“If you’re very serious when you’re talking about taboos, you’re very unlikely to put other people at ease.” – Dion Kagan, Archer Magazine #5 launch To celebrate the launch of Archer Magazine’s fifth issue, we heard readings from three writers that appear in the new edition, and interrogated their work with a short Q&A. Their articles revolve around …

We’ve had a big year over here, at Archer HQ. We launched our ageing issue and our culture issue, expanded into the US, toured the UK and Europe, and won an award from the United Nations. Our team also doubled in size, to about 12 volunteers plus a whole heap of supporters. We always keep an eye on what our readers …

ACON, an LGBTI health organisation based in Sydney, recently unveiled their revamped Test Often campaign, which is a welcome step forward in including marginalised groups.

Following the release of her memoir, Reckoning, actor and comedian Magda Szubanski chats to us about sexuality, creativity and family.

Non-monogamy is commonly dismissed as deceitful and risky, while STIs are branded as the consequence of promiscuity.

The legacy left by Kat Muscat, Archer contributor, beloved friend and amazing auteur, is one of the best I’ve come across.

There is this idea that women are empowered through their sexual pleasure, giving pleasurable sex a kind of moralistic imperative – thou shalt orgasm!

Sam Orchard is a New Zealand based self-described ‘geeky transguy’, and author of webcomic Rooster Tails.

I’m trying to make space in my life, and on my bed, for intimacy. To relinquish control, little by little, and to be comfortable with being uncomfortable; to step outside my comfort zone.

Sandra Daugherty is a podcasting, workshop-teaching, sexual-shame-fighting “sex nerd” based in Los Angeles, California.

The proliferation of the term ‘body positivity’ in queer and feminist circles has enabled a radical change in the ways beauty is constructed, understood, and obtained. Queer communities reject heteronormative love and beauty standards. As a result, discussions of body positivity have a much larger presence in these areas. This determines how body positive discourse …

Kai Bradley, Natasha Jynel and Monique Hameed have created ‘Our Voices, Changing Culture’, a project for queer women from refugee and migrant backgrounds.

At lunch time, the mother and daughter behind me in the queue pointed and whispered. They thought I couldn’t hear them, but I could. On my walk home from work I got stares – a few of them were accompanied by winks or smiles, but most felt highly judgmental at best, hostile at worst. It …

“Porn Star Runs for Lord Mayor,” the headlines said, alongside a photograph of me in fuchsia and black latex with a hot pink PVC flogger. If I was going to come out, I may as well do it in style. I’m quite sure my parents knew all along. I started taking my clothes off in …

I remember the first time I really noticed that sexuality was important to older people. I was working as a nurse unit manager in a residential aged care unit when a nurse reported that John, one of the male residents, was masturbating while she assisted him to shower. She felt she “shouldn’t have to put …

Cyndi Darnell is one of Australia’s leading qualified sex therapists and educators.

I’ll never forget the first time I was asked to define my sexuality. Now when I say define, I don’t mean ‘realise’ – because that happened many years earlier when I staged my first polyandrous lesbian wedding between Skipper, Barbie, and a Ginger Spice doll, while Ken officiated wearing neon green leggings and a white …

Trigger warning: this article contains descriptions of physical, sexual and emotional abuse, as well as family violence. This is only the second time Jay* has told her story right through, and it’s a strain. It’s her friends’ relative indifference, after telling them of the sexual violence, that stings the most. “If the violence had been …

Claiming that one orgasm is better than the other doesn’t help anyone. We don’t need this kind of pressure.

The author of Sex in your seventies spoke to dozens of septuagenarians to find that sexuality is still varied and complex later in life. When two people, as a couple, do not have intimacy, it makes their relationship less warm. There can be too much sexual contact, or too little – you must draw a …

“The gender renaissance is upon us!”   These might be your thoughts if you’ve ventured out into select parts of the internet lately, or if you have a keen interest in the fashion world. There’s been extensive media coverage of public figures like Caitlyn Jenner, Laverne Cox, Nina Poon, Miley Cyrus and Carmen Carerra, and …

From an early age, children’s stories instil in us the values and expectations that shape the relationships we have over the course of our lives. The way desire is portrayed in some classic children’s stories resonates with how adult relationships are shaped: we’re taught we can only be ‘real’ if we are loved. As adults, …