“But, just, why?” I asked, completely stunned.

“He looks cool,” she replied.
But he’s so much more than that, I wanted to scream, and he’s not yours to use.

But I didn’t. Because even though it was completely frivolous and a blatant disregard of my culture, heritage, and to a certain extent, my life… at least she knew who Lord Ganesha was.
In a Western country like New Zealand, where minorities sometimes feel ignored and invisible, to be thrown a crumb in the form of acknowledgement of any kind feels like validation. But at the same time, it also feels like a kick in the gut — you can tattoo my god on your skin, and you’ll appear cool and hip, but you’ll never appear as an outsider like I do. At the time, I didn’t want to throw a spanner in the works of our relationship, so I kept my anger silent, and watched my culture, my religion, used as stamp of hipsterness.
An argument could be made that this is simply the price minorities have to pay to live in this country. Be grateful for breadcrumbs and turn the other cheek, like Jesus, when our own faith is maligned. But surely we can all do better than that? If you want to partake in my culture I’m more than happy to be your chaperone, but to adopt it without acknowledging the historical struggle, or even the current struggle of everyday diasporic kids like me — that feels a little tone-deaf.

Growing up in between various cultures, there were things I learned to be proud of, and things I learned to hide. My mother’s cooking was something to be proud of, to share with all my white mates. But my name was shortened — from Preyanka, to Preya. Easier to digest, harder to butcher. I wore saris and paavadas with pride, but desperately tried to get rid of all my body hair and lighten the colour of my skin. There was a way to fit in, I knew, and my “Indian” side sometimes made me stand out in a way that was painful. At 10, kids laughed at my underarm hair. At 11, they laughed when I explained that Indians eat with their right hand because their left hand is reserved for washing our private areas — as if somehow that didn’t make logical sense. At 13, I was informed that I “would be quite pretty, if not for the dark skin”. At 14, I was asked if my parents owned a dairy (they don’t — they own a distribution franchise, a property business, and earn more than I could ever hope to in my lifetime). At 16, I was asked if my accent was real.
All this, I could handle and brush off, although it gave me a fair idea of my place in this country, and how I should navigate it. But let’s fast forward to 2016, where I was cussed out on the street for “taking the jobs of real New Zealanders”, despite the fact that that was exactly what I was. And 2017, when my white partner was called a race traitor for being with me. And 2018, where I was told that prospective employers could read my name on my CV and assume that I don’t speak English — any chance I could anglicise it? It was a terrible thing that people were still racist in this country, but maybe I could avoid it if I didn’t sound Indian?
But actually, that’s a whole other problem — I’m not Indian. If you sent me back to India, I would be viewed as a foreigner. My family moved from India to Malaysia three generations ago with the British (isn’t it always the British?) to work on rubber plantations. My parents then left Malaysia, and met in England, where I was born. When I open my mouth, I’m a strange mixture of British and Kiwi, and a whole other amalgamation of the bits and pieces that make up my parents. When you tell me to go back to where I came from, where exactly do you expect me to go?
I’m very grateful for the understanding and enthusiasm people have shown me and my culture my entire life. The friends who came over to my house and ate my mother’s curry with their hands, and then consequently downed two litres of milk to try and soothe the fire in their mouths. The girlfriends who spent half our sleepovers in a “curry puff production line”, stealing bits of raw dough and filling to eat in between batches. The teacher who asked my family to organise a class trip to the temple, so my class could learn more about our religion respectfully. In this environment, it felt like the two parts of me could come together and be whole — no excuses for weird practices, no feeling out of place; I could just be. Living in a space between two different cultures isn’t something I’d wish on anyone. Which is why, for the life of me, I don’t get Hindu religious groups that encompass Western worshippers. And this is where the conversation about appreciation vs appropriation gets muddy.

Hinduism is fantastic, for more reasons than I can state right here. But unlike other religions, it isn’t something you can convert to, it is something you are born into. As my father told me one day when I was threatening to “quit”, you can’t move in or out, you just are. So “conversion” is a very weird concept to begin with. However, there is one major group of Hindus across the world who aim to do just that: the Hare Krishna society.

