Sex, consent & sexuality

is the grip of my lover's tender touch; ground sin through white knuckles. I know where   your hands once rested by the burns and bruises in the land where you split me by my ribs, bone   dented where your fingers lay. Shibboleth! I recognise you by the space you take   up, so for fun, let’s mark where you were in blue heaven, little spots of red, zappo pink & sticky sunnyboy heat before you leave. Paint   this body, a canvas learning colour, our fingerprints thick bold acrylic petals   scraped clean on those gingham art smocks.

Content warning: Sexual assault is discussed in this piece. Last year the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) released a National Report on sexual assault and sexual harassment at Australian universities, with alarming findings. In the wake of the report, the Australian National University, the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne have made it a requirement for all commencing students to complete an online sexual consent module. Currently at Monash University there are two consent modules sitting in our Moodle realm. The units are a requirement for students partaking in off-campus and co-curricular events, such as society camps and

“I wanted the complete experience before I traded in my warm, breakable, pheromone-riddled body,” Bella reflects in Breaking Dawn, the final book of the Twilight series, prior to having sex with Edward. Edward has not previously fulfilled Bella’s carnal desires because he is worried about destroying her supposedly frail human body (although this reasoning mysteriously evaporates after marriage). Then shortly after their lovemaking session - which results in a half-vampire half-human baby that threatens to tear Bella’s body apart from the uterus out - he turns Bella into a powerful vampire. The harm of this narrative extends beyond Stephenie Meyer’s

Why do we call it “sexual relations”? Well, sex is more than an activity: it is the relationship between two people for the time during which they perform acts that they both consider sexual. This meaning can be ascertained in other words used to describe sex. There is an element of dialogue (vital for relationships!) implied in “intercourse” or the more obscure “congress”. So why did our forebears like yapping so much? Because knowledge is power. And power is sexy.

Cabaret’s roots date back to the 1880s when bohemian poets, artists and composers would gather in French saloons to share creative ideas. It developed into a style of alcohol-infused risqué musical performance, notoriously characterised by improvisation, audience interactivity and small, intimate venues. In 2016 performers Tara Dowler and Louise Mapleston infuse cabaret, musical comedy and clowning in their two-woman act ‘Pink Flappy Bits’ that debuted at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) to sold out audiences throughout the season.   How did ‘Pink Flappy Bits’ come to be? Tara: Lou and I met in a MUST cabaret show in 2014

What if all high school conflict and angst was solved through a bit of song and dance?

Fifty Shades of Grey is a damaging and regressive depiction of ‘romance’ and ‘erotica’. Most disturbing is the wide scale evidence and subsequent acceptance that women have and continue to suffer as a direct result of partners imitating the behaviour in these books.

Dr Francesca Collins is a Senior Lecturer in Behavioral Studies in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University, Clayton campus and the head of non-residential Phoenix College at Caulfield campus. Dr Collins has registered to run for the Sex Party in the upcoming state election. What seat/electorate/division are you running for and which party are you representing? I’m the Australian Sex Party candidate for the Upper House region of Southern Metropolitan which covers Kew down to Beaumaris, Clayton across to the bay and everything in between. What attracted you to this party over another party or running as an independent? How did

So yesterday I was sitting in the bar, after unwillingly being coaxed out for lunch amidst writing an awful essay. The trade-off for this was that I would bring my laptop and at least pretend that I was still working on it. I was taking a leisurely scroll through Facebook while sipping at some cider when something caught my eye.

This article was originally published in Lot's Wife Edition 5: Identity A lot of the time, we tend to maintain an either/or mentality when it comes to sex related stuff. Male/Female, Straight/Gay, hell, even Virgin/Not Virgin. We think of people consisting of about two main features: sex (which we usually equate pretty quickly with gender) and sexual orientation. The truth though, like so much else in the world is never as simple and organised as we would like it to be, children – paragons of chaos that they are – typify this, boys in pink, girls cutting their own short

Sport is about creating a level playing field and then allowing the best athlete to win. Unfortunately though, a level playing field does not exist among both genders.

It’s a rare opportunity when you find someone with whom you can talk about sex for an hour in a Brunswick coffee shop and write it off as work – but this is exactly the chance that presented itself when I had the chance to talk to Honor Eastly about her new game show That Sexy Show, doing four shows through the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. “The idea of the show is for it to be accessible for everyone” says a bubbly Honor, sipping a frothy milkshake. “I used to be a team captain for another show, “We Should Know