I know it seems like I’ve been absent, but I’ve been getting ready for the next stage of SmutMag, and the next stage for my housing.

So much of this year has just been trying ideas, seeing the scope of them, and trying to determine the shape of this thing: What does the day to day look like to achieve the larger goals?

And now, having gone through experiments with zines, and merch, and the blog, and the station, and the kinds of art produced, I finally have my year mapped out, and how that will bring this artist housing project all the way home.

And by that, of course, I also mean that everything in the whole world is still up in the air and there is still too much opportunity for things to interrupt me. In fact, yesterday was my first day on my new regimen, and already it’s getting interrupted because I have to do an odd job today to make money for mortgage. So if you love the rollercoaster of not knowing what the hell is going on, don’t worry, there will still be some of that.

But there is a shape to it now, and I will lay it out for you here.

What is SmutMag.Art?

SmutMag.Art is a little tiny media company, comprised of the following:

A blog

A radio station

A print Magazine.

For promotion purposes, my socials are mastodon and soundcloud.

To fill all of this out, and to create an overall project that is worked on day by day, I am writing two books. They’ve been outlined, and are structured in such a way that little chunks can stand on their own, and when put together, they comprise the larger story. One book is a fiction erotic novel. The structure is a frame story about cuckolding (and is an attempt to pull it back to the more traditional sense of “Woman cheats on man, makes him feel like a horny fool” rather than what the cuckolding fantasy has been narrowed into in recent years, with the only acceptable narrative for the algorithms being “Black men are a threat and will steal your wife” narrative. Just to be clear.) But within the framework a wide variety of sexual fantasies will be explored, so lovers of BDSM and just good old fashioned fucking will all have something to enjoy.

The other is essays about the art of erotica, which nods a bit at the book “Respect for Acting” by Uta Hagen–which was a book written in response to the total shrugging off of the importance of good acting, and which laid out what exactly it is actors do, and why you should respect it. Yo. I am no Uta Hagen. But I’d like to attempt the same thing for the erotic arts.

I’m extremely excited about both of these books. They will be available for free as audios on the radio station, but you have to tune in at the right time (The book of essays will be played in the day. The erotica will be played After Dark. They will also be released bit by bit here, on the blog, with audio.

These blog posts will be behind a paywall. But it will be reasonable, with options to pay as you go or subscribe.

They will also be turned into zines available for sale on the website, through Mixam.

And when they are complete, they will also be available as books.

This set up will allow me to hit all of my goals. 1. Have a space where people can get things for free (the radio). 2. Encourage people not to scroll (which ruins any satisfaction), but instead to listen and see what they find just by tuning in. Which is how sex should be approached. 2. Gives people a chance to own it if they like it for a fee, so that I am compensated for my work. 3. Gives SmutMag a central focus and flow, allowing for consistency, even if I do extra stuff outside of those two central projects.

And, of course, you can use your Bones to get it all–so paying up front is highly encouraged. It helps me take leaps forward with my housing.

It also makes it possible for me to keep my focus on getting this project moving, so I don’t have to halt everything to pick up an odd job, like I’m doing today.

In fact, if 500 Bones are bought this week, then I will be able to FLY through this week. My bills will be paid, and materials will be bought (like siding for my tiny cabin).

Part of why I am doing books is so I have something I can continuously promote for months, which is necessary for getting customers.

And it also has to be customers. It can’t be people “supporting” me. Not because I don’t care for support–it would have been my preference. That’s why I’ve latched onto it for so long, giving everything away for free and just asking for support so I can do that.

But that burden falls on too few people. And those people are nervous about it, because they do not believe someone in the arts, and certainly not in erotica, deserves support. And they especially are suspicious of poor artists. When I say I’m giving everything away and I just need enough to live, people think it is a scam. But if they are advertised to and made to pay for it, they are thankful for the opportunity to do so. This is something I don’t want to be true. I keep trying to make it not true. But it is true. And at this point, I have to incorporate it. People are suspicious of sincerity and giving. They are much more comfortable with the transactional.

But what about all of the other stuff? Like smashing the internet?

I’ve spent twenty years telling people to abandon the internet. And I still want them to do it. But apparently tech fascism can be in full swing, we can know with certainty that we are being surveilled in order to be prosecuted for “crimes” like free speech, tech can eat your job–including your tech job–and people still think the notion of getting offline is insane.

That’s because people are fucking morons, and deeply addicted, and do not have faith in themselves, in people, or the world around them.

I have this problem where I can see how a whole system is rotten, and my instinct is to tear it all down and present something new. But for everyone living in this rotten hellhole, it’s home. Whether or not it’s rotten. And tearing down people’s homes will always be resisted.

So my plan is to create, yes, the “off-ramps” that I’ve talked about before, and also to utilize the internet in ways that discourage scrolling, encourage REAL engagement (getting involved intimately with one piece at a time), and that grounds people in time and space. We will never be able to engage with reality until we can do those things. We will never have the faith in ourselves we need to exit if we cannot engage and don’t know where we are. And I have to make that possible where people live. Which is this rotten, fascist, internet hell-hole.

So that’s basically it. Programming will be available for free, but not on demand. You can collect the pieces to own, but for a price. Investing up front is the absolute most helpful thing you can do to ensure that artists are not either hanging by a thread, starving, or having to interrupt their work with odd jobs. And you know what you can expect on a consistent basis, and that does not overwhelm me and cause burnout.

What about The culture stuff and think pieces?

You think I can keep my mouth shut? Those will still be here. I do not know how I will price them. Probably some of it will be free, and some of it will have a paywall, and that will be the stuff I decide on the fly.

For the record, I’m not excited about a paywall. Not just because I find them vexing as someone with no money when I encounter them elsewhere. But because it immediately puts artistic limits on me: The first two hundred words will have to be about making you want to buy it.

But this is a fucked up culture, and honestly, the paywall is about giving the people what they want. They want a paywall. It’s as simple as this: If in 200 words, you feel an itch to buy it, you will decide that I am someone you want to support–you will justify to yourself that I am someone you SHOULD support, to get the thing you want right now. But if I give you a 1000 words you love for free, and then ask you to decide whether or not to pay for it, you will run scenarios for why you shouldn’t have to, until you decide I must be a con artist and that the morally right thing is to not pay me.

You can’t help it. People are fucked up.

Artists who have teams have the luxury of not thinking about this stuff. The dirty work of selling is done by someone else, while the artist is free to say, “I’m no sell out.” For the rest of us individuals, we have the impossible task of selling without selling out.

So this is my compromise: Just telling you the honest truth of why things are the way they are. Attempting to make it reasonable. Letting you know, as I always did as a dominatrix, “I am mindfucking you into submission.” And then just go ahead and do that in 200 words or less, so I can get on with the rest of the art without starving.

But there will be no writing today. I’m off to do an odd job.

Hopefully, by the end of this week, all of the details and the website will be geared towards the New SmutMag. In the meantime, you can get ahead of those paywalls when you

Get Your Bones