Thinking about sex education for many Ontario students brings back memories of latex condoms on bananas or ancient overheads showing anatomical diagrams in uncomfortable middle school classrooms. Sex education for many university students was characterized by giggles, awkward silence, confused teachers, and misinformation. Ontario’s repealed and then mostly reinstated 2015 curriculum gives the students of today a better chance of understanding their bodies than those of us subjected to the 1998 curriculum. Still, the biggest difference between our adolescence and the current generation’s is technology. While we only had MSN chat rooms and Yahoo answers, those growing up in the media saturated world of today have more access to information about their bodies and sexualities than ever. Reliable, inclusive and accessible information isn’t so hard to find thanks folks like Eva Bloom.
Bloom, a McMaster alumnus, has an ever growing online presence under the moniker @WhatsMyBodyDoing, where she uses her schooling as a sex researcher to create engaging and informed content about sex and sexuality. Whether it be tips for exploring feminist sex toy stores or navigating disclosures with partners, Bloom is breaking down complex topics into byte-sized posts and colourful memes.
How did Bloom get started in the sex education field? Combine an interdisciplinary undergraduate program, sex nerd status, and volunteering at the campus health centre: that’s the recipe for a burgeoning sex educator. Still, Bloom admits: “part of the reason I was inspired to do sex education was because I had a lot of really bad sex.”
Encouraged to follow her interests, Bloom started to make YouTube videos about sex ed topics that she wanted her peers to know about. Online sex ed made sense: she could tell each friend about an important health topic individually, or she could make a video about it and hopefully reach thousands. Especially with sex and sexuality, technology helps bypass the barriers or discomfort that may prevent some from engaging with important health information.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7ekvIXpcR5/
“Technology can be a tool to reach more people with sex ed and start conversations online when they’re scary to have in person or not possible to have in person.”
Beyond sex education, technology can also help broach uncomfortable conversations between partners. Bloom’s Masters research into sexting explores how intimate conversations through technology might improve sexual experiences, especially for women and non-binary folks.
“I think that my kind of perspective on sexting and technology is that it can be this huge tool to kind of open the door for talking about sexuality because it can still be really scary to even talk to partners about what you like and what you don’t like.”
Talking to partners about sexual health can be a daunting task, especially in casual relationships. Bloom recognized the importance of rethinking communication in hook-up culture and created a workshop to that seeks to centre compassion.
“How to F*ck like a Hufflepuff” is a casual sex workshop that borrows its name from the nicest Hogwarts House within the Harry Potter world but with less quidditch and more condoms. Bloom describes the workshop as a place to educate people about respect in all kinds of relationship structures.
“You can be treated with kindness, you can be treated with care in whatever kind of relationship structure at your end, including casual sex.”
The workshop has evolved over time alongside Bloom’s identity. Now, “How to F*ck like a Hufflepuff” incorporates more ideas from the LGBTQ2SIA+ community and tenets of non-monogamy. Queer relationships flip the scripts on what hookups are supposed to look like, inviting more compassion and communication.
“Can men and women really be friends? . . . Like there’s the very strict binary of you’re friends or you’re fucking. But with queer sexuality in relationships . . . you can have crushes on your friends and you can fuck your friends and there’s more of a fluidity.”
So how can you create compassionate casual relationships? Bloom says to make it clear what you want out of each encounter or new person. Explain clearly that you’re looking for casual sex with people who are going to be kind.
“I’m a big fan of the filtering coffee date,” says Bloom. “Get coffee with them, see kind of what their vibe is . . . you don’t need to tell each other your life story, but I feel like that’s a really good way to filter people out and also kind of like set the tone that you’re looking for something maybe more consistent.”
Still, conversations about sex can be scary, especially in a culture where they aren’t commonplace. Bloom suggests texting instead. In the heat of the moment it can be easy to forget to mention STI status or preferred contraceptives, whereas texting is takes away some of the pressure of serious conversations and keeps sex interruption-free.
Bloom suggests a few important questions you might want to cover with a potential sexual partner:
“How often do you want to be in communication? . . . How often do you text them or talk to them? How often do you want to see them? How much you want to talk about stuff that isn’t sex?”
Establishing boundaries is also important. Conversational boundaries are often unexplored, but can prevent some uncomfortable situations. Discussing what conversations are on or off the table with a friends-with-benefits, or as Bloom calls them, acquaintance-with-benefits, helps keep expectations and limits clear.
“Mental health stuff, I feel like that’s a good boundary to have. Are you gonna tell them when you’re having a bad day and do you just want them to send you pictures of puppies? Or are they actually someone that you want to talk stuff through with? Or maybe it’s better to rely on your friends for that.”
Bloom reminds these are all conversations that can happen before a hookup via text or even sooner if you put your boundaries and what you’re looking for in your bio. Being clear about your desires while swiping can help weed out partners who aren’t going to bring compassion to the bedroom.
Whether it’s your next Tinder date or friends-with-benefits-fling, keep in mind communication and compassion.
As adults, reclaiming the sex education we weren’t taught in school can improve our sex lives and make us better, more compassionate partners. Alternative educational spaces, like online content or Potter-verse-inspired workshops, offer information we might have missed out on or needs updating for a tech-savvy dating world.
Looking forward, Bloom is planning an online version of her “How to F*ck like a Hufflepuff” workshop in the coming year. For her fellow sex-nerds, check out Bloom’s newsletter where she shares sex research papers and other sex-research-related things she is excited about.
You can check out Bloom’s Instagram, YouTube videos, or watch her co-host Sex-Ed School for more.
