My Book: Gothic Communism

This is the promo page for my upcoming book, Sex Positivity versus Sex Coercion, or Gothic Communism. Co-written and edited with my partner, Bay Ryan, and made in collaboration with numerous other sex workers, Sex Positivity is a non-profit, four-volume series on sex positivity and the Gothic. Each time a new volume goes live, I will post an update directly below that includes a download link (and other relevant info). In the meantime, feel free to scroll down and browse the rest of the page, where you can read the abstract and summaries per volume, view the cover illustrations, and learn about the project history and logo design!

Book Sample for Volume Two (4/3/2024; update: 4/26/2024)! For a cool, new extended preview of my upcoming monster volume, refer to my on-site promo series, the module “Brace for Impact” (2024)! Clocking in at over ~185,000 words, ~469 pages, ~346 images, and 49 new exhibits, the growing size of “Brace for Impact” has required me to split Volume Two in two: the Poetry Module (which is what “Brace for Impact” is) as part one, and the Monster Modules as part two. The Poetry Module was inspired by my friend and muse, Harmony Corrupted! To say thank you, I wrote her a special dedication.

Volume One/my manifesto volume is out (2/14/2024)! Click here to download the PDF (v1.02d2)! The rest of the volumes shall release over the remainder of 2024. In the meantime, give Volume One a look; it was written to be more accessible and less dense than my thesis volume. If you like my manifesto, please share it with your friends and let me know what you think!

Volume Zero/my thesis volume is out (10/8/2023)! Click here to download the PDF (v1.08d2)! The rest of the volumes are planned to release between the remainder of 2023 and all of 2024. In the meantime, give Volume Zero a look. It is easily the hardest thing I’ve ever written, and I’m very excited to share it with you all; if you like it, please share it with your friends and let me know what you think!

Check out my old blog! My book often cites my old blog, Persephone’s Gothic Insights, which writes more casually about heavy metal, horror, videogames and sex; the blog also includes my PhD research on Metroidvania, and numerous interview series, including on: FPS games, speedrunning the Doom franchise, speedrunning the Metroid franchise, and the indie Alien short film, “Alien: Ore,” (2019).

Looking for models! I’m looking for like-minded collaborators to draw for the project’s remaining volumes, but especially Volumes Two and Three; i.e., Sex Positivity takes a variety of intersecting theories (Gothic, Marxist, postcolonial, posthuman, game, and genderqueer) and combines them with sex-positive artistic expression as a group effort. Normally I commission someone to do a small custom set of nude images, then draw them as a monster based on the shoot; once completed, I assemble the drawing and reference material into a combined exhibit of negotiated labor exchange to feature in my book. Numerous examples can be found in my thesis volume (above), but also in my gallery of sex workers. If you’re interested in being drawn, you can reach me on Bluesky, Twitter, Discord, DA, or Facebook; my username is the same on all of them: vanderWaardart (it’s vanderWaardart86 on Tumblr).

Changelog:

Current update, 4/17/2024: Changed a few “sex positive” to “sex-positive” to be consistent. Went over all the exhibits to make their grammar consistent; e.g., “source tweet” followed by a comma if just the year, but followed by a colon just the author is listed, too. Tweaked the volume summaries. Updated Quinnvincible and Mercedes the Muse‘s hyperlinks (and the Acknowledgements page) to link to their special pages on my website. Also expanded the About the Author section (and my various hyperlinks) in conjunction with my About the Author webpage on my website.

I update the entire changelog whenever a new volume/volume edition goes live. Click here access the book’s full changelog (v0.92k).

Additional Promo Posters:

Poster models (from left to right): Blxxd Bunny, Mercedes the Muse, Quinnvincible, Sinead, Mikki Storm, Roxie Rusalka, Fox Fux, Mugiwara Art, Harmony Corrupted and Ashley Yelhsa.

