Ella Baxter is a young writer who has a deep connection to ritual, art and ceremony through her small business making bespoke death shrouds for funerals. Her poetry has been published in Spineless Wonders, Gargouille Literary Journal, and Bowen St Press. New Animal is being adapted by Marieke Hardy for a television series. New Animal has also been sold to Picador …

“We don’t sell that here,” the burly bearded man behind the counter of the sex shop said. “I think you’re after ‘wood varnish’.” This was pre-COVID-19, before I was forced to buy ‘poppers’ online during Melbourne’s lengthy lockdowns. At first, I looked at him dumbfounded, not getting the gist of what he was implying. “So, …

I think about sex a lot. If you could take a microscope and peer inside my brain, you’d assume I was obsessed with sex and, in a way, I am. But it’s not the thought of actual sex that runs rings around in my head and tortures me in my sleep. It’s the fact that …

This year has been hectic, to say the least. To round out the year that we’d rather forget, we have put together a top 10 list of our editors’ picks for 2020. You will see some of the excellent pieces published this year, the most-read pieces and our older favourites. Our online editor Roz Bellamy’s …

Last Christmas Day driving from Melbourne to Adelaide, my partner and I stopped in my country hometown. It was empty, dusty, sunny – just as I remembered. As we drove past my old church, the full car park – an unwanted flashback of a thousand Sundays- made my stomach turn. Yet, a few hours later, …

I became single in the midst of a pandemic. Everything feels different, and not just because the process of uncoupling and change is unconventional in its slowness. I have felt a shift in the way I view all of my relationships, the ebbs and flows of connection and distance, valuing time I get with my …

Taking a break from kink gave me the time and space to work through some heavy stuff, learn to stand on my own two feet and come back a stronger individual.

Coming out as polyamorous, in my experience, has been similar to the 14 years I spent coming out as vegetarian: some people are quick to tell me they are too, or would like to be. Others get defensive, as if I’m somehow criticising their life choices (I’m not), or say it makes no difference to …

I went this week to pick up a new script for my contraceptive pill, which I have to do every 12 months. I waited 30 minutes to be called in, have a script printed out, and then be sent on my way; all done in two minutes tops. It’s the same on every occasion, and …

I had a sex dream last November. Nothing unusual for me, but this one was about a workmate. A male workmate. As someone who has staunchly identified as having no interest in cis straight men for a long time, I was incredibly confused.

I started sugaring for the money. Living out of home and watching your bank account decrease with every bill is a tiring experience, and after a gut-wrenching and generally nauseating break-up, I decided it was time to change that.

On a typical morning, Amber* wakes up between her loving partner and a phone vibrating with messages from other men. “Hey babe, send something cute on ur way to uni?” “Can’t stop thinking about that video last night … how about another one today?” “Can I watch you get ready this morning?” Amber, or Goddess …

I most frequently find kinship with bodies unlike mine. In this space between my body and theirs are shared ways of moving, shared language that describes us in archetypes, not individuals. It is from this space that I have picked up the language I use to describe myself, from this space that I can draw …

“I’m Pretty and I’m Handsome” – Jesswar, Savage (2017) I had used tape to strap down my chest for the first time earlier that day. It was my first live drag performance at Hamer Hall for disrupt, a show for the Yirramboi Festival. When I was 11 I would use bandages from the first-aid box …

My phone buzzes at 5:30 in the morning. I’m not usually awake right now, but I know that he is. Total Type A personality; figures. “Good Morning, Daddy’s little kitten”. Slight cringe. Will I ever be okay with playing the role of “Daddy’s little anything?” This is the sex-paradox; things that your brain will fully …

It’s one o’clock. There’s a pile of work in front of me that only seems to be getting bigger. My Spotify playlist has just come to an end. I feel a tingle down there. I could do with a break. I deserve a break. I disconnect my phone from the Bluetooth speaker and head into …

I don’t, however, want your integrity or your seed. I simply want to harness your orgasm in order to heal myself.

As the coronavirus erupts, people are panicking. Me, I’ve worked for seven years with the threat and awareness of illness and violence. My body has always been on the frontline with my work; viruses and infections are a risk with every client. Vigilantly checking he doesn’t finger me with the same hand he just used …

Monday night – hardly prime real estate for a date, but it was December, and so the days were bleeding into each other, weeknights taking on that languorous pace usually reserved for weekends. We sipped our beers, ran through the standard topics. I didn’t particularly like the way he put his hand on my thigh …

Sex toys can be useful not just in facilitating pleasure but also in the journey to overcoming body dysphoria. In the same year I got my period for the first time, I got my first vibrator. I was 12. Unlike many people I know, I didn’t feel shame or embarrassment over my period. I was …

After patiently listening to me whinge, my friend proposed a radical solution: use Dungeons & Dragons character building to ask for the sex I wanted.

While I’ve outgrown the items in the musty dress-up box, I never outgrew my desire to dress up. My collection no longer comprises ’70s velour nor does it have that insipid mothball stench I remember from my childhood.