY COURSE 15th May @ 6pm. Free.

Plant 4 Bowden Ever wanted to delve into the world of floristry?

Here’s your chance! SEED, hosted by The Adelaide Floristry School is offering introductory classes on how to care for flowers, how to handle and arrange them (through expert bouquet making), techniques for events and more!

PRIDE FEST PUB CRAWL: LOVE WINS PUB CRAWL 18th May @ 8pm-12am Starts at Rundle Street

THE ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY ARTS STUDENTS ASSOCIATION ARTS BALL

Come party for a fabulous night celebrating marriage equality hosted by The Flinders University Queer Society! Starting at The London and ending at Sugar, this night is a sure fire way to meet new friends and celebrate the LGBT+ student population in Adelaide! $22.19 – Student (with a valid ID) $27.46 – General Admission

18th May @ 8pm-12am The Howling Owl The first AUASA ball is here! Head on down to The Howling Owl for a spellbinding soiree with your fellow arts students. Party till dawn in your finest cocktail attire and don’t forget your glass slippers for a sneaky kiss at midnight! Prizes will be given out for best dressed, Belle of the Ball (for those who most embrace the theme) and best dancer! All arts alumni, staff past and present are invited along as well, so don’t forget to tell your friends!

Tickets: $80 9

– On Dit –

Vox Pop Where we ask students the important questions.

Jacob

Sam

Arts

Law & Media

1. Tie between Fran Lebowitz and Stevie Nicks.

2. I would be the interior designer because I actually put effort into things I do.

3. It could be better, but I think a lot of media representation reflects broader social problems outside media itself.

4. I don’t date people.

5. We got new furniture, how exciting!

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1. Leslie Feinberg.

2. I’ve never seen it.

3. No, especially not for lesbians.

4. The worst was when I was sixteen and we went to see Blue is the Warmest Colour. We expected it to be a really nice love story…but it was really awkward. I don’t know if I’ve been on a good one.

5. My chemistry practical has been postponed.

– On Dit –

1. Who is your gay icon?

2. What would your role be on Queer Eye? 3. Do you think there are enough positive queer representations in the media 4. Best/ Worst first date?

5. What's the best news you've received today?

Samantha

Andrew

Arts & Science

International Relations & Arts

1. Myself.

1. Freddie Mercury.

2. All of them.

2. I haven’t watched it lately.

3. Yeah.

3. It’s getting better, but there’s room for improvement.

4. Best: one in Japan. Worst: some guy in Adelaide.

5. Getting interviewed for Queer Dit.

4. Probably to the art gallery and worst date, we went to Schnithouse and we got dinner there and it was bad.

5. Kim Jong-un meeting with the South Korean president.

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– On Dit –

LEFT, RIGHT, & CENTRE LEFT

CENTRE

SOCIALIST ALTERNATIVE

ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY LABOR CLUB

LEILA CLENDON

1.

Tony Abbott is a homophobe who spent $122 million on an attempt to delay equality by dividing and demoralising LGBTI people and marriage equality activists.

What he got instead was people all across the country talking to their families about the issue, involving themselves in activism and coming together for the biggest protests for LGBTI rights in Australia’s history, culminating in Sydney that had over 50 thousand people. We should be thanking those people, and those involved in the thirteen-year fight to overturn the Liberals’ ban.

2.

While the “Yes” vote was a massive victory the fight against homophobia and transphobia, it is far from over. We still need to get rid of the homophobic “Gay Panic Defence” laws that allow murderers to decrease their sentences on the defence that the victim was hitting on them.

We need more public genderneutral bathrooms and to get rid of the stigma around trans people going to the bathroom.

And we need to address the 12

ALI AMIN

issue of homelessness among LGBTI youth by funding shelters and giving more support to young people living out of home.

These are just some of many, but with whatever struggle we are fighting, we need to remember the lessons from the marriage equality campaign. We didn’t win marriage equality by accepting compromises like civil unions, or by shutting up when the issue was unpopular. We won it by fighting and protesting and advocating for our rights year after year, and never accepting anything less than full equality.

3.

Heck yeah!

1.

No, Abbott was opposed to same-sex marriage when he was prime minister and played a leading role in the “No” campaign. The result of the plebiscite merely reflected what we already knew from an unbroken line of reputable opinion polls. The debate was highly divisive and was merely used by some on the “No” side as a cover to advance specious arguments connecting samesex marriage with the abuse of children, sexually transmitted diseases and drug abuse.

Although I understand that the Coalition would probably have not legislated on the matter without a plebiscite, their position was untenable, and Australians would have certainly punished them on election day.

While same-sex marriage has

– On Dit –

1. Tony Abbott proposed the plebiscite that eventually paved the way for legalisation of same-sex marriage. Should he be given any credit for this?

2. SA has a progressive history when it comes to LGBT rights. What's next on the agenda?

3. Will we see Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism in our life time?

RIGHT

WILLIAM MILLER ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY LIBERAL CLUB

been legalised we should ask ourselves at what cost? The plebiscite has cast a disturbing shadow – forcing LGBT people to open their lives and identities to public debate, scrutiny, evaluation, and sometimes abuse. LGBT Australians shouldn’t have had to make the case for their rights to be respected.

2.

An issue that can now receive greater attention is the ongoing use of conversion therapies to “cure” a person’s samesex attraction. These harmful practices appear to have gone underground, but are actually more prevalent in Australia than ever before. Conversion therapies have been condemned by the medical profession as harmful and ineffective, and by the UN as a breach of human rights. Nevertheless, they continue in Australia.

South Australia should follow Victoria’s lead and setup a Health Complaints Commissioner, as well as consider criminalising gay conversion therapy for minors. Gay children deserve to live their lives authentically and should never be subjected to the abusive practice of so-called conversion therapy.

3.

Yes, as soon as the gays seize the means of production.

1.

No single person deserves the credit for the passage of samesex marriage. We owe a debt of gratitude and thanks to the Australian people, they deserve any and all credit.

2.

There are still many antiquated laws that require urgent repeal for a greater move towards ending symbolic inequality. Other than that, the normalisation of LGBT people needs to continue there are still many out there who harbour sadly misguided views.

3.

We get one issue a year. Don’t waste the power of its platform.

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– On Dit –

Don’t Drop The Base (Rate): A Lesson in Talking to Lesbians Words by Darcy Mounkley

Hi all, my name’s Darcy, I’m an economics student and because of this, I was asked whether I wanted to write the Econ Dit for the Queer Dit edition of On Dit. I was initially going to write an economically based argument for why Medicare should cover all costs of gender reassignment surgery (GRS) for transsexual people, but having to reduce the mental and physical suffering of those in the trans community to its economic cost was too much to handle.

Here’s the thing, GRS should be totally covered by Medicare and should be more accessible because it’s the right thing to do, not because not doing so would be costly.

Instead, I’m going to try to explain why men keep hitting on me and other lesbians at parties even after we tell them we’re lesbians using a fallacy I learnt in behavioural economics, called the base rate fallacy.

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So let’s say the probability of me talking to someone given that I find that person attractive is 80% [P(T|A) = 0.8], which makes sense, generally, people like to get to know the people they’re into.

Someone might see this probability and take it to mean that there is an approximately 80% chance of me being attracted to them if I’m talking to them, but this is absolutely, positively, not the case.

You see, these men are committing the grave mistake of base rate neglect. The base rate in this case is the likelihood of me being attracted to any man, ever.

I’m a lesbian, so we can assume this is pretty low.

Let’s say that the probability of me being attracted to a man is 0.00001 [P(A) = 0.00001](‘cause who knows how many Oscar Isaacs are out there?).

