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 …

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 …

Content warning: This article discusses sexual violence and assault, as well as suicidal ideation and eating disorders. We have a problem in our communities, and you need to do something. Most of the sexual assault and violence I have faced as an adult is from queers. And it has mostly been met with disbelief or …

Like queerness, astrology has always been written into and out of history, depending on who’s documenting it. Both have been denied existence, succumb to institutional fear and persecution, and have had glorious times of celebration and reverence. The juxtaposition of living in queer bodies under the heteropatriarchy is that we are continually forced to locate …

Growing up in the Church in Queensland in the 80s, no one ever mentioned oral sex. It was always penis in vagina. Pastors only wanted to discuss intercourse in their fire and brimstone sermons. But when I think about my own carnal life, the deep, wet truth of oral sex is what stands out. My …

Doesn’t everyone remember their first time? Good, bad or ugly, we are socialised to remember it, and expected to. I can’t remember my first time, but I do remember the feeling: the stickiness that told me it wasn’t her cum. The grainy feeling under my nails that wasn’t her wetness. The colour crimson, bright, bold …

On my first night out in St Kilda when I first moved to Melbourne, I downloaded Tinder and Grindr and self-advertised the hours away. While I built meaningful relationships through both apps, optimism slowly slipped away after cross-examination. A white cisgender gay man like myself does not have too much trouble fitting in with online …

Acknowledging aesthetic attraction in a world that immediately associates it with sexual attraction can be a challenging thing, both as somebody on the asexual spectrum and as somebody who has so far only been romantically attracted to men.

I have been living with an acquired brain injury since 2013. Since then, I have often encountered ignorant and callous attitudes toward disabled people among queer folk who align themselves with intersectional feminism. Many other disabled people I know have had similar experiences with ableism. One friend of mine, Jesse, eloquently described what a lot …

I once dated a person with terrifying friends. They were loud and confrontational and—in my eyes—terrifying. Still, I was in love, so I made the effort to get to know them. They all hung out in one of those big, run-down share houses where anything goes. They threw massive parties fueled with drugs and sexual …

This story was first published on Staying Negative, a website that aims to emotionally engage and inspire gay/bisexual men, including trans men, through the sharing of personal stories. I was born and grew up in Hong Kong. When I was a few months old, my mum found out that I couldn’t hear anything when she …

This is the final instalment of a four-part series on the state of queer young adult fiction in Australia. Read part one, part two, and part three.   For young adult (YA) literature to be truly representative of queer identities, there needs to be greater queer representation across both the writing and publishing industries. Own Voices  needs …

I am worried about attending my first International Women’s Day march. What will the public on the train think of me? My hat is emblazoned with a scribbled slogan that reads “feminism without trans women is not feminism.” Looking back, I shouldn’t have even worried about stares from TERFS on the train, because there was …

Most people are surprised when I tell them I do pole. There is nothing edgy about me. I don’t dye my hair, don’t have fake lashes, tattoos or piercings. I don’t even wear makeup and I hate G-strings. You’ll never see me in skintight clothes, short skirts or see-through tops. This is perhaps what people …

If a cat lands on its feet and toast always lands buttered-side down, sticky taping the toast (buttered-face-up) to a cat’s back and shoving the two off a counter would no doubt create confusion. The two could not exist in tandem without causing a cosmic rip in our universe’s pants. My pants and universe have …

This is the third instalment of a four-part series on the state of queer young adult fiction in Australia. Read part one, and part two. The We Need Diverse Books movement has done a lot to highlight the need for greater representation of marginalised people and communities in young adult (YA) books. But with the …

Three years into my six-year relationship, I realised I was (and am) asexual. I’d been grappling with my sexual identity for a long time before that, without really knowing what I was. I knew I wasn’t gay, but that’s about the only option outside of the suburban heteronormativity that I was aware of. I didn’t …

With an eclectic and exciting mix of genres and cultural perspectives, this year’s Brisbane Queer Film Festival offers viewers insight into queer and trans identities, narratives and communities from across Australia and the world. Now in its 18th year, the following four films represent an unmissable selection of the contemporary queer cinema showcased by Brisbane’s …