Book Sample: “All the World” Volume Contents and Disclaimer

Posted on by Persephone van der Waard

“All the World” is a blog-style book promotion, originally inspired by those done with Harmony Corrupted and Romantic Rose for Volume Two; re: “Brace for Impact,”  “Searching for Secrets” and “Deal with the Devil” (2024), as well as “Make It Real” for Volume One and “The Total Codex” for Volume Zero. Those promotions sought to promote and provide their volume’s individual pieces for easy public viewing in single-post form; re: for the Poetry Module, Undead Module and Demon Module, followed by my PhD and manifesto. “All the World,” by comparison, caps off my book series with a promotion for Volume Three; re: my Praxis Volume. As usual, this promotion was written, illustrated and invigilated by me as part of my larger Sex Positivity (2023) book series. This specific promo post includes Volume One’s table of contents (and hyperlinks to each post), followed by the book disclaimer.

Further Reading: As of 3/13/2025, I’ve given every book volume/(sub)module its own promotion series. Access all of them, here.

The “All the World” promotion is currently being assembled and uploaded, one piece at a time, and will be full online sometime in the next two months. The writing for it is largely completed, but I’m still illustrating it. —Perse, 4/17/2025

Permissions: Any publicly available images are exhibited for purposes of education, transformation and critique, thus fall under Fair Use; private nude material and collabs with models are specifically shared with permission from the original model(s). For more details about artist permissions, refer to the book disclaimer found either at the bottom of this page or on its own webpage.

Concerning Buggy Images: Sometimes the images on my site don’t always load and you get a little white-and-green placeholder symbol, instead. Sometimes I use a plugin for loading multiple images in one spot, called Envira Gallery, and not all of the images will load (resulting in blank white squares you can still right-click on). I‘ve optimized most of the images on my site, so I think it’s a server issue? Not sure. You should still be able to access the unloaded image by clicking on the placeholder/right-clicking on the white square (sometimes you have to delete the “?ssl=1” bit at the end of the url). Barring that, completed volumes will always contain all of the images, whose PDFs you can always download on my 1-page promo.

(artist: Harmony Corrupted)

Contents (for Volume Three) 

Volume Three, unlike Volume Two, lacks separate modules or sub-volumes. Instead, it is entirely self-contained. Even so, its material still divides into different sections, whose main three I’ve outlined ahead of time. The Praxis Volume divides in two halves and five larger chapters:

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

    • “Opening“ and “Foreplay“ set the table, preparing the reader for a 2025 release of this older book; i.e., written originally in 2022 and early 2023 (with some minor changes first in 2024 and now in 2025).
    • 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; i.e., that seek to control sex and thoughts/cultural attitudes about sex, including 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.

Volume Three, part two concerns sex positivity versus sex coercion. It 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.

These sections essentially function as a module would for Volume Two, save that they operate deliberately inside one book volume rather than dividing it up into separate modules (a tenable goal, given my thesis volume is quite a bit shorter than Volume Twos various modules); i.e., Volume Three takes Sex Positivity‘s entire thesis argument from Volume Zero, simplified arguments from Volume One (“the basics”), and applied poetic-historical elements from Volume Two, and combines it all into praxis; i.e., regarding the creative successes thereof, regarding the proletarian side of things. It is my oldest volume, meaning I wrote it first and—in keeping with my usual roundabout, oft-backwards style—am suitably releasing it last. It is my most conversational volume, hence written for daily synthesis grasping at theory as an afterthought to tangible results.

Cover model: Harmony Corrupted

Volume Summary

Volume Three: Praxis, parts one and two (TBA) combine Volume Zero’s complex theory, Volume One’s simplified theory/synthetic model, and Volume Two’s monster history and application; i.e., as something to challenge the state by fostering our own creative successes of proletarian praxis, and whose mutual consent, informed consumption and informed consent, sex-positive de facto education, descriptive sexuality and cultural appreciation boil down to sex positivity (and liberation) versus sex coercion while developing Gothic Communism (with a huge focus on resisting tokenization; e.g., TERFs).

In other words, Volume Three covers the informed, intersectionally continuous application of successful proletarian praxis as we reinterpret the Gothic past pushing for universal liberation. 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 during ludo-Gothic BDSM; i.e., to counterattack state forces in service to our larger goals—our six Gothic-Marxist tenets—thwarting Capitalist Realism.