– On Dit –

And, from my experience, if I’m at a party, I’m probably going to talk to about 40% of the people there [P(T) = 0.4].

Knowing all this, we can find the actual probability of me being attracted to a man given that I’m talking to them.

If you’ve ever done stats, you’ll know that the conditional probability; the probability of an event

Then, from the information we’ve been given; P(T|A) = 0.8; P(A) = 0.00001, and; P(T) = 0.4 Which means the probability of me being attracted to a man I’m talking to given the probability of me being attracted to any man is: P(A | T) = (0.8 × 0.00001)/0.4 = 0.00002

A, given that event B has happened, is found as: As you can see, this is quite low.

P(A|B) = P( B|A) P(A) P(B) Or, in words, the probability of A happening, given B has happened, is equal to the probability of B happening given A has happened times the probability of A happening, all divided by the probability of B happening.

I really, really hope that this has helped the straight men of the world who won’t take "lesbian" for an answer. If you ever find yourself asking “this woman is talking to me, could she be into me?”, just remember that the base rate is just how unattractive you are to every lesbian ever.

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– On Dit –

against or athwart?

Words by Terry Hughes Perhaps because looking up the word gay figures so pivotally in my own itinerary in identifying as such, my first instinct in meditating on the meaning of queer is to refer to the musty, standardising dictionary—a flawed and dangerous method, if conservative fixation on a standardised definition of marriage should have taught me anything. And yet, I think the dictionary, especially for its etymological insights, may be a useful,

Consistent with its history as pejorative connoting deviance and perversion brazenly embraced as a scandalous banner under which to publicly assemble, queer has historically designated a political orientation distinguished by an emphatically transgressive style of thought. Being queer, in this sense, means constantly questioning what’s considered normal, how that’s regulated and who it benefits. This includes slash-and-burn

stocktaking resource for queer critique, not least in the academy and its classrooms.

critiques of mainstream, “assimilative” sexuality activisms. Champions of same-sex marriage under this rubric, for instance, come in for criticism for coveting an irredeemably heterosexist institution. No less spared are identity categories, such as gay and homosexual, for their collusion in perpetuating oppressive binary logics of gender and erotic desire. “To "queer” a norm is to expose the taken-for-granted cover under which its necessarily contingent and incoherent character eludes serious challenge and change.

Disrupting common sense and the status quo, demonstrations under the sign of queer are powerfully denaturalising, counterhegemonic, nonidentitarian and antinormative.

To begin, however, queer is of course, as this special issue of On Dit uses it, a broad catchall term for LGBT folk and those who identify more fluidly or ambiguously between or beside that for which those four letters stand. Both queer and the foregoing, ever-expanding initialism are politically useful in their coalitional capacity, but there is a reason why the latter predominates in state-based civil rights campaigns. The particular verve concomitant with queer goes beyond an anti-homophobic or bi- or trans-affirmative stance, which is more or less the extent of what the initialism signifies politically. Queer does more.

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– On Dit –

As valuable — indeed, indispensable — as these demonstrations are and have been, note the prefix of each adjective just previously applied to queer: denaturalising, counterhegemonic, non-identitarian, antinormative. The concern, advanced by a growing number of queer critics, with Robyn Wiegman at the forefront, is that this ethos alone leaves queer defined primarily in the negative, unclarified without reference to

having to norms in the first place. After all, to be “against norms” would imply at least two shaky premises: that norms are essentially constricting, controlling or tyrannical, and that they have a readily inhabitable outside from which we can launch attacks on them. I don’t think either of these things are true, and yet they are themselves the normative assumptions of queer critique.

that which it opposes. Queer is what is queer is against: the arch-enemy normativity.

What would it mean to unsettle these notions? To think athwart norms may be a harder and riskier engagement than thinking against them, but it may also, to quote Wiegman in closing, foster a more progressive generosity around “which norms a minoritised community can and cannot live without, and why its choices are never its alone”.

But to crack the spine of the dictionary is to retrieve an alternative orientation. At the IndoEuropean root of queer is -twerkw, from which we derive not the adversarial preposition against but rather, as Wiegman puts it, the “more intimate and complicit gesture of moving athwart” (from side to side or across).

The point, then, may not necessarily be to found queerness in some freestanding fashion, independent of the norms it is known for leering at, but to reconsider the relation it conceives of

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REFUSING TO STAY SILENT: REMEMBERING WILLIAM HAINES Words by William Miller

– On Dit – Hollywood, 1933. Louis B Mayer, the co-founder of MGM studios and a giant of the industry, calls celebrated star William "Billy" Haines into his office.

Soon after this meeting, Haines’ acting career is over.

Haines was a hugely successful leading man in the silent era but, with the advent of sound in 1927, many actors lost their careers to newer, younger actors trained in the theatre. People who knew how to speak, unlike Douglas Fairbanks, John Gilbert, Mary Philbin, Mae Murray. When sound arrived, many stars could not make the transition, but Haines continued to thrive. He was the biggest boxoffice attraction of 1929 and 1930, he had already made half a dozen “talkies” and all of them were successful. Studio boss Irving J. Thalberg regarded him as the new model of the male romantic lead for the talking age.

So what was Haines’ issue? He refused to deny his sexuality.

Mayer thought the meeting would go as so many had before and so many would after. Haines had been seeing a man named Jimmy Shields for the past seven years and had recently been arrested for his “alternative lifestyle”. To quell public rumours, Mayer arranged a lavender marriage to save him and the studio from embarrassment and scandal. If he refused to marry, he would never make a picture with MGM again. Haines responded simply, “I am already married. I’ll be glad to give him up, just as long as you give up your wife.” With that, he chose his relationship with Shields over his status as a Hollywood star.

Haines had been openly seeing Shields for years and never attempted to hide it from those he worked with. When Irving J. Thalberg called him the new model of the male romantic, he was well aware of his homosexuality. In the 1920s, despite his sexuality, Haines was as popular offscreen as he was onscreen. He was a member of the exclusive inner circle of William Randolph Hearst, the vastly wealthy newspaper tycoon with one of the largest private residences in history and the inspiration for Citizen Kane. His sexuality had not been an issue for many in the silent era and it did not affect his stardom.

The iconic Joan Crawford had even asked him to

marry her. Haines responded cooly, “That isn’t how it works in Hollywood.”

Maybe because of his stature in and out of roles Haines thought he wouldn’t have to play by the rules, that when he was told to present himself as straight he could snub Louis B. Mayer and continue on. Evidently, this was not the case, and once it was public Haines faced greater hardship. In 1936, over one hundred members of the Ku Klux Klan broke into the couple’s home and dragged them onto the beach, publicly beating both men for unfounded claims they had propositioned a neighbour’s son. No charges were ever brought against their attackers.

When Haines contract was terminated with MGM the movies abandoned him, but Hollywood did not.

Haines and Shields began a new career following their joint passion of interior decoration and antique dealing. The couple were supported by film stars, famed directors and media moguls who rallied behind them and refused to shun Haines as the industry had. Parties received them as Hollywood royalty and many iconic figures, such as Crawford, counted them among their closest friends. In 1939, paintings were borrowed from Haines’ personal collection to grace the grand plantation home in Gone with the Wind. Screen legends Gloria Swanson, George Cukor, and Crawford had them design their villas in high-profile manners to bolster their new career. They ran their business successfully as the most highly sought after interior decorators in Hollywood for decades, even being the designer of choice for Nancy and Ronald Reagan. Haines enjoyed his life after acting, stating, "It's a rather pleasant feeling of being away from pictures and being part of them because all my friends are. I can see the nice side of them without seeing the ugly side of the studios."

