I wrote the following brief essay in August 2017, in response to a call for short provocations about... something. I don't remember what, but it was rejected, and then there was never anywhere else to put it, so I thought I'd put it here. It is at this point of exhaustion, when we have become … Continue reading A Desiring Image: Dating Apps, and Sexuality without Bodies
Category: Sexuality
Discussion of women’s rights, and in particular, the right not to be sexually abused or exploited has gained visible traction in popular media globally. This observation is in fact, so obvious, that it feels facile to even mention the #timesup and #metoo movements. Women’s rights have also been addressed publicly and repeatedly in both the … Continue reading Kahlo in Bendigo: Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the gallery.
Today in the first year Gender Studies class I teach, we were discussing the conclusion of Sara Ahmed's Living a Feminist Life, "A Killjoy Survival Kit". At the end of the class, I asked the students (as a fun activity, or what I think of as fun, anyway) to add something to the toolkit. Each … Continue reading Boots.
The VNS Matrix collective are/were/are a group of four artists from Adelaide who invented cyberfeminism. More or less.* I love them. For two reasons. Firstly hometown pride, and secondly, the vast improbability that something as globally influential and necessary would ever issue from Adelaide. Adelaide though.† On the VNS Matrix website, they describe the appearance … Continue reading For the love of the VNS Matrix
Lately, I've been listening to the Le Tigre song "Viz" an awful lot. One of the many side effects of insisting on a national survey to respond to the proposition of marriage equality is the increased focus on queer people in the community, which results in coding queer visibility as "other" or "different" and most … Continue reading Viz.
Once homophobia (or any kind of hatred) is given oxygen, it spreads. The legitimacy that a 'no' vote lends to the people who spread this hatred has the potential to provoke and support all manner of homophobia and violence.
This provides a platform not simply to deny one right, but as a starting point from which to erode the rights that have already been fought for, and won. Contrary to appearances, history is not a straight line (ha ha) and the maintenance of rights requires vigilance and energy as well.
Erin K Stapleton 