Abstract:

My book, Sex Positivity versus Sex Coercion, or Gothic Communism: Liberating Sex Work under Capitalism through Iconoclastic Art, examines the various differences between sex positivity and sex coercion in sexualized media. Its “Gothic (gay-anarcho) Communism” combines a wide variety of theories in order to critique capital and capital’s sexualization of all workers: anarcho-Communism, Marxism and fourth wave feminism with the sharpness of Gothic academic theory, the immediacy of online political discourse, as well as postcolonial, posthuman and queer theory, ludology, sex education, antifascist (thus antiwar/anticapitalist) sentiment, poetry and a variety of ironic, xenophilic sex worker illustrations and negotiated labor exchanges that illustrate mutual consent in Gothic/BDSM language. As such, it employs these theories (and their respective language) holistically and intersectionally to dialectically-materially examine and combat unironic xenophobic mental enslavement during the Internet Age.

Specifically Sex Positivity tackles how neoliberal state-corporate proponents, TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical [fascist] feminists) and cryptofascists use canonical imagery created from coerced sex work to affect imagination as a socio-material process; i.e, using canon to generate complicated linguo-material arrangements that

  • continuously exploit sexualized workers through widespread xenophobia under late-stage Capitalism; i.e., Capitalism sexualizes all workers to heteronormatively serve the profit motive, commonly through harmful Gothic poetics and BDSM theatrics.
  • canonically exploit said arrangements to enshrine their abuse in abject, cryptonymic-hauntological crypts/chronotopes that “incarcerate,” “lobotomize,” “infantilize” and “incriminate” the public imagination; i.e., Mark Fischer’s Capitalist Realism, or myopic inability to imagine a world beyond Capitalism even when Capitalism is in decay (whose maxim regarding Capitalist Realism reads: “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of Capitalism”; source: Capitalist Realism, 2009).
  • simultaneously condemn sex-positive artists who seek to liberate sexualized workers through their own iconoclastic, ironically xenophilic praxis; i.e., camping the canon to escape its brutal historical materialism through their own creative successes, achieving praxial catharsis regarding systemic abuse and generational trauma.

Sex Positivity illustrates, similar to how oscillation is a key component of the Gothic, that Gothic Communism is the oscillation between Capitalism and anarcho-Communism as dialectical-material forces felt in Gothic language by real people: oppositional praxis, or the practical application/synthesis of theory in dialectical-material opposition. To combat nation-states as the ultimate foe, Gothic Communism’s chief aim is to be campier (thus sexier and funnier) than Marx; i.e., camping his ghost to develop a holistically intuitive anarcho-Communism begot through a widespread, collective and solidarized emotional and Gothic intelligence/awareness that recultivates the Superstructure and reclaims the Base through intersectional resistance and de facto (extracurricular) reeducation.

Table of Contents (a WIP until all four volumes release)

Sex Positivity is composed of four volumes: Volume Zero, One, Two and Three (arranged numerically as “volume [1, 2, 3, or 4] of 4, from 0 to 3” on their text-only title pages). Each has a proper title and ordinary noun(s) with which it is referred to; e.g., Volume One is also called “the manifesto,” and Volume Two is also referred to as “the Humanities primer,” etc.

Each volume only contains its table of contents and comes with a variety of paratextual materials.

Click here to access the PDF containing Sex Positivity‘s entire table of contents (v0.94k).

approximate book length (subject to change): ~1,021,000 words/3,061 pages and ~1,681 unique images

Volume Summaries/Links

Below are summaries for each volume of the book (download links will be provided as the volumes come out). Also included are the bookend sleeves for each volume (which features my partner, Bay, for the thesis volume; and various other models for Volumes One, Two and Three).

The paratextual materials concern the entire book, and come with each volume. The front of every volume will have: its front and rear cover images, its first disclaimer (legal information, citation facts, and trigger warnings, etc), the abstract, the inner cover image for the entire book, the text-only title page for the current volume, the volume/chapter summaries; a small explanation on one of this book’s oldest and chief aims, illustrating mutual consent; the second disclaimer (what I will and won’t exhibit), an address to the audience, essential keywords, and (for Volumes One, Two and Three) a heads-up section with various reminders from Volume Zero, including reading comprehension pointers; and, of course, the table of contents per volume. There’s also (for Volumes Two and Three) a small section about losing our training wheels and relying less on theory as we push into the second half of the book; and (for Volume Three, parts one and two), a brief explanation on why that volume was ultimately divided in two. Finally, the back of each volume will include the keyword glossary and the Acknowledgments and About the Author sections.

approximate[1] length: ~57,000-60,500 words/~204-220 pages[2] and ~17 unique images (including the front and rear covers)/~95-104 total images

[1] The length of the paratextual documents vary slightly per volume. All approximations are subject to change as the volumes are finalized.

