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Content Warning: Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault When I moved to Pōneke on Valentine’s Day last year, everyone warned me about how bad the dating scene was going to be. My guard was up. I expected players, mummy’s boys, mansplainers, maybe even chlamydia. What I discovered, however, was far more sinister: men with allegations. Allegations of sexual harassment and assault. Wherever I turned, my friends informed me, there would be men with allegations. The frontman of that local band? Allegations. The regular at my gym? Allegations. The guy in the corner at the party? Allegations. The Greens doorknocker was safe, surely? Nope. He, too, had allegations.  It all came to a head when in May, I went on a date with a guy I’d met on Hinge. He seemed kind and respectful, had the right politics, and laughed at all my jokes. We liked the same bands, hiking, dogs, and beer—all that surface level stuff you discuss on the first date. We had chemistry. I’d hit the jackpot! Or so I thought. The night before our second date, my friends ran into him at a bar while I was at work. They had a brief chat in the smokers’ area—no red flags. But when he left, they were approached by a mutual acquaintance, who warned them that he had sexually harassed multiple women while in halls. When they phoned me, I was shocked and appalled that I’d been none the wiser. I’d been fooled by his indie-sleaze, feminist-presenting, Pinterest-styled online persona. Needless to say, there was no second date. As a self-proclaimed Tinder warrior since 17 (bad, I know), I’ve had my fair share of awry first dates. But for the first time, I realised what is obvious to many: when you go on a date with someone from a dating app, you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.  Unfortunately, my story doesn’t stand alone. Many people experience far worse. A Vic student responded anonymously to Salient's  call out, detailing a man they met online and dated for two months. The student found out through “background research and people on Insta” that this man “had been harassing other girls before, possibly during, and after we dated.” The student was also sexually harassed during the relationship.  Another anonymous respondent recalled briefly dating a man before having to get a protection order against him because of harassment and abuse. “He turned out to also have a prior conviction for sexual activity with a younger person.” A survey of 51 Salient  readers revealed that 25.5% had been on a date from an online dating site or app and later found out that their date had allegations of sexual harassment or assault. Additionally, 39.6% had entered into communications with someone from an online dating app or site only to later discover that the person had allegations of sexual harassment or assault.  If you think that you’re safe because you only use dating apps as a mobile game of smash-or-pass, or an ego booster on a Saturday night, you are sadly mistaken. You don’t even need to be going out on dates to be in danger, as a female Te Herenga Waka student told Salient : “I used to work at [redacted] gyms… I only had Tinder for a few months and quickly realised it was a stupid idea. A few guys that I knew I had already swiped ‘no’ on would come chat to me while I was working on shift. I was just being friendly as I was literally working my customer facing job… but I had to reject these men while I was at work. It got bad enough that I noticed one specific guy started following me home whenever I finished the closing shifts at 9pm.”  The student says she never reported it to the police because she felt guilty: “If I ruined their life or something. And I wasn’t sure if we just lived in the same area”.  And that’s just the thing—while records of sexual harassment reports aren’t readily available, Manatū Wāhine (Ministry for Women) estimates that 89.9% of sexual assaults from 2019-2024 went unreported to police.  Furthermore, only 4.2% of sexual assault reports result in charges being laid, and only 1.2% result in convictions. In Aotearoa’s current justice system, reporting sexual harassment and assault is arduous and traumatic, often involves social stigma, and hardly ever rules in favour of the victim.  Instead, people rely on word of mouth as a safety net—and increasingly, digital communities. One such platform is Instagram account ‘welly_warning’, which collects anonymous reports of alleged sexual harassment and assault, posting photos, names, and even workplaces of alleged offenders. Sure, it’s not a perfect system, but desperation doesn’t allow for perfection.  The truth is that online dating sites and apps don’t screen for sexual harassment or assault charges—and even less so allegations. When you’re introduced to someone through a mutual friend, coworker, or family member, you have the assurance of a trusted recommendation—a moral reference.  But when you meet someone online, they can portray themselves as anything they want, with no history attached. They can lie about their height, their job, their hairline—sure. But they can also lie about criminal convictions, charges, and allegations, taking advantage of a clean slate of six to eight curated photos and a witty one-liner. You might think that you can spot them from a mile away, but you can’t. Just because they read Virginia Woolf, just because they listen to Faye Webster, just because they’re dressed head-to-toe in recycled Carhartt, paint their nails, and are vegetarian for the environment, doesn’t make them safe. Self-declared feminists, hippies, finance-bros, musos, skaters, geeks, DJ’s, climbers, law students, artists, gym-bros—men with allegations can be found in every facet, aesthetic, and stereotype.  So what can you do? If you’re not ready to press delete on Hinge, Grindr, Tinder, Bumble or Feeld, New Zealand organisation Netsafe recommends being cautious about sharing personal images and sensitive or intimate information if you don’t know someone well. This includes your place of work, what hall you’re in, what time you take the bus every day, who your lecturer is, and where your favourite coffee spot is.  Additionally, I would recommend actively asking around before you go on an in-person date. Send their profile to your girls’ group chat. Ask your coworkers. Show your flatmates, classmates, and teammates. If you have mutuals on Instagram (you will, because it’s Wellington) who you know well enough, ask them what your date is like. If anyone raises red flags, take them seriously.  It's sad that we have to take such extensive precautions, but community really is what will keep us safe. Wellington is a small city, and the advantage of that is that everyone knows everyone. If someone has allegations of sexual harassment or assault, sooner or later people will find out, and the information will follow that person—I believe deservedly so.  Online dating can be exciting. But remember: you have no idea who the person on the other side of that screen truly is.

