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ARIES 21 March - 19 April Fiery, fiery, Aries, your confidence usually precedes you in a room, but this month, someone will actually make you shy. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is let yourself blush. TAURUS 20 April - 20 May Sometimes it’s okay to take a break from the constant yearning and pining; try to focus on yourself a little this month! GEMINI 21 May - 20 June It’s time to be honest with your lover and more importantly, with yourself… those fake orgasms aren

Deputy Editor Niamh McGonnell-Hall bids her farewell to Grapeshot and leaves you with one final Niamh’s Reads My dearest readers, the time has come for me to say my goodbyes to this wonderful magazine. Whilst it is a bitter moment, I shall try to focus on the sweetness and on all the amazingly creative people I met along the way. I wanted to do something slightly different for this final instalment of Niamh’s Reads, and give you all a list of my most treasured reads, from any

Contributor Jaydee Lourens presents to you some blush-worthy ballads by Sydney artists Put on your headphones and blush to some local Sydney artists - Xo Jaydee If I Could Make You Dance- Civic Video A Heart Like Yours- Camino Gold I Might Fall in Love- Surf Trash Sadie- The Rions I Want You- The Buoys Colin- Lime Cordiale California Boys- ILUKA Calling Out Your Name- Velvet Trip Be About You- Winston Surfshirt Lover- Matt Corby by Jaydee Lourens

Contributor Deanna Arudselvam delves into the dazzling and raunchy ton in Netflix’s Bridgerton & how conversations of sex shine through The series Bridgerton represents a thrilling representation to audiences of how television can challenge the taboos and the uncomfortable nature of talking about sex. This reinforces how despite being a regency era historical fantasy, this systemic structure of power reinforces what we see today involving young people's need for transparency

Editorial Assistant Katrina Wang, is acing Life and sets out to redefine love, success, and self as an ace person "… and they lived happily ever after." Happy fairytales always end up with a happy ending, don't they? The brave knight rescuing a princess, a horrible curse broken by a dashing rogue. Fairytale re-tellings also follow that someone finally, after much trial and tribulation, finds their one. ‘The One.’ Maybe they were lesbian knights, sent out to fulfil a quest and

Editorial Assistant Alicja Krotofil examines the idea of unrequited love as a universal experience and uncovers why we feel this way For our annual sex issue, I wanted to explore the theories behind that all too familiar feeling that we all know: unrequited love. We see it in movies, we read about it in books, we feel it ourselves, but where does it come from, and why do so many of us indulge in it when we know that it can only end in pain and heartbreak? If you’re unfamilia

My first crush didn’t sit next to me in class or pass me a note at recess. He lived in a labyrinth, wore eyeliner, and hung out with goblins. I was very young and completely in love with David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth. It wasn’t just the hair (though, objectively, the hair did a lot). It was the presence. The confidence. The way he filled a room with total authority. There was also the ballroom scene: the music swelling, the masks, the glitter, the feeling that something

Editorial Assistant Martha Florence critically examines the illustrious author Ali Hazelwood’s male main characters and their spicy skill sets Content warning: explicit language and themes In this year’s sexy Blush issue, I thought I’d spend some quality time with Ali Hazelwood’s MMCs [Male Main Character]. I might be pushing the limits of culture rewind, seeing as Hazelwood’s books have been published in the past five years. More like a cultural look over the shoulder....

Repeat Offenders Section Editor Juliette Allen delves into Netflix’s Heartbreak High’s upcoming finale season and it’s refreshingly honest takes on growing up & hooking up Promo Still 2022- 2026 (Cr . Hannah Carroll Chapman) Another sex issue is underway, and it comes with the best possible timing! Blush’s article submission deadline coincides with the titillating Heartbreak High’s third and final season coming out on Netflix, and it’s set to be a chaotic and fun-filled journ

Tyrael Goo dissects the definitions, difficulties, and differences between romantic and sexual love. Most people who aren’t aromantic or asexual, at least as far as I’m aware, don’t think about the definitions of romantic and sexual love very much. The boundaries for romantic and sexual attraction make a lot more sense to people when they’re all wound up together into a singular feeling that you get for a person—the butterflies in your stomach, the desire for their body, the

Perpetual Nkatiaa Boadu ponders the important relationship between love for oneself and love for others. I have always hated crushes. When I was younger, it was almost embarrassing. I was the only black girl most places I went, so my crushes never once looked my way. They wouldn’t even notice if I blushed; my dark skin would hide it. In primary school, the guy I had a crush on asked my best friend on a date. That was the second time it had happened—same guy, different friend.

