Fly #8: Dear Victorian Government, it's not sexual violation, it's rape, and italways will be.

With the Victorian Government’s overhaul of rape laws reopens the always fresh wound of rape and consent opinion within the public. Discussion of rape and consent whittles down all the way to everyday interactions as we doggedly try to work out who wants to have sex with who.

From unwanted texting to rape, every action without consent is always the entire fault of the offender. I am sick of hearing from my friends that they don’t want to directly confront unwanted attention, because it would embarrass the guy. Sorry girls, but that is part of the whole game. The guy is putting himself out there, because you have every right to politely decline his interest. If he is playing, “I’m just being friendly”, it doesn’t matter, his idea of platonic friendship is weird for you, and you aren’t interested so you should probably let him know. If he is offended, that’s his fault for assuming that he could have you, he should give up and use his time elsewhere. It’s your sex, and as an adult you have complete power for the rest of your life to say yes and no to whatever you want. If you joyously participated in a bukkake one day, then the next wasn’t too keen on a guy calling you “sweetheart” at work, that is your right and completely justified. Take some power back and enjoy having ownership over your actions.

This concept of knowing and celebrating your power to say yes and no extends all the way to rape, whereby as soon as the line of consent is crossed, it’s rape and you are traumatised, no matter what situation you had put yourself in. The offender must be blamed and charged with rape, not sexual violation as what has been suggested by the rape and consent law overhaul this week. While it seems that adding the charge, “sexual violation” is a fallback and provides some solace to victims when rape cannot be charged, this confirms the fear we have of charging someone with rape. As far as I’m concerned, if any sex has occurred without consent, or where the offender has the advantage due to lack of consent, it’s rape, rape, rape, and the offender should be charged with rape. Just because the victim was drunk, or has had plenty of consensual sex drunk in the past does not make it any less of a rape case. Adults have every right to get smashed, and it does not undermine their right to speak up if something happened while drunk.

I have been in countless situations, drunk and sober, where I would have been “at risk” of being raped. But I never have. When I was 19 at Falls Festival, I celebrated New Year’s Eve with vodka-filled water bottles, and woke up alone on a mattress of a stranger’s car, fully clothed, bag with phone and money intact. When I was 20, I travelled Europe largely alone for a month, and enjoyed wandering small towns and big cities alone, day and night. On one particular night after a pub crawl with male hostel friends met that night, I woke up on the floor of a random hotel room with a group of British tourists. No rape, nothing. I will, at least once a week, walk home in the city in the dark alone, and one of those times was once in the small hours wearing an Australian flag and bikini as appropriate attire for an Anything But Clothes party on Exhibition St. I hardly got a weird look, let alone unwanted sexual attention. I am entitled to walk wherever I like, wearing whatever I like, in whatever state I like. It is shameful, that we have accepted that the streets at night are unsafe. It is shameful, that some are too afraid to be alone at night in the city, and choose to go out of their way to avoid that situation. Why should we negotiate with terrorists? What’s more, why should we pin rape to the male psyche, and assume all men are capable, when it has nothing to do with “boys being boys” and everything to do with choice? Men are not by nature vicious ruthless sexual psychos, and the few that are have nothing to do with other men. And don’t even think the word, “testosterone”, people aren’t slaves to their hormones to the point that they rape someone - if they break this rule, they need to be locked up forever.

I am not lucky for avoiding rape in any of the above situations, plus quite a few more that I have been in. I did not expect anything to happen, because I don’t expect men to rape me, just like I don’t expect the girl on the tram to open fire. When these things do happen, it isn’t inevitable, it is horrific and is a bloodstain on a species that can and always will have the ability to choose. Not only is it a horrible insult to all men, to assume that they can’t control themselves, it also excuses such bad behaviour under that revolting archaic, boys will be boys slogan, traditionally attributed to schoolboys playing in the mud, also seemingly applicable to a college gang rape. There is no such thing as sexual violation, the victim will not be half-traumatised from a "half-rape”. It’s all the same thing, and once you cross the barrier of foregoing consent every single action is rape and you should be charged with doing so. Even if she was a prostitute. Even if she was wearing a bikini and Australian flag at 4am alone in the middle of the city.

