Why
The purpose of the website is autonomy—to grant me total control over my own content. I'm an erotic artist, which means my work is controlled. This regulation generally comes from others, and varies per site; each platform comes with its own restrictions and limitations, which can be incredibly frustrating to work under. Deviant Art limits traffic for "mature content," allowing nudity but having a zero-tolerance policy regarding sexual acts. Apart from its own submission rules, Hentai Foundry encourages sexual acts, but has less of a demand for "safer" artwork. Twitter is much more content-tolerant, but lacks an ability to organize posted material; it also features its own mystifying policies, enforceable on a whim, and having no guarantee of response should you disagree with their decision. Um, yeah, fuck that.
I don't simply want to be able to depict sexual acts in my artwork; I want to be able to share my work on my own platform, not someone else's—where I'm in control, and can make my own rules. It might sound megalomaniacal, but it gets old having your work taken down because of an obscure or poorly defined rule. Some places like DA offer special privileges for a monthly fee; I'd still use the money to purchase and host my own domain, instead. None of this would be possible without my good friend, Marilyn Roxie, who handled the administrative logistics behind this project. Having used DA and other platforms for years, I'm glad Marilyn pushed me to go through with my own website; I'll be able to feature whatever I want, and generate as much traffic as I can. Without Marilyn's support and encouragement I'd never have reached this point. Thank you, Marilyn for your help.
Content
The artwork featured on my website is predominantly erotic videogame fan art—pinups, but also group shots and images featuring couples (usually having sex, but not always). Some of my favorite franchises include Metroid, Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda. However, I do have original content, including my own mascot, Revana Mireille. I also draw real people, from time to time, and take commissions.
Style
I loved Frank Frazetta growing up. His work famously depicts muscle-bound men rescuing sexpot damsels in fantasy and science fiction backdrops. I liked his style, but prefer to reverse the binary a bit by having the strong character be female (to be fair, Frazetta himself wasn't against having strong beauties, either). She needn't be muscular to the same extent as Conan. Think thicc, with a touch of brawn for good measure. It's kind of an amalgam of tough heroines like Ellen Ripley or Samus Aran combined with the pin-up sort of valkyrie Frazetta championed in the 1960s and '70s. My male characters are generally androgynous in appearance—willowy-bodied, with big dicks and cute faces.
In my work, I don't like to treat sex separate from everyday life. Instead, I emphasize sexuality and intimacy as being part of the same experience. Not only do you have the intense, raw close-ups during sex one might encounter in a VHS porno; there's also the tender, little details: the smiles, excitement, and other factors that make up everyday for people in relationships. I try to communicate all of this in a fantasy or sci-fi setting populated by my favorite videogame characters. It might be a regression of the quotidian into the Romantic, but being a Gothicist I'm not against liminal forms of expression. My work is erotic, forming a balance of the raunchy and tender inside a videogame milieu. These characters aren't fighting dragons; they're having sex, but there's so many different ways this can go about, and I have my own special blend I like to try and capture in my art.
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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). She 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 her multiple playmates/friends and collaborators, Persephone and her eighteen muses work/play together on Sex Positivity and on her artwork at large as a sex-positive force. She sometimes writes reviews, Gothic analyses, and interviews for fun on her old blog; or does continual independent research on Metroidvania and speedrunning. If you're interested in her academic/activist work and larger portfolio, go to her About the Author page to learn more; if you're curious about illustrated or written commissions, please refer to her commissions page for more information.
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