These were but a few of the headlines to appear on the front cover of Archer's second issue, but it wasn't the racy subject matter that caused a couple of newsagents stocking the magazine to complain to the editor.

Rather, says Amy Middleton, they were concerned about the cover image, depicting a couple of young men, one shirtless, in an affectionate pose.

"But they were 18," she says. "18-year-old men have sex."

Archer bills itself as "Australia's first journal of sexual diversity." Middleton launched the bi-annual publication in November 2013, with the help of a Pozible campaign that raised $20,000.

She had been working in the fast and furious world of digital publishing for a decade when she decided to buck the online trend and publish her own glossy print magazine.  "I thought I'd like to edit a luxe, high-quality, Mag Nation-style publication about sex and gender," she says.

"When I realised that it didn't exist, I decided I was going to do it myself."

Middleton wanted to create a "tangible artefact" of Australia's current attitudes towards sex and gender, at a time when gay couples were still not able to marry here and same-sex love - while highly visible in the streets - was only marginally represented in popular culture.

Contributors are a combination of academics, photographers and artists, established writers - award-winning author Christos Tsiolkas penned a piece for the first issue -- and non-professionals.

Middleton says it can be time-consuming to work with inexperienced writers, "but the point of Archer is to promote those little-heard voices".

"We put a lot of time and patience into fostering people who aren't as experienced, just so there's a diversity of voices in each issue and on the website."

Features are around 2000 words or fewer, with an emphasis on accessible "human stories" often told from the writer's own perspective. Aram Hosie writes about his gender transition in issue one, and in the latest issue, sex worker and pornographer Nic Holas describes his experiences at a sex-on-premises venue.

A couple of stockists suggested that the magazine should be wrapped in plastic, but "that kind of defeated the purpose," says Middleton.

"I wanted it to be at a newsagent so that regional kids could access it, and if it's in plastic they can't flick through it."

Archer runs on a shoestring. The skeleton editorial staff are still largely unpaid, but Middleton, a writer herself, makes a point of paying all her contributors.

After three issues they're just starting to break even. "Hopefully, at one point I'll be able to pay myself a salary, that will be amazing," says Middleton.

There are other rewards. Archer has already picked up a bunch of awards, including a nomination for the UN Human Rights Media Award, and Middleton receives a lot of fan mail. "The general gist is gratitude and relief that this finally exists."

The magazine's aim is wide-reaching. Middleton says she wanted to "capture Australia's attitude, not just a small section of Australia" and to reference myriad gender identities and sexualities by including queer, straight and bi content, and everything in between.

An article in issue one asked three people to explain why they objected to same sex marriage, an unusual inclusion for a journal that promotes equality, but it's this atypical approach to discussing gender and sexuality that readers seem to appreciate most, Middleton says.

"The manifesto is that sex is weird for all of us, so we should just all talk about it together."