Crawford called them “the happiest couple in Hollywood”, and they remained together until Haines’ death on Boxing Day, 1973. Soon afterwards, Jimmy Shields overdosed on sleeping tablets, his suicide note reading “I now find it impossible to go it alone, I am much too lonely.”

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– On Dit –

FREAKY CONTIKI

TRAVELING AGAINST NORMATIVITY Words by Olivia De Zilva Artwork by Adam Hamilton

Like many young Australians, I have been on a Contiki tour. Three, to be truthful. I’ve done it all.

Tactical vommed at the Tower of Pisa, done a shoey on the shores of Loch Ness, was absolutely hung when I saw the Colosseum for the first time. I’m so bloody cultured now that I realised, hey, despite all the drunken parties, messy hook-ups and sometimes seeing culture, there is something missing from Contiki.

It’s really nasty stuff considering that we’re all supposed to be on a holiday. Does it really matter if a gay person is sharing your room when you’re probably going to get some sort of infection from all the hooking up you’re doing? For a company which promotes friendship, unity and #family (that’s what we were encouraged to call other travellers), it’s funny that they aren’t really doing anything for the inclusivity of queer-identifying people on trips.

My most recent trip was a whirlwind twenty-three day around Continental and Eastern Europe. I travelled with my best friend Henry* (who else could hold my hair when I chunder into a Parisian toilet after a hefty amount of vino?). When we arrived to the Contiki basement in London, we were told we couldn’t share a room together unless we were a couple.

When we were in Amsterdam, we were given a tour of the red-light district. Everything about this place was explained to us, the history, the industry, everything. However, when Henry and I asked about the blue light district (for transgender sex workers), the tour-guide uncomfortably shuffled in his feet till we changed the subject. In the end, we weren’t given the chance to see it. That same night, the group was heavily encouraged to go to a sex-show. Although featuring lesbian sex, it was heavily catered toward the male gaze with girls in skimpy bikinis and spread legs. There was nothing romantic, tender, just people jeering and rubbing their crotches. It was kind of sickening to see this

So obviously, we lied that we were a couple.

People started to cotton on real quick that we weren’t living a life of marital bliss. They would point out how Henry was so gay, from the way he talked and dressed. They questioned us, studied us, wondered why we would go so far as to lie about sharing a room with people of our gender. Isn’t it damn obvious? Contiki doesn’t have a queer safe space at all. There’s no escape from the rowdy, randy heteronormativity for 23 days, believe you me. Sharing a room together was our only solace from the hook-ups of over excited eighteen year olds with a whole lotta hormones.

When our tour-manager found out and asked us why we lied, he understood immediately. He acknowledged that although he is extremely open to LGBT+ people on tour, there are other tour managers and travellers who take issue with sharing the space. He said that people would flat out refuse to share rooms with queer-identifying individuals because of fear that they were being preyed on.

as a novelty when for some, this is the only form of intimacy and love. Being on Contiki, I felt that many of the “adult’s only” adventures were catered toward the heteronormative, what the “lads on tour” would snap story for their friends at home.

My tour-guide even admitted it was exploitative and pondered why the company would keep promoting this activity if it made people uncomfortable.

Although I had the best time with #noregrets, I realised that Contiki can become an extremely insular environment preying on people’s differences and quite diminishing of queer culture. I mean, if I wanted to see that many straight-men gawk, I would have honestly just stayed at home and watched The Bacherlorette. If they want to progress in the future, I think they should start realising we are queer and we are here and there’s nothing people can do about it.

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– On Dit –

GENDER FAILURE AND LEARNING TO LEARN Words by Jacob Whitelock

There are certain points in our life in which some encounter - a conversation, a song, a book, opens us to a whole new understanding of identity, one that we were previously ignorant of. They stick with us, not just as moments of learning, but as milestones in a journey of learning how to learn, whether it be through reading, watching or listening to those who have something to say. I had one of these moments when I was on exchange in late 2016. A friend of mine, upon hearing that I had just started a course called “Music and Queer Identity”, recommended I pick up a copy of Gender Failure. I went on a quest to find it, a journey that took me to Toronto’s Glad Day Bookshop, the world’s oldest and largest LGBTQI+ bookshop.

Gender Failure began as a live performance tour in which musician Rae Spoon and writer Ivan E. Coyote (both Canadian and both non-binary) wove through autobiography and musical performance, following their relationship with, and consequent resignation from the gender binary. This written version finds these oral stories compiled alongside images from the performances and handwritten lyric sheets. The "episodes"trace the pair’s ongoing struggle to define their own identities in a system that actively excludes them. The stories unravel with a tender intimacy, from the difficulties of navigating gendered toilets, being a nonbinary performer in the country music scene, to their own discovery of gender fluidity and non-binary identity.

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In the chapter “How I Got to 'They'’”, Rae recounts the first time they met a non-binaryidentified person in Montreal. Rae is told, after using the "she" pronoun to ask about a friend, “Jen goes by the pronoun ‘they’”.

It comes as a shock, they write: “correcting pronouns was something I was used to being on the opposite end of” (they identified as a trans man at the time). This encounter is evidence of everyone’s ability to correct their initial mistake. The passage still speaks to me, because it was this book that provided that same revelation. As we grow up, we are constantly learning about gender in a way that we were never taught. The more we learn from others, the more we are prompted to think about our own identity and its relation to the binary. For myself, as I am certain it is for others, this book prompted me to consider my own relationship to my gender, what is comfortable to me, what is uncomfortable to me and, moving beyond myself, how to see and think outside the binary.

Gender Failure doesn’t just teach you how to use non-gendered pronouns, it’s an open discussion of the process of learning and how new information and experience informs both how we identify ourselves and how we understand and treat those around us. If we are to understand and respect non-binary identity, we have to learn from those who live that experience themselves. That is why Gender Failure is a gem.

– On Dit –

NO HEMLINE Words by Em König

I awake. Erect. There is no weeping. Just orange nail polish, Christian Dior, three weeks old. I am naked and he is warm against my body. I think again about the surgery that I will never get and wonder if one day I won’t want it any more. I look at the clotheshorse next to the bed, piled high with black rags. I place my hand on the dress, and quickly remove it. Black shorts. Black t-shirt. Again. I stand in front of the mirror staring at my torso. I am dehydrated so my ribs protrude making the curve of my waist more defined. I am hairy, everywhere. The winter weight means that when I sit I have breasts.

Barely, but I do.

I can braid my own hair. I never could and then one day I tried and voila. I braid it on days when I can’t wear it down. It is braided today. My hairline has receded and I am going grey. The grease holds my braid taut and the flatness means that my helmet will fit.

I love my bike. The crossbar is low which means it is for a girl. I ride it to work, speeding through red lights, speeding past violence. I do not like crossings. I do not like tram stops. I do not like any kind of no-man’s land. I arrive in the city and the blind girl with the black dog calls me sir. We all take the elevator to the next level and she thanks me for letting her exit first. I am frightened to speak for the rest of the day. Judith Butler is in my ear telling me to keep up the charade.

I pick up a book by Joan Roughgarden and flick to a random page. She is talking about gonads and stamens and seahorses and sex. “The most common body form among plants and in perhaps half of the animal kingdom is for an individual to be both male and female at the same, or at different times during its life”. I close the book. “Both” I think to myself.

“Neither” I think harder. Neither.

I order a coffee (I don’t drink coffee) and they ask for my name. “Em” I tell them. “Like the letter?”

Sure.

I attend a seminar (I don’t like seminars) and they ask for my name. “Em” I tell them. “Ooh that’s interesting, where are you from?”

I bump into an ex-friend and we exchange an awkward hug. They ask for my pronouns.

