The Camp Vamp: Katrina Fox

Mardi Gras Parade 2010

2010-02-27T20:00:00.001-08:00

After the whole Mardi Gras debacle (check out www.thescavenger.net in the GLBSGDQ section for details), my partner Tracie and I met up with Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) on their marriage equality float as they’d invited excluded groups to join them and despite being told by Mardi Gras that no ‘unauthorised material’ must be displayed, CAAH encouraged people to display just such material.

We went into the section where you wait until it’s time to set off. There were a couple of other animal libbers but T and I had our big placards, so they targeted us. One side of our placards said ‘Animal lib for marriage equality’ (as a courtesy to CAAH), the other side said ‘Free the battery hens’ (as a up yours to Mardi Gras and to help the chickens!).

A female official came up and said according to her list it was a marriage equality float and we may not be able to have our placards. Tracie told her the placards would be in the parade but that she was welcome to get Michael Rolik the CEO of Mardi Gras to come down and try to take the placards away himself. Rachel Evans from CAAH was lovely and explained to the official that animal libbers had been invited to take part in the float, so off the official went to get someone else.

A bit later on a male official came back with the female official and I recorded the whole thing on my iPhone. He said the placards had nothing to do with CAAH’s float that they originally booked. Rachel explained that they’d invited excluded groups and that one side of the placard referred to marriage equality. He asked who the animal libbers were and Rachel told him my name.

He said the command may come down that we’d have to give up the placards or leave the parade and not be allowed to march. I said ‘So you’re going to physically remove us?’ and he said ‘No, you’ll be asked to leave’ and I said, ‘We won’t leave voluntarily so are you going to physically remove us?’ He said he’d have to refer to a more ‘senior level’.

Anyway the upshot is that nothing else happened after that and we marched. We had our large placards on a really long pole which we twirled around to show both messages.

It was a wise decision by MG to let us march though, as we planned to jump the fence at Taylor Square and hijack the media if they didn’t. We were so up for it (and we’ve scaled higher fences than the piddly things they have around the parade!).

The good thing was a lot of people in the parade area were really nice and said they were so glad we’d got in to march and weren’t happy with MG’s decision to exclude AL. At Taylor Square, I got the placard in front of the TV cameras but of course when we skipped through the coverage on Arena (which we recorded), it was a sanitised version of the parade and we’d been cut out! As Foxtel is a sponsor of MG, they’d have been told not to screen anything controversial.

So, a small victory in that we got to march with a ‘free the battery hens’ placard each for people watching the parade live, and gave MG something to think about. Let's see what comes of the community consultation they have planned.

Don't judge women by their covers (Caster Semenya)

2009-09-15T00:31:00.000-07:00

Published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 15 September 09

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the bearded lady was a staple attraction of travelling human freak shows. But while these sideshows may have declined in popularity, a bearded woman - or any woman who exhibits masculine traits - is still a social aberration.

Take South African athlete Caster Semenya, who has become a modern-day curiosity. After winning the women's 800 metres at the World Championships in Athletics in Berlin last month, fellow athletes questioned her biological sex. Was she a woman? The International Association of Athletics' Federations ordered a series of tests.

Recent media reports allege these reveal that Semenya possesses both male and female sex characteristics.

She's a young woman with a possible intersex condition who produces a higher level of testosterone than so-called ''normal'' women. For this, she has suffered the indignity of having her core identity challenged.

In an attempt to prove she is "all woman", the South African magazine You decked her out in heels and make-up and put her on its cover. The African National Congress MP Winnie Madikizela-Mandela slammed the publication for "making a spectacle" of Semenya and turning her into a "caricature". She is right.

Semenya's makeover reinforces our narrow-minded view of what a woman is - or should be. The message, ingrained in society, is: if you don't adopt the trappings associated with conventional femininity, you're not a ''real'' woman.

This notion leaves every woman who finds long hair, lipstick and a pair of 13-centimetre Manolo Blahniks to be about as useful as a fork to eat soup feeling like a failure, or even a traitor to her gender.

The emphasis on a woman's attractiveness or femininity means talent is often overlooked. Semenya is a case in point. Another example of this is the furore at Wimbledon earlier this year when it was reported higher-ranked female tennis players, including world No. 1 Serena Williams, were relegated to the outer courts while ''prettier'' players were favoured for the centre court.

Homophobia, of course, plays its part in society's revilement of women who don't conform to gender stereotypes. Legendary tennis stars such as Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova no doubt lost sponsorships because they were gay. But it's likely their physical appearance played a part.

If Maria Sharapova suddenly declared membership of the Sapphic sisterhood, it's unlikely she'd lose sponsors. Rather than cries of ''She's not a real woman'', we'd likely hear ''Can we watch?'' Lesbians - along with all other women - are acceptable to mainstream society if they're considered ''feminine'' enough. MTV's Ruby Rose is snapped by the paparazzi every day ''despite'' being a lesbian, because she's ''hot''.

But regardless of who they're sleeping with, successful sportswomen, businesswomen and female politicians all cop flack for looking or behaving in ways considered ''unfeminine''.

The idea of a ''butch'' woman who dares to reject feminine accoutrements and a passiveness generally associated with her gender sends tidal waves of fear thundering through the patriarchal psyche. It's time for the freak show to end. It's time to stop demonising women who don't conform to conventional feminine ideals.

The irony is that if a woman wears too little make-up, she's not a real woman, but if she wears too much, she's compared with a drag queen - that is, a man - albeit one who has taken femininity to the extreme. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

This isn't an argument against femininity itself. Many women, including me, revel in putting on a pretty frock, painting our faces and wrecking our spines by teetering around in fabulous stilettos. But that doesn't make us ''women'', any more than short hair and jackboots make a man.

Rigid gender stereotypes of women as feminine and men as masculine do a disservice to us all, as we struggle to live up to a particular image and are stigmatised if we don't.

No good can come of sending the message to young girls that, regardless of how intelligent or talented you are, your real worth is in how pretty you're considered to be. Or if you're not genetically ''blessed'' with acceptable standards of beauty, you'll be judged on how much effort you're prepared to put in to achieve a conventional feminine appearance - to ''make the best'' of yourself.

We need to shift our mindsets to allow for diversity in physical attributes and gender expression. So when sportswomen like Semenya come along, we can appreciate their exceptional talent instead of harping on about their appearance.

There has been much debate about whether Semenya is a woman, but the more important issue is to examine why she - and any other woman - has to have a makeover to prove it.

Writers, bloggers & associate editors wanted for new online site

2009-08-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

Hi folks

I’m launching a new online magazine/portal for news, features and commentary that you’re unlikely to find in mainstream media. It will feature the following categories:

• Feminism & pop culture
• Media & technology
• GLBTIQ
• Social justice
• Health
• Arts
• Book, DVD and music reviews

It’s aimed at anyone who’s looking for smart, incisive, informative pieces and we will build links with other sites that have a similar ethos. While the editor-in-chief is based in Sydney, Australia, the intended audience is both local and global, and associate editors will be based all over.

Voluntary positions

I’m initially doing this project for the love of it and I’m looking for contributors and associate editors who’d like to come on board.

I will say upfront that no one is getting paid, including me. I’m paying for the site maintenance and for images and will be writing pieces for the site outside my paid editorial work.

Contributors

I’m not going to ask anyone to spend time researching and writing articles specifically for this site (unless they want to – such as journalism students looking for experience in building up their portfolio and getting feedback on their articles from an experienced journalist and editor).

What I am looking at doing is building up a team of writers who already have their own blogs and are posting some great stuff to them and offering them another platform to put selected pieces onto to reach another set of readers. The same goes for professional journalists who may have placed certain pieces with other media and would be willing for them to appear on the new site to gain another audience for their work.

Your bio will appear at the end of each of your articles, and of course a link to your website or blog. The idea is to create a community of people who want to engage in conversations about content in each of the above categories; share information that you may not otherwise be exposed to; and gain more audiences for your work.

The aim is to feature articles by a mixture of professional journalists, bloggers and talented emerging writers. Contributors can be based anywhere in the world.

Videos, podcasts and photography also welcome.

Associate editors

Associate editors, in addition to posting their own pieces, will also bring other writers to the site. So, it’s a case of searching the net for good writers on particular subjects eg an associate editor for feminism & pop culture would seek out talented and interesting writers in this field and liaise with them to post their articles to this site.

Associate editors will also have the opportunity to post articles to the site (if they choose to), to gain experience using a web content management system (Joomla), which is useful if you apply for paid web editor positions.

Who am I?

I’m a journalist with 12 years experience as a news and features writer, sub-editor and editor on a range of consumer, trade, community and public sector magazines in London, the US and Sydney, Australia. My articles have appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, YEN, Slimming & Health, Time Out London, Natural Health & Vegetarian Life, B&T, Nexus, and many more. I have written extensively for the GLBTIQ press, including a year as the launch editor of Cherrie magazine in Australia, news and features writer for SX and contributor to international lesbian magazines Diva and Curve. I’m also the editor of several books on topics as diverse as sex and gender diversity, hypnosis and self-help.

Why am I doing this project?

I’m doing this project because I know there is so much information out there that never sees the light of day in the majority of mainstream media, including niche and so-called alternative media, due to commercial concerns. Stories don’t make it into publications because they “may upset an advertiser”. Other “stories” are blatant advertorial puff sat alongside the latest celebrity gossip or lifestyle fluff.

What I’m looking to provide with this new site is:

• Intelligent commentary on a range of issues

• News and features on global and social issues, offering information that is scarce in other forms of media

• Interviews with smart thinkers and creators

• Books, DVDs and music that aspire to make a difference

• Arts coverage featuring innovative creatives from across the globe

• Ethical writing with an unapologetic social justice bent

Why an online portal?

Well, for one, it’s cheaper than print! But more importantly, online allows for interaction. There is much talk of the ‘future of journalism’ and where it’s headed. But one thing is for sure: People want to be part of the conversation, not just talked at, and as mentioned earlier, the aim of this site is to initiate conversations.

Still interested?

So if…

• You already have a blog and write about things that fall into the above categories and would be happy for some of your pieces to appear on the new site or

• You’re an emerging writer or journalism student looking to build your portfolio or

• You’re a professional journalist who has either placed an article with other niche media outlets and would be happy for it to appear on the new site, or have something that you feel is important but can’t place in mainstream media or

• You’d like to be an associate editor for one or more of the above sections…

Please email me at info@katrinafox.com

Please include either writing samples or links to your blog.

When is it all happening?

I’m aiming to launch the site in November, so please spread the word and forward this message among your friends, work colleagues, networks, e-lists, e-groups, writing groups, Myspace, Twitter and Facebook friends who you think may be interested in writing for the new site or being an associate editor.

How often will articles be posted?

After the first set of articles is posted (the first ‘issue’ if you like), they will remain there for a month while the site is promoted, to allow people to get a feel for it. After that, the majority of pieces will probably be posted monthly, but with occasional pieces that are time-sensitive posted instantly and marketed on social media sites to alert people to them. If enough associate editors come on board, articles will be posted and promoted more frequently.

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Thank you! :)

Katrina Fox
info@katrinafox.com
www.katrinafox.com

Straight and Narrow

2009-02-28T21:22:00.000-08:00

This is my article that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age (state newspapers for Sydney and Melbourne, Australia respectively) on Friday 27 Feb, 2009:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/straight-and-narrow-20090226-8j9y.html

My name is Katrina Fox and I am a homosexual. As is the case with Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous, that admission is apparently the first step in my journey to become straight - according to Living Waters, an international ministry that offers courses to help people who suffer from a range of sexual problems or "brokenness", including same-sex attraction.

It's 9.30am on Saturday morning and I'm waiting for Living Waters' one-day Grace and Sexuality Conference at the Wesley Mission in Sydney to start. There's around 60 of us in attendance, old and young, from a range of ethnic backgrounds and my gaydar has honed in on a few fellow queers.Boxes of tissues have been set out around the room by the organisers, presumably in anticipation of an outpouring of emotion.

They're not disappointed as the band takes its place on stage and the head of the ministry, Ron Brookman, leads the audience in song and prayer.Smiles turn to tears as it gets too much for several people and they break down sobbing. It's not unlike a Kylie or k.d. lang concert.Brookman, according to the conference brochure, has been "transformed from homosexuality" and leads the Living Waters ministry from its headquarters in Ramsgate with his wife Ruth.

"I was living a double life as a pastor and immersed in the homosexual scene in Darlinghurst," he tells us. "I know what it is to live in utter brokenness and shame."Brookman goes on to explain that God's image can only be displayed on earth when male and female come together in sexual union within the context of monogamous heterosexual marriage. Anything outside is a sin."Desire is powerful, which is why God has given boundaries," he asserts. "If boundaries were kept there would be no such thing as sexually transmitted diseases … there is no such thing as casual sex … the power of intimacy and sex is a foreshadow of what awaits us in heaven."Homosexuality is a "handicap" but healing our "brokenness" is as simple as "yielding our lives to Jesus", he adds.

Although it wasn't easy, Brookman says he has turned his back on the "homosexual lifestyle", but admits it is a struggle every day.After a talk by Ruth Brookman on how she forgave her husband's sexual indiscretions with other men and they now live happily as a heterosexual couple, it's lunchtime. And I'm still gay.

After lunch the conference delegates break off to take part in a workshop of their choice. Naturally I pick the one on homosexuality, led by Ian Lind, who founded Living Waters in Australia 30 years ago. Before becoming a Christian, Lind was part of the gay scene in Sydney for 10 years. For him, the two are mutually exclusive. "There is no such thing as a gay Christian," he proclaims."I don't believe you can sit in church as a gay person. I chose homosexuality like others choose drugs or alcohol. When I gave myself to the Lord, I turned my back on my lifestyle so I was no longer gay. I am still attracted to men, but I never went back to that lifestyle or gave in to my feelings.

"The workshop has drawn around 20 people. One couple is concerned about their son who came out as gay a year ago. "It's there in your upbringing," Lind asserts."If our mothers nurtured us and our fathers spent time with us, we wouldn't have those issues."

Discussion ensues about whether a person is "born gay".While Lind is adamant this is not the case - despite various research studies identifying biological factors such as prenatal hormones and brain structure that may be related to sexual orientation - others in the room argue it doesn't matter if people are born gay. "As Christians we shouldn't be worried about this," says one participant. "You can still be redeemed and choose to live a pure life.

"You've probably realised by now I have no intention of yielding my life to Jesus or repenting my "sin". Unlike many people who come to organisations such as Living Waters, I don't struggle with being a dyke. I live with my girlfriend of 15 years, a gorgeous, passionate and talented therapist who's blessed with amazing cheekbones, and when I stare at a photo of Debbie Harry, shame is the last thing I'm feeling.

But for those who leave ex-gay programs, unsuccessful in their quest to become straight, depression and suicide are common, according to Anthony Venn-Brown, a former Assemblies of God preacher, author of A Life of Unlearning and leader of the Freedom 2 B[e] organisation that offers support to gay and lesbian Christians. Venn-Brown went through several ex-gay programs before embracing his homosexuality and is adamant such programs don't work. "You can't recover from your sexual orientation," he says."You can deny and suppress it but you can't change it. Trying to be someone I wasn't caused great stress, a sense of failure and shame that eventually led to depression."

Brookman and Lind say they are now heterosexual, despite still finding men sexually attractive, and couldn't be happier. Living Waters runs a 30-week course for people "struggling with same-sex attraction" although both men admit it's often necessary for a person to complete the course three or four times to really "get it".

In an interview a few days after the conference, Brookman was keen to point out that Living Waters "goes to great pains not to condemn people in homosexuality or any other form of sexual brokenness, but seeks to reach out with compassion to those who are ill at ease with their sexuality".

It's true that at that no time during the conference did anyone express outright hatred towards gay or lesbian people, but references to Satan and "the enemy" in the context of discussing the "sin" of homosexuality hardly empower us. Spending the day with people who continually reinforced the message that a core part of my identity is "broken" or a "handicap" or an addiction to be overcome didn't exactly fill me with joy. The musical parts of the day were the best. I'm partial to a nice uplifting singalong but instead of suppressing my sexuality while revering a male deity, I'll take dancing naked at Coogee women's pool with a bunch of hot sheilas chanting "We All Come From The Goddess" any day. Or the Mardi Gras Parade.
Because I'm still gay.

Polite conversation is so last-century

2009-01-08T15:55:00.000-08:00

After trying to resist the lure of social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook, I've caved in and acquired several 'friends' on both, but quite what we're supposed to do now, I don't know. I've never liked that initial polite conversation stuff you have to do with new people: 'Nice weather, isnt' it?', 'So, what do you do?'

That one always bugs me - what do I do when and which piece of information is more interesting to you? That I sub-edit and proof pages for various magazines, or spend at least an hour most Sunday mornings imagining slightly kinky fantasies set in downtown New York involving women wearing glitter eyeshadow? I also speak in a strange tongue when addressing my cat, with made-up words of affection such as 'choochy woochy ooboobooboochickitapussicatus'; shuffle my feet from side to side while singing the lyrics to Dr Hook's 'Who the Fuck is Alice?' to myself while waiting at traffic lights; and create my own social message T-shirts proclaiming such things as 'lesbian vegans will save the world' using an inkjet printer, special paper and an iron.

Being defined by your job gives an extremely limited picture of a person. The only time I've been truly interested in or impressed by someone's job and keen to know more is when I met a female Israeli fighter pilot a few years ago at a party in London hosted by a gorgeous old dominatrix called Kate who, at only four-feet five inches in height, somehow got away with manoeuvring a large four-wheel-drive jeep through the city for 30 years while completely shitfaced on marijuana and not crash, even once.

Then there's the whole 'Where are you from?' I know it's customary to reply with your city or country of birth, but aren't you so tempted to come back with 'My mother's vagina' every now and then, just to mix it up a bit and make the conversation less predictable? 'How are you?' has to be the most bland, not to mention dishonest, polite conversation opener since it's guaranteed to elicit a lie. We're like robots programmed with a small selection of acceptable standard answers, namely 'good', 'very well', 'great' or 'fine'. At least the last one as an acronym is more likely to offer some vestige of truth: F**ked-up Insecure Neurotic Emotional. I propose replacing the preposition now and then, again just to mix it up a bit - for example, 'Why are you?' should be enough to induce psychological meltdown in your acquaintance and provide you with a few moments of amusement while they struggle with philosophical paradigms to try and come up with an answer.

I suppose I'd better get the ball rolling with my new Myspace and Facebook 'friends'. You never know, one of them might also enjoy imagining slightly kinky fantasies set in downtown New York involving women wearing glitter eyeshadow, and we can bond.

Girls kissing girls is a good thing, whatever the reason

2009-01-08T15:38:00.000-08:00

According to a survey by internet portal Lycos, most British men aren’t bothered if their female partners indulge in lesbian affairs. While 30 per cent found it “a bit odd”, 61 per cent said it is “not a problem”. It would be nice to think that the 21st century has given rise to a whole new breed of enlightened blokes, who are totally cool and comfortable with women’s sexuality and no longer see lesbianism as a threat to their masculinity. But I suspect it’s more to do with the popularity of online porn involving two or more chicks and with the current trend of straight girls kissing or snogging other straight girls, not for their own pleasure, but to please straight guys.

Young women are more inclined to indulge in these 'faux' Sapphic fumblings, with the trend happening mostly on college campuses and night-clubs. Any touching, sucking or poking of any sexual organs below the mouth, however, is strictly forbidden. “The impulse [to go further than kissing] is there, and some girls do it, but respectable girls who kiss girls don’t,” says ‘Julie’ in an article on the subject on Salon.com in 2006. Whether this trend is a good or bad thing continues to be hotly debated in the media. Some argue it’s an expression of girls’ sexuality and therefore valid and empowering. Others believe it degrades ‘real’ lesbians because of participants’ insistence that they are absolutely not gay, not even bisexual, as if gay or bi is something bad.

All I know is, I wish this trend had been in place when I was in my teens. If my cousin Alan had asked me to snog a cute girl in my class to turn him on, instead of having to suck his face off at the end of our first (and last) date, I’d have been in my element. If Alison Stewart, the gorgeous blonde Debbie Harry lookalike at high school had solicited me for a bit of lip action and dirty dancing in order to help her snare a lad she had her eye on, I would have been most happy to oblige – after all, that’s what sisterhood is all about, right?

And that’s the point the critics of girl-girl make-outs seem to be missing. All the analyses of how ‘degrading’ it might be for queer girls to see straight girls playing bi for male attention omit to point out that it’s the perfect opportunity for said queer girls to have a full-on lesbo make-out session with the straight girl crush of their dreams that they would otherwise have had no chance with and had to spend the summer mooning over their unrequited love and playing maudlin Karen Carpenter songs. Most of us have had and will continue to have to spend even just a little time in the closet in our youth – at least nowadays some of the rewards are a lot more substantial.

