This interview is for "Hailing Hellions," a Q&A series where I interview sex workers (or ex-sex workers) who have modeled for me and my Sex Positivity* book project. Today's guest is Amanita Daukta! This is the SFW version; click here for the SFW-version interview compendium!

*The longer title being Sex Positivity versus Sex Coercion, or Gothic Communism: Liberating Sex Work under Capitalism through Iconoclastic Art (2023). Part of an overarching movement that connects sex positivity to what I call "Gothic (gay-anarcho) Communism," Sex Positivity essentially provides a hybrid; i.e., one established between academic (Gothic, queer, game and Marxist) theories, and wherein applied theory towards universal liberation is achieved by challenging Capitalist Realism (the inability to imagine a world beyond Capitalism) at a grassroots level. To it, Gothic Communism specifically occurs through direct mutual worker action and informed intersectional solidarity relayed through Gothic poetics: BDSM, monsters, and kink, but specifically what I call "ludo-Gothic BDSM." 

General CW: BDSM, Gothic content and theatrics (e.g., rape play and death theatre), as well as sex worker abuse and bigotry of various kinds (variable per interview); discussions of sex work, underwear photos/photos of sex toys, and fascism

Concerning Images, Censorship and Permissions: All images are of the model or myself unless otherwise stated. As this is the SFW version of the interview, the images are relatively tame, cropped or censored; to see the spicier stuff each model offers, go to the NSFW version of this series on my website. 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.

About the series: Like the book series it attaches to, "Hailing Hellions" aims to educate and critique; i.e., by raising awareness towards sex worker rights, but also gender-non-conformity through Gothic counterculture. This extends to gender identity (e.g., trans, enby or intersex) but also orientation and performance; i.e., BDSM and sex positivity through various Gothic theatrical roles that invite things beyond vanilla, heteronormative (thus conservative, reactionary and harmful) sexuality. I would consider this to be things like mommy dommes and consent-non-consent, breeding fantasies and heavy metal (e.g., Satanic material and the Gothic at large). Also, these questions are broader insofar as they cover wide praxial/poetic ideas and concepts. Regarding these, the opinions of the subject and myself are not identical, but often overlap through us collaborating together to raise awareness.

About the interviewee: Amy is someone I met on Bluesky while looking to continue working with sex workers; i.e., after my book series initially concluded (re: "It Began with a Whisper," 2025), and after several more books in 2026. In short, I saw their work recently, liked it, and decided to reach out; they responded, and we went from there! Apart from this interview, Amy also appears in my latest essay alongside other sex workers: "Gothic Ludology" (2026)!

Note: This interview is a work-in-progress; it shall update in the future to include more responses from Amy. Also, editor's notes appear in italics—often as footnotes preceded by an asterisk (*) or signed at the end by me. —Perse

0. Persephone: Hi, everyone! My name is Persephone van der Waard. I'm a trans-woman erotic artist, sex worker, writer/author and researcher who specializes in cross-media studies; i.e., I have my independent PhD in Gothic poetics and ludo-Gothic BDSM (focusing on partially on Metroidvania).

Amy, could you introduce yourself and share a little about yourself with our audience?

Amy: Hello! My name is Amanita (like the mushrooms)—though I tend to go by Amy. I am a non-binary adult content creator, artist and sex worker who returned to the "scene" fairly recently (after a hiatus of fifteen years or so). You will mainly find me on Bluesky, Fansly and Hidden.

I am in the process of launching a new zine called Coven. Ultimately this will be a sex worker and artist-led cooperative, with a view to showcasing creatives working in NSFW spaces and establishing a mutual aid network for individuals displaced by increasing censorship legislation (it's not a snappy tagline, but I believe in it anyway!):

(source skeet: covenzine, 6/17/2026)

1. Persephone: This book project views sex positivity as a liberating act. What does sex positivity mean to you? Illustrating mutual consent; i.e., can porn illustrate mutual consent when sex workers are constantly dehumanized by the profit motive and the status quo?

