FEATURED ON
NBC NEWS RADIO
Culture
Shocks
With BARRY LYNN
KCAA 1050 AM 106.5 FM
Fridays at 3 p.m.
Culture Shocks
Show Summary
05/10/19
Steven Gellman is a prolific singer-songwriter who lives in the Washington DC area, with 8 CDs available and a new one to be released later this year. Billboard calls him “incredibly sensitive and impressively intelligent at the same time” and his live performances around the United States garner rave reviews for their clarity of moral vision and their good humor.
Steven and Barry discuss the impact of the Sixties “folk music revival”, their mutual love for the songs of the late Phil Ochs, singing for elderly listeners and melding personal stories with broader social implications. There are also several of Steven’s songs including “Broken Mirror” and “The Silver and the Grey”.
Steven’s website is www.hiddenpoet.com
Kat Sunlove was the publisher of the controversial West Coast tabloid Spectator from l978 until 2002 and was the legislative director of the Free Speech Coalition for a decade. This publication featured plenty of advertising for adult stores, telephone services and clubs but also contained in depth articles about human sexuality. She fought for the right to distribute sexually explicit material to adults and battled censorship efforts emanating from California lawmakers and from the Ed Meese Commission on Pornography during the Reagan Administration in Washington.
Kat was also an occasional professional dominatrix. She and Barry chat about the incredible diversity and complexity of human sexual interests as well as the never ending efforts by some to reduce the entire adult population of America to viewing only materials suitable for children.
 | ||||||
SCROLL UP TO RETURN TO TOP OF PAGE
DRAMA DOWN UNDER!
Upstart Female Politician Defies the Odds
By Kat Sunlove
Perhaps it’s an “only in Australia” thing, like kangaroos and kookaburras. The idea that a small trade association representing the adult products and services industry could transform itself into a functioning political party with the moniker Australian Sex Party and then get its leader elected to state parliament is far-fetched, to say the least. And yet, that is exactly what Fiona Patten and Eros Association have done. Not just once, but twice, albeit rebranded under the more conventional name of Reason Party for the November 2018 election in the state of Victoria.
But then Fiona’s career has been anything but conventional. From her earliest, almost accidental entry into sex work, to a successful stint as a fashion designer, to her poignant HIV/AIDS and drug use activism, to years of bold and articulate pro-sex/anti-censorship lobbying on behalf of Australia’s adult industry and now as the voice of Reason Party in Victoria’s Parliament, her professional path has been truly extraordinary.
Fiona’s youthful drift into the world of prostitutes came about when she was involved in AIDS activism. In early 1990 she took a position as manager at WISE, Workers in Sex Employment, a sex worker outreach group focused on sex education amid the HIV and AIDS epidemic. Delivering condoms, lube and informational materials to brothels, she happened to be at a brothel called Tiffany’s when the receptionist came looking for a replacement for a sex worker who was …ahem… otherwise occupied, so Fiona volunteered. She decided then and there it was not a bad way to make some extra money.
A fascinating sidebar to Fiona’s profession in sex, politics and feminism is the fact that her great-aunt by marriage, Jessie Street, was a well-known Australian suffragette and feminist of the 1930s. A highlight of her career is that she was the only female Aussie delegate at the founding of the United Nations and was instrumental in having gender, alongside race and religion, included in non-discriminatory clauses in the UN Charter. Like Fiona, Jessie worked on liberalizing laws for women, including divorce law reform, getting women on juries, into public office and elected to parliament. In 1933 Jessie worked on setting up the first contraceptive clinic in Sydney and eventually ran for federal parliament three times. Unlike Fiona, Jessie never won.
Fiona’s job with WISE was funded by the federal health department, which allowed her the freedom to include some lobbying in her work, particularly for decriminalization of sex work. There was concern at the time that a possible transmission route for the spread of HIV might be the unregulated and illegal sex industry. Getting information out to that community only made sense; pushing for legislation to decriminalize made sense to Fiona.
In early 1992 Fiona was introduced to Robbie Swan, a man with his own extraordinary and colorful career path, including a stint as an infamous gender-bending, alter ego named “Ms. Caroline Cumming-Sweetly.” Almost immediately that first evening, he suggested that Fiona run for office as an independent on a civil liberties platform, focused on porn and sex work, of course, but also on freedom of trade and expression. Fiona was intrigued and within the space of an evening, had agreed to give it a go. Although she didn’t win that first run, she got a respectable vote and ended up with a fabulous after-party and a lifelong love affair with Robbie.
