Semester 2 USYD Chatter Thread 2013 (3 Viewers)

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Obvious

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lol.

Our website is down. So here's why we did it and why it was censored.

THE VAGINA DIALOGUES (written by the women featured on the cover)
Eighteen vulvas. All belong to women of Sydney Uni. Why are they on the cover of Honi Soit?

We are tired of society giving us a myriad of things to feel about our own bodies. We are tired of having to attach anxiety to our vaginas. We are tired of vaginas being either artificially sexualised (see: porn) or stigmatised (see: censorship and airbrushing). We are tired of being pressured to be sexual, and then being shamed for being sexual.
The vaginas on the cover are not sexual. We are not always sexual. The vagina should and can be depicted in a non-sexual way – it’s just another body part. “Look at your hand, then look at your vagina,” said one participant in the project. “Can we really be so naïve to believe our vaginas the dirtiest, sexiest parts of our body?”

We refuse to manipulate our bodies to conform to your expectations of beauty. How often do you see an ungroomed vulva in an advertisement, a sex scene, or in a porno? Depictions of female genitalia in culture provide unrealistic images that most women are unable to live up to. “Beautiful vaginas are depicted as soft, hairless, and white. The reality is that my vagina is dark and hairy, and when it isn’t it is pinkish and prickly,” said one of the participants in the project. We believe that the fact that more than 1200 Australian women a year get labioplasty is a symptom of a serious problem. How can society both refuse to look at our body part, call it offensive, and then demand it look a certain way?...
https://www.facebook.com/honisoitsydney?hc_location=timeline
 
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Riproot

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I don’t see how that’s any of your business…
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All the hipsters prefer Hermann's.

Jks, ily <3 I just like all bars.
nah, all the engineering students do. :p

Let's all forget about the vagina on the magazine .
vaginae*

But yeah, semi glad I wasn't at USyd for that
I don't want to see vagina in general
Let alone in public display
Like, boobs come in all shapes and sizes and are presented in an airbrushed fashion through media like a billion times more than vaginae
So why didn't they do a boob thing?

And like, I watched the video of the interview and I really like Lucy, but I couldn't help but think "are some of the things she saying a joke?"
 

Nooblet94

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Putting them on the cover was an obvious publicity stunt. I appreciate the point they're making about vaginas being different and everything, but it's not something I want to see all of a sudden, especially with absolutely no context whatsoever.

Also there was all these comments about not wanting vaginas to be sexualised. They're a sexual organ. They're inherently sexual.
 

Riproot

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Putting them on the cover was an obvious publicity stunt. I appreciate the point they're making about vaginas being different and everything, but it's not something I want to see all of a sudden, especially with absolutely no context whatsoever.

Also there was all these comments about not wanting vaginas to be sexualised. They're a sexual organ. They're inherently sexual.
obvi it was, they even said they wanted to draw attention and wanted publicity and all that.
I think their point has been watered-down by the fact they're using vaginae for publicity; they're using them in the exact way they're saying is bad. So it makes no sense.
They just didn't airbrush them~~~~ so that makes it okay ~~~~~

Yep
That was a stupid thing to say
There's a reason they're sexualised
They should've done tits
Because they aren't part of ~sexual~ reproduction (in a sense) and they're highly sexualised
They come in different shapes, sizes, nipples, sag, distance apart, etc.
They're more widely represented in the media (but only in perfect form unless being made a joke of)
They're less offensive
The list goes on
They should've done breasts.
 

enoilgam

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I'm pretty much with Riproot on this one, I'm sympathetic to the cause, but I think the methods were misguided to say the least. I think it was nothing more than a glorified publicity stunt which aimed to maximise shock value.
 

Nooblet94

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yet 20 years ago when a flaccid penis was on the cover, people didn't have issues with it and it wasn't taken off the stands.


gg
I have issues with that too. Both are just mindless attention seeking.

Not everything is an attack on women. Christ.
 

Nooblet94

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The reality remains that when women do it, it's considered offensive, but when men do, it's not an issue. You personally may have issues with it, but the uni, the public, and the media didn't complain about the penis, when they do about vaginas. You can't deny there's something going on there and it appears to be something to do with gender.
The penis thing happened 20 years ago. It might've not been an issue then, but it certainly would be today. I can't think of anyone that wants to be suddenly confronted by the image of a flaccid cock.