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

(artists: Cuwu and Persephone van der Waard)

Setting the Stage (opening, outline and preface)

Opening Summary

The opening and preface to Volume Thee (written in 2025), as well as some additional paratextual materials not released (outside of the PDF files) until this point.

Posts

  • -2. “Appetizers; or, Paratextual Documents for Volumes One through Three“: Various smaller and less essential paratextual documents (versus more essential ones; re: “Paratextual (Gothic) Documents“); i.e., those included inside the volume PDFs released after my PhD. Length: ~23 pages.
  • -1a. “Opening to Volume Three: Regarding Tokenism and Fighting It” (feat. Nyx and Cuwu): The opening for the entire volume. Returns to Volume Three after three years, considering how it was written originally and modified over time, but also its primary focus since Sex Positivity started in July 2022; i.e., dealing first with TERFs and then other forms of normativity that overlap with token feminism; e.g., Afronormativity. Length: ~22 pages.
  • 0. “Foreplay: Praxis Volume Outline, part one” (section opening): A small batch of considerations and last-minute business before jumping in. Opening Length: ~2 pages.
    • 0a. “With Harmony’s Help: Addressing Volume Three’s Grand Emptiness and Ambitions through a Good Friend” (feat. Harmony Corrupted—included with section opening): A 2025 addendum that acknowledges the state of Volume Three—i.e., after returning to it, three years after starting it, and making various small changes to it, but mostly keeping it the same—and, at the same time, paying homage to Harmony Corrupted, my greatest muse and one of Sex Positivity‘s biggest inspirations after it began. Length: ~5 pages.
    • 0b. “Introduction: Dialectical Materialism (with Monsters—included with section opening)“ Takes Volume Zero’s theory, Volume One’s synthesis and Volume Two’s past lessons on Gothic poetics (history and application) to outline the objectives by which to apply our project’s central Gothic theories; i.e., in a dialectical-material way using updated, posthumanist models (expanded beyond Cartesian thought) to better achieve Gothic Communism one step at a time. Length: ~10 pages.
    • 0c. “Before the Plunge: A Dialectical-Material Summation of Gothic Communism’s Execution (in Opposition—included with section opening)“: Outlines the dialectical-material execution through which proletarian praxis becomes possible, mid-opposition. Length: ~14 pages.

Part one: Sex Positivity and Sex Coercion

Opening Summary

Volume Three, part one; re: “Foreplay” (above): Lays out sex positivity and sex coercion—but also the liminal areas between them—in a two-part introduction, followed by three chapters: Opening Length: ~1 page.

  • 1. Chapter One: Sex Positivity. “‘The Seeds of Rebellion’—Sex Positivity and the Tools of the Trade” (chapter opening—included with section opening); re: 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. Opening Length: ~2 pages.
    • 1a. “Illustrating Mutual Consent: Empathy” (included with section opening): Introduces the first of the creative successes of proletarian praxis, and considers how empathy factors into illustrating mutual consent on all registers; i.e., through popular media of different kinds discussing empathy as something to illustrate ourselves; e.g., the “draw me like your French girls” scene from Titanic (1996) and the art lecture scene from Sense8 (2011). Length: ~19 pages.
    • 1b. “Half-Real: Recognizing And Performing Empathy“(feat. Meowing from Hell and Sean Young): A follow-up to “Illustrating Mutual Consent” that focuses on empathy as something to recognize, mid-illustration; i.e., as “half-real,” vis-à-vis Jesper Juul’s idea of “the realm between fiction and the rules” as further taken, by me, between fiction and non-fiction, on and offstage; e.g., between sex workers like myself and Meowing from Hell, but also actress Sean Young and her own abuse on and off the Blade Runner (1982) set. Length: ~35 pages.
    • 1c. “Informed (Ironic) Consumption and De Facto Educators Using Parody and Parallel Space“: Explores informed consumption according to informed/mutual consent as enacted by sex workers; i.e., as de facto (extracurricular) sex educators educating through iconoclastic art, but especially parody and parallel space; e.g., Monty Python, H.R. Giger and New Order. Length: ~17 pages.
    • 1d. “Reversing Abjection: Describing Sexuality vs Prescribing Sexual Modesty“: Discusses reversing abjection vs prescribing sexual modesty in Gothic stories; i.e., on the same half-real stages; e.g., Alien and its own 1970s rape fantasies borrowed from older times and transported into newer retro-future ones. Length: ~15 pages.
    • 1e. “Toxic Schlock Syndrome; or, an Early Stab at Cryptonymy: the Fur(r)tive Rebellion of Amazons, Body Hair and Whistleblowers in Duality” (feat. Mercedes the Muse, Mugiwara, Mercy from Overwatch, and Autumn Ivy): Our holistic examination of the above ideas; i.e., combining them cryptonymically through body hair and whistleblower counterculture/schlock media (re: Mercedes)—but also Amazons per the theme of toxic sugar/sex workers (re: Autumn Ivy/Wolfhead at Night) and GNC bodies (re: Mugiwara)—to conceptualize development: as an active, ironic, playful means of critical engagement/thought and poetic expression conducive to developing Gothic Communism in praxial opposition. Length: ~69 pages (nice).
    • 1g. “Love Is a Long Road: Summarizing the Rest of the Volume” (included with “Toxic Schlock Syndrome”): A short summary of the remaining book chapters and their content. Length: ~2 pages.