A conversation on the diversity of sexual experience.  Saskia Barker Sex—both the thought of it and the act—is a totally unique concept. As a friend of mine put it, it is “simultaneously entirely universal yet extremely personal.” In spite of this, often when sex is the subject of a group conversation, there’s one person who seems less inclined to contribute. The fact is, though, that the way each of us considers and goes about sex is individually variable, so it’s only fair that the way we discuss it should reflect that. In short, we all have something to contribute to this conversation.  We are very lucky at Te Herenga Waka that the ways in which we define the bounds of pleasure and measure sexual success are expanding. As the experiences of women and non-men make their way into the campus conversation about sex, the focus has tended towards those with high libidos and a less ‘chalant’ or sentimental view of sex. This is not inherently bad, but it has caused us to shy away from traditionally ‘feminine’ traits—tenderness, sensitivity, emotional weight—and prevents the conversation from truly moving past the phallocentric confines that have historically defined how society thinks about sex.  Because of this, it can be difficult for women with a lower libido, or a more sentimental view of sex, to express these things without feeling isolated or naïve—“like you’re missing out” as I’ve heard it described. For me, it feels like a strange kind of FOMO which prevails despite a lack of desire for the thing which you are ‘missing out’ on. This approach is far more common than people think, but it doesn’t often get brought into conversation.  One student told me that when the conversation is dominated by just one perspective, it can feel like “your identity and body are misplaced in comparison to other people. Like ‘ what’s wrong with me if I don’t see sex that way? ’”  Another reflected: “I’ve found that because my libido is sub fucking zero I can feel a bit disconnected from what feels like is an essential driver for many women; sex as a form of freedom and liberty … I think a lot of my mindset on this is because of societal pressures and structures. To be a woman is somehow boiled down to being wanted and desired.” She’s absolutely right. Etched into our brains since birth is a desire to be desired. As women, our self-worth is often supported—to varying degrees—by how much we are needed or wanted. Regardless of your actual experience of or feelings towards sex, it can still feel like a receipt: proof that you are desired. For many queer people, it can even act as validation of sexual orientation—a core part of the identity you might have spent so long trying to figure out. As one queer student I talked to put it, it can be confusing and invalidating “to have navigated and pinpointed who you want to be desired by but not really getting any real ‘proof’ of that.”  But the desire to be desired or validated doesn’t necessarily equate to an appetite for actual fucking—and isn’t always fulfilled by sex either. Giving up that much of your body to somebody else can be quite emptying.  One student told me that sex can be “empowering in the way that it deepens your connection with someone,” but that she’s “often left these experiences feeling a bit hollow.” Even if you are secure within yourself, it’s hard not to feel a bit incel-y if you can’t produce this ‘receipt’ because you aren’t as buzzed by sex as a lot of other women seem to be.  Also   etched into our brains is an expectation to ooze tenderness and sentimentality. I can understand our inclination, as women, to lean away from these traditionally feminine traits by adopting a less ‘chalant’ view of sex. Our separation from sensitivity is not just isolated to attitudes towards sex. A sensitive man is performative, and a sensitive woman is naïve.  This becomes obvious when we look at the much-scorned notion of the performative male. We’ve come to assume that a man who likes things traditionally rooted in femininity—feminist literature, sentimentality, Clairo—is doing it just for show, and we don’t like that. As one student observed,  “femininity in general is seen as this abject, or like gushy thing, and that idea … can leak into attitudes around sex even for women … [so] we don’t want to lean into femininity and gentleness in sex.” For me, this manifests into a compulsion to quiet my emotional investment to a palatable level. It conjures the uncomfortable feeling of being fourteen years old, taking the Rice Purity Test and liberally interpreting every item just to prove—via my low score—that I was tough and nonchalant enough to have ‘done stuff’.  Even if you do have a lower libido, or feel vulnerable about sex, it still can be empowering to talk about it as if you don’t—almost like you’re reversing the method of control men have historically exercised over women. But this just reinforces the conversational norm that there is a singular way sex should be discussed.  One student pointed out that the development of “labels that don’t fit into the linear ‘hetero to homosexual’ spectrum, like asexuality or even pansexuality,” serve as further evidence that traditional models of sexual attraction simply don’t mesh with a lot of people.  Sex positivity shouldn’t only be about letting people want sex, but about granting the freedom to want it differently, to whatever degree or in whatever form each of us desire as individuals.  Personally (though subject to change), I’m not particularly enthusiastic about sex if I don’t love or trust the other person. I see it more as an extension of a relationship, or non-sexual intimacy. Without emotional connection, it can be hard for me to feel sexual desire.  In the words of a friend of mine, it’s “... a safety thing, like ‘ oh great I trust you. Now we can touch each other’ .”  I’ve had stranger, less wholesome, poorly thought-out sexual experiences which were hot(ish) in their separation from emotional ties. I have no regrets—but I don’t feel like it’s something I’d actively seek out anymore.  The phallocentric view suggests that physical pleasure is the thing you gain from sex, and the reason you pursue it. This is certainly one of the upsides. Physical pleasure—particularly for women and people AFAB—should not be overlooked. But in terms of trust, confidence, and self esteem there is for some a huge amount to be gained or lost emotionally.  The way that each of us considers and goes about sex, and the reasons why we may want it, can be influenced by a variety of factors. Victims of sexual abuse, assault or harrasment,or people who take SSRIs and other medications might have a higher standard of trust, or a lower libido. Such influences impact those who experience them very differently so individual circumstances are hugely varied. It makes sense that the way we think about sex is too.  This is also an important idea in queer relationships, where for one party there might be minimal physical pleasure. The gratification can instead come from providing pleasure for somebody else, or having it provided to you by the other party. It can be hard (for some, not all) not to feel guilty or unequal if you haven’t already established trust, or figured out the dynamics of your relationship outside of sex.  It’s not just about your sexual orientation or past experience; why and how we want sex varies and evolves throughout our lives. What I want now is not what I wanted five years ago, and it may not be what I want five years in the future, but that doesn’t mean I was ever wrong. We aren’t on a quest to find the ultimate way that sex should be viewed. Maybe the most sex-positive thing would be to allow ourselves to feel however we may feel—whether that be excitement, sentimentality, confusion, boredom, disinterest or anything else—and to be comfortable thinking and talking about it on our own terms. There is room for everyone in the conversation about sex.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re an undergraduate domestic student, and in a committed relationship. You likely first had sex at sixteen or seventeen, have had between two and four lifetime partners, and one in the past year. You’ve had sex while enrolled at Te Herenga Waka.  You’ve probably never been tested for an STI, feel only somewhat confident navigating sexual health services, watch pornography occasionally, and believe it’s influenced your expectations of sex in both good and bad ways. You meet partners through mutual friends. It happens late at night. You talk about it often. Statistically speaking, this is you. A total of 508 students completed Salient’s  first survey dedicated to the sex lives of Te Herenga Waka students—the first of its kind, at least in the magazine’s recent memory. The survey was intentionally broad, designed to capture a general snapshot rather than drill into specific communities or experiences.  Who Completed the Census?  The survey was completed predominantly by domestic students in their second and third year of study, with the largest age group clustered at eighteen to nineteen years old. Women made up the clear majority of respondents, and heterosexuality was the most common sexual orientation reported, closely followed by bisexuality. Most respondents described themselves as being in a committed relationship at the time of the survey. Across year levels, upper-year students were more represented than first-years, suggesting stronger engagement from students who have spent longer at the university.  In short, the survey skews toward young, domestic, undergraduate women in ongoing relationships—a snapshot that shapes the sexual attitudes and behaviours reflected throughout the results. Relationships and Dating  Most respondents report being in a committed relationship. Casual arrangements are present, but they do not outweigh students who describe themselves as partnered. The responses therefore skew towards stability rather than casual dating. Gender Trends Women make up the majority of respondents and are the group most likely to report being in committed relationships. Men are comparatively more represented in single or casual categories than women, though committed relationships remain the most common status across genders overall. Respondents who identify as nonbinary or gender-diverse represent a smaller share of the dataset. Within this group, relationship statuses are more evenly distributed across committed, casual, and single categories rather than clustering strongly in one. Unlike women—who trend clearly toward committed relationships—nonbinary respondents show a more varied spread.  