Amy: Having had very complicated feelings about sex for a large portion of my life, sex positivity for me is quite straightforwardly about being able to openly and earnestly enjoy sex in all of its silly, messy, unpretentious glory and still feel like a whole person afterwards. In order to achieve that, I think you need to truly be able to view sex (between consenting adults) as a morally neutral act as baseline. To apply this to porn, I think when we strip away the moral hangups society has with sex, it is easy to see how sex work is just another way in which we can use our bodies in the name of labour [and reclaiming it].

The question of whether porn can ever fully illustrate mutual consent is an interesting one. I feel like Capitalism dehumanizes everyone who is forced to participate in it, so porn can only illustrate mutual consent as far as anyone can consent to exchange labour for survival:

2. Persephone: In your mind, what is the biggest struggle facing sex workers today?

Amy: Definitely how hostile the infrastructure of society is towards us—meaning really straightforward things like finding a bank who will not close our accounts, having payment services withhold our money, finding someone willing to rent a house to us, accessing welfare benefits; i.e., the sorts of resources that should be a given but are made difficult to access the moment the institutions know you do sex work.

(source YouTube community post [comments]: billdabarber, 7/9/2026)

Editor's note: This hostility is bad enough with open violence and rejection, but applies just as well to virgin/whore apathy, indifference and superiority—meaning the fact that many SWERFs see us both as monolithic "dragon ladies" hoarding piles of gold, mid-abjection, and know-nothing virgins to "rescue." Any in-between is rare because it requires basic human rights, thus dignity and respect alongside a living wage; i.e., not discounted for our bodies by people acting in bad faith to moderate/reactionary degrees. The irony being that, "on the Aegis" (the frontier of our bodies), we must broadcast this-or-that to subvert stereotypes and win respect despite bad actors: "Treat us like we have brains—that we can run a business without help (ergo have rights) and still have a tush, rack and box/schlong to work our trade." Liberation happens inside the brothel, it and exploitation sharing space. In other words, we're not "free" (meaning easy for others to devalue and exploit, above); we install barriers and communicate through veils different things poking through (what so many see as alien but want to touch): vaso vagal, whose come-hither penetration includes a conflicted desire—to exist and calculate risk, buffer-to-buffer!

So don't blame the whore or act better/smarter than them, including like you care or otherwise have our best interests at heart (the pimp's refrain)! Professional sluts require intelligence but also a game ability to work with bad actors pimping us, ipso facto. So often, this means white straight guys with beards (2026). That being said, BIPOC apologize for rape, too; i.e., while saying "not all men," "dubious consent" and so on (Persephone van der Waard's "Rape Culture in Obsession (and Those Who Defend It)," 2026)—doing so in that assimilate a holistic colonizer mentality towards sex work under Capitalist Realism: to drive sex work underground, then chase it anew (as capital must, always in crisis). To that, intersectional problems require intersectional solutions, ones that acknowledge and meet head-on how sexism, racism and transphobia (etc) typically overlap (with "barbarian" or "outsider" being an ancient form of racism that impacted European women society viewed as witches, from Medusa onwards: Numinous beings of power men couldn't control that, through various "fuck-off vibes," paradoxically advertise said power in deeply intimidating [anti-predation] but also darkly fascinating ways, below). —Perse

3. Persephone: How do you feel about sex work being work, thus paying sex workers for their labor? This can be unions, but also their representations in media at large.

Amy: Sex work is and always has been work. But gosh is it not interesting how many ways you could hold up that question and analyze it and find a different way to justify the same answer? There is so much I could say! I am in the UK, which more or less [remains] actively hostile towards workers offering this type of service; i.e., you can only offer in-person services working alone, from home. Even working with a friend for safety could be deemed illegal, as this would constitute a brothel. It makes me really angry—to think how far away we are from getting even the very basics of allowing sex workers to work safely.

If the goal is for sex workers to be able to organize—meaning ourselves, like a regular workplace—[it's] the sort of issue we need to have a handle on, to start with. Sex workers offering in-person services are statistically the most vulnerable of us, and any way in which we organize for workers rights needs [to] centre them, in my opinion. I don't have faith in the powers that be—in places that currently operate under the Nordic model* (or Nordic-lite, a la the UK)—to actually enact this sort of change any time soon, sadly. We are in for a difficult time, in the face of censorship and increasingly puritanical social attitudes: [as beings of darkness working "in Hell," below].