  • 2. Chapter Two: Sex Coercion. “‘Under the Influence’—Sex Coercion under Zombie Capitalism, Including Bad Drugs and Voluntary Lobotomy” (chapter opening); re: Explores sex positivity’s 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; i.e., that seek to control sex and thoughts/cultural attitudes about sex, including the sexist, obfuscating ambivalence of Gothic canon’s coercive BDSM, fetishes and kink. Opening Length: ~4 pages.
    • 2a. “Witch Cops and Victims: Fetishized Witch hunters and -Hunted in the Ever-growing Police State” (feat. Ion Fury, T2 and Reinhard Heydrich—included with chapter opening): Introduces the idea of token minorities in Gothic language; i.e., witch cops operating in bad faith. Length: ~23 pages.
    • 2b. “‘Which Witch?’—’What is a Witch?’ part one: An Example of Proletarian Witches in The Last of Us“ (2023; also feat. Myth and Everquest): A close-read of the gay couple from 2023’s The Last of Us, considering the proletarian aspects to queer witches living under a decaying police state/zombie apocalypse (essentially a precursor to the “Bad Dreams” section from the Undead Module). Length: ~11 pages.
    • 2c. “Ruling through Fear: Dogma and Economics” (included with “Which Witch?”): Briefly introduces the neoliberal execution of the Protestant ethic; i.e., through fear and dogma as a socio-economic model, one canonically guided by guilty (demonic) pleasures and coercive wish fulfillment. ~8 pages.
    • 2d. “‘Real Life’: Toxic Love and Criminal Sexuality in True Crime” (feat. Killing Stalking, Jeffery Dahmer and Ted Bundy): Considers toxic love, criminal hauntology and the demon lover (re: Ann Radcliffe); i.e., as worshipped through said hauntologies—specifically out of the 1970s and into neoliberalism’s endless tenure pimping such things on a 24-hour news cycle. Length: ~15 pages.
    • 2e. “Gothic Ambivalence: Canonical Torture in the Internet Age; or the Wish Fulfillment of Guilty Pleasure, Bad Play and Sex-Coercive Demon BDSM” (feat. Hellraiser): Considers, despite the prevalence of demon BDSM in canon, its Gothic ambivalence; i.e., in ways that we can take and demonstrably play with: as demonic vis-à-vis guilty pleasure and its wish fulfillment, mid-liminal-expression; e.g., Clive Barker’s Cenobites from Hellraiser (1987) into more recent examples like Lilith from Diablo IV (2024). Length: ~26 pages.

