Mine's On The 45: A Guide For Masturbation & Sex To Get You Through The Quarantine →

Tom Sachs, Knoll Turntable
1999
duct tape, phone books, steel
26 x 49 x 27 inches

Masturbating is a lot like writing a song. I guess sex is in general, but you can’t compose a complete sexual event with another person if you don’t know how to build the structure on your own. 

You want to start out with a strong open. You don’t want to just jump into the chorus with all instruments fired up in full swing. You want to find something minimal and seductive to whet the palette—like the opening bassoon in Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.” It’s a singular, sumptuous gesture that drips of sex. Be sure to slowly mine that gesture for all it’s worth, check the reaction, and then slowly add each layer of stimulation in an intuitive sort of fashion—teasing in a hook from time to time and then easing back into the groove. Click here to read more.

Cult Chinese Photographer Ren Hang Debuts His New Series, Athens Love, This Week In New York

“Athens Love” consists of snapshots Ren Hang took in Athens and other parts of Attica, Greece, during an artist residency in April, 2015. The images evoke faded memories of escapades with friends and lovers against the saturated backdrop of the Mediterranean. An incandescent face rises from a tumble of long black hair, bordered by a blue sky and sea; protruding genitals cheekily reflect the surrounding natural landscape. Linking these images is a narrative Ren Hang subtly pursues in all his work, in which man and nature each react to the other’s magic. Ren Hang will be signing copies of monograph, Athens Love, at New York’s Dashwood Books on March 25, 2016 with an exhibition at Klein Sun Gallery  in New York from 24 March 2016 to April 30, 2016. Click here to read Autre's short interview with the photographer. 

A Peek Inside The New "Tom House: Tom of Finland in Los Angeles" Book

Tom House: Tom of Finland in Los Angeles, from the Rizzoli imprint, is a delicious peek inside the legendary former residence of Finnish erotic illustrator and painter of all your gay fantasies, Touko Laaksonen. The home, on a quiet suburban street in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, is where Laaksonen, most famously known as Tom of Finland, lived and worked during the last ten years of his life. The men and muses he lived with still live there to this day and maintain the home just as he left it, albeit with a lot more of his artwork on the walls. To the un-gay eye, this house may seem like a den of iniquity, but in reality it is a shrine to the late Tom of Finland and it is a testament to freedom of sexuality and desire. Straight or gay, Tom’s House is a must visit when you spend time in Los Angeles, and the book is an excellent way to visit if you can’t actually be there. All in all, the book is also one of the best testaments to the legacy of Tom of Finland.  Click here to purchase Tom House: Tom of Finland In Los Angeles.

A Glimpse Into the First Issue of The Feros Review, An Erotic Notebook From France

Sometimes sensual, sometimes sexual, Feros a call to awake the senses. Firmly rooted in this time, the erotic review explores an obsessive look aesthetic and contemporary fascinations for impulses living being. The publication stands out as the need to reveal the principles of a contemporary eros which seeks and is constantly renewing itself, without manipulating representations. In each issue, art and literature intersect, align and interact freely. Wild beauty and sought: Feros. The first issue includes contributions from Julian Feeld, Apollonia Saintclair, Mirka Lugosi and more. You can purchase the first issue of Feros in a standard edition and limited edition here. 

When Good Sex Goes Bad: Audra Wist Writes About Sex With No Strings Attached and The Perils Therein →

My sexual freedom had turned into burgeoning co-dependency and like a shark sniffing out blood in the water, my eyes went white and I could no longer see the world as I once had. I fiended for that good stuff and locked myself away gnawing at the fence of sexual satisfaction. I started getting attached, paranoid, neurotic. This was a real problem for me. I am interested in sex, I write about sex, I think about sex, I like sex very much. I don’t even have to question it—I’m just there, fucking. And therein lied the problem: reckless, automatic over-investment. By diving head first into something that was supposed to be on particular terms, did I lose the ability to create the framework in the first place? Click here to read more. 

Sex As Power and The True Meaning of Love: Read Our Conversation With Artist, Performer and Writer Lex Brown Who Just Released Her First Erotic Novel →

"The year is 2056. Hotshot lawyer Mia Garner needs a fresh start after dumping her cheating boyfriend. So she goes on a cross-country drive with Derek, her handsome tech stepbrother, to meet Xavier Céron, a mysterious CEO who wants to acquire the game-changing nanochip Derek invented," reads the description for Lex Browns erotic novel, My Wet Hot Drone Summer. Read our unique conversation with Lex Brown here. 