If you rape someone, it is not because you are a man. It is because you are a rapist. You made the greatest error of judgment possible, short of actually murdering someone. Some, in fact, would prefer to die than be raped. Leave sexual violation and men out of it.

Fly #7: I take thee Google to be my lawful wedded Husband...for better forworse, to love, cherish and to obey till death do us part

I get a little bit excited when I have been talking on the phone about a fantasy holiday to Nepal, and an STA “fly to Nepal!” ad pops up on any page open on Google chrome. I am yet to decide whether such fervent attention on my every action is terrifying or incredibly flattering. I tend to side with the latter and conclude that Google, Facebook and YouTube all have a HUGE crush on me, as everything I say they seem to eagerly match. What else are you meant to think, when you gingerly open some Spanish study, and Facebook hurriedly invites you to apply for a LOTE teacher scholarship? Then, when on my royal office chair I deem one of their ads insufficient for my perusal, it is crushed, “why did you hide it? Uninteresting? Misleading? “Sexually explicit? WHY WHY WHY? LOVE ME! LOVE ME!”

This is what One Direction must feel like around their fans. Eat your heart out Harry Styles, I have Mark Zuckerburg at my feet, whose yearning for my approval grows upon every like button I hit, for every ad that I destroy via the evil “x” button. The Internet is obsessed with me, and any potential breach of privacy yadda yadda floats away when it seems that my interests in “25 words or less” competitions, ASOS sales and novelty exercise (aerial yoga anyone?) are the most fantastic in the universe.

Unfortunately this wave came to a crashing close when I realised that Facebook and Google seem to have a crush on every single person on the planet, with all of my friends having completely different ads, and their “liked” pages providing them with a totally different internet experience. So ads for Cleo subscriptions don’t show up on dude’s screen next to me at the library wearing a cape and deeply entrenched in a GTA game? It was all a lie. I thought you cared about me Facebook and Google. I thought my YouTube searches of beluga whales spurring an onslaught of Cruise and Aquarium ads were a sure thing that you were on my hook and you thought of nothing else but me.

Anyone with a computer and a profile on any website, who has ever “liked” any page or merely thought about something they liked while on said website will now be exposed almost exclusively these interests and nothing else. In the short term, this makes your time on the Internet much more personal and fulfilling. Facebook seems to suit me a lot more ever since ads and videos about Rugby League floated away. The newsfeed is integral to this phenomenon, as your preferences for what pages you like, and who you want to hear from the most can make your Facebook experience a repetition of the exact same thing every day. This is meant to be boring, but I still check my newsfeed quite often, even though I know it will just be a jumble of pejorative political cartoons, food porn and statuses from mates who I see every day anyway. Nothing has changed, and according to the Internet the only thing about me that will change in 20 years is my health insurance provider.

While I hear a lot about the death of privacy, how it should be alarming that giant corporations are spying on their consumers, I personally don’t care much that said giant corporation knows that I don’t like Rugby League. Good on them. I am a whimsical 21-year-old whose greatest use to them would be splashing out on a $500 coat thanks to my post-adolescent underdeveloped frontal cortex and Gen Y-esque penchant for Internet shopping while drunk. For me what is a concern, is the fact that I am no longer forced to think about the world outside my own, the one that has been mimicked for me in front of a screen via an algorithm. It goes even further than ads and liked pages on the internet – personalised technology means I can quickly skip past the business day section in the iPad version of the paper, instead of having to turn the pages and incidentally read a word or two about the apparently irrelevant economy. Foxtel IQ only records the TV shows I like, so I don’t have to watch the end of the Arabian News to see Here Comes Honey Boo Boo (guilty!). Without realising it, my list of interests has gotten smaller and smaller as I become less exposed to other realms.

Should I reverse this effect and force myself to read Business Day? Maybe I should have loud conversations about AFL and carpentry, facing the screen so my scum arsehole cheating Facebook and YouTube boyfriends can get the hint and teach me something new. Or I could just look away from the screen and strike up a conversation with the man in the cape next to me. Or not. Maybe I will just hit that Cleo subscription, and pretend to feel enlightened and educated when I have read an article about endangered tigers. Then after hitting up Instagram, I will feel drained from such repetitive drivel and be compelled to delete the whole bloody thing, put my foot through the screen and read a book outside. But I don’t. And neither will you.