ISKCON, or “International Society for Krishna Consciousness”, was founded in America by an Indian devotee in the 1960s. It belongs to a sect of Hinduism which believes that Lord Krishna is the one true god, and is unique in being somewhat monotheistic, while most of Hinduism is very much not. Although originally founded by just one man, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the movement quickly grew in popularity and spread all over the world — today, there is a small community that worships here in Wellington. They sell affordable food on campus, and the food certainly is very good, but I find their presence quite frustrating.
To see Westerners adopt aspects of the culture I am shamed for belonging to is hard sight to swallow. To experience the proselytizing of what feels like an offshoot of my own religion is even worse — it was all I could do to stop myself from yelling, “I already know! I know I know I know I know!”
But my main issue isn’t in the practice of the religion itself, but rather the way Hare Krishnas blur religious devotion with culture. Devotees are given new, Indian names to further their connection with their god, and dressed in cultural clothing. Sometimes, I see them dance down the streets of Wellington barefoot, playing traditional instruments and chanting religious mantras — but as someone who has grown up in the culture that they have adopted, this feels disingenuous and frustrating.
They can take the cultural garments off, but I can’t. They can use their anglican birth names when applying for jobs, but I can’t. They can eventually decide that the Indian life is not for them, but I can’t. They have adopted the diaspora I was born into, and I can’t help but wonder why.
Religion is a wonderful thing. Hinduism, in my very biased opinion, is one of the best religions to belong to. To separate it from its founding culture would be a difficult thing, but I do believe that there should be boundaries. Devotion to Lord Krishna is admirable, but is it really necessary to adopt a new name? To parade in the streets singing devotional songs, when even Hindus in Wellington don’t do that? I understand that devotees may have been introduced by an Indian into the more cultural aspects of the religion, but that in itself becomes another convoluted question — are there rules around what makes cultural borrowing okay?
I don’t pretend to be an authority, or have the ability to answer these questions, simply because of my cultural background. All I know is how I feel. I don’t conflate the Hare Krishna society with my clueless flatmate and others of her ilk, and I appreciate the respect that Hare Krishnas have for their religion, but I do want to ask about the boundaries between culture and religion, between respect and fad.
I know of Hare Krishna devotees who have left the “lifestyle” as they grew older, and ones who have remained faithful all their lives. I know of Hare Krishnas who have completely adopted Indian culture and proselytize the benefits, but have never been to India. I know of devotees who are quiet and grounded in their faith, but still remain part of the Western traditions they grew up with. I really appreciate the latter, simply because we’re not at a stage yet where stereotypes and prejudices are no longer harmful. We don’t live in a world where everyone is accepted yet, and it is painful to see the things I was censured for being adopted by people who don’t have to take on any of my burden. To me, that is the height of privilege — being able to take the best of both cultures, but not having to deal with any of the hardship.
That, to me, is cultural appropriation.

“Why?” I asked a coworker. He shrugged, and told me that they’d been trying to get a port-a-potty sorted for years, but the port-o-potty industry were dragging their feet about it.

“Ok, but, then, how do I… you know, go?”

“We have bushes outside.”

Damn.

I am the first to admit that I’m not a prude. I’m a card-carrying feminist who strongly believes that bodily functions should not get in the way of anyone’s work ethic or destiny. But the idea of popping a squat in some greenery beside a busy road made my urinary tract shrivel up in protest. Plus, I’d had too many bad experiences on school camps where I ended up with pee everywhere, to want to give squatting a try at work. Urine soaked leggings do not incite customer satisfaction. So my solution was to not drink anything, and hold all pee in until I was back in my own bathroom, safe at last.

It was a solid plan, at first. I got through my shift and ran like hell to get home, barely making it to the loo in time. But what I didn’t realise was that long hours with no water, combined with lifting heavy equipment, had resulted in severe dehydration. After working both Saturday and Sunday, I ended up in bed on Monday with a headache, and the hint of a UTI. I moaned to my boyfriend about it, who was sympathetic, but really couldn’t relate due to his incredibly handy penis.

That’s when I made the best decision of my life — I invested in a Shewee.

In 1999, an budding entrepreneur named Samantha Fountain was given an assignment for a university course — find a way make public toilets more hygienic. Her solution was to create a device that would allow women to pee standing up like men, and thus avoid the horrors of the public toilet seat. The first ever Shewee was built out of plywood, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Today’s version is best likened to a curved plastic funnel, that sits flush against your vagina and urethral opening. The back ends in a point, just sharp enough so you can feel it and know exactly where everything is, but not enough that it’s uncomfortable. They come in a range of colours, with the added upgrade of a tube and case. “Stand Up and Take Control” the website told me. I couldn’t find a stockist fast enough.

Buying a Shewee was a bit odd. The middle-aged man behind the counter looked uncomfortable when I slammed the bright pink device triumphantly down on the counter, and we avoided eye contact. But I was too excited to let anyone get in between me and freedom. I drove home like a madwoman, sprinted up the stairs, jumped into the bathroom, put the pointy bit between my legs, and gave my new Shewee a whiz.

