ARCHER MAGAZINE #15 - the FRIENDSHIP issue

This edition of Archer Magazine features articles on friends with benefits, loneliness, intergenerational friendship, and chosen family.

“Friendships are beautiful, complicated, sustaining, lifelong, fleeting. They can be sexual. They can be found in unlikely places, be forged with unlikely people, flourish in unlikely circumstances. They can be entirely predictable. They can be a replacement for a partner, or a family. They can be with a partner, or family members. They can be overwhelming.” – Lucy Watson, editor-in-chief

“When I think about what I have learned most from non-monogamy, it is how much more able I feel to turn to these great many circles in times of need, and the help I feel I can offer in return. The friends who hold me for hours when I cry the night of a break-up, the friend who gives me a couch to sleep on when I miss the last bus home, the friend who beats me up when I ask nicely, the friend who tells me I’ll be okay, the friend who fucks me gently when I hear the news of another friend having passed away, the friend who shares a monthly calendar reminder to make sure we see each other, the friend who loves me unconditionally.” –Liz Duck-Chong

“That you’re only allowed to see someone you exchange saliva with, rather than a friend you play board games with, really seems to fly in the face of what we know about [COVID-19].” – Alistair Baldwin

“When friendships become family, LGBTI+ people can truly thrive.” – Hayden Moon

“There’s no immediate salve for the lingering loneliness, the hard-earned loneliness, the ping-ponging loneliness that’s always served back. Not even exquisite queer friendships.” – Alex Creece

“I failed a university paper because I had discovered queer sex and I just wanted to get fisted instead of reading Chaucer” – Ally Garrett