LSD needs a makeover

2009-01-08T15:23:00.000-08:00

The problems associated with crystal meth, particularly among the gay community, have been well documented, I thought I’d shift the focus onto mind-expanding substances such as LSD and ‘magic’ mushrooms. The last acid ‘epidemic’ occurred four decades ago in a haze of peace and love, and as far as I’m aware, no gay community in the world has ever been decimated by thousands of our kind shovelling inordinate amounts of special fungi down our gullets.

Various groups are doing their best to combat the crystal ‘problem’, putting forward ideas and strategies, ranging from hard-hitting campaigns with messages such as ‘meth = death’ to advice on how to take the drug safely and where to go for help if and when you need it. I’d like to propose another option: Employ the services of a top marketing firm to launch a multi-million dollar campaign to make acid and shrooms sexy, so they replace crystal as the substances of choice among queers. As has been done with disco, flares and Charlie’s Angels, psychedelics should be repackaged, glamorised and promoted as the ‘in-thing’ of the moment.

Let’s have a very quick look at the history and benefits of these two catalysts to opening the doors of perception, to see why this could work, not only to the advantage of the gay community but society as a whole. First off, psychedelic plants and their use in spiritual pursuits can be traced back to the beginnings of recorded history. In his 1993 book, Food of the Gods, author Terence McKenna offers a plausible hypothesis that homosapiens were in fact descended from psychedelic-using hominids, so we’d basically be going back to our roots. The successful use of LSD in psychotherapy, including overcoming addictions to other drugs, was widespread until the substance was made illegal in the 1960s. Unlike crystal, which turns you into a grumpy arsehole during the comedown, psychedelics offer the opportunity to be at one with the universe – a phenomenon known as ‘cosmic consciousness’ – returning gently to the recognisable dimension usually referred to as ‘reality’ with new insights about life, love and the nature of existence. Oh, and if you put The Wizard of Oz on while peaking, you may get the chance, as I did, to fly over the rainbow with Dorothy.

We need another Summer of Love. Let’s face it, if someone had dropped a tab or two into George W’s morning cuppa and sat him in the garden under a tree to commune with nature and allow his neural pathways to be reprogrammed, global warming would be on its way to being halted and war in Iraq could have been avoided. So, never mind ‘meth = death’, let’s hear ‘LSD = sexy’.

Disclaimer: This article, while calling for revolutionary tactics, is not intended to incite anyone to imbibe illegal substances. However, The Essential Psychedelic Guide by DM Turner is a good starting point on how to do it safely, for those who might have been considering it anyway. Peace ’n love, people.

We're not perfect - even when we're dead

2009-01-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

I’m dying. I don’t know when or how I’ll finally kick it, but it’s one of the only guarantees in life; one of the few certainties that you can rely on. Each day, each hour, each second, our bodies decay and we edge another step closer to death. For some it has nothing to do with the ageing process; in fact a natural death from simple old age is rare now. So polluted is our environment, so messed up are our food systems, so excessive are our working hours and 24/7 high-stress society that we are often struck down with illnesses that can prove fatal, at quite young ages. Then there’s sudden death. Accident. Murder.

Where the latter two are concerned, chances are reports of your death may appear in state or national media - like the learner-driver who ploughs into a group of people at a bus-stop and kills them. It’s times like these that can turn your thoughts to how you might be remembered once you slip off the physical plane of existence. “She was the kindest, nicest little girl - the sweetest thing”, said the coach of the 14-year-old skating champion from Queensland who was killed in a ferry crash. “Beautiful”, "positive" and "talented" was how the fashion student victim of a bus crash in Kogarah was described. Without meaning any disrespect to these young people who lost their lives in such horrible ways, it does beg the question: Why do the sudden deaths of ugly, grumpy, miserable, bitchy people never get reported? How come it’s only the pretty, good-natured, happy and kind ones?

Why is it that when we die, we suddenly achieve a kind of saintliness? Admittedly I’d like to think if I was extinguished via some kind of public catastrophe that my girlfriend would tell journalists what a loving, flamboyant, intelligent and caring person I was. It’s not far off the truth, but in all honesty, it would be equally fair of her to tell them that I’m also a moody, emotionally volatile harridan who bears a striking resemblance to Mad Bertha in the attic in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. In grief and shock we want to remember the best qualities of a loved one wrenched unexpectedly from our lives. But I don’t want to be a hypocrite, or not practise what I preach. So for the record, should I end my days in a way deemed worthy of reporting and a newspaper rings any of you up and asks what you thought of me, you have my permission to say that I was a crazy-arse lesbian with militant vegan ideologies that I never failed to impose on others at any given opportunity.

Just remember to add that I was also very pretty and had lovely hair.

Designer babies - yes please!

2009-01-08T14:40:00.000-08:00

So a couple of gay men from Melbourne, Australia travelled to the US and allegedly spent around $130,000 to buy “designer twin boys”, according to various reports from News Limited publications. Apparently the couple are one of several gay couples taking advantage of California’s liberal IVF laws.

Prospective parents with enough cash can choose the sex of their baby, as well as specify a number of physical characteristics and the education level of egg donors. The Australian Family Association has complained that the move is nothing short of ‘trafficking in children’ while the gay dads have defended their right to start a family.

So, should queer couples have the right to buy made-to-order babies? Well, hell yeah – provided they adhere to strict guidelines. Only egg donors with the fashion sense of Björk, musical inclinations of Liza Minnelli and politics of Peter Tatchell should be considered. It goes without saying that they should be vegan (or at the very least, vegetarian), outspoken, passionate, no-nonsense sort of chicks, preferably with some kind of creative body art. A penchant for mind-expanding recreational drugs without the addictive personality is an optional but definite bonus. Radical free-thinkers who believe conformity is one of the roots of all evil get a big tick, while any donor exhibiting even the slightest sign of mediocrity or normalcy should be avoided at all costs.Well someone has to start a revolution, so it might as well be the queers.

Forget all this ‘we’re just like everyone else’ crap. They don’t want us to get married and have babies, so if you’re intent on doing it, do it with style. Stand out, be different, be defiant. Refuse to bring another boring brat into the world who’ll end up as a ‘suit’ in middle-management for some pharmaceutical giant or oil company, afraid to speak out against the destruction of the planet or the oppression of minority groups in case it compromises their career or cosy suburban lifestyle. Aim higher – do your utmost to produce a little Leigh Bowery or Emma Goldman. The world needs more Lydia Lunches and Boy Georges. It’s time for GLBTIQs who want kids to step up and turn the concept of family and child-rearing on its head. We need an army of freaks – proud, individual, ethical and of course totally fabulous human beings to hand this crazy world over to in the hope they’ll rediscover and implement the concepts of democracy and equality for all.

All well and good, you may say, but not everyone can afford $130,000 on high-tech reproductive systems. Fear not, a solution is at hand for the financially challenged: Ebaby. Visit www.discountbabies.com to bid for a kid online. Choose from a large range of bubs including Smelly Babies, Automotive Babies, Sporty Babies or Babies That Sew. Celebrity Clone Babies are available for the shallower among us, while Satanic Babies are suited to those drawn to the dark. My personal favourite is the Bio-Engineered Government Destruction Machine Babies. Now that’s what I call progress.

Do it anyway

2007-09-13T17:06:00.001-07:00

Last week saw the beautiful city of Sydney transformed into a military zone that could have come straight out of George Orwell’s 1984. Fences were erected and streets were cordoned off for the APEC summit. Big Brother was watching all (although apparently not looking too closely at the Chaser guys who pulled off a spectacular coup and made the Police Commissioner and his cronies look like the plonkers they are). In a stunning display of propaganda, John Howard and the boys in blue told the public not to blame the federal government or police for the inconvenient ‘security’ measures enforced to protect Bush and his 800-strong entourage from dissenting voices, but the ‘violent’ protestors who were expected to cause havoc on the streets. While this rhetoric has been exposed as the rubbish that it is, it still had the effect of terrorising a lot of people into not attending the big demonstration last Saturday.

“Oooh, be careful” and “Don’t get arrested!” were among the responses I received when I said I was going to the APEC protest. “You’re going on the protest?” said one otherwise intelligent colleague, in an incredulous tone. I should have replied, “There are 21 world leaders in the CBD looking to exploit poorer countries and line their own coffers under the guise of ‘free trade’ – not ‘fair’ trade note – led by a man who invades countries for oil, who prizes profits over human lives and who, along with our own Prime Minister, refuses to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, instead coming up with an alternative agreement that has been slammed by environmental experts as ‘an empty gesture that may actually undermine efforts to halt global warming’. How come you’re not going to the protest?” – in an equally shocked manner.

Many people I spoke with had expressed disdain, even outrage, at the extreme security measures inflicted on the city – but few of them actually bothered to put their money where their mouths were and turn up to a rally whose issues stretch far beyond equal rights for same-sex couples. After all, what’s the point of tax breaks and other fiscal benefits if we’re bombed to smithereens by insurgents pissed off at our troops taking over their lands, or if the planet, under constant destruction by multi-national corporations possessed with the spirit of greed, stops sustaining and instead kills us?

I can understand people being concerned about their safety, but one of my favourite sayings is ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’. Kudos to the several thousand people who did bother to turn up on Saturday and march through the streets in support of peace and equality, despite the oppressive presence of 3,500 NSW police officers and 450 federal police, including snipers on rooftops (funny how ‘resources’ can stretch to this, but not a few extra coppers on Oxford Street at the weekends, eh?). For those of you who weren’t there, I have another saying: ‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing’. Mission accomplished.

Fat and Thin

2007-09-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

The thing about opinion pieces is they will often induce a strong reaction in readers. Whether it’s Germaine Greer lambasting Steve Irwin in The Guardian or Jason Foster proffering his views on butch-femme gender roles in SX, some people are likely to take offence, even becoming incensed enough to contact as many magazines, newspapers, online media and other public forums as they possibly can to refute the writer’s comments.I’ve done this myself, especially on Fairfax or News.com blogs where the original blogger has waffled on about how they believe humans need to eat meat and why vivisection is nothing to get excited about. I’ve gone through the gamut of emotions from extremely upset, deeply disappointed, to utterly furious. I’ve forwarded the articles to my friends and networks so they can experience the same flood of strong feelings and add their own comments. But while I may disagree vehemently with the writer of the original article, I don’t dispute their right to publish their views.

Now before anyone thinks this is a precursor to me wading into the butch-femme debate that has now made it into every GLBTIQ magazine in Sydney and beyond, thanks to Jason Foster, it’s not. I’m going to take up the perhaps equally controversial fat/thin dichotomy and ask: Why is rock chick Beth Ditto being held up to be such a role model for lesbians and even women in general, simply because of her body size?

The Gossip frontwoman was named the coolest woman on the planet by British music magazine NME; dyke magazines across the world have either featured her on their cover or are chasing her for that purpose; even Greer praised Ditto: “Her intention is to force acceptance of her body type, 5ft tall and 15 stone, and by this strategy to challenge the conventional imagery of women,” Greer said.

It all sounds well and good, but quite frankly it stinks of hypocrisy. On the one hand, we denounce the media’s and society’s pushing of thin as the ideal body shape for a woman to be, on the grounds that it’s ‘unhealthy’. Fair enough. So why go to the other extreme and champion fat? Because fat is just as unhealthy as thin. And before the Fat Pride people take aim at me, I’m not saying anyone shouldn’t be fat and proud of it.

But it’s nothing short of hypocritical to wave the political-correctness banner around by denigrating thinness as a ‘dangerous’ model for women to aspire to, inducing all manner of eating disorders, while celebrating fat and claiming it as a feminist issue, when both extremes pose health risks. Ditto may be cool for many reasons – a great voice, an awareness of queer theory and gender roles – but watching clips of her perform, she looks like she’s about to have a heart attack on stage. Good on her for wanting to break the conventional imagery of women. But 5ft and 15 stone is no more cause for celebration than 5ft and 4 stone.

Well, someone had to say it.

Bloodthirsty lesbians

2007-08-22T19:23:00.000-07:00

I just love it when women cause trouble. Growing up I never understood all that 'sugar and spice and all things nice' that girls were supposed to aspire to. So I couldn't help being a bit pleased when I read that female authors and especially lesbian ones are far more bloodthirsty than men – according to popular crime writer Ian Rankin. Speaking to an audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Rankin said, "The people writing the most graphic novels today are women. They are mostly lesbians as well, which I find interesting."

It seemed like an innocent enough comment, but the shit subsequently hit the proverbial. Val McDermid – one of a number of lesbian crime writers and famous for her Wire in the Blood novels which have been made into a TV series – slammed Rankin's comments as "so offensive". Yet according to the Sydney Morning Herald, McDermid's The Last Temptation features a killer whose signature is to take a pubic "scalp" from his victims, The Treatment by Mo Hayder has a crazed killer who forces a man to rape his own child and Heartsick by Chelsea Cain features a beautiful serial killer who tortures the detective hunting her by hammering nails into his ribs, pouring bleach down his throat and removing his spleen without anaesthetic.

So does Rankin have a point, and does it really matter? If men write about women being cut up, tortured and raped, it's often seen as misogynistic, so what happens when a lesbian writes these kinds of scenes involving women? Obviously it pushes some people's buttons: on the Girls' Wall on gay message board Pinkboard, one poster said she was so disturbed by the "gratuitous" and "sick" sexual violence portrayed in one of McDermid's books that she vowed never to read her again. But some female writers argue that what they write is less gratuitous than men because they highlight the consequences of the violence because they have a keener appreciation of what it means to be a victim of it.

McDermid may have taken offence at Rankin's comments, but, political correctness aside, the truth is, some of us are a bit bloodthirsty. We much prefer to immerse ourselves in crime novels such as McDermid's Wire in the Blood, with their depictions of axes slicing through human flesh and other horrific scenarios, than succumbing to the ancient art of lesbian poetry, for example. Call me trash if you like, but the only sort of poetry I have any affinity for is silly ditties you can clap along to with lines such as 'Four and twenty virgins came down from Inverness and when the ball was over, there were four and twenty less …The mayor's daughter she was there and having forty fits, jumping off the mantelpiece and landing on her ….' (You get the picture). As a young teenager my creative stories consisted of epic disasters in the vein of The Poseidon Adventure but in which there were no heroes and everyone died horrible deaths. I think Rankin may have a point.

A good bitch

2007-08-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

Why waste money on basic civil, human rights and protecting minority groups when you can spend it on giving internet service providers (ISPs) a hard time? That must have surely been the logic running through John Howard’s head recently. Last week the PM announced a $189 million “crackdown” on “online bad language, pornography and child sex predators”, including $90 million to provide every household that wants it with software to filter out porn. Fair enough. Porn’s not everyone’s cup of tea; while I may chuckle at sex sites struggling to gain my attention by an ever-increasingly creative set of subject headers (‘My cock is really huge, but my girlfriend’s mouth is so small’), others may burst a blood vessel. But Howard’s new policy also includes plans to force ISPs to filter web content at the request of users – something the ISPs have branded ‘unworkable’. Steve Dalby, chief regulatory officer at iiNet, told the Sydney Morning Herald that such a move would “affect the performance of the network quite significantly” and that “it’s hard to understand ... how people will make decisions at the network about what Mr and Mrs Average ought to see, and you're talking about a censoring service provided by the private sector”. Quite. Especially since Mr and Mrs Average are just as likely to be tugging and fingering themselves to porn as a pierced, tattooed dyke or horny scene queen.

And if you think this is political correctness gone mad, be glad you don’t live in New York City. The NY Times reported last week that a bill has been proposed to outlaw the use of the word ‘bitch’. The city drew headlines earlier this year after it introduced a citywide ban on the word ‘nigger’, and now Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn wants to do the same with what she terms the ‘b’ word. ‘Bitch’ is “hateful and deeply sexist” according to Mealy, and creates a “paradigm of shame and indignity” for all women. Does that mean that the popular feminist magazine, Bitch, which has been running for eleven years, will be banned from newsagents in NYC? BANG! That was the irony of the situation making its presence felt, in case anyone missed it.

Then there’s the gays and drag queens to consider. “Half my conversation would be gone,” said Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist renowned for his celebrity gossip. Whether a flat-out ban on the word is on the cards, or simply the context in which it’s used, is unclear. If I shout ‘Hey bitch!’ to my girlfriend while on a trip to NYC, how will they know if I’m being friendly or not? Extending the pronunciation to ‘Beeeeeeeaaaaatch!’ won’t necessarily make its intended effect on said girlfriend any clearer, so will it come down to voice tone and body language? And if so, who will police this? Even kennel-club owners and those who live with female dogs won’t be immune from penalty. Expect to hear the phrase ‘This is my doggess’ some time soon. Rap and hip hop just won’t be the same.

Transphobia

2007-08-08T17:58:00.000-07:00

Evidence of the rise of right-wing fundamentalism is abundant: a concrete wall will be erected around the CBD next month to prevent anti-war and other protestors from getting near the APEC summit; police have bought a water canon to use on anyone who tries to assert their right to make their opinions known (yes, we blinked and missed it – the 'it' being the moment democracy as we once knew it was annihilated); the two major political parties in the country are united in their stance against same-sex marriage; and the Foreign Minister has signed a nasty piece of legislation, without any community consultation, that puts trans people at risk (see my story in SX magazine at http://evolutionpublishing.com.au/sxnews/features/danger-zone.aspx.

But it's not just the right-wing politicians trannies have to watch out for. Beware the return of the radical lesbian feminists into the mainstream media arena – this time with new tactics. Instead of the histrionic, belligerent and blatant anti-trans sentiments of yesteryear, the Sisters of Womyn-Born-Womyn Indulgence are attempting to disguise their transphobia by appearing to play nice. A friend of mine attended the International Feminist Summit in Queensland recently whose guest speakers included Sheila Jeffreys and Catharine McKinnon. She reported that angry outbursts in which women referred to male-to-female (MTF) trans people as men and were aggressively anti-trans had been replaced with calm, relaxed tones that advocated being pro-womyn-born-womyn rather than anti-anything.

It's an interesting tactic, but smacks of NIMBYism: 'I have nothing against transgenders, I just don't want them anywhere near me'. Replace the word 'transgenders' with 'blacks', 'Aboriginals', 'Jews' or 'Muslims' and the 'pro' argument is shown up clearly for the prejudiced rhetoric it is: 'I'm not anti-black, I'm just pro-white'. And the rad feminists wonder why they were nicknamed 'Feminazis'.

The co-option of porno chic into mainstream culture over the past decade appears to have opened the door to a backlash against sexuality and sex and gender diversity. Gender Centre founder Roberta Perkins was vilified in the Australian press a few months ago by feminazis who disliked any suggestion in her new book on prostitution that not all sex workers were screwed up by their jobs. Now British writer Julie Bindel – who in 2004 said that a world inhabited only by transsexuals would look like the set of Grease – is claiming that gender reassignment surgery for trans people is like aversion therapy for gays and that trans people have a 'psychological problem' that shouldn't be fixed by surgery. In the same breath, she calls for an end to discrimination for 'this community'. Um, yeah, Julie, that would be nice.

Bindel likes to think of herself as 'controversial' which is possibly why she contradicts herself on many occasions. In her regular column in The Guardian, she publicly unleashes her hatred towards men who commit violent crimes and rape against women one minute, while supporting and condoning rape and murder the next when she reveals that she eats meat and dairy.

It's not that I have anything against hypocritical feminazis, of course. I don't even care if they live next door to me...

Wishful thinking

2007-08-01T22:58:00.000-07:00

The phrase ‘Be careful what you wish for’ springs to mind this week. A couple of weeks ago I read my opposite-page counterpart Mitzi’s column in SX magazine on how fast life has become nowadays and how we’re so busy ‘doing’ that we have little time to ‘be’ and enjoy the simple things. ‘How true’, I muttered to myself, thinking that it would be nice to have a week off work before embarking full-throttle with the new girlie mag I’m editing. I envisaged a cosy cottage, perhaps with a log fire, in the mountains or by the coast, tucked away in a relaxing retreat with my girlfriend and a couple of books. Well, I got my week off – but not in the manner I would have hoped for.

Last weekend, after throwing up at least ten times and clutching my stomach in pain, I was taken to the emergency room at a local hospital. A day later a doctor finally diagnosed appendicitis, whereupon my appendix was removed that evening. I spent the following few days pumped full of a concoction of drugs (the only fun one being morphine) and having what seemed like pints of blood removed each day for what could only be an impending vampire convention about to hit town, of which my nurse was the organiser. The third night I was transferred from a single room to a four-bed dorm with three others – a woman of 70-ish, a man of similar age and a 95-year-old Scottish woman who’d fallen over and fractured something – all of whom were delirious and spent the night talking in their sleep. Apart from the small pleasure of feeling positively foetal among such geriatric company, being on the ward felt like I was a bit player in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and I wanted out. I can’t fault the doctors or nursing staff who were all lovely and took good care of me – except for not giving me Pethidine as a pre-med before my operation.