*An end-demand system that criminalizes clients and third parties, but not the sex workers themselves. This is not the same as decriminalization. Instead, it's a kind of "grey" legality that leads to many problems for sex workers; i.e., making something a crime doesn't prevent crime, nor protect sex workers from men who, criminalized, operate in ways that continue under a terrifying air (an effect not dissimilar to serial killers; e.g., Martin Vanger from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [above, 2009] and likeminded stories: the Gothic "noir" sort, pitting the punkish castrating outsider [the avenger] against the perfidious in-group predator [the vampire] that normie middle class people [read: not sex workers] consume for cheap thrills).

What I do have faith in, though, is the ability of sex workers to organize independently—all the more so now that we are more able to connect with each other online. There are organizations out there [online] doing incredible advocacy work (lookin' at you SWOP!). [To it,] I think grassroots efforts are the best vehicle for [changing society] for us, at the moment.

4. Persephone: What are your thoughts on Communism vs Capitalism using Gothic poetics? Can monsters be gay Commies?

Amy: One of my special interests growing up was folklore. I'm Scottish and we have some amazing cryptids and fairytales. I also love Gothic literature (though maybe not as much as you, Persephone!); i.e., for probably the same reasons. I've always been drawn to the uncanny, and—probably like many who grew up queer and autistic and feeling othered*—I've very often connected with the monsters. One from folklore I think fits the bill of a gay Commie monster is Wulver—a solitary humanoid wolf creature who would live on the outskirts of villages in the Shetland islands. They would generally be feared and outcast from the village, but would take on a sort of protective role. They were fishermen and would bring fish for villagers during periods of illness, for example. If the village is the status quo—Capitalism—Wulver reflects their intolerance and fear, their role as oppressor and beneficiary of the resources offered by the oppressed.

*Sex demonized under capital's Protestant ethic (which pimps and rapes everything behind a Puritan veneer). This must—despite the contradictions capital instills (e.g., "sex bad, sex sells")—be reclaimed and weaponized against the owner class as selling cartoonish rape fears [and similar moral panics] to the middle class. Surrendering the counterterrorist power sex-as-sugar offers (and nature as alien/monstrous-feminine) will not stop capital from pimping us; they will continue doing so under all the usual contradictions, "boundaries for me, not for thee" (and "gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss"; etc). So whores must fight fire with fire, the oldest labor struggle tied up in/with "ancient" hauntological myths that revive under present day (the Wulver or otherwise).

I love themes of transformation and duality—shapeshifters like selkies, lycanthropes, and witches [and comparable "doubles," each alien a liminal state concerned with impostor syndrome as much as outsider threats; e.g., the Babadook and hysteria fears, above]. Duality was actually so prevalent in Scottish Gothic literature that it [even] has its own term—Caledonian Antisyzygy. This is a sort of polarity which exists in the same entity—a really well-known example being Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886). I think this sort of duality would be an excellent device for exploring decadence and [the] destruction of Capitalism. Furthermore, my favourite Gothic novel—The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner (1824) by James Hogg—is credited as the first example of Caledonian Antisyzygy. It follows a young man who [in turn] follows the doctrine of predestinarianism (a [Catholic idea] which preached that the devout are guaranteed a spot in Heaven—usually bought through donations to the Church—regardless of the earthly sins they commit. I think that would be a really interesting text to explore through a modern anti-Capitalist lens [where capital demonizes/scapegoats Catholicism under the Protestant ethic].

Editor's note: Verily! Sex work, in rebellious hands, works from nomadic secrecy to conduct guerrilla aka asymmetrical warfare (class war is ass war). Monsters, therein (especially the monstrous-feminine), aren't just code to speak cryptonymically to abject things, but acknowledge and embrace our ties to the land as alien, and all of nature along with it: a fortress. Our bodies are the frontier to wage war on (above); i.e., as "fog" to conceal ourselves with (as "mere play") but also a black mirror that can paralyze would-be trespassers! So many monstrous-feminine are avengers, Creed remarks; the best revenge the whore can have is survival that, "on the Aegis," makes future rape impossible (re: "Concerning Rape Play: a 2025 Note on My Development of Ludo-Gothic BDSM," 2025)! From Medusa to Mary Shelley to us, the same Commie Numinous only waits to wake up. —Perse

To be continued...