By: Natalie Kon-yu

This is a particularly sore subject for me today, as I’ve come back from holiday and there’s no coffee in the house.  Coffee is a ritual for me, a kind for reward for waking up and getting down to work.  It’s something I especially need if I’m writing, not only the sharp hit of it; but making a cup of coffee also gives me an opportunity to step away from the page, to think about what I’ve written , to mull it over in my mind.

There seems to be a natural affinity between coffee and writers; we have a special relationship to the coffee shop or cafe. As part of a mentorship program, I meet with Susan on a fortnightly basis in Brunetti’s in Carlton.  We often order our coffee before we have found seats, and we sip as we talk about writing, about words that have inspired us, as well as the frustrations we encounter. I’m a drinker of espresso – a perilous coffee if you don’t trust the quality of the café – and Brunetti’s being so very Italian, is a good place for this little cup. The frustrating thing about espresso drinking is that it inly lasts a few seconds, I have nothing to wrap my hands around, no warm mug to hold onto or coast on as we continue our chat.  Sometimes I wish I drank lattes so that I could keep the experience of drinking coffee go just that bit longer, but I can’t forego the espresso.

In many ways coffee is just the precursor, the bit that gives us an excuse (and a place) to meet.  What we’re really interested in is the conversation; cafés are a great place to talk about writing.  Look around any café and you’ll see people talking more animatedly than they do in a bar or a restaurant (is it the caffeine?).  A lot of my writer friends meet up in cafes, and a lot of bookshops pop in near cafés.  We’re especially lucky to have a Readings bookshop right near the Brunetti’s where we meet, and many times after we’ve finished our chat, we walk over to peruse the shelves of this fantastic bookshop, high on caffeine and conversation.  This habit of readerly and writerly people meeting up in cafés has been acknowledged by organisations such as Poetry Australia who run a Café Poets Program, which gives writers a place to work (as well as providing them with coffee and tea) in exchange for the writer bringing the café into the writing community in a meaningful way. There was a small, locally owned bookstore in Perth where I used to live, that merged the café and bookshop, and the place was, as you can imagine teeming with writers.  As we move ever forward into cyber realities (or non realities, depending on your perspective) , I’m confident that we will never lose the humble café – we all have far too much to talk about.

Natalie Kon-yu lives in Melbourne and teaches Creative Writing at university.  She is currently working on her first novel 'the list of missing things', with Susan Hawthorne.

Don’t buy into the sexualisation of women

by: Spinifex intern, Imogen Kandel

In response to a question posed on the Collective Shout website asking for positive examples of where to shop this Christmas, we put out heads together and came up with a list of sexploitation-free gifting options (and a few food-on-the-run options, too).
 
We specifically looked at whether or not the company had used any sexist or sexually exploitative advertising, and gave our tick of approval to those who steered clear of using inappropriate images of women and children to push their message. Wherever possible, we also opted for Australian-made and owned, as well as eco and ethically friendly.
 
In our list you’ll find a mix of specific brands as well as retail outlets. To avoid buying from retailers that use sexploitation, go straight to the source and purchase directly online.
 
If you’d like to add your sexploitation-free shopping ideas, please use the comments section below.
 
Happy Holidays!


KIDS’ CLOTHES, TOYS & OTHER GIFT IDEAS
Every Little Girl - some great unisex clothing & organic tees!
Eternal Creation
The Singing Whale
Windmill Educational
New Moon Girls (magazine)

BEAUTY PRODUCTS
Aesop
Jurlique
Mukti Botanicals
Perfect Potion

BOOKS
Readings Bookshop
Books for Cooks
Mary Ryan's Books, Music & Coffee
Avid Reader
Gleebooks
Fullers Bookshop
Spinifex Press

CLOTHES & ACCESSORIES
People Tree
Blue Caravan
Ishka
Seed Heritage
Jennifer Loiselle on Etsy
A Skulk of Foxes
TOMS shoes - we love this site: for every pair of shoes you purchase, TOMS will give a pair of shoes to a child in need.

FAST FOOD & CAFES (when you need a break from shopping!)
Boost Juice
Grill'd
Lord of the Fries
Brunetti
Plum Café
 
UNDERWEAR
Berlei
Jockey Australia
 
BEDDING, LINEN & HOMEWARES
Albatross
HolySheet!
Bird Textile
Biome

ALTERNATIVE GIVING
Rainforest Rescue
Bob Irwin Wildlife Fund

My condolences to the People of Australia

My warnings to the women of Australia, especially northern Australia

Today’s visit of US President Barack Obama’s to your country and his announcements to your government to deploy 2,500 US Marines to northern Australia put the people of Australia, especially women in northern Australia, in grave danger.  While I understand that Australia has its own military, allow me to suggest that no state military approximates the danger of the US military in the world today.