It was very hard to get going. Not because the Shewee itself was at fault, but because decades of habit was telling me that I was supposed to be seated at this point. Peeing against all instinct was surprisingly more difficult than I thought it would be. Cursing my body for giving in to the Patriarchy, I reshuffled the tube a little, leaned back, and tried again. The pee flowed through the funnel, into the extension tube, before dripping neatly into the bath. Not a drop of it touched my skin. I almost started laughing — I couldn’t believe how well it worked. It was like my first orgasm. It was like the first time I tried waffles. I’d never been more ecstatic about my own urine. I had a plastic penis, and I never had to worry about public toilets ever again.

From that moment on, I embarked on a one-woman crusade, telling everyone about the magic of the Shewee. Friends, strangers, some lady who worked at the lingerie store who helped me buy a bra, my dog (who was very impressed), my partner (less impressed), coworkers, coworker’s spouses, my mum, my aunts, my 80-year-old grandma who didn’t understand what it was I was shouting about. I wanted every woman to feel as empowered as I felt, to take control of their destinies and their bladders and live life free from the fear of port-o-potties. What I didn’t expect was the pushback.

Ladies of all ages, of all sizes, from all walks of life, told me that they just weren’t comfortable with the idea of sticking a tube between their legs. While some got on my Shewee bandwagon, others laughed when I started describing its usefulness, or immediately protested their modesty. Surprised, I turned to Google. Results there were equally unpromising — while most people raved about the Shewee, review after review avoided using the words “pee”, “urethra”, and “vagina”. Instead, they featured a million synonyms that were presumably more ladylike. No one seemed keen to talk about exactly where the Shewee was supposed to go. Even the Shewee packaging featured minimal instructions, and no diagrams (which was terribly unhelpful, and not reassuring). Despite what seemed like an obvious fix to a real problem, people didn’t want to talk about urinating women.

The only solution I could find was to tackle this taboo head on. I decided to really test the limits of my Shewee, and share my results in the hope that convenience would outweigh uncomfortableness. I took my Shewee to work, tried to use it in a moving car on a road trip, and got drunk in town on a Friday to see just how handy it was to tinkle like a dude. I was hopeful that success would put the fire back into my revolution. So I peed where I’d never dared pee before.

AT WORK
The whole point of my whizzing adventures was to find a solution to dehydration. On my next shift, I filled my water bottle right up, and kept chugging away throughout the day. After the last customer had left, I excused myself to my coworker (who shot me a knowing look and giggled), took my Shewee out back, tried very hard to avoid the electric fence, and let fly. Against the majestic backdrop of hills, fields, sheep, and sunset, I proudly stood and took one small piss for woman, one giant whiz for womankind. It all went off without a hitch. I didn’t even have to take off my leggings. My humiliating days of grass tickling my butt while I squatted were over. The best bit was, it all took about thirty seconds, and I didn’t have to dig a hole like my old male P.E. teacher had said we did. As I put away my wonderous whiz device, I pondered whether or not he’d ever tried to wield a trowel while busting.

IN THE CAR
My boyfriend was not pleased when I told him he had to drive around while I peed, in the name of journalism. He begrudgingly agreed, I promised him he wouldn’t see a thing, grabbed an empty Pump bottle, and off we went. This was a test I was really hoping the Shewee would pass, although I was slightly doubtful it would. Time in a bus on a family trip to India had taught me the unfairness of biology: all the boy cousins had gone for gold on the side of the road, while all the girl cousins had to cross their legs for fear of snakes and perverts. Being able to pee in a moving vehicle would revolutionise the road trip as we all knew it, and I was determined to succeed.

To be completely honest, it was the toughest pee I’ve ever done. Scooching onto my knees, holding the bottle between my legs, and shielding everything from my boyfriend for the sake of our relationship, I tried my best to go as per usual. The speed bumps didn’t help. Every time we hit one, my head would hit the ceiling and the bottle would threaten to spill. We should have probably also avoided going past that preschool, where the kids were all in the playground for lunch and could see us whizzing by. But the worst bit was the absolute mental struggle to get my body to pee in my car. Every instinct was screaming at me to stop before I drenched the passenger seat. It took a full five minutes to manage a hesitant tinkle — but this flowed perfectly through, into the bottle. No mess, no fuss. I had to stop before I was done so my body and brain wouldn’t have a collective meltdown, but decided this whiz was a success nonetheless. If my courage had only flowed through to my urethra, peeing in a car would have been piss easy.

IN TOWN
In the interest of accuracy, I actually got a friend to take a video of me in town, which I intend to release after I win the Pulitzer, as a testament to my dedication to journalism. It was painful to watch myself pee. Drunk me couldn’t stop giggling as she pulled her dress up, her panties down, and inserted the Shewee into what she hoped was the right position. Both she and friend shrieked their amazement as the Shewee worked perfectly — no mess, no fuss, no sitting on the goddamned disgusting toilet seat.