  • 3. Chapter Three: Liminality. “‘A Zone… of Danger!’—Fifty Shades of Gay (Area)” (chapter opening); re: 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. Opening Length: ~3 pages.
    • 3a. “Exquisite Torture in the Internet Age: The Appreciative Irony of Gothic Iconoclasm; or, the Subversive Power of Good Play and Sex-Positive Demon BDSM during Counterculture Performance Art” (included with chapter opening): Explores playing with demon BDSM iconoclastically for the first time in this book series, eventually evolving into ludo-Gothic BDSM (re: from my PhD, onwards; see: “Concerning Rape Play“). Length: ~23 pages.
    • 3b. “Selling Sex, SWERFs and Un(der)paid Sex Work“: Explores the basic mechanisms of selling sex (as something to play with and perform, using Gothic poetics); i.e., vis-à-vis SWERFs and the generally underpaid nature of said activities and how art portrays them as automatically sexual despite there being an ace component; re: public nudism as often coming out of canon as something to camp; e.g., Art Frahm. Length: ~16 pages.
    • 3c. “Crash Course: An Introduction to Asexuality and Demisexuality“: Having introduced an “ace” potential during Gothic poetics merged with public nudism/sex work at large, we’ll now unpack asexuality and demisexuality versus sexual expression; i.e., on the same larger gradient. Length: ~8 pages.
    • 3d. “Queer-/Homonormativity in Sex-Centric Canon” (included with “Crash Course”): Explores the normative elements to queer-coded stories in popular media. Length: ~13 pages.
    • 3e. “Sexualized Queerness and Ace Voices in Sex-Normalized (Fan/Meta)Fiction” (included with “Crash Course”): Considers queer normativity as sexualized, with ace voices navigating said sexualization in various kinds of fan/meta fiction (e.g., Harry Potter). Length: ~13 pages.
    • 3f. “Defined Through Sex: Sex Normativity in Popular Media” (included with “Crash Course”): Considers the amatonormative side to sex as normalized in popular media; e.g., Wentworth (2013), Heartbreak High (2022), or Game of Thrones (2009). Length: ~12 pages.
    • 3g. “Pigtail Power and Crossdressing: Sex Repulsion in Gothic/Queer Narratives” (feat. Wednesday and Barbarian): A close-read, one that considers the “ace” ability of pigtailed Radcliffean Gothic heroines; i.e., to explore psychosexual trauma while navigating its homely perils from the outside, in; re: during the liminal hauntology of war. Length: ~12 pages.
    • 3h. “Artistic Nudity and Asexual Bodies/Relationships in Art; Gay Artists” (feat. It’s Perfectly Normal, As Good as It Gets, and Tilda Swinton): Considers how artistic nudity and asexual bodies/relationships help form special bonds between workers; i.e., between (historically gay) men and feminine/female models. Length: ~11 pages.
    • 3i. “Inside the Man Box; or, Patriarchal, Nerdy Hatred Against Transgender/Non-binary People, Intersexuality and Drag” (feat. Caleb Hart, She-Hulk, twinks/femboys, goblins, and more—subchapter opening): Takes the above ideas and considers the etiology (causes) of GNC genocide under Capitalism as something to interrogate through our relationships; e.g., trans, enby and intersex people/drag performers, whose monstrous-feminine relationships (re: twinks, femboys, etc) are informed by medieval art and Gothic fiction; i.e., under capital as a system that sexualizes its victims, teaching future police agents to neglect, attack or otherwise abuse those parties for profit: within the Man Box and “prison sex” mentality furthering the Shadow of Pygmalion’s patriarchal influence to harm nature as monstrous-feminine. Opening Length: ~2 pages.
      • 3i1. ” part one: “Ontological Ambiguities” (feat. twinks, femboys and shunga—included with subchapter opening): Examine some of the ontological, monstrous-feminine ambiguities that prompt stochastic terrorists to attack the queer community and their representations in popular media (commenting on hauntological, Gothic variants wherever applicable). Length: ~16 pages.
      • 3i2. ” part two: “Canonical Discrimination in Videogames, Including Fan Art and Speedrunner/Streamer Culture” (feat. Caleb Hart, She-Hulk and goblins): Examines the attackers’ problematic, Faustian education that leads to an attacker’s mindset: through traditional modes of male education learned by weird canonical nerds like Caleb Hart through sexist (monomythic) videogames and gamer “Man Box” culture, which didactically appropriates twinks, catboys/femboys, etc. Length: ~35 pages.
      • 3i3. ” part three: “Poison was the Cure: On Goblins, Being a Weird Nerd and Trans Cryptonymy as a Monstrous Antidote to Bigots” (feat. Glenn the Goblin, Ms. Chalice from Cuphead, Tolkien’s Orcs and Goblins, and more): Takes a breather from canonical praxis and consider a defense that weird queer nerds can adopt when challenging the status quo, specifically my approach to goblins (and videogames) within iconoclastic media as something to synthesize ourselves. Length: ~26 pages.
      • 3i4. ” part four: “Obliterating Phoebe: In the Shadow of Pygmalion, or the Weird Nerds’ Canonical Praxis at Large“: Examines how the world of canonical media—but especially e-sports—has informed bigoted attitudes in videogame culture, including how the elite are currently enabling these attacks in the predominantly male world of competitive e-sports; i.e., as “dominated” by sexist men similar to Caleb Hart obsessed with making their mark as he has: being “the best” in ways that overwrite the history of everyone else (we’ll focus on feminist moderacy and female/queer bigotries in Chapter Four). Length: ~43 pages.

