A WORLD WITHOUT MENWords Dom PassantinoWelcome to a fantasyland populated by lesbians, where there are no men, and genderroles are instead defined by hair colour. The citizens of Aristasia have apathological hatred of modern life, particularly feminists (their own personalbêtes noirs), and, as such, refuse to engage with any culture (clothing, language,music) post-1963. Throw in ties to the British National Party, allegations ofracism and anti-semitism, white-power symbolism, S&M beatings so bad they resultin criminal convictions, the worship of a Sun goddess, and sexualisation to thepoint of fetish of schoolgirls, and you know you’re in Aristasia.As with the majority of things that make little sense, it all begins at Oxbridge.Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, to be precise, where, in the late 1960s, an academicwho went by the sobriquet Hester St Clare became patron to a group ofdisenfranchised lesbian students. Alternating between the names The Romantics andThe Olympians, they felt uncomfortable with the direction Britain had taken overthe past decade, seeing the cultural shifts of the 1960s as a collapse of moraland social standards (known in Aristasian parlance as ‘The Eclipse’). Slowlyputting together a manifesto dedicated to bringing back the 'dignity’ of the early20th century, the students and St Clare eventually dropped out of Oxford to formtheir own university dedicated to Aristasian studies, known as Milchford.They quickly came to establish that in this new land of Aristasia, there would beno men. Instead, traditional ‘male’ roles, such as those of leaders, businessmenand so on, would be taken by brunettes, while blondes would be left to perform thework of artists and homemakers. Also, the term ‘Aristasia’ came to signify one oftwo things: either Aristasia Pura, the fantasy world devoid of male presence inwhich Aristasians roleplay; and Aristasia-In-Telluria, an attempt to recreate thisworld in real life via vintage cars, games of croquet, and hot lesbian sex.Aristasia Pura has a number of ‘continents’ on which inhabitants may either beborn or live, and each one is symbolic of a different ‘acceptable’ decade. Thus,‘Quirinelle’ has the fashions and culture of the 1950s, while ‘Vintesse’ belongsto the jazz era. There are also outreach islands known as ‘Infra-Quirinelle’,which contain certain aspects of the early 1960s, but the Aristasians’ websitemakes it quite clear what isn't acceptable on those green and pleasant shores:“Pop Art fashions, popular music beyond the style of the earlier 60s, anythingthat smacks of the ‘hippie’ or ‘Carnaby Street’ or ‘Beatles’ ethos”. They'vecreated a fantasy world where the enemies are Peter Sarstedt and the 6-5 Special.Membership to Aristasia isn't a uniform thing, and followers can choose thestrength of their allegiance depending on which of the four ‘rings’ they belongto. There's the Outer Circle, who just act as Aristasians online. The ThirdCircle: women who live an Aristasian lifestyle, but do so in Telluria. The SecondCircle, who inhabit Aristasian commune-style households, but still havecommitments (ie, jobs) in the real world. And the Inner Circle, an invitation-onlycabal of women who have cut off all obligations to the real world to live a fullyAristasian lifestyle. The Inner Circle is believed to nowadays be in the lowdouble figures, although Outer Circle membership is at its highest point inhistory.(line break)Aristasia first made a major impression on the wider public back in 1996, whenChannel 4 screened the documentary <A Weekend At Miss Martindale's> (as inMarianne Martindale, arguably the most famous Aristasian, and undoubtedly the mostcontroversial). The program ostensibly dealt with the first weekend spent by threenew recruits at an Aristasian country outpost, but was instead just a series ofspanking scenes loosely linked by scenes of 1950s-lifestyle fantasy: a housemaid
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