Words by: Kate Zhang
Sex therapists can be mysterious. Maybe this is the first time you’ve heard about them. Maybe Dr Jean Milburn in Sex Education is the first and the only sex therapist you know. Maybe your knowledge about them is based on assumptions, or even imagination.
… Nine Assumptions About Sex Therapists
Words by: Kiera Eardley
It’s a phrase that’s all too familiar for women who grew up quickly, matured early, felt ahead of their years as a teenager: “you just need to meet an older guy”. All the shortcomings of the seemingly clueless boys our own age could easily be attributed to immaturity and slower brain development, so the obvious solution for us was to date older. With age comes inherent maturity and life experience and security, they say, and that was an appealing prospect as a young girl whose eyes glazed over at the mention of any testosterone-fuelled pastime. But when the age gap is substantial, is it really all it’s cracked up to be?
… Mind the Gap
Words by: Eden Hopgood
Here we are in 2022, and female body hair somehow continues to be taboo. Having permeated gender dynamics for centuries, it’s always been regarded as yet another beauty standard women are expected to abide by, and a lack of body hair in the female-identifying population has long signified the ‘ideal body’. But this has begun to shift. More attention in the beauty industry is being given to gender fluidity, body positivity, and more inclusive messaging. In recent years, norms are finally beginning to shift; almost one in four women under 25 no longer shave their armpits, compared with just one in 20 in 2013.
… Body Hair, Don’t Care
Words by: Amelia Swan Art by: Jessica La
“I think you should go on the pill.”
It seemed like an odd thing to say to me at 15. With a curly bob and a generous spread of bulging pimples, I was in the low-risk category for an unplanned teenage pregnancy. But still, here I was watching my GP write me a script for Femme-Tab ED 20/100.That story was the same for my sister a few years later, who was also put on the pill to help with her skin. Then a friend. And then another. It seemed every second girl was on the pill before they left high school, and almost all of us had an alternative reason for being on it rather than preventing pregnancy.
… The Rise and Fall of the Pill
Words by: Juliette Capomolla Art by: Shreya Mishra
I think it’s safe to say that we’d all be horrified if sex wasn’t a part of our futures. The thought that, at the ripe old age of 65, I might no longer be having sex, makes me shudder. We twentysomethings are expected to be crazed hornbags (sorry, I hate that expression too) and a lot of the time, we sure as hell live up to it. But do we really want to get shacked up, be intimate for mere procreation purposes, create a sex schedule (read: only Wednesday nights at 9pm) and then eventually just never have sex again? Dearest reader, I know our answers are both a firm no.
… Sexual Desire Does Not Expire
Words by: Zayan Ismail Art by: Therese Dias
Much had changed when the world witnessed the closing of the early noughties. It was an era of anticipation for transformation. On the internet, in music, on television: the zeitgeist of the 2010s ushered in something different — something reminiscent of love, transformation and yearning for tolerance and acceptance. I saw it first on MTV. Gaga, in a bright blue swimsuit and a blond bob singing ‘Poker Face’. The theatrics of ‘Paparazzi’, and then came ‘The Fame’, in which she coins the famous line “obsessively opposed to the typical”. I saw the outlandish outfits, chiffon and latex, shades and long trains — how camp and how strange. I was thoroughly intrigued. With ‘Born This Way’, I began to realise my uniqueness and accept that it was in many ways, totally okay.
… Into the Camp: A Journey
Words by: Jonathan Hawes Art by: Jessica La
When my girlfriend and I walk through town holding hands, we turn a lot of heads. I joke that it’s because they’re wondering how a beautiful woman like her ended up with an average Joe like me. Though underneath the humour, we both know why people are staring. She’s Black, and I’m White.
… Love Makes the World Go Round
Words by: Ruby Ellam
There are some things that are way more embarrassing than having an STI. Like shitting your pants twice. Thankfully, Azithromycin, a common antibiotic used to treat chlamydia, exists just to remind us how much worse it can get. Azithromycin causes side effects in about 1 in 100 people including diarrhoea, vomiting and thrush. And like Lady Gaga says, there could be 100 people in the room, but only one (me) will shit their pants after getting chlamydia.
… The STIs Have It
Words by: Emma Sudano Art by: Gabrielle Poh
I remember clearly when the Year 12s of a nearby all-boys school sprawled sexist comments across their school uniforms. Or when boys in my year created a ‘Holy Trinity’ of the ugliest girls at my school. Or nicknamed girls a ‘bike’ based on their weight or looks. I remember when boys I was forced to go to school events with proudly shared a video titled “Jordan Peterson destroys triggered feminist” on social media. For so long, there has been denial of a clear cultural problem in all-boys schools that is obvious from every angle.
… Toxic School Culture: Up in Flames
Writer: Zoë Porter-Parsons Artist: Fletcher Aldous
There are vaginas
On my floor, staring.
I wonder if others
Notice? Lips, slits,
In the floorboards?
