Check it out now, and then go buy your camping supplies before it drops on Thursday March 29th.
Images courtesy of Supreme
ANGELITO COLLECTIVE wear JEANS by TELFAR, SHOES by PUMA, RAMIE wears HEADCAP, BOXER SHORTS by BRYAN JIMENÈZ
During that same transformative year, Demíyah and Sol Angel crossed paths with Miss Kam and Sinn, two creatives that have remained integral members of their collective ever since. Together, the collective birthed their debut film, Toxic, a transgressive narrative delving into the everyday trials of Black trans femmes navigating the labyrinthine challenges of a heteronormative world. Even as the shadows of cultural hegemony, Eurocentrism, and post-colonial trauma persistently cast their long shadows over colonized communities self-perceptions and identities, it is in dynamic cultural hubs like New York City and through visionary groups like this chosen family that the promise of social transformation takes root.
Today, the collective consists of five talented individuals: Demíyah, Sol, Kam, Sinn, and Ramie. Together, they have cultivated a burgeoning community of Black and Brown trans and queer individuals radiating a deep sense of creativity and purpose evident in all they do. Their sophomore film, CIÓN MAMI, debuted on office’s digital platform in 2022, and was presented at the London Fashion Film Festival and Fashion Film Festival Milano this year; the collective has also cultivated an influential partnership with New York It brand Luar. This past summer, the collective took center stage with their Jeffrey Campbell partnership campaign, which contributed a generous 25% of the proceeds to their dinner series for Black trans siblings. Through their tireless efforts, the collective stands as the driving force behind the scenes: producers, directors, hair and makeup artists, and photographers — all positions typically dominated by a particular social group — forging a path for future generations and leaving behind a legacy fueled by radical creativity.
Ultimately, it all comes back to the collective’s overarching mission: to carve out new spaces where trans individuals and queer souls can discover a profound sense of belonging. For this issue of office, it only felt natural to invite the siblings to grace our pages and share their world-building vision.
ANGELITO COLLECTIVE wear FULL LOOK by ANONYMOUS CLUB, SHAYNE OLIVER, SHOES by PUMA
Sahir Ahmed— Talk to me about the dinners you’ve been doing.
Demíyah— So we started the dinners in our homes with close friends and loved ones, then people started noticing and reaching out to invite us into their spaces to collaborate on them so we decided to open it up to the community. We all naturally benefitted from cultivating that kind of space because so much of the first year of our experiences was oversaturated with nightlife and the day-to-day of trying to get by and make a living in New York. In the long-term, I think it’s important for us to have spaces to heal and rest so that we’re able to regain our energy and show up in the work that we’re doing at a greater capacity, especially because so much of what we do requires us to create and curate spaces for large groups of people; how we treat ourselves within our group is the kindness that we want to extend out to the community as well.
We just did our seventh dinner and this week we’re beginning to plan for our eighth dinner, which will be this upcoming fall.
Sahir— I love that you bring up this point of self-care and how that relates to being part of a community. How does that show up in your connection and the world that you’re cultivating?
Demíyah— When we started the collective, Sol and I were conceptualizing during the peak period of isolation in 2020. I was in Toronto and she was in New York. In that time, I was in deep reflection on the life I wanted to create and claim for myself. To build the foundation of my new future I surrendered to loving the parts of myself I feared. At the start of the pandemic, my mom and I got our yoga teaching certification together. Through this practice I was self guided back into my body and spirit as so much of how I learned to survive up to that point was by disassociating from my being.
Sinn Apsara— For me, self-care is obviously about taking care of yourself, but also taking care of the people around you. Before the collective, I was by myself, I didn’t have any sisters, so I was super aware of looking out for myself, especially navigating life in the city as a trans woman.
You know, shaking ass is a lot of fun but going out is such a miniscule moment and as a group we sit around often and just have conversations, which is one of the ways that we take care of each other; if everybody has a great mental state then every moment becomes that much more gratifying.
Miss Kam— Nightlife can become a sort of escape for trans people and that’s how most of us connect to each other, but Demi has become a great way to reconnect with myself and being around the girls made it easier to get to where I am at in my transition. A lot of people look at medical transition as such a scary change, but since the beginning I’ve seen it as a way to connect to my body, ancestors and the spiritual nature of my existence.
