Peacock Magazine Winter 2018

WINTER 2018 | VOLUME 8.1

A MAGAZINE ON THE CULTURE AND ASPIRATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL YOUTH EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Katerina McGrath

DEPUTY EDITOR Leona Caanen

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Sophia Foerster

PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTOR Alizée Chaudey

MARKETING

Jordan Benda Alizée Chaudey

STAFF WRITERS

Alizée Chaudey Amanuel Neguede Eugenie Stall Hana Loggins Jackson Vann Jane Addington-May Joachim Fernandez Katherin Lopez Cifuentes Kathleen Sharp Leona Caanen Marielle “Goose” Dalvet Nitya Shrikant Salma El Sabban Sami-Claire Shadi Ayoubi Signi Livingstone-Peters

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Alizée Chaudey Amanuel Neguede Cody Mannick Eugenie Stall Joachim Fernandez Katerina McGrath Lauren Domagas Leona Caanen Ludivine Martinez Marissa Van Engelgem Mary Layman Nathalie Debroise Oluwaseun Ozolua-Osunbade Signi Livingstone-Peters

ILLUSTRATORS Halid Chrisinas Katerina McGrath Keishi Rupert Maria Perez Mayalen Protte Mina Borges Sophia Foerster

EDITORIaL ADVISOR Marc Feustel

This magazine is printed on recycled paper.

Table of Contents 7 Letter From the editor 8 800 kilometers to destination self young adults, solo travel and self-discovery.

10 Technologique The evolution of parisian techno music.

12 student spotlight: Mohammad Jabur from syria to paris, via the zaatari refugee camp.

16 amour de soi parisian student photographers explore the concept of self-love.

20 Why we help others DOes out altruism need to be pure?

22 Disconnected How social media tried to ruin my time abroad.

25 An Acquired taste why are students frequenting parisian sex clubs?

29 From collĂˆge to college why students move away from the french system.

32 The limits of #metoo can the movement truly go global?

37 young muslims speak up the impact of media stereotypes on islam.

41 thirteen days in the khumbu valley is tourism killing mount everest?

46 purgatory in paris two refugees’ tortuous search for asylum.

50 no such thing as a free drink the darker side of club promoting in paris.

54 taking sexual satisfaction into our own hands why are women still not orgasming?

58 What would you wear? students reveal what they wish they could wear at night.

63 coming out stories anonymous aup students open up about their experiences.

66 Diverse yet divided the reality of segregation in france.

72 not silicon valley three young business owners breaking the entrepreneurial mold.

74 beyond paris three of our favorite small french town destinations.

76 paris art highlights four must-see events and exhibitions.

78 non, je ne regrette rien first loves and their tragic demise.

80 AUP cartoons

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he word uncertainty keeps replaying in my mind as I sit here, magazine almost finished. Though the future is uncertain, uncertainty has characterized all turbulent periods of history. What is clear today is that we are dissatisfied. This is not unique to one gender, one age group or one country.

It is a global and profound phenomenon.

The gilet jaune protests in Paris shed light on just how polarized society has become. Escalations led to bonfires, violence and overall mass destruction on the protestors’ side, and rubber bullets, tear gas and water canons on the state side. In the end, no one was satisfied, because there was no solution. Either people blame the protestors for getting out of hand or they blame the state for silencing voices with unnecessary force. The divides in society are widening: between people and state, between different ethnic groups, and between different political parties.

A middle ground, necessary for change, seems out of our grasp.

Change is not impossible. What is impossible is change without genuine human connection. In order to navigate our modern world, connection is vital.

Not only does this mean tolerating views which may differ from our own but understanding our individual impact on our environment, understanding people’s connection to their religion and understanding what the role of government should be in people’s lives.

In this issue of the Peacock, Salma El Sabban exposes young Muslims’ reactions to the media’s portrayal of Islam. Shadi Ayoubi attempts to understand

the connection between asylum seekers and their potential asylum state. Signi Livingstone-Peters discusses the environmental repercussions of “authentic tourism” on Mount Everest. Nitya Shrikant brings light to the limitations of the #MeToo movement.

The Peacock also addresses how connections affect us on a personal level. Leona Caanen reveals how young people discover themselves through solo traveling. Sami-Claire discusses why female sexuality remains a mystery to society. Katherin Lopez Cifuentes uncovers the constraints of education systems and how they affect our wellbeing.

My mother always tells me to stop reading the news because it is “too depressing.” Not reading the news does not stop atrocities from occurring. Rather, it invokes empathy in those who are being oppressed and anger at the systems that allow for it. The Connections Issue hopes to remind readers that in order for things to change, we must be able to understand each other and empathize with one another, even those with values and cultures starkly different from our own. Without connection, there is no empathy.

Without connection, there is no discussion. Without connection, there is no change.

Katerina McGrath Editor in Chief

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800 kilometers to destination self young adults, solo travel and self-discovery.

WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED

BY LEONA CAANEN

W

aking up on May 16, 2018, I was surprised that had I managed to get any sleep at all. I usually can’t if I am excited for a big event the next day. Going on my first solo trip was definitely a big event. That morning I would be starting off on the Camino de Santiago, an 800-kilometer trek through Northern Spain. The pilgrimage used to be a religious one, leading to the shrine of St. James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Today, it is done both for religious purposes and personal discovery.

I hoped that my trek would give me insight to who I was and who I want to become.

According to a survey by the Adventure Travel Trade Association, solo travel among millennials has increased, with 80 percent of their research participants having moved from travelling in a group to solo. When hiking the Camino, there were plenty of young people that were taking the trip to figure out their life.

Beatrice Spencer, an AUP junior, claims that being young is the best time to figure these things out because “you have no commitments, except to yourself, and to who you are going to become…that is one of the biggest things about being 18.” For AUP freshman Stefan Levchenko, the realization about solo travel came during his trip to Brazil, a place far from his home in Odessa, Ukraine.

For him, solo travel allows you to “experience things better. You’re not distracted by anyone else, it is just you and the country. You can think more, analyze

more.”

There are numerous reasons to solo travel. For AUP sophomore Sarah Farr, who traveled to locations such as Indonesia, Italy and Ireland, an important aspect of the decision to solo travel was that, being responsible only for herself, she felt, “You can do whatever you want.” Solo travelers have complete freedom regarding many aspects of their journey.

Spencer went solo backpacking for seven weeks in Costa Rica, which led her to a new state of emotional well-being. Her trip made her realize that “it’s your own mental happiness that is most important.”

The urge to solo travel also comes from a desire to meet strangers who can become life-long friends. A lot of the realizations made on solo journeys can be heavily influenced by them.

Claire Ingham, a 38-year-old tall, dark-haired Australian woman with whom I formed an unexpected friendship described our connection: “We had an instant ease with each other, like we’d known each other for years, not days.” After day one I didn’t know if we would see each other again, so I chose to be myself unapologetically. Farr attested to the open-mindedness of people who travel the world. Plenty of people I met on the Camino were traveling alone to figure out the next stage of their lives and were open to the input of people they barely knew, Ingham and myself included. Spencer’s travels brought her many special connections due to the experiences shared during her travels.

“Along the camino, i overheard that the first 10 days are about the body, the second 10 for the mind, and the third for the emotions.”

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The Camino de Santiago route.

Both Spencer and Farr themselves acknowledge that while solo travel can seem glamorous, it also comes with difficulties. In her research on solo travel, Jennifer H. Laing found that when traveling alone “each individual must deal with the challenges and rigors of their own personal journey.” Along the Camino, I overhead that the first 10 days are about the body, the second 10 for the mind and the third for emotions. By day two, I had lost the skin on both my heels and had sore shoulders and bruised hipbones.

After about a week my body had physically adjusted, but my mind and emotions had started to kick into overdrive. This didn’t stop after the 10 days.

There is no correct way to prepare for the unknowns of solo traveling. For Farr, “It boils down a lot to mentality.”

If you are positive about the factors of your trip that confront you, they can become challenges that you can tackle head on. Farr described solo travel as the “highway to feeling comfortable” with your own presence.

Right before I got to my final destination, I stood on a hill overlooking the city of Santiago de Compostela. The energy of the people around me had shifted. We felt a mix of excitement and nervousness; we were about to arrive. Descending the hill and walking through the suburbs, I got goosebumps, yet the people of the city itself seemed unimpressed. They had already seen hundreds of pilgrims come by earlier that day.

After 34 days of hiking, I had made it. As we took off our packs and hugged one another, I felt slightly

disappointed. My mom had just hugged me, holding a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of champagne.

She understood the excitement. But for all the other people in the square that were not my friends or my mom, it didn’t seem to matter. How could such an experience be so insignificant to the rest of the world?

Farr also felt sad after her trip, saying that, “You get closer than ever before with people in a short amount of time, and then you leave sooner too.”

Farr’s travels left her refreshed, proud and grounded.

Like me, Levchenko felt both sad and happy about many concrete moments of his travels by the end of his trip.

While a part of me was excited to go home, a sense of incompleteness lingered. The feeling that my traveling was not done yet, nor was my trip of self-discovery. I understood after the Camino that there is no such thing as finding yourself. I had been creating myself. I realized I wanted to solo travel more. For Farr, solo travel is addictive, “much like getting a first tattoo. Once you’ve had a taste, you always want more.”

Now, five months later, I still have the taste of travel in my mouth. I’ve understood that it’s not going anywhere. For both Farr and I, solo travel made us feel confident and powerful.

Farr explains, “If I’m ever feeling weak I tell myself ‘well if you’ve done that before, you can do this for sure’,” pushing herself to confront life and its challenges head on. The question isn’t whether to solo travel again, but when and where to go, and what part of ourselves we create next.

“How could such an experience be so insignificant to the rest of the world?”

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ovember 20, 2018 at Concrete, a boat club in the 13th district of Paris, French DJ and producer Antigone was blasting techno to the ears of hundreds of French ravers during an all-night set from midnight to 10 a.m. It was one of the best Detroit-inspired sets mixed this year, captivating the crowd with dreamy ambient synths and punchy analog percussion.

Although it is an underground genre in essence, there is a reason why a lot of people listen to techno in Paris. Techno’s origins can be traced back to the early 1980s when some DJs from Detroit got their hands on Japanese drum machines and synthesizers, notably from Roland and Korg. They fiddled around on them, dialing in some repetitive patterns some say were inspired by the sounds of the Motor City’s automotive factories. Around that time, there was a radio show called The Electrifying Mojo through which artists such as Jeff Mills and Derrick May became known. They began throwing raves and eventually became known internationally.

Following their success, an artist named Kenny Dixon Jr., known as Moodymann, got an email from a German group called Kraftwerk saying that they wanted to book him. Having heard their music before, he thought it was a joke. An influential group, Kraftwerk’s music had been soundtracking illegal raves in East Berlin squats after the Berlin Wall’s collapse in 1989, blending distorted and snappy analog percussions with intense, repetitive bass lines. Soon enough, Detroiters and Germans alike started playing in later-legalized Berlin clubs such as Tresor. The scene comprised many LGBT community members

and represented the unification of East and West.

At the same time in France, the younger generation was listening to a lot of American music, from punk to rock and disco. Artists like Daft Punk and Laurent Garnier used these influences to shape and create the base of the French sound. As Garnier said in his Red Bull Music Academy 2015 interview, “America represented black music for me. [It] was the thing that was making me move.” Disco was still the big thing at the time, but after 1993, the Rex Club and Gibus changed direction and began focusing on electronic dance music, a milestone in France’s music scene. Illegal raves began happening in the outskirts of Paris in places like hangars, the Collège Arménien or the Fort de Champigny—a scene that became known as the Rave Age. While France developed a few major record labels at the time, these raves were often booking DJs and live acts from the UK. Collaborations like these led to Daft Punk releasing their debut album Homework on Virgin Records, a British label.

A few years later, many more artists like Miss Kittin, with more of a minimal techy style, Emmanuel Top, with aggressive Berlin-inspired patterns, and Mister Oizo, a movie director who makes his own caricatured resonant electro, began releasing their music and many more record labels emerged. Radio stations like Radio FG and Radio Nova also played a big role in promoting the genre. They would host any DJ who was booked at the time and garnered a large following from people already in the scene.

Throughout the early 2000s, more techno clubs either opened or began to book more electronic music, such as La Machine du Moulin Rouge, Glazart and

TECHNOL THE EVOLUTION OF PARISIAN Techno MUSIC.

BY SHADI AYOUBI PHOTOGRAPHY BY SOPHIA FOERSTER

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La Java. They are still the pillars of the scene today.

However, clubbers are much luckier now, because there is diversity in the choice of artists and the lineups are more coherent due to a decrease in booking costs. Places like Concrete or La Machine are booking festival headliners every weekend. According to the Resident Advisor website, there are roughly 30 techno DJs being booked every weekend in Paris and its outskirts.

Latency, Construct Re-form, Deeply Rooted and Concrete Music are labels revisiting the original Detroit techno with an original twist.

They bring quality music to the table and are reaching out to prominent producers who are increasingly willing to sign with them. The biggest French DJs from the past several years even get to play at least once a year in Berghain, the most prominent underground Techno club in Berlin. Their music ranges from aggressive house to minimal techno that draws you in like no other.

Nowadays, the electronic music market is much more dynamic. Even artists with a few thousand views on YouTube can be booked in certain underground venues, depending on the subgenre they are in. Venues like La Station – Gare des Mines, Garage and Nuits Fauves are creating more diversity in the French capital.

However, some believe the atmosphere in these clubs is turning sour, with people being loud and disrespectful, or simply childish. The atmosphere required for clubbers to have a good time is being disrupted, since most bouncers end up letting anyone in. Another issue is that the city of Paris does not allow clubs to play their music louder than 102 decibels, which is relatively low when compared to other big cities.

The techno scene in Paris is not as free and humble as before, when it truly was an underground genre. However, there are new waves of techno flourishing and a never-ending list of events.

Every DJ has an even more singular signature sound, which brings an endless list of new DJs to check out for techno aficionados and occasional frequenters of the scene alike.

“NOwadays, the electronic music market is much more dynamic. Even artists with a few thousand views on Youtube can be booked in certain underground venues.”

LOGIQUE 11

Mohammad Jabur

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Student spotlight From Syria to Paris, via the Zaatari refugee camp.

WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED

BY ALIZÉE CHAUDEY

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s a student fighting for his education and bettering other people’s lives, Mohammad Jabur is in the spotlight for the Peacock’s winter 2018 issue. A junior at the American University of Paris (AUP), Jabur is currently the vice-president of Baytna à Vous (Our Home for You), a student-led initiative at AUP with a focus on the Syrian refugee crisis in France, and the founder of Pangea Tongue, a club that focuses on creating an environment to celebrate multiple languages and cultures. Jabur may be well-integrated into AUP, but his journey to arrive here was anything but easy.

Originally from Daraa in southwestern Syria, Jabur was in his final year of a political science degree when the war started. He grew up in a nice house with a loving and educated family until one morning when they were suddenly forced to leave everything behind. When their house got bombed in 2013, his family left for Jordan. He decided to stay in Syria, hoping to finish his degree. Three weeks later, it had become unbearable for him to stay. His father came back for him, and together they started on the voyage.

Normally, it takes an hour to travel by car to Jordan from Daraa, but it took them 12 hours, walking from one city to another and eventually across the border.

The Zaatari refugee camp that Jabur arrived at that night contained around 25,000 people, housed in a field of white tents in the middle of the desert. The location of the camp led to extreme weather conditions during the summer and winter.

Today, Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp is a homeaway-from-home for around 80,000 people. This

number is still growing: since 2012, 5,000 children have been born inside the camp. During his three years there, Jabur got involved with the organizations present in the camp, working with the UN, UNICEF and the Mercy Corps. He helped in aiding “children and people that arrived at the camp after they had accidents during the war.” Working with these organizations, Jabur helped to provide children with games, sports, music, educational activities and art therapy. He also those with war injuries by assisting them in getting medicine, wheelchairs and medical care. Jabur’s motivation was simple: “I’m a vicarious person: I feel happy when I see others happy. My mission is to help my people because I have the power to do so.”