Back in London, 1994 when I had a nose job (who says lesbians aren’t vain?), I enjoyed the euphoric high of this delightful legal substance, which was designed to ‘relax’ the patient before they are put under anaesthetic. To my delight I found that Pethidine does more than relax – it send you completely off your trolley, makes you cackle with glee and you couldn’t give a dog’s bollocks what the surgeon does with his or her knife. A little shot of that would have gone down nicely last weekend instead of the panic attack I experienced when an oxygen mask was placed over my face and I was told to ‘keep your eyes open’. But apparently Pethidine is no longer politically correct. ‘We get a lot of junkies come in and ask for it,’ the anaesthetic doctor told me. ‘It’s very addictive.’ Hmmph. A week later and I’m back at work suffering a bit of ‘brain fog’ but definitely on the mend. Motto of story: If you want something – be very specific.

Loving life

2007-06-27T20:23:00.000-07:00

Last week’s Best of Show prize at the BGF Bake Off went to Miss 3-D for his creative interpretation of Paris Hilton in prison: bent over doggie-style on the bed, taking up one of her holes a strap-on sported by a black lesbian. Of course, prison life for the pampered princess isn’t likely to be that exciting. Crap food and a cold cell are about as scintillating as it gets. Despite what the camp TV show, Prisoner, portrays, prison’s no fun for anyone, but 45 days for driving under the influence of alcohol is hardly comparable with five years on death row followed by another 12 years in the general population for a crime you didn’t commit.

This is what Sonia (Sunny) Jacobs endured in Florida, USA. In 1976, 19-year-old Sunny and her husband, Jesse Tafero, were sentenced to death for the murder of two police officers. Sunny spent five years in isolation on death row, before an appeal successfully quashed her death sentence but held up her conviction with a life imprisonment sentence. During the next 12 years, Jesse was killed in the electric chair in a botched execution that sparked national controversy – it took three jolts of electricity to kill him as the headset conducting the current to his body caught fire. Sunny was not allowed to attend the funeral. Also during this time, her parents died in a plane crash on the way home from visiting her and her two children ended up in care. In 1992, Sunny and Jesse (posthumously) were exonerated.

We can only imagine how we might react in similar circumstances – personally I think I’d be one bitter, angry middle-aged woman full of hate and despair at having lost nearly 20 years of my life for something I didn’t even do. But Sunny’s completely the opposite. A couple of weeks ago, she visited Australia to promote her autobiography, Stolen Time. Amnesty International, in conjunction with the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, arranged for her to speak at a seminar protesting the death penalty. I’m glad I braved the torrential rain on that freezing cold, windy night because to hear her speak was incredibly inspiring. Rather than being consumed with hate and anger, she is filled with love – for life, her children and her new partner, John. During her time inside, she used meditation and a positive attitude to survive. It’s hard to believe you could still have a sense of humour after such an ordeal as hers, but at the seminar, she explained her current limp by joking about how after surviving a death sentence she had to something dramatic, so she got hit by a car. She’s Sunny by name and sunny by nature; a shining example of the strength of the human spirit and of compassion. The next time Ms Hilton whines about being deprived of her creature comforts for a couple of months, someone should give her a copy of Sunny’s book to read.

Stolen Time by Sunny Jacobs is published by Random House.

Drug warning

2007-06-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

Last week Roche announced that it has recalled its HIV drug, Viracept, due to the fact it may be contaminated. According to information on the drug manufacturer’s website, an active substance in the drug may contain an impurity called methane sulfonic acid ethyl ester. Last week ACON President Adrian Lovney issued a statement urging anyone taking the drug to visit their GP (SX 333).

All well and good, but here comes the bit that makes a complete and utter nonsense of so-called ‘drug testing’. “Roche has advised ACON that the effects of the contaminant in humans has not been studied,” Lovney said. “However, studies in animals show that the class of chemical called alcylmesilates – which includes methane sulfonic acid – may have the potential to be carcinogenic if administered in very large quantities.”

Not studied in humans. I repeat, NOT studied in humans. Instead, non-humans with totally different body systems to us (including chimps, which at a molecular level are very different) are subjected to cruel and inhumane torture to conclude that if we imprison them in cages and inject them with large doses of poisonous substances, they’ll probably get cancer. Wow, really? Never would have guessed. Extrapolating such ‘information’ to humans is not only scientifically inaccurate, it’s downright dangerous.

It’s why the thalidomide disaster happened – women gave birth to deformed babies, which wasn’t predicted in animal tests. It’s why drugs like Vioxx are taken off the market, after they’ve been deemed ‘safe’ due to ‘animal experiments’. On the flipside, if lemon juice is administered to a rat, it will kill it. Should we all rush to stop consuming lemon juice? And the release of penicillin was delayed when its discoverer, Alexander Fleming, put it to one side because it didn’t work in rabbits. Only when Fleming had a sick human patient and nothing else to try did he administer penicillin – with excellent results. (See www.curedisease.com for more info and examples.)

To put things into perspective, despite the supposed stringency of animal tests on drugs deemed safe for human consumption and released onto the market, two million Americans become seriously ill and approximately 100,000 people die every year because of reactions to medicines they were prescribed. This figure exceeds the number of deaths from all illegal drugs combined, at an annual cost to the public of more than US$136 billion in healthcare expenses.

Don’t be fooled by drug companies’ reassurances about the safety of their products – remember, as long as they rely on outdated, pseudo-science like animal experiments, consumers are ultimately the first human ‘guinea pigs’. I’m not against prescription drugs per se – of course some of them help people considerably and save lives, including HIV drugs – but this is despite, not because of, horrendous, painful experiments on animals. Roche’s understanding of how its contaminated products might affect humans is allegedly “evolving”. Maybe they, along with other drug manufacturers, can evolve to the point where they embrace 21st century technology that enables testing on human cells. Just a thought…

Together forever

2007-06-13T19:02:00.000-07:00

Two lesbians – life partners who’d been together “forever” – were found dead at the Villa Marin residential retirement complex in California, the Marin Independent Journal (MIJ) reported recently. It appeared that Pauline Putnam, 89, and her partner, Barbara Francisco, 80, had initiated a double suicide. The person who sent me the link to this story wrote in the subject line of the email, ‘This is incredibly sad’. But is it?

According to the MIJ, fellow resident Helen Andrewsen, 86, said the couple, who’d lived at the complex for ten years, were “quiet, independent people, and it was just their choice”. Villa Marin’s Chief Executive, Tom Bucci added: “The two women were life partners. They lived their whole life together. It’s always been a very important part of them to control their destiny.” Neither women had any family he was aware of, and neither was suffering from any illness, Bucci noted.

So, here we have two old women who’d been a couple for a very long time, lived what appears to have been a happy life, shared a room, were treated well by other residents in their final years, had no family, hadn’t degenerated into serious illness, who decided to off themselves at a particular time, together. Personally I don’t find that sad; I think it’s rather beautiful. Yes, they could have lived to 100, but sooner or later, one of them would have died, leaving the other behind, feeling lonely and devastated. Instead of waiting for disease to creep into their ancient bodies and slowly (or not so slowly) take over, causing constant pain and immobility, they took a decision to exit this world, happy and together. All power to them.

Anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship with a loved one will at some stage ponder these things: Which one will die first? How? Will it be a long, drawn-out process from illness, or sudden, unexpected death? Will that kiss you gave him or her that morning as you leave for work be your last? Many of us won’t have a choice in how or when we or our partners die, but I’d like to think my girlfriend Tracie and I will get to the stage that Barbara and Pauline did – only we’ll be a pair of totally batty old bags in the vein of Bette Davis’s Baby Jane Hudson who will terrify anyone living in close proximity to us. We’ll still be dying each other’s hair at 90 (providing we still have some and if not, it’ll be wigs all round), wearing a thoroughly ridiculous amount of drag-queen make-up and dancing round the sitting-room to ‘Sisters Are Doing it for Themselves’ (in other words, nothing will have changed except our age and number of wrinkles). One day, we’ll decide it’s time to move on to the next world – for our physical bodies to expire and our souls to fly into the spiritual ether before being reincarnated into the nubile bodies of two young, beautiful supermodels – together. Here’s hoping.

La Loren

2007-06-06T19:54:00.001-07:00

There are times when it’s hammered home to me just how unlike the average journalist I am. I think it’s something to do with one of my principles in life: that social convention is there to be flied in the face of. So estranged do I feel from fellow journos sometimes that I might as well be among aliens. Nowhere was this more evident than the press conference last week for Sophia Loren, who’d flown into town as a guest of the Italian Australian Film Festival.

Having been declined a one-on-one interview with La Loren due to her “tight schedule”, I arrived at the Shangri-La Hotel (so love the name!) in the city early to secure a front-row seat in the Grand Ballroom to ensure a perfect view of the 72-year-old Italian screen goddess. Paparazzi were plentiful, along with a plethora of broadcast and print journalists looking for a quote from Sophia – including me. The first few questions weren’t exactly riveting: ‘Who was your favourite leading man?’ ‘Did you ever consider becoming a singer as you have a lovely voice?’ ‘What would you have done if you hadn’t become a movie star’? Snooooooooooze. Time to liven things up, I thought. Regular readers of this magazine will know that I have a huge thing for older, glamorous women. But – I like them to be feisty, outspoken and opinionated, too. Vacuousness is just not for me. So, with this in mind, I threw my hand up, took the roving microphone, announced myself as “Katrina Fox, journalist with SX, a weekly magazine for the gay community”, and asked my question.

“Do you support gay marriage?” Silence. Then uncomfortable murmurings from the audience. Eventually, Sophia repeats the question: “Do I support gay marriage?” Pause. Cue a frown, handwaving and flicking of hair, then: “You know, I don’t think this is the right place to talk about these kinds of things. Let’s talk about movies, let’s talk about other things … there’s so many things involved in [gay marriage].” No kidding! So many things – like a group of people not having the same human rights as others. Yep, waaaay too complicated, Sophia. Sorry to have bothered you and thought that you might have appreciated a thought-provoking question instead of the shallow, bog-standard ones you’ve had to answer over and over for the past 50 years. Silly me.

Sophia’s response, while not unexpected, was a tad disappointing, but what really got me was the round of applause from the rest of the journalists in the room at Sophia’s reply. One guy at the back even piped up, “Stupid question”. Yeah, well, didn’t hear you come up with a better one, mate, so up yours! Unfortunately I wasn’t asked to leave. That honour went to a journo from ABC’s The Chaser who asked Sophia ten zany questions in a row, ending with ‘Do you fart?’ before being escorted out by security. Hmmm. Maybe I have allies in the industry, after all.

Segregation

2007-05-30T21:31:00.000-07:00

So, a gay men’s pub in Melbourne, the Peel Hotel, has won the right to refuse entry to straight men and women, and lesbians. Should we be glad about this?

Well, first off I can appreciate that a queer pub overrun by straights can be really irritating. Being cruised by straight boys with wandering hands isn’t much fun – for lesbians, anyway. Neither is getting filthy looks from bimbos in the women’s loos for physical displays of affection with your girlfriend. (I mean, haven’t they seen a strap-on before?). Women booking a gay venue for hen nights and using the gay patrons as entertainment isn’t on either.

But is refusing entry to someone on the basis of their sexuality and gender identity really the answer? I don’t think so. For one, how on earth can it be policed effectively? Even in days of old, when the words ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ were en vogue, it was a dodgy sort of policy. Now, with the modern ‘queer’ label, and the trend for people “not to define” their sexuality but who are on the lookout for same-sex dalliances, it becomes really messy to implement. What of the butch, Muscle Mary ‘straight-looking/straight acting’ queen who wants to get into the Peel Hotel for a bit of man-on-man rumpty-tumpty? What exactly is he going to have to do to ‘prove’ he’s gay? Suck off the doorman or the manager? Bend over for a good rogering from his boyfriend?

Interestingly, the Peel Hotel has included lesbians in the groups of undesirables it does not wish to darken its doors, apparently because they “insult and deride, and are even physically violent towards the gay male patrons”. Now, I will say here that drunk lesbians are a pain in the backside. I’ve had more than my fair share of sozzled dykes getting lairy, and in a particularly wasted moment, I myself threatened to burn down the apartment of a woman I was obsessed with unless she slept me with – it was a LONG time ago, and she’s been my girlfriend for the past 14 years (note to young lesbians: don’t try this, as neurotic lesbianism is no longer fashionable and you’re likely to have an AVO taken out against you). But not all dykes are aggressive drunks out to frighten the delicate gay men.

Neither are all straight people. So, here’s a thought: instead of refusing entry to someone because of their sexuality or gender identity, refuse it because of someone’s behaviour. If someone’s being naff, loud, obnoxious or looks like trouble, whether they’re male, female, straight, lesbian, bi, queer or other, don’t let them in, or if they are inside already, chuck them out. Because if other queer places follow the Peel Hotel’s lead, expect to see select members of the GLBT community setting up the Australian Sexuality Verification Commission who will issue Gold membership cards for the ‘real’ gays among us. The rest will sue. It won’t be pretty.

Armed and ready

2007-05-23T21:08:00.000-07:00

Whatever is the world coming to? Almost every week, SX runs a story on countries where freedom of expression is virtually non-existent – such as last week’s piece on 80 gay men being arrested in Iran, because homosexuality is illegal; or all the furore surrounding Moscow Gay Pride. We may tut and shake our heads, and thank the goddess we live in a democratic country, where we have a right to speak our minds and, if need be, take to the streets for peaceful protest. Then we read the newspapers and the horrible realisation dawns on us that actually we no longer have that right.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported last week that “demonstrators and anyone under suspicion” can be arrested and held without bail under unprecedented police powers being brought in for the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit in Sydney in September, which will see the arrival of George Bush and other international dignitaries. NSW Police Minister, David Campbell, reportedly said that if protesters tried to breach police lines erected around the exclusion zone which will be erected in the city, they would be locked up for the duration of the APEC meeting. Special legislation is already in place which gives the police commissioner the right to allow foreign security personnel to carry firearms, and the SAS may well be out on the streets in force. So, the plan is to keep anti-Bush, anti-war demonstrators well away from these world leaders to avoid any embarrassment to them, and if anyone dares to get close to them to express their views, they could be shot. Nice.

It gets worse. Dissident filmmaker, Michael Moore, had to sneak his latest film, Sicko, out of the US, for its debut screening in Cannes this week, and is currently under investigation by the US government for trying to help some 9/11 rescue workers by taking them to Cuba. And over in India, female civil servants are up in arms about a new rule that requires them to reveal details of their menstrual cycle. Female officers must write down their “detailed menstrual history and history of LMP [last menstrual period] including date of last confinement [maternity leave],” on an appraisal form due to come into force in March, 2008, BBC News reported. Talk about nosy!

I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad if they were going to use such information for positive purposes – like providing unlimited camomile tea and free hot water bottles. Or making gifts out of tampons, courtesy of the delightful array of suggestions by the creative folks over at www.tamponcrafts.com on how to turn your tampons into something pretty or functional – from Christmas decorations, tampon earrings, a tampon toupee for dad and a colourful bouquet of tampon flowers, to a ‘blowgun’. The blurb on this device, also known as a ‘tampon shooter’, is as follows: “Safe for indoor or outdoor use, this air-powered gun fires tampon ‘bullets’ up to 20 feet.” Sod the SAS – I’m taking one of these to the APEC demo.

2007-05-16T17:37:00.000-07:00

If aliens came to earth who couldn’t speak our language and we wanted to explain ‘gay’ to them, one phenomenon could sum it up in a nutshell: The Eurovision Song Contest. I’ve been watching this on British TV since I was a kid. In fact, you could say that Eurovision turned me gay at the age of eight and set up a lifetime’s fetish for older women in blue eyeshadow and glitzy outfits, when Abba took out the top spot in 1974 for ‘Waterloo’. Eurovision is so big in the UK that parties are held, and since public tele-voting was introduced in 1998, you get to really feel a part of the whole fantabulous event. I’m pleased to report that me, my girlfriend Tracie, and a bunch of queens at our friend Bernie’s place in Brighton personally ensured Dana International’s victory nine years ago, by using the landline and our mobiles over and over to cast our votes for the Israeli trans woman.

So it was that I sat happily glued to the TV on Saturday night for the Eurovision semi-finals, and then again for three hours on Sunday night for the final. As well as indulging my inner dancing queen, the Eurovision spectacular also offered a chance for some anthropological study. The following are some observations:

Firstly, people who live in cold countries are depressed and weird. Finland’s entry, sung by a goth chick, included the lyrics, ‘Leave me alone, I feel like dying’; and they have ‘computer assembly festivals’. I kid you not. Second, feminism is alive and well at Eurovision – in addition to youthful pop bimbettes, women in their thirties and forties are encouraged to don mini-skirts and follow their dreams. Third, wind machine manufacturers make a packet out of Eurovision. Fourth, relying on just a singer or song will not win you the competition nowadays – backing dancers are essential. Nowhere was this more evident than this year’s winner, Maria Serifovic from Serbia, a rather tortured butch lass in a suit who sang about prayer and lost love in ‘Molitva’.

Maria was diplomatically described by commentator Terry Wogan as a “homely-looking girl”, while one gay blogger wrote, “She might be a lesbian.” Um … hullo? The phrase, ‘if it walks like duck, talks like a duck…’ springs to mind. If Maria’s not a dyke, she’s got to be the only one who doesn’t know it, bless her. Serbia’s director of performance sensibly decided to offset Maria’s ‘homely’ look with a bunch of high-femme gals with 1970s hair flicks that rivalled Charlie’s Angels, who danced around and touched Maria as if they were starring in a softcore lesbian porn film. The result was gorgeous. Equally stunning was the runner-up from Ukraine – a drag queen in a screaming silver outfit à la tin man from The Wizard of Oz, singing a high-energy euro-pop rave number. If that doesn’t ram home the concept of gay with the aliens, nothing will.

Mind, Body, Spirit

2007-05-10T01:07:00.000-07:00

I think I'm reasonably open-minded. I believe there are things that science can't necessarily explain, I favour some complementary health practices that sit outside allopathic medicine and I'm all for people healing their bodies and minds and expanding their spiritual awareness. But ... there were some real 'out there' services on offer at this year's Mind, Body, Spirit Festival, which took place at the weekend.

Take 'transference healing', for example, which is, according to the brochure, "a seventh dimensional frequency healing and ascension process" that works with the "lightbody" and is channelled by Alexis Cartwright, who was "divinely guided by the Spiritual Hierarchy to channel and establish the Transference Healing Process onto the planet". Right.

Or, if you've got $450 going spare, don't be surprised if you're encouraged to invest in some 'neurotech training'. This involves the purchase of a gadget called the Psychonaut, which uses specially modulated flickering light embedded in a set of glasses, which apparently "tunes the brain and body". Funny that, because high-end laser lights and a nice E at a rave club does exactly that for me. And of course there's the crystal healing brigade, who were out in force. Now, I do actually like crystals - in fact, looking at them all pretty and sparkling is quite healing in itself, so I can see their potential. But when I'm handed a leaflet on liquid crystal healing that states that each stone has a "deva" - the "single beings responsible for the creation process of the physical crystal ... they are Angels and are awaiting your call" - I feel a teensy bit weirded-out, you know?

No Mind, Body, Spirit Festival would be complete without the God Squad, who are usually good for a laugh - and free books. The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan, and World Crisis Foretold were among the light reading offered by Eden Healthfoods. To give them their due, they were promoting vegetarianism, so I guess that puts a whole new spin on Eve's munching of the apple.

Stalls offering aura scans and chakra photos were abundant. As I walked by one, I heard the exhibitor ask, "Is she a journalist?" I turned around and said, "Yes, she is." He called me over and told me I had the "aura" of a journalist. Clever? Not really. Somehow I think the fact I was walking around with a notepad and pen might have given a few clues. Or that dark cloud of evil that shrouds me sometimes.

After a couple of hours I was a bit over it all. Until I spotted a stall called 'Nana May's Magic Hands'. If it were Sexpo, it could have been the perfect end to a lesbian's day. But alas, Nana May wasn't using her hands on anyone - in fact, she wasn't even there. But I did consent to a free scrub treatment by an attractive young woman and left the building with smelly fingers, which was a pleasant reminder of a one-night stand I had with a massage therapist in 1991. See, told you I was open-minded.

Gender Schmender

2007-04-25T16:27:00.000-07:00

So, another young man vents his rage against the world with guns and kills 30 people. The press coverage of the shoot-out at Virginia Tech University in the US last week unsurprisingly focused on trying to allot blame. The Daily Telegraph, with its usual dearth of integrity, offered up a story which began "This is the face of the girl who may have sparked the worst school shooting in US." Yeah, like it was really 18-year-old Emily Hilscher's fault that the shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, may have been infatuated with her and unable to process his overwhelming emotions in a constructive manner. Just like it's always the fault of the mother, wife, girlfriend, sister or any random female whenever men turn violent, eh?