Part two: Sex Positivity versus Sex Coercion

Opening Summary

Volume Three, part two/”Hard Dicking: Praxis Volume Outline, part two” (section opening): Concerns sex positivity versus sex coercion. It contains Chapters Four and Five plus the Conclusion, which concerns the creative successes of proletarian praxis versus state praxis. Time to fight! Opening Length: ~2 page.

  • 5. Chapter Five: “Rebellious Subterfuge. ‘Rise up, comrade zombies!’—The Revolutionary Undead’s Covert Activism/Cryptonymy during Liminal Counter-Expression” (chapter opening); re: 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. Opening Length: ~6 pages.
    • 5a. “A Plan of Attack: Escaping the Man Box” (including with the chapter opening): Considers the basic idea of escaping the Man Box, hence Capitalist Realism; i.e., on the same stage populated by bad actors (re: witch cops). Length: ~11 pages.
    • 5b. “Transgressive Nudism; or, Flashing Those with Power (re: Cryptonymy’s Origins)“: Introduces public nudism (and its buffers, online); i.e., as a vital instrument to practicing revolutionary cryptonymy on the Aegis. Length: ~33 pages.
    • 5c. “‘Borrowed Robes,’ or Countering Nation Pastiche’s Sublimated War and Rape with Revolutionary Cryptonymy and Liminal Monster Porn in the Internet Age” (subchapter opening): Considers the idea of performative disguise, said borrowed robes conducive to revolutionary cryptonymy in a variety of forms. Opening Length: ~9 pages.
      • 5c1. ” part one: “Proletarian Warrior Moms and Breeding Kinks” (feat. Nyx—included with subchapter opening): Explores one of my favorite monsters—Amazons, but also the rape fantasies (and fears) they classically embody and which revolutionary actions can gleefully subvert canon with. Length: ~18 pages.
      • 5c2. “part two: “Moe/Ahegao, Incest, and Eco-Fascism in Japanese Exports” (feat. Street Fighter, Dragon Ball and Kubo and the Two Strings): Explores various theatrical devices of rape play that workers must camp; e.g., Moe/Ahegao, Incest, and Eco-Fascism; i.e., as they’re exported to American from Japan in the neoliberal age. Length: ~23 pages.
    • 5d. “Rockstars: From Rock ‘n Roll Fans and Jimmi Hendrix’ Penis to Horror Movie Special Effects” (feat., Cynthia Plaster Caster): Sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll are an ancient form of protest; i.e., as reclaimed bread and circus, which this section considers through the social-sexual embodiment/reenactment of such things: the human body and memento mori. Length: ~15 pages.
    • 5e. “Stand to Fight, then Raise Your Fist and ‘Bow’ to Duck the Imperial Boomerang: Further Expressions of Ironic Girl War Bosses, Sexy War, and Gender Irony“: Delves into more examples of revolutionary cryptonymy with which to protest through war-like imagery and riot. Length: ~34 pages.
    • 5f. “Sexist Ire: Persecuting Iconoclasts (and Iconoclastic Vice Characters; feat. Elphaba Thropp)“: Warns of iconoclasm’s performative risk, and how reclaimed vice characters are punished without irony by state actors doubling our own subversive approaches. Length: ~10 pages.
  • 6. “Pussy on the Chainwax!” (series conclusion): Closes the book series out, 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. Length: ~9 pages.