Fly #6: Why I Don't Like Tony Abbott

Feeling proud to be Australian does not come naturally to me. I wasn’t born here, I only got an Australian passport when I was 15, and my parents and brother were not born in Australia either. However, I do feel a bit patriotic when I find myself announcing to anyone that will listen that I passionately hate Tony Abbott. Why do I hate Tony Abbott? Give us your real reasons. None of this, “I just think he’s sexist” or, “I just don’t like the look of him”. What policies do you not like? What about the Liberal Party do you not agree on?

Stupid questions. I don’t like him because he has a swagger and a smirk. And he exercises too much. And I don’t care that he wears pale blue and hangs out with his daughters, he’s sexist. No amount of calm undulating prose will change that. Yes Kevin Rudd is also a massive tool, but I see his shortcomings as being more of a smarmy Milhouse type than the thug-in-a-suit vibe Abbott wholeheartedly embraces.

Do I have much to back up these opinions? No. I could Google some dirt on Abbott and the Liberal policies to make it look like I am a couch expert, but I won’t. Pretend to be smart, Emma. Write about why Abbott actually sucks. I’m sure his refugee policies are racist, or he thinks gay people are bad or doesn’t do enough for the Children. Appear Informed and Enlightened, be a Gal Who Knows Things. But why should I when I don’t want to? After I finish this little spiel I plan on making some shortbread cookies (matcha flavoured!). Then I will maybe spin on my chair and watch some Youtube videos about man-eating butterflies. Or Yetis. I have no interest in scratching beneath the surface of Abbott’s slimy exterior, and my vote counts for just as much as the sorry arsehole who sweats in front of Q&A every day.

Those who are like me and almost feel pride in judging Rudd and Abbott’s credibility on their ear wax-eating capabilities might be confused as to why they are reading something that is innate. It was understood from the first day of that Australian Studies class in Year 10 conducted in the dank portable classrooms. Those who know the ins and outs of what the hell was going on when Rudd bounced into office one morning and Julia’s name was gone on the door might lament yet another infuriating apathetic voter. But Tony Abbott making friends at the Aged Care Home, the watered down, filtered policies and lies made up about both parties in the papers are more important than who Abbott and Rudd are or what they are doing. As our form of mass communication is now image and sound dominated, rather than of text from yesteryears, Tony Abbott's job is far less about the fine print and number crunching and far more about public relations and whoring himself out to the public. 21 million people will not look up if they see or hear about a bitching superannuation policy, but they will if a chick in the office has a mono brow, or if a Senator were caught snorting lines at a cabinet minister’s Easter BBQ. This could be a cue in for the stale rant on how stupid everyone is, but we live in a representative democracy where we elect someone to run the country for us, so if one is spending their time contributing to society elsewhere, they have the right to have no idea what goes on in Parliament. What’s more, intelligence is relative, and all those fools who only know Abbott for being a dirty boxer Rhodes Scholar who punches people against walls probably know a lot about something like brain surgery or tax fraud and can’t be bothered thinking about anything hard-core when they get home from work.

So next time you tut tut when someone hates on Julia Gillard for her ocker accent, just remember that unless you actually dig politics, in which case I salute you soldier, who you vote for has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the slick response on FM radio interviews, what breed of dog they have and how hot their girl on the side is. Unless of course, you are an undergraduate humanities student and must try with all your might to be part of an imaginary Left crusade that changes the world via Leftie whale saving Julian  Assange-supporting I don’t like Kate Middleton ways (I do, so now I am confused). To top it off and prove my point even more, I bet after you read about my cookies you were far more interested in knowing what matcha shortbread would look and taste like than what I was writing about. It looks terrible, but it tastes amazing. Nice to know that some things can be good without looking good.

And some yeti videos for you (couldn't find any on man-eating insects)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIIgGtpcG94

Fly #5: Hot Chocolates can warm, but will never fill the void of the anti-coffeeist.