As Fiona and Robbie began to fight together against conservative efforts to curtail sex work and regulate other adult entertainment options such as videos and pornographic publications, they met up with John Lark, often referred to as Down Under’s “king of porn.” With funding from his porn empire, the trio founded Eros Association on his cruise ship in Sydney Harbor and Fiona became the lobbying voice in Parliament for the trade group’s causes.
Fiona and Robbie were brilliant tacticians in their advocacy for the adult industry and in exposing the notorious hypocrisy in both political and religious circles. Having long denounced the horror of child sex abuse in religious institutions, in 1999, they published a full-color glossy booklet entitled “Hypocrites,” listing some 640 pedophile priests who had been charged with child sexual assault just in the previous decade and calling for a royal commission to look into the issue. In a brilliant publicity move, they sent a copy to every church, media outlet and politician in the nation. What followed were death threats and political castigation. But twelve years later, then Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced such an inquiry.
Fiona and I have been friends since 1996 when we met at a sex industry trade convention in Las Vegas. Despite living thousands of miles apart, we hit it off immediately as we recognized our matching career tracks and our shared values; we have been best of friends and collaborators ever since. Over those years, we have faced much the same kinds of bluenose laws that aim to shut down adult stores, nightclubs, brothels and ban sex videos and erotica on the Internet.
When I read on Facebook in late 2018 that Fiona might lose her upper house seat in Victoria’s Parliament, I felt compelled to fly down and try to help her win. After all, I have years of political campaigning under my belt plus ten years of lobbying on free speech and sex industry issues in California and Washington, D.C. Our parallel career paths – of sex work, sex advocacy and ultimately sex lobbying – informed me of the kinds of issues Fiona was likely facing, or so I thought. My education in Australian politics hadn’t even begun.
When I called Fiona to tell her I wanted to come help in the campaign and write a story on it, she was enthusiastic, saying “Brilliant! Do come!” Then she added, “But the election was last Saturday. Still, come on down and you can help us count votes!” Count votes? I couldn’t imagine how the candidate and her cohorts could be involved in vote counting but that was before I had a tutorial in the complex electoral process in the state of Victoria.
After scoring a sale-priced ticket on Qantas, I left rainy Oregon, landing in sunny springtime Melbourne and was greeted by a beaming Fiona, excited and nervous at the same time. It seems the votes cast on Election Day, November 24th, had been counted first and that tally had not gone well for Fiona.
Mind you, citizens are required by law to vote in Australia or face a AU$50 fine (rather a good idea, that) but they have a couple of weeks prior to Saturday’s Election Day in which to cast a ballot. Those early votes were only beginning to be counted when I arrived in early December and there was still hope for a shift in the trend towards Fiona. Add to all that the complications of tabulating “preferences” on the ballot and the final numbers were far from certain.
So when I arrived it was not looking good for Fiona. In fact, one of her campaign staff was drafting a virtual concession press release and Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews, head of the state government, had been quoted as saying he would likely find a job for Fiona in his government if she lost her seat, observing that she had been quite effective in her first term. Indeed, Fiona had initiated some of the progressive legislation that helped Andrews win re-election, as he noted in news reports.
For a new member Fiona had been notably effective in getting important laws passed. She shepherded their “Physician Assisted Dying” law into being, created safe access zones around fertility (abortion) clinics, secured a cap on campaign spending, introduced legislation that led to the legalization of Uber and led a major inquiry into drug law reform. In more than one of these efforts, Fiona brought the initial bills before Parliament only to have government reach out to her, asking that she withdraw her bill so that they could introduce a similar bill, acknowledging her for the idea but enabling the ruling party to take credit for the law itself.
Babbling like schoolgirls as we drove from the airport, we headed to her district office, a modest space adorned with classic erotic art. Walking from the car, we passed a wall plastered with Reason’s aqua blue campaign posters featuring Fiona’s smiling face. Happily, only one of them was marred with a mustache slashed across her upper lip.
