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lb_leeI WARD MY CITY: a madgic perzine
In November 2024, I bought a shitload of queer/trans, kinky, and erotic books, in case they became impossible to get later.
I looked at my joyous, subterranean, riotous inheritance. A beautiful, disavowed inheritance. Stories they only tell at a whisper.
And then I made stickers of them and put them up all over town.
Every sticker a ward, a prayer of protection for my beloved adopted home.
As I put up my ephemeral prayer flags, I planned for their eventual destruction. Painting them over would seal them into the city, buried but intact. Scratching them out would only engrave them deeper into the steel bones of my home. I whispered to them to cling like urban limpets and I spread them far, across multiple townships, to slow their destruction. I can always print more.
Try to legislate me out of existence. Make me the they/them vs. the we/us. I will still be here. My stickers will be here, making my beloveds smile.
If you see my prayers, give them a kiss or a touch. Smile in their memory, and know that we are still here. We always have been, and we always will.
I watch my friends, feeling the weight of the jackboot coming down, and I ward my city.
Who will stop me? God?
In November 2024, I bought a shitload of queer/trans, kinky, and erotic books, in case they became impossible to get later.
I looked at my joyous, subterranean, riotous inheritance. A beautiful, disavowed inheritance. Stories they only tell at a whisper.
And then I made stickers of them and put them up all over town.
Every sticker a ward, a prayer of protection for my beloved adopted home.
As I put up my ephemeral prayer flags, I planned for their eventual destruction. Painting them over would seal them into the city, buried but intact. Scratching them out would only engrave them deeper into the steel bones of my home. I whispered to them to cling like urban limpets and I spread them far, across multiple townships, to slow their destruction. I can always print more.
Try to legislate me out of existence. Make me the they/them vs. the we/us. I will still be here. My stickers will be here, making my beloveds smile.
If you see my prayers, give them a kiss or a touch. Smile in their memory, and know that we are still here. We always have been, and we always will.
I watch my friends, feeling the weight of the jackboot coming down, and I ward my city.
Who will stop me? God?
Image ref credits
Date: 2025-02-16 02:55 am (UTC)The trans man sucking a strap-on comes from Panic Volkushka's "T4T: Trans Men Fucking," a 2017 zine that can no longer be gotten anywhere on account of tumblr porn purges and Volkushka leaving Etsy.
The vulva close-up comes from Joani Blank's Femalia, a 1993 photo book of vulvas. It has been out of print for a very long time; as Blank tersely put it, "It [Down There Press] was sold to another publisher in 2007. None of the books that I wrote or edited are being kept in print by the new publisher, not even the three that sold tens of thousands in their lifetimes." Joani Blank died in 2016 at the age of 79.
All other images with a human body in them came from Michael A. Rosen's photo books, including Sexual Portraits: Photographs of Radical Sexuality and Sexual Art: Photographs that Test the Limits. His are the only books still in print, and only because he stubbornly publishes and sells them himself through his web 1.0 website and a Paypal button.
I bring this up not just to credit the originators, but to also show how ephemeral our works are, even in the best of times. If the current regime has their way, that's going to get a whole lot worse. Gather what you can, share and spread the works and the love. You never know how long it'll last.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-16 04:00 am (UTC)Er, if this is the wrong time to say, smack me one verbally, but... your intro says you bought all kinds of illustration-worthy art in November 2025.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-16 04:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-16 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-17 03:08 am (UTC)If I can get my hands on a printer that does stickers, would you be okay with it if I did this in my city too?
no subject
Date: 2025-02-17 03:10 pm (UTC)And also, turns out damn near any printer can print stickers; you just need the right paper, which is apparently easy to get at an office supply store. My stickers are all one big sheet, so I just took scissors, cut them by hand, and any with stray white bits got TRANS&SEXUAL written in them. I should upload it somewhere so folks can download and spread them.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-19 02:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-19 06:44 pm (UTC)