I don’t publish many of my bitches on life (cyclists, AFL, commerce students, olives, smoking, cats, the expression "first world problems", cotton wool, any phrase starting with “I’m just saying...” or ending in “but”, charity salespeople, tram inspectors, Channel Nine, the Herald Sun, Tony Abbott, mint-flavoured chocolate) as everyone hates them anyway so it’s boring and there’s no space to show you people how the world should work.  But I feel that this thorn in my side, that small thing that makes life just a little less sweet is worth a public growl. HOT CHOCOLATES.

I am of the minority who don’t like coffee. The one percent. Yes I went there. There are a few out there, and when I encounter one I feel like I’ve met a kindred spirit. From about age 15 onwards we have felt the shame of “going to a coffee” and ordering a hot chocolate instead. Our rogue tastebuds have shunned us from every Melburnian’s rite of passage, the coffee date and it subsequent quality analysis. If only I could be like those sophisticated urbanites that sip their coffee and delight in the pinnacle of social norms, the “good coffee bad coffee” conversation...

“Oh god. I think I have found the newest contender for Australia’s worst coffee”

“Mine is practically cold. You know that really small alleyway...”

“Degraves?”

“No don’t be so mainstream. It’s sort of near Russell Street, but you take a few turns, no one knows it of course, except me, it is JUST AMAZING. I’ll take you there, once I finish my spinach and ricotta quiche with caramelised onion and sundried tomatoes”.

I will never be part of this hip, niche crew. So we disenfranchised coffee-haters have tried to bargain with a culture of hot chocolate. This seems like a suitable alternative, right? It’s chocolate, so that’s a plus. Surely chocolate is more fun than those weird, bitter coffee beans. And it’s hot, the same-ish colour as coffee, and it costs roughly the same. And you get it in those brown bumpy cups. I would go from cafe to cafe around the city, uni, greater Melbourne and even international travels, building my repertoire of what makes a good hot chocolate. There is an art to a good hot chocolate, I insisted. The exact balance between powder and milk. Pink vs. white marshmallows.

Finally, when I learnt to make hot chocolates myself I realised that I had been completely screwed over. Hot chocolate needs NO SKILL WHATSOEVER to make*. Hot milk in the metal pipey thing that makes noise, hot chocolate powder and VOILA. Why should I pay four dollars for what clearly does not require professional attention? The worldwide caffe-nazi regime has bullied us into forking out all those five dollar notes just so we can half feel like we belong to your caffeinated cult. Most of the time, it doesn’t even work and ends up just being a cringey experience of annoying loose change, the receiving end of pity/patronising/wtf looks and luke-warm chocolate milk froth.

I urge my fellow shamed coffee heretics to ask yourselves – did you actually want to pay four dollars for a chocolate milk drink, or do you just feel awkward around your snazzy latte drinking friends? Break the mould and be proud to order something fabulous and worth your gold coins. Back in Year 8, a large Iced Tim Tam with extra caramel sauce was standard. I would regard the cappuccino/latte/long black/macchiato choices with bemusement. How boring grown-ups must be, I would ponder, if they pass up a drink with cookies in it, for something that looks like regurgitated tar. We can’t rebel against Melbourne’s grey weather but we can rebel against its coffee fascism.

From here on, I proudly hate coffee and I will order the most complicated thing possible on the drink menu to give my five dollar note, and that barrister a workout. No way are they getting away with milk-and-cocoa-powder-that’s-four-dollars-thanks. But if you are still afraid of the sipping army in black turtlenecks, and you need that hot drink to belong, then whatever you do, don’t buy tea. Four dollars for hot water and a few leaves is an insult beyond any whinge blog.

*Let me reiterate here, we are talking the old school hot chocolates that use that same little hot milk machine as their caffeinated cousins. Not the orgasmic pure melted chocolate that unites all coffee and hot chocolaters alike in a fantasy of molten decadent glory. For further clarification, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPCf44kFK3s.

Fly #4: One percent to go for rower Kim Crow

I caught up with Olympic rower Kim Crow to discover a typical training week, and her most valued training in the lead up to the Olympics. Kim Crow, Beijing 2008 Olympian and World Championship medalist will represent Australia for the double scull in London this year. In the final stage of a four-year preparation program, she will typically complete 18 sessions a week that include rows of various intensities, ergos, weight lifting and Pilates.

