Up Front by Emma Hart

Once every couple of months or so, someone tries to marry me. It seems to be expected: I'm supposed to be married, so people will marry me. They do it quite casually: "Your husband", they'll say. "You and your husband", "Emma's husband".

It's hard to know what to do. I have a partner, after all; the same one I've had for the last seventeen years. We have a mortgage, kids, mutual friends: all the things married couples are supposed to have. And nobody who refers to him as my husband is ever really trying to offend me. They just forget – some of them several times.

But we didn't not get married by accident. I deliberately chose not to have a husband, and it's rather disconcerting to keep having one foisted on me. Part of the reason it makes me uncomfortable is that I did once have a husband, and that's an entirely different person. We got married for Student Loans purposes, which is apparently a perfectly legal and legitimate motivation for marriage as long as you conform to the only important rule for a good marriage: it must contain exactly one penis - no more and no less.

My having been married before was one of the reasons my partner and I decided to get a civil union instead. I'd done the white dress. I'd done the giant family affair. I'd done being found by my mother at the reception, white dress rucked up to my thighs, completely off my face and smoking a cigar. Nobody wanted to go through all that again. So we snuck down to the registrar's office one day while the kids were at school and got civilly unified.

There was a far more important reason to get not-married, though. My current partner happens to be male, and so we had every right to a wedding. If he was the same person but female it would be different. I could feel the same way about her – need her, love her, make love to her - but I would be legally forbidden to marry her. It seems utterly ridiculous that the contents of trousers matter more than the contents of hearts. As long as my right to marry is dependent on the gender of my partner, I will not do it. I might marry in a country that has the balls to do away with its discriminatory laws. I certainly will not marry in a country that doesn't. Well, not twice, anyway.

All of which makes it slightly awkward to correct people when they verbally marry me. It's important to me that I don't have a husband, but it feels rude and petty to correct people. (I had no problem being triumphantly rude to the co-worker who repeatedly referred to my partner as my "hubby". Though mostly I was just rude to her because she was an annoying cow.)

While we're here, a note to companies that do telephone surveys. It's been five years. Put a box labelled "civil union" in your Marital Status section. Otherwise I'm just going to keep yelling at your staff. I don't think it's too much to ask. It's not like I'm expecting to be able to go into a bookshop and buy a Congratulations on Your Civil Union card, or be legally allowed to adopt a child. That would be ridiculous.

The language of relationships is something we discuss with friends over a few drinks when we're feeling particularly pretentious. How to refer to your Significant Other now so many people aren't marrying? Some people have problems with "partner" because it sounds too cold and business-like. Once you're over about twenty-five "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" start to sound absurd and more than slightly pervy. Personally, I like to use the word "lover". It makes people so gloriously uncomfortable. Say "and this is my lover," and people have to visualise you having sex. It's a reflex, like women laughing when a man gets kicked in the balls.

My partner does correct people, mostly at work, when they refer to me as his wife. He admitted to being slightly concerned that his insistence on the term "partner" makes people who've never met me think he's gay. Did that ever worry me, he wondered. And after some consideration, I had to say, "Dude, given all the things I've said about you on the internet, people thinking you're a woman is the least of your worries. Trust me."

Two weeks on now, and the fact I don't have to tell you 'on from what' is pretty telling. Still, this appears to be about when our brains start working again. There's still only one topic of conversation in town. The up side of this is that I took two taxi trips on Saturday and was subjected to nobody's political views on anything. 2 a.m. driver told a quite freaky story of being out driving when one of the big aftershocks hit, and seeing the road actually undulate in front of him. Though he didn't use the word "undulate" and followed this up with his Theory of Ghosts.

Time, now, to start contemplating the lessons we've learned from this whole earthquake thing. For those of you who've never run across me before, I mean this in a 'gained knowledge' sense, not a 'moral punishment' one.

Luck. A lot of things are not as random as they seem – like the pattern of destruction. The timing, though, is certainly one of the reasons people didn't die. Also, we've had pretty good weather since, which has helped with both morale and the controlled removal of chimneys. Then a massive storm hit the country, and the only area it missed was the one hit by the earthquake. It would almost be enough to make you believe in a divine power, were it not for...

Churches. So it turns out that when it comes to surviving Acts of God, the steeple is not the ideal architectural approach. It's kind of like having a really big chimney on top of your tall, narrow house. Only pointed. The one thing we still haven't put back up in our house is the big candle-stick with the pointed spike on the end. I was of the opinion that the disproportionate destruction visited on Christchurch churches was an indication of the lack of an involved deity, but my partner has a much more devious theory. He thinks perhaps God is just sick of old churches. He wants some shiny new ones, people. Something that looks more like the Art Gallery. He's been as clear as He can. Snap to it.