Read Audra Wist's Essay On the Demystification Of Sexual Urges And Why Men Need To Be Touched More →

“I love to be caressed,” he said to me, my hand on his chest. Color me impressed. As I get older, I continually notice the need for men to be touched. I’ve been a long time proponent of strip clubs, sex work, and so forth – physical sites designed for and marketed to men for sexual pleasure – even before I could really justify it legally or intellectually. I always had a hunch that something was going on there that was good for women and for sex, and that the usual bad mouthing on the grounds that men were sniveling tit-obsessed cretons was ill considered and lacked any constructive thought about the potential of these venues for sexual progress. Click here to read the full essay. 

There's A Lesbian Haunted House Happening In Los Angeles And It's Amazing

Watch out for the pussy juice, literally. Last Friday night marked the triumphant opening of Killjoy’s Kastle, a sex positive, trans inclusive, lesbian-feminist haunted house organized by ONE Archives in West Hollywood and created by Toronto based artist Allyson Mitchell. This performer-based installation is inspired by the radical, evangelical hell houses that go up each year aiming to both entertain and terrify god-fearing Christians with a glimpse into the fiery furnace that awaits the sinners of the world. What a killjoy, right? Well there’s only one kind of killjoy more dreaded than radical evangelicals, and that’s the lesbian feminists of the world. Armed with their moral and politically correct criticisms of every aspect of the western zeitgeist, these hairy-bushed (on full view), diva-cup-wearing witches aim to lay out all of their titillatingly contradictory tropes in an educational tour led by demented women’s studies professors. Packed with a series of hilarious installations that are both thought provoking and giggle inducing, these mistresses of the night seem equally inspired by the spirit of righteousness as they are by self mockery. KillJoy’s Kastle continues from 6:30-9:30pm Saturday and Sunday, October 17 & 18; Thursday-Sunda, October 22-25; and Wednesday-Friday, October 28-30. Be sure to arrive by 8:30 to ensure time for the full, guided tour. Tours last approximately 30 minutes and it's free. 

A Supermasochistic Love Story: Read Our Intimate, Touching and Fascinating Convo With The Grande Dame of Domination Sheree Rose →

Sheree Rose is the kinky grandmother I never had but always wanted. Featured in the seminal and groundbreaking 1997 documentary SICK alongside her late partner, supermasochist Bob Flanagan, Sheree was the woman behind the curtain acting as Bob’s Domme and a massive force in helping him achieve greatness through performance, poetry, and promiscuity. All smiles and as candid as it gets, she gleefully divulged the breadth of her sexual awakening and the hardships in getting there. She is a punk, a pervert, and a pioneer — a true libertine — warm hearted yet strict and opinionated, which is why I was initially drawn to her. She is most written about in the context of Bob (“an exotic endangered species,” as she calls him), and while that relationship was undoubtedly important to her and performance history, Sheree stands alone as a remarkable and fascinating woman who waxes poetic on the state of femdom, feminist practice, and sex in the contemporary time — “out of the bedroom and into real life — explicit not just implicit.” On September 11th, we met at the ONE Archives at USC to discuss her role in the BDSM and D/s scene in Los Angeles during the 70s and 80s, the importance of choice, questions about male sexuality, and our shared love for guiding slave boys into the matriarchy. Click here to read the full interview. 

Highlights From The Tom of Finland Art and Culture Festival 2015 In Los Angeles

The Tom of Finland Foundation hosted the Tom of Finland Art + Culture festival at TOM House in Echo Park, Los Angeles. This year's festival featured more than 30 artists, both emerging and established. The weekend showcased live performance, poetry readings, short films, and erotic art spanning sculpture, photography, paintings, sketches, digital renderings, and more. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Fish and Chicks: See Photos Of London Club Performer Imma Mess Shot by Daniel Peace for Maison Des Fous →

Imma Mess is a little bit of a legend in the underground London club scene. In our new editorial, Daniel Peace captures the performer for a special club night called Maison Des Fous, aka House of Crazy. Maison Des Fous will offer a space for performance and partying where artists of all variety come together to show off their unique skills. With freakshow, drag, neo burlesque and circus performers. Click here to see the full editorial. 

Jill Di Donato Takes On Gender, Sexual Reassignment Surgery, Sex Tapes and The Pleasure of Having a Clit In This Cultural Meandering on Womanhood in the 21st Century →

We don't mean to get heavy on a Monday, but Jill Di Donato's essay is just too good and too informative not to start your week off with. Starting with Lynda Benglis' massive faux member in Artforum to the discovery that her own sex tape was previewed in public to a bunch of strangers, Donato explores female sexuality, gender, and what it means to be a woman in the 21st century. She talks to photographers like Ricky Powell and Richard Kern to find the answers. Click here to read.