While she fielded phone calls and responded to queries from staff, I looked through news stories on her and the campaign. The August issues of The Australian Women’s Weekly and Domain Review both had full color coverage of the candidate and of the party’s name change from Sex to Reason. As one might imagine given her background as a sex worker and the Sex Party name, Fiona has garnered a lot of media attention. For the most part, the stories are friendly. It’s very hard not to like her; she is lovely to look at, unassuming, quiet spoken, articulate and knowledgeable on the issues and always professional in appearance.
At lunch we walked to a pub with staffers Jorian Gardiner and Andrew Shears. Andrew was convinced Fiona would win while Jorian was more cynical. We were soon joined by Dr. Demos Krouskos, who runs the North Richmond Community Health center. One of Fiona’s major successes in her maiden term was establishing the first-ever medically supervised injection center for intravenous drug users in Victoria. Dr. Krouskos’ center was selected partly for its location in the Richmond district where drug overdoses and public drug use had been an enormous problem.
Andrew was obsessive in checking the vote count with the Victorian Electoral Commission, a constantly changing tally, but Fiona’s numbers seemed to be improving. Still they bobbled up and down for days, keeping us all in suspense as to the final outcome, a seesaw process that would continue until the last day when the VEC literally “pushed the button” to calculate the winners and losers.
Fiona’s success in the 2018 election was dubious despite her being an incumbent, given the complex voting rules in Victoria (also in Western Australia) and the large number of very small political parties such as Reason. Others include Animal Justice, Shooters, Fishers & Farmers (yes, seriously), Aussie Battler Party (whatever that is), Health Australia, Sustainable Australia, Greens and many more, each representing a small but zealous special interest group. The ballot allows voters to select their favorite candidate but also offers the option of “preferences.” The system is further complicated by the “above the line” or “below the line” voting options. Above the line is similar to a U.S. straight party line vote; below the line voters can rank their choices numerically. If their number one choice does not gain a sufficient number of votes, then their vote moves down to their second choice, and so on. Voters in the U.S. state of Maine recently approved this preference-based approach for primaries and other states are considering such a ballot as well.
For some years now, one Glenn Druery, a taxpayer-funded advisor to a federal state senator, has run a private cash-for-votes scheme in which he pools micro-parties into a bloc wherein they preference each other, allowing them to move past the larger vote counts of the two major parties, Labor and Liberals. Some very small, single-issue parties have succeeded in gaining a seat in Parliament through his techniques. Druery, who lives on a yacht in Sydney harbor, has made quite a bundle as the self-styled “preference whisperer,” even providing a different kind of assistance to Fiona in her successful 2014 election to Parliament. But in 2018, faced with his demand for a AU$5000 upfront payment to join his “family” of small parties to be followed by a AU$50,000 payment for each candidate elected through his operation, Fiona decided Druery was pushing the envelope on legitimate electoral practices and reported him and his monetary scheme to the Victorian Electoral Commission. Although the VEC concluded that the issue did not fall under their purview, they did consider the issue serious enough to forward it on to the Victoria Police for further investigation. It has now been referred to the Crime Command for further assessment and a possible criminal charge. Needless to say, this action by Fiona made her no friends in Druery’s realm and threatened her success in the upcoming election.
By the end of that first day, I was beginning to feel jet lag coming on so we headed home, me thinking to catch a nap. But instead I was brought back to life by the appearance of Dermot Ryan, a long-time friend of Fiona’s from her days on the board of an AIDS organization when he was an outreach worker. Dermot said he was impressed when Fiona challenged the board on the issue of whether drug users should be eligible for AIDS services. As Dermot put it, “I saw she could get things done.” Helped along by a couple of bottles of wine, the evening’s conversation weaved over and around Aussie and U.S. politics, international travel, LGBT issues and more.
I was quickly caught up in Fiona’s busy schedule with a lunch meeting with Jorian and Catherine Cumming, a candidate in the Western Metro area of Melbourne, a rather sparky lady with colorful language and hand-rolled cigarettes. She had aligned herself with the Druery camp and appeared to be winning her seat with the count showing her well ahead of the competition. But her allegiance to Druery sounded tenuous. There was much talk of political scheming, the ease of changing parties and rumors of preferences flying about, all well lubricated by several bottles of wine, which continued flowing back at Fiona’s apartment. (Have I mentioned the Aussies enjoy their wine?)
