That's What [We] Said

Finding My Way Back

Skylar Dubois — 2024-03-19

This poem is a raw and honest glimpse into the wonderful world that is my relationship. My partner and I are not immune to the issues that arise in life, and as our lives got harder, our relationship got more difficult. This poem looks at the passion and pleasure that can often be lost when the relationship feels like it's being lost. “Finding my way home” looks to actively dismantle the idea that pleasure is something to be ashamed about, and shines a light on how pleasure impacts a relationship. Pleasure, passion, and love all play a vital role in my relationship with my partner, and this poem truly is an ode to those three things.

Mandela Art

Harshita Gupta — 2024-03-19

Self-care means taking time out of one's schedule to improve mental and physical health. It can range from engaging in meditation or fun activities (like art, dance, or music) as well as spending time with friends and family. However, the fast-paced, busy schedule and domination of academic achievements make it difficult. Due to daily stressors and constant pressures, self-care was never my priority. Whenever I engaged in non-academic tasks, I felt guilty for wasting my time and not working hard. The constant burden of doing better and not giving myself enough breaks to destress, led to burnout. The burnout caused excessive exhaustion and made every task strenuous. It led to constant headaches, drop in grades, loss of interest, and feeling useless. After months of therapy, I slowly learned work-life balance. It was not easy spending time in activities that had no direct link to my academics without regret or guilt. Sometimes, I still struggle to put myself and my health before the demands of life. However, with kindness and patience towards myself, I am able to invest in myself. The following art piece is called Mandela, and it is something I made as a part of my self-care journey. Mandala is a common art form in Hinduism and Buddhism. It denotes the everlasting life, unity, wholeness, and transformation. I believe this piece captures the time when I decided to choose myself.

Sandalwood

Hannah Eastland — 2024-03-19

I have been in a medium to long-distance relationship with my partner for the last 4 and a half years. During this time, the things I miss most I can’t have over a screen, like the smell of his cologne or how it feels to have his arms around me. This poem was in honour of the little pleasures many people who are not physically with their loved ones are missing; imbued with the feelings of abundance in the natural environment. I wanted to be able to look out at the world and find my partner wherever I was, so I took inspiration from my home in Kelowna, the trees, fires under the night sky, and Okanagan wine. This piece was written with my partner in mind, but it is dedicated to everyone who has ever loved someone from a distance.

The First Time

Lily Taylor — 2024-03-19

My sonnet “The First Time” is about being in a relationship with someone who constantly makes you feel that you are the problem. I wanted to capture the guilt and insecurity you feel when a person begins to feed short threats of depravity overtime and you begin to feel worthless without them. When reading my piece, try to put yourself in a place of power and let yourself heal knowing that anyone who makes you feel like this is not worthy of your love or
your time. Enjoy reading and know that you never owe anyone anything.

Finding Pleasure in Contrast: Inspired by Taylor Swift’s “Snow on the Beach”

Khushi Jain — 2024-03-19

For me, pleasure is a constellation of excitement, satisfaction, and joy. It helps me savour small things in life, energizes me when I feel stuck, allows me to connect to the world I live in, and motivates me to continue working towards my goals. I derive pleasure in contrasts, especially when it is reflected in songs and paintings. This inspired me to paint this picture titled ‘Finding Pleasure in Contrast’ while listening to Taylor Swift’s song “Snow on the Beach”. Listening to her song made me think of Kelowna at night in the winter when the beach and the surrounding mountains are covered with snow, and there are rare sightings of northern lights. The contrast that the snow creates on the beach is similar to those created by blends of warm and cold energies, darkness and light, or yin and yang, where inherently different phenomena complement each other. It invites me to indulge in this rare sight that is weird but extremely breathtaking. The contrast of fluffy snow and a full moon against the darkness gives me hope and warms my heart. The reflections of different colours on the water give it a magical feeling that excites me. When I feel anxious or stressed and unable to go to the beach, I look at this painting as it takes me back to that beautiful scenery. It makes me feel happy and content and inspires me to eliminate negative feelings and think through issues again from a new perspective. Finding pleasure in contrast opens my mind to novel forms of beauty that heal me from within.

Sun of our Palestine

Amira Maturo — 2024-03-19

Sun of our Palestine is a poetic piece addressing the privilege of some and the suffering of others without overlooking the fact that each human being is interconnected to their equals. This poem aims to address the small forms of pleasure that can be found every day, even in the rubble.

Two guys walk into a bar… Do you think their menstrual cycles ever synced up?