Obsessed as they appear to be with physical appearance (especially faces), the Tele also ran a front page story whose headlines screamed 'Face of Evil'. But was Cho, a 23-year-old guy really 'evil'? Or was he, himself, a victim of a society that has spiralled so far downwards into a pit of self-destruction in which consumerism, money and outward appearances are revered while compassion and any sense of deep communication is deemed taboo or unworthy? His alleged diatribe against "Christianity and rich kids" is pertinent. But rather than examining the societal factors that may have led to this tragic course of events, we look for skeletons in Cho's cupboard to try to explain his actions and comfort ourselves in the knowledge that he was just a "nutter", or as Lynne Eccleston, a forensic psychologist at Melbourne University, put it in The Sydney Morning Herald suffering from a "schitzotypal personality disorder", which is apparently a person "characterised by social isolation, 'bizarre' behaviour, paranoias and unusual thinking and speech." Hmm, sounds like me and most of the people I enjoy hanging out with.

Still, it's enough to make me want to embrace the all-female Utopia that lesbian separatist feminists (known nowadays as Autonomous Lesbian Feminists or ALFs for short, the irony of the acronym being a male name not withstanding) are no doubt clapping their hands with glee over as it's finally set to be a possibility. Last week SX reported that researchers in the UK have found a way to create babies from bone marrow, which could mean that two women can have a daughter of their own without any input from a man. I predict that this is the start of the lesbian revolution. Men will be phased out in these Sapphic communities that will form across the globe; underground cells will draw up manifestos outlining the takedown of the patriarchy; militant dykes clad in combat gear and stilettos (who said saving the world can't be glamorous) will roam the streets, hyped on feminist anthems like 'I'm Every Woman' or 'Sisters Are Doing it For Themselves', and surrender themselves to their hormonal impulses, unleashing centuries of repressed rage toward men in suits. At this point, disgruntled college students will be the least of the government's worries. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Sex with kids

2007-04-18T18:45:00.000-07:00

The current ire of feminists and some GLBT people towards a paedophilia website is reminiscent of the vitriol lambasted at the North American Man Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which advocated the abolition of age-of-consent laws during the 1980s and 1990s, believing that gay liberation for minors implied the permission to engage in sexual relationships.

Discussions are heated in groups on MySpace, and online petitions are circulating furiously to close down Puella.com, a website which purports to show the world the ‘human face of paedophilia’. Puella.com is the brainchild of Lindsay Ashford, a male with a sexual attraction to pre-pubescent girls as young as six. As distasteful as this may sound, he claims not to have acted on his impulses nor broken the laws of any countries he has resided in. Furthermore, the site claims to offer a safe place for paedophiles (those attracted to children), as opposed to child molesters (those who act on their impulses), along with advice on how to live with this particular orientation while not breaking any laws. The site itself has been investigated by the FBI and deemed (albeit unwillingly) legal.

When people think of paedophilia it is, more often than not, man-boy or man-girl and even woman-boy attractions, but you don’t hear too much about woman-girl stuff. So, I was quite fascinated to read on Puella.com the story of one of its female columnists, known as ‘Cat’, who has had a sexual relationship with her own (lesbian) mother since the age of eight, and continues it as an adult today. “Basically I realised I was attracted to my mom, and gradually began to express that attraction until it led up to kissing and touching,” she says. “I understood why I wanted my mom to touch me a certain way – it felt amazing and loving and relaxing, and it satisfied my attraction to her.” Cat, incidentally, was conceived by artificial insemination courtesy of her mum’s best friend, a gay man, who, along with his partner, knows about and is cool with the long-term Sapphic relationship between mother and daughter.

What to make of that, eh? Being a curious puss, I tried to get an interview with Cat a few months ago when I first happened upon the site, to ask her some pressing questions, but got no response. Maybe she’s not real, or she’s reluctant to reveal her true identity to anyone outside her immediate family in case mum ends up behind bars. But as a queer community, what do we do with the ‘Cats’ who come along and throw society’s assumptions into disarray? On the one hand, we can say, ‘Way to go, onya girlfriend!’ or we can insist the relationship between Cat and her mother is wrong and that Cat has been abused. Her response to that is: “The same society that said I shouldn’t want to nibble on my mom also said that some of the finest people I knew were evil because they were gay.”

Complicated bunch, aren’t we?

Celebrity liaisons

2007-04-11T17:45:00.000-07:00

Oh here they come again. More straight female celebrities jumping on the lesbian bandwagon. First up is Black Eyed Peas singer Fergie who, according to The Sydney Morning Herald has “confessed” that she had a “series of lesbian relationships” when she was younger, in a bid to rebel against her parents and strict Catholic upbringing. What’s notable is that she feels it’s ok to “reveal” this titbit now, because it was all just a phase she was going through when she was 18. And of course, it doesn’t hurt that she’s playing a lesbian in Quentin Tarantino’s new horror film, Grindhouse. Can anyone else hear the wheels of those PR machines turning?

Next up is Jane Pratt, former editor of fashion magazine Jane, who has now “finally” admitted to a “steamy sexual encounter” with actress/producer, Drew Barrymore. AfterEllen.com reports that, years ago, Pratt alluded on shock jock Howard Stern’s TV show to having had a lesbian liaison with a famous Hollywood actress, but declined to say who it was. Now she’s spilling the beans because … you’ll never guess … her brand new show has just made its debut on Sirius Satellite Radio. Pratt allegedly told listeners she’d “had sex” with Drew, and now wants to return as a guest on Stern’s show to “tell him the truth” about their Sapphic romp. Whether we are supposed to believe the timing of her revelation is sheer coincidence and nothing whatsoever to do with ratings is unclear, and Ms Barrymore is currently remaining tight-lipped on the subject.

How the tide has turned. As SBS’s recently-screened documentary Gay Hollywood: The Last Taboo illustrated, claiming to have had queer liaisons in the past would have spelled the kiss of death for the careers of straight, bisexual or gay celebrities. Barbara Stanwyck was so far in the closet she was practically in Narnia, even though her press agent apparently later said she had “no doubt” that Babs was “intimate” with fellow screen siren, Joan Crawford. Now there’s an image thoroughly more enticing than a less-than-memorable pop singer’s same-sex teenage dalliances. Jodie Foster’s probably done the best job of keeping her gob shut about her sexual preferences. That hasn’t stopped the press speculating about it over the years though, and Out magazine has even gone so far as to put her on the cover of its May issue with the tagline ‘The Glass Closet: Why the stars won’t come out and play’.

Perhaps the real lesbians are staying in the closet so as not to be lumped in with boring faux Sapphics (Madonna, Britney anyone?). And if you’re wondering how to distinguish between the two, I refer you to the story on Reuters of Daphne Wright, a deaf, black lesbian in the US state of South Dakota who is accused of murdering and dismembering with a chainsaw a straight woman she thought was spending too much time with her girlfriend. The benchmark has been set. Message to Fergie, Jane et al – you’re not even close.

Time to read

2007-03-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

I got an email recently informing me that Gay’s the Word is thinking of closing down. Gay’s the Word is Britain’s equivalent to The Bookshop, Darlinghurst: a Mecca of GLBTIQ literature. I felt sad because I remember walking past it seven or eight times before plucking up the courage to go in during my coming-out days – unlike The Bookshop’s subtle signage, Gay’s the Word’s title says it all, and just to make absolutely sure there are no misunderstandings, it proclaims underneath ‘Gay and Lesbian Bookshop’.

Happily I got over myself, went inside and came out with a ‘Femme on the Streets, Butch in the Sheets’ t-shirt (which isn’t strictly true but I liked how it sounded) and the requisite lesbian jewellery. From then on, I spent many an afternoon browsing the shelves here and in Silver Moon Women’s Bookshop, which closed down a few years ago after two decades of providing dykes and feminists with a rich collection of reading material. Silver Moon suffered from soaring rents, while Gay’s the Word says it is “struggling financially”, mainly due to mainstream bookstores stocking GLBTIQ books and their availability from online booksellers.

So, nostalgia aside, do we still need our community bookshops? Some people, including queer celebrity authors Sarah Waters and Edmund White, think so. Waters told The Times newspaper she could “never have produced fiction of my own if Gay’s the Word hadn’t been there first, supplying other gay writers’ work”, while White said the bookshop is a “cultural centre” that must remain open. Jeanette Winterson, on the other hand, told the same newspaper that “Gay’s the Word was a brilliant shop but the very fact that it is thinking of closing may mean that its work is done”.

I can see both sides, but perhaps the question, though, should be, ‘Do we still need books?’ Those literary-lovers among you, who, like me, may enjoy immersing yourself in non-fiction that expands your mind with new ideas, or losing yourself in a novel, will no doubt scream ‘Of course we do!’ But when I hear constantly from young gay men (I’m sure there are lesbians out there too as well as young people in general) the phrase ‘I don’t read’, I wonder if the written word is on its way out. Text messages bastardising spelling and grammar do little to preserve the beauty of language, and reality TV shows like Big Brother have taken the place of the classics on the school curriculum (post-modernism has so much to answer for).

One company in the US, however, has capitalised on society’s obsession with fame and ironically brought it back to the written word. Book By You offers people the chance to star in their own personalised novel – romance, western, pirate, vampire. You co-author the book by supplying the names, features and places and can even have your own photo on the jacket. Of course, the set plots to date are all geared towards straights, which means there’s a gap in the marketplace for a queer version. Maybe they can stock them in Gay’s the Word.

Stereotypes

2007-03-21T14:27:00.001-07:00

Judi Dench's portrayal of Barbara in the film Notes on a Scandal is sending lesbians everywhere into a tizz. It tells the story of a sexually repressed old spinster dyke (Barbara) who is determined to create a 'special friendship' with Sheba, a young, beautiful and straight co-worker (Cate Blanchett) at the school where they both teach. When Barbara finds out that Sheba is having an affair with one of her students, a 15-year-old boy, she manipulates the situation to her advantage.

While acknowledging the excellent performances by Dench and Blanchett, as well as high production values, most dykes have issues with the fact that, as LOTL reviewer Belinda Hazelton put it: "Once again we have a mainstream film featuring a (very closeted) lesbian character who is psychotic, bitter and friendless." Well, I'm going to go against the pack and say that I loved Notes on a Scandal.

Stereotypes are not all bad. I know I've moaned about growing up with The Killing of Sister George (in which Beryl Reid portrays a sad, ugly old dyke desperate to retain her sado-masochistic relationship with a young, pretty Susannah York but ends up alone), as my only model for lesbianism, but the film is 40 years old. When I watched it in the 1980s, there was still a dearth of lesbian role models, but since then, there's been a plethora of films portraying dykes in a positive light. From attractive high-school cheerleaders to ordinary girls-next-door to lesbian couples doing the baby thing, we have been featured in all our diverse glory in both independent and mainstream films as well as TV shows. This year's Oscars were a veritable showcase of lesbian icons: Ellen Degeneres posed with her girlfriend Portia de Rossi and hosted the ceremony, and Melissa Etheridge thanked her wife when she collected her award. Rosie O'Donnell is a host on a major US talk show and Showtime has commissioned four series to date of dyke soap opera, The L Word. Women-loving-women have never been so popular.

So, is the occasional portrayal of a lesbian as an obsessive old battleaxe who conspires to seduce a young heterosexual woman away from her husband and two young children by whatever means necessary and who writes down her devious ploys and outlandish fantasies in a diary really so bad? I don't think so. Call me twisted if you want, but I like Barbara. I get her. I see elements of myself in her. Anyone who has felt the tumultuous emotions of desire for a straight woman and jealousy of her male partner must surely understand why Barbara sends a wreath to the fiancé of a former teacher she's captivated with – I mean, what else would you do?

Personally I think Barbara should be celebrated and put on a pedestal with the likes of self-improvement guru, Anthony Robbins. Write down your goals, then devise a strategy for reaching them, he preaches … which is exactly what Barbara does. And she loves cats. Notes to lesbians: Go see this film. Watch and learn.

Time to adopt

2007-03-14T15:47:00.000-07:00

Adoption is a noble thing. While many people are rushing to bring new life into the world (human or animal), there are countless babies, children, cats and dogs desperate for a loving home. I guess I got lucky. There was no IVF around for infertile couples when I was young, so instead of languishing in a children's home, I was adopted as a baby, after my birth mother decided she couldn't cope with bringing up another child (she already had two) on her own, and abortion was still illegal by one year in the UK.

I was taken in by a working-class couple in a small town just over an hour outside London, who, along with a generous helping of dysfunction, provided me with one absolutely wonderful gift: a portable black and white television for my bedroom. This allowed me to immerse myself in old Hollywood movies on Saturday afternoons (who needs friends anyway?) and late at night. Looking back, I wouldn't have swapped those warm and fuzzy feelings I got pretending Elizabeth Taylor was my real mother for the chance to stay with my birth mother. Plain secretary in the east end of London, or glamorous movie star? No contest.

As I got older, however, I wanted Liz to fuck me. It gives the term 'Mommie Dearest' a whole new meaning, n'est-ce-pas? Now, imagine having sex (as an adult) with your mum or dad. Go on, go to a dark place, just for a second or two. How does it make you feel? Disgusting? Sick? Uncomfortable? It doesn't have to be that way. Get your girlfriend or boyfriend to adopt you, and you can legally get it on with your newly adoptive 'mother' or 'father'.

This is the innovative tactic employed by Olive Watson 15 years ago in pre-civil union USA. Olive adopted her lover, Patricia Spado, to ensure she would be provided for in the event of her death. Under the law in Maine, where the adoption took place, Olive became Patricia's mother, even though she was a year younger than her, effectively making Patricia her father's 19th grandchild and therefore a beneficiary to his estate. However, fickle creatures that lesbians are, the gals split up just a year after the adoption took place, and now the family of Thomas J. Watson - the man who built IBM into an international computer empire - is disputing Patricia's right to any share in his multi-million dollar trust fund.

Well, you've got to admire Olive's creativity. John Howard seems determined not to grant us the same rights as our heterosexual counterparts nor to allow queer couples to adopt children (so far we are thankfully still deemed suitable to raise and care for canine and feline members of society), so perhaps we should start lodging applications to adopt each other. Not only will we be safeguarded from a legal point of view, but think how much fun it will be to have 'mummy' or 'daddy' punish you for misbehaving this time around...

Fashion statements

2007-03-07T15:16:00.000-08:00

How you dress says a lot about you, and of course can vary from day to day, where you're going and what image you want to project at a particular time and place. A Gucci suit proclaims 'power dyke' or 'rich poof'. Items of clothing with designer labels on the outside screams 'I'm so insecure, I need validation of my identity by a fashion house that only shallow people find trendy and cool'.

Jeans, plain T-shirt and sneakers signifies to the world that you're in the mood for comfort over aesthetic; and 'office wear' makes the statement that you don't want to stick out, that you have made the decision that during working hours you want to blend in and are prepared to wear the 'uniform' for that purpose.

By contrast, if you want attention, then popping on sparkly, skimpy things should send the message 'I'm sexy and gorgeous - look at me!' loud and clear. But there is something that tops any other outfit or material in the attention-grabbing stakes.

Now, just for the record, I don't consider myself a fashion guru in the slightest. I don't follow trends, only my own urges, and I'm more inclined to wipe my arse with Vogue magazine than I am to read it. But, during this Saturday's Mardi Gras parade, I had an epiphany, in which I received the most insightful wisdom and now feel qualified to share a few fashion tips. They are only for those of you who are attention-seekers (part or full time).
If your aim, when you venture out in public, is to have the whole world and their aunt take your picture; run up to you asking if their husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, nan, dog etc. can have their photo taken with you; to stand in a line for the toilet and have it resemble the red carpet at the Oscars, with flash after flash from tourists' cameras going off like a fireworks display; and to gain a glimpse into the life of the A-list celebrity, then I can tell you how to do it.

Forget your sequins, glitter, designer labels, fetish wear and so on, and go out and buy ... plastic fruit and vegetables. Lots of it - at least 100 pieces. Visit your local $2 shop and stock up on as many of these faux food items as you can. Make two harnesses from dog leads, then pierce each item of fruit and thread wire through it (you'll get RSI, but who cares?). Design, arrange and attach fruit to top and bottom harness. Plaster face with big make-up and glitter, slip into stilettos to give your figure a lovely line (yes, boys too), and go out to meet your public. You will not be disappointed.

Final fashion tip and this one is for all straight undercover cops infiltrating gay dance parties: We can spot you a mile off. According to my girlfriend, Tracie, not only do you give yourselves away by wandering around the gaff looking bewildered, you also "have terrible hair".

Bye bye freedom

2007-02-28T15:53:00.001-08:00

In his recent show at the Opera House, the English cabaret, drag and performance artist David Hoyle urged the audience to kill politicians. "Do it as a group – kill them collectively, so they can't pin it on anyone," he said. While John Howard is an obvious and natural target, Peter Costello surely comes a close second after his pathetic plan to fine individuals and groups who organise boycotts against businesses. It's yet another example of the trend for governments to be puppets of corporations, run for the benefit of greedy, unethical companies and not for the good of the common person.

Let's look at what his plan means for queers. Suppose a major company – say a car manufacturer, or a furniture supplier – aligns itself with the Christian right and comes out with a homophobic statement. GLBT groups, quite rightly, forward this information by email as widely as possible, calling on queer people and their families, friends, colleagues etc not to buy anything from this company on moral and ethical grounds because they are promoting discrimination and hatred towards the GLBT community. Those groups would, if the Federal Treasurer has his way, be prosecuted and ordered to pay compensation to companies targeted by boycotts.

Holy crap. Did I blink and miss the concept of free speech and consumer choice being removed from our supposedly democratic society? It's as disconcerting as reading in the mainstream newspapers how a group of protestors who objected to the visit of a war criminal (US Vice-President Dick Cheney) were not allowed to walk though the CBD lest it 'disrupt' traffic, but it's perfectly fine for local residents to be subjected to loud helicopters and parts of the city being locked down to accommodate Cheney's trip to Sydney. And what's the betting Costello's proposal will only be applied selectively. I can't imagine Christian fundamentalists who organise a boycott against the adult industry on moral and ethical grounds will have to stump up compensation to the local sex-on-premises or porn shop – can you?

It's not that I have a problem with all big businesses, such as those who sponsor queer events such as Mardi Gras. New Mardi Gras could have done a lot worse than picking Gaydar as a sponsor – kudos to them for not opting for a pharmaceutical, petrochemical or tobacco firm, for example. But that said, when community organisations and businesses such as Sex Pigs and Pink Sofa aren't allowed a stall at Fair Day or a float in the Mardi Gras parade, there's surely something just a bit wrong with that picture.

It's just something to think about. In the meantime, every cloud has a silver lining and fantastic, positive things happen to counter the negative: I'm about to get unlimited, free laser hair removal and facial photorejuvenation treatments, and Labor Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd called John Howard a "threat to national security". Priceless. Happy Mardi Gras!

Turning the tables

2007-02-21T15:40:00.001-08:00

Whatever the whys and wherefores of same-sex marriage, it seems it's set to remain high on the agenda of many GLBT activists in Australia. Protests, demos and polite letter-writing are the typical forms of campaigning – from Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH)'s national day of action, to Peter Furness and his partner conducting sit-ins at the Australian Tax Office, in a bid to persuade the government to recognise them as a married couple and afford them relevant benefits.

All these are legitimate lobbying tactics. Meanwhile in the US, our activist counterparts are getting very creative and playing the same-sex marriage naysayers at their own game. The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance (WA-DOMA), according to its website "seeks to defend equal marriage in the state by challenging the Washington Supreme Court's ruling on Andersen v. King County". This decision, handed down in July 2006, declared that a "legitimate state interest" allows the legislature to limit marriage to those couples able to have and raise children together. Because of this "legitimate state interest," it is permissible to bar same-sex couples from legal marriage.

WA-DOMA is working to put the court's ruling into law. Yes, you read that right. The group plans to do this through three in initiatives: the first would make procreation a requirement for legal marriage; the second would prohibit divorce or legal separation when there are children; and the third would make the act of having a child together the legal equivalent of a marriage ceremony. WA-DOMA admits its actions are "very absurd", but adds that "We hope to prompt discussion about the many misguided assumptions which make up the Andersen ruling. By getting the initiatives passed, we hope the Supreme Court will strike them down as unconstitutional and thus weaken Andersen itself. And at the very least, it should be good fun to see the social conservatives who have long screamed that marriage exists for the sole purpose of procreation be forced to choke on their own rhetoric." Quite.

The initiative, which was accepted by the Secretary of State and assigned the serial number 957 last month, proposes to add the phrase "who are capable of having children with one another" to the legal definition of marriage. It requires that couples married in Washington file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage automatically annulled, and couples married out of state must file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage classed as 'unrecognised'. The proposed measure also requires the setting-up of a process for filing proof of procreation and would make it a criminal act for people in an unrecognised marriage to receive marriage benefits.