“This is amazing!” drunk Preya laughed over and over, “I can’t believe this!”

“I need this in my life!” bathroom buddy exclaimed.

“And now, we just rinse!”

Later that night, we took a surprise trip to the Waikanae suburbs, and ended up going for a pee again. Drunk Preya stood and went with ease, while drunk friend squatted — and fell over.

“Are you alright?!” drunk Preya yelled.

“This is why I need one of those!” friend called back. She went out and got herself one the very next day. My first convert. And, hopefully, not my last.

Ladies, sisters, everyone with a vagina — buy this product. Seriously, please, believe in yourselves, let go of all fear and modesty and social conditioning, and just buy one. I am not joking when I say that my Shewee has changed my life. I went from avoiding water due to uncertainty around loos, to taking every opportunity to pee just so I can whip it out. I went from planning nights out around available public toilets, to accidentally peeing on someone’s front lawn in the middle of Waikanae (sorry). I laugh in the face of terrible gas station bathrooms, and pee round the back instead. I am so empowered that I have never spent so much time discussing my toilet habits with other women in my life as I do now. This device, this modest looking, funnel-adjacent, bright pink tube, can free you from the shackles of the public loo and release you into the wild — fearless and ready to write your name on nearby trees. Join the ranks of athletes, soldiers, and drunk women everywhere, and pee like you’ve never peed before. The Shewee is waiting. Comrades, join the revolution. Stand Up and Take Control.

But even though I was distracted, tangled up in yards of bright pink yarn, and accidentally stabbing myself with a tapestry needle every five minutes, it didn’t take long for me to notice that something, this time, was different.

Friends is a TV show that is often praised as standing the test of time. Unfortunately, however, as of 2018, Time’s Up. For the first time in my life, Joey and the gang made me sincerely uncomfortable with their sexism, racism, homophobia, fat-shaming, and oddly limiting notions of masculinity.

No, no, I get it. It’s a joke, right? Consistently hitting on the woman married to your best friend, even though she really isn’t interested, and keeps batting you away — it’s funny! Constant sexualisation of every woman that crosses your path, including your mates’ mothers and your closest female friends — hilarious! Hiring an unqualified younger man to be your assistant because you want to date him — brilliant punchline! Firing a male nanny because he’s too sensitive, and therefore not “masculine” — what a hoot! Never letting your friend forget that she used to be fat, as if she should be ashamed — you got me!

The problem is, I’m just not laughing anymore. Over the past year, we seem to have gone through a cultural shift that started with Hollywood and has now permeated most of society — we no longer accept discriminatory treatment as the norm, and this in turn has started shifting how we view popular media.

The biggest example of sexist-comedy-gone-wrong comes in the form of the 2005 hit tv series, How I Met Your Mother. I LOVED that show. I would watch it again, and again, and again — until one day, I couldn’t stand it anymore. The attitude of all five main characters towards women, placing sexual attractiveness as the essential quality to have above all else, was difficult to stomach for 9 straight seasons. Even the two female characters of the gang sometimes seemed desperate to prove their desirability, with Robin using a sundress to get Barney to concede her hotness, and Lily throwing a fit when Barney didn’t find her hot while pregnant. But it’s okay, because she’s going to be va-va-voom when she starts breastfeeding!

Barney Stinson was easily the breakaway star of the show — a notorious womaniser, with a decent heart and a vulnerable side, à la Joey. But unlike Joey, what Barney was doing in order to sleep with women was ethically questionable. Rape by deception, where one party lies, tricks, or cheats their way into sex, is a crime in many places in the world. Although there have been movements by the legal community to make it so, as of this moment, this is not a recognised crime in New York. Barney would have been legally safe from vengeful beauties suddenly realising that he is not, in fact, first man on the moon Neil Armstrong.* But he is definitely not morally sound.

Many people believe complaints similar to mine to be a product of the “Millennial PC Special Snowflake Brigade”, a band of crybaby wafflers, narcissistically demanding that the whole world turn into their trigger-warning filled safe space. But please, people, can someone explain to me why we’re endorsing criminal behaviour with laugh tracks and “the bang song”**?