[2] ~75-95 pages for the front of the volume, and ~128 for the rear.

Cover model: Bay Ryan

Volume Zero: Thesis. The thesis volume (download link, v1.08d2) contains my author’s foreword, a small essay on the performance and paradox of power (“Notes on Power”), as well as my book’s manifesto tree (scaffold of oppositional praxis), thesis argument[3] on Gothic (gay-anarcho) Communism, “camp map” and symposium; it uses them to encompass, then articulate, the entirety of my book’s theoretical content, using a variety of cited material and keywords (e.g., the Gothic, monstrous-feminine, and Amazonomachia) to delve into its broadest/most common arguments as deeply as possible. Written based on years of independent research—as well as older blogposts, essays, and my master’s thesis—Volume Zero essentially operates as my PhD but also my total curriculum, which can be simplified as needed when being taught to others in more anecdotal, everyday forms.

[3] (a summary of the thesis paragraph from the thesis volume): “Capitalism dimorphically sexualizes everything under a heteronormative, settler-colonial scheme, one whose Cartesian myopia of Capitalist Realism must be escaped from; i.e., via a deliberate iconoclasm that liberates sex workers (or sexualized workers) under Capitalism through sex-positive art.”

The thesis argument is divided up into my thesis statement, “camp map” and thesis conclusion/ symposium:

    • The thesis statement: Contains my manifesto tree, Four Gs (four main Gothic theories), another small essay about where power is performed during the Gothic mode/inside the Gothic imagination (“Doubles, Dark Forces, and Paradox”), and my thesis paragraph, which the thesis body expands on using most of this book’s keywords and manifesto terms.
    • The “camp map”: Assembles the manifesto pieces and explains (using the Four Gs) how to camp the canon of war as heteronormative by “making it gay”; i.e., normally canonized through the quest for power in a Faustian bargain (told in the warlike language we’re all accustomed to), which we then camp during our own Promethean Quests (“Oh, no! I’m totally being conquered right now!”). Told in four parts. Part one, explores camp as a counterterrorist activity in relation to state terrorism, and outlines various monster types featured in the exercises (e.g., femboys, catgirls, himbos, Amazons, etc); parts two explores the interrogation of power in relation to Gothic space (castles) but especially in videogames (shooters, high fantasy and Metroidvania); part three considers the making of monsters and goes over more monster types; part four puts all of these ideas to the test, executed by my friend Blxxd Bunny and I.
    • The conclusion: Wraps everything up and segues into the symposium, which is a conversational follow-up/aftercare “sesh” dedicated to points I wanted to expand on but couldn’t in the thesis proper due to word count/flow.

approximate volume length (minus the paratextual documents): ~200,000 words/603 pages and ~282 unique images

Cover model: Blxxd Bunny

Volume One: Manifesto and Instruction. The manifesto volume (download link, v1.02d2) contains my original preface, manifesto, synthesis roadmap and sample essay.

