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.

Online dating and meeting people now, especially in the gay community, is a new realm.

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 …

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 …

 “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.

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.

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

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 …