Water. Turns out that stored water goes manky after a while and becomes undrinkable. Alcohol is a natural preservative. Sayin'.

Too Much Information. Heh, so it turns out that even if people ask if anyone's been having sex when an aftershock's hit, they don't actually want to know the answer. Or have it likened to that time when you were a teenager having it off in the back of a ute and it went over a cattle stop.

Mayors. Not to imply anything unsavoury, but I'd really like to be around when whoever Bob Parker sold his soul to pops in to collect. Now, not only does he get to stay mayor of Christchurch, but also, if he wants, he could be Super-Mayor of Auckland. Speaking solely for myself, it's a sacrifice I'm prepared to make. In fact, it seems oddly like a win for everyone.

Think about it, Bob. What do you like? Property developers and television cameras. You were made for Auckland. And let's face it, this is pretty much the end of television cameras in Christchurch for the foreseeable. Become Super-Mayor and they'll be with you forever. We'll forgive you moving on, just like the people of Banks Peninsula did when you were finished being their mayor. Or if you really feel you have to stay, you could just give other mayors tips on how to spend an entire week with your sleeves rolled up without ever once picking up a shovel.

On the other hand, there's this rumour that you're going to stand for national office. I'm behind that as well. You'll need a safe National seat to sink your rump into, of course. A safe National seat in Christchurch, where would we find one of those... Dictators for Life don't need electorate seats, right Gerry?

The Internet. When Bill Ralston opined in the last Listener that the earthquake was a sterling lesson in just what a luxury technology is, I knew he hadn't been here. Yes, there were people who didn't have power and water and sewerage. Showers and flushing toilets are under-appreciated. But they walk in the door, charge their phones, and open their laptops. Communication is not a luxury, it's a necessity and like it or not, Bill, this is how we do it now. It's sort of like a telephone, right, but I can talk to a whole bunch of people at once. Information and emotional support are still important when... You know what? Never mind. Get back to me when that power cable into the Auckland CBD goes again. I might know about it before you do.

I wasn't actually asleep when it hit. I was probably fretting over some stuff I can't remember now and which certainly doesn't matter any more.

I've been in a few minor earthquakes before. They're quite fun. It was a couple of very long seconds before I realised this wasn't one, and perhaps I should get out of bed and head for the door. But that meant going past my very large tallboy, so perhaps not. My main thought (which is an overly-generous description of the lizard-brain process going on) was that I probably couldn't stay on my feet to walk that far.

Once the shaking stopped, that's when we gathered in our doorways. Which was just as well, because there was more still to come. A bit after five, it seems safe to start walking around again and survey the damage.

We lost the hyacinth forcing vase my mother had given my daughter. A bottle of middle-class olive oil had fallen off a shelf in the pantry, and not broken. The glass fruit bowl fell off the fridge and landed on a pile of middle-class cloth supermarket bags. We had one cat yowling desperately to get out, and the other running to get in. I keep finding that cat sitting under furniture.

I headed to Twitter, checked in, watched a few other friends check in and fretted over the people we hadn't heard from. Eventually, though, it was cold, so we went back to bed. Not so much sleeping as fitfully dozing between aftershocks.

When I got up again, it was to a mixture of news. Earthquake much bigger than we'd thought. Damage much worse. Everyone safe. Twitter full of supportive messages. For those who've felt they "can't do anything to help", every tweet and email and phone call has meant the world to us. We were so lucky to still be connected to the outside world. This tweet:

Surely: "She's alive so she must be swearing"? ;-)

damn near unwomaned me.

Later we dropped our son at his scheduled LAN party. I know that seems stupid, but the urge to be around people, to talk to friends, was so strong. Then we headed over to see if we could track down David Haywood and his family.

By then we'd heard how bad it was in Avonside, and seen some photos. It still wasn't real until we saw it. The buckled roads and footpaths, fallen trees, downed power lines, that all made sense. What we couldn't work out was why there were piles of grey sludgy sand everywhere. River silt?

During the ten-minute walk from where we could get the car to their house, I became more and more panicky. Whole streets were covered in this weird sand, inches deep, and not the ones closest to the river. Our car is still littered with sand from my boots, and it upsets me every time I see it.

They were okay. I'll leave that story for him to tell. What we noticed driving around town was how slow and careful and kind everyone was. By about Monday, that feeling was gone. Traffic was worse than I've ever seen in Christchurch before, and with lack of sleep and basic amenities, tempers were starting to fray.

Anyway, for the weekend we became a gathering point for people and gin. Keeping children amused in time of crisis is hugely soothing – for a while, anyway. We needed to feel we were helping.