Another thing. The supposedly "opaque" bars suddenly became transparent after printing. That's utter bollocks. If you photoshop a solid black bar onto something, it'll print as black - there's no remnant of the image underneath it. Either the paper's incompetant at photo editing or they made the bars slightly transparent to stir up controversy.
 

Riproot

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yet 20 years ago when a flaccid penis was on the cover, people didn't have issues with it and it wasn't taken off the stands.


gg
i think there were a lot of things more acceptable 20 years ago than now

If someone wrote a homophobic/racist piece 20 years ago many wouldn't not bat an eye.

(Also, context, if it was just a flaccid penis and that's it I doubt that would fly now, but if it was like an entire person I don't really know, I think the vagina would be fine in that instance too. It's just that the images were so large and meant to be provocative. The editors knew exactly what they were doing.)

I'm pretty much with Riproot on this one, I'm sympathetic to the cause, but I think the methods were misguided to say the least. I think it was nothing more than a glorified publicity stunt which aimed to maximise shock value.
and that pretty much tarnished their message

I think a lot of those super left wing people are so out of touch and like CRAZE about the things they do sometimes
Like, if you want to sway people from the middle to believing these things you have to take a middle ground approach.
Don't try and shove this stuff into people's faces.

The reality remains that when women do it, it's considered offensive, but when men do, it's not an issue. You personally may have issues with it, but the uni, the public, and the media didn't complain about the penis, when they do about vaginas. You can't deny there's something going on there and it appears to be something to do with gender.
20 years ago though
A lot has changed since then (for the better mostly)
And afaik there was one penis (for whatever reason they were trying to convey (I still don't like it)) not 18 penises printed over the entirety of the cover, with some parts covered and some not, immediately admitting to the knowledge that the image needed censoring and wasn't going to be taken well.

The penis thing happened 20 years ago. It might've not been an issue then, but it certainly would be today. I can't think of anyone that wants to be suddenly confronted by the image of a flaccid cock.

Another thing. The supposedly "opaque" bars suddenly became transparent after printing. That's utter bollocks. If you photoshop a solid black bar onto something, it'll print as black - there's no remnant of the image underneath it. Either the paper's incompetant at photo editing or they made the bars slightly transparent to stir up controversy.
I'm going to agree
If I went there and that was on the cover
Firstly I would laugh because I would think "is this a joke?" Just like I did with the vagina thing
And then I would be like "yeah… let's get that shit out of public view"

I didn't see the actual paper so I can't comment
But if that happened then fucking lol
They're admitting it needs to be censored and then not doing it.
That's just a joke.
 

someth1ng

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Yeah, remember, correlation does not imply causation.

Just because there was a penis on the cover and nobody did anything, doesn't mean there was discrimination against women. The fact is that social conventions change significantly over time and 20 years ago, having a penis on a cover for some reason might have been more acceptable. I don't think many people on this forum can comment on that with an unbiased perspective because a huge majority of us on this forum would have been very young or not even born 20 years ago, including myself.

Personally, I feel that the 20 years makes the penis cover irrelevant to this issue due to the huge separation of time. In addition, I feel that if the same stunt was made with penises on the cover, it would get the same response from the public.
 

someth1ng

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Yeah, remember, correlation does not imply causation.

Just because there was a penis on the cover and nobody did anything, doesn't mean there was discrimination against women. The fact is that social conventions change significantly over time and 20 years ago, having a penis on a cover for some reason might have been more acceptable. I don't think many people on this forum can comment on that with an unbiased perspective because a huge majority of us on this forum would have been very young or not even born 20 years ago, including myself.

Personally, I feel that the 20 years makes the penis cover irrelevant to this issue due to the huge separation of time. In addition, I feel that if the same stunt was made with penises on the cover, it would get the same response from the public.
 

ADrew

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Im supposed to have retired this account, but how differently does FEE-HELP work from HECS-HELP?
 

OzKo

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Im supposed to have retired this account, but how differently does FEE-HELP work from HECS-HELP?
I'm assuming HECS-HELP is only for CSP students.
 

ADrew

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But can you have HECS and FEE HELP at the same time, like if you were paying for summer school
 
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