Sexuality Trends Heterosexual students make up the largest share of respondents, and within this group, committed relationships are the most common relationship status. Among LGBTQ+ respondents (including bisexual, gay, lesbian, and other identities), relationship categories are more evenly distributed. LGBTQ+ students are proportionally more represented in casual or undefined relationship categories compared to heterosexual respondents. That said, committed relationships are present across all sexuality categories. This distribution suggests that heterosexual students in this survey trend more strongly toward conventional, defined partnerships, while LGBTQ+ respondents report more varied relational structures. At the same time, the presence of casual arrangements across genders and sexualities indicates diversity in dating structures. The broader trend points toward something less sensational than stereotypes might suggest: students are dating, many are partnered, and relative stability is the prevailing pattern. Sex and Sexual Experiences  Sex Trends Across the responses, the most common amount of lifetime partners is two to four. When those become averages, women report about 4.5 lifetime partners, men about 4.9. Non-binary respondents sit higher, at roughly 5.4, and gender-diverse respondents higher again, at just over 7.  The gap between men and women is smaller than stereotype would suggest; the more visible difference appears between binary and gender-diverse respondents. But it should also be noted that this survey had a much smaller pool of gender-diverse respondents.  Sexuality shows a clearer divide. Heterosexual respondents report an average of roughly 3.9 lifetime partners. LGBTQ+ respondents report closer to 5.4.  Age, more than identity, explains the sharpest climb. Eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds cluster tightly in the one-to-four lifetime range. Each older bracket steps up incrementally. By twenty-four and over, respondents report the highest lifetime averages in the survey. But “lifetime” in this survey is relative. The data skews young: the largest age group is eighteen to nineteen, followed closely by students in their early twenties. For many respondents, “lifetime” spans only a handful of post-high-school years. These are compressed timelines. The averages reflect that. When the lens narrows to the past twelve months, the numbers compress further. Women average roughly 1.6 partners in the last year. Men, about 1.7. Non-binary respondents approach 1.9. Gender-diverse respondents report the highest recent average, around 2.4. LGBTQ+ respondents sit slightly above heterosexual respondents (about 1.8 compared to 1.6), but most groups converge tightly around one to two partners. The survey’s question on types of sex engaged in adds texture to those numbers. Oral sex is the most commonly reported experience overall (405 respondents), followed closely by vaginal sex (378), with mutual masturbation (312) and digital sex (224) also widely selected. Anal sex appears in 121 responses—present, but not dominant. The pattern suggests breadth: students report engaging in multiple forms of sex rather than centring everything on a single act.  Among heterosexual men, oral sex remains highly reported—closely tracking vaginal sex—indicating that it is a routine part of heterosexual encounters. Among heterosexual women, oral sex is also widely selected, again nearly parallel with vaginal sex. Bisexual women report particularly high rates of oral sex relative to vaginal sex, with a more even distribution across oral, mutual masturbation, and digital sex than heterosexual women. Lesbian respondents report oral and mutual masturbation at far higher rates than vaginal sex, while gay male respondents report high rates of oral sex alongside anal sex, though oral still appears more frequently overall. Across non-binary and gender-diverse respondents, the distribution is more evenly spread across oral, digital, and mutual forms, with less concentration on any single act. The Zeros Before we get any further into averages and trends, it’s worth pausing on something written in the final comments section. One anonymous respondent said that “...sometimes Salient  has been so sex-positive the articles have come across as judgemental towards those that haven’t (which could be for any reason).” And: “In the article please include how it is normal to never have had sex.” It’s an uncomfortable request to read back—not because it’s unreasonable, but because it suggests that a survey about sex still carries assumptions about who is participating. Eighty-one respondents of this survey selected “I haven’t had sex” when asked about the age of their first sexual experience. In the last twelve months, one hundred and one respondents reported having no sexual partners at all.  One respondent wrote: “I’m a virgin at 20 years old, which can sometimes feel difficult due to social ‘norms.’ When I hear about people who lost their virginity at a very young age, I feel a mix of wishing I had already experienced it, but also feeling glad that I haven’t yet. I want my first time to be meaningful, even though I sometimes have urges to hook up. I haven’t acted on those urges, and it can be hard when most people around me are sexually active. I’m very sex-positive, and being able to talk openly about this with friends makes me feel safe and unashamed.” Sex is common in this dataset—most respondents report having had it while enrolled—but it is not universal. Roughly one in five respondents report no sexual partners in the past year. A visible minority reports none, ever. The statistical centre may sit around two to four lifetime partners and one in the last twelve months, but the dataset contains a substantial cohort at zero. The survey maps participation, yes—but it also maps absence. And the absence is not deviant, delayed, or deficient. It is part of the same range of normal. STI Testing If there is a red flag in the survey, it isn’t hidden in partner counts or porn habits. It’s here. Nearly half of sexually active respondents—57.3 percent—report that they have never been tested for an STI. Sex, in this dataset, is common. Seventy-six percent of respondents say they’ve had sex while enrolled. Most report at least one partner in the last twelve months. But testing does not scale alongside activity.  Among those who are sexually active, 22.2 percent report testing within the last six months. Another 15.5 percent within the last year. Fourteen percent say it’s been more than a year. And then there is the largest single category: never. The gender breakdown sharpens the pattern. Among sexually active men, 58.4 percent report never having been tested—the highest “never” rate in the dataset. Women sit lower, but not comfortably so: 47 percent of sexually active women report never testing. Gender-diverse respondents report the strongest engagement with testing, with only 29.2 percent saying they have never been screened and higher proportions reporting recent tests. The sexuality divide follows a similar structure. Among heterosexual respondents, 55 percent report never being tested. Among LGBTQ+ respondents, that number drops to 44.6 percent. The difference is consistent. LGBTQ+ respondents in this dataset are more likely to report having accessed testing—and more likely to report having done so recently. It’s one of the clearest disparities in the entire survey. What the above data does not show is universal precaution tied neatly to higher partner counts. Gender-diverse respondents report the highest average lifetime partners in the dataset (approximately 7.08), yet only 29.2 percent of sexually active gender-diverse respondents report never having been tested for an STI—the lowest “never tested” rate of any gender group. Non-binary respondents report an average of approximately 5.4 lifetime partners, with around 41 percent of sexually active non-binary respondents reporting never testing. Meanwhile, sexually active men report a lower average lifetime partner count (approximately 4.9) than both non-binary and gender-diverse respondents—yet 58.4 percent of sexually active men report never having been tested, the highest non-testing rate in the dataset. Women report an average of approximately 4.5 lifetime partners, with 47.0 percent never tested. Heterosexual respondents overall report lower lifetime averages (approximately 3.89) but a 55.0 percent never-tested rate, compared to LGBTQ+ respondents, who report higher lifetime averages (approximately 5.36) and a lower 44.6 percent never-tested rate. In other words, higher reported partner counts do not correspond to lower testing rates. In this survey, some of the groups reporting more lifetime partners are also the ones reporting stronger engagement with STI screening, while the highest “never tested” figure belongs to sexually active men—not the group with the highest partner averages. From a clinical perspective, Mauri Ora, when asked for comment by Salient , says the implications are straightforward. Undiagnosed STIs can continue to spread, particularly because many infections are asymptomatic. Left untreated, some can lead to long-term complications such as pelvic inflammatory disease and potential infertility. Most STIs are treatable, they emphasise—but only if they are detected. The confidence gap may help explain the testing gap. The majority of respondents describe themselves as only “somewhat confident” accessing sexual health services. Mauri Ora notes that barriers can include difficulty finding information online, confusion about which service or clinician to see, language and cultural barriers, financial concerns, and stigma or privacy worries. A lack of symptoms can also create false reassurance. Common misconceptions include assuming that feeling fine means no need for testing, believing infections like syphilis or HIV “don’t apply” to them, or thinking a test immediately after exposure is definitive despite window periods that require follow-up. Best-practice testing, they say, depends on circumstances—but is generally encouraged for those with symptoms, contacts of someone diagnosed with an STI, during pregnancy, before IUD insertion for those at higher risk, after a change in sexual partner, routinely for sexually active people under 30, every three months for men who have sex with men, after non-consensual sexual encounters, or whenever a patient requests a test. The nursing team at Mauri Ora can independently test and treat many STIs, with appointments typically available within a week and same-day options for urgent care such as emergency contraception or PEP. If a student wants an STI check, the advice is simple: book a nurse appointment. Pornography The most common age of first exposure to pornography in the dataset is under 13. A further large share report first seeing porn between 13 and 15. Only a small minority report first exposure at 18 or older. In other words, for most respondents who have seen pornography, it entered their lives before they were legally adults—often well before. Porn use itself is common but not universal. 