To make matters even more complicated, there’s also the question of the people behind the media we consume. The universal condemnation of Harvey Weinstein opened what feels like floodgates, and the torrent of sexual assault accusations haven’t let up since. Matt Lauer, Aziz Ansari, Louis CK, Dustin Hoffman, Ed Westwick, even Christ Savino, creator of my favourite TV Show “Loud House” (I’m a nanny, don’t judge me!), have all been accused, with varying results. Some, like Westwick, who staunchly denies all allegations, have been replaced by other actors before their shows are released, or their characters have been written out, like in the case of Kevin Spacey. Others, like Gary Oldman, accused by his ex-wife of violently abusing her in front of their kids, have gone on to win awards at the Oscars, despite all recent ceremonies focusing on and celebrating the #MeToo movement.

This all highlights the current problems in our culture, even after the #MeToo shift. As a community, we have not yet learned to balance the difficulty of investigating such crimes, the importance of listening to victims, and the right of the accused to a fair trial before being condemned. But let’s set aside all these problems for a moment, and talk about one that affects us more directly as consumers: At what point does art cease to have links with its creator, and simply becomes art?

The biggest case study in this question is undoubtedly the much beloved Woody Allen, who allegedly molested his 7-year-old daughter Dylan Farrow, before leaving his wife for their adopted daughter Soon-Yi Previn. Details have been thrown backwards and forward by family, friends, and the media for years, with no conclusion. Many people believe that he committed the crime, many others equally believe he is innocent, and all treat him accordingly. If we as consumers believe that he sexually molested a 7-year-old under his care, do we then have a responsibility to stop consuming his work, and thus stop supporting him and everyone who defends him? Do we not watch every movie Weinstein has produced? Do we avoid all Louis CK’s comedy now? Will doing so detract from our own lives by depriving us of “great art”?

Google “Woody Allen”, and you’ll get a sense of exactly how convoluted this debate is. The top two news articles around his name are a review of his most recent movie, Wonder Wheel, and an article in which Michael Caine declares he’ll never work with the famed director again. Scroll down, and you’ll find his Wikipedia entry, listing all his awards and accolades. Scroll down further, and you’ll find a separate Wikipedia entry dedicated to his sexual assault allegation. Hollywood can neither condemn, nor vindicate this man, and it feels so easy to simply keep consuming and ignore these debates altogether.

That is, until you google the harrowing open letter written by his daughter, Dylan Farrow, detailing the molestation and her reactions to it. By supporting Woody Allen, she says, Hollywood has been actively silencing her. By supporting Allen, we have been re-traumatising her. By supporting Weinstein and CK and Lauer and chefs Mario Batali and John Besh and directors Brett Ratner and Morgan Spurlock and actors Kevin Spacey and James Franco and YA authors James Dashner and Jay Asher etc. fucking etc., we force victims to live in a world where their lives and wellbeing are worth less than “art”. And we tell the world that we endorse a culture in which having talent excuses you from being a decent fucking human being.

Look, there’s no easy answer to this question, really. If you impose a Weinstein ban in your life, you’ll be giving up the good work of Meryl Streep, Quentin Tarantino, Salma Hayek, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Lawrence, Gwyneth Paltrow, and John Travolta. That’s a travesty. It’s inevitable that bypassing certain works will exclude you from certain, much needed conversations. And maybe, it’s not your responsibility. Maybe it’s beyond time for Hollywood to put in place their own checks and balances, that result in the production of crime-free media. Maybe you’re just one person, who just won’t make a difference. Maybe you really don’t care. Well okay, that’s your call. And maybe you’re right.

But at the very least, don’t we owe it to society to know what we’re buying into, what we’re supporting with our eyes and with our dollars?

Personally, I haven’t watched a single Woody Allen movie in my life, and it hasn’t hurt me. And I don’t think I will, going into the future. I believe Dylan Farrow, and I can’t endorse a man who would molest a child. But if I ever really feel the need to watch Annie Hall, for my “cultural education” or whatever… look, I’m not endorsing piracy. But… piracy.

As for Friends and HIMYM — I will keep watching them. I made three large teddy bears while binging on Joey and the gang, and they stopped me from losing my sanity (though I never want to see another ball of wool as long as I live). I understood that it’s a sitcom from another time, and that allowed me to temporarily suspend my modern sensibilities and vaguely enjoy the cheap laughs. Judging old media by modern standards will never work. Taking it for what it’s meant to be — a lighthearted sitcom — is the way to go. Keeping dialogue up around what we expect, and what we no longer endorse, is essential to making better media in the future. And maybe, one day, I’ll be able to make fluorescent teddy bears without any homophobia in the background.  

*The general attitude on the show was that women who were too stupid to not see through Barney deserved to be duped into sex. I’d like to remind everyone that stupidity does not invalidate rape.

**Google it. If you haven’t heard it, listen to it. It’s been stuck in my head all week, so it might as well be stuck in yours too.