I go shopping for glasses and they direct me to the men’s section and I can’t correct them. I try on fifteen pairs to find the ones that are the most feminine, whatever that means. Karl Lagerfeld, Alex Perry, Tommy Hilfiger. I glance over at Kylie Minogue, briefly. I choose two pairs and sit down for a fitting. They ask me for my name. “Em” I tell them.

“Can you spell that for me please” “Em…E. M.” “So it’s Mem?” They look at me strangely and I give up.

On the ride home someone shouts faggot from a car window and I am a mixture of pride and shame.

I fantasise about them calling me a whore, though I am not one any more.

I get home and wash the makeup from my face.

My shoes have left blisters on my heels and he has made pasta for dinner. We eat in bed at 4:00pm watching British game shows and I think this is the queerest thing about me. Later we watch a show on Viceland called “Being Transgender" and Charlotte has her scrotum sewn into a vagina.

I brush my teeth and get back into bed, naked. I kiss him good night and roll over to begin the dance of sleeplessness, counting backward from 1 to 0.

No mirrors. No low crossbar. No foundation. No pronouns. No passing. No hemline.

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HOW TO AFFIRM YOUR STATUS AS THE PROBLEM CHILD Words by S.J. Artwork by Natasha Martin

– On Dit –

Wake up at 1pm. Eat four nectarines and shower for 28 minutes. Delete last night’s internet history and dissociate for 51 seconds. Call your ex-boyfriend. Tell him you broke into his house last November. You cut his band t-shirts into crop tops and you left the window open, ’cause you know how much he hated the cold. Hang up. Drink coffee. Shut the blinds and masturbate. Check your daily horoscope and count the hairs on your big toe. Drive to your sister’s engagement party.

exact science. Still, they will ask you if you are an alcoholic. Tell them you need something to write about. Something honest and human. Something that will get you a book deal or at least some praise in your creative writing class. Remind them that you can only witness every detail when you’re lying in the gutter. Take note of the boy on your left. Blonde. Acned. A tentative chin beard. Looks like a teenage cult leader or an Amish husband.

Just your type. Compare notes on mental illness and ask him out for coffee.

Smoke weed in the bathroom and call your auntie fat. Drink like your father on a Monday afternoon, like you never plan to come home again. Throw up in your grandmother’s hydrangeas. Text your ex-boyfriend and cry in the laundry sink. Remove an item of clothing and tango down the avenue.

Call your high-school crush. Remind him that you are a Pisces and he is a Taurus. Your compatibility rate is 95 percent. Refusing to be together is thus a violation of light, matter, and the foundations of the universe. Remind him that love is an exact science. Hang up. Forget the conversation and

On your first date, discuss how you would kill yourself. Remind him that you are not suicidal.

Just morbid. Take note of how his freckles merge together when he talks, how he uses words like “hubris” and “laconic”. Pay for his dinner and make out with him in the car. Do NOT (under ANY circumstances) fall gracefully in love. Plummet.

Nosedive. Bellyflop in love.

sleep in the bathtub. Repeat methodology — until your parents change the internet password and send you to group therapy.

Take advantage of the free snacks. Pocket some crackers and cheese for the car ride home. Join the Circle of Trust and repeat the following statements: Your name is Jacob Henry and you are nineteen years old. Your front teeth are crooked.

There are three hairs on your big toe. Every boy you’ve kissed has manic depression. You are scared of cults and shopping centres because you are poor and easily persuaded. You like Raymond Carver and studying necromancy. Describe the last time you were drunk. Mention the hydrangeas and the crying in the laundry sink. Exclude: the weed, the phone-calls and your insistence that love is an

On the second date, introduce him to your parents.

On the third, tell him you’re in love. Notice how the veins in his head begin to swell. He will tell you you’re a nice guy, but a little intense. Remind him that he is a Scorpio, so it would never work out anyway. Break up. And then break into his house. Cut his band t-shirts into crop tops and leave the windows open. Walk home. Wake up at 1pm. Eat four nectarines and shower for 28 minutes. Delete last night’s internet history and dissociate for 51 seconds. Call your ex-boyfriend.

Not to talk. Just to fill the silence.

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– On Dit –

Artist Feature

Felicity Jane As clichéd as it sounds, art has always been a passion of mine.

While growing up, I not only appreciated the process of refining my skills and experimenting with new techniques, but I also loved the idea that you could lose yourself in your artwork, leave everyone and everything else behind and become fully immersed in your creation. I loved that I could express my ideas and desires so freely and so easily, especially when I felt like I couldn’t display those things adequately in other areas of my life.

I could draw people looking the way I wanted to look, doing the things I had wanted to do, giving me the opportunity to follow those curiosities whether they were realistic or not. That’s another thing that I appreciated, there were no rules or expectations when creating artwork, it didn’t have to be sensible or literal, it could be nothing and everything all at once.

I remember as a child I had this idea that I would grow up to become this eccentric, carefree, flamboyant woman, living in a loft with mismatched furniture, half-finished projects and greenery scattered around, flooded with natural light and decorated with images and literature that inspired me. A woman that follows her passions and curiosities, a woman that tries and fails, a woman that is free.

As I grew older and I became more aware of the world around me, my passions and values evolved, but my artwork continued to be the vessel in which I could express myself. I became inspired by the individuals who fought back against discrimination and injustice, the individuals who stand up for what they believe in and remain true to themselves regardless of society’s pressure to fit in. The weird and wonderful, the unapologetically free, and the unashamed.

– On Dit –

A large part of my artwork follows the theme of femininity and sexuality. I like to play with the negative and often stifling opinions present within society, while turning it around to empower the people and regain a positive outlook on such issues. A few topics close to my heart include LGBTQIA equality, slut shaming, gender equality, racial equality, sex work and the discrimination faced by all, and thus I try to keep these present when planning and creating new pieces.

For more artwork follow me on Instagram @felicityjanedesigns

My aim is to create art that in some way helps to spread messages of freedom, equality and unity to those who may often feel judged because of who they are and what they do, by embracing those differences and showcasing the strength and beauty that exists in everyone. As Dita Von Teese says, "only mediocrity is safe from ridicule", this is really powerful because nothing will ever appeal to everyone, however most people will respect the confidence and passion that exudes from being true to yourself.

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– On Dit –

Artist Feature

Jordan Vella The things that I make are generally influenced by events in my life, especially by those that relate to my gender identity, sexuality, anxiety, perception, and relationships with people and objects. I aim to create things that can express how I see the world, as well as express how people interact with me. Being non-binary and queer influence's a lot of my work, since these aspects of my identity are the most likely to directly affect something in my life, such as how strangers on the Internet perceive and talk to me. I tend to make a lot of written lists since it helps me think about a situation more analytically, and I feel as though this translates well with my influences as well. I tend to have a lot of ideas at once, and lists help me create a catalogue of all of them, which are then translated into a complete work. I’ve only just gotten back into being involved in art regularly after a three year dry spell, and the overall reason why I make art is that I have fun making it.

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– On Dit –

Artist Feature

Clare Macpherson I draw about relevant social issues or, simply things that are funny and interesting to me. I think the theme of feminism runs through my work; exploring women’s realities through my own experience. It is through these experiences that my art is made. Themes such as mental health, body image and other social issues like, equality and animal rights, are also things consistent through my practice.

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– On Dit –

S ME THINGS I KNOW AB UT MYSELF Words by Keelia McKone Artwork by Angus Smith @angvs

There are some things I know about myself. I know that I am in my first year of university, a fresh woman straight out of high school, ready to take on the world. I know that for the first time ever, I am actually studying subjects I’m interested in, rather than just ones that I think will get me the highest ATAR. I know that I procrastinate a lot and spend an inordinate amount of time bingewatching Netflix and Stan when I have a zillion

Last year I sometimes found myself staring at the back of the girl who sat in front of me in English.