This article is part of our Sex and the Steel City, our annual sex-positive issue. Click here to read more content from the special issue.
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By Sarun Balaranjan and Henry Challen, Contributors
CW: Sexual violence
If you have spent any time on Mac Confessions, Youtube, or any other college-focused media, it is impossible to miss the prevailing issue surrounding consent and the way we conceptualize sexual relationships in a university setting. Whether it be a frat party, a first date, or a meal at one of McMaster University’s fine dining institutions, the question of consent remains a topic of the utmost concern. While student-to-student relationships are culturally accepted, faculty-student relationships are generally frowned upon. However, there remains a grey area when it comes to relationships between teaching assistants and students. Ask anyone, and someone will know someone who has engaged in sexual acts with their TA. As both students and adults, we need to think more critically about how consent manifests within undergraduate-TA relationships.
We could recount examples of TAs making sexual advances on their students, but that is not the purpose of this article. Instigating a campus-wide persecution of TAs is not our goal, but rather to think critically about consent and potentially change the current practices surrounding TA-student relationships. Currently, students are theoretically allowed to engage in sexual relationships with their TAs, so long as the department head is notified, a conflict of interest is declared and all marking of that students work is transferred. However, it is pertinent to note that the conflict of interest policy has not been updated since 2001. There have been immense differences in how we conceptualize consent between 2001 and 2020 and it is atrocious that the policies have not been updated since then.
Left unchecked, the current power structures produce a wide range of results for students. While many TAs are respectful of their students and their roles as educators, this is not always the case. When relationships do occur, they often place the students in the awkward position of interacting with their TAs in two very different contexts. Even if a student wants to partake in sexual relations with their TA, it is difficult to extract this sexual relationship from the power structures of their academic lives.
When relationships do occur, they often place the students in the awkward position of interacting with their TAs in two very different contexts. Even if a student wants to partake in sexual relations with their TA, it is difficult to extract this sexual relationship from the power structures of their academic lives.
This calls for a serious revision of the policies in place surrounding the training and orientation of McMaster’s teaching assistants. It is asinine that Welcome Week representatives are trained for hours regarding sexual sensitivity orientation for merely ten days of interaction with students while TAs are not held to the same standards. It is clear that TAs are placed in a position of more power than a Welcome Week rep and spend significantly larger quantities of time interacting socially with students. At the bare minimum, TAs should be subject to the same training as Welcome Week reps. There is an appalling lack of accountability being placed on TAs by university administration and the faculty that hires them.
As we as a culture think more critically about consent, it is necessary that we apply this understanding to all relationships, especially those with potential power imbalances. It is ludicrous to think that this is an issue that can be dealt with at the discretion of the TA, who simply has to sign off on some forms. This is not only insufficient, but also contributes to creating a dangerous precedent for consent within the McMaster community.
We are not calling for a ban on consensual relationships between adults. However, to create a culture of consent on campus, a deeper awareness of the nuance surrounding consent should be incorporated into the TA employment contract. In addition, there should be a more robust training process to ensure that TAs are aware of the responsibilities that come alongside their position of authority.
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By Nisha Gill, Contributor
Literature can be a wonderful escape from the dreariness of the winter months; there are few things better than being curled up in front of a warm fire with a good book. Perhaps counterintuitively, as much as it is an escape from our world, literature has a lot to teach us about the world we live in, especially with regard to love.
“Literature is always to some extent about our love and our knowledge of what love means,” explains Professor Noel Glover, of the McMaster University Department of English and Cultural Studies.
Literature’s capacity to inspire our imagination is one of its greatest strengths, allowing us to push the boundaries of what is and imagine what could be. It accomplishes this by using settings, characters and plots to not only mimic our experiences, but also expose us to new ones. This exposure prompts us to explore profound and personal questions, such as those pertaining to love, with little real risk. For example, we may wonder at Amira and Duncan in “The Chai Factor” or marvel at Simon and Baz in “Carry On”. We can put ourselves in these characters’ shoes to learn about forms and expressions of love that we have yet to experience, and reap no consequences. After all, it’s “just a story”.
“We can see love and come to understand what love means [by] leaving ourselves behind, leaving what we know behind, or at least, being confronted with the question of how we know love and loving relationships from experiences that are not written from our own but that we can be called on to imagine nonetheless. This imagining is both the responsibility and the pleasure of literature,” said Glover.
The imaginative nature of literature enables us to explore our identities, beliefs, desires and dreams through worlds and characters that are both astoundingly alike our own and dramatically different. We are able to think on how our lives might follow the same paths as our favourite characters or perhaps instead the roads not taken. By living through these characters we are able to explore and understand what we want from love and how we want to love and be loved, tying these questions of love to larger questions of identity. Glover talks to the way we process romantic questions being linked to how we perceive romance within literature itself.
“Literature stages the effects of this image [of identity], both as a personal demand and a socio-cultural repertoire such that there can be room for crisis, transformation, revolt, pleasure and, especially, counter-normative expressions and representations of self in the cultural syntax of gender, race and sexuality. The questions at the heart of identity ‘what am I like,’ ‘what do I want,’ can be inflected and enjoyed in literature in contradictory and exploratory tenses: ‘what does it mean that I am like this character and like that character as well?’; ‘what is the other’s desire?’; ‘what can desire be like?’” said Glover.
While literature’s capacity to spark our imagination helps to enrich and expand our view of love by encouraging us to look beyond our own experiences and beliefs, it also has the potential to distort our view of love. This distortion results from the reinforcment of stereotypes, particularly regarding normative relationships and gender roles, that have been established by classic literature, from Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” to Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” as well as more contemporary works such Nicholas Sparks’s “The Notebook”.
“[Literature] is inventive . . . of others and relations we may know all-together too well, reinforcing stereotyped expressions of love and loving, oppressive and supremacist stereotypes of who is worthy of love,” noted Glover.
Thankfully, in the past few years, there has been an increasing diversity of voices being heard in literature on love, thanks to works such as Richard Wagamese’s “Starlight”, M.G. Vassanji’s “A Delhi Obsession”, Lydia Kwa’s “The Walking Boy”, Kagiso Lesego Molope’s “Such a Lonely, Lovely Road” and many, many more. Many of these authors grew up without seeing their identities and experiences in love represented in literature and then took it upon themselves to correct this. In doing so, they are setting the stage for new questions and further exploration of love and identity in all its forms. All it takes is for one person to see that there is someone else like them out there in the world to be inspired to embark on their own path of self-discovery.
This article is part of our Sex and the Steel City, our annual sex-positive issue. Click here to read more content from the special issue.
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Note: This article has been edited to clarify that Marc Lemire has been working for the city of Hamilton since 2005.
cw: homophobia, physical violence, white supremacy, religious extremism
The annual Hamilton Pride event held on June 24, 2006 was interrupted midway by a group of homophobic soccer fans. The soccer fans allegedly swore and spat on those marching in the parade, but the Hamilton police were quick to respond, forming a barrier between the fans and the parade participants.
At the time, Lyla Miklos, a Hamilton-based activist, creative and journalist, was a board member of the Hamilton Pride committee. She was also one of many who marched in the pride parade—an experience she detailed thirteen years later in a deputation to the Hamilton police services board on July 18, 2019.
The deputation came a month after a hate group violently interrupted the 2019 Hamilton Pride event. A video from the scene shows a snippet of the commotion, which occurred in the middle of Gage Park and away from Pride festivities.
Anti-pride demonstrators gathered at the event, shouting homophobic and white nationalist rhetoric. The video appears to show a religious group holding signs with phrases from the Bible and accusing Pride participants of perpetuating “sin”.
Hamilton Pride 2019 event at Gage Park being disrupted. Photo C/O CBC News
Another group is shown attempting to protect Pride-goers from the anti-pride demonstrators, trying to erect a black curtain to cover the anti-pride group and their signs.
Eventually, the confrontations escalated to punching, grabbing and choking, with one of the disruptors hitting pride-goers in the face with a motorcycle helmet.
In the aftermath, the Pride Hamilton board of directors published a statement saying that the situation would not have escalated to such a violent degree had the police responded sooner.
The statement also discusses Pride Hamilton’s multiple attempts to explain to the police that a similar protest happened during Pride 2018 and that they expected the number of protestors to escalate for 2019.
Nevertheless, Miklos’ deputation from July 18, 2019 points out the differences in police responsiveness between the 2006 and 2019 Pride events.
“. . . I am puzzled as to why the [Hamilton] police were unable to mobilize themselves in the same way [they did in the 2006 Pride parade] at Gage Park for Hamilton Pride in 2019, especially since they knew in advance that there was a threat,” she said.
Pride Hamilton’s statement also touches upon the relationship between the Hamilton Police Services and the local queer community.
“There have been long-standing issues between the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and Hamilton Police Services that remain unresolved. We feel that this was an opportunity for police to demonstrate that they were there to protect and act in solidarity with the community,” said Pride Hamilton’s statement.
Hamilton Pride 2019 event at Gage Park being disrupted. Photo C/O CBC News
However, not all members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community believe that increasing police responsiveness is the answer. A June 2019 study from McMaster’s department of labour studies surveyed 900 members of Hamilton’s queer community. Approximately one third of respondents stated that they had been treated unjustly by police, and transgender respondents were more likely to report unfair treatment.
Some recount the events of Hamilton Pride as an example of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community coming together to defend themselves.
Indeed, the protest at the Pride event is only one part of the fraught history between the city of Hamilton and the members of its local queer community.
Since 2005, Marc Lemire has been working as IT network analyst for the city of Hamilton. From 1995 to 2005, Lemire ran Heritage Front, a now defunct neo-Nazi white supremacist organization. He was also the webmaster of the Freedom Site, which hosted the websites of several Canadian anti-Semitic organizations.
In an email to CBC News, however, Lemire denied being either a white supremacist or a neo-Nazi. Despite Lemire’s claims, when Lemire’s appointment and history became public knowledge in May 2019, the Hamilton LGBTQ advisory group responded by stating in a motion that with the city allowing Lemire to work for and with them, it had failed to show solidarity with the marginalized communities in Hamilton. According to the LGBTQ advisory group, Lemire’s employment threatens the safety of city staff and volunteers that belong to these communities.
The advisory group is also protesting a police services board appointment from April 2019, which it believes was a missed opportunity to appoint someone who was part of a marginalized community instead of another of the white, straight men that comprise a majority of the current board.
Another criticism from the advisory group is that the city didn’t implement a transgender and gender non-conforming protocol as quickly as they should have. The protocol was established three years after an incident in 2014 that sparked an Ontario Human Rights tribunal settlement. The advisory group also alleged that the committee behind the protocol was chosen by the city arbitrarily, without careful regard of who would best serve the intentions of the protocol.
In consideration of all this, the advisory group declared that since the city has failed to demonstrate solidarity with the 2SLGBTQIA+ community in Hamilton, it didn’t want the city to fly flags in honour of Hamilton Pride 2019. However, on May 30, 2019, rather than adhering to the advisory group’s request, city officials still chose to fly flags symbolic of Pride and the transgender community — only without hosting a flag-raising ceremony, in an attempt to reach a compromise between the city’s plans and the advisory group’s request.
On May 30, 2019, rather than adhering to the Hamilton LGBTQ advisory group’s request, city officials still chose to fly flags symbolic of Pride and the transgender community. Photo C/O CBC News.
In a CBC article from the time, Mayor Fred Eisenberger insisted on flying the flag, citing that one advisory group does not represent the entirety of the LGBTQ community.
“There’s a much broader audience out there, including our own staff,” he said.
Cameron Kroetsch, chair of the LGBTQ advisory committee, acknowledges that some 2SLGBTQIA+ residents might have wanted a ceremony and that people would have felt differently about the flag-raising.
“It’s a powerful symbol, and you can’t perfectly represent everybody,” he said.
Less than a month after this, on June 15, 2019, the 2019 Hamilton Pride event was interrupted by a hateful protest, and tensions between the city of Hamilton and the local queer community came to a boil.
Mayor Fred Eisenberger tweeted his reaction to the Pride incident, “I am disappointed with the events that transpired at yesterday’s Hamilton’s PRIDE celebration at Gage Park. Hate speech and acts of violence have no place in the City of Hamilton. We are committed to being a Hamilton For All where everyone feels safe and welcome.”
However, the mayor’s intentions did not bring any positive impact for the remainder of the year.
On June 18, 2019, a community conversation regarding Hamilton’s 2SLGBTQIA+ residents ended in a heated discussion about the lack of effort from Hamilton police in keeping Pride participants safe.
On June 22, 2019, in an outcry against the arrest of Cedar Hopperton, an anarchist activist charged with alleged parole violations following the Pride incident, protesters marched from the Hamilton police headquarters in Barton Jail, where Hopperton was detained. Hopperton, a prominent member of the Hamilton queer community, was the first arrest made following the Pride protest. This drew questions and criticism, as videos of the June 15 incident also showed at least two alt-right protesters committing violence against participants of Hamilton Pride. Hopperton’s supporters also argued that Hopperton was acting in defense of the community while the Hamilton Police failed to arrive at the scene in a timely manner.
https://www.facebook.com/TrentCWTP/photos/a.1835158899853468/2268043049898382/?type=3&theater
On July 12, 2019, around two dozen members of Hamilton’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community, alongside allies, set up an encampment at Hamilton city hall in protest of the Hamilton police’s alleged failure to stand in support and in assistance to the city’s marginalized communities.
On Aug. 27, 2019, the Hamilton police expressed the desire to improve their relationship with the city’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community. Jackie Penman, the spokesperson for the Hamilton police, claimed that the police’s goal was to identify what should be done to reestablish communication between the Hamilton queer community and the police.
Nevertheless, a month after this, on Sept. 10, 2019, Chief Eric Girt of the Hamilton police makes homophobic and transphobic comments on the Bill Kelly show. One month later on Oct. 10, 2019, the police board denied a request from Kroetsch from the city’s LGBTQ advisory committee to provide a deputation to the board, claiming that Kroetsch wanted to speak about city issues and not police ones.
When asked about where the police should start with repairing its fractured relationship with the Hamilton queer community, Kroetsch points out that the work behind this has already been done by many kinds of groups long before 2019.
“The chief quite clearly stated that he knew what the issues were. So I think the start has to be … getting a plan from the City of Hamilton, getting a plan from city police to talk about what they’re planning to do now … What can you do, what are you able to do, how are you able to participate in this conversation marginalised communities have been asking you for decades?” said Kroetsch.
He also spotlights the frustration felt by many members of marginalised communities, who have already done a lot of talking and who have to relive traumatic experiences in sharing their accounts with others. Kroetsch says that he does not see a plan coming forward from any civic leaders that truly take into account what marginalised individuals are telling them.
In a similar vein, Miklos criticizes the constant defensiveness from the mayor and the chief of police. She calls for more compassion and urges the mayor to do something more helpful than simply showing up at cultural events.
Regarding the future of the city’s relationship with the local 2SLGBTQIA+ community, Kroestch said that it is up to the city, including the police, to listen and engaged with the right folks.
“There’s a lot of awkwardness there and uncomfortability, and they have to find a way to work through that for themselves, and work through what it means to engage with marginalised communities … And that’s really the start of the work and I think it’s a long road for that. But the sooner they get down that road, the better,” said Kroetsch.
This article is part of our Sex and the Steel City, our annual sex-positive issue. Click here to read more content from the special issue.
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Casey Rogan and Matthew Milne, two level III commerce students at McMaster University, are collecting knit hockey socks and repurposing them into toques that they’ve been handing out to help vulnerable community members, particulary those facing challenges of homelessness, stay warm this winter. The duo has co-founded Toques from the Heart, a Hamilton-based non-profit organization that provides an opportunity for hockey players to donate hockey socks to give back to their local communities. According to Rogan, he and Milne came up with the idea on July 30, 2019, while both of them were enrolled in summer school.
“[Milne] had the initial idea when he was younger, and got the idea to ask his mom to change knit hockey socks into toques just as a fun little thing . . . and his mom actively sews so she did it for him, [so] we’ve had some of the toques for a while,” explains Rogan.
Upon further discussion, Rogan and Milne decided to start donating toques by directly handing them out in Hamilton and Toronto and selling others to raise money to support hockey programming for children. “As McMaster students in our third year of commerce, [we] really felt that we wanted to get the most of our university experience . . . [we] wanted to make things happen for us, and not just wait around to get out of university without having any experience,” said Rogan.
A hat made from a hockey sock. Photo C/O Toques from the Heart website.
Four months later, Toques from the Heart officially launched on Nov. 15, 2019, with the goal of collecting 200 knit hockey socks by the end of the year. In 2019, the organization reported that they were able to achieve more than triple their intended goal, receiving approximately 700 knit hockey socks. Each sock donated can be repurposed into two toques. Rogan explains that he was overwhelmed by the amount of support and feedback the program received from the community.
“In just under two months, we were able to pass our goal and collect 700 knit hockey socks through donations, [this can make] approximately 1400 toques . . . and have donated many of them [to the] Downtown Hamilton and Toronto areas,” said Rogan.
Toques from the Heart also sells repurposed toques to community members for $20 to raise money to support children’s hockey programming.
“We have enough money to cover [the] initial costs and all the funds coming in now are going towards this initiative [of supporting hockey programming]. In the future we would love to sponsor our own Toques from the Heart team and have kids who don’t have these opportunities to be able to play hockey,” explains Rogan.
Hats made from a hockey sock with patches with the Toques from the Heart logo. Photo C/O Toques from the Heart website.
By the end of 2020, Toques from the Heart has set a goal of raising $5000 and help 500 Canadians stay warm this winter by collecting 2000 knit hockey socks. The organization is also looking for potential sponsors, partnerships and opportunities to expand within the Greater Toronto and Hamilton areas.
By the end of 2020, Toques from the Heart has set a goal of raising $5000 and help 500 Canadians stay warm this winter by collecting 2000 knit hockey socks. The organization is also looking for potential sponsors, partnerships and opportunities to expand within the Greater Toronto and Hamilton areas.
“We are actively contracting Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and Canadian Tire. We’re [also] trying to get donations in local arenas and bigger arenas and work with these bigger companies to get the word out there and get exposed in the hockey community,” Rogan added.
According to Rogan, the organization has also given them the opportunity to engage with seniors in the Hamilton community.
“[On Jan. 26], we went out to two retirement homes, and held a [toque-making] session . . . folks helped to make some toques and in the coming weeks they will take on the production of the toques. They were all super excited about [us] coming and happy that they had a chance to give back to their own communities,” Rogan explained.
Rogan adds that Toques from the Heart is always looking for additional volunteers. More information about the organization can be found on their website.
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Exactly one year ago, I wrote an article on the minds behind HashtagAdamandSteve, Adam George and Steven Hilliard. Over this year, I have had the pleasure to hang out with the duo at their various events across the city. From Taco Belles at The Mule to hosting RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants at Absinthe, you’re always guaranteed a good time at an Adam and Steve event.
Within the past year, George and Hilliard have gone from planning two queer-focused events per month in Hamilton, to five or six events per month. One of their key events have included a show with Thorgy Thor in February 2019, marking the first Ru-girl within the city; the fourth annual Drag Wars; the first Hamilton Pride party at Absinthe; and the first all-Hamilton drag showcase, Hamilton Is A Drag.
“When we first sat down with [the Silhouette], we were bringing really awesome friends of ours from Toronto that were drag performers because there really wasn’t any that were well known in Hamilton . . . and now there is,” said Hilliard.
The rise in popularity for Hamilton-based drag was a big deal for the pair. Their events provide opportunities for local Hamilton drag kings and queens to perform within their own city, instead of having to travel elsewhere to find a gig.
Although my previous article referred to George and Hilliard as queer event planners, the duo hasn’t used this term for a while.
“I feel like as we’ve grown, we take [advocacy] more seriously in knowing that we have a responsibility to do it right,” said George.
George and Hilliard have turned their focus towards filling Hamilton with safer spaces for the queer community.
“For a long time, the idea of a safe space was like a bad word to some people. They thought going to a safe space was them hiding away from other people. I don’t think it feels like that anymore, because people are realizing that those spaces can exist and still be fun, open and not isolated,” said Hilliard.
Hilliard went on to explain that many of the city’s bars are opening up to the idea of becoming safe, queer-positive spaces. George and Hilliard did not expect this reaction from local businesses.They recalled a time when it was hard to get owners to host their queer events. Now they’ve partnered with approximately seven spaces across Hamilton including Absinthe, The Mule, and Arcade, to name a few.
This change in focus led the duo to remove “event planning/party specialists” from their logo, as they felt those words did not fit their mission any longer.
“Adam and Steve, I think as a concept, has evolved a bit more because we’re not just doing parties. Now, we’re part of the City of Hamilton,” said George.
George and Hilliard have partnered with Tourism Hamilton to sell their “Keeping Hamilton Queer” shirts with proceeds going to the Hamilton Aids Network. The pair believe that it is important to give back to the queer community, especially since they hold a highly regarded platform not just within the community, but also in the greater Hamilton area.
They also were asked to speak at a training event for city staff in which George, Hilliard and others who formed a diversity panel, discussed how to make Hamilton a more inclusive city. George and Hilliard recognize that they do not speak for the entire queer community, but due to the platform they have ammased, they want to raise up other people’s voices.
“As soon as we were asked [to speak at the event] we said very clearly to the organizer that we just wanted to be clear that we don’t speak for the entire community. We’re just one perspective and one voice in a very large [community] with our own experience. We would never pretend to [speak for them] because everyone has a different lived experience,” said Hilliard.
“As soon as we were asked [to speak at the event] we said very clearly to the organizer that we just wanted to be clear that we don’t speak for the entire community. We’re just one perspective and one voice in a very large [community] with our own experience. We would never pretend to [speak for them] because everyone has a different lived experience,” said Hilliard.
The future is bright for George and Hilliard. Due to the number of events they host, they have decided to change their name from HashtagAdamandSteve to the House of Adam and Steve. In addition, they plan to launch a new website to make learning about the Hamilton drag scene more accessible. The duo will also be hosting events in direct partnership with Tourism Hamilton.
On a more familiar note, George and Hilliard will be hosting their next Ru-girl, Detox, on March 7 at Absinthe, and will be starting their newest series, Dirty Drag Bingo with Karma Kameleon at Odds Bar (164 James St. South).
“Our parties might not be for everyone, but the point is that they’re for anyone,” said George.
The door to the House of Adam and Steve is now open for all those who are looking for a home.
This article is part of our Sex and the Steel City, our annual sex-positive issue. Click here to read more content from the special issue.
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By A. A., Contributor
I was on a study date with a couple of my close friends at a Starbucks we used to go to almost every single day. A couple guys we had met there came and sat with us to study. Skim forward a little bit, my friend, who knew I was gay, made a joke and exposed my sexuality to one of the guys.
All of a sudden, everything changed in the way he spoke, as if he was trying to alienate me. I froze.
I advocate for being proud of who you are and I do embrace my sexuality, but in that moment — I hated everything about it.
He insisted that he could “fix” me if he spent 24 hours with me. He even told my friend, who was a girl, to have sex with me. I tried a couple times explaining that being gay is not something he would ever be able to understand, it is something he needs to accept. But my words were quickly dismissed. I had no words, I did not know whether I should say anything at all. I was catching glares from a boy sitting across from us at the large table we were sitting at. It felt like a beaming hot spotlight was shining over me; like everyone was looking at me with pity, disappointment or disgust.
I felt a rush of tears come to my throat, that feeling where you are about to cry and if you say any word at all you will. After so many years of owning my sexuality, I felt isolated, alone and the odd one out all over again. I was taken back to being 12 years old, when my parents told me that I could be sent somewhere to be fixed.
I needed to leave, so I walked out and called an Uber. While waiting for my Uber I could not stop myself from breaking down.
Am I really proud of who I am? Or just around people that accept me?
I cannot stop thinking about how he won. I was not able to stand up for myself. I was not able to show him that I am me no matter what he thinks is right and wrong. Insidead, I felt so small and alienated. I am usually loud; I say what I want, when I want. I stand up for everyone’s story, but that day, I learned that I cannot stand up for my own. My own truth and who I am is fragile right now. I know they say—even I say—that being gay is just a part of me, but when that is the biggest struggle in your life, it becomes you. I am gay.
Why does it have to be so hard?
I think I have established for myself that life is not fair, but this has not been an easy lesson for me to learn—in fact, it has been the hardest. I am a 18-year-old Middle Eastern man, born and raised in a outspokenly homophobic household where religious ideals formed the foundation of my family member’s lives. But I am also gay, and discovering my own identity in such an environment was not fair.
It is not fair to grow up in an environment that shames parts of who you are before you even recognize those parts of you. It is not fair to only be able to be true to who you are around three of your friends. It is not fair to feel like your family is not going to be there forever. It is not fair to feel as though your family’s love is conditional over something you cannot control—who you are.
There is no explanation. I have no explanation for being gay so how do I explain it to someone that does not understand? Should I even try? Should I let them be ignorant? Why is it easy to stand up for someone else, but so much harder to stand up for myself? I feel like I’m proud of myself and my accomplishments but am I really proud of me—am I really proud of being gay?
I want to learn to be loud and proud but that comes with a price.
Not everyone will be supportive, not everyone will accept me as I am. I have to learn to be who I am regardless of how many times I’m discriminated against for something that is nobody’s business but my own. Before I can be loud and proud, I have to pay the emotional price of working to turn every doubt and harsh thing someone says into a reason why I will not back down from who I am.
I am who I am and that should be okay. This will be the next thing I learn.
This article is part of our Sex and the Steel City, our annual sex-positive issue. Click here to read more content from the special issue.
By Anonymous, Contributor
The idea of femininity is one that, for a long time, upset me. I remember distinctly hating to wear the dresses my family bought me. I didn’t want to be exposed. I didn’t want to perpetuate the notion of what a woman should be within society. I didn’t want to feel objectified by men, I didn’t want to be regarded as “weak”, “fragile” or “sensitive”. However, that didn’t mean I didn’t want to be noticed by men. I was “straight”, so I assumed that, as a woman, I wanted attention from men.
There have been countless times when I’ve been told by my family: “Dress nicely so that boys will notice you.” Sometimes I would cave, and I would receive the standard compliments that one would receive from a heterosexual male: “You look hot/ nice/ pretty/ beautiful.” Other times, I’d find my strength in going against the world’s expectations, and put on a suit instead. I did not receive any typical compliments, but seeing men gaze at me in half jealousy and half admiration was good enough. Afterall, I looked hot and powerful.
Boys, I wanted you to notice me—but I also wanted to be noticed for who I am, not for conforming to societal expectations of what a woman should wear.
In grade 10, I started to wear snapbacks. In grade 11, I started to wear muscle shirts. In grade 12, I started wearing suits and called myself heteroflexible. In my first year of university, I began to wear men’s t-shirts and men’s joggers. In second year, I made it a habit to check out the women’s section and the men’s section in clothing stores. I went from calling myself heteroflexible throughout my high school years, to declaring myself as bisexual in university.
Fashion, sexuality and gender expression have always been a messy knot in my brain. I frequently dress like someone who, if you took one look at me, you’d know I am not straight. Maybe you could even infer that I’m bi.
You’re told not to judge a book by its cover. But what if I want you to?
Symbolic interactionism describes how our world is made of symbols which convey meaning to the people we interact with. Fashion is the pinnacle of my interaction with the world.
Every day, what I choose to wear is a reflection of who I am. Sometimes, I want to go undetected—that’s a day for dark jeans, t-shirts and a sweater. Other times, I want to be noticed—that means wearing a suit or a dress. Other times, I feel incredibly gay and just throw on a Henley, typically a shirt for men, and men’s joggers.
Our world has always had an invisible hand in how I present myself. I am well attuned to how I dress and how that will draw different kinds of stares and gazes; however, as someone who is interested in both men and women, this has become a habit of practiced expression.
Our world has always had an invisible hand in how I present myself. I am well attuned to how I dress and how that will draw different kinds of stares and gazes; however, as someone who is interested in both men and women, this has become a habit of practiced expression.
I used to feel almost guilty about how I dressed, I never felt feminine enough for those around me. As I grew more comfortable with my sexuality, I realized that I didn’t need to dress to attract men to me. How I dress on a daily basis, with a style between androgynous and masculine, is both more comfortable for me, and the ladies like it.
I remember dressing to go to a party one night and turning to my friends saying, “I’m going to wear a crop top, because that way people know I’m a little bit of a slut. But I’m going to wear flannel shirt over that because I still want people to know I’m hella gay.”
Dressing myself is a calculated strategy. I choose my clothing carefully to convey hidden messages. Yet, sometimes I question how whether or not my acceptance of these messages contributes to perpetuating stereotypes around gender and sexuality. Stereotypes can be harmful. Actively assuming details about a person can feel intrusive, belittling and insulting. Yet, I purposely use stereotypes associated with sexuality to communicate with the world. I’ve cut my hair shorter, I wear flannel, I cuff my jeans and I keep my nails short. These are all stereotypically associated with being “bisexual” or “gay”.
Stereotypes become harmful when you actively use them to make harmful assumptions. Not every flamboyant man is gay, and you have no right to tell him he is. Not every girl with short hair is a lesbian, you don’t need to tell your friends she is.
Don’t judge a book by its cover, at least, not actively.
Yet, when I wear a French tucked t-shirt with a leather jacket with my cuffed ripped black jeans, I am trying to tell the world I am not straight. It’s me telling the world that typical compliments about my general appearance won’t woo me. Maybe compliment my graphic t-shirt with the teenage mutant ninja turtles on it, then I’ll entertain a discussion with you.
This article is part of our Sex and the Steel City, our annual sex-positive issue. Click here to read more content from the special issue.
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By Nina Joon, Contributor
Why yes, the rumours are true. I, Nina Joon, completed (finishing with a 12) my second one-night stand and I am here to shout it loud and proud. After years spent huddling under a blanket of sexual apathy, agonizing over the inevitable awkward intimacy during sex, I have finally reached a state of no-fucks-given.
As a product of both millennial and generation Z culture, I am no stranger to the supposed perils and triumphs of hook-up culture. Now, after two engagements in the action, I think it’s safe to pronounce myself as a voice of the people, offering advice and insight into this tumultuous sexy time in our young, hot 20-something year old lives. This, my friends, is an ode to the sweaty club grind-ups and confusing “booty-Facebook-message-hookups” that you’re still trying to dissect literally months after they happened.
The classic tale of a one-night stand often begins in the club, in the middle of the month, during techno night. You’re on the dance floor, body glitter sparkling from the disco ball reflection. While looking down to admire your amazing shuffling skills, you spot a pair of humbling red converse high tops with laces caked in mud. Is this a skater? Is this a longboarder? Questions cloud your mind, so you look up to see whose face belongs to these shoes. Not to your surprise, it’s an absolute cutie sipping a rare brew of Collective Arts, dancing slowly to the tempo of the music.
You nudge your friend (hereby referred to as Derby) and point to this mysterious gem nestled on the dance floor. Derby’s eyes light up in excitement.
“Aye! Good shout mate!”, they claim, confirming your feelings of attraction to “red-shoes”.
You run with that bout of validation, slyly dancing your way into red-shoes’s line of vision. The music’s pumping, your earplugs are the perfect amount of hidden; this is your moment.
“Hey, I heard it’s your birthday! Happy birthday!” you shout to cutie’s face.
To be clear, it is not their birthday, nor is there any available information that would lead to that conclusion. You just hope that the mere randomness of your comment will spark intrigue in red-shoes.
“Huh?” they respond back.
“Oh my god, sorry, haha, you look just like my friend whose birthday it is today . . . my bad!”
Red-shoes uncomfortably laughs but you feel their gaze as you dance back to Derby and continue to shuffle for a half-hour straight.
It’s getting late now and you’re wondering where this cutie has gone. Derby is on their third hook-up of the night, copping two numbers and one Instagram handle. While sipping a glass of communal water, someone taps on your shoulder. You turn to see red-shoes staring into your soul with their glassy beaming eyes.
“Hey, you’re a really good dancer”, they say.
Stunned, you quickly make a fart noise and say “Lawl, no way! Thanks! I like your um, shoes, tee-hee”.
Together you start to talk, eventually moving to a booth and then locking lips in a dark corner.
After back and forth flirty banter, during which you offered red-shoes a cherry Halls and they declined, the question comes up.
“Your place or mine?”.
You’re living at your parent’s house, so that’s not even an option. To your surprise, red-shoes calls a Lyft, signifying their uniqueness, to which you self-congratulate yourself for knowing how to pick ‘em. During the car ride home, you keep your distance from red-shoes as a sign of respect to the driver, feeling shy because you harbour culturally-internalized shame towards sex. It’s all good though, you’re learning to overcome it!
Red-shoes leads you into their low-ceiling basement bedroom that smells like weed and 5 gum. As the making out escalates, you progressively get more excited. Then you remember you’re a #feminist who doesn’t shave. Despite knowing you’re beautiful and loving your body, you can’t help but recognize this is not a cultural norm and worry how red-shoes will react. As expected, they don’t even notice and the night seamlessly continues on to become an X-rated episode of Degrassi.
After hardly two hours of sleep and being awoken by red-shoes’s deaf cat jumping on your chest at 7 a.m., you decide it’s time to go home. Your cutie is slow to wake up, rolling around looking all hot as they enjoy the luxury of being a deep sleeper. They drive you home in their Prius, dropping you off in a Mac’s Convenience Store parking lot. While washing off last night’s face, you remember you left a recently thrifted sweater at cutie’s. You send a text asking for it back and never hear from them again.
In your hungover state, you struggle to submit a weekly discussion post on Avenue while smiling about last night’s events. Maybe you’ll see red-shoes again, maybe you won’t. Your sweater might be lost forever, but the smell of that nicely renovated kitchen will live on in your memory. You close your blinds and nap until 4:30 p.m., excited to do it all over again.
This article is part of our Sex and the Steel City, our annual sex-positive issue. Click here to read more content from the special issue.
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By Rachel Lieske, Contributor
The popular astrology app CoStar is known for daily insights that are customized according to a user’s astrological chart. Every day at 10:37 am, CoStar sends me daily affirmations, recently with a recurring theme surrounding “pressure in love.” I usually shrug off the AI-generated insights, but the idea of “pressure in love” echoed in my mind—it felt symbolic of young love, and everything it represents, and caught my attention.
There’s a common narrative that persists around young love. Finding love that lasts in your adolescence is the one way to create a fairytale ending. Needless to say, a fairytale ending is merely a fictional account. There is a lot of love rhetoric echoed in our culture like “you’ll find love once you stop looking”, but aren’t we supposed to be finding love now, just as many of our parents did at our age?
Like any frantic Gen Z, I texted all of my friends and asked them if they felt “pressure in love” and if they felt that there was an inherited timeline to find it. As it turned out, most of my single friends were pessimistic about finding love and felt a pressure weighing them down. Here’s what they had to say.
“There’s a lot of pressure regarding the demographic and social aspect of it all. If you’re in a city that is full of people your age and your living the typical university lifestyle then it should be easy to find a significant other, but it’s really not.” - Allie, 20
“[University] seems like a perfect time to meet people, and a lot of people are finding love. At the end of the day, media makes love seem like this whole encompassing thing that everyone craves but I’m not so certain it’s the end all be all.” - Robyn, 19
“I think the pressure comes more internally than externally, especially when I see people who have had lots of relationships in high school and university and I feel like now there’s less time to find my ‘soul mate’. If those people have been through so many relationships and haven’t found the one, how can I with less time?” - Taylor, 20
“There’s a lot of cultural pressures because for me, my parents are Russian and there’s an unspoken standard that you will find a person to marry within university and if you can’t, it’s like, ‘Okay, what’s wrong with you?’”- Devon, 21
Coincidently, most of my friends who were in relationships said that they never felt pressured to be in relationships. Instead, romantic love randomly found its way into their lives. However, they experienced a different sort of pressure; a pressure to experience single life fully in university.
“There’s more of a pressure to not find love because of single culture being so dominant with university nightlife and online dating!” - Alex, 20
“Finding love shouldn’t have a timeline to it. It shouldn’t be a race. If you don’t find love by 25 it doesn’t mean that you’re undesirable!” - Vanessa, 20
“I felt more pressure to be dating than to find true love. I didn’t feel like I needed a soulmate, but I didn’t want to get to a point where I felt so much less experienced than everyone else that dating would feel impossible later on,”- Quinn, 20
“The short answer is no, I don’t feel the pressure to find love in university but I’ve been in a relationship most of my time at school, in which the first one was very all-consuming and overbearing so I actually felt the pressure to be single for once.” -Mary, 20
It’s undeniable that our adolescence is a time of experimentation when it comes to love. We may make dumb decisions that we come to regret, but we can use the lessons from our successes and failures to help navigate the world of dating. Although past successes and failures help us navigate new relationships the pressure still persists: to find something real, raw, lasting and most importantly, loving.
Other pressures come from trying to understand how to balance personal growth and romantic growth. In the infancy of our adult lives, we underestimate how many commitments we already have, and how large of a commitment love is. At some point, we have to give up on some of our commitments, and most of the time it’s a battle between love or loss.
When we open our hearts to love, we also open our hearts to loss. Inevitably we might feel a combination of both. Choosing love is an act of bravery that deserves credit for its commitment to vulnerability and its gamble with loss. The pressure can be grave and intimidating but somehow always finds its way into our lives, in this quest for love or something that feels like it.
This article is part of our Sex and the Steel City, our annual sex-positive issue. Click here to read more content from the special issue.
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