First of all allow me to point out that because the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan are war crimes and violate both the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Charter, it has been necessary for the US military to train its soldiers and marines in preventive killing (i.e. murder). As you can imagine, young recruits many of whom are unemployed and others who are seeking to gain access to a college education do not sign up for such barbaric fighting. Therefore to train its recruits to kill without remorse while convincing them that they are defending their county, the USA, brainwashing techniques are employed by the US military as I document in Unmaking War, Remaking Men. 

In their training, US soldiers and Marines trained to believe that are superior to ordinary (American) civilians. This is part of their training for remorseless killing as believing in their own superiority aids young recruits in justifying their behavior in combat which ranges from remorseless to preventive killing.  Now think about it Australians – if US Marines understand that they are superior to American civilians, what do you expect of them while they are in Australia.

I ask you urgently to consult with your Pacific neighbors, especially in the Philippines, and the decades it took them to free their soil of US troops.  The Coalitions Against Trafficking in Women – Asia Pacific would be a good place to start in Manila. Learn how Philippine women were reduced to prostitution for US soldiers and Marines.  When the Marines finally shipped out, they were trafficked to countries like your own for prostitution.   

Before it is too late, please consider the risks of your country and especially your women to having US military deployed on your land.


Respectfully,

Kathleen Barry, Ph.D.

Professor Emerita of Pennsylvania State University

Author: Unmaking War, Remaking Men (Australia: Spinifex 2010)

I think it is agreed by all parties that whoever could find a fair, cheap and easy method of making poor girls useful members of the economy, would deserve so well of the public, as to have her statue erected as preserver of the nation. To this end, I propose a method inspired by Milton Friedman. Let us recognise that the influence of Friedman’s deregulation thesis on third way social engineering is so profound that we can now say that the Chicago School of economics is the pinnacle of right-minded left wing practice. For example, George Papandreou, the president of Socialist International, is currently deregulating the Greek economy. While some might call him an undertaker, a cannibal, and a pimp, we in the progressive Left know such hysterical accusations come from wowsers.

What a tragedy for humanity that Milton Friedman did not follow up his Capitalism and Freedom (1962) with Capitalism and Sexual Freedom.

Thankfully, however, deregulation produces a sexually liberated market place. We now enjoy the seductive interpellations of a self-regulated corporate culture that promotes incessant sex industry style fucking: from children’s films and baby wear to real estate and shampoo adverts, everything is bubbling with the promise of sexual excitement. At the local brothel, young women sell their bodies to all kinds of men for different and diverse sexual practices. Or I can stroll into an adult.com chain shop and buy magazines showing women laughing with delight, as they are hogtied and given a vigorous triple penetration. Or at the deli near the local high school I can buy magazines full of smiling barely legal teens captioned ‘Cum on my braces!’. With a tap of my varnished nail, my PC ejaculates a load of porn — bestiality, incest, gonzo, BDSM, Lolita. Newspapers are full of adverts for self-reliant individual female sex workers.

Yet we have not gone far enough. We are in the infancy of our sexual freedom as a nation and it is the responsibility of the Left to see to it that progress is made. The sex industry should be free of any state control and the Left, in the interests of liberty, equality and fraternity, should embrace a range of laissez-faire policies immediately.

I say to you: it is time the Left stood shoulder to shoulder with the sex industry and said ‘yes we can!’

More needs to be done so that those who are at risk from welfare dependency can chose to become self-reliant consumers.

I am talking, of course, of those poor girls who come from sexually and physically violent homes, intermittently attend financially irresponsible state schools, only to spend their lives drifting miserably through the expanding secondary labour market. These girls often end up on sole parent benefits with numerous children to feed. It is time the Left encouraged these poor girls to embrace the choice of a self-empowering life in the sex industry.

Can the Left argue with any credibility that sex work shouldn’t be promoted as a viable career option for these unfortunate girls? Recently I heard that one girl had finished high school and was earning $3 an hour in a cafe. If sex work were de-stigmatised to be a job like any other, she could be earning $150 an hour. Instead of labouring for years in dead-end jobs, with the burden of debt on her young shoulders, she could be paying those university fees, saving for that $200,000  or so she will need as a deposit on a modest home.

Here are merely some of the socio-economic benefits of a deregulated sex industry.

• The sex industry builds social cohesion by providing a healthy outlet for male sexual needs of all kinds. In the interests of public health and safety it is vital that the Left defend the right of the sex industry to fully penetrate the private and public sphere. Let us face facts. Although decades of scientific feminist research argue that the sex industry practices and promotes violent woman hating, circumstantial evidence suggests feminists make these claims because they are man-haters.

• We must offer brothels the choice to corporatize their business. By gentrifying the sex industry we enhance the social status of sex work.