By Monday, though, the prevailing thought everywhere was: when does it stop? Today, Wednesday, it's still going. This morning Karl said to me, "I don't like your alarm clock. And stop hitting snooze." While I'd been lying in bed swearing, he'd been sitting in the lounge carefully holding his coffee away from his laptop. We brace every time a truck goes past or a helicopter flies over.

We don't know when it's over. It's not that every time we relax there's another significant aftershock, it's that we're not relaxing. This is the thing that we weren't expecting, that we weren't mentally prepared for. Five days, and it hasn't stopped. I wouldn't send the kids to school even if the schools had reopened. I need to be able to see them, to know where they are and be able to get to them straight away.

On the up side is Twitter. Seriously. It's not "trivial", it's front-line communication. There's information on the civil defence, council, regional council, newspaper and Ministry of Education websites, but it's scattered and when it's not updated quickly it becomes contradictory. Same goes for the rolling news cycle. The fastest and most reliable transmission of the information we desperately needed – whether we could use our toilets, when the schools would be closed, where supermarkets were open – came through tweeting and retweeting. Obviously a lot of the people who needed it most didn't have power, and what we need to know is different from what's "news", but still, Twitter won this one hands down. Also, it allowed us to support, amuse and comfort each other. People from out of town offered spare bedrooms to complete strangers. We felt cared about.

But we're not thinking straight. I cannot describe my admiration for the people who are working through this, making decisions and providing essential help on little sleep and this constant anxiety. In town yesterday, the no-go zone was cordoned off by soldiers who were, without exception, relaxed and good-humoured. Our own household's intellectual capacity stretches to tweeting and playing Starcraft. Even then we have to keep stopping until the monitors stop shaking.

Which is why it's taken me this long to write anything at all. Asked to do a little job of work yesterday I had a small nuclear meltdown. A burning need to do something to help is teamed with a total mental incapacity to work out what that would be.

Anyway. Here's the word from Christchurch: five days of this shit. Cut us some fucking slack already, plate tectonics. But also, thank you. Thank you all so very much for caring.

It was the new Sherlock that first made me think about it. It was pretty clear that a modernised Holmes wasn't going to be using cocaine, and okay the nicotine patches replaced the pipe quite nicely, but what about the total lack of Peruvian Speed Bump? It became another typical Kitchen Conversation in our house: what happened to Holmes's cocaine use, and what should have?

It needed a modern equivalent, which would not have been cocaine. When the Sherlock Holmes stories were written, cocaine was legal. Frowned Upon, but not totally unacceptable. Watson expresses some concern about Holmes's cocaine use on health grounds, and because he believes his friend has an addiction, but he's not about to be carted off by the rozzers or sent to rehab. It seemed to me that what they should have replaced the cocaine use with, to get the same level of social disapproval and health concern, was tobacco.

It's becoming a scary world for the little cigarette these days. The US Center for Disease Control has made recommendations to deal with representation of smoking in movies, which include an R rating for any film depicting smoking tobacco – the same as for smoking marijuana.

Here, researchers at the Otago School of Medicine are calling for smoking videos to be removed from YouTube, and also to implement WHO's framework convention for controlling tobacco advertising on the internet. That last is an interesting document. My favourite bit is this:

Access providers are entities that provide end-user access to communications services, such as Internet service providers and mobile telephone companies. Access providers should have an obligation to disable access to tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship once they have been made aware of the content.

ISPs should prevent access to "tobacco promotion". Using, one would assume, some kind of filter. Don't worry, I'm not going to draw a parallel between child pornography and smoking. Treating those things as in any way equivalent would be insane.

Maybe they have a point, though. Smoking is bad for you, and young people who see a lot of smoking are more likely to start, especially if it's depicted in an exciting glamorous way. That's what the evidence suggests, even though I once watched all three Die Hard movies (yes, I said three) and didn't blow anything up. If there's a clear benefit to preventing people from seeing smoking, shouldn't we do it?

There's a continuum of unease here, I think, and at the "wait, that's just not right" end is photoshopping smoking out of history. Will people start smoking if they see Churchill or The Beetles smoking? If so, do we alter those images to stop it?

And is it much less of a lie to remove smoking from modern depictions of historical people and events? French law meant Coco Avant Chanel couldn't be advertised using images of the actress holding a cigarette. Imagine Mad Men with no smoking. (Mad Men never makes me feel like having a cigarette. Or a drink. It does make me want to buy clothes.)

The suggested American R rating, which the MPAA has refused to adopt, at one point had an exclusion for historical accuracy. Solves that problem. But then what about non-historical accuracy? What about an Outrageous Fortune in which nobody smoked? Wouldn't that be just as much of a lie?