59.3 percent of respondents report watching pornography, while 40.7 percent say they do not. Among those who do watch, the pattern skews toward moderate frequency rather than daily use. The largest groups report watching weekly or a few times a week, followed closely by those who say they watch rarely or monthly. Only a small minority report daily viewing. The dataset suggests porn is embedded in student life—but not necessarily compulsively so. The gender differences are pronounced. Among men, 80.9 percent report watching pornography—more than four in five. Among women, that figure drops to 47.9 percent, just under half. Non-binary respondents report consumption at 64.7 percent, and gender-diverse respondents at 68.8 percent, placing them between men and women, but closer to men overall. The gap between men and women is one of the clearest divides in this section of the survey. By sexuality, the difference is more subtle. 61.5 percent of LGBTQ+ respondents report watching pornography, compared to 54.8 percent of heterosexual respondents. The gap is measurable but not dramatic. Porn consumption, in this dataset, crosses identity categories—even if the rate and frequency vary. One piece of feedback complicates the framing. An anonymous respondent noted that they “consider reading porn to be different to watching porn” and suggested it could have been an interesting category to include, adding that they consume more written porn and began reading it between 13 and 15. Another reinforced this distinction: “I am not much for video based porn so my expectations surrounding sex were definitely influenced by things I had read rather than watched!” It’s a fair critique. The survey used the term “watch” deliberately, in part because we were interested in the visual and internet-driven forms of pornography most commonly associated with contemporary discourse. But that wording may have flattened distinctions between mediums—particularly for students who engage more with written or audio erotica. It’s a gap worth acknowledging, and one we plan to explore more deliberately in future surveys. Perhaps the most revealing finding is not how often students watch porn, but how they interpret its impact. When asked whether pornography has influenced their expectations of sex, the most common response is ambivalent: both positively and negatively. That answer outpaces those who say it had no effect, or that it influenced them only negatively or only positively. Students do not describe porn in binary terms. They recognise its presence and its influence, but they frame that influence as complicated. Across gender and sexuality, two trends stand out. First, men—particularly heterosexual men—are the most likely to consume porn and the most likely to describe its influence as either mixed or negligible rather than outright negative. Second, women, LGBTQ+ respondents, and gender-diverse students are more likely to acknowledge impact—and more likely to identify negative elements within that impact. The “Fun” Stuff The clearest through-line is that student sexuality is social before it is digital. While dating apps are firmly embedded—a third of respondents report meeting sexual partners through them—the most common answer by a wide margin is mutual friends. Sex, in this dataset, still travels through flat dinners, shared lectures, group chats, and overlapping social circles. Apps matter, but the friend-of-a-friend pipeline remains stronger. Timing is equally predictable, and quietly funny. Just under half of respondents report having sex late at night, with another 40 percent selecting evening. Morning and afternoon barely register. The campus sex life, statistically speaking, is nocturnal. It happens after assignments are submitted, after the party, after the Uber home. Very little of it appears to happen before noon. Students also talk about it—and they talk about it a lot. Among sexually active respondents, 44.3 percent say they discuss sex with friends often, and another 40.2 percent say they do so sometimes. Only 10.9 percent report talking about it rarely, and just 4.7 percent say they never discuss it with friends. Conclusion The survey does not depict a campus in the midst of hookup culture. It shows moderation. Most students are having sex, many within relationships, and partner counts are far less dramatic than stereotypes would suggest. The numbers point to something steady, social, and mostly ordinary. What stands out instead is the gap between sexual activity and sexual healthcare. Nearly half of sexually active respondents report never having been tested for an STI. Most describe themselves as only “somewhat confident” accessing sexual health services. The imbalance is not in how much sex students are having—it is in how supported they feel navigating the systems designed to look after them. Mauri Ora’s message is clear: testing is available, nurse appointments can often be booked within a week, and most STIs are treatable if detected early. The services exist. The question the survey leaves hanging is not whether students are sexually active, but whether they feel confident enough to make routine care part of that normal.

People like to insist their media tastes are neutral, accidental, or purely about “good storytelling,” which is interesting given how consistently those tastes line up with the way they flirt, date, and behave in bed.  This quiz isn’t scientific, but it is based on the fact that people who love prestige television are rarely as chill as they think they are. Add up your letters at the end and sit with (or share with the group chat) whatever that reveals. Pick your favourite horror movie:  Saw Nightmare on Elm Street  Midsommar Sinners The Exorcist  Pick your favourite reality TV:  Fear Factor  The Traitors   Alone   Master Chef The Amazing Race  Pick your favourite actress:  Mia Goth Zendaya Kristen Stewart Anya Taylor-Joy Meryl Streep Pick your favourite scandalous TV: Temptation Island  Too Hot to Handle The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives Love is Blind  Love Island  Pick your favourite TV drama:  Succession Euphoria  Normal People Mad Men  The Sopranos  Pick your favourite actor:  Joaquin Phoenix Michael B Jordan  Daniel Radcliff  Oscar Issac George Clooney Pick your favourite animated TV:  Attack on Titan Avatar: The Last Airbender Bojack Horseman Studio Ghibli films  The Simpsons Pick your favourite TV comedy:  It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia  What we Do in the Shadows The Bear Fleabag The Office  Pick your favourite director:  Stanley Kubrick Stephen Spielberg Alfred Hitchcock Wes Anderson  George Lucas  Mostly A’s—Sadist, Kinky You like intensity, and you get uneasy when things are too quiet, too gentle, or too easy. You’re drawn to control—or at least the careful negotiation of them.. Trust matters to you; you like being trusted with other people's vulnerability. You’re direct about what you want, and you don’t really do subtle things. Your sex life is deliberate, often intense, and very much happening, whether or not you talk about it. You definitely know what Fetlife is.  Mostly B’s—Roleplay, Fantasy-Driven You want context. You care about mood, build-up, and the specific dynamic you’re stepping into with someone. Fantasy isn’t an escape for you so much as a way of understanding yourself—you like trying on roles, stretching identity, seeing how desire shifts depending on the story you’re telling. You flirt easily, even if you frame it as joking, and you’re selective about who gets access to this side of you. Your sex life might not be constant, but it is imaginative, intentional, and very you. Mostly C’s—On Antidepressants/Not Having Much Sex You’re tired in a way that’s hard to explain, so you usually just say you’re “busy” or “not really feeling it lately.” Sex sounds nice in theory, but in practice it can feel like too much effort. You crave intimacy more than urgency and you’d rather talk for hours than rush into anything physical. This isn’t a failure or a flaw—it’s just a low-sex period, and you’re self-aware enough to recognise it. You will have sex again. Just not right now, and that’s okay. Mostly D’s—Classy, Sensual, Eats Box You’re attentive, calm, and confident, which makes you extremely effective. You believe foreplay is essential, not optional, and you don’t rush to intimacy because you enjoy the steps that get you there. You listen, you notice, and you care about pleasure being mutual rather than impressive. You’re not loud about being good at this, but you are—and people tend to remember you. Mostly E’s—Classic, Loud, Slightly Masochistic You are not subtle, and you’ve never really tried to be. You like what you like, you feel things intensely, and you don’t believe good sex should be quiet or restrained. You’re expressive, emotionally and physically, and you commit fully rather than holding back. A bit of drama doesn’t scare you—it probably turns you on—and you’re comfortable with sensation, intensity, and release. Your flatmates have definitely heard things they didn’t need to, and honestly, you’re fine with that. You’re having sex, and everyone  knows it.