Sol Angel— Kam really carried that, but I’ll just add that it takes a sisterhood to remind you of the importance of showing up for yourself and to reflect and recognize all aspects of yourself, the positive and the negative. There was a time where we were partying so much and I wasn’t being mindful about the way that I might have been coming across or how I was expressing myself and it had everything to do with not being necessarily happy with where I was in my life and certain things I had to revisit and heal from, but my sisters inspired me to choose better for myself. I think self-care can look like therapy in many ways.
Sahir— Kam, you bring up this point about medical transition being a way to connect with your spiritual self, which feels especially relevant this year with all of the bans that are being enacted against trans health care.
Kam— I've always been really fascinated by scientific intervention in movies and novels because there’s so much about our world as humans that we don’t understand. There’s this idea of categorization and of keeping your physical self aligned with what “God decided for you” and I spent a large part of my childhood in Texas, in the bible belt, so I was surrounded by these conversations constantly. The irony is that these surgeries and medical processes aren’t unique to trans people even down to actual hormone therapy. What I’m putting into my body is no different from acne medication or birth control and there’s a lot of hypocrisy in the medical industry when it comes to what’s OK to do regarding the body. The idea that we are unable to birth is one of the main arguments used to invalidate our experiences and my mother conceived myself and my siblings through in-vitro fertilization so even that experience isn’t unique to trans women.
RAMIE wears HEADCAP by BRYAN JIMENÈZ
ANGELITO COLLECTIVE wear FULL LOOK by ANONYMOUS CLUB, SHAYNE OLIVER, SHOES by PUMA
Demíyah— Growing up, there was a polarity between my Jamaican side of the family being Jehovah Witnesses and my mother’s Hispanic side being non-denominational. My mother’s side held space for me to be a bit more expressive, but my father’s always made me feel more conscious of how I was acting or being received. Their beliefs were projected onto me from a young age and when I became conscious of my identity, I developed so much fear of the liberation I aspired to embody. When I started medically transitioning at 15, I accepted the reality that I fell victim to conditional love that I could l not carry on with me into the next life I was creating for myself. With Angelito, I birthed my own family authentically rooted in unconditional love that serves to nurture and divinely protect me.
Sahir— What I recognize with you and the work you’re doing is a narrative driven by love, not fear, or control, which is what dominates thought in so many places.
Kam— The only thing that’s natural in the world is the desire for beauty and socialization, so it’s normal for us to center our perception on being perceived a certain way. We're all animals. Transitioning feels like the most animalistic thing and truly human thing that we could do. All animals shed their skins and evolve in their lifetimes.
Sinn— Growing up I had an aunt that was trans and her transness spoke through her work. There’s this idea in science that energy cannot be destroyed, only transferred, and I remember when she passed and I was at her funeral, I declared that her legacy will live through me and I felt the utmost warmth in my chest as if she literally implanted herself in me.
Sahir— What has it been like multiplying these spaces that aren’t necessarily widespread yet through the work that you do?
Sinn— The world is set up to benefit a small demographic, those that fit into and follow the rules that are made. Once you realize these rules are fake, it becomes a snowball effect.
Kam— I've always been a very intuitive person and I’ve sort of already envisioned everything I’m experiencing in my life right now. Meeting the girls felt cosmically aligned and now that we’ve shared space and ideas the way we do, the work just pours out naturally.
Sol— When I was at Parsons, I felt a lot of power in creating with people that share similar interests so from the beginning, knowing that I had Demi made it that much easier for me to imagine and call things to myself. Our first conversation when we started creating Toxic was that it would take us around the world and lead to so many opportunities and we weren’t wrong. Being able to bring in Sinn, Kam and Ramie just gave our world deeper meaning. It inspires a lot of people and that’s what keeps us pushing forward. We’ve already reached a lot of our goals and having Ramie document all of it just makes it that much better. We’ll have something to look back at and will be able to sustain and inspire a community beyond the time that we have here on earth.
Sahir— How are you planning to preserve what you do?