“I’m naturally quite good with endurance work, but not overly strong”, she says. “I have made the biggest performance gains from heavy lifting in the gym”. While rowing places high demand on fitness, strength and stroke technique, athletes will also look to yoga, stretching and even dietary supplements like creatine as “one percenters” to improve performance. Depending on the boat class, a one percent speed increase can take three to five seconds off the two-kilometre race, the distance of all Olympic events. This is a sizable difference, given that most elite-level races will only be won by one or two seconds. 

One percenters are significant, but not at the expense of bulk training, explains Kim. “There’s no point being awesome at yoga and meticulous at stretching if you sacrifice bringing complete intent to the most important sessions. It’s very important to look at a week’s training and identify what the crucial sessions are, and ensure these are absolute quality.” While it often seems that athletes are driven solely to go fast and win medals, Kim points out that it’s not all about winning, “I love testing my boundaries, the feel of the boat that is running well, and the camaraderie of rowing. All these things motivate me to train better, and harder.” 

And a final word of advice for aspiring rowers?

“Intent in every stroke to improve. Concentrate. And sleep. Lots.”

Fly #3: Heston Blumenthal, don’t sell yourself to the fodder of the plebeian

Heston Blumenthal is my newest crack addiction. Procrastination, once stale Facebooking and the odd exotic afternoon snack (savoys with cheese and tomato sauce, anyone?) is now a hedonist YouTube binge of How to Cook like Heston shows. I will flip from a shirtless picture of Jake Gyllenhaal to a clip on how to perfect Heston’s black forest cake, and there would be no change in my desire to lick the screen. So you can imagine that I was close to devastated when, after a fevered two-hour read, I concluded that cookbook Heston Blumenthal at home was an anti-climax to his on-screen extravagance. 

In its hefty 400-page glory, there are few gems accessible to commoners.  Many of the recipes are far above anything classified as “home cooking”. My mother, an accredited chef, and myself, proud amateur, attempted the most pedestrian recipe - the slow-cooked lamb shank and giant couscous salad. What was assumed to be a breezy hour of cooking was actually a rambling cacophony of North African spice mix on the floor, and squished couscous between the stoves. After many floor mops and emergency trips to the IGA, the meal actually turned out to be a raging success. But this was at the cost of a whole afternoon and a kitchen which resembled a crime scene. The book is advertised as “classic home cooking, by Britain’s most creative chef”, which is a testament to the artistic grandeur of Heston, not his family-friendly dishes. Since when was the use of dry ice, or 15-ingredient, two-kilogram crab stock ever classic home cooking? Come now Heston, we don’t all have a laboratory, or the Atlantic Ocean for a kitchen.

For this reason, the lusty final masterpiece photos and attractive recipe layout make a flip through torture. How could you dedicate a whole-page photo of the perfect cheese toastie, and tell me I can only re-enact the fantasy with a fondue set, two types of rare cheese and seven assorted spices and flavourings? That is not home cooking, and the vision of sinking my teeth into this crisp cheese dripping toasted sandwich will only ever be unrequited love. It is page after page of frothing-at-the-mouth, jump-out-of-the-page decadence, and a teasing recipe that masquerades user-friendly ingredients and methods. But I can’t make any of them, and I finish my fruitless recipe hunt cursing the maestro.

Despite struggling to capture the lay-man imagination, the book is worth it, if only, for a read of its background information on how the meals “work”. Heston explains the science behind leaving the chicken out for 45 minutes before roasting it at 180C, and how slow cooking a stock allows soluble proteins to rise to the surface, making them easy to remove. He also uses the science of all the senses to uncover the mechanics behind a sweet tooth, and how playing music can enhance a meal’s flavour. While it would be far-fetched to serve a shell with a soundtrack of waves and seagulls whilst dining on edible sand and pickled seaweed, as Heston does in his restaurant, the first chapter offers an eccentric insight into food and the brain, something often skimmed over in the conventional cookbook. But the inclusion of food chemistry does not take away from the depressing reality that these dishes are just too hard and too obscure for the wannabe chef.

I could set aside a few days, and sacrifice some kitchen utensils to recreate a garden salad with edible soil, or, as it is named in the recipe, “gribiche”. But in the spirit of home cooking, why would I put myself through so much food preparation labour when I could heat up spaghetti from last night? Heston Blumenthal at Home would do the three-Michelin star chef justice if it were named along the lines of his other book, In Search of Perfection.