And noticing her more than others just around the school. I had nothing to do with her – we only had that one class together, we weren’t friends, we didn’t hang out in the same part of the campus at lunch or anything – but I couldn’t help noticing my enhanced awareness of her, even when she wasn’t close to me. Even today, I don’t know whether I

other things to do. I know that I am privileged, that I have a family who loves and supports me, no matter what my choices are.

had a crush on this girl or not; I just know that I wouldn’t have minded her talking to me once in a while.

Something I don’t know about myself is my sexuality.

Changing my Tinder preferences to include girls might have been one of the best ideas I’ve had.

At first, I told myself it was a joke, just to see what it’s like. But then I started having conversations with the girls I matched with – and I was blown away. During the few months I’ve been on Tinder, I’d gotten used to the guys who immediately ask those intensely personal, sexual questions without any conversational foreplay, and the guys who make the effort to actually chat for twenty minutes before they ask you to "cum over". Even the guys

My whole life I’ve been into guys, but lately I’ve started noticing the way that I notice other girls.

The first experience I remember actually noticing girls was at my friend’s thirteenth birthday party in Year 7. It was at the pool. We were all wearing bikinis. And some of the girls could fill out those bikinis. At the time, I just thought that I had never seen someone my age with curves, so it was a new thing to notice. But five years on, now I’m not so sure.

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– On Dit –

who do the classic, unanswerable "so what are you looking for on here?" I’ve managed to find some kind of answer. But the girls on Tinder, they are something else. I’ve had conversations about bands and the emo phase we (still) haven’t grown out of, museums, vine compilations, The Office memes, and where to buy the best cute ethical clothes from. Sure, some of these conversations I’ve had with the dudes on Tinder (who doesn’t love vines and memes??), but it’s never been quite the same. Maybe it’s because I’m not trying so hard to put out this image of "fun and flirty" when really, I’m just awkward and mostly shy. Maybe the people I’m talking to care more about actual conversation and connections rather than where the next quick root is coming from. I don’t know.

But something must have gone right for me.

Five days later, and I’ve got a date tonight. I don’t know how it’s going to go, whether or not I’m gonna find out some things about myself tonight, or if it’ll just be like hanging out with one of my friends, but just one that I haven’t known as long.

So last weekend, a group of friends and I went out clubbing (as eighteen-year-olds are wont to do), and there was someone there who, again, I noticed. Not because she was anything particularly amazing or noticeable – she was with another friend of mine who happened to be at the same place we were and was sitting at the same collection of disgusting club couches we were. My friends and I had a good night; we danced, we drank, we caught the last tram home and went to

So, she’s picking me up in an hour. If this works out, I guess it’ll be one of those Tinder love that never seem to happen in real life. But if not, I’m not worried. At least I put myself out there and took a risk. And I’m grateful I did.

work the next day. Nothing special came of it. It was a perfectly adequate night.

A few days later, I was absently swiping through Tinder while putting off writing a paper that I had left way too close to the due date. And there she was. The girl from the club, with the good outfit and nice highlight, smiling up at me from my screen. So I swiped right, thinking that at least I had a conversation starter if we matched. And we did.

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I still haven’t confirmed anything with myself. The friends I’ve told about my date are super excited and dropped the *acts surprised* messages.

They’re not pressing me to put a label on my feelings, which is great because I haven’t worked it out yet. But it’s good to know that the people I care most about are supportive. Although I’ve told my friends, I’ve left my parents to the aftermath of the date. I know they’ll a big deal of it, and I think I would like to be sure of myself before I bring up that conversation.

That’s something I know about myself.

– On Dit –

REDS AND RAINBOWS: COMMUNISM’S COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP WITH HOMOSEXUALITY Words by Ethan Penglase

Communism’s historical criminalisation of homosexuality has allowed right-wing pundits to argue that there is an inherent connection between socialism and homosexual oppression. This is a disingenuous attempt to deter the movement for LGBT rights from realising the necessity of achieving socialism to abolish homophobia and transphobia.

LET US PRAISE THE REVOLUTION

THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA

With the conquering of state power by the Bolsheviks following the Russian Revolution, the workers of Russia, and later the Soviet Union, set to constructing a socialist society. This society was to be like none other before it; there would be no

After the Revolution, the Tsarist criminal code was abolished in its entirety, and thus so were the anti-homosexuality laws. In 1922, when the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic codified its own laws, no anti-gay laws were written. At this time,

exploiter class, only equality. And for most of Soviet history, this incredible goal was accomplished. While disparity of incomes was always a reality in the Soviet Union, no exploiter class (such as capitalists or aristocrats) can be said to have ever been in power and the working class remained in full control of the state.

two diverging views developed within the Soviet intelligentsia on the question of homosexuality.

Many took the view that homosexuality in men was a problem of social life (bourgeois degeneracy) and could lead to weakness within the ranks of the military. Some were more supportive. Magnus Hirschfield’s Homosexual Emancipation Movement was given positive coverage in the 1930 Great Soviet Encyclopedia which held that “criminalising homosexual men was an illustration of the cruel and irrational acts of bourgeois jurists”.

With workers at the helm, the Soviet government went to extraordinary lengths to promote equality between men and women and among the various nationalities that resided within the Union. But another, less empowering, destiny was in store for the gay men living under Soviet communism.

However, despite the genuine respect with which the works of Hirschfield were taken up by the Expert Medical Council of the Commissariat of Health, the Soviet government nonetheless re-criminalised homosexuality in 1934, falling in lockstep with the capitalist West.

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– On Dit –

“CAN A HOMOSEXUAL BE A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY?” Harry Whyte was a Scottish communist who lived in Moscow where he began relations with a male Russian national. One day, his partner was arrested for “sexual immorality” during a public clampdown on homosexuals. The arrest prompted Whyte, an editor at the Moscow Daily News, to pen a lengthy letter to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, detailing a Marxist defence of homosexuality.

In it, he argues that homosexuality is not counterpoised to Marxism-Leninism (the guiding ideology of the Communist Party) but rather conducive to it. He claims that the oppression faced by homosexuals is analogous to the oppression faced by women and ethnic minorities under capitalism and imperialism.

To conclude from this that Socialism requires the egalitarianism, equalisation, and levelling of the needs of society’s members, the levelling of their tastes and personal lives, that according to Marxism everyone should wear identical clothes and eat the same quantity of one and the same dishes, is tantamount to uttering banalities and slandering Marxism.”

Whyte likens Stalin’s own reasoning to his argument that because it is anti-Marxist to expect everyone to have the same needs and tastes, it is also anti-Marxist to expect everyone to conform to a heterosexual lifestyle. As homosexuality is a fact of nature and not a threat to the workers’ state, the anti-homosexuality laws were contrary to the principles of Marxism-Leninism and therefore unjustifiable. Stalin never responded.

Contending that homophobia is a product of capitalism’s need to create a “reserve army of labour” and thus punish proclivities that threaten birth rates, Whyte argues that homophobia will only be overcome where “the liquidation of unemployment and the constant growth of the material well-being of workers” is achieved in order to foster conditions of sexual freedom.

WHAT HAPPENED?

What Stalin may have found most convincing in the letter was Whyte’s inclusion of Stalin’s own quotes.

Whyte reproduces a part of Stalin’s report to the Seventeenth Party Congress: What Stalin may have found most convincing in the letter was Whyte’s inclusion of Stalin’s own quotes. Whyte reproduces a part of Stalin’s report to the Seventeenth Party Congress:

ravaged the young workers’ state. After overcoming civil war and imperialist intervention, the Soviets temporarily reintroduced some capitalist relations within the planned economy to stimulate the economy and attract foreign capital. This was known as the New Economic Policy (NEP). One downside of this temporary retreat from socialism was the emboldening of male managers and skilled male workers who tried to block women from acquiring skillsets they deemed too “masculine” for women.