    • The preface explains how Gothic (gay-anarcho) Communism differs from older Gothic and Marxist academia/praxis that I wish to modify and borrow from (Marxist-Leninism, postmodernism, psychoanalysis) in order to proceed beyond the myopia of Capitalist Realism using a unique synthesis of Gothic theories, Marxist concepts, and various other factors presented with commonplace language as freighted, liminal and already-colonized, but also potentially freeing when used by workers to open up their minds in dated, pulpy ways: the proletarian Gothic imagination.
    • “Manifesto” simplifies the complex theory of our thesis volume by providing our manifesto in full; the manifesto gives our mission statement, as well as a variety of signposts and core ideas I’ve coined/retooled from older thinkers: the six Gothic-Marxist tenets of Gothic Communism (the Six Rs), four main Gothic academic theories (the Four Gs); its essays/essay groups (“The Nation State,” “An Uphill Battle,” and “Monster Modes“) also explore the topics of the Gothic mode we’ll continue to cover through the rest of the book—its monsters, lairs/parallel space, Hermeneutic Gothic-Communist Quadfecta, and phobias—as well as the Six Doubles of Creative/Oppositional Praxis and their synthetic oppositional groupings through which to synthesize, thus interrogate state abuses using trauma writing and artwork.
    • “Instruction“ focuses on instructing theory once simplified by using trauma writing and artwork as a synthetic, educational means of Gothic poetic expression. The manifesto postscript tackles generational trauma and police abuse by seeing it in others through their pedagogy of the oppressed; the sample essay uses every key idea in my book to analyze a primary text at full speed; “Paid Labor“ stresses the value of paying workers when synthesizing praxis; and the synthesis symposium covers how to use the synthetic oppositional groupings to synthesize our general terms and academic ideas, processing them (and our trauma) into idiosyncratic, emotionally and Gothically intelligent social-sexual habits within our own lives; it covers more at length what we illustrated during the camp map finale in Volume Zero, focusing on Cartesian trauma and how its profit motive unironically treats nature as food: (rape and war that harvest nature through monstrous-feminine dialogs).

Volume One contains my Gothic-Communist manifesto and outlines a teaching method for synthesizing praxis; i.e., through an introduction to simplified Gothic-Communist theory. Written before my thesis but updated in light of its construction, the manifesto takes a more conversational approach to my thesis argument; i.e., presenting said argument through my original preface, manifesto, sample essay and synthesis roadmap as a potent means of teaching others how to develop Communism through the Gothic mode. To this, Volume One merely begins exploring the application of my theories when trying to achieve development through praxial synthesis and catharsis; i.e., power and trauma as things to interrogate (and negotiate/play with) by writing about and illustrating them through Gothic poetics in the shared dialogs of contested spaces: ludo-Gothic BDSM serving as a flexible, campy and productive means of teaching empathy and class/culture consciousness through anecdotal evidence merged with dialectical-material scrutiny and analysis—where survival and healing from state abuse (and generational trauma) must be expressed through what we create ourselves as stemming from said abuse and its complicated spheres. While the reduction of pure theory to more comprehensible forms remains vital to achieving emotional/Gothic intelligence and class/cultural awareness, their instruction is nonetheless informed by workers living with trauma who inherently distrust the state: the oppressed. Heeding their pedagogy remains essential when synthesizing praxis in our own daily lives; i.e., through our personalized learned approaches to Gothic instruction being assisted by those with less privilege merging their poetics (and theatre) with ours.

approximate volume length (“): ~187,000 words/497 pages and ~326 unique images

Cover model: Harmony Corrupted

Volume Two: Monsters. The Humanities primer/monster volume (TBA) explores the complex usage and history of Gothic poetics during oppositional praxis; i.e., its (un)ironic manifestation as xenophobic and/or xenophilic: creatively interpreting and negotiating with the Gothic past/Wisdom of the Ancients to better understand our own alien, fetishized world and the exploitation we face within it as dehumanized workers. We will demonstrate how to think like a Gothic poet/Renaissance person (through monstrous poetics), then examine two basic monster classes—the undead and demonic—and include anthropomorphic examples from the natural world as further hybridizing these already intersecting modules (furries, chimeras, composites); e.g., zombie-vampire werewolves, or undead fox demons, etc. We’ll also reconsider Mark Fischer’s notion of Capitalist Realism; i.e., inspecting how it fosters a plethora of cyberpunk and other dystopic/operatic “canceled futures,” whose canonical, myopic hauntologies and cryptonomy must be challenged with iconoclastic monsters operating as a counterterror device: to help people radically imagine, and empathize with, a world beyond Capitalism (and state terror). Instead of simply viewing the current world as ending and labor to blame for it, we can learn why the state is ultimately to blame for a) its own decay and b) its scapegoating of said decay onto dehumanized monstrous-feminine workers of decreasing privilege/socio-material advantage. In turn we can portray the Medusa (nature-as-alien) as something to hug, fuck and love, not rape, kill or otherwise harm for profit vis-à-vis Cartesian thought.