Deeya Sabnani’s poetic (and practical) guide to falling in love with someone destructive. 1. Locate a singularity. This part is easier than the textbooks suggest; they rarely look like catastrophes at first. They might look like charm, like quiet confidence, or someone who says your name as if they’ve already decided what it means. You do not ask about the density. You do not ask what collapsed to make them this way. Origins are for people who plan on keeping their distance,

Libby Heussler laments a by-gone era of lasting love replaced by the superficiality of dating apps. Every generation has their great acts of love. From the “parting is such sweet sorrow”s of the 16th century to the “I learned French for you!”s of the late 90s, for as long as humans have walked the earth, love has been in the air—or at least, lust, in those early years. But today, nothing compares to the ultimate declaration of love: a message from James (Hinge), reading “Ur c

Editorial Assistant Emily Chan explores the heartbreaking understanding that a beautiful connection is confined to the past. It’s a strange kind of pain, not knowing what will never be. For all the details that you noticed, for everything you knew about me, you never knew this, never noticed this. Never noticed us. And I, for all my faults, perhaps made the biggest one of all in letting you go. Do you remember the way the moon melted all over my brand-new cream carpet the fi

Section Editor Bethany Sharman tackles the inconvenience of having feelings and the difficulty of moving on. Hailed as a heart-stopping discovery in the field of Antimicrobial Resistance, a new study published Friday found that butterflies in the stomach have evolved to withstand conventional treatments of getting rid of a crush. What was once the entirely simple matter of enforcing physical and digital distance by blocking them on social media and resigning from one’s workpl

Editorial Assistant Ella Barker searches for the answer her heart is aching for. I really liked the guy I was seeing recently. Like, really liked him. Out of all the guys I’ve dated, talked to, and hooked up with, he was the one I connected with the most. He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s kind, and he actually seemed to enjoy my company when my clothes were on. I’m used to guys just wanting to jump into bed, but he was different. I wanted this to happen. I wanted to keep going on

Love is in the morning dew, Lining up in a café queue, To drink up a shot of espresso. Love turns and looks at you, Finding the same hazel eyes, Within a room of blues and browns. Love is waiting on your doorstep, Wiping up the frown the moment, You see her twirl in her yellow dress. Love is adding another text, After the end of a conversation. A question that increases the connection. Love is growing old, In sickness and in sorrow In the health that y

Love, love, love, What is love? Would it sneak up on you After months of radio silence? Would it ever leave me alone, The love for you? What is love? Is it pure as snow? Or white as a dove? Could it be deceitful? Would I ever have met the real you without it? Love is the sun shining through the window The plants growing green The morning dew untouched The rain falling Making the sky clean Love is everywhere all at once It's nowhere to be found Love is in the gr

Understanding you is like speaking A language no one in this world speaks, But me. It’s learning your quirks, But knowing them already. It’s knowing your expressions, Instead of words. Knowing you is like Knowing a warm summer’s day, That we spent all day on the bay. You whined about the sand Getting in your hair and I sat there and admired the ways In which your eyes crinkled and softened. Loving you is loving me The way I am around you The way I feel safe. Lo

Walking down the street, A van parked at the curbside, We meet face to face. Eyes lock in a pause, A small moment that feels strange, Like recalling song. Something in me shifts, Whispers of calm fill the air, So grand yet so still. Memories linger, Moments fade, bright yet fleeting, In a breath, they heal. Courteous exchange, In that heartbeat, we connect, A glance shared in time. As our paths crossed there, I felt my edges soften, Embraced in the light.

I put pen to paper like how you put your lips on her skin—slow and reverent. Making her blush in a way I’ll never get to taste. Where the desire lingers in both of your eyes. The ink hesitates where I do. It pools in the broken crevices, in the pauses where your name almost forms but never arrives. A fleeting ghost. You linger more in memory than in life. I imagined the warmth of you, not as something I had or created, but as something I circled endlessly. However, you circle

Publishing under a pseudonymous name in the local newspaper, Myron Miscavage—whose real name was Barry Eck—had won himself modest acclaim by writing a weekly relationship advice column titled Weird Love. Barry’s writing, situated somewhere between inoffensively banal and offensively derivative, stuck to those popular phrases and easy consolations you might find in any other advice column, things like “if he wanted to, he would have” and “love begins by loving yourself”. His a