Articles
When we first launched Archer Magazine, we envisaged a platform to share stories on sexuality and gender from the perspective of individuals and communities that are left out of mainstream media. As the publication developed, we watched a community start to take shape, and I’m happy to report that the people who like Archer Magazine aren’t like the …
Late last year, I attended a forum on queerness and faith. The event was supposed to be multi-faith, but five Christian chaplains came and no other faith groups were represented at all. Even when I talk about Buddhism, which is my own faith, Christianity is always the elephant in the room. As much as we …
Daddy/son role play is a sexual and social dynamic build upon care, consent and submission. Non-binary genders can compliment such erotic fantasies well.
Gay and bisexual men who have sex with men… WE WANT YOU! Archer Magazine has partnered with the Victorian AIDS Council (VAC) to help out with one of their flagship campaigns, Staying Negative: a website that profiles the real life stories of gay and bisexual men who have sex with men (MSM) including trans men. The …

My disability helped me embrace my queerness: Re-evaluating masculinity through the gift of weakness
My whole life, I have relied on other people to help open jars for me – something conventional Western narratives of manhood, and most 90s sitcoms, would designate as a one-way ticket to Emasculation Station. A lot of guys have a problem with admitting they are physically weak, or worse still, deferring their jar-based tasks …
“Cruel mothers are still mothers… are humans. Who sometimes give birth to their pain. Instead of children.” Nayyirah Waheed wrote these verses in a poem titled hate, and I wonder if that is what being Filipino means to me. I grew up in a three-bedroom house in an upper-middle-class suburb, with a Brother I was …
Rebecca K relearns intimacy with her partner following sexual assault.
If you were to Google my story, you would find some lovely photographs exhibiting some “hideous” scars that make up 70-80% of my torso, front and back. I was told that I was lucky that the scars can be hidden by clothing and that my handsome face was left unmaligned. These battle scars are detritus …
As an androgynous-looking person, I’m misgendered every single day of my life. Bathrooms, pubs, on the bus, at airport security — you name it, I’ve been misgendered there. Tall, masculine girl or well-dressed teenage boy? No one knows, but they sure want to find out. Perhaps I make things harder for myself by working as …
Recent reports label millennials the “gayest generation ever”. I didn’t doubt it for a second. We are producing some of the most diverse, well-rounded representations of queer folk, and these depictions are reaching the mainstream in some of the largest quantities in history. We are overwhelmingly out and, by and large, society in most of …

The whiteness of ‘coming out’: culture and identity in the disclosure narrative
It’s been eight years since I first kissed a boy, and two since gender loosened its grip on me, yet I never came out to my father. I’ve made my peace with never coming out to him, or the rest of my extended family, for that matter. For someone straddling two cultures, this is a …

Celebrating queer friendships: Ditch the internet strangers and date your mates
On a cold Melbourne night, wrapped in my discounted woollen coat, I make pre-kiss conversation with a cute boy. We’re on a wooden bench on Gertrude Street, the commission flats rising behind us, trams ambling past and our eyes running away from one another as we play the first date version of cat-and-mouse. The eventual …
I had my first instance of gender confusion when I was around eight years old. I was skiing with my family in a little snow-capped town called Ohau in New Zealand. Having just got dressed, I passed the mirror on the way out and I was startled by my own reflection. I suddenly realised that …
Krissy Kneen is a Brisbane-based author best known for her erotic fiction, including her most recent novel An Uncertain Grace, published this year by Text Publishing. Stranger in the Dark is Kneen’s ongoing project for Australian literary journal The Lifted Brow, a subscription series of 12 monthly emails being sent out over the course of …

Sex, drugs and yeah, we get it: Music journalism in the age of identity politics
Australian music journalist Jimi Kritzler once asked “homo American punk band” Hunx and his Punx singer Seth Bogart a question that would change my career for ever. Jimi asked “If Hunx and his Punx were an STD, what would it be?” Seth answers “HIV AIDS. I want to be the biggest sexually transmitted disease.” Rapidly, …
Pushing 65 years old, I seem to carry about with me that feeling you might have if you arrive at a party and discover that it’s over. Yet in the detritus left behind, you see the ghosts of all you have missed. Or, the party is still going on and you’re stuck outside, only able …
Welcome to Archer Magazine issue #8: the SPACES issue.
Exactly one week after the Pulse nightclub shooting, my cousin Tariq and I drive into downtown Orlando for a drink. I’ve just flown into Florida for a writing workshop, and my Dad reached out to his old friend Tariq to show me around in the meantime. In Afghan culture, we refer to people like Tariq …
Pleasure moved from his genitals and expanded further throughout his body. He was surprised about the amount of sensation he was feeling erotically. He felt his body had been awoken. He had never experienced erotic sensations anywhere other than his genitals before and bodywork opened his mind up. Days later, he reports that, after masturbating, he …

Learning to be selfish: The quest for a fulfilling sex life as a 43 year old Uruguayan woman
Right around the time when I discovered masturbation, me, my sister, and my cousin found a VHS copy of Caligula. This was the late 80s, so, porn was really hard to come by, especially if you were a girl. To be honest, I don’t remember much about Caligula. My ex was a big fan, but …
I will confess that when I transitioned, I struggled to come to terms with my burgeoning privileges. Growing up as an awkward, gangly, heavyset girl in the 90s, I was aware of my place as ‘other’. At primary school I gravitated towards friends who were the odd-ones out. At high school the rift between myself …
I lost my virginity at the age of twenty-eight. I hadn’t planned on waiting that long, but I did always plan on waiting till the right man came along. It just took longer than expected. I was glad I waited, because it was everything I had expected. Four years down the line and we are …