Demíyah— There’s been a huge erasure of our Transcestors for so many decades. I think seeing and connecting to the ancestry of our community is imperative and valuable. We are conscious of creating a legacy that stands the test of time in all the work that we do and there’s so much power in being able to present that. We’ve been intentionally documenting our lives over the last couple of years and for us it’s so important to be able to create tangible artifacts of our existence.
Ramie Ahmed— Yes we just have such an expansive archive of images and videos of events and outings we’ve done or just attended as a collective. It will feel so heartwarming for us and others to look back on and just be hopeful and assured that no one is alone in the world and it's possible to find a chosen family and a community that cares all while living a joyful life.
And like Angel said our archive will be here long after we’re gone so it’s sort of a gift for those to come. A capsule that proves our community walked this earth and spaces that truly existed and can continue to exist.
Even just knowing we have preserved so many individual’s existence within our community resonates the same feeling I get whenever I see a photograph of Marsha P. Johnson in the 70's or other legends. It's liberating to know that photographically people existed, they weren't myths, they were all real. Their power attracted people and their cameras to them to prolong their life even after they’ve left this world.
Sahir— Sinn, you just made a collection and shot a campaign for that right?
Sinn— Yes, it was such a beautiful experience; the garments became their own entities. Being able to go upstate to Star Route Farm and shoot the campaign for it on my birthday was also such a big deal because my birthday became a traumatic time for me for a while.
Kam— Everything Sinn does I’m inspired by. She knows so much about textiles, fabric, and has a rich taste that emanates from her Cambodian background. It was inspiring to me and I’m always inspired by everyone here and how deeply connected they are to our cultural backgrounds. Being African American and growing up in the South, there’s so much of a disconnect from my heritage so it’s nice when I get to know people who are connected to these things. Working on the campaign took a lot of determination. We were waking up at the crack of dawn most days. We barely had a budget.
ANGEL wears HEAD PIECE by RANXELLE SORIA, DRESS by ZHEXUAN HU, JEWELRY is TALENT’S OWN, SHOES by PUMA
Demíyah— This project was so special to shoot. There’s just a great belief system and trust amongst all of us that I truly feel like we can actually read each other's minds. We have a collective intuition that feels so evident in all of our work and I think that is what draws people in. The collection is far more than just garments. There’s a story interwoven with the fabric of every garment and being able to go upstate to Star Route Farm, who we collaborate with for food for our dinners, was full circle.
Sinn— Connecting back to what we were talking about with documentation of our lives. Kam and Ramie are family so to be shot through their lens, I feel like I’m actually being seen as who I am, as an artist, rather than just a trans person who happened to create a collection.
Kam— I personally battle with that, being captured as a “trans” person because it feels like everything always gets centered on our identities first and not on the fact that we’re artists. That’s a bit of a double-edged sword because yes my identity is such a big part of my work and personhood, so being able to work on our own projects, like the film, made by us, is the middle ground we look for. We’re talking about universal themes of being a human and we record that from a trans lens because it’s who we are.
Demíyah— Our work is euphoric because it’s a safe space for us. We don’t feel like we’re being objectified. We’re actually able to capture each other through our own purity and to reflect the love that we see in one another. Ramie doesn’t like to take up space often but he’s like our baby brother and our work wouldn’t be as impactful without his support so I'd love to open up the conversation to him.
Ramie— I can say the work has and will always be impactful with or without me. Sinn, Angel, Demi, and Kam’s force is so powerful that I was a bit intimidated accepting a role as a member of the Angelito Collective. I honestly thought to myself: “What can I offer? Will I change the dynamic? Would I change how the collective is perceived considering I am not trans?” But we’ve accepted none of that matters, that we’re a family that loves and respects each other and together there is nothing we can’t accomplish collectively. I am just grateful to have people to constantly turn to, hang out with, and circulate our passionate ideas everyday.
DEMI and SOL ANGEL wear FULL LOOK by ANONYMOUS CLUB, SHAYNE OLIVER, SHOES by PUMA
RAMIE wears HEADCAP, BOXER SHORTS by BRYAN JIMENÈZ, SHOES by PUMA, SINN wears JEANS by TELFAR, SHOES by PUMA
Sahir— Through the work that you do you’ve been able to position yourselves as photographers, stylists, creative directors, and more to create images that portray yourselves through your own lens, which is so important. What do you envision for the Angelito Collective as a creative agency and production suite?