Our attitudes to smoking, even amongst smokers, have changed hugely over the last couple of decades. In my lifetime so far I've gone from trotting up to the shops to buy

packs of Winfield Red for my mother, to finding the idea of smoking inside utterly unfathomable. I've been at evenings in a private house where everyone present smoked, and all got up and went outside to have a cigarette. (For the record, I'm a smoker who doesn't smoke, most of the time. I smoke socially, and when I'm enormously stressed, at which times if you want to deal with my smoking rather than my stress you can fuck right off.)

And maybe we're heading for a future where nobody smokes, except a few weirdos who grow their own tobacco. When it comes to censoring tobacco use on the way, to me the question is this: what's the job of art? Is it to present an aspirational and respirational ideal, or to accurately reflect the world we live in?

Watching This is Not My Life, two things have made quite the impression on me. Firstly, we really need to do something about painting our bedroom. Before, that shade of blue was just leaving me cold. Now it's the same shade as Wellness, and it's giving me the creeps. Secondly, the presence of male performers and female customers in the strip club made me whoop with delight. After all, if Waimoana is a deeply dodgy place set up for the fantasy delights of a rich few (speculation, of course) it surely stands to reason that a few of the women had more adventurous desires than Callie's.

Now, that doesn't mean that I'm saying male prostitution, or sexual services for women, are necessarily a good thing. What I appreciate is breaking down the tired conventional restrictive stereotypes about female desire. We don't really want sex, you see. We want wine and cuddles and slippers by an open fire. We want someone to listen to and support us. And if we have to give sex to men to get that, we're prepared to make the trade. So it's refreshing to see women portrayed as having blood that is red and gets hot, just like men.

According to Eleanor Black on Pundit, however, I am completely wrong about that. The mere idea of sexual services for women isn't just disgusting and degrading, it's completely unnecessary. You see:

I think most women's dream date is more about romantic gestures and extravagant surprises. An emotional connection with someone, not a business transaction. I think some of the would-be clients might feel demeaned when it came time to hand over their credit cards.

See, going to a brothel would be a "dream date". Just like it is for men. And our dream date is walks on the beach and hot air balloons and rings concealed in elaborate desserts. That's what we want. Not sex. That would be crass.

Now I'm not saying a bit of romance isn't appreciated by most women. The nausea induced by just writing that last paragraph just makes me atypical. Not "most women". Not a real woman. But the key to our sexuality?

Research into female desire suggests this is, indeed, bullshit. As difficult as it might be to hear (and apologies for the occasional bursts of evolutionary psychology in that article), Marta Meana, a professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, is pretty clear:

The problem was how to augment desire, and despite prevailing wisdom, the answer, she told me, had “little to do with building better relationships,” with fostering communication between patients and their partners. She rolled her eyes at such niceties…

“Female desire,” Meana said... “is not governed by the relational factors that, we like to think, rule women’s sexuality as opposed to men’s.”

For evolutionary and cultural reasons, she said, women might set a high value on the closeness and longevity of relationships: “But it’s wrong to think that because relationships are what women choose they’re the primary source of women’s desire.”

Of course, if it turns out that no women want to visit a brothel for women, Pammy's will go out of business, and we'll know. Because this has never been done before, right? Men wouldn't want to work there, and women wouldn't want to use them.

And it's true that Heidi Fleiss gave it a go in 2005 and couldn't make it work. But there is a mixed-gender brothel operating in Nevada. Bobbi Davis seemingly had no trouble attracting male sex workers, and is still hiring, which suggests there's custom for them. Ms. Naughty has an excerpt from an interview with one of the sex workers, as well as comments about an interview she did with an Australian straight male prostitute, several years ago.

So it's not exactly as new and disturbing an idea as Black makes it out to be. Though to be fair she also finds the idea of spa pools in brothels new and disturbing, so this may not be an area of expertise. Unlike female sexuality and alcoholism. (Here's a tip for new players: if you feel you have to use the phrase "I'm not judging", maybe you're judging.)

And as another note, sex workers do not sell their souls. (Frankly if souls were actually a saleable commodity they'd have to get in the cue behind me to get cash money for something I have never used.) To quote my favourite sex worker:

am I the only one who finds it mildly ironic that so many people seem to equate genitalia to the physical and spiritual representation for the sole source and whole worth of a human?

Sorry. We were talking about them, not to them, right?

Having read the Listener article, I will answer the possibly-obvious question. Yes, Pammy's sounds like somewhere I might like to visit, if I were single, with a bunch of female friends. (The appeal of mixed-gender/sexuality brothels would be being able to go with ALL my friends.) Have a few drinks, play, satisfy some fairly prurient curiosity. Possibly more. Which apparently would make me "base and revolting". Whatever. Those judgypants sure do seem like a comfy fit.