… Yonic Vision
Writer: Ashmitaa Thiruselvam Artist: Gabrielle Poh
The big titty committee. A term that I am all too familiar and have a bittersweet relationship with. Growing up, bra shopping was and still is an absolute nightmare for me. I try to put it off for as long as I can, to be honest. Just the idea of having to stand in the changing room, half naked while a slightly older woman wraps her measuring tape around all areas of my chest, gives me second-hand embarrassment. I know that this is just a fragment of my already-existing insecurities and that the bra lady literally does not care, but that whole ordeal makes me uncomfortable. By the time it’s over, I am directed to a tiny rack of nude or black bras tailored to my DDs, looking like they have come straight from my grandmother’s wardrobe. Comfortable, sure, but not sexy in the slightest.
… The Heavy Burden of my DDs
Writer: Surbhi Artist: Mon Ouk
My first experience with a fake orgasm was watching a moaning Meg Ryan, aka Sally, throwing her head back in a New York deli and chanting “yes, yes, yes!”. The first time I pulled a Sally myself was a few years back, under the expectant gaze of a partner who asked if I had finished after a few minutes of rock ‘n’ roll, and I giggled awkwardly and nodded.
… Fake It ’Til You Make It
Writer: Alice Wright Artist: Emilia Bajer
When it comes to sex, we all know what feels good. What belongs where for things to *happen*, however we want it done. But is that all we know when it comes to our sexual organs, or our bodies in general?
Australia is finally playing catch-up on sex education in schools, and we’re starting to learn the ins and outs of our bodies and minds. But I’ve finished school, and a while ago now. I definitely wasn’t taught a lot about my anatomy then — so how and why should I learn it now?
… Anatomy Class
Writer: Daisy Henry Artist: Gabrielle Poh
While COVID numbers grew, Victoria entered lockdown after lockdown and many people’s worlds slowed down, but mine accelerated at an unprecedented pace — I reconnected with a childhood friend, found myself in a relationship, and moved in with a man for the first time.
… My Isolationship
Writer: Lydia Strohfeldt Artist: Naiya Sornratanachai
I’ve always envisioned the end of the world to be incredibly sexy: me, smoky-eyed and sweaty against an incandescent background, wrapped in the arms of someone resembling Adam Driver. This rugged lover uses their last moments of life to finally admit the clitoris is, in fact, the powerhouse of the orgasmic cell, and not something they saw on PornHub that “worked for their ex”. As I whimsically exhale a super-profound quote from Audre Lorde, an array of erotic catastrophes sprawl across the land: volcanic eruptions, earth-shattering trembles — the whole world collapses into an exhausted abyss.
… The Four Horsemen of the Sexpocalypse
Writer: Angel Tully Artist: Stephanie Wong
Imagine this: you and your partner are in the moment, you’re kissing, hands are all over the place, the mood is intensifying, you’re both getting hot and sweaty, they pull you on top of them and suddenly a switch flicks… do I look like I have a double chin from this angle? We have all been there, whether it’s a double chin, stomach rolls, an embarrassing sex noise or maybe even the classic case of feeling a bit unco. Feeling self-conscious is natural, but we don’t have to let it get into our heads or stop us from getting and giving head. Here are my top tips for feeling hot in the bedroom, and leaving those insecurities on the floor with the clothes you just took off.
… Lights Off, Please
Writer: Victoria Loizides Artist: Griffin McGrath
It’s about to get saucy.
So, you’ve made it back to your place, and staggering behind you is your date, so close that even the jimmying of the key in the lock of your front door won’t blur the sound of their heavy breath. You’ve just come back from a pool bar (the universal symbol that almost promises a sexy time). They won twice, and you, once. Sparks fly.
… When Kink Becomes Kinkless
Writer: Sarah Wilkes Artist: Madison Marshall
Sex scenes. Some fooled your 12-year-old self into thinking life was a Nicholas Sparks movie, some take you by surprise at family movie night (ground, swallow me up!) and others are just as hardcore as your last Pornhub search.
… Sex On The Silver Screen
Writer: Gabriela Fannia Artist: Fletcher Aldous
If you’d ask anyone what ‘love’ is, you’ll mostly get positive, cute-yet-cringy definitions of it. But ask someone who just went through a major breakup, and they would give you a whole new set of gut-wrenching definitions of ‘love’. No matter how long, how serious, or how intimate the relationship is, a heartbreak is still a heartbreak. The level of ‘pain’ is (arguably) relative, but that’s not the point here. The point is, it is something we would choose not to go through if we had an option at all. In extreme cases, many don’t believe in love anymore, just as darkness is the absence of light, that solitary feeling after a breakup is the absence of love.
… Picking Up the Pieces
Writer: Soraya Rezal Artist: Fletcher Aldous
“So, who wears the pants in your relationship?”.
Sure, that question may be valid during the mid-1500s but try asking me now and I may just flip you off (just kidding, maybe not).
… Shopping on Both Sides of the Department Store
Writer: Marla Sommer Artist: Rini Pradhan
Once, I saw this TikTok that summed up some desires we all feel at one point or another. It made me realise that many of us are in the same position. That position, my friend, is not the infamous 69 or the fabled “committed relationship” — it’s the single life. But all of this shouldn’t matter because what you don’t see is the sheer power every individual has to live out this desire for themselves. And it has a name:
M-a-s-t-u-r-b-a-t-i-o-n.
… PSA: Vibrators are in, and so is loving yourself
Esperanto Magazine 