Demíyah— When we first started the collective we had the intention of amplifying our own voices and stories as we were aware of the constant exploitation our community falls victim to in the creative industries. In the development of this unprecedented legacy we are building it was important for us to create a platform where our bodies and identities aren’t controlled by an external narrative. We are archiving and documenting our lives as a means to immortalize our collective power.
Through our chosen family we have held space to foster and nurture our artistry. I am so blessed to confidently say that I am in an era of life where I get to create a utopia with the people I love.
Our work speaks to the self love we have harnessed in ourselves and has warranted a sense of true liberation in our ever evolving transcendental skin. We unapologetically take up space because we know it within ourselves that we are worthy of being celebrated and seen. A picture tells a thousand words, but our words, our voice and our bodies tell a story of the thousands of lives before and after ours. Our art is an expression of our gratitude to the divine sacrifice and selflessness of the trans women that graced this earth before us. We are born again.
Angel— I envision the Angelito collective serving as the status quo in the production industry. These industries are usually dominated by white cis hetero folks. There should be a standard that is upheld when asking queer/trans folks to be part of your production. Respect is at the top of that experience, so much creativity comes from our communities — when you ask queer / trans folks to be part of your production they usually end up doing way beyond what they’ve been asked to do on paper and that’s so unfair.
I believe a way to ensure that we’re being protected is by placing more queer and trans folks in positions of power. We’re cultivators of communities and we deserve to be part of every step of the process, not just some last minute thought in which your budget won’t even allow for proper pay!
With all that being said the Angelito Collective is perfectly equipped to come into your production space and ensure that anyone queer and trans are well represented in these spaces, as well as setting the standard for what it looks like to empower and uplift creatives who exist within these spaces.
Stepping into the restaurant, we felt immediately at ease as the demure color palette and soft glow enveloped us in a secure embrace. "We look at psychographics over demographics. From hustlers to aristocrats, a young cool skater to an older lady from the Upper East Side, Ella Funt is a mélange of all kinds of people,” owner Lounes Mazouz shares. The dimly lit “salle a manger” organically flows from the ornate dining room, to the canteen, to the open, more casual bar area. Interior designer Annabel Karim Kassar adorned the walls of the cozy eatery with vintage tiles, while intricate artworks decorate the walls. Enjoying a meal in Ella Funt feels akin to a meal at a family member’s home — all are welcome here.
An expansive mural spans the dining room, painted by New York-based artist Marcus Jahmal, as well as works by Miriam Cahn, Inka Essenhigh, and Stephen Lack that each pay homage to the building’s rich history, alongside private booths and intricate bookcases. The familiar warmth that encompasses the dining space carries over into the menu, as each dish offers comforting flavors in unexpected combinations.
Chef Nick Koustefanou brings forth French cuisine that transports guests to a different realm. The menu ties in this French inspiration, while ingeniously embedding additional flavors and cultures into each dish. We enjoyed Oysters with an inventive maple ponzu mignonette as well as tuna with grapefruit, pickled baby ginger, and shiso to start. Afterward, we dove into a delicate raviolo filled with ricotta, spinach, and confit egg yolk as well as grilled Dorade finished with a full green curry, pea leaves, and wax beans. The cherry on top of the meal was fresh summer berries served alongside fresh cheese sorbet.
Bringing that original magic back to the place where it all began, Ella Funt is diving back into the building’s colorful lore by reinventing Club 82 below the restaurant. The club will add another facet to the historic location, bringing the Ella Funt universe beyond mouthwatering dishes and into the unexpected. Stay tuned for what’s next for the new spot because the best is definitely yet to come.