In February, the peculiar NomNom Pizza vending machine appeared at the Wellington Train Station.  It promises “Freshly baked artisanal pizza 24/7”. So, of course, like the bulwark of student issues that is Salient , we sent two of our finest news writers to see for themselves whether NomNom really stands up to their slogan claiming “Anytime is Pizza Time”.  Rolling up at a cool 1 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon, Dan and I were greeted by the metal behemoth which was already occupied by two young boys. Clearly the news was out.  We ordered the aptly named Peppeholic 30cm which was described as “Loaded with pepperoni and chorizo over rich tomato sauce—bold, comforting and seriously satisfying.” We were less satisfied at the price, a generous $17.50. A mere 2 minutes later, a pizza-box shaped slot opened up and there in its cheesy glory was our Peppeholic 30cm .  The pizza itself seemed to be misshapen by the metal grid that it sat upon, and it wasn’t precut. Instead, we were provided with a wooden knife taped—with duct tape might I add—to the side of the box. We spent a few minutes sawing at the pizza next to the train station toilets while our resident photographer Sophie looked at us in shame. Fitting, for the Sex Issue.  Eventually, we managed to bite into a slice of the pizza and… it was… fine? Nothing stood out, but, I mean, it was what I expected. A little doughy perhaps, but overall a very typical pepperoni pizza. Or, as Dan Moskovitz put it, “an incredible 6/10.” And that it “would probably be a 9/10 if I was super drunk.”  I concurred, it was an incredibly average pizza.  Throughout this arduous process one question remained: who was this for?  It was more expensive than other fast food pizzas,  and nowhere near as good as more premium pizza offerings such as Scopa. The only thing that ‘ the little NomNom that could’  had going for it was that it had an incredibly fast turn around time.  Perhaps this was for the commuter wanting a quick bite after a long day of work in the public sector? Or a student out on the town, now heading home via train and wanting a drunken snack? We assumed the latter, and decided in order to try  this pizza in all its glory; we must return to it while drunk.  This request was rejected by our Editor Phoebe, who told us that “ Salient  won’t fund our drinking habits.” And so ends our tale of NomNom Pizza. Perhaps you should try it for yourself? But also perhaps not. After all, in a world full of Curriza, why settle for NomNom?

Take this quiz with your friends or flatmates and compare scores. Who’s mild? Who’s extra spicy? Be honest… we won’t tell (but your score might). How to Play: This game has multiple rounds—do as many or as few as you want. Perfect for pacing yourselves or ramping things up. This game is meant to be fun, lighthearted, and pressure-free. Everyone has different boundaries, experiences, and comfort levels—and every score is valid (including not wanting to answer questions). Always prioritize consent, communication, and mutual respect, and remember that safe sex helps keep everyone healthy and happy. Check in with partners, know your limits, and keep conversations open. Play smart, play kind, and enjoy the spice. Once everyone’s done, you can add up your individual scores and compare them to how many rounds you played. Each round has a maximum score of 15, so the total possible points depend on how many rounds you chose (for example, two rounds = 30 points total). If you’re feeling brave, add everyone’s scores together, divide by the number of players, and compare that group average to the total possible score for the rounds you completed. No math required if you don’t want it—but if you do…the average never lies… Round One: Give yourself 1 point for every item you’ve done.  French kissed someone? Given or received a hickey? Been on a date? Been in a relationship? Played a game that involved stripping? Gotten flirty or explicit over video chat? Sent or received a spicy text?  Watched or read porn? Masturbated to a picture or video? Given oral sex? Received oral sex? Used a sex toy with a partner? Seen a stripper? Had a booty call? Done something sexual in a car?  Round Two:  Give yourself 1 point for every item you’ve done.  Had a one-night stand? Caught feelings when you definitely  weren’t supposed to? Kissed someone you just met? Hooked up with a friend? Hooked up with a friend’s friend? Gone back to an ex? Had a “we said we wouldn’t” situation? Kept something secret from the group?  Sent a risky text and immediately panicked? Broken one of your own dating rules? Been involved in a “situationship”? Had chemistry you absolutely couldn’t ignore?  Stayed the night when you swore you wouldn’t? Thought “this is a terrible idea” and did it anyway?  Woke up and said, “Well… that happened”? Round Three:  If you’ve done the deed i n any of the places below, add 1 point for each. On a couch? Over the kitchen counter? On a balcony? In front of a mirror? In a body of water?  At a party (while it was still happening)? In a bathroom that wasn’t yours? In a hotel room? In or on a car?  At a friend’s house? In public?  Outdoors but not planned at all? At your parents’ house? Somewhere you definitely could’ve been caught? On the beach?  Round Four:  Give yourself 1 point for each thing you’ve tried. Used a safe word? Negotiated boundaries beforehand? Used handcuffs or restraints (real or improvised)? Tried edging? Role-played? Tried power play (dominant or submissive)? Pegged someone or been pegged? Gotten food involved?  Experimented with temperature play?  Brought feet into the mix? Tried a kink you learned about online? Discovered a new kink by accident? Made a sex tape? Been on a leash—or leashed someone else? Used a flogger?

Baby, What Was That?  How Heated Rivalry helped us talk about sex  Mild spoilers ahead.  A number of major album releases last week—Mitski, Gorillaz, Bruno Mars, Bill Calahan, 2charm—but I’m putting them all on hold to cover Heated Rivalry this Sex Week, the softcore-porno-turned-character-drama that captivated the zeitgeist last December. There’s a lot to say about the show as a “phenomenon” generally: how it came together on a shoestring budget; was shot at speed over the span of thirty-six days; has launched the careers of its two impressive leads; and even how it’s reopened discussions about straight women’s engagement with gay male romances narratives. What I want to do here, though, is think about the show as a work of art: what it captures of us and why we were so captured by it.  I think part of its success comes from how Heated Rivalry struck its audience in a way rather similar to how intense erotic desire itself does. Its first two episodes in particular run on a highly-sexed charge: Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rosanov (Connor Storrie) meet first as up-and-coming teenage hockey players, and there’s immediately a spark. Ilya’s dark, brooding, sexed, and distant (Storrie’s botched Russian accent is weirdly convincing here) and Shane’s sheltered, shy, but at least—as he at one point confesses—owns a dildo. The phenoms are quickly drafted onto rival teams, but the hockey of it all sort of falls to the wayside. A few steamy scenes of on-again off-again hotel sex later, interspersed by title cards that travel us six years (!) in the characters’ lives and careers, and Heated Rivalry has arrived at its third episode largely devoid of characterisation beyond these initial cliches. Me and my flatmate got the slightly guilty feeling that what we were watching was just softcore porn. Favourite line so far? Shane’s accidentally hilarious “Why the fuck did you think it was okay to sext me before the game? What the fuck!”  Until its finale, the show continues at this montage pace—and we the audience are caught up in the heat of it. Ilya treats Shane rather distantly; Shane longingly craves Ilya’s heart, not just his body. The fantasy of a sleazy, domineering guy like Ilya, though, is not that Shane literally wants to be objectified as a sex object. Rather it’s that, in Ilya’s incessant desire for sex, he removes the boundary of shame to help Shane access his own pleasure—all without the indignity of Shane having to ask for it himself. It’s telling that one of the sexual games the couple plays in Episode 2 has Shane “beg” precisely for the sex that Ilya’s dominance and forwardness had previously rendered a given: they break the rule to show us how it had been operating.  “The heat of it” was the phrase I just used to describe the subject matter and narrative speed of these first two episodes—and who doesn’t feel like dating so often starts with the hookup or the dreaded “situationship” phase, knee-deep in the passenger seat, these days? We live in an age where sex is available and consumable on monetised dating apps, and frank discussions about sexual desires and experiences are no longer so taboo. In a similar way, Heated Rivalry answers all of its questions about sexual compatibility upfront: our boys gravitate to each other like magnets. What’s really risque in the context of such sexual frankness is romance.  Something changes at Episode 4, in which Shane misreads what Ilya intends as a moment of intimacy. Feeling chastised by Ilya’s talk of sleeping with girls, and frightened at the prospect of glimpsing the Ilya he needs when he could so easily slip away, Shane calls things off. From this point on, I reckon, Heated Rivalry really becomes Shane’s show, as he slowly learns to lead with love and not fear; as he learns to speak clearly about what it is he needs from his partner. In this, it also becomes a genuinely impressive and convincing character drama.  Isn’t this sort of like how desire works, too? We go along with our lives, our jobs and studies and hobbies, perhaps a random one night stand here and there, when suddenly someone special comes along. Things are turned upside down: the verb associated with this feeling is falling , after all. The hours we’re socialised to have sex in (late night, early morning) are notable in this because they threaten the supremacy of working hours. Running late to your 9 to 5 after a long night with bae? Must be love on the brain.  What I’m trying to say is that, by its fourth episode, I’d fallen head over heels for Heated Rivalry . What began as a guilty indulgence, a summer fling, had evolved into something else—and the show only gets better from there. The extraordinary Episode 5 has had much written about it already, and it’s a highly accomplished piece of television for how it coordinates a number of narrative threads in an epic setpiece, among other reasons. But what really impresses is the quiet Episode 6: set on Shane’s home turf, at his holiday home, it's the only one of the season’s six episodes that doesn’t move at that aforementioned “montage pace”. We spend a slow few days with the couple, this slower sense of timing throwing those prior episodes into a kind of retrospect, as though the tumultuous beginnings of these characters’ relationship is being remembered by their current, older, wiser selves.  If, in the early phases of their relationship, Ilya’s dominance released Shane from the shame of wanting sex, the latter half of the season sees Shane slowly wresting some of that control back from his partner, opening Ilya up to the possibilities of fidelity and romance. That this power play manifests in the normative dyads of top/bottom, dominant/submissive, foreign/local, et cetera, in the context of the show’s lead couple—Ilya/Shane—is so obvious it barely needs remarking. But part of what I love about Heated Rivalry is how straightforwardly it includes these discourses about sex: like any good piece of genre fiction, a lot of its would-be subtext is right in front of our eyes.  It now seems almost like a dream that just a month or so ago this show consumed both my and my social circle’s thinking. My very astute friend Alex wondered if part of its appeal was that it allowed its viewers a chance to talk about their own relationships with pornography, sex, and desire by deferring them onto the show’s ostensibly “fictional” characters—and I think she’s absolutely right on that front. But a lot of media works that way, right? What’s special about Heated Rivalry is how its methods are mimetic of its subject: it struck its audience much like its titular rivalry struck its protagonists. Over six episodes, its initial raunchiness dissolves into romance, erotic intimacy, and subtle characterisation—that bait-and-switch is called love, and even its protagonists didn’t want to see it coming. What a massive show.