Pretty cool, I reckon. And at least they're taking aim at the enemy and not calling security on each other as did the Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby to Community Action Against Homophobia over the waving of same-sex marriage banners on one of the biggest gay days of the year…

Gay icons

2007-02-14T16:00:00.001-08:00

Lesbian icons – from Melissa Etheridge and k.d. lang, to Ellen Degeneres, Rosie O’Donnell and Pink – are either sensible, talented, or at the very least, entertaining. This can’t always be said of gay icons, though. Cher, Judy, Liza, Barbra and every ‘true’ diva and golden age Hollywood movie star over the age of 50 aside (I’ll even throw in Kylie for her camp and staying power, and Madonna for some of her early work), gay men’s taste in icons has gone decidedly downhill.

All manner of homogenous, bland, (usually) blonde straight girls churning out ‘pop’ tunes with increasingly mindless lyrics and the standard media quote on how they ‘love their gay fans’ are trotted out at gay clubs and big queer events as ‘special guests’. What’s ‘special’ about a gaggle of girls who look and sound pretty much the same (there’s no chance of mixing up the vocals of Cher and Barbra on the other hand), I really don’t know, but these pop dollies are foisted on the gay community by marketing professionals who think we so can’t get enough of them that they even form them into ‘girl groups’. The scary thing is that gay men today lap it up. Whatever happened to the discerning taste of the poof?

Worse still than these boring pop ‘star’ wannabes is the ‘icon’ whose sole claim to fame is … being famous. I can let Zsa Zsa Gabor go – anyone who marries nine men earns a bit of camp factor – but the embracing by gay men of her wretched great grand-niece Paris Hilton is unforgiveable. In 2005 Paris and her mother were marshals at the Los Angeles Gay Pride parade – a significant marker, if ever there was one, of the deterioration of gay culture. I mean, come on guys, if you really want to worship a female who doesn’t have any particular artistic talent, at least pick one who will provide more entertaining escapades than a shallow rich bitch who at her most expressive can offer only a vacant face and monotonous ‘That’s hot’ when asked to comment on what she thinks of anything from the latest fashions to watching paint dry.

Pick someone like Anna Nicole Smith. Dear old Anna Nicole, without whom the world will be a darker place. She was blonde, trashy, but absolutely fabulous. Dubbed as the “Princess Diana of the trailer parks”, the 39-year-old former Playboy model entertained and endeared millions with her life, from her reality TV series The Anna Nicole Smith Show, to turning up at red carpet events completely off her face. And she was kind to animals. She modelled herself on her heroine, Marilyn Monroe, and died like her – a mysterious, possibly drug-related death that while it didn’t involve a president (as far as we know), did feature a legal row over the inherited millions of her late 89-year-old husband and a squabble over the paternity of her baby girl. Hmm, little Dannielynn … I can smell a new gay icon in the making.

Consensual acts

2007-01-31T14:59:00.000-08:00

How far do we sanction acts between consenting adults and at what point, if any, should legislation kick in to outlaw certain acts? The BDSM community’s general mantra is ‘safe, sane and consensual’, but who decides what’s ‘sane’ or not? If I ask another person to kick and punch me, brand me, put needles through my nipples, cut me until I bleed, those acts may well be considered crazy by others who will accuse me of harbouring self-hatred and unresolved issues. Transsexual people who undergo sex/gender reassignment surgery are still accused by some sectors of society, from Christian fundamentalists to feminists, of being mentally unbalanced by wanting their ‘healthy’ bodies ‘mutilated’. Then there’s amputeeism – the desire by a person to have one or more of their limbs surgically removed.

Let’s go a step further. Consensual euthanasia of a sick and physically suffering person aside, do we have the moral right to kill another person if they ask us to? And do we have the right to eat their dead body afterwards, if they ask us to? These were among the issues that came up when German Arwin Meiwes advertised on a cannibal forum for a willing partner who would agree to be killed, cut up and eaten. He got a reply from a man, Bernd-Jurgen Brandes, who was looking for someone to cut off his dick, eat it, then him.In what is arguably a match made in heaven, they got together, the act was carried out, with both men eating said penis, which was sautéed in salt, pepper and garlic. Meiwes ate the rest of Brandes over a few months, was convicted of manslaughter, then at a retrial with murder, and remains in jail. The story is the basis for the film Butterfly: A Grimm Love Story, which makes its Australian debut during Queer Screen’s Mardi Gras Film Festival. It is a rather grim story, with the filmmakers attempting to provide an ‘explanation’ of why these two men were drawn to commit what is seen by many people as a heinous act. But, while it’s an intriguing dramatisation of the events, it doesn’t really offer any take on the question I posed at the beginning of this blog.

Ironically, as someone who hasn’t consumed any mammalian flesh for nearly 30 years for ethical reasons, I’m probably less grossed out by this consensual cannibalism than most. Quite frankly I’d prefer to see slaughterhouse workers in jail than Arwin Meiwes. He’s not your average murderer – consent was so important to him that when a previous ‘victim’ apparently ducked out at the last minute, he let him go. The same ‘mentally ill’ arguments that have been thrown at the BDSM community and trans people are being used to portray Meiwes as a murderous monster and Brandes as a victim overwhelmed with self-hatred and unresolved issues. So, in the interests of personal freedom and choice, I’m making a line of ‘Free Armin Meiwes’ T-shirts. Somehow I don’t think I’ll be allowed to sell them at the Mardi Gras Fair Day.

Too sensitive?

2007-01-24T14:47:00.000-08:00

There’s no doubt that GLBT people deserve equal rights and the right to expect not to be bashed for who we are, but are we being too sensitive in crying ‘homophobia’ when straight people don’t publicly embrace our lifestyle?

An article on AfterEllen.com cites various TV and film actresses who’ve played lesbian and bisexual characters and their responses to press questions about what it was like to kiss or engage in simulated sex scenes with another woman. Julianne Moore, who kissed Toni Colette’s character in The Hours, told Barbara Walters: “Toni is so pretty, and her skin was so soft, and she smelled so nice. And there wasn’t any issue. It felt very comfortable and non-threatening.” Rock chick Alanis Morissette joined in the accolades for lesbian love when she told TV Guide that her kiss with co-star Roma Maffia on Nip/Tuck was “so natural” and “there was nothing uncomfortable about it”.

It’s a great strategy – the actor is seen as ‘cool’ for being so open-minded and picks up a host of new lesbian fans. But what about anyone who dares to voice a non-positive opinion about same-sex pashing? Jake Gyllenhaal felt the sharp end of openly gay actor Sir Ian McKellen’s tongue when he confessed that Brokeback Mountain was one of the most “terrifying” jobs he’d done because it involved kissing a man. More recently, British lesbian magazine Diva reported that Rebecca Atkinson found her lesbian sex scenes with co-star Lindsey Dawson in the TV series Shameless “disturbing”. Atkinson said: “It was in no sense enjoyable, and Lindsey got very embarrassed doing the scene with me.”

Maybe it is deep-seated internalised homophobia in these people which raises the ire of the GLBT community. Or maybe we’re just overreacting. Gyllenhaal didn’t say he found gays disgusting, or call his co-star a faggot like Isaiah Washington of Grey’s Anatomy did recently, outing T.R. Knight into the bargain; he said he was scared. McKellen said Gyllenhaal’s comments would be like McKellen saying the most appalling thing he’d done in his career was kiss Helen Mirren.

Actors have to do many things that push them outside their comfort zone, but that doesn’t mean they’re obliged to enjoy them. And that includes kissing someone you’re not attracted to. Maybe Atkinson has some unresolved issues around her sexuality. Maybe she’s a ‘prude’, ‘close-minded’ or a homophobic fundamentalist Christian. Or maybe she simply doesn’t like kissing girls and, instead of trotting out the politically correct response of her peers, was just being honest enough to say so. I’d be delighted to kiss Helen Mirren (although preferably not when she’s in character as Queen Elizabeth II) but not everyone would, including that old poof Sir Ian, who isn’t going to convince anyone that a bit of tongue action with the Prime Suspect actress was the most exciting thing he’s ever done. Conversely I’d be terrified at the prospect of pashing Tom Cruise. That doesn’t automatically make me heterophobic. Heck, I’d find it equally disturbing to have to get it on with Renee Zellweger.

Zero tolerance

2007-01-17T13:34:00.000-08:00

In many parts of the world, Christians dislike Jews and Muslims. Muslims dislike Jews and Christians. And Jews dislike Christians and Muslims. Such is the level of their hatred for one another in some places that they employ suicide bombers to carry out violent attacks, decimating cities and lives. World leaders have tried for decades to mediate, preach tolerance and avoid bloodshed. Most of their methods have failed miserably, but there’s one thing guaranteed to unite the most fundamentalist members of these religions; one thing to get them to sit down at a table and agree with each other; one thing to bring them out onto the streets protesting and marching together, and that is homosexuality.

It happened in Poland, Russia and Israel last year as local GLBT groups attempted to organise gay pride celebrations, and more recently in the UK when the shocking announcement was made that new legislation would be passed to ensure that people could not be refused services on the grounds of their sexuality. These radical and ‘out there’ laws mean that businesses and organisations will be unable to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality. Jeez, whatever next? Protestors (hardline, fundamentalist Christians, Muslims and Jews) claim the rules will force them to promote gay rights in contradiction to their teachings and could persecute those who ‘disapprove’ of homosexuality on moral grounds.

I can quite understand their outrage and totally see their point, because the same legislation last year gave full legal protection against discrimination to people of faith. This is a real pain in the arse because where does it leave those of us who ‘disapprove’ of organised religion and the acts carried out in its name? Such as the setting-up of fake abortion clinics by Christian extremists who use them to terrorise vulnerable women into keeping an unwanted child. Or the gang rape of a woman, Mukhtar Mai, as ordered by a Muslim tribal council in Pakistan as punishment for an alleged honour crime committed by her 12-year-old brother, who was also beaten and sodomised by the four men (told in her own words in a moving and inspiring new book In the Name of Honour).

No, the kind of legislation that makes it illegal to discriminate on grounds of sexuality, race, gender, disability or religion is not to be encouraged. Because if discrimination is outlawed, it could lead to all sorts of detrimental effects on society. People could become more tolerant and learn to live in harmony. One country would negotiate with another to try to strike an oil deal instead of using war to get it. Shit, fights over oil could even become a thing of the past as world leaders embrace environmentally-friendly fuel! Incidences of rape and sexual violence would plummet, and we’d eventually all start to get along so well together that there would no longer be a need for separate spaces. The gay nightclub would be over. Fuck that. We need more scapegoats to victimise. I nominate the Buddhists and Hare Krishnas – they don’t get nearly enough bad press.

Using both hands

2006-12-20T18:16:00.001-08:00

I’m so ensconced in gay world that I forget that straight people often have no inkling of GLBT culture, history or attributes, as was evidenced on Saturday night at the Animal Lib NSW annual dinner, when I painstakingly explained the term ‘femme’ emblazoned on my T-shirt to a woman who thought it referred to the French spelling of ‘woman’.

Thank goodness for researchers who study us, then release their findings to scientific journals which are then picked up by the mainstream media to help educate the public. Like the one by Canadian professor Michael Peters and his colleagues at the University of Guelph in Toronto, who found that ambidextrous people (those who can write and do other things equally well with both hands) are more likely to be bisexual.

The study involved 255,000 people. Among men, only 4 cent of right-handers and 4.5 per cent of left-handers reported that they were bisexual but 9.2 per cent of the ambidextrous said they were bisexual. Among women, 6.2 per cent of right-handers and 6.3 per cent of left-handers reported they were bisexual, compared with 15.6 per cent among the more ambidextrous.

So if there’s a high rate of bisexuality among the ambidextrous, how much ambidexterity is there among bisexuals? I don’t know 255,000 people, but I did a quick survey among the bi folk I know in Sydney. The first reply I got back seemed to verify the theory. Jade, who’s also a transwoman, can write with both hands and used her ambidextrous leanings to help her in sport. “Growing up as a boy and playing sport, when I played football I kicked the ball with my right foot but handpassed with my left hand; the same with playing cricket: bowling with my right hand and batting left-handed,” she said. Gabrielle can also write “drum, throw balls and other objects, massage, and best of all make love” equally well with both hands. Thinking I was on to something, I eagerly awaited the next reply. It was Glenn, who said: “I’m not ambidextrous; however, I am pretty skilled at wanking a cock in one hand and rubbing a pussy with the other hand, all at the same time.” (Now, that sounds an awful lot more useful than being able to write with both hands.)

To give my little survey a bit of academic flavour, I included the experience of my girlfriend Tracie. I know she’s not ambidextrous through years of struggling to read her handwriting that is often so illegible she may as well have written it with her left foot. “No, I can’t write with both hands but I’m very good at extracting orgasms from both sexes,” she proffered helpfully, before listing other things she can do equally well with both hands. “Holding a dildo very well with both hands, and spanking comes naturally with both hands as does wielding whips, chains and an electric drill.”

Hmm… I could really get into this research lark. Anyone know where I can get a grant so I can expand on my pilot study?

Christmas uncheer

2006-12-13T15:52:00.001-08:00

Christmas. I’m already over it. I lay one of the reasons behind this at the feet of the David Jones store on Market Street in the city, whose incessant playing of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’ makes me crazy. And you don’t even have to be inside the store to hear it – it’s blaring out from across the road in Hyde Park – so even those of us who can’t stand large department stores find ourselves, completely against our will, mumbling the wretched tune, especially the line, ‘Five golden rings’ (Freudian analysis anyone?) while walking back to the office at lunchtime.

Then there’s the Sally Army volunteers with their little portable stands, which read ‘Jesus is the Reason for the Season’, that make me cringe. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the rhyme or I just don’t like people who wear bonnets. I guess I now have some inkling into the mind of the homophobe as s/he lumps us all into a generalised mass upon which to dump his/her disapproval. Homophobia, bonnetophobia – it’s all the same. Except I do believe bonnet-wearers are entitled to equal rights and financial benefits and, even though they annoy the hell out of me, I firmly support their right to wear bonnets and would sign a petition or online poll to that effect, so I guess I’m better than the average homophobe. Phew.

I probably sound like a right misery guts, but while I love flashing lights, sparkly reindeer and glittery tinsel as much as the next drag queen or high-femme lesbian, I possess an uncanny ability to see beyond the razzle dazzle to the rotten underbelly of Christmas and what it stands for: an excuse for even more mass consumerism of useless items that only serves to make the department stores, not loved ones, richer (a nice phone call or email on Christmas Eve could do that and is far less stressful than being jostled and shoved in the manic crowds doing last-minute “Christmas shopping”).But then I hear about little seasonal things that people have done which bring a smile to my face and a warm glow to my heart. Like the Santa who was sacked from London’s poshest store, Harrods, for making “lewd” and “inappropriate” comments to adults in the Father Christmas World grotto. The store is frequented by royalty and having one of its green shiny carrier bags is seen as a status symbol. I will confess to succumbing to the need to validate myself through brandishing the ‘label’ of an overpriced department store nearly 20 years ago by buying an item from Harrods. Being a cheap bitch it was only a packet of bin-liners from the food hall section. They cost about four pounds, ten times what I’d have paid in Sainsbury’s, but I got the carrier bag.

Nowadays I’m so over it that anyone, such as 'Bad Santa', who pisses off the management of a store that sells a pack of six “luxury” crackers for $5,034 is all right by me. Merry bloody Christmas.

All together now

2006-12-06T17:47:00.000-08:00

In his interview with me in last week’s SX, veteran activist and writer Larry Kramer said he believed gay people were better than straights in many ways. Non-assimilationists (let’s call them NAs for short) will agree; the more politically correct (the PCs) will cry ‘no, we’re all the same’. Who’s right?The PCs’ argument has certainly been bolstered this week, with various news stories confirming that we queers are just as bad as our heterosexual counterparts. For example, we discriminate in the workplace. NBC4 reports that a straight former Los Angeles police officer is suing the LAPD, alleging gays were given better employment opportunities. Meanwhile over in Minneapolis fire department, lesbian fire chief Bonnie Bleskachek has been fired from her job for giving preferential treatment to lesbians or those who socialise with them. The things you have to do for promotion nowadays, eh? But who knows, maybe poor Bonnie was just trying to do her bit for assimilation by forcing the straights to hang out with the dykes.

But can we really socialise successfully? The question of mixed venues has the queer community divided. Certain mainstream gay clubs around Oxford Street, especially on a Saturday night, have been “taken over” by straights who are rude and homophobic, some allege. But venture a little further down Bourke Street into Surry Hills and you’ll find the most unlikely venue to appeal to gays and straights alike. It’s called the Russian Coachmen restaurant and it was chosen by the publisher as the place for the SX Christmas party on Saturday night. The floorshow involved pretty showgirls and a violinist called Nikolai, and throughout the evening a Russian man who sounded like Animal from The Muppets sang karaoke songs in various languages along with another pretty girl who belted out disco numbers, keeping the very mixed bunch of patrons happy. An older woman in a white ra-ra dress and strange haircut kept us entertained by dancing and flirting with every straight man except her husband/partner. It was as if we’d crashed a 1980s straight Russian wedding and it was oddly glorious.

It took the restaurant staff a while to cotton on to the fact they’d been invaded by a group of bum-bandits and muff-divers, but my insistence that one of the showgirls partner with me and not a man, sexing it up on the dancefloor next to a gorgeous slender blonde in denim peddle-pushers to ‘I Turn to You’ by Mel C, and a bunch of queens mincing out for a ciggie break and strutting their stuff to ‘I Will Survive’, and the penny finally dropped. They didn’t actually use the G or even the H word, but karaoke girl referred to us over the mic affectionately as the ‘Oxford Street’ table. Bless. There were no dirty looks, no one spat at us or stabbed us. We all did our thing and everyone was happy. Even the NAs among us had a great time. I don’t know if we’re any better than straights, but um … we definitely dance differently.

Underage sex

2006-11-29T15:35:00.000-08:00

Oh, it’s a hot potato, isn’t it? A 26-year-old female teacher from Brisbane is allegedly seen “kissing and cuddling” with a 14-year-old female pupil during a two-year “sexual affair” (pupil is now 17) and the moral campaigners launch their battlecry to “Raise the age of consent to protect the children”.

Some of the more religious fundamentalists will even put their homophobia temporarily to one side to “link arm in arm” with GLBT people to achieve such a goal, as the recent bizarre alliance between gay activist Gary Burns and Christian Democratic Party Parliamentary Leader Reverend Fred Nile showed. Nile is putting forward a Bill to raise the age of consent to 18 in NSW in an attempt to “curb paedophile activity”.

I don’t suppose I’m the only queer person in Sydney that finds this disturbing, just as I’m pretty sure I’m not the only lesbian to have seen the photo in The Daily Telegraph of Amanda Louise Thompson, the young blonde Brisbane teacher with cheekbones to die for and wished I had a teacher as gorgeous as that who would have whisked me off to an empty classroom at lunchtime to introduce me to the pleasures of the female flesh when I was 14. Never mind algebra and trigonometry, that’s what I would have considered a proper education!

Seriously though, raising the age of consent only plays into the hands of child abusers and moralists who refuse to accept that young people under the age of 16 have sexual feelings and want to act on them. Canada, Germany, Italy and eight other European countries already have an equal age of consent of 14, which applies either in all or some circumstances (for example in the Netherlands a young person can have sex at 12 with someone up to 16). Interestingly, according to UK-based gay rights activist Peter Tatchell’s research, most of these countries have fewer teenage pregnancies, abortions and HIV infections as well as a higher average age of first sexual intercourse.

Raising the age of consent won’t stop child sex abuse because perpetrators ignore the law. I’m with those who argue it’s better to equip youngsters from an early age with candid sex education and empowerment, including a requirement for schools to teach pupils how to deal with sex pests, and to offer sexual assertiveness training so they feel confident to say ‘no’ to people who try to pressure them into having sex.

This seems like a more sensible solution than getting into bed with right-wing religious fanatics to promote a futile anti-sex/abstinence agenda. Young people of all sexualities are willingly having sex at earlier ages than before and we have to deal with that in a more constructive manner than simply telling them they have no rights or control over their bodies by raising the age of consent. As for the 14-year-old Queensland girl, what I want to know is … did she get good marks?

Gays v lesbians

2006-11-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

It’s all happening in China. After launching the country’s first free hotline for gay men, the Chiheng Foundation in Shanghai will offer a similar service from this Saturday for lesbians and women confused about their sexuality. “In the past, we noticed that lesbians needed extra help compared with gays,” Yang Shanping, a Chiheng Foundation officer, told The China Daily. Another officer at the foundation, Shen Yimu, added that when the gay hotline was launched in May, many lesbians rang for help on the number too. “But all the volunteers for that hotline are gay men. They don’t know much about the detailed issues that most lesbians are facing,” Yimu noted.