Subculture is a grave that society dances upon. The battle between the dissolution of gatekeeping in the name of “the culture” and the flippant striving to be hyperniche to vindicate singularity was neither won nor lost. Instead usurped by the endless scroll, we have entered a time in which nothing feels sacred. But, Ami Evelyn Hughes, begs to differ. As the Founder of GUT Magazine, she has created a tangible portal-cum-pages through which she can build and explore new worlds. An absolute sucker for anything old and imbued with the magic of purity sans internet fuckery, Ami is an avid collector of occult-adjacent objects and memorabilia – things with their own histories, touched and molded by magick and transgression, made in the image of provocation. Hence, it was only natural that Danna Wexler, the organizer of New York’s First Annual Erotic Art Fair, reached out to have Ami amongst those showing their wares and derrière’s earlier this month. In fact, it was a miracle that Ami even opted to sell any of the items she did, parting ways with the objects she so aligns her core being with.
Other vendors at the fair included Claire Barrow, Veronika Vilim of CumGirl8, Vasta Archives (one of New York's pioneering erotic art dealers), Lil Mami Lani, amongst a well-rounded batch of notable artists, collectors and gallerists. The fair, held at TV Eye, was well-attended. Many flocked to these respective gates, some fueled by innocent curiosity, others naughty knowledge, and regardless of what was taken away in plastic wrap, the bigger picture reflected a subculture at battle with none other than itself. Valiant and wet, office spoke to Ami about the fair, Eurotrash and what it means when we say sex is the last frontier.
Ami Evelyn Hughes (left)
Lindsey Okubo— Fill me in on what went on at the fair and the pieces you’re selling!
Ami Evelyn Hughes— So Danna hit me up, she’s the organizer of the fair and asked me to be a part of it as I'm known for my work which often includes female erotica, erotica in general and straight-up porn because it’s what I perceive as art. This is the first fair and the vendors who Danna was posting before it looked absolutely amazing, I was excited to see all the collections in real life. The collections did not disappoint, better than most you’d see in an art gallery. One of the pillars of the fair was also to sign up for Erotic Art Newsletter, Danna has to circulate information this way because Please Knock's Instagram gets taken down all the time. As does many of the pages of loads of these artists and that's a major reason why she wanted to do this show. For many of us who make this kind of work, there’s not really anywhere to show it.
In terms of what I sold, I had my hoodies that featured these amazing 1940’s drawings of Snow White fucking the dwarfs and stuff like that. I’ve always been obsessed with Snow White since I was a kid and so is Paul McCarthy, who's my absolute favorite artists ever, I like to fantasize that we’re basically the same. I had one remaining beach towel portraying an image of Jess Maybury in the tiniest red metallic micro bikini in front of a fridge full of red coke cans, an image from a shoot I did for GUT’s rendition of Christmas Playboy with a gothic twist and polaroids of me and some of my partners in sexual acts which are one offs. About five days before the fair, I also shot myself in a tiny outfit which is the content that you’re seeing and featured in this article. Most of my rare and extreme porn magazine and ephemera collection is in London because you’re not really able to transport it across the ocean without it getting seized, so I opted to sell some of my Big Tit and Big Girl magazines that i’ve acquired here in NYC in the last year and a few of my precious rare erotic art books that I did manage to bring with me.
LO— I know last time we talked, you were telling me about how your sense of home is derived from all your “stuff’ so the fact that you sold pieces from your collection comes as quite a surprise. Does letting go feel a bit like emotional maturation?
AEH— It’s funny because as I was telling you about the pieces before I realized how much I didn’t want to sell any of it. My stuff is me, it’s my work, it’s what I love but yes, I think this is actually quite refreshing for me because I'm someone who doesn't like change. For instance, I had this little Thumper plushie that I got from my last holiday in Prague with my best friend Ed before moving to New York. When the cleaner changed my sheets at the Walker hotel, it got bundled up and taken to the wash and I never got it back. I literally think about it every week and it's been a year, I'm so attached because I put a massive emotional connection to things. Even my phone isn’t even just an iPhone because it’s where I spoke to my ex boyfriend everyday because he’s in London and I’m here and I miss him so much. Basically, I'm a hoarder and I've managed to separate myself from some of my collection and sold 50% of my favorite things and it’s a little traumatizing but also relieving. I'm being mature now though and I've sold some special rare things that I'm attached to as my goal for the last 18 months has been to save a big house deposit.
LO— How does that feel?
AEH— Good, scary to be an adult now. I'm 34 but because I look so young and have a baby voice, people literally think I'm 25 so that exacerbates the feeling of being like a child.
