Stories about: sexuality
Last week I flew back to Sydney to celebrate Pesach (Passover) with my family. If you think seeing your parents once a year is a lot, try an Orthodox family and at least six major Jewish festivals a year. The seder, which recalls the exodus from Egypt, is a night of experiential storytelling. As someone …
I’m seated in the back of an Uber on a cold evening in Mexico City. The driver turns right and I can see the noticeable change between neighbourhoods as we leave the financial district of Reforma Avenue and enter Zona Rosa,the queer neighbourhood of the city. After liberal laws were passed here during the eighties …
Deciding which films to attend with the myriad on offer at this year’s Melbourne Queer Film Festival? Don’t stress – we’ve made this painstaking task easy. Here are our top picks: Chemsex London’s hedonistic gay club scene is saturated with drugs, thumping music and men who want to fuck. Documentary Chemsex examines the intersection between sexuality …
It bubbles. The sensation in my ear is just like the pop rocks mixed with Pepsi I had as a kid – explosive, intense and overwhelming. That percolating noise my phone makes when the other person is typing a message to me is my kryptonite. The simple circular shapes as someone is typing their message is …
Asexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to others. It doesn’t mean not having sex at all – in fact, many asexual people do have sex, and some enjoy it. Being asexual – or ‘ace’, as some of us call it – refers to a lack of sexual attraction, not activity. I first knew there …
When I was in my first year of University, a friend sent me a link to scientific paper about female mice that exhibited ‘male-like’ sexual behaviour. His comment was something along the lines of ‘well, now this explains you!” A few years later, the first genome-wide study of male sexual orientation came out. It fascinated …
Happy endings, massage and exploitation: Stuck between a towel and a hard place
Sometimes the smallest shifts are the hardest to make. So you make a drastic move and opt, instead, to change everything. Moving to Australia from Turkey was that change for me. I came to Melbourne to escape an abusive relationship, the cultural codes stuck to my body from birth, my job as an art director, the prestige of my education …
Since the realisation that I was attracted to men in my early adolescence, I’ve never had any doubt that the desire was entirely innate and immutable. I’ve never been attracted to women, and I couldn’t imagine feeling any other way. Not everybody attracted to the same sex feels this way, however. A minority of …
Bisexuality refers to someone who experiences attraction (of one or more of the following kinds: sexual, romantic, emotional or affectionate) over their lifetime to more than one gender. As with any identity, it’s important for individuals to choose their own label, if they wish to have one at all. And to respect all labels and …
Writer/Director Julie Kalceff has created a world where intense, emotional and intimate relationships between lesbians are explored without using sexuality in a dramatic way to drive the narrative.
Popular TV is now littered with lesbians: Orphan Black, The L Word, Sugar Rush, Lip Service, Lost Girl, Glee… need I go on? Cheesy or not, we’re out there in prime time. What draws me to these programs is their realism: lesbians exist in their everyday ordinariness (well, and with superpowers). I can’t say the …
For a long time, I thought self-acceptance of my own bisexuality was enough. No one asked me for a label and I experienced very little overt discrimination. I toyed with the idea of telling my folks early on, but an older lesbian friend of mine advised against it. She knew that coming out to family …
“There were no women at all in that film.” This is an initial observation from a member of ‘the Queer Agenda’ – a fictionalised gay lobby who presides over the film to be screened during opening night of the Mardi Gras Film Festival. The ‘lobby’ is the central focus of writer/director Craig Boreham’s 2016 MGFF …
Trigger warning: This article contains descriptions of homophobic behaviour and stigma around STIs. “Oi! Lez be friends! Lez hold hands! Lez be friends!” Two teenage boys followed my girlfriend and I down an empty backstreet of Glebe, heckling us. We kept walking and avoided looking back. Eventually, they yelled some final slur and ducked down an …
We’ve pored over this year’s Midsumma program to bring you a selection of events that seek to arouse debate and challenge our views on gender, sexuality and the body. Word is Out Melbourne queer bookstore Hares and Hyenas has a variety of launches, talks and performances over the course of the next month. More than …
Chances are, my parents knew something was up. The day after Mum told us she was leaving Dad, we went for a miserable walk – just the two of us. In that blank sadness, a shot of adrenalin hit me when she said: ‘and maybe soon you can start talking to me about what’s going …
LISTEN: In Conversation with Archer feat. Simona Castricum, Dion Kagan + Rochelle Siemienowicz
“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 …
Following the release of her memoir, Reckoning, actor and comedian Magda Szubanski chats to us about sexuality, creativity and family. This article was originally published in Archer Magazine #5, buy your copy here. A: When was the first time you saw a gay or lesbian character that you identified with in a positive way? MS: …
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 …
Sandra Daugherty is a podcasting, workshop-teaching, sexual-shame-fighting “sex nerd” based in Los Angeles, California. After just missing her in L.A., Amanda Bloom got her on the phone to find out about what’s new and exciting in the world of sex, gender, relationships, and general sex nerdery. Find Daugherty’s podcast, Sex Nerd Sandra, on Nerdist and …
Theatre maker Kai Bradley, creative director of The Fashion Market AU Natasha Jynel, and Monique Hameed—project officer for the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health—have come together to coordinate and facilitate a ground breaking project for queer identified women from refugee and migrant backgrounds. Archer caught up with Natasha Jynel to find out more. A: Tell us about your project: …
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 …