Anti , Revisited Ten years later, Rihanna’s finest hour begins to sound more and more like her final It’s been ten years without new Rihanna music. To people my age, that might not feel like such a statement. We spent our teenage years seeing the star as everything but a studio musician: as a makeup tycoon, a lingerie designer, an actress, a Super Bowl Halftime Show, a mother, a billionaire, a Jonathan Anderson fan. So it’s hard for me to imagine or to reconstruct that moment in early 2016 when her eighth studio album, Anti , finally dropped—and just what a swerve it must have seemed like.  There was some discourse at the time, in outlets such as Pitchfork  and The Guardian , regarding Anti ’s lack of commercial appeal or radio-friendliness. Well, after ten years of hearing nonstop songs like “Work” in its straightjacketed dancehall glory and “Kiss It Better” in its schmaltzy R’n’B groove, they’re sorely mistaken. What Alexis Petridis of The Guardian  got right, though, was the sense of confusion manifested by the album’s tapestry of genres and experiments. It had been a while since Rihanna was serving kidz-bop Mariah Carey realness on tracks like 2005’s “Now I Know”—she’d found her style as early as 2007, really. But Anti  pushes it: there’s a highly-quantised, lean, polished finish on all of these songs, no matter how acoustically the genres that inspired them originated. In fan-favourite “Desperado”, the singer’s sitting in an “ old Monte Carlo ”, wondering, “ There ain’t nothing here for me anymore ”; that low-pass filter on the instrumental bridge only deepens the divide between old and new.  Similarly, the straightforward soul track “Love on the Brain”, in a smooth 12/8, is almost a pastiche. But then there are those metaphors about money and violence, about a love that “ beats [you] black and blue ”; and that sudden synth padding that comes in on the pre-chorus; and the grit and nastiness of its author’s voice—and suddenly we’re in the future again. Its effect is only amplified by the following “Higher”, a coda in the same metre and tempo but now replete with a ghosted violin. It’s a glitched-out, too-drunk, last-ditch phone call to a man who’s gone or can’t stay, and it draws out the vulnerability that’s been lurking behind the more confident, typically Rihanna-ish tracks that precede it. (I can’t help but think that “Needed Me”, for instance, even though it projects arrogance, is occasioned by feeling misunderstood: “ But baby, don’t get it twisted ”.) We find resolution in the closer, “Close to You”, in which Rihanna shows herself as a protector against cruelty rather than an arbiter of or victim to it. Grant that maybe this guy’s not malicious, just indecisive—most of ‘em are!—but is there a quality less Rihanna than indecisiveness? It’s cast as a piano ballad, à la the Nicki Minaj deep cut “Grand Piano”, and all it can “ hope ” for this love is “that [its] message goes” : towards its recipient, yes, but away from its sender, too.  I don’t mean here to flatten out the richness and diversity of the album’s styles and moods (it even includes a Tame Impala cover!) by suggesting it’s merely a breakup album. Its last three tracks are strong enough to draw the eye in that direction, but there’s too much material here to give the album a reading as simple as that. Anti  is, in that sense, Rihanna’s most uneven album to date. But like Beyoncé (who also has a major 10-year anniversary coming up in 2026), Rihanna’s twin subjects on Anti  are love and power. What happens when you organise your life, as we all have done or will do, around a force so volatile and changeable as sex? We listeners can only hope to feel as confounded in the face of that question as Anti  does—in the meantime, we have these messy thirteen tracks to feel it out for us.  1986, Revisited Kate Camp’s new book looks back at her old diary I knew Wellington poet Kate Camp for her 2025 release Makeshift Seasons , a poetry collection so subtle and stunning, so full of quiet observations and unspoken sadnesses, it possessed my reading for months—now, for almost a year—after my first encounter. I knew Camp’s work for her wit and lowkey musicality; as a poet who could roll around in cultural detritus at one moment—Superman, the Beach Boys, Homer—and turn out bars of verse at another: “I experience the ocean as a vertical plane / as I came down the road from the funeral / how it filled the space of the valley like a vessel / the dark-blue cup of it against the mid-blue sky”.  The Kate Camp I didn’t know was the precocious teenager, thirteen-going-on-fourteen, who wrote her 1986 diary, entries from which largely compose her latest release, Leather and Chains: My 1986 Diary . The book originated at the Bad Diaries Salon, an annual literary event in which writers are invited to read from their own bad diaries, unedited. Camp’s performances here were, I’m told, a hoot—and there’s occasionally the sense that this book would work better in performance. But it works on its own terms thanks to the inclusion of commentary, after each diary entry, from today’s Kate, the kind of commentary reflective of what I love about her poems. There’s a sense of amazement at memory and what it fails to capture, and a self-aware sense of humour that doesn’t become noxious or self-deprecating.  And, of course, there’s a bittersweet mix of sympathy and admiration for the girl of the diary—existentially lonely, posing as an adult—that Camp used to be. That attunement to life in all its weirdness and rarity is a Camp signature, made all the more potent in the two essays that bookend this volume. From the second one: “Every moment is a kind of forgetting: there’s always some level of detail, awareness, and reality that is just beyond your grasp.” This book is a perfect weekend read, presented in a gorgeous volume by our very own Te Herenga Waka University Press. Leather and Chains forever.