Cover model: my partner, Crow

The volume divides in two parts, with three modules: the Poetry Module in part one, which explores the usage of Gothic poetics; and Undead and Demon Modules in part two, which explore the history of Gothic poetics.

approximate length (“), part one (the Poetry Module): ~185,000 words/~469 pages, ~346 unique images

approximate length (“), part two (the Monster Modules): ~225,000 words/~666 pages and ~349 unique images

Cover model: Casper Clock

Volume Three: Praxis, parts one and two. The praxis volume (TBA) is the informed, continuous application of successful proletarian praxis as we reinterpret the Gothic past moving forward. Striking a careful, intuitive balance between pure theory and taught instruction, its introduction/summation takes Volume Zero’s theoretical backbone, Volume One’s simplified teaching approach and Volume Two’s past lessons, then outlines the dialectical-material objectives through which to apply our central Gothic theories—i.e., in a dialectical-material way using updated, posthumanist models (expanded beyond Cartesian thought) in order to achieve Gothic Communism one step at a time. This includes the creative successes of proletarian praxis, which the volume explores in relation to state forces who resist their transformative power to keep things the same; i.e., the state vs workers, generally by pitting the latter against each other. A huge part of proletarian praxis, then, involves a gradual development of emotional/Gothic intelligence and class/cultural awareness during our updated teaching approach and labor negotiations when expressed through Gothic poetics and demonic BDSM; i.e., to counterattack state forces in service to our larger goals—our six Gothic-Marxist tenets—thwarting Capitalist Realism.

Volume Three, part one lays out sex positivity and sex coercion—but also the liminality between them—in a two-part introduction, followed three chapters:

    • “Introduction: Dialectical Materialism (with Monsters)” and “Before the Plunge” take Volume One’s overall approach and Volume Two’s past lessons, then outline the dialectical-material objectives and execution through which to apply our manifesto’s central Gothic theories; i.e., in a dialectical-material way using updated, posthumanist models (expanded beyond Cartesian thought) in order to achieve Gothic Communism one step at a time.
    • Chapter One focuses on sex positivity and the “creative successes” of proletarian praxis—how Gothic Communism, when correctly performed, cultivates empathy under Capitalism through mutual consent, informed consumption, de facto education and descriptive sexuality as things to materially imagine (often through ironic parody and “perspective” pastiche) through Gothic poetics.
    • Chapter Two explores their dialectical foil—sex coercion, whereupon Capitalism “zombifies” consumers into “lobotomizing” themselves and others, resulting in abject, fetishizing witch-hunts, toxic love and criminal sexuality as historical-material outcomes that seek to control sex and thoughts/cultural attitudes about sex, as well as the sexist, obfuscating ambivalence of Gothic canon’s coercive BDSM, fetishes and kink.
    • Chapter Three enters the “grey area” of cultural appreciation, examining: the culturally appreciative, sexually descriptive irony of Gothic counterculture’s reverse abjection with sex-positive BDSM, kink and fetishization; as well as asexuality, queer-/homonormative gatekeeping and the ambiguities of trans, non-binary, intersex, and drag existence, but also their assorted discriminations begot from weird canonical nerds and the canonical media that turns them into harmful bigots.

Cover models: Ms. Reefer and Ayla

Volume Three, part two contains Chapters Four and Five plus the Conclusion, which concerns the creative successes of proletarian praxis versus state praxis. Time to fight!

    • Chapter Four explores sexism and other bigotries within a gradient of canonical moderacy and reactionary politics in popular, sexualized media—TERF hauntologies, sublimated war pastiche, girl/war bosses, and queer tokenism at large.
    • Chapter Five seeks to provide lasting solutions based on emotionally/Gothically intelligent activists who can detect, recognize and separate all of the above when creating their own cryptonymic material, all while enacting Gothic Communism, outing state proponents, and living in a brave new world of sexy “awakened” monsters: the liminally subversive/transgressive zombies, ghosts, vampires, witches, Amazons, etc.
    • “Pussy on the Chainwax!” closes out the book, giving the reader two basic choices: a) to serve the state and Capitalist Realism, bringing about the actual end of the world, or b) to face the perceived “end of the world” in order to stop of the Promethean cycle (and ultimate desolate conclusion) of Capitalism.