In 2014, Jabur met the woman who changed his life, Gisel Kordstani. When she arrived at the camp, Jabur shared his story with her, explaining his wish to study and finish his education in order to build a better future for himself. He started taking English classes outside the camp and, in the fall of 2015, after a year of long-distance conversation, he arrived at the American University of Paris. Kevin Fore, the Dean of Student Development at AUP, met Jabur during his first year in Paris. “Mohammad was very much looking to be a part of the community early on, even after going through so much in his personal life and the language barriers,” Fore explained.

Once in France, Jabur started taking English classes at the British Council as well as at AUP. Through programs developed at AUP for learning English, Jabur quickly picked up the language. Fore related that “Mohammad is dedicated, loyal and isn’t

“I’m a vicarious person: I feel happy when i see others happy. my mission is to help my people because i have the power to do so.”

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Syrian children playing at the Zaatari refugee camp in Mafraq, Jordan. © Ehab Othman via Shutterstock

afraid to take on a challenge. I’ve watched his English flourish.”

Since he arrived in Paris, Jabur chose to keep working for others. In fall of 2015, he joined Baytna à Vous and later became vice-president. Bringing the experience and skills he learned in the Zaatari camp, Jabur helps provide Syrian children with art therapy, language classes and other activities contributing to their integration here in France and their overall development. Jabur explains his reasons for joining: “It is hard being away from home. Those kids have seen a lot since the beginning of the war, and now they’re in a completely different environment and so are their parents.

I wish to help Syrian refugees feel at home here, by creating a community where they know they’re not alone.”

In order to maximize their reach, Baytna à Vous organizes fundraisers each semester with other organizations including Souria Houria, an organization that works to support the Syrian people in their struggle for freedom, democracy and dignity, and the Collectif de Développement et Secours Syrien, an organization that collaborates with local organizations in order to allow the redeployment of aid in Syria and in countries where Syrians find refuge.

To Kevin Fore, Jabur has been a foundational member of Baytna à Vous, as “he’s constantly looking to bring solutions to the community and build bridges between people who are involved.” Fore also added that Jabur has attended more workshops with

the children than anyone else. Fore says, “I think we should be proud as a community to have him among us.”

In fall 2018, Jabur started a new club at AUP called Pangea Tongue, a club where students can discover others cultures, learn a new language or teach their own to others. For him, it is crucial to learn about other cultures and languages in order to understand the world and be more forgiving towards each other.

It is an opportunity to get experience and knowledge about different cultures and to take advantage of the fact that we are such a diverse community. Jabur believes that it is important to do anything that we can as individuals to try to understand each other’s perspectives and that finding ways to come together and work together across cultures is crucial to the world we live in today.

After losing everything to the atrocities of war, Jabur turned his life around by bettering the lives of others.

Today, he is an integral part of the AUP student body, constantly looking for solutions to build bridges between communities in the hope of a more understanding civilization. Jabur truly gives back to his community and wishes to continue doing so. He knows that his diploma will award him more opportunities in the future to help others. “What we can do, as a university,” says Jabur “is take that first step into helping others. It may be a small one, but it is a valuable one.”

“HE’S CONSTANTly LOOKING TO BRING SOLUTIONS TO THE COMMUNITY AND BUILD BRIDGES BETWEEN PEOPLE WHO ARE INVOLVED.”

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Photography by Ludivine Martinez

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Photography by Marissa Van Elgelgem

AMour de soi

student photographers explore the concept of self-love.

BY EUGENIE STALL The way that we connect with ourselves changes our perceptions on life and our relationships with others. These student photographers provide their own definition of selflove through the lens.

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Photography by Lauren Domagas

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Photography by Cody Mannick

Photography by Marissa Van Elgelgem

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Y P H L W E HE S W HER T O E? R U P BE ” DALVET TTE O T D EE PRO OSE

N “GO AYALEN M E L S L I E RU T MARI TION BY M L Y B A R RA

OU S E O D

T ILLUS

T

he problem of homelessness is highly visible in Paris, with many homeless people sleeping at metro stations, next to the big tourist attractions and in closed storefronts. You cannot determine what they’re going through or what their life is like, except that it must be very difficult for them.

Those who are refugees come here with no choice, often in life or death situations, and with little to no financial support.

There is a lot of confusion of what exactly is best for homeless people to receive. AUP senior Brice Godart says, “It depends. If a homeless person is drunk, I give them food. Otherwise, I give them money.” Godart describes a family ritual wherein, “each family member leaves a little bit of food to the side of their plates, packs it up when we are finished eating and we put it outside of our house with plastic forks and plates for homeless people.”

Giving them food guarantees a level of nourishment, as opposed to giving money. However, if they are gifted food, but they already have food and no place to stay in the dead of winter, then the extra food wouldn’t be as handy as a hostel or at least a warm coat they could’ve bought had they been given money.

“I don’t like to give money because of where I’m from. In Mexico, parents send their kids out to beg and get money from strangers which can be very dangerous for the children. If I see a homeless person I frequently see, around my house or school, I always buy them a sandwich at a grocery store. But here I

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never give them money,” says AUP senior Fernanda Sapiña. Sapiña justifies her empathetic act with a motto: “Be kind always because you never know why people are in that situation.”

Many of the homeless people I spoke to did not speak English or French, but we communicated with a mix of very basic French and improvised sign language. When asked whether food or money was more helpful for them, a Syrian couple on rue Cler responded saying that they take what they can get, and that anything helps even a little bit. Jimmy, a 22-year-old from Paris, often takes line 6 back and forth asking kindly for money, and says he is in this situation because he was forced to move out of his home due to familial issues. The number of people who give has diminished, and the homeless population in Paris are finding it more difficult to get through their daily lives.

When asked why they give money or food to homeless people, many people will highlight the importance of being kind to others and giving to those that are less fortunate. What about those who only give in order to feel good about themselves?

The reverse mindset of a good Samaritan, if you will, involves giving to those less fortunate, simply to fulfill one’s daily “my good deed is done” action, resulting in a realization of, “I am a good person.”

Those who feel that their generosity is based solely on altruistic values, or on the basis of empathy, participate also in a sort of injustice that could be, philosophically speaking, just as bad as those who are charitable for the sake of feeling good about themselves.

False generosity, a term coined by the Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire, is when individuals who are part of the oppressing group donate resources with the intentions of helping the oppressed group, but the resources actually don’t help the oppressed group at all. The concept of false generosity implies that to be truly generous, one should fight for reform in politics to obtain government aid for those who struggle living without a home.

Freire addresses the problem with false generosity in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, where he proposes a pedagogy with a new relationship between teacher, student and society. An unjust social order, where there is death, despair and poverty, breeds false generosities. Those who are the oppressors in an unjust social order, must continue to do injustice in order to keep those that are oppressed, oppressed. The oppressors then extend their “helping hands” to

those being oppressed and exploited in a social order, making them appear empathetic and generous. True generosity, for Freire, “consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity.

False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the ‘rejects of life,’ to extend their trembling hands.”

France and the EU in general have seen an increasing number of refugees that have, in the past few years, been coming to France and other European countries to seek asylum. Because of the prominence of the Syrian crisis in the news, people tend to be more giving to Syrian refugees. As a result, many refugees from other countries and other homeless people pretend to be Syrian in hopes of receiving more charity. Godart talks to homeless people in Arabic, “to make sure they are not lying.”

There is perhaps a lesson to be learned from the aid sector in terms of policy change. In 2016, Greece saw a huge influx of Syrian migrants as the crisis in Syria worsened, leading to many members of the EU and the UN having to scramble to provide aid.

Cash transfer programs became a huge hit in the aid sector, allowing those seeking asylum access to a sum of money to help them live their daily lives.

Although the cash transfer programs are quite new, they provide people with a feeling of control over their lives based on the idea that individuals know best what their own needs are.

These programs are an example of those who not only give money to help those in need, but also form socio-political actions in order to help these people develop efficient ways of participating in a society that they are on the edges of. When you see a homeless person on the street and decide to give them food or money, ask yourself which one would be most beneficial to them, what your intentions are in being charitable, and lastly, is there something more you can be doing to help these people.

“The concept of false generosity implies that to be truly generous, one should fight for reform in politics to obtain government aid for Those who struggle living without a home.”

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Disconnected how social media tried to ruin my time abroad.

BY HANA LOGGINS PHOTOGRAPHY BY LAUREN DOMAGAS

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was sitting at home one night, scrolling through Instagram as I ate my noodles and semiwatched a show on Netflix. I suddenly stopped on a photo of my friend, Hailey, laughing with a couple girls in front of the Eiffel Tower. She was studying abroad that semester and I had been living vicariously through her photos. It looked like she was going everywhere, too — Amsterdam one weekend and Berlin the next. It was agonizing to watch her live such a carefree existence far away while I was stuck in my hometown. Her life seemed perfect.

One thing that has become increasingly clear in recent years is the importance of social media in young adults’ lives. It has become a part of our daily routines, the place we go to validate our own experiences. But, when it comes to studying abroad, it feeds us many false expectations, leading to disappointment when we don’t immediately love it in our new host culture.

Social media makes it tremendously easy to show people exactly what you want them to see and nothing else. It allows you to post a photo of your outfit just before a bird takes a giant shit on your shoulder (but make sure to only post that shot on your fake Instagram account, you have a reputation to uphold on the public one). Social media also tends to make us think that studying abroad will immediately change us for the better, but growing mentally and emotionally doesn’t just happen overnight.

Paris is a big city. It’s a lot to take in at once.

Moving here, from our beloved hometowns, usually requires serious adjustments. A second-year student at AUP, Isala Gray, says “Living in Paris, you really have to love yourself, because you spend most of your time alone and it’s hard finding people to connect to.”

When I told my friends back home that I was going to study abroad in France, they added to my already high expectations. I naively believed that it was going to be easy, that as soon as I got to Paris

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“Living in paris, you really have to love yourself, because you spend most of your time alone and it’s hard finding people to connect to.”

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I would magically transform into the independent, classy woman I always wanted to be. The reality is, I have dealt with anxiety, panic attacks, OCD and odd phobias for the past seven years. The fact that I believed that I would transform into a new person as soon as I entered France is ridiculous.

What I only recently realized was that I was not at fault here. I was not that naive. This idea was sold to me. This dream of being independent and carefree and classy with little to no effort is sold to us by social media as we scroll past our friends’ photos and think to ourselves, “Wow, I wish I could be in their shoes.” We have no idea how many times they took that photo, shaking their heads with a frown each time they had to look at themselves on their phone.

In “Social Media Use and the Fear of Missing Out,” a research paper about students struggling with “FOMO” (fear of missing out) when it came to studying abroad, researchers examined the pros and cons of social media and how it can sometimes cause us to feel like we could be living better lives if we were somewhere else. They found that the popularity of studying abroad has grown immensely in the last few years to about 9 percent of the undergraduate population of American college campuses.

Because of this increase in students studying abroad, these researchers wanted to take a closer look at how social media is affecting their time in their host cultures. While social media does have some practical usages, such as keeping in contact with people from home, the researchers found that “this access to knowing what others are doing back home provides ample opportunities for uneasy anxiety-ridden feelings of missing out.” Because of this fear of missing out, it’s easy for more and more students to believe that what they’re looking for is elsewhere.

In the end, these researchers found that most of the students in the study struggled with “FOMO” when using social media, especially when seeing photos of friends and family abroad.

Gray explained that she used to “fake the funk” on her social media accounts and act as though everything was fine in order to keep her family from worrying, but her adjustment to Paris was difficult.

She recently posted a photo on her Instagram with an inspiring caption about being real on social media and her experiences here. When she first arrived, Gray says, “I thought I was going to be a blogger and dress so cute every day. I haven’t blogged once and none of the clothes I brought work for the winter, so I’m bundled up in everything!” She mentioned that

one of her friends commented on her lack of photos of the Eiffel Tower and other Parisian monuments.

To Gray, it was funny — if not concerning — that this was what people wanted to see.

As someone who posts on social media regularly and keeps a certain aesthetic, Christopher Turner, a freshman at AUP from Texas, feels the pressures to keep his image up on social media. He explained, “I’m sort of worried that if I don’t keep this aesthetic, everyone back home will say, ‘I told you so.’”

The pressure from social media is often reinforced by expectations from family and friends.

An AUP student from Panama City, Ana Sofia Camacho, doesn’t post too often on social media.

Because of this, her adjustment to Paris was much different. Camacho primarily struggled with the loneliness of the city. She started focusing on her personal health and happiness instead of the pressures she felt from social media, ultimately deciding to post less and limit her time on the applications.

Her loneliness grew into a feeling of independence and strength. She stated, “When it comes to being independent, you aren’t really aware of what that entails until you live it.

The things that I thought were so easy before, like making my own food, taking care of myself, paying for myself, etc., turned out to be harder than I expected.” As the pressure to keep up an appearance slowly faded, it was easier to really take care of herself.

It’s very easy to fall down the rabbit hole that is social media, and our decisions certainly are affected by what we see online.

Social media made many of us believe that our time abroad was going to be easy, leading to disappointment when reality hits. Each one of us has felt like we had an image to uphold at some time, but none of us have anything to prove. The only thing that we can do while we’re abroad is to learn how to take care of ourselves as best as we can while connecting with wonderful people along the way.

“This dream of being independent and carefree and classy with little to no effort is sold to us by social media as we scroll past our friends’ photos and think to ourselves, ‘wow, i wish i could be in their shoes.’”

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an acquired taste Why are students frequenting parisian sex clubs?

BY KATHLEEN SHARP PHOTOGRAPHY BY NATHALIE DEBROISE *Names have been changed to preserve anonymity.

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f clichés are to be believed, the French are a sexually uninhibited, wildly romantic, free-spirited people. French culture is fraught with sexual innuendo and imagery. Even the capital’s architectural choices can be understood as phallic symbols (think: the Eiffel Tower or the Luxor Obelisk at Place de la Concorde). It’s 2018, and French actress Brigitte Bardot still maintains her decades-long reputation as an iconic sex symbol.

France’s famed cinematography amasses international viewers when films like Gaspar Noé’s Love and Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue is the Warmest Color captivate audiences with their graphic sex scenes. And then there are the libertine clubs, commonly known as sex clubs or swingers’ clubs, that come to life during Parisian nights.

Sex clubs, swingers’ clubs and libertine clubs are in most cases the same thing except that swingers’ clubs are primarily for couples. In each of these spaces, visitors seek some form of sexual gratification. This often comes in the form of physical sexual encounters with others, though for some patrons, observing the clubs’ happenings is enough to fulfill voyeuristic desires. In France there are roughly 500 sex clubs. The city with the highest concentration of clubs? Paris.

Parisian libertine clubs have patrons from all ranks of society. Politicians like Dominique StraussKahn have reportedly attended Les Chandelles, a high-end establishment in the first arrondissement.

According to a 2016 study by the Institut Français d’Opinion Publique, 18 percent of Parisians have visited a swingers’ club. Students, particularly nonFrench students, might be surprised to hear that amongst these ranks are university students just like them. What prompts these undergraduate students to attend these clubs? What is their primary interest?

Sex? Voyeurism? Boredom? All of the above? Looking to offer an explanation, four students share their reasons for trying out and returning to Parisian sex clubs.

Sarah,* a 21-year-old AUP student from Louisiana, has been twice to two different clubs. On both occasions, she went with her then-boyfriend Aurélien,* a 21-year-old Parisian studying at a French business school. Sarah says that she broached the subject with her boyfriend despite not exactly understanding the basis of these venues. After hearing the phrase in passing, she told him she wanted to go to a libertine club. When Aurélien asked if she knew what that meant, she lied and said she did. But when he thoroughly explained what they were, she realized, “Wait, that’s exactly where I want to go.”

She fancied the idea because the two were interested in exploring their sex life. Sarah says she has always struggled with jealousy but was at the same time open to having sex with her boyfriend and another partner. She admits that she also “just wanted to have sex in public.” Aurélien says when she brought up the idea that he was surprised in a good way. While he didn’t particularly like the idea of having sex in front of an audience, he felt compelled to go and see how the clubs were run.

The couple went to the Overside, a club on the rue du Cherche-Midi in the sixth arrondissement, as well as to Quai 17 in the 19th arrondissement.

Aurélien laughed that as a child he would often pass the Overside without realizing what laid behind its doors. He’d think, “Why is this place always closed?

It’s so weird. I wonder if things happen here?” Fifteen years later, he has crossed its threshold, finally seeing what he could not have imagined as a kid.

As Aurélien’s anecdote suggests, these clubs are so well integrated into Paris’s cityscape that you could easily walk past them and never guess it. A quick Google search will supply of dozens of Yelp and TripAdvisor lists of sex clubs tactfully camouflaged to match their surroundings.

Despite their original enthusiasm to go together, the couple views the experiences at both clubs negatively. Sarah admits she is glad that she didn’t understand what the other patrons were saying about them in French. Lamentably, Aurélien did. When one man came too close to Sarah in the club and Aurélien asked that he step back, the man asked, “Why’d you bring her here if you’re not going to share her?” The atmosphere was too uncomfortable for them. Neither wants to go back, in large part because they were more than a decade younger than the next youngest visitors. “We were just ‘those kids’ in there being watched from the beginning which was creepy.”

Alexandra,* a 19-year-old from New York City, spent two semesters at AUP. In that time, she went to three different sex clubs an estimated eight times.

At first, she went for curiosity’s sake: “I was curious to go because I knew I wasn’t going to partake in any of the activities, but I wanted to see how the clubs are structured.” She got her answer by visiting multiple clubs, mainly Le We Club and Le Duplex. Like a normal club, she saw patrons dancing and milling about the space. On the fringes however, there were groups of people having sex, sometimes seven at a time.

Alexandra says that she and her friends rarely planned to go. They were spur-of-the-moment decisions. At the end of a night out, they’d ask themselves, “What is the craziest shit we could do right now?” After her first time, Alexandra continued to go to these clubs because she wanted to keep “seeing

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things that are obscure and not something you’d see at a normal club.” She finds them “specific to Parisian culture: very sexually liberated, sexually open.”

This enabled her and her friends to enter the clubs as a fun, outlandish thing to do rather than as a secretive act.

While Alexandra is adamant that she has never partaken in sexual activities at a sex club, had she only gone once, the experience would have only partially satisfied her curiosity. Instead, her first encounter fed an appetite she didn’t know she had. Once she acknowledged it, she wanted to return even more.

She says, “It’s like a rush. When you see it, it’s the same sensation you would get when you take ecstasy...

The rush that you get from seeing something crazy...

I always thought there would be something crazier, something more, so I would go.”

Now, Alexandra realizes that “in Paris there’s a lot of culture in the sex club world. A lot of them are not what you would think. They’re not trashy, they’re not gross. They’re actually quite — I wouldn’t go as far as to say elegant — but I would say that they are well run.” She thinks it’s an underground scene worth visiting but suggests that interested students go with another person, never by themselves.

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A scene from Noé’s Love piqued the interest of Jesse, an open-minded, 20-year-old foreign student attending an international university in Paris. Seeing the film encouraged her to seek a sex club to attend with a friend. Jesse has not only been to sex clubs but has also had group sex there. The most recent time she went, she was with her best female friend, another student-aged female friend and that girl’s husband.

They had drunk a lot of alcohol and were enjoying the atmosphere of the club so much that when Jesse’s best friend faked a marriage proposal using their other friend’s wedding ring, the club’s staff and clients thought it was real and popped champagne.

“They popped five bottles of champagne and were pouring it on me,” she recounts. In the spirit of the staged proposal, the four walked down to another floor of the club and further celebrated on a bed before onlookers who had seen the girls get engaged.

The evolution of the night was unplanned and unexpected, but not shocking to Jesse. Her primary interest in sex clubs is her experiential thirst for life: in life, she believes, one should experience it all. She feels like “sex is a big part of life and it is crazy, the concept of sex.” She wants to do all there is to do, including every type of sex, therefore going to these clubs hasn’t fazed her.

In a research paper published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, authors Karel Vanhaesebrouck and Pol Dehert suggest that the “association of the word libertinism with a joyous sexual life and an explicit pornographic imagination is problematic.”

Jesse does have an adventurous approach to life, but there is no reason to see her participation in the night’s events as indicative of anything “wrong” or perverse. Instead, what Vanhaesebrouck and Dehert assert is that having a libertine view of the world is a practice “both intellectual and physical, aimed at

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the liberation of the individual mind. It is an attitude that one could describe as profoundly modern.” By indulging in her libertine quest to feel it all, Jesse is partaking not only in a physical act, but one which brings her a sense of self-actualization and that is a means for self-discovery.

Jesse’s frank explanation for her curiosity and desire to explore is a lens through which to view other students’ trips. Young and lacking a time-earned understanding of the world, students want to witness the imagined interiors of these clubs so that they can learn about themselves and explore what sex can be in untraditional settings. Jesse recognizes the uniqueness of her adventures and has no regrets. Sarah, too, is glad to have gone although she and Aurélien left disappointed. To those wondering if they should go, she advises: “Go, and maybe you’ll like it. But, don’t gone alone and don’t get upset if you don’t like it.”

Jesse suggest that students “go because you don’t know what you’re into until you try things out. Be open and talk to people and they’ll respect if you don’t want to do anything physical, but you need to put yourself out there if you’re going or else it’s pointless.”

These students have delved into Paris’s sex scene in different ways. You might understand Alexandra’s curiosity, Sarah and Aurélien’s desire to push their boundaries as a couple, or Jesse’s quest to experience sex in its many forms. You might not. One thing is for certain: you can never know what lies behind their doors unless you are curious enough to enter.

*Names have been changed to preserve anonymity

from collÈge to college Why students move away from the french system.

BY KATHERIN LOPEZ CIFUENTES PHOTOGRAPHY BY OLUWASEUN OZOLUA-OSUNBADE

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fter 13 years in the French education system, Alizée Chaudey decided to leave her comfort zone and switch into a new one with different grading systems, different courses and a different language. Chaudey is a 19-year-old from Senegal currently studying at the American University of Paris. Despite the perks of low tuition costs in France, she still decided to try out the American system.

The French and the American education system have two very different styles. Broadly speaking, the American system tends to provide a rounded experience including social activities, extracurriculars and closer relationships with teachers, while the French system focuses intensely on studying, encourages competition and establishes a less personal relationship between professor and student. Four former students of the French system who now attend American universities spoke to me about their experiences with these two different systems.

In France after lycée, at which students pass their baccalaureate, they automatically have access to a free, publicly funded university. They also have the option to apply to private establishments known as grandes écoles which offer specialized studies in business, engineering, politics or administrative studies.

These schools are incredibly difficult to get into, and many students take prépas or preporatory classes to prepare for the entrance exams. In fact, studying for admittance can be one of the most difficult tasks French students endure.

The French education system is known for its rigid manner, with a high focus on student ranking. Despite being considered one of Europe’s best educational systems, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and having some of the lowest tuition costs in Europe, students that have the option tend to transfer to different systems. Apparently, there is something not quite right.

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Emile Yves Sidibe, a 22-year-old from Mali and student at AUP, described the rivalry of the French system as “awful: no one is warm, and it’s really competitive.” For law majors, freshmen would attend class in suits, which for him was out of the ordinary.

The formality of the environment made his experience less enjoyable.

The French grading system has a scale of one through 20. Students with a score of 12 are in the top 10 to 20 percent of the class at the middle school level. To Americans this may seem low, but getting a 20 is “almost impossible,” says Chaudey. Because of this, high school students are in a constant battle for the best grades. If a student fails one course, described Sidibe, they have to repeat the whole year.

If they fail a third time, students must start in another school or be moved into technical school. “The students that attend technical schools are considered failures,” according to Chaudey.

The French school system is also rigid in terms of the subjects covered. “You have to fit in a box — economic, social, scientific, or literary — where there is very little place for art and barely any sports,” described Chaudey.

This lack of artistic or physical expression weighs on students and contributes to their dissatisfaction. According to Young People’s Disillusionment with French Education Before 1968 by Jean-Marc Lemonnier, Michaël Attali and Elodie Parisse explain that the there is a large “gap between young people and the elders in France, and the contestation of social values, freedom, and control.”

Chaudey’s longing for another system began when she noticed that she did not fit into the French one due to the competition between students and the level of difficulty, as well as the fact that her interest in English grew each day. For her university career, she chose the American system, allowing her to have more freedom. Chaudey explained that she

might not have been prepared to choose one of those he was not able to cope with the French system. “boxes” as she was unsure what career or subject to Ayoubi, who is of Egyptian, French and Lebanese take in university. Professors of the French education origin, lived in Egypt and attended a French high system tend to look down upon such students, which school. He was forced to leave and move to France is an added pressure. However, the American system in 2011 when the Egyptian revolution broke out. had an alternative for her. She is now able to take difAyoubi was accepted in universities in the UK but ferent types of classes other than the ones her major decided to go to the French system because it is free. offers. These electives are a crucial aspect that the However, despite this, he described the university as French system rarely offers. a depressing environment: “It was extremely harsh.

The way in which students are treated in the They don’t tell you what to expect and I always felt French system has also been an issue for some. like I wasn’t being productive.” This was ultimately 28-year-old Amanuel Neguede described the Amerhis motive for leaving. Ayoubi became depressed, ican system as one “where you’re encouraged and unable to feel successful in school. On top of this, surrounded by people that can it was difficult to make friends at help you. You are a lot more nurLa Sorbonne as the university itself “in the french system was not a space that encouraged tured.” Before studying at AUP, Neguede had to leave two French socializing with other students. This there is almost no schools because of behavioral contrasted to his first day at AUP, issues, and the French system prowhen he entered the school café and communication with vided no other option other than immediately made a few friends. teachers - there is a “asking him to kindly leave.” He When I asked if they would ever did not leave by choice but decided come back to the French system for certain distance that further studies, Sidibe and Neguede to follow the steps of his older sister and enroll in an American universtudents must keep.” said that if they continued on with sity, where he was able to find more their studies, they were open to the support. Close interaction with idea of returning to the French teachers was a problem for him in French schools, as system. Chaudey and Ayoubi both said they wouldn’t he was often viewed as disrespectful, and there was a return to the French system, mentioning a better lot of miscommunication. In the American system, spread of opportunities within the American system. he says, “Teachers love me.” All the students I spoke France still has thousands of students from all over to agreed that in the French system there is almost the world and many still consider the French system no communication with teachers — there is a certain a great opportunity. Despite coming from different distance that students must keep. backgrounds and experiencing the French system in Adapting the French system can also be quite different countries, students that have switched to the difficult. 20-year-old Shadi Ayoubi also decided to American system often prefer it. Classes are an essenswitch systems while attending La Sorbonne, one of tial part to the appeal of universities, but it is clear France’s best universities. Although the circumstances that social aspects, extracurriculars and the relationfor Ayoubi, who grew up in Egypt, may have been ships we build have a huge impact on the university different than many of those who grew up in France, experience.

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The Limits of can the movement truly go global?

BY NITYA SHRIKANT ILLUSTRATIONS BY SOPHIA FOERSTER

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he headline streamed across computer screens and across social media: “Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades.”

No big news outlet had dared take down such a high-profile Hollywood producer. Suddenly, #MeToo began trending on Twitter, typed out by thousands of women across the U.S. It was no longer one man, but a system protecting abusive men that was being dismantled. Many women remember this period as one that inspired deep feelings of hope in them. Today, the hashtag is used frequently, but without the same impact across the board as it once had.

In America, the #MeToo movement started in October 2017, when the New York Times broke the story of the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s multiple sexual misconducts. The article provided a summary going back 30 years detailing Weinstein’s sexual harassment and assault of women that had been deliberately covered up for years. Followed by several models and actresses, the movement gained momentum and eventually led to other major actors and producers being named as sexual harassers and assaulters. #MeToo went from a Hollywood-led movement to all areas of society and eventually beyond America’s borders.

The #MeToo movement brought the problem of sexual harassment and assault to the surface. The constant stream of people in power being outed empowered women to speak out about the many instances of these behaviors that they encountered in their daily lives. In fact, new disturbing statistics were released following #MeToo: in a nationwide survey conducted by the group Stop Street Harassment, 81 percent of women in the U.S. experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault in their lives.

The impact of sexual violence lasts much longer than the moment it occurs. According to a 1999 study on violence against women, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is likely in 50 to 95 percent of rape cases. An earlier study revealed that 50 percent of rape victims lost or were forced to quit their jobs in the year following their rapes because of the severity of their reactions. What’s more, according to the BBC, studies have shown that two out of three sexual assaults are never reported.

Though getting beyond the long history of victim-blaming will take longer than a year, many felt liberated by the hashtag. AUP student Beatrice Spencer, who has been a victim of serious sexual harassment, explains, “Because of the #MeToo movement, I’m able to gain closure of the fact that what happened [to me] was not okay and shouldn’t have happened.

There’s nothing that was my fault.” This period of

time proved the capabilities of social change through social media.

Unfortunately, with recent events in America, #MeToo has shown its limitations. Not only did a candidate for the United States presidency brag about grabbing women “by the pussy,” but he went on to win. October 2018 became an emotional journey after Dr Christine Blasey Ford accused Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, of sexually assaulting her 36 years ago at a high school party. Dr Ford testified in front of the US Supreme Court for an excruciating four hours, reliving every detail from the encounter. After three weeks and an official investigation, Kavanaugh was still appointed to the most powerful court in America.

The limitations of the #MeToo movement have not just shown themselves in America. Across the globe, the movement has impacted people in limited ways, or sometimes not at all.

In Hinduism, India’s dominant religion, there are no less than 33 million gods. With so many gods by their side, one would hope that most of them are on their way to achieving moksh, or nirvana. Yet, every day Indians wake up to gruesome news. In a country populated by 1.3 billion, violence against women and children is as normalized as having your afternoon chai.

Though violence is common, the #MeToo movement caught on quickly in India, specifically in the film industry. In 2017 the Malayalam film industry based in Kerala started a Women in Cinema Collective (WCC) organization, even before the Weinstein case came to light, in order to address gender issues in the industry. The women in Malayalam took a stand of solidarity when an actor named Gopalakrishnan Padmanabhan Pillai (stage name Dileep) was accused of hiring people to kidnap and gang rape a Malayalam actress. He spent two months in jail, and after failing to be formally charged, he was released on bail. However, on October 21, 2018, he was removed from the Association of Malayalam Movie Artists (AMMA).

Since this story broke, a wave of stories with the #MeToo hashtag have flooded the news in India, especially in the Bollywood film industry. It started with actress Tanushree Dutta and director Vinta Nanda coming forward and naming high-profile actors Nana Patekar and Alok Nath in sexual harassment allegations. This was followed by many women coming out every day with their stories slamming well-known actors. Often, the accused are super stars of Indian cinema, whose pictures are kept by fans next to a picture of their god(s). Hero worshipping is a big thing in India. In fact, for certain superstars, people wait outside theaters at four in the morning with milk and garlands to pay their respects to the movies, which often only have a male lead.

“Every day indians wake up to gruesome news. in a country populated by 1.3 billion, violence against women and children is as normalized as having your afternoon chai.”

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“for women who choose to speak out, it is often the end of an acting career.”

“Pull quote”

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This has had two extreme outcomes. On one hand, the production houses of the accused are being forced to shut down, and producers are coming up with new contracts in an attempt to prevent sexual violence in the workplace. However, as actress Parvathy Thiruvoth Kottuvata has openly stated, women are also being side-lined, called troublesome actresses, slut shamed and receiving death threats.

For women who choose to speak out, it is often the end of an acting career.

While India has made progress in holding sexual assaulters accountable, unfortunately, in many countries people are either unaware of the hashtag entirely or cultural and religious beliefs stop survivors from coming forward at all. The silence of women who live in countries with high rates of sexual harassment and assault tends to be covered by those who, as has been seen in America, are safe from harm or further harassment when reporting assaults. This is also the case in Africa, where, according to a 2016 World Bank report, about a third of women report having experienced domestic violence (physical or social).

According to Yasmina Diakite, an AUP student from West Africa, the #MeToo movement has shown little progress across the African continent. Coming from Burkina Faso, which borders Ghana, Diakite explains that the lack of information regarding the social movement may come from a lack in education and development on a larger scale. “We are one of those countries in West Africa that is late on development and education,” she says, which is why she is “99 percent sure that most people don’t know about the #MeToo movement.”

Sexual violence is prevalent in the West African and South African regions. As of 2015, three out of four women in South Africa had experienced some form of abuse in the past year, according to Actionaid. A study conducted by Ghana Statistical Services and Associates in 2016 concluded that 30 percent of women had experienced sexual violence in their lifetime, and 10.6 percent of women reported experiencing it in the past 12 months.

According to Diakite, the limited impact of the movement in countries like Burkina Faso or Ghana is due to an overall view of women as inferior to men instead of just the prevalence of domestic violence. She explains that even if a woman chooses to report violence at a police station, “They won’t really do anything about it because it’s not as if men and woman are equal.” Diakite’s cousin was trying to find a job and applied but was immediately met with sexual harassment by her potential boss. “It has happened to most of us,” she explains, “it’s the norm.”

Although #MeToo has not yet reached Africa to the same extent as other countries, there are certain groups that are trying to make that change. “There is

a slow dialogue happening there,” confirms Diakite, “NGOs made small clinics and there are midwives holding sessions giving information about everything from sexual health to providing aid to the victims.”

In Brazil, two years before the #MeToo movement took off in America, the hashtag #MeuPrimeiroAssedio (#MyFirstHarrassment) had begun trending. In five days, the hashtag had been used in 82,000 tweets and inspired a range of other hashtags throughout Latin America. Marina Françolin, an AUP junior from Brazil, confirmed that the “#MeToo movement had its moment in Brazil.”

Though many women told their stories, Brazil remains a country tainted by sexual violence and racism. Sexual harassment has been a crime in Brazil since 2001, but not much has been done to enforce it or penalize harassers. Françolin described the blatant ignorance of the police to sexual harassment, saying that her friend had reported a sexual assault directly to the women’s police station: “She waited six to seven months for a reply, and then found out that there were other women filing complaints against the same man.” On top of general inequality between the genders, a faulty judicial system adds to this normalization of sexual harassment and assault.

The systematic racism in the country also discriminates heavily against Afro-Brazilian women, who make up 25 percent of the population. The Mapa da Violencia from 2012, a survey of those affected by violence in Brazil, found that the number of black women killed in Brazil has risen 54 percent in the past 10 years.

Brazil’s recently elected president Jair Bolsonaro has perpetuated the already rampant racism and violence in the country by speaking violently against the LGBTQ+ community and threatening assault. Since October 7, 2018, his words have encouraged more than 70 attacks fueled by misogyny and homophobia.

“Brazil has a big problem with abuse,” Françolin says, “Bolsonaro himself has abused so many women on camera as the president, much like Trump.” Bolsonaro has taken it further than ever before, threatening death upon those who speak against him. “These are very scary, dark times in Brazil.”

With different economic, social and cultural factors, each country is impacted differently by #MeToo. In this sense, social media movements are vastly limited — just because #MeToo can catch on in one society does not guarantee the same response in another. The power of social media may never have been so strong, but as the story of #MeToo reveals, some of us may be more connected than others).

“brazil has a big problem with abuse, bolsonaro himself has abused so many women on camera as the president, much like trump.”

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the impact of media stereotypes on islam.

YOUNG MUSLIMS SPEAK UP

BY SALMA EL SABBAN ILLUSTRATION BY HALID CHRISINAS AND MARIA PEREZ 37

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ince 9/11, being a Muslim in the West has become exhausting. Islam as a religion became intimately linked to the terrorist groups and radicals that were continuously displayed in the media. Normal practicing Muslims are left with the task of figuring out where they belong among all the confusion and hatred aimed toward their religion.

Islam, as followers view it, is a way of life. It promotes doing good deeds, which, in theory, allows you to live happily and fully. Narmin Elfurjani, a 24-yearold from Libya, says, “It is a religion that responds to humanity’s search for meaning. The purpose of creation for all men and women for all times has been one, and it is a way of life. This demonstrates peace and tolerance.” Zaki Islam, a 21-year-old British student at the American University of Paris (AUP), regards Islam as “a monotheistic religion not much different from Judaism or Christianity.” Islam is part of the Abrahamic religions, therefore sharing similar beliefs and traditions to both Christianity and Judaism.

A certain stereotype has latched itself onto Islam, which manifests in society largely through certain questions that Muslims are frequently asked. These questions mostly regard stereotypes of hating women,

“A peaceful islamrelated story is not worth as many views as a violent one” the “strict” nature of the religion and its supposed violence. Questions are evidence of curiosity and are necessary in order to learn. However, the reoccurring questions regarding Islam seem to be rooted elsewhere, rather than an actual quest to finding out more.

Many media outlets promote the idea that the hijab is misogynistic in principle, and that it is impossible to be a feminist and Muslim. According to the Cornell University Library page on Women in Islam, “The first convert of Islam was a woman, and women played an important role in the transmission of Hadith (transmission of prophetic sayings and deeds).” As twentyone-year-old Amal Fakir from Syria puts it, “Some women feel empowered through nudity while others find power in their Muslim identity and headscarves.”

As a veiled woman herself, Elfurjani explains, “The Quran calls for both men and women to cover and be modest. I’m so comfortable wearing the hijab that I can’t imagine myself without it. And I wear it for religious reasons, not cultural ones.” For Zaki Islam, “Being a Muslim and fighting for equality where it is absent are not mutually exclusive affairs.” He takes the example of Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population, which voted democratically for a

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female president, “Something which even America has failed to achieve.”

Regarding the view of Islam as a violent religion, Muslims students had similar views. Miron Shabani from Macedonia stated, “A religion can’t be violent.

People can.” Zaki Islam explained, “If you start shouting at a mosque, Islam is not going to hit you, but a person might.” Finally, twenty-four-year-old Narmin Elfurjani from Libya explained that the religion itself is not violent, saying “It is misrepresented by those who have no idea what Islam is.” Frequently, people ask what Muslims’ opinions on ISIS is. Fakir says that fear of an extremist movement frightens everyone, including Muslims. “If anything, being a Muslim I am more affected and/or harmed by ISIS.” Nowadays, the word most associated with Islam is “terrorism.” As a result of this, there has been a surge in Islamophobia and hate crimes against Muslims. It is clear that the 9/11 attacks led to a dislike toward Muslims. Through representations in the US media, many Americans began to resent Islam and 1.8 billion innocent Muslims were blamed for the actions of a terrorist organization.

The media has become such a prominent part of life, crucial in shaping public opinion. While many

“I’m so comfortable wearing the hijab that i can’t imagine myself without it. and i wear it for religious reasons, not cultural ones.” assume that whatever is published by the media is factual, there has been a dramatic rise in fake news as of 2016, some of which has contributed to the rise of Islamophobia that is largely present today.

Zaki Islam reckons that a surge in Islamophobia is a result of the “mass media portraying a very binary picture of Islam and its culture.” Elfurjani explained that ISIS has played a big role in the rise of Islamophobia, but the media perpetuates this further by only reporting stories that shed Muslims in a negative light.

Fakir says, “A peaceful Islam-related story is not worth as many views as a violent one.” Shahad Al-Issa, a twenty-one-year-old from Saudi Arabia backed Fakir up, saying, “Western media doesn’t report on Islamophobia as much as it reports on attacks that were conducted in the name of Islam. I feel like people aren’t aware of how big of an issue Islamophobia is and how deeply it affects the lives of Muslims.”

Surges in crimes against Muslims took place after the 2015 Paris attacks and the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) reported that hate crimes dramatically spiked after 2016, “the worst year on record for anti-Muslim incidents.” During the first six months of 2017, the number of “bias incidents” rose by 24

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percent. Trump’s presidency brought on a wave of hate and bigotry that has targeted Muslims. After the elections, CAIR reported that anti-Muslim hate incidents rose more than 40 percent compared with 2015. In 2017, a shocking number of 347 cases of Islamophobia were documented in the United States, “males accounting for 57 percent, and females for 43 percent.” This number is only a fragment of the real picture.

One might think being a Muslim in a cosmopolitan city such as Paris with so many nationalities and faiths exempts you from facing discrimination and abuse. However, it is still very common.

Whether it be the way you look, dress, or what your passport says, discrimination escapes no one. Al-Issa has experienced Islamophobia first-hand herself on several occasions, but admits, “Most of the time it happens to friends and family of mine that wear the headscarf.” She says that “Educating [those that discriminate] or correcting their statements usually never works, at least with the experiences I had.” Elfurjani relates to Al-Issa’s statement as she wears the veil, forcing her to standout in

a Western community. She recalls, “After the Charlie Hebdo attack, I was on my way to AUP when a French woman in her 30s stopped me and shouted saying: after all these things you still wear it? She was referring to the hijab.” For Shabani, the only discriminative act he described was the “random” checks at the airport.

“Discrimination always helps alienate and isolate minorities,” says Fakir. “It can affect Muslim communities in several ways, from the little boy who sits ashamed in class when the teachers are subtly implying that all Muslims are members of ISIS or when his classmates look at him while discussing 9/11, to the men and women who are being denied basic job opportunities due to their beliefs.”

As Fakir, Al-Issa and Shabani all agreed: the best weapon against Islamophobia is education. “Educate,” says Fakir, “not just against Islamophobia but against hate in general. Hate generates hate.”

“Educate, not just against islamophobia but against hate in general. hate generates hate.”

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IS TOURISM KILLING MOUNT EVEREST? WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED

BY SIGNI LIVINGSTONE-PETERS

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“

I

n Kathmandu you have car traffic. On the mountain you have people traffic.” Arjun Adhikari, one of my Nepalese guides, grins at his own analogy. His zinc-caked lips widen across his leathery, weather-beaten face as he squints through electric blue glacier sunglasses at a cavalcade of porters and yaks approaching in the distance, slowing his lope to examine the impending congestion.

On a suspension bridge some thirty stories above the vibrant turquoise river crammed with ice and boulders, a throng of yaks comes into sight, bearing colorful loads of North Face duffels and sleeping bags. Not far behind them, barefoot young porters, some not more than thirteen years old, strain under backbreaking loads filled with kerosene, camera equipment, rice, toilet paper, soda and generators — whatever their clients would pay for, it seems — as they march in a dreamlike procession. The narrow, chain-link bridge sways with each step. Horses, donkeys, climbers, trekkers and robed monks jam the steep, narrow trail behind them. Tattered Buddhist prayer flags cling to the sides of the bridge, thrashing violently in the early afternoon wind. Adhikari wasn’t wrong. Although “civilization” by most standards is, at minimum, a good two-day trek and a 45-minute plane flight away, it would seem almost fallacious to call the bedlam of the lower Khumbu Valley, the region surrounding the world’s highest mountain and the main bloodline to Everest, authentic wilderness.

Before mountaineering took off in the region, the valley was virtually untouched; a vast, icy scope of land, wedged between jagged peaks, adorned with fluted glaciers and elegant icefalls.

Our destination, Mount Everest Base Camp, is lead northwest toward the Tibetan border by the Dudh Kosi, a river that viciously surges with icy runoff from the Khumbu Glacier — a slow-moving cascade of ice higher up in the valley that snakes between Mount Everest and the Lhotse-Nuptse ridge. In the brief window between February and May where Everest tourism is at its highest, the legendary route toward the tallest mountain in the world, a symbol of ultimate solitude and adventure, reminds me strangely of a snail-paced line at the grocery store, except with a stunning backdrop.

It’s two in the afternoon — rush hour. Prayer wheels and rocks scrawled with Buddhist mantras act as red lights, regulating the flow of traffic as Sherpas, yaks, monks and foreigners alike amble to the left to spin the sacred wheels: a Buddhist tradition

symbolizing the collection of good karma.

This growing obsession with the dangerous, “untouched” parts of the world is driven by a search for the most “authentic” experience possible. People are no longer satisfied with superficial tourist activities — instead of going to Nepal simply to tour Kathmandu, more and more people are opting for activities such as high-altitude treks and for the more serious, high altitude climbs. However, this “authentic experience in the mountains” with local guides and local food served at camps and teahouses is a contradiction in terms.

As Adam Dennett, author of Why Tourists Thirst For Authenticity points out, “when places or experiences are discovered and populated by tourists, they ultimately change by the demands of tourists themselves and the economic opportunity this presents to providers.” He calls this “Disneyfication,” a process whereby “a place becomes contrived in order to sell itself to consumers.” In turn, this often leads to manipulation and exploitation of the local cultures and their people. On Everest, the concept of “authenticity” has translated into thrill-seeking tourism.

The commercialization of Everest is nothing new. Ever since the mountain was declared the highest in the world in the early ‘50s, it was only a matter of time before it had to be climbed.

Following Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, the first summiteers of Everest, upwards of 30,000 masochists and adventurers swarm toward the mountain each year driven by some sort of unquenchable thirst for thrill.

Nepalese authorities say that the number of visitors to Sagarmatha National Park, where Everest resides, has tripled in the last two decades. With the increasing number of tourists comes a rapidly-growing amount of trash left on the mountain: granola bar wrappers, climbing gear and plastic water bottles. The often-frigid temperatures at high altitude means that the trash does not biodegrade. Blinded by the allure of the summit or achieving a lifelong goal, the human cost on the mountain seems almost trivial.

Currently, the Khumbu Valley faces not only issues with waste, but deforestation caused by increased consumption of timber and firewood, creating a dramatic loss of habitat for many species. In addition to this, the trampling of vegetation on the well-traveled routes has increased soil erosion, reducing the ability of the soil in the Khumbu to store nutrients and water. This has also caused higher rates of runoff and nutrients otherwise used for crop growth — one of the key economic factors in Sherpa communities besides mountain guiding.

“THE LEGENDARY ROUTE TOWARD THE TALLEST MOUNTAIN IN THE WORLD, A SYMBOL OF ULTIMATE SOLITUDE AND ADVENTURE, REMINDS ME STRANGELY OF A SNAIL-PACED LINE AT THE GROCERY STORE.”

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Despite the fact that Everest has been coined “The World’s Highest Garbage Dump” and other environmental repercussions, the mountain has become a crucial part of the Nepalese economy. Each year, the government collects roughly 270 million rupees (3.3 million dollars) in revenue from Everest climbing permits. In addition to this, mountaineering and trekking have helped stabilize the economy by bringing employment and income opportunities to indigenous Sherpa communities in the Khumbu Valley.

As a result of this, the Khumbu Valley is in a much more economically prosperous condition than other Nepalese regions, leaving the valley in a paradox. Is the money that this thrill-seeking experience provides worth the environmental impact?

The Sherpas, nomadic people of Tibetan descent, are an ethnic group now synonymous with mountaineering in the Himalayas — a group whose name is now used vernacularly as a job description.

Sherpas settled in the Khumbu Valley approximately 600 years ago — a region that was once equally as holy as the “beyul,” a sacred valley set aside by Guru Rinpoche, the founder of Buddhism. The Dudh Kosi had no bridges, the cliffs had no carefully chipped out steps, the pastures had no grain. There were no huts boasting “oxygen” or “western toilet,” no Everest paraphernalia. The first settlers farmed, prayed to the mountains, drank glacial water and wore wool from the yaks. Life was simple.

“It used to be a sacred mountain,” Phurbar Sherpa tells me.

His dark eyes shift from his steaming glass of lemon ginger honey tea toward Konde Ri, a beast of a mountain that towers to the left of us. We stopped a stone’s throw from the town of Namche Bazaar, the largest Sherpa community in Nepal. Namche sits cradled between two mountains on a rare slab of flat ground overlooking Konde Ri, a stunning sharp peak. Dozens of gear shops and cafes fill the dusty streets, boasting the word “Everest” from every angle. Everest Laundry. Everest Cafe. Everest Massage. Red and blue roofs sprawl over the bowl-shaped village. An Irish pub blares music out of a shabby basement, while climbers and trekkers mill between shops in flashy labels, enjoying their acclimatization day and the last comforts of “real” civilization before roughing it at a higher altitude.

Many older “pre-Everest” Sherpas still see mountaineering as disrespectful to the gods. In traditional culture, the mountains were not thought of as hunks of rock and ice, piggy banks or conquests of vanity, but as spiritual, living beings. Goddesses resided on the spines of different sacred Himalayan mountains,

dancing among the glaciers and kicking avalanches onto mountaineers who disrespected her. Sherpas who have summited Everest often leave an offering on the summit to the goddess, apologizing for hurting her and thanking her for letting them climb. According to a modern cultural belief, the only reason that Everest in particular allows so many to climb her is that she knows that it provides income for Sherpas and their culture. The power of nature is deeply rooted in their culture. However, as government corruption continues to plague the Nepalese economy, younger generations of Sherpas see the mountains in the same way that westerners do: a cash machine.

The average annual income in Nepal is around $700. Sherpas who climb Everest can make between $3,000 and $5,000 in a single season and even more if they summit. In the same way that Western climbers and trekkers are tempted by the mountain’s allure, Sherpas are tantalized by a rather unbeatable salary.

Now renowned for their genetic advantage and unique ability to function at high altitude, Sherpas have been providing climbing support for Himalayan trekking and climbing expeditions since the start of the 20th century. However, despite the fact that Sherpas make a considerable amount more than the rest of Nepal, the average Sherpa still makes about 90 percent less per season than his Western employer — a Western guide makes $50,000 on a summit expedition, a Sherpa will make only $5,000.

Not only has Everest become the poster child for the daunting environmental crisis we face as a global community today, but the throngs of tourists in search of an authentic Nepalese experience or the urge to fulfill a lifelong dream have essentially diminished the cultural authenticity of not only the mountain, but of the entire Khumbu Valley.

It is unclear whether anyone can define exactly what provides an “authentic” experience. To the average trekker or climber Everest seems as authentic as it can get, but the modern version looks much different than the Everest of 1953, let alone that of hundreds of years ago. Not to mention that the native Sherpa people are continually exploited and put into dangerous, life-threatening situations with each Western expedition.

“The conversation about how to make Everest safer needs to begin with the international climbing community asking ourselves how to make Everest more just,” as Mike Chambers from the New York Times points out. “All Everest climbers are, without exception, megalomaniacs… Not the Sherpa, I think. They don’t come here seeking adventure, they

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Phurba Sherpa, between Namche Bazaar and Tengboche

aren’t here in protest of the mindless routine that weighs them down at home. They come here to feed their families. There is no way to reconcile that.” In what used to be the territory of indigenous people and a small percentage of highly experienced climbers, the industry has created a new type of tourism in which any authentic experience can be purchased, regardless of economic, ethical and environmental consequences.

I suppose the best word to describe my relationship with the mountain and the valley would be convoluted. Or, possibly, infatuated. Of course, I am touched by the rich history and stunning beauty of the Himalayas and the Khumbu Valley. But at times, perhaps more so in the months following my return, I am perplexed and somewhat ashamed at the consequences of the human impact on the mountain and my own selfishness to want to climb it. However, as much as I hate to admit it, like many others, that doesn’t stop me from wanting to return. In fact, the small bit of the mountain that I tasted has left me feeling frustrated and unaccomplished. Whether I like it or not, I have on some level contributed to this issue.

I suppose it would be ridiculous to stop mountaineering completely to prevent climate change in such a small corner or the world. Doing so would leave the Sherpas completely unemployed. Perhaps it is even more ridiculous to tell every climber, every dreamer, to give up on lifelong goals in order to halt consequences that may seem almost trivial on a rather selfish, individual level. But climbers happen to be the ones who spend time in places like the Khumbu Valley and see it first. They are the ones who should be responsible for moving forward in more

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environmentally and ethically responsible ways. As Chambers points out, “There is so much humanity on Everest, and not nearly enough.”

“as government corruption continues to plague the nepalese economy, younger generations of sherpas see the mountains in the same way that the westerners do: a cash machine.”

Khumbu Valley, the Nepalese side of Mount Everest

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purgatory in Paris TWO REFUGEES’ TORTUROUS SEARCH FOR ASYLUM.

BY SHADI AYOUBI ILLUSTRATIONS BY SOPHIA FOERSTER

A

t 8:30 a.m. on October 12, 2018, a queue was beginning to form in front of the big sturdy door of 82 Avenue Denfert-Rochereau, where the reception center is located. The line quickly comprised about 250 men. Sihame Amar, the chief services officer, decides who are the most eligible ones to enter and determines how many migrants can be hosted per day. The policy is first come first serve.

Many are not accepted because of limited space.

There were approximately 300,000 refugees in France in 2016 according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Around one fifth of those were asylum seekers. Agence France Presse recorded a total of 97,300 people who were granted asylum in 2016, 35.1 percent more than the previous year. The acceptance rate is 28.8 percent, with 93.8 percent acceptance for Syrians and 80.6 percent acceptance for Afghans, according to the Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides.

The Paris agglomeration is the biggest concentration point for migrants in France.

From Monday to Friday, a usual day for migrants at the Grands Voisins cultural center begins with a shower, then collecting their clothes to be washed by the laundry staff, playing ping pong and having lunch on the house. The purpose of the place is to

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provide basic daily needs for them, as well as medical care and information concerning their rights.

Les Grands Voisins, an initiative run by the charitable association Aurore, began on the premises of about 20,000 square meters of buildings and 15,000 square meters of open-air space in the 14th district of Paris. Between 2015 and 2017, they consistently hosted at least 600 migrants a night. Between 2018 and 2020, about less than half of the space is available; only about 100 people are hosted a night.

Les Grands Voisins began due to a mayoral decision to remove asbestos from the walls of the SaintVincent-de-Paul hospital, after scientists discovered that inhaling its fibers over a long period of time produces scarring (fibrosis) of the lung. Simon Laisney, the founder of Les Grands Voisins helped finance the project by having several events a month, a bar open seven days a week, monthly flea markets, along with government subsidies. In March of 2018, a nuns’ residence building next to the complex was also made available after they were vacated and the town hall took the decision to allow Aurore to take over the premises for humanitarian services.

They decided to make it a day reception center.

Since the opening, more than 7,800 migrants, mainly from Afghanistan and Sudan, have been taken care of. The Dublin Regulation has been problematic for

them. This European Union (EU) law determines which EU Member State is responsible for examining an asylum seeker’s application for international protection. According to it, asylum seekers may be transferred to another country for their application to be processed.

In the Grands Voisins courtyard, I started by introducing myself to Mahmud. Not understanding me, he called over his English-speaking friend SaydAllah, along with a few others. They were from different parts of Afghanistan.

Mahmud and his closest friend are from Nangarhar, a province situated east of the capital. The others are from Parwan and Logar, also provinces surrounding Kabul, where Mahmud is from. They left because they felt unsafe. In 2015, according to Amnesty International, civilian casualties were at their highest level in Afghanistan, and European governments were “forcing increasing numbers of asylum-seekers back to the dangers from which they fled, in brazen violation of international law.”

One of the men standing in the circle, Shinwarai, a friend of SaydAllah’s had “witnessed more than a

dozen deaths back in his province back in Afghanistan. He left in 2015,” his friend SaydAllah told me.

He left his hometown after working as a truck driver for NATO in one of their refineries for nearly 10 years and raising a family. What made him shudder was the murder of his uncle by members of the Taliban. His uncle was sleeping in a truck near a parking lot before being spotted by the terrorist group, moments before they attacked him. After his uncle’s death, his maternal uncle could not bear seeing him in danger and repeatedly advised him to leave the country.

There was also a lot of tension from corruption. Shinwarai feared becoming the subject of abuse by the police or by armed groups. He said it was dangerous to take sides and that powerful groups such as the Taliban, corrupt police officers or other militias would do harm just to show ruthlessness.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) recorded 1,592 civilians killed and 3,329 injured in the first six months of 2015, while 70 percent of civilian casualties were attributed to the Taliban and other armed insurgent groups, and 16 percent to pro-Afghan government forces. According to

“There were approximately 300,000 refugees in france iin 2016.”

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Amnesty International in 2016, the Taliban increasingly attacked soft and civilian targets.

In April 2015, Shinwarai decided to flee the country and go to Europe without a particular destination in mind. He gave a few thousand dollars to a “coyote,” someone who takes migrants from one country to another illegally, who was supposed to take them past Western Europe. They took five months to get there in a group of dozens of men, walking through forests and deserts, taking a bus here and there. He had a swollen foot. His food supply came to an end while he was trying to get through monitored areas in Turkey and he was forced to eat the barely-edible tree leaves that were around him. He was desperate to find a country where he could live without torment.

He traveled through Iran, Turkey and Bulgaria, ending up in Serbia, where he was asked for his identification in a train station. He did not have anything to show. The border guards did not take him into custody and did not try to ask him any further questions, “They just put me in a train without giving me anything!”

What followed was a 32-hour train ride, which was easy compared to what he had been through. He was willing to stay in any country if it would give him asylum.

He arrived in Stockholm alone, separated from his group. The first thing he did was to go find a migrant reception center and learn about the procedure to ask for asylum. His patience was put to the test. He only had a mattress to sleep on and some food. He got a job painting walls for little money for some Afghan immigrants who ran a business and wanted some extra money. He started thinking maybe this could be it, maybe he could have his life there, acquire citizenship, work in a legitimate business and send money

back home to his wife and kids. But things moved slowly.

Two-and-a-half years passed without him hearing back from the center where he had applied for asylum. He went to ask them again, but they did not give him a useful answer and took his fingerprints by force. It was a major setback for him. He had suddenly lost hope. Shinwarai’s cousin suggested that he should not take the risk to be sent back home and come to France instead, the country he deliberately fled to in 2016. His cousin was granted asylum and got a job selling vegetables in the outskirts of Paris.

Shinwarai has been in Paris for two-and-a-half months now and is currently in the process of applying for asylum. He feels thankful to have the services France is providing to him.

Later in the day, I saw a man on the opposite side of the room speaking in Arabic to a pal of his. I could understand the dialect he was speaking. He said his name was Mohamed Al Nour. He was born in Chad in 1988, in the Borkou-Ennedi-Tibesti region, below the Aouzou strip, which is the Chadian side of the border with Libya. After Gaddafi failed to annex the strip throughout sporadic clashes that lasted nine years prior to his birth, he returned to Northern Libya with his parents, to his hometown Az-Zawiyah, situated on the West of the Libyan coast, close to Tripoli.

He told me that he had arrived in France in January 2018, after taking a train from Rome to Marseille and a bus from Marseille to Paris. Nonetheless, this was not the hard part of his journey. He took the central Mediterranean Sea route to make it to Lampedusa. According to the International Organization for Migration, in 2017, one out of 49 migrants who took this route did not make it alive. “I was in a boat

“he was forced to eat the barely-edible tree leaves that were around him.”

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with about thirty people from all over,” said Nour in Arabic. It was the most dangerous month to travel, because waves are at their highest level in that period, and it did not help to be in a small boat. “It was a very diverse group: about ten kids, of which only two were accompanied; the rest were men and women in their 20s and 30s from countries like Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Guinea and Libya,” he specified. They took off from Libya with the help of a “self-proclaimed experienced” captain.

They spent about 6,000 dollars for this dicey deal.

The journey was about 400 kilometers long. He spent a dozen bumpy hours in the boat, eventually arriving at the famous destination for migrants. He was offered to stay in a welcome center, as illegal immigration is decriminalized in all of Europe. He told the hosts he wanted to go to Rome to then leave the country by train. After being taken on another bouncy ride headed to the capital, he was getting closer.

Having served in the army back in Libya he was quite the hefty young chap. He later worked as a painter for a big furnishing company. With some energy left in him, he hopped on the first train to Marseille. “I didn’t have much money after I bought that ticket,” he said, laughing. Things were moving. He knew that he would find an Arab community there and find his way to Paris, but it was not as easy as he thought. After wandering around in the different neighborhoods, sleeping in the least cold metro he could find for a few nights, he was put in contact with a slumlord who took his remaining money to take him to the Paris. In due course, he was part of a team of eight Arab men who knew no more than 10 words of French. They wanted to get there with the least chances of getting caught so they decided to walk, as they generally ask for

identification in the trains and buses.

They travelled to Paris mostly on foot, through some national parks drenched with snow, through small cities like Vichy or Nevers, where they would fill up their backpacks with provisions. Over the long haul, he got to the capital where he found a bed through a Libyan connection in the eighteenth district. He applied for asylum in the end of January and is still waiting for an answer. He is hoping for the best and staying positive, talking regularly to his family on his smartphone.

Shinwarai and Mohamed Al Nour are planning on staying in France and waiting as long as needed. Shinwarai is struggling with depression as has been not been granted asylum in Europe for nearly three years, but Al Nour has been here for several months and is an optimist by nature. They have no information on how long it will take for the state to answer back to them.

It is now just a waiting game for them.

The stories of these two men shed light on the struggles of hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers and migrants. There are many difficulties for them to be granted asylum in Europe, as countries are exceeding their decided quotas and are not adjusting economically to accommodate more migrants. Countries like France are postponing asylum grants and hiding the realities of this issue from the public eye. There are limited information campaigns to help new migrants and the state is not providing enough shelters for them to sleep at night. As total migrant stock in Europe will increase over the years, perhaps governments will be forced to adjust to the consequences, but it would be best for them and for the migrants to allocate more resources to social insertion and care before the situation gets out of control.

“I was in a boat with about thirty people from all over.”

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o N ch s a u s ing r h f T is. r a p g in

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-MAY AYMAN N O T G L DDIN Y MARY A E N B

BY JA GRAPHY O PHOT

elloooooo tu veux venir ce soir au jangal? Infamous night we are backkk baby!” is the last of 177 (at a rough count) unanswered Whatsapp messages from my former club promoter. Clubbing, specifically at nightclubs such as L’ARC, Maison Blanche, Titty Twister and many others that require a cover charge, table booking or reservation, is a prevalent pastime for many AUP students, but one that is only accessible to most through the network of club promoters. These relationships can be mutually beneficial: you get a free night out and the promoter gets paid for bringing you. However, as some clubbers have experienced, the cost of this relationship can sometimes outweigh its benefits.

My current promoter, Louis Corvez, has been working for over two years in Paris, starting at L’Aquarium and then later picking up work at Mona Lisa and Titty Twister. Corvez, in his mid-twenties and a native Parisian, explains the two ways he makes his money: first, he’ll post on social media every week with the event information and will contact his more affluent customers to see if they want to reserve a table. At the end of the night, he takes home 10 percent of whatever they spend. He also has several girls, myself included, who go out with him frequently, and

he’ll be paid by the club for the number of girls he’s able to bring in. He cares more about the number of girls he can bring in, quantity being the priority, and once they’re inside he just wants them to have a good time.

What he enjoys the most about it, he says, is being able to spend fun evenings with his customers and to know that he’s given them a good evening. “I get paid to party, which is also pretty cool,” he adds. The relationship we have is a good one — friendly, fun and strictly business — but is by no means the universal experience.

“There’s no such thing as a free drink,” Beatrice Spencer, a junior at AUP and somewhat veteran of the club circuit, tells me. She started going out in much the same way and for much the same reasons as I did. Keeping up a social life in Paris, especially when new to the city is both difficult and expensive and the promise of a night of free drinking and dancing with new people is an attractive one. Her first night out occurred when the friend of a friend extended an invitation to come out with her promoter.

Following her launch into the world of Paris nightclubs, Spencer quickly became connected with more promoters, usually through her friends.

“I wasn’t the one calling them,” she tells me, “that’s not who I wanted to be. You go through

k n i

a s dr e e r a bunch of terrible promoters who treat you like shit to try to find your prince charming promoter, and sometimes you don’t even find that.” When pressed to explain what makes a bad promoter, there is one theme in particular that stands out: “When they treat you like a whore.” The word, or a variant, is used another 14 times as she tells me about a particularly colorful night out.

“I was once pimped out in a way,” she begins.

She and a group of friends were asked by a promoter to meet at a hotel, with the promise of partying with the rapper Tyga. They were told to “dress slutty,” she explains, which “makes me feel more like an object than I do a person.”

Spencer recounts being moved from the hotel to a club 40 minutes outside of Paris, and finally back into the city center, all the while not being sure of where they were going. While uncomfortable, she remembers trying to build off the confidence of her friends and trying to reassure another girl who was visibly distressed. When they finally reached the last club, regardless of their entourage, they were turned brusquely away. At that point, it became clear to Spencer: “You’re expendable at any moment. With a promoter you’re not a special asset, you’re a way for him to make money.”

The crux of Spencer’s conflict with clubbing was being measured up at the door, and it took its toll on her. Her freshman year became one filled with insecurity, as her nights were dedicated to clubbing and what that entailed: a constant doubting game: “Was I skinny enough? Was I pretty enough? Was I enough?” It’s a question, she says, that every woman going out in Paris like this is forced to ask herself. For AUP senior Kayo

Nakamura, getting turned away “used to be so hard, and so personal, and I used to get so hurt by it,” Nakamura tells me, “but now I don’t really care.”

“It built up,” Spencer continues, “I started feeling so self-conscious about how I looked because when you go out to a club you’re judging yourself against other girls, you’re judging yourself based on how you look, on a scale.” Carolina Galbiati, another AUP student, worked for two months at Hobo Club as a hostess, assistant and intern, and shares exactly who it is that determines this scale. The people who make the decision at the door are the bouncers and the physio. “Every club has its own artistic direction and mood,” Galbiati explains, “so if the boss is walking around the club and sees a group of ‘ugly’ girls, he’ll get mad at the physio, the bouncers, and the promoter, so everyone is just looking out for their paychecks.” Galbiati says they use the term “baby prostitute” to describe the usual dress code: “If you don’t look like one or have the entire contents of your makeup bag on your skin, they’ll invent an excuse to turn you away.”

Dr. Ashley Mears, a professor of sociology at Boston University and a former fashion model, tackles the subject in Working for Free in the VIP: Relational Work and the Production of Consent. Mears asserts the system of club promoting leads women to consent to their own appropriation and exploitation, “cemented by gifts and strategic intimacies.” Mears characterizes the work of these women as “unpaid aesthetic labor.”

Dr. Deniz Kandiyoti, a Turkish feminist theorist and professor at SOAS University London,

“WHEN PRESSED TO EXPLAIN WHAT MAKES A BAD PROMOTER, THERE IS ONE THEME IN PARTICULAR THAT STANDS OUT: ‘WHEN THEY TREAT YOU LIKE A WHORE.’”

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examines the underlying influences that can lead women to participate in their own exploitation in her revolutionary 1988 work Bargaining with Patriarchy. In it, Kandiyoti proposes the concept of the patriarchal bargain, in which a woman will participate in a patriarchal system inherently damaging to other women for the purposes of advancing within a patriarchal society. Kandiyoti looks especially at polygamy, and the means by which women are pitted against each other in competition for the highest power within the domestic sphere, but the theory supports Mears’ work as well, specifically in that the hierarchies established in these clubs do not simply put women at the bottom but establish a hierarchy with these women as well. Mears identifies the three categories of women in the American VIP clubs; the models (women models from reputable agencies), the “good civilians” (girls who look like they could be models for their height and build), and finally “civilians and pedestrians” (women with “low conformity to fashion standards,” short and heavy women being of the least value). The work these women do, Mears presses, is invaluable to the promoters, though they are the only staff never paid.

“These aren’t people who matter,” Spencer stresses.

Nakamura mentions the two reasons she’s been given for being turned away at the door: being too short or looking too young. But, she adds, “They could be racist too.” She recounts being warned against certain clubs or certain bouncers who have a reputation for being more racist, and that, once inside, it doesn’t subside. “I know that in Paris I do stand out more just being Asian,” she says. “I’m exotic here. These men see me and relate me to Japanese pornography.”

Nakamura went on to discuss the difference between clubs in Paris and Taiwan, where she herself worked as a promoter for a time. “[In Taiwan] they knew what was fun and what wasn’t. That doesn’t seem like the case here. They don’t care if the girls are having fun or not, so long as we’re there,” she says. This attitude feeds into another trend she’s noticed in relationships between promoters and their regular clients, that going out can become an obligation. “When they do need a certain number of girls for the night, I know my friends feel forced to go out,” Nakamura says, and cites this as one of her reasons for retreating from the club scene: “It’s not my job to go clubbing and get drunk.”

Nakamura and Spencer are by no means done with the club scene, and still can enjoy a night out,

but tend to stick with promoters they trust and are comfortable with. Spencer avoids the ones who, as she reiterates, make her feel like a prostitute. “They make you stay at the table, they’re very strict about where you can go, they’ll try to make you drink. They’re trying to get you drunk enough that you’ll make a dumb decision, or so you’ll go home with a man,” Spencer clarifies.

Nakamura mentions that promoters themselves can behave inappropriately: “They’ll usually be drinking too, and it’s hard to tell the line between a promoter being nice and being flirty.

Some get touchier towards the end of the night, and it’s important to know when to leave.” She tells me that she knows some promoters who are known to drug girls, and one who sexually harassed a friend, and makes a point to stay away from them.

The promoters they do like? The ones who are either women, gay, or too pretty to sleep with the girls they bring. Spencer’s current promoter, she tells me, is always “super nice,” and going out with him never needs to entail more than having a great time with her girlfriends.

“He’s pretty, too, so it feels good,” she elaborates. “You can think ‘I’m going out with a pretty man.’” Truly her “prince charming” promoter, and a best-case scenario. “Drinking for free is great,” she finishes, “but at what cost? At the cost of sacrificing your own dignity and self-confidence? Unless I’m inside with a group of girlfriends that I love, it’s not worth it to me.”

Clubbing with a promoter is economical, convenient and, generally, a very fun time, but the power dynamics can cause more harm than good to the young women who rely on it. Especially in the case of young, uncertain new arrivals to Paris, the club circuit can significantly alter their self-perception and sense of self-worth and foster a mentality of competition between them and their peers. This system, as much as it creates opportunities for students to connect and socialize, also exposes them to the machinations of those who intend to take advantage of them.

“drinking for free is great, but at what cost? at the cost of sacrificing your own dignity and self-confidence?”

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Taking sexual satisfaction into our own hands why are women still not orgasming?

BY SAMI-CLAIRE ILLUSTRATIONS BY SOPHIA FOERSTER

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hroughout history, female sexuality ejaculation leads to conceiving children. When we has primarily been controlled by men. talked about women, menstruation was the main Whether it was clitoral mutilation or topic while the female orgasm and what happens to Freud claiming women had sexual our bodies was not discussed. I did not know what hysteria, it seemed that everything was the clitoris was, and because it was not discussed in being done to stop women from experiencing sexual sexual education, it wasn’t of much importance to pleasure. Above all, women’s sexuality was and still me then. I assumed a man just had to “stick it in” is considered a taboo subject, and the woman would be overOrgasms therefore there has been a limited whelmed with pleasure. This Orgasms come in many different shapes amount of research conducted on led to me having incredibly high and sizes and are achieved in different the subject. expectations, so when I lost my ways. Some women are lucky enough to In my own experience, there virginity to my first serious boyachieve it through vaginal stimulation, have been times when mentionfriend, I was, well, disappointed. some through outer clitoral stimulation, ing the clitoris has been followed I was expecting to have the some like nipple play,and some use aids with the response of “wait, where same pleasure as I did when I was like toys or kink to climax. The positioning of is that?” Why is it that with all with myself. When I finally had the clitoris can also affect orgasm. Orgasms the porn available, there is no sex, I thought that would just easily from just vaginal stimulation are more likely specific guidance? My current transfer over and would have vagif a woman’s clitoris is located closer to her partner explained: “Male friends inal orgasms as well. That didn’t vaginal opening. If it’s farther away, it isn’t don’t talk too much about it, we happen. I started watching differas easy and separate stimulation has to be just mention who’ve we have ent types of porn to find answers involved. In Sexual Behavior in the Human been with. It’s never specifics or and heavily researched “Why Female, Alfred C. Kinsey notes that “many giving advice really, where with can’t I have a normal orgasm?” females are incapable of maximum arousal my platonic female friends, they I believed something was wrong unless the clitoris is sufficiently stimulated.” are much more open about it with me, and that it was odd that and have given me really helpful I couldn’t achieve what movies advice.” and porn were telling me was so easy and attainable.

Like many of us, my first encounter with the When I finally googled “female orgasm” instead of mechanics of sex came in the form of sex education “is my body broken?”, I was relieved. I realized I class during the sixth grade. The topics discussed wasn’t alone: my high sex drive was normal and I were STDs, the many forms of protection or abstiwasn’t permanently cursed with female “blue balls.” nence, how male arousal was common and that their After this discovery, while my ex and I were fooling

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around, I decided to grab his laptop and look up a diagram of the vagina and point to where he was supposed to be exploring. After that, things finally made sense to both of us.

If you’re a woman who has had sex with men, you’ve probably been nominated for an Oscar for your role in He Couldn’t Find the Clit. Many of us have had our fair share of either faking an orgasm, or just not being able to get off. Sometimes the sex just ends up with your mind wandering to thoughts of your leftover tacos waiting for you at home or a reminder of an essay that was actually due before you went to the bar. Cue the fake moaning, and just like that, it’s over, leaving with lady blue balls and continuing the night at home. Many people who are in relationships don’t have to fake orgasms because of the communication and understanding of each other’s bodies, but for those in the world of casual sex, reaching orgasm can be a gamble.

The “Archives of Sexual Behavior” included a study conducted in 2017 that surveyed 50,000 people.

Of those 50,000 people, 95 percent of straight men climaxed regularly during sex, where only 65 percent of straight women climaxed. An interesting factor was that 86 percent of gay women climaxed. Two separate studies from The Journal of Sexual Medicine (2005) and Obstetrics and Gynecology (2008) gathered information from American and French women and calculated that 16–21 percent of those women have either only rarely experienced and orgasm, or have never had one at all. With a significant portion of straight women stating they have either never had an orgasm or have had to fake it, the question is why? Is it due to a lack of education or communication or is it just an uncomfortable topic to bring up?

Asking women if they have ever faked an orgasm leads to some interesting insights. Ally* stated that “I’ve never been able to bring myself The Clitoris to fake it, but I’ve said, maybe we During early fetal development, the penis and clishould try again later? Maybe I should toris have a shared beginning before the biologhave faked it because my partner was ical sex of the fetus is determined. They actually usually disappointed, like they had come from the same developmental tissue which failed. But sometimes it was just the is only adjusted when the Y chromosome in DNA environment or how I was feeling that is activated. The female orgasm (in terms of vagday, etc. It wasn’t always their fault.” inal penetration) is clitoral. The part of the clitoris Another woman, Kelsey* stated, “I that is visible is the clitoral body and the clitodefinitely have. It involved me not ral gland. These are the most familiar to us, but communicating but also just wanting the clitoris is actually much larger than that. Our to get it over with. It was easier to fake bodies are all built differently, therefore the interit than to explain it.” The recurring nal part of the clitoris’s accessibility varies from theme of communication came up. person to person. The internal body of the clitoris Coming from a woman’s perspecextends upwards to the pubic bone, with a shape tive, even though we are all different, similar to a wishbone that stretches along each we all share a common understandside of the vagina. Along with this, the vaginal ing of where and what needs to be canal is lined with a mucous membrane and soft stimulated. tissue that covers the vaginal muscles.

In personal experiences, the idea of the female orgasm was something that appeared foreign and challenging for some men. I asked Luke* if he thought men are nervous when it comes to not getting women off, or if it is too much of a letdown when they can’t. He said, “I am [nervous] to an extent. I do get disappointed

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with myself when I can’t get someone off. I definitely think people, especially guys, are bent on sexual prowess, so if they are confronted with the fact that they aren’t as good as they think they are, it certainly affects their ego.” It’s hard to master anything first try, that’s why patience and communication is key.

As female arousal happens, skin is flushed, muscles tense up, the heart rate increases and blood rushes to the genital area. Muscles in the vagina will contract, along with those in the uterus and anus. After the contractions, they will relax.

A lot of women experience different things during orgasm. For many women, if the orgasm is strong, the feelings from it will travel throughout their entire bodies. Experiences during orgasm range from tingles on the tips of their noses, seeing colors or feeling like their body is going down the drop of a rollercoaster. To Serena*, “it feels like waiting for water to boil. Once it boils over the pot, that’s the climax, and then your body starts to settle.” Kelsey* compares it to “how waves in the ocean form. They start far out, then slowly gain speed and momentum until the wave forms and crashes down. What is left continues to roll onto shore, and then gets pulled back again.”

Curiosity about the female orgasm is becoming less of a taboo subject, and researching it is no longer hushed, but rather encouraged. With the rise of curiosity about the female orgasm, websites like OMGYes have taken female sexuality education into a more mainstream and accessible concept; yet it is for a price. OMGYes has multiple interactive videos that allow the user to experience how-to tutorials on different aspects of the female orgasm, that works to avoid a male-centric perspective and provides a scientific narrative. In the mass media, having the focus taken away from women’s orgasms, and onto male-centric pleasure is just one of the many ways that sex can be perceived as patriarchal, by taking away women’s autonomy and sexual empowerment.

Dopamine Asking “Do you like when I do Brain activity during genital stimulation for men this?” is a good way to both ask for and women is the same, yet the biggest difference consent and figure out what your is after the orgasm. The male brain experiences a partner is into. It opens a dialogue “refractory period” where it is no longer responsive that is sexy and allows your partner to genital stimulation, where women’s brains are to guide you in the right direction just as responsive and sometimes even more, which if you aren’t hitting the right spot. is why women are sometimes capable of multiple During a one-night stand, things orgasms in a row. After a female orgasm, chemicals will most likely be spontaneous and are released into the brain, including dopamine and maybe the conversation won’t come oxytocin. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, a chemiup, but if you do ask women what cal that helps transmit signals between the neurons they are into and how you can make of the brain. It is incredibly complex, but in terms of them enjoy themselves more, you sexual pleasure, it is a chemical that causes desire. may be amongst the more memIt is the same as when you eat sweets: you always orable endeavors. Asking women want more. what they need in bed doesn’t have to ruin the moment. Remember, it’s not a race, it’s teamwork. * Names have been changed to preserve anonymity

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“Something about wearing a towel just makes me feel like I can conquer the world.”

Allison Levi

“Favorite blue jacket made

by Old Town in Northfolk that makes elegant and industrial garments, white Reebok trainers now consigned to the bin, only appropriate for an ex-girlfriend’s present.”

Oliver Mould

“I am very comfortable wearing this when I am at home alone.

It would however be too dangerous for me to go out in this outfit. Even so, I want to encourage people to be more confident!”

Carolin Melz

What would you wear?

STUDENTS REVEAL WHAT THEY WISH THEY COULD WEAR AT NIGHT.

BY LEONA CAANEN PHOTOGRAPHY BY LEONA CAANEN AND ALIZÉE CHAUDEY

“I’ve had my Nike Air Force 1’s for 6 or 7 years now and I cant seem to part with them - they’re so comfy and worn in. I don’t have to be afraid to ruin them.

I love black leggings because you can do anything in them. ” Elizabeth Nguyen Son

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“I chose this outfit because it’s something I’m not very comfotable wearing. The top is pretty exposing, but it’s my body and I want to be able to wear what I want without worry.”

Caelin Paterson

“I chose this outfit because it is comfortable, and I knew in this city of two billion people not one of them would be wearing what I was.”

Ali Benzerera

“I grew up in a household where a woman in a suit was too masculine; and a woman in less than anything than a shirt was inappropriate. The only thing I feel is powerful.”

Chiara Amor

“I chose this outfit because I wore it back home and felt so good in. When I wore it here everyone stared and it felt extremely uncomfortable.

Same clothes, entirely different feeling.”

Clarke Schwartz

“I went shirtless because that is how I am at home and how I feel most comfortable.”

Stefan Rueda

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“If clothes are an extension of people’s true personality, I’m surprised more people don’t dress like this.”

Hussam Ibrahim

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“I love my hair but if I were to wear it like this in public, people would assume me to be unprofessional or unkempt; attitudes are changing but natural hair is still looked down on by society ” Christina Oyelowo

“If I were not afraid, I would embody ‘Audrey Hepburn on a Friday night.’”

Hana Loggins

“I prefer floral over fawning.”

Delaney Wilson

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“I used to hate this jacket when I was in high school because I thought it was too ‘flashy’ but lately it’s been growing on me.”

Alfio Lococo

n Paris, the standard of being fashionable feels higher than in other cities. It seems as if there is constantly a different Paris Fashion Week going on, for every season and every gender. Not only are there high expectations for the way you dress, Paris can feel incredibly unsafe if you’re wearing anything above the knees and below the collar bone, or anything that looks expensive. Fancy watches or short skirts get you unwanted attention, whether it is dirty looks or looks of desire.

Highlighting the difference between day-today wear and students’ favorite clothes that

“I love this dress because it makes me feel free. I like to wear things that are comfortable. It also doesn’t make me feel too exposed, but just enough! ” Alice Preat

“I love wearing brealettes around my house. They are comfy and make me feel free. I would never wear this outdoors, it’s not safe and sadly it’s frowned upon.”

Verónica Ayala

they feel best in, Leona Caanen photographed the AUP students for this project. There were no pre-set limits to the clothing worn. With society giving constant, unnecessary feedback on the human body and the way we choose to express ourselves sartorially, this photo essay is meant as a big “fuck you” to those who limit positive self-expression. With people from all walks of life, these responses from students are intended as a celebration of their unique beauty which should not have to be hidden behind social constructs of what is acceptable or attractive.

“Orange goes smashingly with my skin. Pretty simple and cute.”

Imaniushindi Fanga

“I chose this outfit like I choose all my outfits, I put on the ones I like!”

Carl Peder Engleset

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COMING OUT STORIES ANONYMOUS AUP STUDENTS OPEN UP ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES.

BY ALIZÉE CHAUDEY

To: Peacock Plume From: Subject: Flying Bible My coming out experience was easy in most ways but hard in others. My family was extremely accepting, and even hinted that they knew it all along.

When I came out in middle school, however, there was some slight bullying.

One kid threw a bible at me as I walked down the

hallway, yelling that I needed Jesus and would go to hell because of my orientation.

But all in all, I was very accepted by my close friends and family, and those were the people who truly mattered to me.

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To: Peacock Plume From: Subject: I’m queer, I’m here, and I will persevere I’ve come out three times. The outcome gets better each time… Persistence, right? The first time, I was 14 years old and in the fall of my freshmen year of high school. It was homecoming night and I was about half a bottle of vodka down. After the dance, I was with friends when someone asked me, “Do you think girls are attractive?” Now the vodka had made me forgot the immediate consequences of answering this question truthfully. But my queer self decided to make an appearance. I answered, “Um yeah I do!”

My friend who was sitting next to me at the time instantly stood up in disgust. “Wait you’re attracted to girls?” She could have wiped the disgust off her face just a little bit. My drunken brain finally caught on as to what my little queer answer had done. “Um I don’t know I just think girls are really pretty,” I said trying to backtrack. But alas, the damage was done.

The next few weeks of school were hell. Some students wouldn’t sit next to me in class all because a little rumor got out that I liked girls. It was also a popular stunt to approach me and another girl, who was also suspected of being gay by the homophobic population of my school, and ask us if we wanted to be in a threesome with them. I was 14. I received texts from classmates telling me how ashamed I should be, that I was going straight to hell, that I was disgusting and worthless. I didn’t tell any adults about the bullying because then I would have to tell them about the rumor and how it started. My parents had no idea what was going on. From the bullying at school and issues at home, I spiralled into severe depression, anxiety and self-harm. The months following homecoming I repressed my queer identity, dated boys I didn’t really want to, partied, went to youth group, and did my best impression of a good straight Christian girl.

Flash forward two years. It was the summer before my junior year of high school. I did my sophomore year of school online because I couldn’t stomach going back. I had wanted to cut all my hair off for a month or so (a classic gay move, I know). So, one night I took a pair of office scissors and chopped it all off. Now in my little country town, this screamed “lesbian.” My mom lost it, my dad didn’t really care.

I was still struggling with depression, anxiety and self-harm but nobody knew.

My relationship with my parents was rocky again. One day my mom left an article in my room about questioning your sexuality. The gist of the article was “sometimes you think you’re gay but you’re not really gay”. This sparked a conversation between us where she was expressing her concern about how she didn’t know how I was doing, what was going

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on, and if I was gay. I remember saying I wasn’t and that everything was fine. But I felt guilty for lying so I went into the office and basically said that I wasn’t straight, but I also wasn’t gay. Her instant response was that I was too young and that I didn’t know what I was talking about. We didn’t talk about sexuality or gender after that.

Looking back now I know why she responded that way. She was afraid. The people in my hometown are vicious and would have torn me apart. While her response wasn’t great, I understand it now.

The third time, I was 17 and living in Washington in my own house next to my grandparents. I still had depression, anxiety and was still self-harming. But I was in therapy and it was helping. I was going to online school still because public school just wasn’t an option for me. I remember it being a beautiful sunny day in late spring. I had this weight on my chest of wanting to tell my mom, but I didn’t know how to do it. I called her and leaned against the kitchen counter.

My throat tightened, and I choked out the words, “Mom, I need to tell you something: I like girls.”

“Well no duh!” she answered.

We both laughed. I sighed, and my chest finally relaxed. This is a good memory. After all we had been through, I was finally able to tell her this again and she was able to accept it.

Slowly but surely my whole family found out.

Everyone was loving and okay with it. But it wasn’t something we talked about. Everyone just knew, and things went on. Now I’m very open with my family about it. We can make jokes about it now! My family can tease me about my crushes or love life and I can actually be open. It feels so damn good to just be myself around them.

My senior year of high school, I went back to public school. This time at a brand-new school in Washington, the same one my mom graduated from.

My experience here was a turbulent shitshow full of growth and a few shining moments. My senior year is a novel in itself about taking on another conservative community as a gay outsider, being bullied (surprise again!), receiving threats through Instagram posts, starting a Gay-Straight Alliance, signing to a University for soccer (not AUP this is a whole other story), having my first girlfriend and speaking at graduation to a community that tested me relentlessly.

Now I am in Paris, still fighting the intense internalized homophobia I have from living in such toxic places. But nonetheless I’m queer, I’m here and I will persevere.

To: Peacock Plume From: Subject: Finding Myself I grew up in a pretty liberal family. My mom and dad divorced when I was pretty young because my mom came out as a lesbian. It was a really rough time for our family but I was always raised on the belief that “love is love” and we need to be who we are without shame. Around middle school, I realized that I liked boys AND girls and I was a little confused. Despite being from an open and accepting family I always felt like I kind of had to be either straight or gay. As time went on, I grew more comfortable with my sexuality and discovered that “pansexual” was more accurate to describe me. I kept this more to myself. Not really sure why but I just didn’t feel the need to talk about it.

I didn’t start talking about it with my family until about a year ago when I realized I was non-binary, (meaning I don’t feel like either a boy or a girl as far as my gender goes). I normally present (dress) in a more feminine way, but looking back on my life I realized I have never felt female. The first person I told was my mom. Thinking she would be unconditionally accepting I was a little shocked when she didn’t get it.

I understand it’s not the easiest concept to grasp.

But it hurt unbelievably to continually describe or try to show my true colors and have people not

accept me completely. My boyfriend at the time was worse. I came out to him about how I felt (I had to because he saw me crying a lot through the body dysphoria) and he was brutal. He got pretty aggressive with his response, and started calling me things like “disgusting and ugly.” What should’ve been my biggest support turned into an abusive relationship after I came out. If I ever dressed a little more masculine or made any comments about my dysphoria and the pain it caused me, he would get angry. Sometimes he would bring it up to his friends in front of me and I’d have to face ten other guys calling me names or laughing at how I’m “fucked up.”

After leaving that relationship things have been better. But to this day I haven’t officially come out to my brother, my dad or my stepmom. Mostly because after my relationship I have paranoia about going through the whole process again.

To: Peacock Plume From: Subject: Letters Growing up in a conservative culture, telling my parents that I was gay was never an easy thing.

While the Middle East does indeed have a lot to offer especially when it comes to our rich heritage, one thing I hope we never offer to anyone else is our intense and deep homophobia. For a lot of Arab parents, having a gay or lesbian child is like having a child with an illness, an illness that should be cured at any cost. That was the kind of fear that I had to deal with when I finally decided to tell my loved ones about my sexual orientation. I wrote each of them a letter, describing in detail what I was dealing with and at the end I said if you want to show your support, write me back. Only two

people decided not to; 20 people (including my parents) did indeed write back. While my coming out story for a Middle Eastern person was indeed relatively easy due to the open-minded family I belong to, that is not the case for most people from my region.

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diverse yet divided The reality of segregation in france WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY JOACHIM FERNANDEZ

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port has always been a medium for national pride and victory in international competitions such as the Olympics aand the World Cup. The teams and athletes that play in these competitions represent the whole of a nation. With the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, it was the French team that earned such prestige.

The team was one of the competition’s most diverse, including a mix of players of European descent, but mostly players of African and North descent.

When the French beat Croatia to win the most coveted trophy in football, the South African comedian Trevor Noah applauded the French victory as an African one on the American satirical news program, “The Daily Show.’ This didn’t sit well with France’s ambassador to the United States, Gérard Araud. Araud responded to Noah with a statement, writing that, “France is indeed a cosmopolitan country, but every citizen is part of the French identity, together they belong to the nation of France. Unlike in the United States of America, France does not refer to its citizens by their race, religion, or origin.

To us, there is no hyphenated identity, roots are an individual reality.”

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As an ambassador, Araud’s words represent the state. His words can be considered inclusive, working to solidify perceptions of France as a country which embraces its ethnic diversity and avoids discrimination. On the other hand, the state risks perpetuating an ignorant, or even apathetic, outlook toward the reality of the ethnic divide in its own country.

France is a diverse country. There is colonial history, which has ensured that a large number of French nationals have ancestry ranging from North and Sub-Saharan Africa to South-East Asia and even Polynesia. Then there is the fact that France has continued to be a hot-bed for migration. In 2017, 83,674 immigrants were naturalized, 32,011 were granted asylum, 3,420,395 were issued visas and 262,000 were issued a titre de séjour. This excludes those residing in the country illegally, such as those living in make-shift tent villages around Paris or in migrant camps like those that existed in Calais.

As for exactly how diverse the country’s population really is, it is impossible to know. In 1978, the French government made it illegal for any census or survey to reference race, ethnicity, nationality or religion. The idea was that if the state recognizes

Mathias Caracas

its people as equal individuals who belong to no group aside from their nation, then equality would be achieved. But things have changed— the ethnic groups this law was focused on aren’t exactly the same as those who now reside here.

With the state still refusing to perform any census measuring France’s ethnic demographics, it doesn’t mean unity has been achieved. Without any way to analyse the ethnic make-up of regions, cities and neighborhoods, there is no way to provide statistical evidence on ethnic segregation that might exist. The reality is that the French state can’t be relied on to clarify whatever ethnic divides exist in society.

The people of France, the moving parts in the mechanism of society, are the ones who lay bare the truth of their nation and its divides. Not just through their criticism, but through the values they express, the experiences they recount, and above all, the great difference between their view of the country itself.

Mathias Caracas is a 24-year-old Parisian native.

He grew up in the affluent 16th arrondissement to a Congolese mother and Czech father. To anybody acquainted with that district, it is clear that Caracas doesn’t fit in. He has tattoos covering every inch of his body, his mouth bristling with silver grillz shaped like a vampire’s fangs. Head to toe, he dresses in the dark and dazzling street style that is taking the fashion industry by storm. To top it all off, he wears a necklace that seems to be made of barbed wire and carries a coffin-shaped satchel sporting an upside down cross.

As he was born in France, he’s technically as French as President Macron himself. But when the question is put to Caracas about France and his place within it, France isn’t what he first brings up.

“You want to know the reality? I’ve always felt more African then anything,” he says with a smile. Caracas has lived most of his life in France, but travels often.

He lived in Cameroon, where his mother sent him

“We all want unity, we want to be proud of being french, but it just feels like most of the time, France isn’t proud of us.”

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in the hope of distancing him from all the trouble of Parisian life.

Caracas’s time in Africa awoke him to certain realities, things that once passed unnoticed. In France, he says, “There’s this racism that exists beneath everything. It keeps me from ever feeling a part of this thing I was supposed to be born into.” It could be a supermarket manager hawking over him as he shops for groceries or a trio of cops stopping him in his tracks and searching him without explaining why. Every avenue of daily life presents Caracas with that risk.

Heading home for an appointment one night, he saw police officers heading briskly his way.

He knew right away that he was going to be stopped; as it had happened countless times before.

He recalls, “Officers checked my phone and read my texts to check if it was stolen. Then they pulled my pants by the waistband and checked inside my boxers, ‘making sure’ I wasn’t hiding any drugs.” Then just like that, they let him go. The phone wasn’t stolen, no drugs were hidden in his pants. “For me, it’s like I’m getting raped against that wall. For them, its business as usual. And this is my block, I live here but, fuck, it sure doesn’t feel like it.”

Caracas claims to have all types of friends, from all stretches of life. When he asks his white friends, many of whom grew up in the same area as him, if they have any experiences like his own, they don’t.

As for the rest of his friends, those with African or Arab parents, they all have stories. But it’s not just the police, says Caracas. Even the average citizen is guilty of the discrimination he speaks of. He tells of rainy nights when people view him as an impending threat, just because his hood is up.

Once, a man saw him approaching and grabbed his girlfriend beside him, shielding her and ready for a fight.

For Caracas, it’s these instances that ensure a divide exists. “It makes it so that when we grow up, we stay within our groups,” he says. “Africans grow up with Africans. Everything about how we live life is influenced by that.

We all want unity, we want to be proud of being French, but it just feels like most of the time, France isn’t proud of us.”

Seraphin Noraz, an 80-year-old from French Savoie, is certain of many things. One such certainty is that France has always been proud of him. He served two years in the French military and was a successful manager with an engineering company,

“now, these younger generations, they’re much more separated from us. it’s them who cause problems, they’re the ones who don’t integrate.”

Seraphin Noraz

one that had him travel the world and afforded him a pension. He married and had children who have now had children of their own. His long life has provided him with values and beliefs he would never let go of.

When the question of France was put to Noraz, he answered with pride.

“I may be critical of this country, but I’m fiercely proud of it. There is such rich history and culture here, such beautiful and varied landscapes. I’ve traveled everywhere, but every time I came back here, I knew there was no place I’d rather live.”

Unlike Caracas, Noraz didn’t speak on any abuses he’s suffered. Instead, the same questions led him on a reflection of his life in the country that he loved.

But, while he was never victim to the division Caracas spoke of, Noraz isn’t blind to it. He’s seen the country’s population change and, through all that change, he says there’s always been minorities or immigrants labeled as outsiders in French society, living separated and among their own.

“It used to be the Italians, they were the ‘outsiders.’ Now you have these waves of immigrants coming in, from places that are far more different to France than Italy was. While I sympathize with those fleeing from conflict, I’m against most of them coming in. Many have devious reasons and they fail in becoming a part of society.”

Noraz now lives in a suburb, bordering the small town of Chambéry. He sees that failure of integration happening right there. Throughout the 50 years

he’s lived there, he’s seen generations of Moroccans and Algerians residing alongside him, but, he feels, never quite with him: “They used to be different.

They lived among us French people, almost like French people. Not quite, but almost. Now, these younger generations, they’re much more separated from us. It’s them who cause problems, they’re the ones who don’t integrate.”

It is difficult to compare a 24-year-old from Paris with Africa in his veins to an 80-year-old from the French Alps whose ancestry likely leads to the Celtic tribes of Gaul. In almost every possible way, they are different from one another. But they are both equally citizens of France, and it’s clear they agree on one thing: France is ethnically diverse, but it is divided.

Noraz sees that divide as unchangeable. He says it’s something he learned in his own time living in Africa. He was respected by those he lived with, but was never a part of them. He believes when you have two different cultures, with two different ways of life, they can’t truly ever mix. Caracas sees a different future, as knowledge of the world is at our fingertips with phones and computers. He believes that, with time, culture and generations will mix until these divisions don’t exist anymore. Regardless of who is right, Caracas and Noraz make it clear that ethnic divisions do exist in France. If their views represent those of the French people, then France isn’t as color-blind as it thinks.

NOT SILICON VALLEY THREE YOUNG BUSINESS OWNERS BREAKING THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MOLD. WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED

BY AMANUEL NEGUEDE

C

oming from different continents, Maxwell Raymond, Julie Lecuyer and Temesgen Gebrehiwot are three young entrepreneurs who are very different from the typical image of a Silicon Valley startup. I spoke to them about how they started their businesses, the challenges they face and their hopes for the future.

Temesgen Gebrehiwot, ETTA Taxi Services, Ethiopia Sitting behind his desk, Temesgen Gebrehiwot proudly tells me about his business. “We do the same thing Uber does,” he says, “we’re just doing it in Ethiopia.” Gebrehiwot and his partner Ambaye Tesfaye launched a taxi service app in 2016 in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa.

Very similar to Uber, their company grew rapidly. Today, alongside a similar service called RIDE, Gebrehiwot and Tesfaye transformed the Ethiopian transportation system. With the help of sponsors, they now control a large portion of the Ethiopian market for phone application taxi services. Their company ETTA (Ethiopian Taxi) operates the exact same way Uber does, as an application that connects taxi drivers to customers.

In Ethiopia, internet services are not always guaranteed as electricity shortages or government censorship can occur — only a few months ago, the former Ethiopian prime minister declared a state of emergency and internet service was interrupted for multiple weeks. “Our company suffered a lot!” Gebrehiwot says. “As we run on a lot of ads, we lost a lot of clients.” That is why his company today also offers a call service, in order to directly call an operator who connects you to your driver over the phone. While this system might seem rudimentary, it has proven to be very effective.

A graduate from the Korean University of Technology in Seoul, South Korea, Gebrehiwot studied electronic communication with a specialization in robotics, humanoid robot, brain computer interface and data analysis. His studies helped him understand the market he was getting into prior to making any investments. Unlike some entrepreneurs who come up with an idea randomly and pursue it, Gebrehiwot knew exactly what he wanted to do. In his words, “Think big, start small, act now.”

Maxwell Raymond, “Consumato” Sustainable Bags, United States

Julie Lecuyer, Tata Rachel Maternity Suitcases, Hong Kong

Eight thousand miles across the Atlantic, Maxwell Raymond, a young skater from Detroit, Michigan, developed a passion for the sewing machine. While his bags aren’t available in his favorite boutiques and skate stores yet, I can hear the same ambition and determination as Gebrehiwot in his voice.

Raymond uses recycled materials and textiles to sew unique and artistic bags. Handing me a black bag with a bright, almost fluorescent orange stripe on the top left corner, Raymond explains that the materials he uses come from a variety of places, such as a store that is going out of business, the reflective string from a toolbox and the zipper from an old pair of pants. Some bags use wood elements, others use hemp.

The growing trend of “green” or sustainable fashion has become increasingly accepted and Raymond is hoping that his creative collection might attract a lot of clients. Like Gebrehiwot, Raymond says: “It doesn’t matter how good of an idea you have if someone else has the same idea. If you don’t act on it, someone else will.”

Still in the very early stages, the inspiration for his first line of bags called “Consumato” (consumed in Italian), was fueled by the concept of minimalism.

The concept allows him to “recreate something from the old, repurposing used materials that could be considered trash or obsolete to some and giving them a second life.” Empty packs of swisher sweet cigarillos don’t go in the trash when Raymond’s around.

He gives them a second life by adding other recycled materials.

Julie Lecuyer’s brand Tata Rachel began in Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb just outside of Paris. Her idea rose from the constant search for the perfect gift for her work friends’ baby showers. She realized that no one made beautiful bags that carried all the essentials for the first months of maternity. After extensively researching the market online, Lecuyer realized that “maternity suitcases” were virtually nonexistent and the few that did weren’t functional or elegant. She then chose to make her own luxury maternity suitcase brand, Tata Rachel. It all started with a drawing. “I’ve had this vintage hat box for more than 10 years,” she mentions, “and I absolutely wanted to make something of it.” That hat box was her first prototype.

Lecuyer studied audiovisuals and journalism in France. She worked as a journalist for several French TV channels before quitting her job and moving to Hong Kong to fully commit to her passion in 2015.

Since then, Tata Rachel has known an unprecedented success, shipping to over 35 countries. Her ingenious maternity suitcase is sold globally and has even had huge exposure on celebrity Camilia Guiribitey’s YouTube page, racking up over 150,000 views.

Many would think that the obstacles she faced as a woman might have dissuaded her to continue her passion. But not Lecuyer: “I don’t feel any difficulty as a woman,” she says. “Baby clothing is a world full of women!” On the contrary, Lecuyer says “Men are the ones who encourage me the most.” As an entrepreneur herself, she recognizes that every day is a challenge. For her, “The hardest part is leaving something secure for something insecure.” That is the risk entrepreneurs are willing to take.

W

ith Paris less than five hours by train from any French destination you can think of, there is an endless number of small towns to discover.

Immerse yourself in culture and history, see the chateaux that you learned about in your history class or the homes of the artists you learned about in art history. Visit the vineyard where your favorite French wine is created or the beaches where the soldiers arrived to on D-Day. The entire country has a story to tell; here are three of our favorite places to visit.

SAINT-ÉMILION

Surrounded by vineyards as far as the eye can see is the little medieval town of Saint-Émilion. Located just 35 minutes from Bordeaux by train, Saint-Émilion is a must visit. Upon arrival, the smell of wine penetrates the air. From the station, the town is a 20-minute walk—a steep one so bring comfortable shoes—through beautiful vineyards and past gorgeous chateaux, many of which you can stay in. The view from the Tour du Roy is worth the 118 steps up its narrow, dark staircase.

On every small street there is at least one wine shop that ships internationally and, of course, you can taste however many you like free of charge. These small wine stores or the vineyards themselves are the best places to do your wine shopping. Avoid tourist traps like the Maison du Vin where you will have to pay 15 euros for a wine tasting and will be persuaded to buy a bottle with it. There are many restaurants to accompany all the wine: one of the best options is Chai Pascal. The interior is cozy and the owner is a winemaker herself. The menu is full of classic French dishes and there is a different special each night.

Beyond Paris three of our favorite small french town destinations

WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED

BY EUGENIE STALL

AUCH

Auch, a tiny, quiet town along the charming Gers River, is just an hour and a half from Toulouse. The region used to be called Gascony before the French Revolution and Auch was its historical capital. The Tour d’Armagnac is an ancient prison that has a great view of the Gascon villages surrounding Auch, but it is only open to the public during the summer unless you make a special reservation. The main site of interest in this town is the Cathédrale Sainte-Marie, located on a large square in the middle of the city. A UNESCO World Heritage site, there are gorgeous stained-glass windows and a giant organ. For 2.5 euros, you can enter the central room with its stalls for all the saints and angels carved in wood. It is said that the people from here are able to live the longest.

The region is known for foie gras, so it is offered everywhere. The place to eat in Auch is the highly rated Hôtel de France. There are three set menu options as well as the option to order some items à la carte. The magret de canard was delicious, and if you like foie gras, definitely get the foie gras de canard.

TROYES

Visiting Troyes is like stepping back into the Middle Ages. Located in the Grand-Est region, the Seine actually runs through Troyes, but this town looks nothing like Paris. The houses are mostly timber framed and some look like they could lean over and fall at any moment. The vertical and diagonal wooden stripes with each house differing in color makes the city so charming, resembling a small gingerbread village. These houses were all built after a fire destroyed the city in 1524, leaving 7,500 people homeless. The rich were able to build back with stone and the poor had to continue to build in the timber frames fashion.

The biggest cathedral in the city is called Cathédrale Sainte Pierre et Sainte Paul de Troyes, more commonly referred to as the Cathédrale de Troyes. Although this is mainly a town to walk around and enjoy the ancient architecture, Troyes does have a few museums. Right next door to the Troyes Cathedral is the Musée Saint-Loup, filled with paintings, sculptures and antiquities from Greece and Egypt.

History is not all the town has to offer as Troyes is also the French capital for discount shopping and malls. There are multiple malls around Troyes boasting designer brands up to 70 percent off.

The square has more of the touristy restaurants, but if you walk 10 minutes from the pedestrian area there is an adorable restaurant hidden on a small street called La Mignardise. Although a little pricey, it has delicious seafood and meat options, a big cheese selection as well as some sweets. The restaurant recommends the andouilette because it is a specialty to Troyes, although it is not for the faint of heart, as it is made of pig intestines.

Troyes

Auch

Paris art highlights

four must-see events and exhibitions

BY JACKSON VANN

Human GOODPLANET Foundation May 13, 2017–May 13, 2019

Greyson Perry: Vanité, Identité, Sexualité Monnaie de Paris October 19, 2018–February 3, 2019

Yann Arthus-Bertrand is a French photographer who focuses on themes of nature, environmentalism, and anthropology. Located in the 16th arrondissement, this photography exhibition is based on Arthus-Bertrand’s documentary of the same name. This audio-visual exhibit focuses on people from every continent. Over eight hours of newly released footage from the documentary are available during the show. The footage shows what people from a multitude of cultures have to say about the meaning of life and what it means to be free. Human truly dives into what it means to be human in today’s world.

For Grayson Perry’s first solo exhibition, head over to the Monnaie de Paris in the 6th arrondissement.

Grayson Perry, the winner of the 2003 Turner Prize, is a British artist who focuses heavily on the ideas of masculinity and sexuality and often dresses as his alter ego “Claire.” This is a must-see exhibit that touches on the ideas of identity, social class, religion, sexuality and masculinity through different art forms ranging from ceramics to painting, tapestry to sculpture. The exhibit is broken up into 10 cinematic chapters that each focus on a topic of interest for Perry. Along with the exhibit a conference program will be running at the same time, focusing on topics chosen by the artist himself, including “Divided Britain” and “Art: Female Gender.”

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Death of a Working Hero, ©Greyson Perry

© Yann Arthus-Bertrand

©HUMAN / FOUNDATION GOODPLANET

©HUMAN / FOUNDATION GOODPLANET

Suresnes Cités Danse Théâtre de Suresnes Jean Vilar January 11, 2019–February 3, 2019

Calder-Picasso Musée National Picasso February 19, 2019–August 25, 2019

Be ready to get down to hip-hop with Suresnes Cités Danse. This funky exhibit will take place in the Théâtre de Suresnes de Jean Vilar just outside of Paris. With almost 30 performances that range from contemporary dance to hip-hop to traditional creole dances, there is sure to be something for everyone.

Some highlights of the festival include the reimagining of the classical piece the Rite of Spring, choregraphed by Vaslav Nijinsky, in a contemporary dance form. Live rehearsals will be open to the public, and there will be a showing of the dance titled the Forces of the North, exploring ideas of transhumanism.

In the recently renovated Hôtel Salé in the Marais, the exhibit will explore the similarities between the work of Alexander Calder, the famous American sculptor known for his abstraction and innovative kinetic sculptures, with the work of Pablo Picasso. The focus of the exhibit will be on tangible relationships and connections in art. With over 150 pieces organized in a route to aid viewers’ understanding of the significance of the art, the space of the museum itself is crucial to the overall experience. This will surely be a thought-inspiring exhibition. Be sure to also check out some of the highlights of the Musée National Picasso such as Guernica and his self-portrait.

© Monnaie de Paris/Martin Argyroglo

© Yann Arthus-Bertrand

non, je ne regrette rien

first loves and their tragic demise

BY MARIELLE “GOOSE” DALVET ILLUSTRATION BY KATERINA MCGRATH

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E

veryone remembers their first loves. Those we believed would be our soul mates when we were young, more often than not, are now a distant memory. The dramatic nature of these relationships can make the inevitable breakups seem like the end of the world, when in fact they are only the start to our exposure to love. Students reveal their agonizing-yet-hilarious memories of their first loves.

How did your first love come to be? How did your first relationship end?

Mayar Alanis, an AUP student from Jordan and the Ivory Coast, had her first relationship with a young man slightly older than her named Mohammed. “I was actually just about to turn 16. It was a summer thing, but it got serious and intense very quickly. He was very old,” said Alanis laughing. “He was 23. He didn’t even know I was 16; he didn’t care, he didn’t ask.” One day we were in his car and he asked me when my birthday was, so I told him November 12th, and then he asked, ‘Oh so how old are you?’ So, I told him I was about to turn 16… He was like ‘What?! I thought you were 19.’” Alanis reminded him that he had never asked, but he responded, saying “Mentally you are fine, so I don’t care about your age.”

Gabrielle Fitzpatrick, a student at John Cabot University in Rome, was with a few friends hanging around downtown Chicago, and her future boyfriend John — who was quite intoxicated — was busy falling off of his skateboard. “We were being really indifferent towards each other, again, that sort of ‘I don’t really give a fuck’ attitude. It’s something that we used in those situations,” she explained. He then skateboarded away in a dramatic manner and Fitzpatrick’s friend Sierra told her that John had feelings for her. Up in a high-rise later in the night, she remembers: “I stepped outside on this balcony, it was pouring rain, and he stepped outside with me and we kissed. It was so much like a movie.”

Gabriel El Maallem, an AUP student from Paris, remembers his first love from when he was “really starting to feel [himself]” at age 14. He met an English girl in his school principal’s office and instantly wanted to know who she was. “I was in a school where we were supposed to learn French, and I didn’t really have anyone to speak English with. I really liked her vibe,” El Maallem says, and three weeks of flirtation passed before anything happened.

“After October break, I got her to come over to my house and hook up. This was the first time I was hooking up with a girl,” he remembers. “I instantly had feelings for her, I ‘craquéd’ for her, like we say in French. We spent a lot of time together.”

Alanis’s boyfriend “was over protective and we had religious differences.” Alanis is a Sunni Muslim and her first boyfriend was a Shia Muslim. She remembers, “We were fighting all the time, I was leaving for school; it was just overall bad timing and I felt like I was much more open-minded than him.”

For Alanis, the relationship “was really shitty, we didn’t get along on some stuff. I wasn’t fully comfortable, but I was attached at the same time.” Her first love was also quite judgmental towards her regarding her body and physical fitness. “He was kissing me and he put his hand on my stomach,” she recalls, “and he was like, ‘You know what, I am going to take you to the gym every day, and this is going to be better.’” There were several negative factors which contributed to the end of Alanis’s first relationship, but the disrespect and discomfort ultimately led to its conclusion.

Fitzpatrick, all laughs throughout her nostalgic storytelling, described the end of her first relationship: “What followed was probably the funniest, or least funny, joke in the world. We didn’t work out because I was fat and he was short. I was about a head taller than him. We kept things quiet for the first couple weeks, first month, for as long as we could, really.”

Outside pressure and jokes regarding the physical appearance of the couple became too much, which caused them to split. On a lighter note, “We found a lot of solace in one another, even though we looked diametrically opposed, physically.”

El Maallem remembers his first heartbreak as the betrayal he faced from both his best friend and his first love: “My best friend was always making fun of me for being chubby and being with this girl made me feel really good about myself.” In contrast, his best friend was very physically fit. One day his friend approached him saying that he had signed up at the same gym as the girl and that they had hooked up before the gym one day. El Maallem was heartbroken and confused: “It became a thing where I couldn’t hook up with her because we were both hooking up with her.” El Maallem remembers it being competitive, and situations would spring up in class that were uncomfortable: “Me and my best friend both sat next to her and we both put our hands on her lap.” Wondering what he would say to her today, El Maallem says, “I would just want to let her know that I was too clingy, and I clearly wasn’t her first love, although she was mine.”

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AUP CARTOONS

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MINA BORGES