LO— Right and it’s interesting how eroticism is often perversely associated with age, ageism in women etc. and the process of rewiring that. Even in the ways in which everyone at the fair gets their work taken down, they’re constantly having to rebuild this sense of presence or how they even exist in the world.
AEH— The sense of community is real because only people in the know are going to know the value of these items. I feel like the same kind of people who are into eroticism are also people who understand what it means to protect a collection and are collectors of these more obscure, historical things. These people are generally a bit more transgressive, they don’t have double glazed windows, their apartments aren’t white and clean. I bet all the people's houses at the fair if you went to their house, it wouldn’t be hoarder-y or dirty, but there would be a shared feeling of it being cluttered with fullness, interesting interiors, a sense of things being old. I’m genuinely interested in knowing where things were originally bought, who had it and how much they cared for it, was it emotionally connected to a relationship in their life. As things age, they get more expensive but also so much gets lost and that genuinely stresses me out and I want to protect it all.
LO— And the ways in which value is now tied to self-censorship and ultimately, relevance, visibility etc. Aside from this particular community being censored by the status quo, there’s a lot of ongoing self-censorship from people who uphold it. Performing and presenting the self in certain ways yields validation for people and it makes the divide between those who are more singular with their interests and their self expression more vast. It’s funny the ways in which it’s become “cool” to be into erotica but these people don’t even necessarily know that BDSM is an acronym.
AEH— Hahah, yes I feel like that spreads out into every aspect of modern society too, as someone who works heavily in art, fashion and music, it feels that there isn't much authenticity in those younger groups simply because of the world they grew up in makes it near on impossible. I'm 34 so from birth to age 15, I had no Internet. Growing up then you couldn't be like herded sheep because you literally didn't know what other people were doing. I’m from the east midlands (Middle) of England and I had no fucking idea what someone was doing in Maryland, even in London unless there was randomly a TV program about them and even then I didn’t have sky, I only had 3 channels. So I get the limitations and maybe it does have to do with the pressure of money and success that rivals any other generation in human history.
LO— Or on the flip side of that, everyone has adopted a very nihilistic attitude because of that where it’s like I know that I'm not gonna be able to afford a house, afford a car, have a family so fuck everything, the world is burning. I know there is also something to be said for creating from a place of pain or extremes but it just feels uninspired or tainted.
AEH— To your point, it feels like if people are doing creative stuff now, a lot of them are just doing it for the money –
LO— or the clout and therein lies the validation part of it too which is why it becomes cool to align yourself with things like eroticism.
AEH— I was just gonna say that, they wouldn't even know about the basic BDSM rules, what happened in the AIDS pandemic, or anything like that, so then why pretend to be into it?
LO— I think we’re kind of all expected to know the same things nowadays because it allows you to be a part of the cultural conversation that has globalized. Everyone today perhaps knows a lot about everything but none of that knowledge is very deep; so when you look at these subcultures of communities like who was at the fair, it was funny to see who showed up.
AEH— I was going to talk about this because I feel from what I had seen initially, 70% of the people are serious collectors and I knew that the stuff was going to be pretty intense and it was a refreshing mix of collectors and modern erotic artists
LO— From what we saw, there was almost a full spectrum of attendees at the fair, all with varying levels of knowledge when it came to erotica. Can you talk us through the role of understanding and experience as it applies to knowledge in this realm?
AEH— Yeah I mean I’ve naturally been into it since early and being from Europe also gave me maybe a lot more accessibility to it at a very low cost because it’s easier to travel and ultimately be exposed to these things. From EuroTrash on TV, to Lola Ferrari, I don't know why but I've also just always found things like death and other transgressive things for a child to find interesting.
I remember being seven years old and my brother and I found our parents porn vhs tapes and it was obviously both hilarious for us and mind blowing. Visually it was so memorable, the way it was softly focused, there were lace curtains and a silk bed and the entire soft focus lacey 80s visuals are still to this day so exciting to me. I’ve tried to recreate the feel for these images and spoken to many really well-known photographers and the consensus is that there was something poisonous in the chemicals used to develop the photos and we literally aren’t able to get that same tone today because of it. From the paper used even, to the ways porn was visually laid out via ‘human photoshop’ years ago, to the graphic design of it all, you don’t get the layouts, covers, poses, you did then, it's genuinely amazing.