This re-flourishing of toxic masculinity would not bode well for gay men.

“[A]ny Leninist knows, if he is a genuine Leninist, that levelling in the realm of needs and personal daily life is a reactionary absurdity worthy of some primitive sect of ascetics, not of a socialist state organized in the Marxist manner, for one cannot require that all people should have identical needs and tastes, that all people live their daily lives according to a single model. […]

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Why, then, did the Soviet Union continue to punish homosexuality throughout its existence if to do so was contrary to the principles of the Party’s guiding ideology? To answer this question, we must understand the context in which this regressive move occurred. In the early 1920s, military and economic warfare by global capital and famine

With the end of the NEP, the state embarked upon the great task of building an industrial base at breakneck speed to improve its military and lay the basis for a rise in living standards. The need to do this intensified in the 1930s once it became

apparent that German imperialism, now under the auspices of Hitler, was again preparing to rear its ugly head – the world’s sole workers’ state was sure to be found within German capital’s crosshairs. To meet these demands, women entered industry en masse and birth rates began to drop. While the Soviet Union did industrialise – doing what took capitalist countries 100 years to do in only ten – and eventually repelled capital’s Nazi hordes sent to destroy socialism, the “masculine professions” movement had crippled any genuine investigation into the phenomena of homosexuality. The cold utilitarianism of Party bureaucrats dashed any hope of gay Soviet citizens achieving emancipation from the bondage of ignorance.

The re-criminalisation of homosexuality in the Soviet Union was the product of various factors: the severe military and economic pressure caused by capitalist encirclement, the fascist menace to the West, and the prejudices and limitations of the science of the times. But, above all, it was the result of the theoretical errors made and deviations from Marxist and Leninist principles, in this respect.

LEARNING FROM THE PAST The communist movement would do well to learn from the errors of the Soviet Union – in more respects than one. To the communist movement’s credit, none of the five remaining socialist states criminalise homosexuality. Indeed, Cuba, which once sent gay men to labour camps now leads the world on lesbian, gay and transgender rights.

The primary issues facing LGBT people around the world – disproportionate levels of homelessness and unemployment wrought from discrimination – have been abolished in Cuba. Not to mention that sex reassignment surgery is provided free by the state. But we still have far to go. Those who fight for LGBT rights today should also endeavour to make a fair analysis of communism’s relationship with homosexuality and should reject any attempts by conservative commentators to suggest homosexual

oppression is innate to communism. It was the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s deviation from Marxism-Leninism, in this respect, that led it into error, not Marxism-Leninism itself. It would be folly to believe that the “paper rights” like marriage promised by liberals and social democrats are a substitute for the material liberation socialism brings.

Employment, housing, healthcare, legal protections.

These are the rights needed to substantially combat homophobia and transphobia. It is high time that the LGBT rights movement accepted its place as an inherently communist movement. And time that the communist movement began to struggle for LGBT rights with the same vigour it struggles for women and ethnic minority rights. As Lenin once said, communism must seek to abolish any and every oppression.

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Words by Dylan Rowen

Sexuality and Same-Sex In Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray Biting wit, flamboyancy and an outrageous fashion sense is what we most associate with the almost mythological figure of Oscar Wilde. His presence on the literary scene in the late-Victorian era (a period known as the fin de siècle) queered the establishment and eventually managed to refashion a modern gay identity. Oscar Wilde’s overtly homosexual novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) is his most well-known work, a brilliant and extremely gay novel. It unabashedly negotiates an identity characterised by a yearning to express same-sex love and desire in a society that could not contain that. Oscar Wilde, however, writes within and around these discourses, and in turn weaves a narrative that is extremely selfaware of its own essence and place in literary

artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion”. The portrait itself is at first a focalisation of his forbidden desire for Dorian. It is a forbidden love which is interwoven into the canvas itself. Hallward’s refusal to exhibit his painting indicates an intense personal self-awareness of “the public’s new dexterity in symptomatic reading and the artist’s evasive strategy of concealing himself, in particular his sexual behaviour or desire, from the curious ‘public gaze’”. Given the creation and maintenance of the homosexual and heterosexual binary in 1870, Wilde’s novel negotiates a sexuality that was once termed a “temporary aberration” but is now a “species”. Wilde’s characters are a “species” trying to locate a solid identity.

history and society.

The navigation of this desire is enacted through a performativity that is coded and modified to be read in a specific, queer way. Wilde tends to celebrate his “deviant” sexuality through the aesthetics of the body. Sexuality is constructed in this era through bodily desire and can only be enacted upon through aestheticising and transgressing space through the use of allusion in Wilde’s texts. Wilde utilises the “imperfect medium” of the novel form to capture a samesex desire and articulate it even though “art has no influence upon action” (Wilde 208). In the novel, Hallward states of the portrait of Dorian that “I really can’t exhibit it. I have put too much of myself into it”. This is because “every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the 44

Queer individuals in this period read in between the lines of Gothic novels and decadent poetry to find coded references to their own same-sex desire. As it is anachronistic to map and label homosexual desire in this period as same-sex desire as the modern gay identity was not yet “invented”. Same-sex desire is explored via the presence of male homosocial desire which is unfortunately focalised to consolidate and control the bodies of women. There is a “calculus of power that was structured by the relation of rivalry between the two active members of an erotic triangle”. In this case, this is articulated through Dorian Gray’s perceived love of Sibyl Vane and the aestheticisation of her body rather than a tangible heterodox love for it. She functions for Dorian only as an intertextual body as her identity

– On Dit – is structured through Dorian’s perceptions of her soul via characters in literary history. Before seeing

of himself … we are punished for our refusals.

Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods

her act in a play for instance, Dorian states that “to-night she is Imogen … and to-morrow night she will be Juliet”. Harry asks if she is ever Sibyl Vane, to which Dorian exclaims “never”. Dorian’s only “heterosexual” pleasure he enacts with Sibyl is through her status as a performer. Her body is always on display as a cultural and artificial symbol, she is never active in her agency. Dorian elevates Sibyl even further when she is dressed as a boy. The pleasure he derives from this indicates a same-sex desire that is subdued, and only allowed to exist in a space where performativity is practiced.

in our mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification”. Lord Henry’s philosophy encourages a hedonistic lifestyle that places pleasure, in this case coded same-sex pleasure, as a mode for the self to realise one’s sexual nature. However, the consequences of the above speech elicits in Dorian an awakening which triggers the series of events which lead to his downfall — spoilers.

Marriage as a heterosexual, patriarchal institution is critiqued by Wilde through an apparent aversion to the institution itself. He states that he is not a “champion of marriage. The real drawback to marriage is that it makes one unselfish” and that “men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious: both are disappointed”.

Wilde states that “all influence is immoral – immoral from the scientific point of view … people are afraid of themselves, nowadays”.

Dorian’s “true nature of the sense has never been understood, and that they had remained savage and animal merely because the world had sought to starve them into submission”.