Alexa Bartlett — 2024-03-19

This op-ed focuses on the potential of queering period humour and including a broader audience. Through analyzing currently popular internet memes featuring jokes around menstruation, Alexa argues that adding a queer lens to period jokes allows for distance in the essentialist relationship between womanhood and menstruating, while also being more inclusive to other marginalized communities. In this piece, Alexa challenges the reader to complicate their own views surrounding menstruation as well as its popular narratives and depictions in media.

there there they/their

Anonymous — 2024-03-19

I believe that gender is a unique, subjective experience. Often we get caught up in trying to prove our experiences are valid, when they inherently are. This piece reflects on one such experience, my own. Finding myself caught between two conventional binaries, femininity vs masculinity and cis vs trans, I began assigning pieces of who I am are to either side. The title, besides being wordplay, is reflective of the self-assurance, patience and compassion that must be practiced in order to ensure a positive experience in the community.

Godless Woman

Laviynia M. — 2024-03-19

What is faith if not to give hope? We all have our definition of faith, but what it is not—is a justification for people to hurt and exploit others while engaging in those same behaviours themselves. Amongst all the hypocrisy and double standards, the cruellest of them all is how women are denied pleasure their entire lives. They may as well be likened to art pieces in a gallery—look, don’t touch. Yet, therein lies the issue. People look, and they crave to touch. They go to great lengths to indulge in their desires. But heaven forbid the masterpiece itself decides to have a say in who can admire and touch it. Or even—who it wants to touch, because as much as people like to do it, women simply cannot be likened to inanimate objects. We are all different, and yet we are all the same. Ultimately, it is about respecting autonomy and agency, regardless of sex and regardless of your faith.

The kitchen is not my kitchen

Clara Jurgenliemk — 2024-03-19

“The Kitchen is Not My Kitchen” is a free verse poem written by Clara Jurgenliemk, who identifies as a cisgender female with white European heritage. It portrays the traditional gender oppression that kitchens represent, then subverts it to reflect today’s improved gender roles in Canada. While feminism is still largely needed in Canada and across the world, “The Kitchen is Not My Kitchen” is an appreciation for the progress that has been made as well as a resistance against traditional gender structure, illustrating women’s right to reclaim the kitchen with empowerment. “The Kitchen is Not My Kitchen” takes the kitchen from a place of obligation to a place of forgiveness and joy.

in my hospital

Amy Wang — 2024-03-19

How does one reclaim pleasure after hospitalization? This poem reflects on my experience with psychiatric hospitalization. Medication made me doubt every sensation. I was uncertain of myself and relied on the external—only to rediscover pleasure within.

My Body Holds Shame as Well as Beauty

Kira Friesen — 2024-03-19

My Body Holds Shame as Well as Beauty is about my struggle with body composition, going from being a competitive athlete to an overnight retirement due to depression, anxiety, suicidality and contracting mono. This piece displays the duality between dipping my toe into liking my body because of all the wonderful things it does for me as well as how my body has betrayed me, changed, and carries my trauma. With everybody that doesn't fit into the societal mould, it holds shame. An invisible shame. A shame that is dark, twisted and controlling. This piece also is a display of fat stomachs, a body part due to its demonization in diet and pop culture I’ve been taught to hate. Creating with my stomach as my muse airs out the shame I hold about my body. It allows me to look at myself as well as fatness in a different light. It helps create visibility to fatness and creates a dialogue of fatness in contemporary art.

Pleasure Lost Under the Rubble

Haneen — 2024-03-19

At the time of writing this, it is day 131 of Israel's genocidal campaign of collective punishment in Gaza, and it is almost 76 years since the beginning of Israel’s settler colonial project and ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinians. When I started writing this piece, I found myself staring at an empty document and asking myself: “How do I write about pleasure when it has become a distant memory?”. How does anyone write about pleasure while watching a settler colonial apartheid regime commit a genocide? How does the world continue to find pleasure while supporting this grave violation of human rights? How do I write about pleasure when all I can hear is the sound of my people screaming from underneath the rubble? Instead of silencing these questions, I decided to allow them to guide & shape this poem.

Lea DeLaria: How Butch Lesbians Have Demanded Queer Visibility in Comedy

Brittany Bell — 2024-03-19

Lea DeLaria was a trailblazer for LGBTQ+ comedians in the 80s and 90s, and made history as the first openly gay comic to appear on an American talk-show in 1993. At a time when many other queer comedians opted not to mention their sexuality to the public in order to fit into the mainstream, DeLaria wasn’t afraid to get on stage in a suit and proudly call herself a dyke. Her comedy style is loudly queer and absolutely unapologetic, often being labelled as radical. As I learned more about Lea DeLaria, I gained a great appreciation for the honesty in her work, and see her comedy as a form of lesbian empowerment.