approximate volume length (“): ~234,000 words/795 pages and ~394 unique images

Gothic Communism Logo Design:

Here is a history of the logo design for Gothic (gay-anarcho) Communism:

With the release date to my upcoming book, Sex Positivity vs Sex Coercion, or Gothic Communism, drawing near, I decided that I should finally design my own logo for Gothic (gay-Anarcho) Communism. Here is a brief history of its recent inception and cannibalized source materials (from my blogpost “My Logo for Gothic (gay-anarcho) Communism!” 2023, which has even more images):

For much of this book’s construction, I was using the Laborwave hammer and sickle insignia over a red-and-yellow cover to represent the book’s concept of Gothic (gay-anarcho) Communism. However, I decided on 8/26/2023 to design, thus give, the ideology its own symbol (the full PNGs for the Gothic [gay-anarcho] Communism logo by itself—with three different versions [full version w/flame and w/o flame, and the “skeleton key” simplified version] are included above, but also are available on my DA Stash). When crafting my own symbol, I wanted to progress further beyond the Vaporware aesthetic (which emerged in roughly in 2011) than Laborwave had, which, in 2016, combined Vaporwave’s signature corporate mood/neoliberalism-in-decay with Marxist-Leninist icons divorced from their historical-material past. I wanted to not simply reflect on corporate/neoliberal fallibility and decay within dead/dystopian postpunk-tinged nostalgia, nor wax nostalgic on the undead pastiche of Marxist-Leninism, but inject a Gothic-queer presence to evoke an anarcho-Communist potential towards ending Capitalism Realism in the eternal drive towards developing Communism.

So I took the iconic hammer and sickle, found an anarcho-Communist variant with the same nostalgic/trans color scheme, and embossed a skull with it over a Wiccan pentacle; the skull I treated as the circle of the transgender symbol, fashioning it from black bones and horns (to symbolize the undead and demonic of Gothic poetics fused with the aesthetics of power and death; i.e., the green flames and purple slime as reclaimed colors of canonical stigma and persecution). If I was going to simply it, I’d thought I’d lose the flames and pentacle, turn everything black, and make the an-Com symbol negative space in the forehead. The thought process was, I wanted the embellished version for the book cover (like a monk’s monasterial tomb) to give it a thoroughly medievalized flavor (the embossed codex). But as part of a logo guide, I included the simplified version of the symbol simply called “the skeleton key.” I thought about using just the “A” in the forehead or the hammer and sickle, but that verges on too simple (the “A” being for Anarchism and the hammer and sickle being for Communism); so I went with the more complex an-Com symbol to preserve its meaning. That + the skull and crossbones + the horns + the trans icon = Gothic (gay-anarcho) Communism. It can be drawn all in black with a simple marker in a simplified “bathroom stall” form, but also has a fancier black logo that can be further embellished with ornaments and color if needed. Also, completely by accident, it kind of reminds me of Mercyful Fate’s Melissa skull + the Grateful Dead logo, the latter being one of the most famous counterculture rock ‘n roll bands of all time: sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll all in one package!

About the Author

Persephone van der Waard is the author of Sex Positivity—its art director, sole invigilator, and primary editor (the other co-writer/co-editor being Bay Ryan). She is a MtF trans woman, atheist/Satanist, poly/pan kinkster with two partners. Including her multiple playmates/friends and collaborators, Persephone and her thirteen muses work/play together on Sex Positivity and on her artwork at large as a sex-positive force. First and foremost, she is a sex work activist, fighting for sex worker liberation through iconoclastic/sex-positive artwork. To that, she is an anarcho-Communist writer, illustrator, BDSM educator, sex worker, genderqueer/environmental activist and Gothic ludologist—with her (independent) PhD having been written on Metroidvania combined with the above variables; i.e., to coin and articulate ludo-Gothic BDSM as a sex-positive poetic device. She sometimes writes reviews, Gothic analyses, and interviews for fun on her old blog; or does continual independent research on Metroidvania and speedrunning every now and again. If you’re interested in her work or curious about illustrated or written commissions, please refer to her commissions page for more information.

Click here to see a condensed example of Persephone’s wide portfolio.