It took me back to my teenage years in the heady days of the mid-’80s when there was no internet and no access to queer zines, if there were any, if you lived in a small town outside London where marriage to an opposite-sex partner and breeding were deemed the holy grails of working-class existence. Thank goddess for phone books. For it was inside these tomes of numerical excess that I and my best friend at the time, Wendy Williams, found the numbers for Gay Switchboard and Lesbian Line. Many a teatime was spent ringing these hotlines, each of us taking turns to splutter out the words, ‘I think I might be gay’ – or ‘lesbian’ if we were phoning the latter – before hanging up and dissolving into fits of giggles.

Gradually, though, we (well okay, I) became more adventurous and stayed on the (lesbian) line a bit longer. When a nice, earnest woman asked kindly why I thought I might be a lesbian, I replied, ‘Because I’m in love with Joan Collins.’ Now see, this is where segregation doesn’t work – because there are exceptions to every rule. I didn’t want to then be asked silly questions about why I was in love with Joan. I didn’t know it at the time, but I wouldn’t have needed to use up time, energy and money to explain that to a gay man – he’d just know why.

Some lesbians simply have more in common with gay male culture. On Saturday night I had the opportunity to hire a lesbian butch-femme romantic comedy, Mango Kiss, from my local DVD rental store. I chose Sunset Boulevard instead. And after my girlfriend and I watched it for the third or fourth time, we squealed with delight about how fabulous Gloria Swanson was for a good five minutes, and then promptly amused ourselves for another 10 by seeing who could do the best impression of old Glo delivering her famous final line, ‘All right, Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my close-ups.’ Will the Chinese lesbian hotline cater to our sort of lesbian? I certainly hope so.

Meanwhile, let’s hope Bali follows China’s lead. The Sydney Morning Herald reported at the weekend that Schapelle Corby has vowed not to have sex until she is released from jail in 20 years time. Quick. Someone give her a phone…

Good news

2006-11-15T15:04:00.000-08:00

News. It’s such a loaded word, especially for a journalist. Unlike other people who can decide to opt out of reading, listening to or watching the news because it’s all just too bloody depressing, we are obliged at the very least to trawl through the headlines of the daily newspapers online to keep abreast of what’s going on in the world.

Most of the time the news induces feelings of irritation, sadness, anger or despair – murders, rapes, wars, moronic world leaders doing nothing about global warming, multi-national corporations getting away with all kinds of hideous abuses of human and non-human rights, blah blah blah. Last week, however, it was a pleasure to hear some really good news – not just one piece either, but two: Bush and his fascist … sorry, Republican party took a major thrashing in the US midterm elections, and a contestant on America’s Next Model announced she wasn’t sure if she was straight, thereby giving me licence as a lesbian journo to watch the rest of the series under the guise of ‘research’.

Come Monday morning, though, and the news is back to bordering on the sublime to the ridiculous. Take the piece in The Sydney Morning Herald, about a Thai zoo, which has hosted a couple of pandas for four years. According to the report, the male and female pair who have been living together platonically will now be separated but remain close enough for occasional glimpses of each other. The six-year-old male panda, Chuang Chuang, will then be played … wait for it … porn videos on a large screen in an attempt to encourage the animals to breed in captivity. “They don’t know how to mate so we need to show the male how, through videos,” the zoo’s panda project chief Prasertsak Buntrakoonpoontawee told Reuters on Saturday. “We’ll play the video at the most comfortable and intimate time for him, perhaps after dinner,” he added, hoping Chuang Chuang would then use the techniques on Lin Hui, a five-year-old female.

It obviously hasn’t occurred to Mr Buntrakoonpoontawee that the pandas probably know exactly how to mate, but just don’t fancy each other. Or that one or both of them might be gay. If he thinks showing them human porn films will change things, he’s seriously mistaken. For one thing, no panda in her right mind is going to don six-inch stilettos, a fake tan and long blonde hair just to please her man. And if Mr Buntrakoonpoontawee believes that humans and pandas are really so similar, he surely won’t mind being taken out of his natural habitat where he’s perfectly happy, free to roam and mix with others of his own kind at will, to be locked up in a tiny prison close enough to catch glimpses of another male zoo worker, and shown XXX-rated gay male porn, in an attempt to get the two men to fuck themselves silly. Now that’s what I call good news.

Crazy old dykes

2006-11-08T14:21:00.000-08:00

I really like The L Word. It’s never claimed to represent the lives of anything other than a group of white, middle-class lesbians in Los Angeles, and with a bunch of reasonably pretty women, acceptable storylines and plenty of hot sex scenes, the word ‘groundbreaking’ is a fair and accurate description of the series that’s about to go into its fourth season. Careers, motherhood, a bit of confusion over sexuality and gender identity – all staples of your average lesbian life, in a glamorous West Hollywood setting. What more could lesbian viewers ask for?

Well, how about a British version? Just for diversity’s sake. A lesbian soap opera that’s anathema to stylised US portrayals of our lives. Titled Crazy Old Dykes, here’s a would-be scenario: 73-year-old Yvonne goes crazy when her partner, Helga, 64, says she wants to end their relationship of more than 20 years. Forget a few heated words and an object or two flying around the room – old Yvonne goes into another room, comes back with an air rifle screaming ‘I’m going to kill you’. Helga grabs the barrel of the gun; it goes off but misses her (a pellet is later recovered from a wall in the couple’s home). Yvonne, obviously still pissed, snatches a walking stick and proceeds to whack Helga over the head and shoulders. Helga somehow manages to get out of the house to call the police, who arrive to find Yvonne lying in bed (tired out?) surrounded by (Helga’s) blood, and cart her off to the loony bin.

Another storyline goes as follows: Two lesbian junkies/petty thieves, Sharon, 48 and her long-term lover Mandy, 44, are having problems. Mandy wants to come off heroin, Sharon doesn’t. One night at a lesbian bar, Mandy meets Angela, a transwoman who is keen to help her get clean and, as is wont to happen in the Sapphic world, they start dating. Sharon doesn’t want to lose Mandy, so she slips sedatives into Mandy’s tea each day without the latter’s knowledge to prevent her leaving the house to see Angela. Mandy finds out, is not best pleased and runs off to her new relationship. Sharon doesn’t have an air rifle or a walking stick to hand, so she steals a disability mobile from outside Sainsbury’s supermarket and attempts to mow Angela down in the street in broad daylight. The story is reported in the national gutter press, causing Angela to have a nervous breakdown and refusing to press charges against Sharon. Sharon and Mandy get back together and resume their shoplifting and drug habits, more in love than ever.

Too over the top? Well, they say truth is stranger than fiction. The first scenario was reported in the British press this week; the second happened two years ago and I had the pleasure of meeting Sharon and Mandy via my friend Michael on a trip back to my hometown, London – although Mandy was, now I come to think of it, very sleepy at the time.

Dating disasters

2006-11-03T05:23:00.000-08:00

There are so many ways to get your 15 minutes of fame nowadays and gay people have jumped on most of the bandwagons – reality TV, Youtube, blogs – but we've yet to break into that hotbed of iniquity known as the office email that spirals (or virals) out of control. Take the most recent fiasco of law clerk Craig Dale, who sent a 'salacious' email to fellow female lawyer Azadeh Bashari in New Zealand asking if she were interested in casual sex. "I thought you were hot and was sure you'd be a rocket in the sack," Dale proffered. Ms Bashari, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, was "disgusted" and proceeded to forward the email to her 'single friends', titling it 'Loser Alert' and recounting it as her latest 'dating disaster'. The said email then spread throughout New Zealand's legal community and eventually overseas.

I obviously don't understand the intimate workings of the heterosexual mind, because it seemed to me that a brief 'thanks but no thanks' reply would have been more appropriate on Ms Bashari's part, but I guess she must work for a corporate legal firm and therefore have no life, so the decision to create a drama out of a non-event in her unexciting existence must have seemed attractive. Or maybe there's just something in the water at legal firms. Last year in Sydney two legal secretaries were sacked after a nasty email exchange that also found its way into the inboxes of hundreds of unsuspecting office workers, sparked by a missing ham and cheese sandwich – which is as good an argument for veganism as it gets (sorry, couldn't resist!).

I suppose we should be pleased that this seems to be one area of mainstream culture that GLBTI people haven't yet become embroiled in, but on the other hand, like most things, we can probably do it so much better. If Ms Bashari thinks a tame email like the one from Dale is "disgusting", she should thank her lucky stars she's not a lesbian or else she'd have been more likely to have received the following: "Wanna be my fuck buddy, darlin'? I've got 10 strap-ons of all shapes and sizes with your name on them, and my exes Sarah, Louise, Sandra, Alana, Roxy, Sue and Marianne all said you were a brilliant shag and a total screamer so I reckon we should get it on."

And turning down the Sapphic author of such an email would put things into perspective for Ms Bashari: "What do you mean you don't want to shag me, you uptight bitch? You fucking smiled at me the other night. If I were any other dyke, the removal van would have been waiting outside your apartment. But I'm not the possessive sort – I just want to fuck you occasionally. But you can't even give me that. No wonder my exes all said they dumped you 'cos you're a manipulative cunt." Now that's a 'dating disaster'. Got that, Ms Bashari?

Oh my god(dess)s!

2006-10-25T16:18:00.000-07:00

The God squad are on a recruitment drive. The editor of the Sydney Star Observer reported last week that she’d received a Jehovah’s Witness leaflet proclaiming ‘The End of False Religion’. She was lucky and got a pretty girl brandishing it at her front door – I just got the leaflet stuffed in the mailbox. I wonder if the timing could be anything to do with Halloween being just around the corner.

It got me thinking that perhaps Pagans should employ similar tactics to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and other Christians to tout their religion, especially to the gay market. Let’s weigh up what each has to offer. Christianity: no ‘immoral’ sex (ie no gay sex, sex for money, casual or promiscuous shagging); daggy outfits (long sleeves, high tops, A-line skirts and sensible shoes); and in the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses, if you get hit by a bus and need a blood transfusion, you’re screwed ’cos it’s not allowed.

Paganism (a broad term encompassing a range of traditions from Celtic nature religions to Wicca or modern witchcraft): consensual sex acts between adults celebrated (sometimes incorporated into magic rituals to initiate global peace); activities that include running into the sea under moonlight to purify and cleanse yourself – trust me when I tell you this isn’t much fun on a winter night in a coastal town in the British Isles but Sydney is made for this sort of frolicking; cool clothes (black is always a winner as it makes you look slim and that whole ‘goth’ aesthetic allows for liberal and creative application of make-up). Well, I know which one I’d choose, but then again I’m a die-hard radical queer, militant vegan, high-femme lipstick lesbian with a penchant for older women in glitter eyeshadow and big heels.

I’ve never understood the attraction of Christianity, nor the embracing of it by GLBTI folk. I mean, each to their own and all that, but why worship one male god who by all accounts is a moody old bugger with misogynistic and homophobic tendencies and hang-ups about sex, when you can revere all manner of deities, depending on where you’re at on a particular day? Kali the Dark Goddess, for example, has head-dresses and bling to rival Cher, so is a natural choice of icon for gay men, and her wild, uncontrollable nature ensures her appeal to most dykes.

And why get up early on a Sunday morning to go to church in your stylistically-challenged attire to belt out war-mongering hymns like ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’, and listen to lectures from uptight clerics about boring things like original sin, when you can have a lie-in and dance around naked in the evening, chanting ditties such as ‘We All Come From the Goddess’ and generally have a gay old time? Oh yeah – and you’re unlikely to get 5000 Pagans in steel-capped boots blockading the Mardi Gras Parade because they believe that GLBTI people are about to bring forth Sydney’s destruction, according to God’s law (as is planned by certain religious factions for next year's parade). Sold yet?

Excuses, excuses

2006-10-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

We can all find them, can’t we? Excuses I mean. If we’re grumpy to our girlfriend, it’s our hormones, not us. If we crash into the back of the car in front of us, it was the driver’s stupid fault for being in our way. If we take too much crystal meth and have unsafe sex, it’s all down to the drug, right? PMS, road rage, inebriation, even existential crisis of being – any old thing will do, so long as we don’t have to take responsibility for our actions.

The urge to blame someone or something else begins in childhood – the threat of punishment, whether it’s an adult shouting at you or a sound spanking (admittedly more likely to be a turn-on nowadays) instils fear and encourages the urge to deny one’s actions, even if they’ve been witnessed directly by your accuser.

At the age of eight I threw a bucket of water over my ‘best friend’ Julie Stokes who lived in the flat below me (lesbian melodrama with dominant/submissive overtones often begins early in life – I got away with tying her up, pulling down her pants and fingering her, all on the pretext that it was ‘practice’ for when she got a ‘boyfriend’ – girls are sooo easy!). Julie’s mother, ‘Auntie Maisy’, saw me through the window: ‘What did you do that for?’ she asked, incredulously. Bold as brass I replied: ‘I didn’t’. No amount of arguing on her part that she’d seen me, a drenched Julie wailing that I’d done it (she paid later, don’t worry) could convince me to own up to the deed, acknowledge that it wasn’t a very nice thing to do and accept that I deserved to be punished.

If I were old enough to have been able to think up a proper excuse for myself, I would have. Just like 46-year-old James Seaton did this week when he appeared in court in London, charged with sawing off his girlfriend Jacqueline Queen’s head while she was still alive because she told him she was a lesbian and was breaking up with him. His excuse? He was ‘too drunk at the time to be responsible for his actions’. Tch. There for the grace of God, eh?

These days I’m far more prepared with my ‘out’. If I come over all Winona and get caught slipping love balls and KY jelly into my bag without paying for them in a sex shop, I am not responsible for my actions – I did it because I suffer from GMSS – Gay Media Stress Syndrome. Having to come up with 500 words each week for my SX column, Keeping Abreast, as well as knocking out news and features while fending off queries from publicists who insist on ringing up on press day to enquire as to whether I ‘got the press release’ on a new brand of soap that’s pink and therefore ‘a great angle’ for gay readers invariably leads to occasional periods of temporary insanity. That’s my excuse, anyway.

Scarlet pleasure

2006-10-11T17:10:00.000-07:00

While mainstream society seems to have embraced some elements of porn in the form of raunch culture: girls next door getting their tits out and making out in public and on camera for reality TV shows, a group of self-proclaimed “sex-positive horny feminists” have managed to shock and disgust mainstream pornographers with their new sex site, Erotic Red. “Before we even launched, adult industry types were quick to be repulsed at the entire concept of Erotic Red and referred to the site as ‘very disturbing’, ‘unacceptable’, ‘offensive’, and simply too ‘dangerous’,” says the site’s owner, indie pornographer Furry Girl. Even adult credit card billing companies, after they viewed the site, refused to take it on as a client and process its transactions.

You can’t blame them, really because what Erotic Red is doing is truly shocking and outside any acceptable limits of pornography or pop culture: menstruation porn. Yes, you read it right – women celebrating sex on the rag. Jeez, what’s up with these girls? What’s going on in their heads that they would want to foist such an obscene concept onto any right-thinking individual? Why can’t Furry Girl, and her cohorts like Bloody Trixie (who even has the audacity to run her own solo site featuring pictures of her masturbating in blood-soaked panties and revelling in smearing her body with her red fluids) be satisfied with the standard porn fare available? Don’t they check their spam emails properly? I mean, there’s ‘midget sex’, teenage girls getting spanked, ‘fat mommas raped in every orifice’, and of course an endless supply of silicone-enhanced Barbie dolls fucked in every hole before receiving a face full of cum.

And let’s not forget popular TV shows and films that glorify violence. If Erotic Red likes blood so much, why not stick with nice, safe material that meets with government approval? Like people bleeding to death from a knife or gunshot wound, or stories of serial killers cutting off a prostitute’s tits and mutilating her genitals – you know, all that inoffensive stuff that’s shoved in our faces every day.

But some girls just don’t know where to draw the line. Instead they feel compelled to subvert society’s consideration of women’s sexuality, instilling females with the positive message that their monthly flow isn’t dirty or something to be ashamed of but rather celebrated. It’s a disgrace. They don’t even use ‘proper’ models on the sites. These women in menstruation porn are of all ages, shapes, sizes and looks – some of them even have tattoos, piercings and large arses, for god’s sake. They’re seriously scary chicks. “Even with the knowledge that an obscenity prosecution could be just around the corner, I stand firm in believing that Erotic Red is an important site to open,” an emboldened Furry Girl proclaims. “We’re just happy to be making the radical statement that all women are lovely, powerful, sexual creatures EVERY DAY OF THE MONTH.” Honestly – can you believe her front? What’s she trying to do - start a revolution?
www.eroticred.com

Why we need Queer Camps

2006-10-04T16:12:00.000-07:00

Jesus Camp is one very scary documentary currently screening across the US, which shows kids as young as six being trained to be “warriors in God’s army” at pastor Becky Fischer’s summer camp in North Dakota, called Kids on Fire. Forget fun activities such as communal ball games, at
‘Jesus Camp’ the kids, who are mostly home-schooled and taught not to believe in evolution or global warming, speak in tongues, writhe on the floor, weep for salvation, and pray to pictures of George Bush (told you it was scary). It’s part of an Evangelical youth movement sweeping the US which sees Fischer say in the movie: “I want to see [the children] radically laying down their lives for their gospel as they are in Pakistan, Israel and Palestine.” A voice on the movie’s trailer proclaims that the fundamentalist Evangelicals have “taken over the White House and Congress”, before Fischer issues her own chilling warning: “This is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Now see, this is why we need a radical queer agenda, people. It’s time to start training and indoctrinating our youth. It’s the only way – we’ve got the Exclusive Brethren right on our doorsteps to contend with, influencing elections with their anti-gay agenda. It’s time to set up Queer Camps in which all children of GLBTI folk, regardless of sex or gender identity, shall learn off by heart and recite at will the lyrics to every song by Cher and k.d lang. Camp leaders will know they are doing their jobs properly when each child is writhing on the floor, weeping and speaking in tongues, whenever ‘Believe’ or ‘Constant Craving’ is played. Praying to pictures of Ellen Degeneres is to be encouraged (the Emmys under her belt, she’s now to host the Oscars – who needs God with that kind of power?), as is substituting the word ‘lezzo’ (or ‘poof’, ‘trannie’ or any other word the child feels best describes their identity or sexual orientation at any given time) into Helen Reddy’s feminist anthem ‘I Am Woman’.

Once Queer Basics 101 has been instilled into the young warriors, they are then free to embrace diversity, whether it be adding death metal to their musical tastes or engaging in heterosexual activities. All Queer Camp attendees must, however, pledge to further the queer agenda and lifestyle for the rest of their lives. This includes but is not limited to preaching outside straight venues and making spin-offs to Will & Grace. Now if this all sounds a bit too drastic, consider this: in Jesus Camp a girl of about eight or nine can be seen crying and wailing “no more, no more”. She is calling for an end to abortion. Fischer argues she’s teaching kids about the value of human life. In Queer Camp, we could get the kids to pray for…hmm, how about an end to right-wing, war-mongering leaders who pander to homophobic Evangelicals? Or is that just way too radical and over the top?

Yes, Germaine

2006-09-13T16:12:00.000-07:00

Censorship is a dangerous game. Now, of course, we all censor ourselves to some extent in order to maintain some sense of civility and prevent violence breaking out (if your girlfriend or boyfriend
asks you if their arse looks ok in the new pair of jeans they’ve just bought, censoring your reply to ‘Oh darling, I love your behind’, instead of the more honest ‘No, you fucking fat lardass, get to the gym’ is fair enough).

But when it comes to an attempt by the mainstream media to censor the views of someone because they don’t deem them ‘appropriate’, we’re on dodgy ground. Take the recent media furore over Germaine Greer’s comments about Steve Irwin. I’ve personally never been a big fan of Germaine – her anti-trans philosophy and mentioning my girlfriend and me by name in her book The Whole Woman in a chapter entitled ‘Pantomime Dames’ didn’t exactly endear me to her. But she gets points for going against the popularist stance the media took over Irwin who died after being stabbed by a stingray. The words ‘iconic’ ‘animal-lover’ and ‘conservationist’ were used to describe a man who jumped on the backs of crocodiles and set up a zoo to ‘house’ wild animals captured from their native habitat so humans can gawk at them. “The animal world has finally taken its revenge on Irwin”, Greer stated in her column in UK newspaper The Guardian. The next day she went further, calling those who mourned Irwin and labelled his death as Australia’s ‘Princess Diana’ moment, “idiots” and the whole mass grief phenomenon “embarrassing”.

The outcry against Greer’s comments was astounding. Interviewer Karl Stefanovic was hostile to her when she appeared on A Current Affair; The Daily Telegraph sent her a muzzle, printed her agent’s email address and called on readers to tell her exactly what they felt; political leaders including Labor Party foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd told her to shut up. Whatever your feelings towards Greer, it makes you wonder whatever happened to the right to free speech. Stefanovic used Greer’s refusal to name a public figure who agreed with her sentiments, as proof that no one did, but conversations in the SX office, among friends and colleagues, as well as a trawl of various chat rooms and message boards this week showed she’s by no means alone in her views of Irwin – she just had the guts to say so publicly.