• Within working-class areas pornography corporations should be approached as industry partners in state sex education projects. Brothel owners and pimps might select students for job training in year 10. Already groomed for such work by the sex industry’s colonisation of their life worlds, this opportunity to professionalize their knowledge will be eagerly embraced by poor girls.

• Student unions could actively place girls within the sex industry, formalising an already growing trend for poor students. The sex industry will support the higher education sector by increasing retention rates for the poor that in turn will lead to increased corporate/university profits.

• Australia should be marketed internationally to sex tourists. Currently many Australian men go to places like Cambodia for unregulated sex industry business— it is time we reversed the trend.

• The unemployed, the homeless, the entire standing reserve of at-risk and vulnerable girls should undergo training in various aspects of sex work and be thoughtfully placed in the industry. There will be no need for exit paths — rather old workers of 30 will be offered promotion to pimp. 

• Female run pornography companies and sex industry venues would enhance gender equality. 

• Much research has been done on the negative impact of our image-obsessed culture. Yet here too is where the sex industry can help us. As Marx wrote: ‘I am ugly, but I can buy the most beautiful woman. Which means to say that I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness, its repelling power, is destroyed by money’.[1] Surely then, the sex industry, which offers attractive girls to ugly men for money, will enhance men’s self-esteem, which will in turn radiate outwards as a benevolence towards others, such as women, perhaps. 

As the sex industry requires lithe bodies, many girls will be motivated to halt their descent into obesity in the interests of personal profit. Thus the sex industry will address the epidemic of youth obesity in Australia. Other issues facing disadvantaged girls, such as mental illness, rural suicide rates, social isolation, drug use, and anti-social behaviour will be eradicated by the therapeutic and financial benefits of belonging to the sex industry community. Cyber bullying through sexting will no longer have social purchase once society teaches the young to embrace pro-sex industry identities. The words ‘whore’, ‘ho’ and ‘pimp’, already terms of endearment among the young, will be further accepted as compliments.

This sincerely felt proposal should merit the originator a Humanist of the Year award, not to mention substantial research funding from the sex industry. Might I remind readers that it is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day? Although the communist wowser Clara Zetkin instigated this day we have now reached a moment in history where we can more accurately see that economics never lies. 

(With apologies to Dr Jonathan Swift)

[1] Marx, Early Writings, Penguin. 1975, p. 377.

This blog was written in response to a discussion about Big Porn Inc at the Feminist Forum series held at the University of Melbourne on 13 September.

Congratulations to those involved in researching and writing Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry edited by Melinda Tankard Reist and Abigail Bray (Spinifex). You are now able to educate readers on the ‘pornification’ of our society and you have shared information to enable the public to make informed choices regarding their use – or not – of porn.

 

There are some implications in the book that I would like to qualify.

 

One chapter of the book, ‘Pornography as Sexual Authority: How Sex Therapy Promotes the Pornification of Sexuality’ by Meagan Tyler refers to sex therapists as a single category irrespective of credibility of each individual. As a specialist counselling psychologist and an accredited sexual therapist, I am aware that so many ‘pretenders’ are calling themselves sexual therapists. Most of these pretenders are affiliated in some way with the porn industry and seek to both normalize and legitimize porn by linking it with therapeutic associations but we must not permit that to happen by allowing the pretenders legitimacy.  

 

I have been a sex therapist for 25 years and I have never once promoted porn! My peers and I have undertaken rigorous standards for academic preparation, supervised training and meet strict guidelines for ethical practice and professional conduct to achieve accreditation. I educate my clients to make informed choices based on their values and ethics, including their understanding of human rights issues of the porn industry. This does not apply to porn stars turned ‘therapists’. Potential clients can guarantee a therapist is accredited by confirming their credentials before they decide to book a session.

 

Accredited therapists undertake psychoeducation around sexuality and relationships with their clients. This facilitates clients to express their sexuality in a joyful and creative manner reflecting their cultural and physical realities, where porn use has little attraction for them. One of the issues I have with porn is that it is boring; predictable and disrespectful. Ethical sex therapists enable sexual expressions that are the antithesis of porn – never boring; never predictable and always respectful. This is what the best of us do!

 

Accredited sexual therapists treat both men and women who are addicted to porn but we never allow them to use their addiction as an excuse to harm others.

 

As a feminist and activist, I do not believe that all men are predators and all women are victims.  There are a growing percentage of men who now suffer ‘small penis syndrome’ as an outcome of pornography. It is not unusual for teenage boys to tell me that a girl refuses to have sex with them “with that penis” because their favourite porn stud has a much bigger penis. Porn has educated men that they are a life support system for a penis, that there is only one size, EXTRA LARGE and it should be hard for up to two hours and be able penetrate every orifice on both humans and animals.