Heston battles to find a medium between his capricious gastronomy and the square meal of Joe Blogs. If you are one of his tragic disciples, or if you really have a thing for crab lasagne, Heston Blumenthal at Home is worth the sweat. Otherwise, it’s a jumbo book of did-you-know facts and a gallery of food pornography.

Black Forest Gateau http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZQ7nwCJBlg
Cheese Fondue http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxcIQOAaB24

Fly #2: Judging fat people? You are just a big loser.

“A life without happiness, companionship, love. A life alone.”

“It’s time for them to lose the weight, find the self esteem and gain the confidence”

The Biggest Loser 2012 pledges to save fat people from a life of singledom. Finally, something that is actually attacking the real side effects of weight gain!

Fortunately this pledge is wrong. Plenty of fat people get married, have sex, and feel as happy about themselves as the narcissistic personal trainers on The Biggest Loser. Why is it then that we still believe the false correlation between body weight and love life, or that being obese gets in the way of having a good time? The Biggest Loser is perhaps the most direct example of societal stigma against obese people, rather than obesity itself.

To cope with the national shame of potentially being the world’s fattest country, we have waged a war on obese people. The logic that fat equals failure, seems irrefutable, but an inherent dislike of The Biggest Loser has pushed me to question my own long-engrained prejudices against fat people. Some quotes against obese people I have heard this week alone:

“Fat person on the road! 100 points if you hit them!”

“Because she’s fat, I hate her even more”

“I would hate myself if I looked like that”,

And finally, “how could you let yourself get so fat?”

This question has baffled more than the weight bigot, or “fattist”. The overweight and obesity crisis, which in 2008 included 61% of the population*, has begged one explain why Australians seem to eat too much and not move enough. As calorie input and output are largely at the mercy of the individual, many will point the finger at lack of informed decision making, or greediness, as reason behind unhealthy weight gain. Does this make it okay, therefore, to pass judgement on obese people because they “chose” to be that way?

As the line between personal responsibility and health is so thin, a prejudice against obese people seems justified. Yet the war actually hinders any progress obese people can make to achieve a healthier body size. By turning obesity into a problem of personality, rather than health, people who are obese often feel marginalised and second-rate. This is not a good start to try new ways of living and lose weight in the long-term, as chronic weight gain is often due to environmental factors such as sedentary jobs, an upbringing of unhealthy eating, or as a consequence of emotional problems. These factors will not suddenly change as they require a struggle against reinforced habits. Just because an obese person struggles to make such changes, does not mean they have failed personally while everyone else lives vice-free. All humans, including the fittest athletes are lazy, make poor health choices and are weak to temptation, especially of the culinary variety. Someone’s personality is inconsistent and constantly in flux, making it impossible to determine with something as stagnant as body size.

Obesity levels have doubled since 1985*, and with no indication of rate decreasing, weight gain is set to become to become multi-generational health problem. Based on previous rate growth, it is esteemed that by 2020, 80% of adults will be obese*. Fattism is not helping fat people lose weight, and it only adds to the nation-wide confusion of what, where, and how much to eat. Our food and exercise choices are pushed into indecisive oblivion when we see the gleeful victimisation of fat people in The Biggest Loser, then straight after, a fevered thirty minutes of Masterchef that salivates over calorie-laden decadent dishes. If plenty of basic food education is enforced at school and in the public, perhaps we could see the unglamorous truth behind Masterchef contestant Lily’s rich chocolate cake, currently the most popular recipe on the show’s website. The media needs greater diversity in actor body types, providing entertainment which does not encourage self-hate and exclude obese people. Theatres, planes and clothing stores must modify to the larger consumer, and promote a consumer culture which does not humiliate one for their size.

So to all the fattists out there: The next time you see someone large, do remember that, just like downing three diet cokes a day, a penchant for cigars or binge drinking once a week, it is a problem of health, not personality. The war on obesity is not a war on people who are obese, it is a war against diet and food habits. We do not live to eat, we eat to live. You are more than what you eat.

*statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics