As the virtualisation of University experience reconfigures the locus of spatialised embodiment, and as I move onto new, higher levels in F23, my critical attention drifts asunder to the affective geographies in which we inhabit. As a gift to the staff and student community, I henceforth impart my top three favourite places to orgasm in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, along with immersive anecdotes to accompany them, with the hopes that they will lead you to your own bursts of pleasure.
3. Under the giant mural in the Refectory
I relive this memory—my fondest—over and over during moments of ennui during all-staff meetings: I am lying face-down on the glossy floor of the Refectory, my nipples grazing the ground as I dig my elbows in. My lover is gently thrusting into me with a hot pink, sustainably-sourced strap on, and my moans echo across the giant hall and bounce off the orgy-esque neo-classical mural on its walls. I have an epiphany as I orgasm, and liken the melody of my moans to the voices of all the women before me who have let out cries in the face of undue hostility to the benevolent middle manager. In a way, my throaty whimpers leave cracks in the ceiling as they reverberate across the room and a pink ball gag is shoved into my mouth.
2. The Quad Lawns
Perhaps the most public of all locales in which I have enjoyed a root on campus, the lawns within the Quadrangle offer the perfect place to get in touch with one’s inner cottagecore lesbian. With yonic structures like Chau Chak Museum and Fisher Library in your line of sight, the dark academia-esque halls of the Quadrangle unleash the sexy middle manager within. Few implements for stimulation are needed; the verdant green of the lawns brings one back to simpler days of rolling around in the fields and gloriously fucking, like something out of a 19th century sapphic poem. While the purple canopy of the jacaranda tree once provided shelter from the clear-eyed and all-knowing student body, now orgasm is only achievable in the Quad after nightfall, but the suspense of being sighted only increases the ecstasy.
1. In the queer theory section of the library
It was queer theoretical protocols or tendencies that substantialized orgasm for me as a node of critical attention in the first place and queer theoretical impulses, too, that made me persist in thinking with and through orgasm even when it seemed that orgasm was constituted by queer theory as its bad object. X marks the spot. X also marks the spot where my transversal body was liberated at the height of climax on the fourth floor of the Fisher Library stacks. In such moments, only poetry will do:
You licked the tip of your finger
& flicked through a Berlant
waltzed down the aisle
we moved onto Butler &
spanking butts
like when we were on Air New Zealand
— Auckland to Sydney
in our communist phase
what a mile-high ride that was
they call us sell-outs now
but I would never sell
in this moment
love
& your licking fingers