(artist: Harmony Corrupted)

About the Author

Persephone van der Waard is the author of the multi-volume, non-profit book series, Sex Positivity—its art director, sole invigilator, illustrator and primary editor (the other co-writer/co-editor being Bay Ryan). Persephone has her independent PhD in Gothic poetics and ludo-Gothic BDSM (focusing on partially on Metroidvania), and is a MtF trans woman, anti-fascist, atheist/Satanist, poly/pan kinkster, erotic artist/pornographer and anarcho-Communist with two partners. Including multiple playmates/friends and collaborators, Persephone and her many muses work/play together on Sex Positivity and on her artwork at large as a sex-positive force. That being said, she still occasionally writes reviews, Gothic analyses, and interviews for fun on her old blog (and makes YouTube videos talking about politics). Any money Persephone earns through commissions or donations goes towards helping sex workers through the Sex Positivity project; i.e., by paying costs and funding shoots, therefore raising awareness. She takes payment on PayPal, Patreon, and CashApp, etc; all links are available on her Linktr.ee. Every bit helps!

Disclaimer

(disclaimer exhibit: Artist: Harmony Corrupted, who provided me with various materials from her Fansly account to use [with her permission] in my book, including cum photos. For those of legal age who enjoy Harmony’s work and want to see more than this website provides, consider subscribing to her Fansly account and then ordering a custom/tipping through her Ko-Fi. You won’t be disappointed!)

“If it was not good, it was true; if it was not artistic, it was sincere; if it was in bad taste, it was on the side of life.”

—Henry Miller, on criticism and the Supreme-Court-level lawsuit he received for writing The Tropic of Cancer (1934)

Regarding This Book’s Artistic/Pornographic Nudity and Sexual Content: Sex Positivity thoroughly discusses sexuality in popular media, including fetishes, kinks, BDSM, Gothic material, and general sex work; the illustrations it contains have been carefully curated and designed to demonstrate my arguments. It also considers pornography to be art, examining the ways that sex-positive art makes iconoclastic statements against the state. As such, Sex Positivity contains visual examples of sex-positive/sex-coercive artistic nudity borrowed from publicly available sources to make its educational/critical arguments. Said nudity has been left entirely uncensored for those purposes. While explicitly criminal sexual acts, taboos and obscenities are discussed herein, no explicit illustrations thereof are shown, nor anything criminal; i.e., no snuff porn, child porn or revenge porn. It does examine things generally thought of as porn that are unironically violent. Examples of uncensored, erotic artwork and sex work are present, albeit inside exhibits that critique the obscene potential (from a legal standpoint) of their sexual content: “ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, masturbation, excretory functions, lewd exhibition of the genitals, or sado-masochistic sexual abuse” (source: Justice.gov). For instance, there is an illustrated example of uncensored semen—a “breeding kink” exhibit with zombie unicorns and werewolves (exhibit 87a)—that I’ve included to illustrate a particular point, but its purposes are ultimately educational in nature.

The point of this book isn’t to be obscene for its own sake, but to educate the broader public (including teenagers*) about sex-positive artwork and labor historically treated as obscene by the state. For the material herein to be legally considered obscene it would have to simultaneously qualify in three distinct ways (aka the “Miller” test):

  • appeal to prurient interests (i.e., an erotic, lascivious, abnormal, unhealthy, degrading, shameful, or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion)
  • attempt to depict or describe sexual conduct in a patently offensive way (i.e., ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, masturbation, excretory functions, lewd exhibition of the genitals, or sado-masochistic sexual abuse)
  • lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value

Taken as a whole, this book discusses debatably prurient material in an academic manner, depicting and describing sexual conduct in a non-offensive way for the express purpose of education vis-à-vis literary-artistic-political enrichment.