LO— Transgressive as a word sticks out from what you said because it then raises the question of why it is transgressive. These images provoke a visceral reaction but why is our reaction to them at all moral.
AEH— Right and even for you and me as people who are very open, it still is literally someone being fucked in broad daylight with cum in their eyes
LO— Yeah and it’s interesting that society as a whole is seemingly more open or receptive to nudity, brazen sexuality, thirst traps etc. which is great but –
AEH— It’s art censorship too and that’s another reason why I love this. When you were talking I also was thinking about how these women aren’t plus size at all but they're also not this fashion model body so maybe that's something that excited me as well as someone who's been plus sized since I was like being born (11lbs at birth). They have boobs, bums and sometimes they're a bit more fleshy, which I just find visually really beautiful like old renaissance paintings.
LO— Right, it just feels a bit more real which is refreshing but only because the duality exists of everything feeling fabricated and not knowing what actually is “real.”
AEH— Argh honestly my daily frustration, I do think retouching often ruins the image. In these 70s, 80s porn mags i’m talking about the woman looked so real and sexual in such a visceral way, the frizziness of the hair would look like a halo because of the lighting, she might have stretchmarks showing inside her thighs which just makes her more tangible and makes you want to fuck, you want to touch her because she feels real.
LO— Right and that’s maybe why we’re gravitating towards things like erotica nowadays because nothing feels real and there’s a tangibility to it when the general climate reads: numb.
AEH— Right that might be why as well, good point. I don't really think I should have been born in this generation, I feel disconnected because everything's so digital (fake). Don’t get me wrong I love Instagram, I’m on Instagram and I love my thirst traps. For me it’s funny when you think of an office worker wearing latex and a spiked collar to a rave, and that’s not a problem at all, but I guess we're just having the discussion about authenticity. At the same time, if that’s what it takes for people to not be so uptight, then go for it but what we're trying to say is we don't want to lose that sense of community which so many subcultures have lost. That's the only thing about it getting too mainstream, isn't it? Because then it can ruin the actual meaning and history of the thing, like tattooing.
LO— I literally got the craziest Instagram ad the other day that was like, “learn how to tattoo in Bushwick” and you get one free drink. It’s literal hipsters with gloved hands tattooing on fruit.
AEH— Yes! This is the perfect example of what we’re saying. I don’t want it to get like that, you want to gatekeep it a bit because it is really special
LO— Yeah I don’t think gatekeeping is always a bad thing, it actually allows for singularity and if it's not for you, it's not for you and maybe there’s something to be said for preservation’s sake. Even us using the word “authenticity” feels a bit wrong to use in this conversation.
AEH— Agreed, it’s essential sometimes though and I feel like I’m a historian with this - I want to just keep this safe! I also feel icky using that word but it’s not just eroticism that needs to be protected, it’s a lot of subcultures. Goths. Where have the goths gone? It genuinely upsets me that there are no goths. My ideal boyfriend is either Digga D (big crush) or that classic 80s really pale guy with long black hair, wearing a leather trench coat and I never see that guy anymore, not in New York, not in London, maybe in Scotland? Maybe that's where I have to go.
LO— Right and I’m thinking about the word “consent” in relation to not just sex but the ways we are fed information. Even the notion of something being transgressive without our consent in terms of exposure or visibility and the echo chamber is also filled with cries for “empowerment” whilst still shaming those who opt to use their bodies.
AEH— When we’re thinking about women who want to do sex work for instance and they’re happy, feel safe, confident and have the right kind of mental framework, you often see their relationship and view of men change, they’re not intimidated at all anymore and that’s really enjoyable and empowering. At one point in time people were making real big money from this and I hate when the sex trafficking side of things always gets brought into the conversation because millions of women who are working class providing for their families on OnlyFans, buying houses, providing for their families, and all the things they wished for as little girls just by selling photos from their own homes. To me that's amazing, that's serious hustle, takes a lot of time and energy and confidence.
LO— Right and the ways in which we’re expected to compartmentalize these parts of our being is interesting where it’s like you as a sexual thing isn’t who you are at the office.