Girl’s Night: The Upper Limit of Gender Euphoria

Maria Higa McGlashan — 2024-03-19

Though I discovered my nonbinary identity through the pursuit of pleasure, there are constraints on how much pleasure can be found in gender experimentation. This essay describes my effort to play with the tools of the gender binary - and the disastrous results. I wanted to depart from my lifelong masculine comfort zone by trying more feminine clothes. I put on a wig, makeup, and a pink dress, and went to a nightclub to see how I felt. Based on the theory of Preciado, I expected that gender’s constructedness would leave it open to deconstruction and experimentation. Instead, I found that I was treated better than I had ever been before. I suddenly understood how poor my treatment is, how inaccessible “normal” life is to me, and the restrictions on my capacity to seek pleasure. The reasons for this can be found in the history of gender as a tool of biopower. The gender binary was, from the beginning, built to incentivize conformity and punish deviance, and thus it cannot tolerate my existence. If I am ever to access pleasure the way the rest of the world can, it cannot be in a world structured by binary gender.

Uses of Erotic Expressive Culture: Queer Erotic Art and Literature as Power

Sophie Hogan — 2024-03-19

EuroAmerican society’s inability to look towards the sexual unconscious is actively causing harm to women and queer individuals. In “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” Audre Lorde suggests that the erotic is a powerful tool that has been intentionally suppressed and devalued in order to maintain patriarchy. I argue that expressive culture, such as art and literature, is one avenue in which we can look towards the sexual unconscious and harness erotic power in order to make real change against the oppressive way our culture structures gender and sexuality. Using three contemporary artists, Nico Mazza, Miles Greenberg, and David Wojnarowicz, as a case study, I demonstrate different ways eroticism can be embraced in order to counter a variety of injustices.

Discovering Whether Identifying as Fat Feels Good To Me Through Fashion

Valeriia Pelevina — 2024-03-19

This piece focuses on the exploration of my fat identity and being able to find pleasure in that. I describe my experiences of going to a plus-size store for the first time and crossing the 'threshold' into my fatness. Fat folks are discriminated against which I experienced growing up in Korea and Malaysia. Feeling joy when I tried on clothes that fit me was my way of breaking the norm and indulging in my fatness as a radical form of pleasure.

Avik the Beloved

Teodor "Teddy" Potlog — 2024-03-19

"Avik the Beloved" is an exploration of the shame surrounding queer pleasure in Christian circles.The story is a character study on the protoganoist, Avik, who struggles with his devotion to Christianity in the wake of an intimate queer experience. The story is heavily influenced by my own experiences growing up queer in a Christian environment that was not only homophobic but stigmatized the idea of experiencing pleasure as something inherently sinful. I channelled those emotions and experiences into a narrative that explores Avik's relationship to his queerness and desire to experience pleasure despite that stigma. The characters in the story are ones me and my long time friend Rowan Reddy, a third year English and Sexual Studies major at UFT, have been developing since we were sixteen for a project we have temporarily dubbed "Hospice". "Hospice" is a collection of our various creative works that center five characters, their tumultuous relationships, and how these people and their dynamics irreparably change in the wake of the hospitalization of their mutual connection, Sylvia. "Avik the Beloved" takes place years before these events, exploring the root of Avik's complicated relationship with his queerness, his connection to Will, and his hedonistic impulses.

Pleasure through the Absence of (Mis)Perception

Maia Tobias — 2024-03-19

Because moving in society requires being perceived and being gendered, for transgender and non-binary people it regularly means being misperceived and misgendered. Daily, non-binary people have to navigate spaces that do not account for them. In this article I engage with potential ways for non-binary people to experience freedom and pleasure through the absence of misperception. I, therefore, went on hikes, alone as well as with different people. I draw from the insights gained during these experiences and analyse them in relation to existing concepts and theories. The concepts of the panopticon and social flesh are used to analyse the possibilities and limitations that the absence of outside perception presents for the aim to experience freedom outside the gender binary.

Abortion Humour: It’s Not That Serious

Sophie Harms — 2024-03-19

This article interrogates deep-seated cultural narratives surrounding abortion as a traumatic and taboo experience, highlighting the role of crisis pregnancy centres in the Okanagan as perpetuating these dominant and oppressive ideas. It traces the impacts of Post-Abortion Syndrome, and how the legacy of this mendacious pseudo-diagnosis reinforces traditional gender norms to further stigmatize abortion. The article explores instances of abortion humor as a radical measure to counteract this stigma, highlighting comedic signage from a local pro-abortion protest. This humour contradicts the assumed repression and shame associated with normative abortion discussions, of which reinforces stigma. The author argues against abortion taboo, finding that humor serves as a mechanism to normalize, destigmatize and reclaim abortion, challenging the dominant culture's attempts to control reproductive rights through these normative and oppressive assumptions of taboo and shame.