*While this book was written for adults—provided to them through my age-gated website—I don’t think it should be denied from curious teenagers through a supervising adult. The primary reason I say this (apart from the trauma-writing sections, which are suitably intense and grave) is that the academic material can only be simplified so far and teenagers probably won’t understand it entirely (which is fine; plenty of books are like that—take years to understand more completely). As for sexually-developing readers younger than 16 (ages 10-15), I honestly think there are far more accessible books that tackle the same basic subject matter more quickly at their reading level. All in all, this book examines erotic art and sex positivity as an alternative to the sex education currently taught (or deliberately not taught) in curricular/extracurricular spheres. It does so in the hopes of improving upon canonical tutelage through artistic, dialectical-material analysis. 

Fair Use: This book is non-profit, and its artwork is meant for education, transformation and critique. For those reasons, the borrowed materials contained herein fall under Fair Use. All sources come from popular media: movies, fantasy artist portfolios, cosplayer shoots, candid photographs, and sex worker catalogs intended for public viewing. Private material has only been used with a collaborating artist’s permission (for this book—e.g., Blxxd Bunny‘s OF material or custom shoots; or as featured in a review of their sex work on my website with their consent already given from having done past work together—e.g., Miss Misery).

Concerning the Exhibit Numbers and Parenthetical Dates: I originally wrote this book as one text, not four volumes. Normally I provide a publication year per primary text once per text—e.g., “Alien (1979)”—but this would mean having to redate various texts in Volumes One, Two and Three after Volume Zero. I have opted out of doing this. Likewise, the exhibit numbers are sequential for the entire book, not per volume; references to a given exhibit code [exhibit 11b2 or 87a] will often refer to exhibits not present in the current volume. I have not addressed this in the first edition of my book, but might assemble a future annotated list in a second edition down the road.

Concerning Hyperlinks: Those that make the source obvious or are preceded by the source author/title will simply be supplied “as is.” This includes artist or book names being links to themselves, but also mere statements of fact, basic events, or word definitions where the hyperlink is the word being defined. Links to sources where the title is not supplied in advance or whose content is otherwise not spelled out will be supplied next to the link in parentheses (excluding Wikipedia, save when directly quoting from the site). One, this will be especially common with YouTube essayists I cite to credit them for their work (though sometimes I will supply just the author’s name; or their name, the title of the essay and its creation year). Two, concerning YouTube links and the odds of videos being taken down, these are ultimately provided for supplementary purposes and do not actually need to be viewed to understand my basic arguments; I generally summarize their own content into a single sentence, but recommend you give any of the videos themselves a watch if you’re curious about the creators’ unique styles and perspectives about a given topic.

Concerning (the PDF) Exhibit Image Quality: This book contains over 1,000 different images, which—combined with the fact that Microsoft Word appears to compress images twice (first, in-document images and second, when converting to PDFs) along with the additional hassle that is WordPress’ limitations on accepting uploaded PDFs (which requires me to compress the PDF again—has resulted in sub-par image quality for the exhibit images themselves. To compensate, all of the hyperlinks link to the original sources where the source images can be found. Sometimes, it links to the individual images, other times to the entire collage, and I try to offer current working links; however, the ephemeral, aliased nature of sex work means that branded images do not always stay online, so some links (especially those to Twitter/X accounts) won’t always lead to a source if the original post is removed.

Concerning Aliases: Sex workers survive through the use of online aliases and the discussion of their trauma requires a degree of anonymity to protect victims from their actual/potential abusers. This book also contains trauma/sexual anecdotes from my own life; it discusses my friends, including sex workers and the alter egos/secret identities they adopt to survive “in the wild.” Keeping with that, all of the names in this book are code names (except for mine, my late Uncle Dave’s and his ex-wife Erica’s—who are only mentioned briefly by their first names). Models/artists desiring a further degree of anonymity (having since quit the business, for example) have been given a codename other than their former branded identity sans hyperlinks (e.g., Jericho).

Extended, Book-Wide Trigger Warning: This entire book thoroughly discusses xenophobia, harmful xenophilia (necrophilia, pedophilia, zoophilia, etc), homophobia, transphobia, enbyphobia, sexism, racism, race-/LGBTQ-related hate crimes/murder and domestic abuse; child abuse, spousal abuse, animal abuse, misogyny and sexual abuse towards all of these groups; power abuse, rape (date, marital, prison, etc), discrimination, war crimes, genocide, religious/secular indoctrination and persecution, conversion therapy, manmade ecological disasters, and fascism.