AEH— I like to be myself all the time which is why I have a hard time being in a corporate environment. I don’t know you well enough but I assume you’re sexually out there because we’re into the same things, but say a stranger might perceive you wearing this long baggy top and thinks you’re covering yourself up so you’re not sexually adventurous? I don't know if there's the same thing in America but one of the biggest things always spoken about by the current English Youtube stars will always be around this question of how many bodies does a girl have? It’s this thing that conflates sex and promiscuity with ideas of being a good person or good enough. It’s like you have bad values if you slept with more than like 9 people and if any less then you’re an angel.
LO— Right and how much of that is related to that same fear we were talking about before related to self-censorship in not wanting to even give yourself away. Or on the flip side, wanting to be so reckless with it and not exploring the nuances of intimacy versus the act of sex etc.
AEH— Why is there so much value put on sex, who you've had sex with and how many times and stuff?
LO— I guess in the past, we’ve put such an emphasis on monogamy and that is tangential to stability. But today that’s evolving and we are sexually liberated and empowered but perhaps don’t understand it as fully as we should.
AEH— Yes. Maybe another reason why these magazines – to bring it back to the fair – feels so special is that say there is this girl, we’ll call her Tammy, and she’s posting her nudes on Instagram. But say Tammy was living in 1985 and she did it in the porn industry and there's only 50 copies of this magazine with these beautiful nudes of her and that's why to me they feel so precious, like precious antique diamonds or something. But now obviously with Instagram everyone can access these images but maybe only 50 people had these pictures of Tammy in 1985, isn’t that cool?
LO— Right and is that only more desirable because of the context of time?
AEH— To me, yeah. I'm sure most people, it doesn't bother them or it’s not what they think about, but I love these snapshots of time. I feel like if I had been in my teens in the early 80s, my late teens to the end of 80s and then in my 20s in the 90s, I'd be a millionaire. I would have created some amazing website that kicked off. I feel so sorry for the generation behind us, the saturation levels are insane. I watched something yesterday and it said in the last 20 years, the human race has risen by about 2 billion, which is insane. How can you expect to get your dream job, to be singular, to stand out and to have created something truly new? Can you actually even do anything new anymore? And that makes me so sad.
LO— Yeah well now we have AI.
AEH— My worst nightmare. I genuinely think about this on my own time, I'm depressed about it, which is another reason maybe why I like these old magazines. I love things made with hands, the human brain, the human touch. I know that's not the way to think now but that's just my way. AI is gonna really shift the entire landscape of the workforce and it’s going to be apocalyptic, like demon chaos mode.
LO— Right and we’re even seeing in humanity today with things like TikTok everything has to be in the same format, it needs to be this long, it has to look like this, blah blah blah.
AEH— We are being formatted already! I absolutely agree with you. I think it also obviously adds to our point where someone is in the moment, having sex, just enjoying it. I find the constant filming of everything really depressing. I even saw this video of this girl trying to pull a sheep out of the mud, like yoinking it, and someone is filming her instead of helping. We’re honestly like clowns.
LO— Right and it creates such a barrier to experience and you can’t do that really with sex which makes it also the allure of it.
AEH— Right! Of course everyone wants to film it but that’s very interesting and a good point! It probably is one of the last authentic things in that sense because it’s one of the few things that can't be filmed.
LO— Right but that even is becoming mainstream.
AEH— Totally and if you’re doing it for OnlyFans and making money that’s great but as absolutely out there as I am sexually, I don't want to be filmed when I'm having sex because it takes me out of the moment. It's private and I love it to be private. Because what else do you do that's truly private? Maybe when you eat with a friend inside a house?
LO— Right but I mean, phone eats first?
AEH— [laughs] exactly! Shout out to my silly little food blog @buffscranandsnacks Yeah sex is the only thing really where the phone doesn’t come first, that’s so true. That’s probably why I love sex so much, it’s the last old-fashioned thing and I don’t think it can be ruined.
LO— Right and even with the fair, it’s kind of the last frontier and yet, here comes exposure. Sure there have been technological innovations but there’s something to be said for just body on body and you can’t recreate it.
AEH— Yeah, nothing like having my chubby cheeks kissed in private.