The family functions as a scientific site of sexuality and its organisation throughout lateVictorian Britain. According to Foucault, in the nineteenth century, the “family was the crystal in the deployment of sexuality: it seemed to be the source of sexuality which it actually reflected and diffracted”. Given the absence of marriage and familial relations within homoerotic circles, non-heterosexual sexualities focused on the celebration and “affirmation of the body”. Wilde’s very “soul [is] hungry for rebellion” against a heteronormative, constrictive society. This aspect of bodily “sin” is found throughout Wilde’s text and it acts as a boundary which punishes the active participant who involves himself in same-sex acts against the grain of society. Lord Henry worships the Hellenic ideal of unadulterated beauty, and states that “the bravest man among us is afraid 45

Wilde states that “sin is a thing which writes itself across a man’s face. It cannot be concealed”, as Dorian’s sin corrupts young men, his sexuality becomes a motive for individual corruption against societal norms. The queer individual at this time in literary history is characterised through an articulation of “effeminacy, connoisseurship, high religion, and an interest in Catholic Europe”. These stereotypical traits are exhibited by Wilde as his characters navigate a desire that even manages to transgress religious views on the subject.

Subversive identity is recognised by the queer characters in the novel through a lens of “perceptual clarification” which results in a recognition of self as “other”. The very world itself is “changed because [Dorian is] made of ivory and gold. The curves of [his] lips rewrite history”.

Even during Wilde’s trial, he aestheticises samesex desire by stating that it “is that deep spiritual affection that is as pure as it is perfect. It dictates and pervades great works of art, like those of Shakespeare and Michelangelo, and those two letters of mine, such as they are”. Same-sex desire and beauty elicits in Oscar Wilde a desire that is marked by the coming of a new era and a new queer identity forged in the spirit of the (gay) self.

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A QUEER HISTORY OF ISLAMIC ART Words by Idris Martin Artwork by Joseph Soustiel

Last year, two miniature paintings by 18th century Ottoman artist Abdullah Bukhari were quietly sold as part of an exhibition by legendary Londonbased auction house Sotheby’s. Faded slightly from age, bright colours draw your attention to this iconography that could fit onto the page this article has been printed on. The nature of the images themselves is striking. In the first, a man embraces his lover tightly. They are clothed, but there is no modesty to be found here. The lover’s erect penis is prominent and clear. In the second, another man rests upon a red cushion as his lover has mounted

throughout the 18th and 19th centuries had a far more fluid and liberal understanding compared to their contemporaries, and erotic literature was popular and widely shared.

and penetrated him. Fitting subject matter for an exhibition entitled Erotic: Passion & Desire, these paintings They sold for over AUD$50,000.

profit today – did the almost fetishist fascination ever really dissipate? It would be irresponsible to neglect to mention pederasty and its relationship to homosexuality in the Ottoman Empire, and in the wider pre-modern Arab and Persian world.

This month, they plan to auction a 200 year-old Ottoman erotica manuscript. It’s estimated selling price is AUD$500,000. It wouldn’t be unfair to think about the irony of how many in the Muslim world would rather have seen the paintings burnt instead right now. That isn’t to say that the Western world has a greater appreciation for artistic freedom or values, especially considering the hoarding and trading of cultural artefacts from former colonies.

However, the considerable erasure of queer history in the Muslim world is irrefutable. While Europe was largely seething in deeply conservative views regarding sexuality, their audiences being largely limited by religious forces, the Ottoman’s 46

This fuelled European fascination in Orientalism and spurred stories of Orientalist eroticism and the perversely decadent ways of the Ottoman people.

Victorian audiences were scandalised but voraciously consumed exaggerated tales of Ottoman harems and sexual promiscuity. Perhaps we can begin to see why Sotheby’s is able to make such a tidy

Like many pre-modern civilisations, love between two males was widely associated with relations between men and young men or boys. Youthful beauty is a common dimension to the conception of same-sex attraction and love in historical Islamic art.

Modern standards rightly hold that paedophilic love is grossly wrong and morally reprehensible, however, erotic art through all civilisations have explored beauty and youth as entwined concepts.

Indeed, the history of expressions of same-sex love and admiration of youthful male beauty by other males goes much further than Ottoman erotica.

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Islamic mystic poetry regularly dealt with male-to-male love and, as Arab scholar Thomas Bauer describes, “there is no other premodern literature in which homoerotic texts are as numerous and as central as they are in classical Arabic – Persian being the only serious rival.”

Where British Oriental scholars sought to differentiate deeply spiritual contemplations and practices from others they repudiated, Sufism was born, however, the inwardly focused spiritual exploration of faith and devotion or Islamic mysticism has a history of esoteric spiritualism.

From Persian literature, one of the English-speaking world’s favourite poet stands out for his use and exploration of male beauty in his writing: Rumi.

In Islamic mystical poetry, we see the spiritual love and devotion to the Beloved regularly explored through the lens of homoerotic love.

And so he said to me, “O old love of mine,

The patriarchal dominance of writings from

don’t ever get out from under my arm.”

And I said, “Yes,” and I stayed there.

this period does not discount the existence or comparative prevalence of woman-to-woman love.

14th century poet Hafiz, who according to legend had committed the entirety of Rumi’s works to memory, accounts for this love:

The homoeroticism weaved into Rumi’s verses is undeniable. Rumi explores his love for Allah, his Beloved, through the expression of love between male lovers. What the Western world calls Sufism; the practice of seeking divine love through direct contact with God, Muslims have traditionally understood as tawassuf. It is in Sufi poetry we find so much homoerotic imagery.

Where British Oriental scholars sought to differentiate deeply spiritual contemplations and practices from others they repudiated, Sufism was born, however, the inwardly focused spiritual exploration of faith and devotion or Islamic mysticism has a history of esoteric spiritualism.

And men and men who are Lovers, And women and women Who give each other Light, It Happens All The Time, Hafiz.

Of course, as the Muslim world is not a homogenous beast, regional and culturally specific practices largely govern how queer identity has been represented and expressed through art or literature.

Nonetheless, what we can see is an exceptional 47

– On Dit – openness regarding sexuality within the historical Muslim world that has not persisted through to the mainstream Muslim world today for any number of reasons, not the least of which is the importation of queer criminalisation and institutional queerphobia by colonial powers, particularly the British Empire.

Despite this, not all Muslims have forgotten our forebears within the narrative of Islamic art history, and modern queer Muslims continue to explore sexual identity and faith through art. At the beginning of this year, SOMArts Cultural Centre in San Francisco ran an exhibition entitled The Third Muslims: Queer and Trans Muslim Narratives of Resistance and Resilience.

Featuring the work of 14 queer, transgender and non-binary artists from across the Muslim world, the exploration of queer Islamic identity found multiple mediums. What is clear from their work is that queer Muslim art has fundamentally changed in its nature.

expressed outside of resistance narratives. This is where I ask you to take a small amount of time to support queer Muslim artists – look up their work, send them some internet traffic at least.

The deeper questions beyond material ways to challenge and deconstruct heteronormative and queerphobic attitudes and cultural norms within the Muslim world can be found in the work of queer Muslim artists.

As contemporary queer Muslim artists celebrate the work of their forebears and challenge the Muslim world to recognise space and rights of queer Muslims, there is tension in the position of so many in the Muslim world that do reject queer Muslims.

It is difficult to reconcile the oppressive values that propel queer Muslim artists to produce works of resistance with the historical reality of queer themes in Islamic art.

We’ve seen historical queer artistic voices were devoted to the expressing and exploring love for Allah, queer Muslims must now turn our voices to resistance. That is not to say that queer identity within the Muslim world has not always been a site of resistance. Rather, we can see a wall between Islamic faith and queer identity that contemporary art must attempt to deconstruct today, where historically queer Islamic love and identity were

The question of how parts of the world, with such a strong legacy of exploring and being open to sexual and gender identity in their history, are now sites of some of the most horrific abuses undoubtedly is crucial to future progress. Perhaps the eventual owner of the 209-page Ottoman erotica manuscript can help shed some light and share their auction winnings with the world.

freely explored and

At the very least, I’d bank on a few hot tips for the bedroom, so it’s a win no matter what.

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SEXUALITY THEN SEX Words by M.D. Artwork by Nozhat Hassan

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SEX????

WHERE THE GIRLS@?

I’m not going to stand on a podium and say you must have sex, or that you have to do it in a certain way. I’m also hoping this doesn’t come across as desperate or lonely, because I’m not.

I’m happy about life, where I’m at. It’s just that I grew up thinking about relationships in a very conventional and linear way. I thought you flirted which then proceeded to having a boyfriend, a kiss, sex, marriage and babies. It was the apple pie, white picket fence life. Very quaint and wholesome. In retrospect, this thinking was strongly influenced by the school chant,

Trying to find a soul mate, nether-mind a girlfriend or date is a tough gig, especially when you don’t know if the other person is gay in any shape or way. When I find myself crushing on someone, I often end up scrutinising them for any clues about their sexuality and then despise myself for buying into stereotypes because we don’t have to fit one, and that’s so shallow and problematic to think every lesbian must wear flannel and have short hair. So here are a few of places where you may be lucky.

- Tinder and HER (a lesbian version of Tinder) are

‘Benny and Ginny sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.’

But with the not so sudden, yet still surprising realisation that I was gay, I am now re-visiting a lot of heterosexual norms and while I don’t think experiencing a sexuality epiphany is required to challenge societal conventions, it certainly opened my eyes. I soon realised that I am not magically bestowed with wisdom about relationships or sex just because I figured out one piece of the puzzle.

So the following is what I have had to learn and still have to learn because realising your sexuality is just one step.

-

online dating places that I’ve used. They both employ the ‘Swipe’ or ‘Like’ protocol and while it’s a lot of seen zoning, ghosting and boring conversation, I have enjoyed some very cute dates.

Mary’s Poppin - being one of the two gay bars in Adelaide, and a very good one at that, makes Mary’s an above average place to find other LGBTIQA people. Going there for the first time was truly a movie cliché. The one where a country girl is exposed to the city life and all the wonderful opportunities it presents and she feels at home and happy. The carpet + piano + chandelier decorated interior also serves good drinks and drag queen performances

- Gay bars aren’t the only bars to find gay people either, even up in QLD I found some cute girls but be aware, a lot more people stare when you make out.

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Umm… how do I even?

The other day I was on Tinder and saw the most envy worthy bio I’ve ever seen, it read; “what up my name's (the Tinder use name) i'm 19 and i never fuckin learned how to flirt [sic]" After laughing for 234.034 years I remained very impressed by it because 1. it’s a throw back to vines and 2. it’s very true. I’m 20 years old and never learnt how to flirt. Attending a rural catholic high school never exposed me to someone that I genuinely wanted to flirt with so rather than learn one-liners and how to grin cheekily, I just watched my friends play the game while thinking of them as ridiculous, silly girls (internalised misogyny was a big thing back home). Besides, I was shy and awkward (not in a cute Zooey Deschanel way) and never wanted to flirt or date the boys which were served as the only viable option.

I think practice makes perfect, and not being able to practice freely meant here I am, 20 years old and terrified of hipster bars where I may have to grin cheekily. My only advice is to be nice, try to make the other person comfortable, have one good anecdote to whip out and keep up with some current affairs. Maybe wink?

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WHAT GOES WHERE IN THE WHICH? Realising you’re gay can really open your eyes to a new world of good sex. After enthusiastic research I can now say that smashing barbies together with their legs open is not the only way lesbians have sex and making a ring with your finger and inserting anything in it, isn’t the only way to have sex either. If you think sex is just P + V then I pity you friend, because sex is so much more penetration with a penis.

My sex education in 9th grade was too long ago and woefully restricted to the bare minimum facts of heterosexual sex so I encourage you all to look it up in your own time and fancy.

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SLIP, SLOP, SLAP 4 SEX

THE BOOTY DON’T LIE

Being safe and taking care of yourself doesn’t just apply to protection against UV rays. STI’s couldn’t care less about gender or sexuality so we gotta stay safe but one of my first big question was how to stay safe without a penis in a condom? Turns out there are a few things to keep track of:

Sometimes, I think about the insult that is aimed at all of us, “how do you know you’re gay if you haven’t had sex yet?” and folks, it’s a pretty brutal one. It makes me feel like I’m imposing on a community that I don’t belong in, but I don’t need sexual evidence to legitimatise myself to anyone.

Janelle Monae sang “the booty don’t lie” referring to then the beats are so good, dancing is involuntary and it’s kind of similar, in that feeling this way is so strong, you can’t help but feel it. Regardless of your experiences or lack thereof.

- Dental dams – a barrier method that can help prevent the transmission of STIs, they’re like a latex sheet for tongues and fingers. Also, you can DIY one with condom Use lube bby Clean your sex toys

- Wash your hands (don’t be nasty) - Communicate about what you want or don’t want, like/dislike

- Go to the gyno - Speak to health professionals if you’re still anxious,

Just to reiterate, I’m not saying you have to have sex or not have sex. Do whatever whenever you want. I just hope you’re safe and have fun. That’s it. I want to us all to be prepared for when the day cums. … pun fully intended.

nervous, don’t know what’s up So slip on a dental dam, slop on lingerie and slap on some lube and have fun in the sun!

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Liminal A photo series by Olivia De Zilva

Adelaide is rich, Adelaide is raw, Adelaide is queer. We are the in-between, the colour dancing within the shadows of mundanity.

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Words by Christen Tormay

BREATHE

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Some of the time, wish I could just breathe Most of the time, wish I could find the space I need to dig the splinters out from inside me but the screaming tone that plays in my head in the sound of your voice won’t ever let me rest So I sit and I sit and I look on around me at the people I’d rather be. If just for, one night.

But when the stagnation comes and I can’t bear to stare, just inhale more fumes as my hands start to shake, I think "not again, not again, not again" I’m here all alone, again.

Just wanna dance on that floor like how I’ve seen you before. Let me move as I feel but I can’t help but feel those thousand phantom eyes are staring at me, they make sure I’ll never be free.

And I know yeah I know that its all in my head. Like shards of broken glass between the sheets of my bed. I can sleep here for good and maybe just dream of who I am and not who I see, cause bleedin’ and dreamin’ just feel so damn familiar and I’m here, all alone, again.

I wish I could, just breathe.

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Greek Poetry Translations Translated by Kyriaco Nikias

The seventh poem in ‘The Boyish Muse’ (Μοῦσα Παιδική) Straton of Sardis (2nd century AD) I saw a boy weaving together flowers with fruit, just now as I passed by the place where they make garlands: but I did not pass by unwounded: standing next to him, I asked softly, ‘For how much would you sell me your garland?’

He became redder than his rosebuds. He stooped, and said, ‘Go away! in case my father sees you.’

As a cover, I bought some garlands, and when I got home I crowned the gods with them, praying for him.

When they’re aroused (Ὅταν Διεγείρονται) Constantine Cavafy (1916) Poet, try to save them, however few you can seize: those visions of your love.

Put them, half-hidden, in your phrases.

Poet, try to keep them, when you’re aroused, in your mind, at night, or in the midday glow.

Their beginning (Ἡ Ἀρχή των) Constantine Cavafy (1921) The fulfilment of their unlawful pleasure had come. They got up from the mattress, and, hurriedly, they dress without talking.

They sneak from the house separately: and as they step somewhat uneasily along the street, it looks like they suspect that something on them gives away the type of bed they just lay in.

But how the craftsman’s life has profited!

Tomorrow, the day after, or years later, they’ll be writing the bold lines that here had their beginning.

IVES E ARCH H T M O ) FR 5.9 (2017 ISSUE 8

K BY ARTWOR YEN GU JENNY N

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