Origami Crane: Defiance Through Self-Care

Veronica Fabian — 2024-03-19

My piece is about my experience with self-care. Throughout the piece, I criticize the challenges I faced while trying origami in an academic setting with looming deadlines, expectations, and responsibilities. In addition, I discuss the other challenges that we face when trying to find moments of self-care in a capitalist world that pushes for constant production in every aspect of our lives. I try to use feminist theories and arguments to analyze potential ways to escape from such a production focused mindset and instead approach ways to engage with safe and healthy forms of self-care. My favorite approach that I discovered during my research process is the queer art of failure that denied perfectionism and argued for failure as an acceptable form of creation. Without failure we cannot begin to learn or advance ourselves as people. Without failure I would not have tried origami for the first time and found such joy in my awkward little paper cranes.

I Will Not Hold His Shame

Georgia Goerz — 2024-03-19

This piece reflects the experiences of feminine friendships and how they have the power to be one of the more powerful and impactful relationships in a woman’s life. There are a lot of narratives in a young woman’s life that require her to push away those relationships to pursue a future with a man, and all individuals are certainly pushed into this so early that it creates a sense of acceptance of behavior that just isn’t acceptable. This was inspired by many stories of young women who have been in relationships with men who have not treated them with the respect they deserve, and men who act out of hatred rather than kindness and consideration. This piece does not come from a place of hatred but rather from frustration.

My Guilty Pleasure: It’s For Me, Not For You

Alexander Dow — 2024-03-19

Alexander reflects on his emotional journey towards talking about his true interests, due to a fear of judgment from others. He discusses his love for rock music from the eighties, describing how it makes him feel while listening to it and how it brings him pleasure. He explains the trade-offs that he encountered growing up, how he chose to embrace his ‘secretive’ interests that impacted his social relationships with his friends, in terms of ‘popularity’ or ‘coolness’ a teenager should conform to. Finally, these interests became valuable and solidified contributing to a realization that it is acceptable to have different interests that are not contemporary, which should be promoted to ensure personal happiness. This piece aims to inspire other folks who may feel afraid to truly embrace their interest and discuss them amongst their peers or with strangers.

Reclaiming Breath: Tethering Thoughts

Zubin Paul — 2024-03-19

My piece describes how I found pleasure through controlling my breathing. Box breathing has helped me lower my stress levels as a result of racist trauma. It has been harder for me to overcome this due to my ADHD. My disability tends to cause my thoughts to wander making it harder to avoid negative rumination. Box breathing helps me break out of the unapologetic cycle of thoughts that haunt me, even if it is just for a moment of peace.

Transformative Pleasure: Finding Joy in the Discomfort

Jordyn Kort — 2024-03-19

Living with a physical disability often induces anxiety due to the societal label of physical impairments being abject. Things that are abject challenge one’s identity which leads to feelings of discomfort and avoidance. Through my experience with the Krips of Liion, a group of individuals who are paralyzed, the concept of abject was challenged. The groups encouragement pushed me outside of my comfort zone which enabled me to embrace experiences in a wheelchair. Overcoming seemingly mundane tasks brought so much pleasure and joy. The transformation of my thoughts and feelings is depicted in a painting. This painting displays the journey I embarked on finding pleasure in the discomfort.

The Man in the Moon: My Journey of Healing Through New Kinship

Ashley Cowger — 2024-03-19

After growing up religious and then deconstructing my faith, I realized I was left with the desire for something to depend on. In high school I turned to the moon. During late night drives home from work when I was stressed and exhausted, I would pull over and look up to the sky for comfort. For years now I have continued this practice, late at night when the world is quiet I go outside and speak to the moon. I usually give updates on life, and give my thanks for the quiet guidance the moon gives me. Through the use of Audre Lorde’s work on the erotic and Kim Tallbear’s discussion of kinship, I explore my relationship with the moon in this piece.

Unpleasant Pleasure

Kelsey Szoke — 2024-03-19

This piece was written based off personal experience. It is an unfortunate reality that happens more often than people think. ‘That kind of thing would never happen to me’, that’s what everything thinks. I am in a spot where I can take back the control that was taken from me. I wrote this as a reflection of that. There are unpleasantries within pleasure, and this entry reflects that. I not only wrote this piece for myself, but for any person who needs it. It isn’t your fault; I believe you and I believe in your strength to gain back that control.

Cover Art

Peyton Lynch — 2024-03-19

Peyton Lynch's artwork for this year's cover.