We should all take note. How often do you keep quiet, stay in the closet, or pretend to agree with the majority opinion so you’ll be liked? How often do we refuse to ‘rock the boat’ because we’re afraid of the consequences? Censorship in all its forms is a messy business. Yes, we rightly rail against homophobia and incitements to violence against us, but that doesn’t mean our critics should be made to be silent altogether, just as we have a right to speak out against them, against George Bush, John Howard…and their friend, Steve Irwin.

Pick a Baby

2006-09-06T00:51:00.000-07:00

With lesbians throwing themselves into the act of breeding like it's going out of fashion, I guess it had to happen: designer babies on demand. In the past, a section titled 'Pregnancy Help' in the classifieds section of a lesbian magazine wouldn't have existed. Now that it does and guys are offering up their sperm, they are also looking to ensure their 'product' (or should that be 'service'?) stands out from the rest. Like everything else, it's all about the marketing. No longer is it satisfactory for a sperm donor to be merely 'healthy' and happy to leave contact with any resulting kids up to the lesbian parents, additional attributes have become a selling point.

'Want clever kids?' asks one 'gay-friendly, Caucasian, creative' guy in this month's LOTL (Australia's national lesbian magazine). He's healthy (tested) and active, with the added bonus of being a 'professional' with a 'high IQ' and 'master degree' (I think he may mean Master's Degree, but then again, perhaps he is a BDSM connoisseur). No name is given, just an email address of brainy.baby@hotmail.com.

Now there's nothing wrong with wanting a brainy child, of course - the sooner it can wipe its own arse, clean up its vomit and change a plug, the better. And if the little runt grows up and gets an exceptionally well-paid job that keeps you in style in your old age, all well and good (although, political correctness aside, you could argue it might be better to opt for a pretty child in that case). But if GLBTI folk must breed, can we not be a bit more discerning than our heterosexual counterparts in the type of baby we require? If a clever child can be produced from someone with a high IQ, just think what bundle of joy will result from a sperm donor whose ad reads 'Screaming drag bitch, drug-fucked, creative, polyamorous pain whore, email babyinbondageandglitter@hotmail.com'. Or 'Want your child to be a green, scene queen? Ecologically aware, low-rent Abba fan can help. Email dancingvegandiscobaby@yahoo.com'.

Seriously folks, the straights are going to be busy seeking out donors who advertise themselves as 'clever', 'sensible', 'obedient' and all those other traits deemed by society as worthy and admirable. Whether we like it or not, this sort of eugenics mentality has arrived, so it's up to queers to get a little creative and ensure the most colourful among us don't become extinct. I can't see myself embracing motherhood anytime soon (even the $4000 from the government's Baby Bonus scheme won't tempt me - in fact, John Howard should be paying me $4000 for not having children and thereby not adding more pressure to the planet which is already vastly over-populated with humans), but for those of you who can't help yourselves, be picky with your donors. There are enough straight and straight-acting moral conservatives bringing forth their spawn - some of whom will, of course, turn out to be raging poofs or dykes in spite of their genes and upbringing (gotta love irony) - but it doesnât hurt to be proactive. Email fabulousfreakyqueerbabies@aol.com to register your interest.

Choose Your Research (Gay Sheep)

2006-09-06T00:50:00.000-07:00

In a previous post, I noted how researchers seem to have a field day studying all manner of phenomena and coming to various conclusions ranging from lesbians and bisexual women not hearing as well as our straight counterparts, to the number of brothers determining whether a man will likely be gay or not. Whether this sort of research of any great use and worthy of the finances and resources thrown at it is debatable, but hardly offensive. Not so the carryings-on at Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) in the US, which is currently under fire from animal and gay rights activists as well as other scientific experts for its 'gay sheep' experiments.

According to People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), OHSU is conducting multi-million dollar experiments, funded by US taxpayers, through 2008 in which vivisector Charles Roselli kills scores of sheep and cuts open their brains in an effort to 'cure' homosexuality in humans. By studying the brains of what he calls 'male oriented' (homosexual) rams, he hopes to be able to find the hormonal mechanisms behind gay tendencies so they can be changed. In other words, this person is hoping to find a biological basis for homosexuality in humans by 'studying' sheep.

What the fuck is wrong with these people? Can they not find a more worthwhile job? Like forging ahead with the creation of artificial sex partners and remote sex. American sex researcher, Julia Heiman (hehe), envisions a "multi-sensual experience of virtual sex" to be available before 2016. Teledildonics (remote control of electronic sex toys by computer), first conceived in the 1980s, is set to take off big time it seems, with the advent of modern technology such as broadband, streaming media, Bluetooth and mobile phones. A company called Sinulate Entertainment is at the forefront of the cybersex revolution, with its 'sinulator', a gadget containing a USB transmitter you plug into your computer, a receiver that powers any Sinulate-enabled toy and special software that allows you to control your lover's vibrator or dildo, even though they may be physically on the other side of the world. If you don't have a lover, don't worry: the helpful company has thought of that and offers the opportunity to "meet new people, join a community, or search [for] girls who want you to control their toy" at www.sinulatorcams.com. Well, if you're going to sit at a computer for several hours a day anyway, it sure as hell beats trawling through spam emails - the Sinulator retails at a mere USD $139.95 from www.sinulator.com.

As for the 'researchers' at OHSU, feel free to send an email to Dr Ed Ray, president of Oregon State University, requesting that OHSU immediately stop the needless use and slaughter of animals in these experiments and instead use taxpayers' money for beneficial research that does not involve the use of animals or for funding a sexual diversity acceptance and tolerance initiative.

Email: ed.ray@oregonstate.edu

Assimilation

2006-08-27T05:56:00.000-07:00

We're a right bunch, arent we? By we I mean GLBTI folk or queer folk, although the latter term is proving controversial, judging by the letters pages of the gay press here in Sydney lately. In last week's Sydney Star Observer, a Gregory Franks from Sans Souci (could there be a camper name for a place?) slammed young GLBTI people for using the term queer. These cheeky so-and-sos affiliate themselves with radical political groups like socialists and atheists and then claim to speak for every gay and lesbian around, Franks says. Similar sentiments were expressed in last week's SX by Kendall-Atzlan Horrocks (could there be a camper name for a person?), who called for a total repudiation of the tactics taken by the 'fortress Queer' lobbies and lambasted anyone who considers themselves to be outside mainstream Australian life and culture as 'extremely juvenile'.

To assimilate or not to assimilate? That's the question. Sitting on the margins of society has its advantages: repression often fosters creativity and a sense of specialness; being part of something other can feel rebellious and exciting. But there's a price to pay: no equal rights, being treated as a second-class citizen, bashed. On the other hand, assimilating into the mainstream, becoming 'like everyone else' might offer a slew of equal rights. But there's a price to pay: blandness, and the further marginalisation of anyone who doesn't join you in towing the conservative party line in which individuality is sacrificed for the Holy Grail of normality.

Is it progress when the gossip magazines include stories on the civil unions of our gay icons such as Elton John, or as NW did this week, run a piece about Ellen Degeneres apparent 'fury' at girlfriend Portia de Rossi for spending 'flirty nights on the town' with...wait for it...a man! Our Ellen, who's embraced mediocrity big time with that awful talk show of hers, is sandwiched between bimbo supermodel Kate Moss and her arse of a boyfriend Pete Doherty, and a seven-page spread entitled 'What Stars Really Weigh', complete with pics of female celebrities sporting anything from a pot belly to stick insect frames. All rounded off, of course, with the staple quotes required for trash rags from sources close to the comedian, who say she's 'petrified' of Portia doing an Anne Heche (Ellen's former girlfriend who returned somewhat spectacularly to heterosexuality in 2000, having been found wandering the streets declaring she'd seen aliens).

What with this, and the token gays on reality TV shows, should we be pleased or horrified that we're becoming part of this mainstream? I'm a tad torn on the subject -after all, I'm just as happy curled up on the sofa with my girlfriend and cat watching Chita Rivera play a lesbian on Will & Grace as I am shimmying under a disco ball in a fabulous frock or mooning Her Majesty outside Buckingham Palace. But, given a choice of companion Ellen or transgender punk rock icon Jayne County (see separate blog on Jayne), it's Ms County every single time.

Interview with trans punk rock pioneer Jayne County

2006-08-27T05:54:00.000-07:00

Recently Jayne County posted on her Myspace site that Gene Simmons of rock band KISS was trying to co-opt the name of her band (The Electric Chairs), which she's had since the 70s. He announced on his reality TV show that his son's band would be called Nick Simmons and The Electric Chairs. Jayne put out a call to action and Gene initially backed off. Jayne kindly agreed to let me interview her for SX, the weekly GLBTI magazine in Sydney that I write for. You can read the article online by going to:

http://www.evolutionpublishing.com.au/sxnews/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=784&Itemid=40

Since then, Jayne has found out that Gene is still using her band's name in re-runs of his show and on a DVD. Jayne (formerly Wayne County & The Electric Chairs) was the first trans punk rock artist - Kiss, Bowie etc just played dress-ups and it sucks that a right-wing rock star like Simmons can't think up an original name for his own son's band. Jayne is a fabulous person and if you're someone who dislikes right-wing bigots with lots of money trampling on people who retain personal integrity and individuality at all costs, never selling out, please visit her Myspace page at www.myspace.com/jayneisblonde to find out how you can help her.
Enjoy the interview!

The M Word (same-sex marriage)

2006-08-27T05:51:00.000-07:00

Around 500 or so people attended a rally on Sunday in Sydney in support of same-sex marriage (it was part of a national day of action, with protests taking place across Australia). Considering the numbers that rock up to Mardi Gras or other party events, 500 was a pretty meagre figure, but I guess it's a reflection of how the M word has GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender) communities across the world divided.

Equal rights for all means the right to marry if you choose to, says the pro-gay marriage lobby. Buying into a heterosexist institution whose roots are steeped in oppression flies in the face of what the early gay liberationists (drag queens and trannies at Stonewall) fought for - the right to live an unconventional life, say those on the other side of the debate. So pissed off are the latter in the US, that over 250 activists, academics and writers, including feminist poster woman Gloria Steinem, Sarah Schulman and Armistead Maupin, have signed a manifesto called Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision for All Our Families and Relationships.

The manifesto calls for the legal rights and privileges of marriage to be extended to a myriad of relationships which traverse the lines of sex, gender, sexuality and even include close friends in long-term care-giving relationships. Schulman fears that the push by gay activists for the right to marry is harking back to the repressive values of the 1950s. She told The New York Times recently that, as a teacher, she sees a lot of younger gay people, especially women, adopting the heterosexual fantasy that even Barbie has distanced herself from - that someday they will meet the right person and they will get married and they would have children. She fears that lesbian mothers are embracing a poverty model and denying themselves the chance to be the next Emma Goldman.

I supported the rally on Sunday but not because I am a big fan of marriage; on the contrary, actually. I was annoyed that in 1997, the only way for my male-to-female transsexual girlfriend and I to protect our property and inheritance rights in England was to get legally heterosexually married under British law (we did it partly to get those protections and to expose the ridiculous legal loopholes). The irony, of course, is that last year, when I applied for permanent residency as her spouse (wife no less), Australian Prime Minister John Howards government refused to recognise our legal, British heterosexual union here in Australia and forced us to embrace the L word.

I supported the rally because I believe same-sex relationships to be as valid as heterosexual ones (and because I enjoy a good demo although I'd prefer it to be on a busy Saturday all through the city causing maximum disruption to traffic and business and ideally to the tune of '60s protest songs). I can see where Schulman's coming from though (lesbian mothers totally scare me!) and if there's a rally planned which calls for the promotion of sex and gender variant, polyamorous affiliations as a valid alternative to marriage to the young people of today I'll be there too.

Find your fetish

2006-07-30T00:34:00.000-07:00

While I'm not particularly hardcore in my sexual activities, I do have a rich fantasy life in which power-play and S/M feature fairly predominantly - whether it's Geena Davis as President Mackenzie Allen punishing her press secretary Kelly for various transgressions in Commander in Chief, or reliving my schooldays where my old bag of a PE teacher, formerly a member of the England Women's Cricket team, gets creative on my arse with various implements.

The 'leather' pride movement celebrates people's various fetishes and indulgences that are generally seen to be outside the mainstream. But it's not all just about PVC and whips, there's any number of things that can be considered kinky - like having sex while listening to The Seekers, as I did this weekend. After digging out some old albums, I was so excited by the protest song 'We Shall Not Be Moved' (currently my song of the week), that my long-suffering girlfriend - used to my occasionally bizarre idiosyncrasies - agreed to my bringing a compilation CD of the group into the bedroom on Sunday for musical accompaniment to our scheduled shagging session (yes, scheduled - we lead busy lives, ok!) . Oh, that's nothing, I hear you some of you say - background music while fucking is normal, even if it is saccharin-soaked, happy-clappy '60s folk pop. Well, that may be the case for songs about knowing you'll 'never find another you', but when you get into 'I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing' territory while licking your girlfriend's nipples, it gets a little out of the ordinary. And trying to enjoy cunnilingus to 'Morning Has Broken' and wondering if you'll come before Judith Durham belts out 'Kumbaya' is, in my books, entering surreal territory (try it if you don't believe me).

Why celebrate kink and fetish, some may ask - why not have 'vanilla' pride each year? Because 'normal' sexual practices aren't attacked so regularly or vigorously by right-wing fundamentalists, as the documentary Inside Deep Throat shows (whatever the 'truth' about Linda Lovelace's experiences in the infamous porn film of the '70s, it is a frightening account of a government censoring sexuality). While the original movie's plot was downright silly (a doctor discovers a woman's clitoris is in her throat and the only way she can have amazing orgasms is to give blow jobs), it brought discussions of fellatio into the open and dissipated shame around the practice. Gay Pride allows same-sex attracted people not to feel shame about their sexuality, and Leather Pride does the same for kinky folk. And no one should be ashamed of enjoying The Seekers…because we're on the road to freedom, people, and we shall not be moved.

We're all mad

2006-07-30T00:32:00.000-07:00

What is the definition of 'madness'? When does 'eccentricity' turn into madness and who decides? These are the questions I pondered while walking to Coogee Beach recently, shortly after I interlocked my arm with my girlfriend's in a spontaneous moment and began to skip and sing 'We're Off to See the Wizard'. There was no hesitation on her part to join in immediately with this public display of gaiety. No surprise or embarrassment at her partner's sudden switch from dawdling along, deep in thought to a carefree impersonation of Judy and co on their way to Oz, just a natural and loving impulse to bond with me.

According to the online Brain Dictionary, we are certainly eccentric - displaying 'strange or unconventional behaviour'. But are we mad? Among its definitions, the Brain Dictionary gives the following for madness: 'Excited beyond self-control or the restraint of reason' and 'inflamed by violent or uncontrollable desire, passion, or appetite'. Hmmm…been there.

Maybe we're just lunatics. Lunacy is defined as 'insanity or madness - properly, the kind of insanity which is broken by intervals of reason, formerly supposed to be influenced by the changes of the moon'. PMS anyone? And 'a morbid suspension of good sense or judgment' - ahem…going back to an ex who treats you like dirt…it's not looking good for our mental health - or is it? There are certain clinical criteria to judge 'madness' based on statistical and social norms - among them extreme, unusual, exceptional, deviant, outstanding, odd behaviour (isn't that just a regular Saturday night out?).

But despite society's perception of madness and the stigma often attached to it, some experts believe it's good for us. British psychiatrist Anthony Storr says madness, though causing profound turmoil, can be "an enriching and renewing experience, deepening one's emotional existence". According to Storr, so-called 'mad' people can be unorthodox and pioneering. at the cutting edge of their particular interest or profession, as well as deeply spiritual, full of innate wisdom and compassion, bringing inspiration, hope and empowerment to others. The philosopher Hegel saw insanity as inherent in the soul's nature, having a psychological necessity and providing the soul with an experience that can't be gained in other ways.

Scottish psychiatrist RD Laing, known for his LSD therapy in the 1960s and his 'anti-psychiatry' approach to mental illness, rather sensibly believed madness to stem from a dysfunctional society rather than the individual, suggesting that people's madness is an attempt at sanity, or is sanity itself, in a world gone insane. Come to think of it, bombing and poisoning the earth, stripping it of its resources and committing mass murder of human and non-human beings all in the name of profit by governments and corporations makes my Saturday night behaviour sound positively pedestrian.

Gay men, however, are completely crackers though - it's official. Another definition of madness according to the Brain Dictionary is 'the name of a female fairy, especially the queen of the fairies, and hence, sometimes, any fairy.' Start waving those wands, boys.

Hello Satan

2006-07-30T00:30:00.000-07:00

Apparently, a Vatican university is to offer a diploma course in Satanism. I decided to find out if the myths of ritualistic child abuse, human and animal sacrifice and devil worship usually associated with the religion were true. According to the website of the Church of Satan, they're not. "Satan is an archetype, a representation of certain qualities that the Satanist embodies, including rational self-interest, avoidance of oppressive mentalities, the questioning of all, and a perseverance towards success and human potential." Sounds ok so far.

Some of the nine Satanic statements encapsulated in The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, are actually quite appealing. "Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence…Satan represents all of the so-called sins as they all lead to physical, mental or emotional gratification." High priest Peter Gilmore says: "We see the Christian Church's teaching about sin to be an insidious plot. They named seven deadly sins (lust, pride, greed, envy, anger, gluttony, sloth), which are things that everyone will do to some extent, and thus they made sure that every normal human could be defined as a 'sinner'. Then they set themselves up as being the only way to be saved from these 'sins'. So that is certainly one of the greatest con games in all recorded history." Well, he's got a point. Satanism, however, does have its own 'sins' which include pretentiousness, herd conformity and stupidity.

And while sectors of many religions condemn or forbid same-sex love and marriages, the Church of Satan welcomes people of all sexual orientations into its ranks, and despite accusations of racism and even fascism, which it refutes, the organisation also opens its doors to people from all races and ethnicities. Provided you are "truly beautiful and magnificent" that is.

Yes, like most religions, it has its dodgy side, although in this summary of contemporary Satanism by Gilmore, it's easy to see the similarities with some factions of fundamentalist Christianity: "A brutal religion of elitism that seeks to re-establish the reign of the able over the idiotic, of swift justice over injustice, and for a wholesale rejection of egalitarianism as a myth that has crippled the advancement of the human species for the last two thousand years." In essence, you can't be a Satanist if you're weak, stupid, suffer from constant life failures and self-loathing, and fail to appreciate the works of artists such as Beethoven or Da Vinci. But if you're a woman who feels a bit nervous walking the streets alone at night or a queer person needing a motto on how to deal with potential gaybashers, the 11th Satanic Rule of the Earth may come in handy: "When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him."

Satanism may not be everyone's cup of tea, but in many ways it's no worse or better than other religions. And as Gilmore helpfully points out: "Satan has been the best friend the Church has ever had, as he has kept it in business all these years."

Find out more at www.churchofsatan.com

Unusual sexual practices

2006-07-30T00:29:00.000-07:00

There's nothing I like hearing more about than people's sexual habits. So in the interests of broadening my lexicon, I have been studying the Encyclopaedia of Unusual Sex Practices. Most of us will have heard of coprophilia (brown showers) or necrophilia (sex with or sexual arousal from dead bodies), but how about emetophilia (arousal from vomit or vomiting)? Or spectrophilia (arousal from sex with ghosts or spirits or images in mirrors)? Then there's symphorophilia (arousal from arranging a disaster, crash or explosion), and taphephilia (arousal from being buried alive).

Those are some of the more 'out there' practices, but even something like using food in sex play has a name - sitophilia. So if you've ever stuck a cucumber up your orifice, covered your partner in strawberry jam or given a banana a blow job, you're a sitophile. Instead of wasting oxygen using several words, I can now explain my attraction to older glamorous women by telling people I am a gerontophile (mind you, that only covers the 'older' part - how about a glamgerontophile?) Hey, who needs psychological qualifications? This is easy! Like to be watched? Congratulations - you're an agrexophile. Does your pussy pulsate at the sheer excitement of being on the crowded dance floor of your favourite queer club? You've got ochlophilia. And those of you who cut a hole in the bottom of the front of your trousers so you can masturbate in public with less risk of detection (you know you who are), are indulging in the practice known as sacofricosis.

It seems people get off on just about everything. Does booking a holiday so you can get in the car or on a plane and travel do it for you? Hodophile! Compulsive stealing is a condition in itself, but if it also turns you on, you're not only a kleptomaniac but a kleptophile. If you're mugged or arrive home to find you've been burgled and get an urge to have a wank, don't worry, you're just suffering from harpaxophilia. And, if, despite many years of practice and poring over sex manuals, you're still crap in bed, don't despair - there's hope for you yet to find true love. Just join a group for harmatophiliacs (those aroused by sexual incompetence or mistakes) and watch those multiple orgasms roll. No need to talk dirty to these folks either - the occasional 'whoops!' should be more than sufficient.