Martha Schenk On the morning of 22 January 2026, a disastrous landslide claimed the lives of six people in a Mount Manganui holiday park. Hours later in nearby Pāpāmoa, two more people died when another slope failed and crushed their home. Eight deaths in a single morning: a statistic at once shocking and strangely familiar in Aotearoa. Research from GNS Science reveals that landslides are responsible for more deaths than earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, flooding, and tsunamis. The deaths make up 0.44% of the estimated 1800 that have occurred as the result of landslides in the last 160 years, cementing them as New Zealand’s deadliest natural hazard.  Despite this, they are often underdiscussed and overlooked as hazards, considered by many as secondary to more dramatic, infrequent events. In Aotearoa, landslides can be broadly defined as the downslope movement of rock, soil and vegetation. They can vary in size and speed, and are often called “slips” colloquially. Technically, they can include slides, falls, or flows. They may be triggered by rainfall or earthquakes, but also by human activity such as the loading or oversteepening of slopes by construction activities, vegetation removal, or leaking water pipes left without repair. January’s recent tragedy took place in the Bay of Plenty, a region arguably more susceptible to landslides due to its high levels of intense rainfall. But Wellington is hardly immune.  As Engineering Geologist Ann Williams explains: “(In Wellington) You mostly have greywacke, which is a fractured rock mass.” “However, when it is completely weathered it becomes a soil, so you might have a shallow slide develop at the top of a slope in mostly soil like material, that then slides over a rock slope and takes rocks from the slope with it, and you end up with a debris slide, or a rock fall slide.” In other cases, deeper fractures combine with long-standing weaknesses to produce larger and more destructive landslides.  “General triggers for landslides are things like heavy rainfall, earthquakes, or undercutting of a slope by earthworks or rivers,” Williams says. “But most natural slopes have marginal stability and much of New Zealand could be considered ‘prone’ to land slip”. According to the Greater Wellington Regional Council’s hazard management plan, the highest-risk areas are slopes steeper than thirty-five degrees, gorges and coastal cliffs, altered or denuded hillsides, quarries, previously failed slopes, and places underlain by weathered or scattered rock. This reads less like a list of exceptions than a description of the city itself. Kelburn, Aro Valley, Newtown, Wadestown, Island Bay—suburbs thick with student flats—qualify on multiple counts. As does much of Te Herenga Waka’s property, including Kelburn Campus and accommodations such as the Waiteata Apartments, Kelburn Flats, and Everton Hall. When contacted by Salient , the university said that it does not currently deem these residences susceptible to landslip risk and noted that preventative measures—engineering intervention, drainage management, and on-going visual inspections—are regularly undertaken. In 2025, a potential risk identified at the Waiteata Apartments resulted in the implementation of a new retaining wall. No landslides were recorded on university property that year.  Students, meanwhile, inhabit a more ambiguous terrain than the university: aware, vaguely, of the hills but unsure what to make of them. A third-year geology student living at Everton Hall says she isn’t particularly concerned—“a lot of slopes are quite well planted or reinforced with concrete,”—though after storms “there’s always a shit tonne of debris.” She worries more about the Kelburn Campus cemetery, where the ground is steep and “not entirely consolidated.”  A second-year english literature student in a university-owned Kelburn flat confesses, “I’ve personally never thought about a landslide,” though after last week’s storm she and her flatmates joked that a tree might fall on the house.  A third-year psychology student at the Waiteata Apartments says she has “definitely thought about [the risk of landslips], looking at this big hill,” but wouldn't know what to do in the event of a landslide. In Aro Valley, a second-year building science student describes her Adams Terrace flat: “Our backyard’s actually on a bit of a slant … We’ve had trees fall down the back of it.” When they moved in, she says, “we didn’t really think about the amount of risk that could come with it.”  A third-year law student from Newtown admits that concerns about her house’s structural integrity during an earthquake or landslide “really heavily impacted my mental wellbeing” when she first arrived.   In Wadestown, the suburb with the most slips in 2025 according to the Wellington City Council, a second-year English literature student told Salient  that she feels safe at home, but that the roads nearby are frequently compromised. “There’s often floods and slips down by the Countdown,” she says. Bus routes are disrupted; supermarket access becomes uncertain. ”There are spots where I park my car that could get hit by landslips.” On public land—roads, footpaths, reserves—landslides are managed by Wellington City Council, which spends roughly four to five million dollars annually on retaining-wall work. Remediation, according to the council’s website, may take anywhere from “a few months up to a few years.” Current stabilization projects include works in Churton Park, Mortimer Terrace, Grosvenor Terrace, and Onslow Road. Asked about budget and prioritization the council declined to elaborate, but confirmed that 505 slips were reported in the last year. That’s 1.38 slips a day! The future promises more pressure, not less. A 2019 report prepared for the council by NIWA warned that increasingly extreme rainfall is likely to exacerbate slides and landslides. Ann Williams agrees—“With so much more intense rainfall, landslides are triggered much more frequently. A saturated landmass is more susceptible.” Recent earthquakes have shaken and loosened already fractured rock, causing rainfall to infiltrate more readily and hastening failure. A 2023 study in Geomorphology  found that under high-emissions warming scenarios, the intensity of rainfall in New Zealand could trigger more landslides per storm.  For those living in areas prone to landslides, recommendations of preventative measures include vegetating or hydroseeding slopes together by placing materials like mulch or coconut husk for added support, and ensuring roof gutters and drainage systems direct water away from slopes.  It’s important to remain vigilant, especially during severe weather or seismic events. atch for new cracking of the ground, driveways, or retaining walls, as well as tilting fences or trees. Slumping or bulging ground at the base of a slope, sticking doors and windows, or gaps where frames are not fitting properly could also be early indicators of impending landslide risk.  The sound of trees cracking or a faint rumbling, water appearing in places it usually does not, and the formation of new springs, seepages, and soggy ground are signs that a landslide might happen imminently, and you should evacuate immediately.  NZ Civil Defence advises warning neighbours and helping others if you can and staying away from the landslide area until it has been cleared by authorities. Once evacuated, you should contact emergency services (111) before the local council (04 499 4444), or campus security (0800 842 8888 or 04 463 9999) if the slide is on university property.  However, every student interviewed for this article admitted to limited confidence in identifying these warning signs. This is a clear indicator that more education and awareness of landslide risk is needed, both by the university and the government. Landslides continue to kill more of our people than any other natural hazard, and knowing what to look for and when to act could save you and your flatmates.

