Stories about: bodies
Nic Holas is a writer, activist and the co-founder of The Institute of Many (TIM), an advocacy platform and grassroots movement for People Living with HIV. TIM has the largest membership of any HIV organization in Australia. We chatted with Nic to talk about U=U, TIM’s latest campaign aiming to highlight the message that an …
Hair is one of the first markers of culture and queerness visible to the naked eye. For queer women of colour, reconciling these aesthetics can be hard.
“You faggot, may god damn you. Alas, life is nearing end.” I will never forget these exact words from a Facebook comment, written tauntingly on a picture of a person who looked neither masculine nor feminine. What upset me was not only the comment’s homophobic language, but the fact that the man who commented is …
I was sexually active for ten years before I donned a dick. It wasn’t that I was adversely opposed to doing so, and more that I was never given the opportunity to explore this aspect of my sexual identity. I spent the first five of those ten years engaging with cis men, all of whom …
Even among progressive communities, fatness still often receives the wrong kind of attention in between toxic standards of desire.
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
I have been thinking a lot lately about my own body hair, hair in general, and how media censorship is particularly harsh on pubic hair. Canadian artist and writer Petra Collins had her Instagram account deleted over an image of pubic hair. She responded with a great article on censorship and the female body …
I became truly fearless the day I returned to the old school, no frills, male-dominated boxing gym that I had attended for years as a female. My friend had outed me to a huge, burley macho guy. But I stood strong before him without showing any fear while awaiting his reaction, even though I was terrified …
It’s half past five on a Saturday night and I’m in bed, surrounded by books and pens and cups of tea, tapping away on my laptop. It’s been a long time since I shared this bed with anyone, so long in fact that an imaginary line divides it in half, one side for sleeping, the …
Hairy legs don’t make you more queer: Body positivity, and why it’s okay to be grossed out sometimes
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 …
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 …
BUY ARCHER MAGAZINE #5 HERE “There is a strange combination of terror and freedom I feel when objectified…” Love affairs with our bodies. The stigma associated with butt sex. How religion impacts sexuality. Plus, stories of sexuality and gender from Malaysia, China, USA, rural Australia, Zimbabwe and more… Welcome to Archer Magazine #5. * Marriage equality by Dennis Altman * Sex …
As a sexologist and sexuality coach, clients ask me all the time why they can’t orgasm during penetration. I tell them it’s the same reason a lot of people with vaginas can’t. Penetration is not a great way to stimulate the clitoris, and the clitoris is the most common way to bring on a climax. When delivering …
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 …
There are many books we queers hold sacred. For many of us they are mementos of our troubled and tormented adolescence. These might include Gore Vidal’s The City and the Pillar (1948) or James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (1956). While these books reflected my own angst-ridden, introspective teen years, they only seemed to offer antiquated portraits of homosexuality, as their …
I can still recall the first time I tried to insert a tampon. Locking myself in the bathroom, I pulled out the Carefree leaflet and carefully studied the instructions. Was I supposed to push in and up or…? How far was far enough? What if I missed and pushed it into my urethra or it …
I have never heard an orgasm. This isn’t exactly one of the highest items on my bucket list. Still, it does creep into my thoughts – usually when I’m in the middle of the act – and I wonder if sound really does enhance the experience. I wonder a lot of things. I’m 30 and …
Guest blogger Abby Corson comments on controversial Australian beauty pageants and the dangers of sexualising children, both for the girls on show and society at large. Fake tan. Spider eyelashes. Push-up bras. Acrylic nails. No, I’m not describing a night out in Hollywood. Disturbingly, these are all common attributes of the underage entrants of the …