Polyphonic ring tones

2006-07-30T00:27:00.000-07:00

I couldn't help myself. I've succumbed. After moaning about the fact that my new mobile phone which I bought a few months ago had no plain and simple 'ring ring' tone in an earlier column, I've fallen prey to the phenomenon of polyphonic ringtones. I lay the blame partly at the feet of a friend in the UK who emailed me a website called ringtones2go.

Out of curiosity and a desire to be knowledgeable about modern-day culture, I had a surf. It was like taking a recovering junkie to a crack house - the temptation was just too much. If there had just been current top 10 pop songs, I could have resisted, no problem. Not even Blondie classics Atomic and Heart of Glass were enough to push me over the edge and into upgrading to a new mobile that could accept these musical riffs. No, there was more. The theme tune to TV shows Dallas, Cagney & Lacey, Dr Who and Hawaii Five-O, for example, which got me feeling rather too excited, but I bit my lip and resisted. When I discovered 'We're Off to See the Wizard' from The Wizard of Oz, I could feel my inner sensible person crumbling and began to bite my nails anxiously. Black Beauty, Basil Brush and Magic Roundabout caused me to hyperventilate, until finally I stumbled upon the straw that would break the camel's back - the theme song from Rupert the Bear.

As I played the sample, my inner child immediately started singing the words at the top of her voice: "Rupert, Rupert the bear, everyone sing his name; Rupert, Rupert the Bear, everyone come and join in all of his games". Images of Rupert's friends, Tiger Lilly and Badger Bill having adventures in Nutwood darted through my mind like acid flashbacks and sealed my fate into the dangerous and addictive world of polyphonics. I was high on nostalgia, logic nowhere to be seen, as I rushed to the shops in a state of euphoria to get my new phone which would be capable of delivering these melodies whenever I wanted them.

Impulse buying, my girlfriend called it, before mumbling something about mortgages, bills and spending more money than I make. I smiled sweetly and promised not to buy anything else for a while (except for NYE party and Blondie concert tickets and a pair of platform boots from an online store in Texas). Days later and I'm getting sideways looks and smirks from fellow bus and train passengers whenever my phone rings. I look at it as fostering a brief sense of community and bonding - with younger people in that I am 'with it' by having polyphonics at all, and with the 30-somethings who at one time in their lives, also lost themselves in the fantasy world of a little bear who wore tartan. Ooh, I can hear Barbra…"Mammaries…light the corners of my mind…misty water-coloured maaaaamaries." Hmmm, wonder if that comes in polyphonics?
www.ringtones2go.co.uk

Sexual Objects

2006-07-30T00:26:00.000-07:00

Most of us have heard of shoe fetishists (heck, a nice stiletto can even get me going if the right chick's wearing it!). But some people find pleasure in all sorts of other everyday objects, the official name for this being objectum sexuality. My favourite is Mrs Berlin-Wall. She's among a group of people attracted to various types of building or construction, such as fences. "For me to be attracted to an artefact, it must be a construction with parallel lines, usually horizontal," she explains. "I do also find other manufactured items good-looking, such as bridges, fences, railroad tracks, gates etc. All these have two things in common: rectangular, the parallel lines and they all divide."

But although she may feel attracted to these items, she feels love for only one - the Berlin Wall, which she 'married' in 1979 and changed her name accordingly. Mrs Berlin-Wall is an animist - one who believes all objects are living and have a soul. I'll let her explain her relationship with the wall: "We've been in love for many years. I was attracted to him ever since he was born. Yes, he is some years younger than me. But neither of us feels that this age difference matters. It was very much a long distance romance as neither of us likes to travel. For much of the time, I had to make do with photos of him and of course seeing him in newspapers and on the television. Like every married couple, we have our ups and downs. We may not have a conventional marriage, but neither of us cares much for conventions. Ours is a story of two beings in love, our souls entwined for all eternity."

The 'attack' on her 'husband' by 'frenzied mobs' in November 1989 when the Wall came down still affects her deeply. "Only one word adequately describes my feelings - tragedy! I wish the fall of the DDR [former East Germany]. had never happened, simply because it meant a personal tragedy for me and for the Berlin Wall, which should be easy enough to understand. It's wrong to attack the Wall because of human stupidity and disrespect for objects. It's wrong to ship parts of him to the USA and other places. The Berlin Wall is a German being and it's beyond all forgiveness to treat him like they have done. I still can maintain the marriage with the Wall, even if he isn't what he used to be in his prime. I will always love him."

Isn't she fabulous? Well, it's given me food for thought - come to think of it, my front gate's looking's rather pretty.

Attraction

2006-07-30T00:24:00.000-07:00

After pondering obsessions in a previous blog, I got to wondering why people are attracted to others and what particularly it is about certain physical attributes that turn us on. Why is it that my hormones are thrown into disarray at the sight of Debbie Harry's cheekbones, or Joan Collins' lipglossed red lips? Why does the oestrogen practically bounce off the walls whenever my girlfriend puts on 80s make-up?

My Scottish gay friend Martin who's lived in Sydney for the past four years is another Blondie geek fascinated and attracted to Debbie but not in a sexual way. He came up with a theory in answer to my first question. "Debbie's face is a perfect example of a loveheart-shaped face. If you start from the tip of her nose and follow a line up around her arched eyebrows and round her cheeks and finally to the bottom lip, it's a perfect loveheart shape-there must be some deep psychological implications there," he explained earnestly. Yeah, I know we both need to get out more.

Explaining Joan's lips of course is easy: they are the ultimate vagina. Red, glistening and soft, leading to a moist, dark, mysterious place. It sounds a bit Freudian, I know, but all those games we play as young children sticking our fingers into each other's mouths and sucking them (other people do do that, don't they?) leave longlasting impressions on an easily corruptible mind.

My friend Konny, a German lesbian in her mid twenties, shares my fascination with and attraction to older women (and yes, she needs to get out more too). She told me that although she is "crazy about tits", they have to be part of the whole person. "If I like the tits, it's because it's 'her' tits," she said. "If I'm crazy about the thing between her legs, then it's only because it's 'her' thing. I don't want to see, touch or whatever anything between the legs of just any woman." I'm inclined to agree with her, although I'm not going to make any sweeping statements about it being a chick thing and guys being more likely to get turned on by isolated body parts. But on flicking through Penthouse once in a while, I'm not particularly excited at the close-ups of pink bits and buttock cheeks unless I find the model attractive, which is rare (Nancy Sinatra's nude shots in a 1995 edition of Playboy being the exception - her boots were made for walking and she can walk all over me in them anytime!).

Other friends told me they found legs, arms, abs, hairy chest, breasts, butt, fingers, neck, eyes, lips, teeth and back of the head a turn on, although none could offer an explanation why - apart from Konny who mentioned something about breast-feeding and mothers - at which point I got a little scared.

Obsessions

2006-07-30T00:22:00.000-07:00

I recently watched a cable TV interview with UK lesbian comedian Rhona Cameron on Parkinson. She was describing her schoolgirl crush on a teacher and said it reached 'stalker' proportions. Apparently she would follow the teacher everywhere and was so besotted with her that she would look longingly at the pool of oil the older woman's car had deposited in the schoolyard. I'd been indifferent to Cameron until then, but after that confession, I liked her instantly and could totally relate to her experience.

When I was at school, aged 12, I'd follow certain sixth-form girls (17-18-year-olds), hiding around corners peering at them. Eventually I was hauled off to the headmistress and asked to explain my behaviour. I merely shrugged and said I didn't know. My punishment, bizarrely enough, was to be forced to spend a week with the very sixth-formers I'd been stalking. I had to sit with them in assembly, eat lunch with them and sit in their common room during break periods. What kind of trip my headmistress was on, I have no idea. If the plan was to humiliate me, well I guess it worked in a twisted sort of way - mixing feelings of embarrassment with hysterical excitement is a surefire way to turn a girl kinky, not put her off other chicks.

But it doesn't just stop at schoolgirl level for some of us. In my 20s I managed to persuade the (straight) contemporary dance teacher I was obsessed with to rent me a room in her house. I was convinced she was 'the one', that we'd fall in love and live happily ever after once I took her to see Desert Hearts at the cinema. Naturally I was devastated when she got a boyfriend not long after. Hearing them have sex for the first time produced feelings of ecstasy followed by despair. I cheered myself up by putting salt in his milk the next morning. Then there was the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art student to whom I regularly delivered copious amounts of flowers (who needs money for food when you can thrive on high emotion?) and who a few years later had her 15 minutes of fame by being splashed across the UK tabloids when she had an affair with a prominent politician whose toes she apparently enjoyed sucking (jeez, I know how to pick 'em).

Even now as a 30-something in a long-term relationship with a wonderful and glamorous older woman, I still have my obsessions. Now it's Debbie Harry. In my jam-packed life of work, writing and performing, instead of a relaxing drink with friends, my downtime consists of gazing longingly at pictures and videos of the blonde singer and experiencing an intense stomach-churning, chest-pounding, pussy-pulsating thrill. Some might say I need therapy, but I've got this column instead. Fortunately for me I live with a psychotherapist (no one else would have me). So I asked my girl (aka Dr Tracie O'Keefe) for her expert opinion on obsessions.
"Generally people obsessed with iconoclastic idols are trying to supplement something that is missing in their own life," she said. "There's a difference between fantasy and fanaticism for most people, but for the stalker, they are unable to understand the boundaries between reality and fiction."

Whatever - I'm with Rhona on this one.

Here comes the bride

2006-07-30T00:18:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was a small child and forced to traipse along to endless weddings of cousins, half-cousins and neighbours, I knew it wasn't something I wanted to do myself. I didn't clamour to catch the bouquet - the cry of "you're next" was akin to being sentenced to prison in my young mind. Nothing much has changed, except I do come over a tad nostalgic whenever I hear Hi Ho Silver Lining or Rhinestone Cowboy, and I do rather miss the opportunity to do the Hokey-Kokey. But I need no excuse to don a big frock and look pretty - I don't need a special day to do it. As for children, unless they are furry, have four legs, a tail and miaow, I'm really not interested.

When my best friend Mandy in the UK, a truly independent, wanton and free spirit if ever there was one, emailed me a few weeks ago to tell me she was getting married to her long-term boyfriend, I felt a sick feeling in my stomach. Fortunately Mandy's eccentricity was greater than her desire to conform to notions of normality and she sent me a second email after the wedding which went as follows: "Lovely wedding (apart from mother-in-law who is very pissed off and not speaking to us). Only had two weeks notice so everything was quite mad. Exchanged battery and light bulb instead of rings, wore black (including trilby) and body glitter, walked down isle to the sound of two super jet aeroplanes, left to go to fetish club Torture Garden, had a chocolate wedding cake with label that read 'this product may contain nuts', and danced to You make me Feel Mighty Real by Sylvester."

But, personal reservations aside, there's nothing like a government telling me I can't have something to make me annoyed and want to fight for the right to do it if I do ever want to. I'm particularly annoyed with John Howard for passing the amendment to the Marriage Act, deeming marriage suitable only for heterosexual couples. This means my girlfriend and I will never be able to get ourselves a couple of Russian mail-order brides. If my email box is anything to go by, there's a melee of Slavic beauties just waiting to make us happy by keeping house and cooking meals, just as a good wife should. The Mail Order Bride Warehouse at http://www.goodwife.com says so. I clicked on the site's link to 30-year-old Mariya. Her vital statistics sound impressive but I'm a tad concerned about her marital status - she's divorced which doesn't augur well. I move onto Nataliya whose English is described as 'bad' and then Julia whose current occupation is rather disturbing - "housewife". But there's Lene and Ludmilla, both pretty young blonde students as well as several other girleys who can apparently speak English satisfactorily and have rather nice breasts to boot.

On August 13, I shall be joining lesbians and gay men throughout Australia to in the National Day of Action for Same Sex Marriage, organised by Community Action Against Homophobia (www.caah.org.au) because I will not be condemned to a lifetime of domesticity. I want the right to order my bride now.

Suckatorium etiquette for girls

2006-07-30T00:15:00.000-07:00

For those of you unfamiliar with the details and rules of this deliciously titled phenomenon, I enlisted the help of my friend John in explaining it to me. "They're small one-person cubicles with oval-shaped holes in the wall about 10-15 inches high and 3-5 inches wide for anonymous sex," he says.

Big enough for a pussy to be pressed up against one end and for fingers and/or tongue to come through the other? I enquire. John reckons so - yay! Anonymity is the key though and suckatoriums usually observe a strict no-talking rule. Hmmm. So how do you signal to the other party what you want? "Hand signals are en vogue," John explains. "You "signal" someone through a hole by pointing your two big fingers through or at the hole, kinda like hitch-hiking. That's the signal for the other party to put their pecker through." I wonder how this can be translated for chicks. How to communicate to a girl that you want her fingers rather than her tongue, and if you want her to concentrate solely on your clit, penetrate your pussy, or both? Poor John can't answer that one.

Ok, once you've had your turn, is it expected that you'll swap over and reciprocate? "There's no hard and fast rule. The other party can stick around for their turn, or just rack off. They usually rack off."But isn't that rude?"No, in fact it's de riguer."What if you realise you're not going to come, even though she may have been tongueing or fingering you for five or ten minutes solid? Surely if you just stop and walk off, the other person might feel insecure that they weren't good enough?"Insecurity doesn't exist," John insists. "If it does, then what the hell are they doing in a suckatorium? Shit happens - just try someone else."

Wow, it's a whole new world of rules and social graces, isn't it? I have an idea. How about taking along a series of pre-typed (so your handwriting isn't analysed and recognised) notes of what you'd like done and to do and just post them through the hole? John's not convinced. "The boys wouldn't go for it at all, but the girls...maybe."

Studying lesbians

2006-07-30T00:12:00.000-07:00

What fun it must be for academics to use up hundreds of dollars in their research studies to come up with conclusions about people based solely on their sexuality. Among the latest "findings" is the little gem that lesbians get turned on by watching lesbian, gay male and heterosexual porn, in contrast to gay men who are aroused almost exclusively by male erotica, and straight guys who prefer girl-girl action. In other words, dykes don't care who's doing the fucking, as long as someone is.

Well, I shall sleep better at night now that this little known fact has been made official and will even appear in a scientific journal.Then there's the study conducted at the University of Texas, which claims that lesbian and bisexual women don't hear as well as straight chicks. But, every cloud has a silver lining and you'll no doubt be pleased to know that our hearing is more sensitive than our gay male counterparts and heterosexual men.

According to this amazing piece of research, the reasons for this are that there are subtle differences in the way the brain and central nervous systems develop in lesbian and bisexual women. And not only is our hearing inferior to our straight sisters, our hands are different too, it seems. In fact, the researcher in New Jersey who measured finger ratios in gay women found that their hands resembled those of straight men. In spacial awareness tests lesbians also tend to perform more like men than heterosexual women, she concluded.

Well, that's it then - I'm not a real lesbian. My hearing is fine, I have pretty little hands, I get lost all the time and have to turn street maps upside down to face the direction I'm travelling to get back on track. My world is shattered.

Designer vaginas

2006-07-30T00:10:00.000-07:00

Even the lesbians are at it now. Plastic surgery, that is. But it's not only mini-lifts, boob jobs and liposuction that are becoming more popular with previously PC sisters of Sappho. No, it seems that a bit of nip and tuck in the nether regions is now all the rage too. Procedures available include Designer Laser Vaginoplasty (DLV) which is the "aesthetic surgical enhancement of the vulvar structures" (otherwise known as chopping off bits of your downstairs lips) and even a G-spot injection. Yes, girls, you can now have collagen pumped into your fanny to plump up your hotspot and give you better orgasms.

But surely this is just for the straight girls, I hear you ask? I decided to find out and contacted Dr David Matlock of the Laser Vaginal Rejuvenation Institute of Los Angeles. He told me: "Lesbian women are particularly interested in our DLV procedures. The most common is laser reduction labioplasty." Why, you may wonder, would any dyke in her right mind want her pussy pulled, snipped and rearranged? Dr Matlock said it's a matter of aesthetics. "One of my lesbian patients told me, 'doctor you have to understand that we are interested in oral sex and we want things to look good.'"We know that every new trend starts in Hollywood and Dr Matlock was keen to point out that in his Beverly Hills practice, he has "a significant number of celebrities, and this includes lesbian celebrities."Naturally he wasn't giving out any names but he did mention a lesbian comedian who wanted "the little man with the oars (clitoris and labia minora) taken care of."

And while any side effects of injecting bovine collagen into your beaver are as yet unknown, don't be surprised if a new variant of BSE pops up in the future. Watch out for MCD - Mad Cunt Disease, and remember, you read it here first.

2006-07-23T00:39:00.000-07:00

I've created this blog, because even though as a journalist I spend my days writing articles, columns etc, I can't always say exactly what I want to in the media, so this is where I can unleash whatever comes to mind, without censorship. I created the blog today after reading Penny Arcade's blog (www.pennyarcade.tv). Penny is a New-York-based performance artist who's been around forever - in fact, as her own site proclaims, she invented the artform! I'd heard of Penny from years ago, even before I moved to Sydney from my home in London in 2001, but hadn't seen her perform. Last year, I had the pleasure of interviewing her for SX, the weekly arts, news and entertainment magazine for the GLBTI community that I write for in Sydney, and Slit, Australia's glossy sex, politics, porn and culture dyke magazine.

Out of all the people I’ve interviewed who come under the ‘artist’ or ‘celebrity’ category, Penny was easily the most forthcoming and enthusiastic. I know people are wary of journalists, and with good reason – my own girlfriend has been the victim of press treachery on more than one occasion and I wouldn’t trust the majority of journalists as far as I could throw them either, even though I am one – but when I emailed Penny a bunch of questions, on subjects including feminism; the demise of the GLBTI community and ‘queer’ as it allowed itself to be marketed into a homogenised, bland brand empty of all style; the rise of consumerism and the ‘morass’ of celebrity culture, she fired back a series of no-holds-barred lengthy responses, plus more in an hour-long telephone interview, which I found both refreshing and exciting. See www.katrinafox.com/sampleswork.htm for the two interviews with Penny, and you’ll see what I mean. She not only gave me food for thought in terms of her views on various issues (especially the failure of feminism due to women betraying each other), but the very fact that she’s spent the past 30 or so years saying exactly what she thinks and not towing the party line or playing it safe in order to ‘get on’ and achieve ‘fame’ in the mainstream was probably the most inspiring aspect for me. It’s a rare quality these days – people really prepared to call things as they are, stand up for their beliefs and be passionate about them, whatever the consequences. Everything is so safe – politicians have used the ‘war on terror’ to terrorise their citizens and media into keeping quiet and ‘plodding along’, and those who make a stand and try to make a difference are branded ‘terrorists’ (see the story of the SHAC 7 at www.shac7.com).

As well as Penny, I’ve derived huge inspiration from my girlfriend, Tracie O’Keefe (www.tracieokeefe.com) who turned 50 last year. When she was younger, she experienced a huge amount of discrimination, being a transsexual woman, and as she’s gotten older, she no longer takes it, she’s become a fighter. If someone fucks with her, she comes right back at them, through the courts or whatever. She says it’s to do with maturity. It seemed like a theme was emerging for me this past year, since only a few months after interviewing Penny, I also got to interview Diamanda Galas (www.diamandagalas.com). I had only 15 minutes with her, which wasn’t nearly enough time to get into anything propertly, but even so, she talked about how, as you get older, you are less able to put up with ‘garbage’ – “you reach critical mass in your fucking 50s and you're like, over it” were her exact words (see www.katrinafox.com/diamandagalas.com to read the interview). Body Shop founder Anita Roddick momentarily inspired me by saying similar things, before selling out big time and selling the Body Shop, which prided itself on championing ethical consumerism and campaigning against animal testing, to L’Oreal one of the largest manufacturers who have spent years conducting vile, cruel tests on animals for their product ingredients. I recommend boycotting the Body Shop while it remains under the ownership of L’Oreal.

More recently I interviewed Camille Paglia for LOTL, Australia’s national lesbian magazine (www.lotl.com). Again, here was another full-on chick not afraid to call things as she saw them, no matter how unpopular it might make her with certain factions in society. Talking (and in Tracie’s case living) with all these fabulous women has had an effect on my sensibilities, as a person and as a writer. In among the ‘safe’ features I write for magazines has to be other pieces that come from my passion. I managed to do this two weeks ago in an article I wrote for SX, on a radical vegan agenda for the queer community (read it at www.katrinafox.com/radicalvegan.htm). I didn’t care whether I’d get hate mail or if people who previously liked me were offended - they wouldn’t really be liking ‘me’ anyway, just some surface perception of who they think or would like to think I am, and at the end of the day that’s a lie, and I’m sick of lies – from governments, people, corporations, media. Until now, I’ve been inspired by and admired the women mentioned above (and some men who I haven’t yet mentioned but will in later blog posts) but not brave enough to do as they do, talk the talk, walk the walk. Until today. The gloves are off, the mask is off and I’m about to find out if, as the cliché goes, the truth really will set me free.