Connections Answers: First Connection Golf Clubs: Driver, Putter, Wedge, Iron Second Connection Car Parts: Motor, Shift, Trunk, Glove Third Connection Things that can "form" around something: Band, Circle, Ring, Club Fourth Connection Verbs meaning "think over/consider": Mull, Deal, Palm, Spoke

Holly Rowsell Content Warning: Anti-trans Rhetoric, State Violence (ICE),  Epstein. The state of media ownership is pretty fucking dim right now. Most of the major streamers are owned by mega-rich, MAGA sympathizing white guys who are carefully orchestrating the mass monopolisation of media. These are modern-day super-villians, and each year they’re getting bolder. For anyone unfamiliar, here's a recap of their greatest hits:  Warner Bros. Studio, who we can thank for the biggest theatrical releases of 2025 ( Sinners , OBAA , Superman ), is being acquired by Netflix, whose Co-CEO Ted Sarandos believes watching movies in cinemas “...is an outmoded idea, for most people…” In response to the platforming of anti-trans rhetoric, Sarandos has also stated "...we have a strong belief that content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm…" And  they’ve started using AI for special effects.  Amazon is constantly being pulled up for egregious worker’s rights violations. They’re also notorious tax evaders; Ethical Consumer estimates Amazon’s systematic avoidance of corporation tax deprived UK citizens of around £575 million in 2024 alone. Meanwhile, owner Jeff Bezos has generated a net worth of nearly $220 billion off the backs of underpaid, overworked employees. And he appeared in the Epstein files 194 times. In an act of media censorship, Disney-owned ABC briefly cancelled Jimmy Kimmel Live in September of last year after Kimmel made light of Trump’s response to the killing of Charlie Kirk. In 2025, Disney removed two of its DEI programs and didn’t mention DEI in their annual business report for the first time since 2019. And they’ve just invested $1 billion in OpenAI. Apple CEO Tim Cook has become fast friends with Trump. In Jan 2025, he personally donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. Cook also attended a special White House screening of a new Melania documentary on the same day Alex Pretti—intensive care nurse and U.S. citizen—was executed by ICE agents in the streets of Minneapolis. And he appeared in the Epstein files 152 times.  Disney+, Prime Video, Netflix, and Apple TV are unequivocal no-gos for those concerned with human rights, censorship, and the future of creative media. It feels like ethical consumers have no way to stream movies without sailing the high seas, if you catch my drift. Enter: AroVison, a Pōneke-based streaming service run by local small-business AroVideo.  AroVideo is a DVD rental store in the heart of Aro Valley that has miraculously survived countless cultural shifts. Andrew Armitage first opened the store in 1989, though back then they were renting VHS tapes (which they still do, by the way!). When the Digital Versatile Disc was invented in 95’, AroVideo adapted and began stocking the new tech. They even survived the video-store-plague, a slow-acting disease caused by online streaming services.  Despite all this resilience, Armitage told Stuff  in 2015 that the end was near for his beloved video store. A bright idea helped him hold on; the owner introduced the 'Adopt a Movie' scheme. Movie-lovers were invited to sponsor the purchase of a DVD, helping Aro keep stocking new stuff that they otherwise couldn't afford. The shop is now home to 667 adopted films. In 2022 Armitage launched The AroVideo Library Preservation Transition Fund. The money raised would help to shift ownership out of his hands and into those of a trust entity that could protect and preserve this important cultural collection. In seven months, he raised nearly $35,000 dollars.  Today, the AroVideo DVD Library contains over 27,000 titles—around 24,000 of which are rental films—making it the largest collection in Aotearoa. For comparison, Netflix only offers around 5000 movies (cough—pathetic—cough).  This place is a Wellington institution that would be long gone if not for the support of its loving community. It’s important we keep that support coming. The best way you can help ensure the survival of this store is by choosing AroVision as your film-streaming service. AroVision boasts a beautifully curated collection of 3500 films. The website describes their catalogue as “festival, cult, classic and unusual titles, the vast majority of which are not currently available on the best-known streaming provider.”  The platform operates as a digital video store. Membership is free. You pay a rental fee per movie, just as you would for a DVD, which gives you 30 days to start watching the film, and 48 hours to finish it once pressing play. The cost of a movie varies from $5 to $8. Watch it with a friend, and that's maximum $4 each! Two friends, $2.67! And so on! Browsing such a unique catalog can be a little daunting. Even movie buffs haven't heard about some of the stuff on AroVision. But fear not! I’ll be back bi-weekly to recommend a couple films I think you’ll like—or at the very least haven't seen before.  Let’s keep loving this local legend. Gather your mates, chuck some popcorn in the microwave, and watch a movie on NZ’s most ethical streamer. No matter the genre, everything on Aro is a feel-good-film, because nothing feels better than supporting a local business.

Labour pivots from inspiration to reassurance In a press conference lit exclusively by harsh, overhead fluorescents—the sort of lighting normally reserved for supermarket meat departments, police interviews, and situations where someone insists they don’t recall a conversation—Labour leader Chris Hipkins today unveiled what advisers are calling a reframing strategy for the party’s fortunes: the “ I’m Not a Bad Guy ” campaign. Reporters confirmed the lighting choice was deliberate. According to briefing notes accidentally left face-up on a lectern, the fluorescents were selected to “signal honesty, discomfort, and the vibe of someone who is about to say ‘let’s just clear a few things up.’” One junior staffer was reportedly told to dim the lights slightly, but not enough to suggest reflection—only enough to imply there might be something in the corner worth worrying about. The effort is intended to address mounting public unease with Labour’s recent policy record, including its plan to think about introducing a pseudo-capital gains tax on profits from commercial and residential property to fund three free doctor visits a year for every New Zealander. What that policy actually does is, according to spokespeople, secondary to ensuring the public believes it was conceived by someone who isn’t a Bad Guy. “We looked at all the reasons people might be unhappy—the lukewarm back-and-forth on tax reform, the suggestion that non-family homes should be taxed so everyone can see a GP three times a year, the persistent perception that Chris is just a bland guy in a bland world—and we thought, you know, let’s just say the one thing that would reassure everyone,” said one senior adviser in a statement that, paradoxically, did not reassure anyone. Asked whether the policy would meaningfully improve health outcomes, one spokesperson clarified that this was “not really the intention.” The primary objective, they explained, was emotional. “Three GP visits is just enough to feel like care exists, without the inconvenience of actually restructuring anything,” they said. “It’s about the idea of being looked after. Like a weighted blanket, but legislated.” At the press conference, Hipkins stood alone at a podium, framed by shadows that suggested either gravitas or a power failure. Behind him, a single poster declared in bold black text: I’M NOT A BAD GUY (Also: We’ll Fund GPs!) Labour strategists insist the campaign is less about policy substance and more about affective framing. “It’s not that we want to introduce a fair tax to grow the economy and help fund healthcare,” one operative explained. “It’s mainly that we want voters to feel fine and okay about liking that plan and, by extension, liking Chris. That’s the core message.” An anonymous member of the Labour party told Salient  that Hipkins “is like a piece of white bread, but one that, the moment you put it in the toaster, somehow burns on both sides and still doesn’t toast.” This characterisation, they added, was less a criticism of his policies and more a lament about the toaster’s settings. That sense of malfunction has only intensified as Hipkins’ public image has become quietly entangled with a series of uncomfortable clarifications, denials, and statements of absolute certainty—particularly around what he was, or was not, told in his previous ministerial life. Labour maintains these matters are settled. The public, meanwhile, appears unsure whether the issue is the conversation itself or the increasingly elaborate architecture built to explain its absence. The contrast with Jacinda Ardern has become impossible to ignore. Ardern’s Campaign of Kindness did not rely on procedural memory or semantic distinctions between “casual conversations” and “formal briefings.” It worked because it presented leadership as something felt rather than litigated. Kindness, under Ardern, was not a defence strategy; it was a governing aesthetic. Hipkins’  I’m Not a Bad Guy campaign, by comparison, feels less like an invitation and more like a clarification issued after the fact. Where Ardern’s messaging assumed goodwill and sought to elevate it, Hipkins’ appears designed to contain suspicion. It does not ask voters to believe in him so much as to stop imagining the worst version of him, pretty please. This is a subtle but consequential shift: from inspiration to risk management. Internally, Labour staffers concede the campaign is not about reclaiming momentum so much as stabilising reputational drift. “We’re not trying to recreate Jacinda,” one source said. “We’re trying to prevent Chris from being mentally filed under ‘bad guy’.” In that sense, I’m Not a Bad Guy  is a campaign perfectly calibrated to its moment: sober, defensive, and aware that it is arguing uphill against a lingering sense that something important slipped through the cracks—and that no one is quite sure whose cracks those were. Whether reassurance can substitute for trust remains to be seen. Labour insiders say contingency messaging has already been prepared should the campaign fail to land. Draft slogans reportedly include “Look, He’s Fine,” “Not Evil, Just Tired,” and the pared-back “At Least It’s Not Worse.” But Labour’s wager is clear; if voters cannot be inspired, perhaps they can at least be persuaded not to worry. And if the public still feels uneasy, the campaign offers its final, unspoken reassurance: if anything truly bad had happened, someone would definitely remember being told about it.