Wine or no wine, Fiona keeps a furious pace so the next day we were off early to Parliament House where she had an interview scheduled with Maggie Scott who is editing a book on the #MeToo movement. After the conversation, Fiona gave us a tour of the grand historical building, which dates from 1855 and features authentic gold leaf on the crown moldings, statues of lions, shields and unicorns, a larger-than-life statue of Queen Victoria and decorated angels overhead. The place virtually reeks of queens and kings and colonial days with its plush velvet and red leather seats.
But emotions were rising because as of that day some 77% of the vote had been counted and Fiona was moving ahead with 3.43% in her column. That small percentage might not be enough unless one of the minor parties was to throw a preference her way, somewhat unlikely. But for now, she was in fourth place with five positions to be filled.
Victoria is divided into eight regions, each allowed five upper house members, for a total of 40 representatives in the Legislative Council, which is equivalent to a U.S. state Senate. Voting is proportional, based on a population of about 500,000 in each region. The regions are then further divided into smaller districts from which lower house members are selected. The party winning the most seats in the lower house, known as the Legislative Assembly, chooses the premier, a position similar to a state governor in the U.S. If one party fails to get a sufficient number, they then attempt to draw minor party members, known as cross-benchers, into a governing coalition. That feature of a parliamentary system is attractive in that it does allow small parties to actually have a voice and a bit of power, a position Fiona held in the Council in her first term.
Our schedule continued its hectic pace with meetings, lunches and cocktail parties, often ending with a lively group back at Fiona’s apartment. One particularly festive evening included Rachel Payne, once Fiona’s assistant and now the General Manager of Eros Association. A tall shapely brunette and a former dancer, Rachel has stepped into Fiona’s old shoes running the national trade association.
By now I’d been there almost a week and the tide seemed to be turning in Fiona’s favor. I had begun to refer to myself as the lucky charm since her fortunes had begun to change after my arrival. But she was still on pins and needles awaiting the final outcome. Hoping for a bit of relaxation time, we flew to Canberra where Robbie met us and drove us out to their “farm,” a rustic estate in the gorgeous Brindabella Valley. It was a short overnighter but the peaceful surroundings – and a river swim for Fiona - did serve to calm our nerves as we tensely waited for Tuesday’s final tally.
When the day finally came, it was nail-biting time. After lunch with her on-the-ground campaign manager, we headed to the showgrounds where the VEC holds the vote tabulation. Inside some 40 people were seated, all eyes on a screen where the results were being projected. At the front of the room a man stood at a podium announcing each region while a woman seated at a computer pressed the infamous “button,” which would determine how preferences fell. If a first-ranked candidate didn’t win, the computer would add that vote to the next choice and so on down the line until a winner was decided.
The drama of this scene is hard to describe. The room was very quiet. As each region was called out, long lists of candidates were projected on the screen. When the computer operator hit “Calculate,” the name of each candidate flew off to either the right or left side of the main list – successful candidates to the right, unsuccessful to the left. When Northern Metropolitan region came up, we Fiona supporters held our breath as the first four names slid to the right. Finally, with only a few names remaining, “Fiona Patten” glided to the right-hand column. She had won! The room erupted in applause, laughter and tears of joy, with cameras rolling and cell phones flashing. It was an amazing moment.
When all the results had been posted, the press flocked to interview Fiona, the unexpected heroine of the day. Champagne flowed and continued to flow as we adjourned to Fiona’s favorite local pub and the celebration went on to the wee hours with toast after toast to the victory.
According to her excellent 2018 memoir, “Sex, Drugs and the Electoral Roll: My Amazing Journey from Sex Worker to Member of Parliament,” Fiona does not plan to run for a third term. But she does have plans for the next four years. One issue that she has long pursued is to end tax breaks to for-profit businesses run by churches. As she says, they use the streets, they benefit from fire and police departments, they are making money so why should they not pay their share of taxes? She also hopes to put forward legislation to provide free Wi-Fi on all public transit, to push for investment in early intervention and support for mental health issues, to treat drug use as a health issue, not a criminal one and to legalize cannabis. These may be grand plans for a cross-bench Member of Parliament, but considering her history of bold and far-sighted ideas and her dogged determination, no one should be surprised if she succeeds.
-------0--------
