There is no place for me on the internet, anymore.

I abandoned SmutMag, because it was imperative for me to make money. Which is to say, to focus on the most marketable aspect of my artistic work: My erotica.

I started a Substack account. And immediately, my work took off. I gained a thousand subscribers over three months. I wrote over 400 pages of erotic stories and poems, with audios and GIF’s. It was my most beautiful, artistic work.

And then they kicked me off for being a whore.

“Well,” you shrug, “That’s the wrong space!” So I went to Patreon.

They have not kicked me off, but they did forbid me from making a poem about being aroused free to read. There were no pictures. It didn’t even depict two or more people having sex. It was, in fact, about not achieving sexual satisfaction, but enjoying the frustration of longing. And if I do say so myself, it is a beautiful poem.

Here is another poem. It’s a satire of other popular pornographic writing of the time, written by Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud. It’s on Wikipedia, where absolutely anybody can read it.

It’s called, “Ode to an Asshole.” And it’s far more explicit than what I posted.

Quite a lot of Rimbaud’s poetry was like this. He was a child himself when he was writing. He was a teenager when he published a poem about wanting to have sex with every single person in his family. He was a teenager when he published a poem about wanting to suck off every sailor on his ship.

And he’s a wonderful poet. His poetry provides intimate detail of our most out there desires. It’s beautifully human. And gross.

It’s also the kind of thing that makes it impossible for people to lie about sex. To lie that people under 18 have no thoughts of sex, save for what adults plant there. To lie that women are the temptresses that make a man act in “disgusting,” sexual ways. To lie that same-sex attraction is unnatural.

Which is to say, his poetry helped illuminate the truth about what it means to be alive. That’s what poetry is supposed to do.

So I take real issue with the censorship of erotica. And the more it has happened, the more I have dug in my heels and insisted that I MUST have the right to depict sex in my work. The more they censor, the more I am convinced of the importance of erotic writing.

The last thing I want is for Rimbaud to be censored in kind. But I do want us to see that the internet takes no issue with his work. They take issue with women understanding and wielding their sexuality.

Ancient, male masters may do what they may.

My work is allowed to be on Patreon, but it must be hidden, and I must not promote it. This is not freedom for the artist. It is passive-aggressive oppression.

That’s what financial censorship is all about.

At this point in my career, I truly believe in my erotic work. But the funny thing about it is that I only got into it in the first place because of the financial censorship of more mainstream art. We had created a society where it was damn near impossible to get paid for the arts, unless you were doing things that were borderline illegal: Like disturbing the peace through street performance.

The big reason women pursue sex work is that it is the only artistic work that pays money.

This is precisely the same kind of financial censorship the Jewish people faced when they were forced into professions like money lending, and then money lending was stigmatized, heavily regulated, or made illegal. The profession was used to cast doubt on them as an entire people–as though they weren’t in the profession through coercion to begin with. As though people found no need for their services.

This is what they’ve done to artists. They have chased us into sex work, and now made the sex work illegal. Or, better yet, as good as illegal: Completely prohibited without a law being passed. All the while, they point at naked girls on the internet as the reason for low birth rates, the male loneliness epidemic, and the bad economy.

I need people to see it. I need them to look at the arts, look at sex work, and see it.

Sex work and the arts are not separate. We separate them to give artists the illusion that they still have a chance–if they are good little bitches who support the state agenda.

But they don’t. They don’t stand a chance. Because the financial censorship of erotic art is the censorship of all art–particularly art done by women and oppressed genders.

So many of these platforms that supposedly support artists and support free speech, draw a strange line at what constitutes pornography:

Artistic nudes are okay. Erotic nudes are not (and keep in mind, the story of mine that got censored on Patreon contained no nudes of any kind).

So what makes a nude picture erotic? Only this: The facial expression, the saturation of colors, and a body with motion.

On some websites, you don’t need the nude to make the picture erotic either. Hold a banana in the wrong way on Instagram, and you’re out.

What this does to other artists is make them place their art in a false reality where sex does not exist–as though it’s not the source of all life, and the drive which motivates us.

If you approach the truth, approach sex, then you are shunned. It makes every artist an artist that props up Christian Patriarchal Fascism.

Sorry to tell you.

I always like to compare the internet to a pointilism painting. If you remove the sex, no matter what you contribute artistically to this painting that is the endless scroll, you are helping to paint a world that is not rooted in reality. You are helping to paint the world that the white Christian nationalists want to see.

So what are my options?

Quite simply, there isn’t any place on the internet for my work, anymore.

My time creating SmutMag has been entirely about trying to find analog ways to do things–and in particular, distribute the arts.

But the truth is, I found no surefire ways to get paid sustainably. And for that, I feel deeply sorry, and like a true failure. I was hoping that by the time the internet kicked me off, as I knew it would, that I would be ready.

In some ways, I am. I am here, on my beautiful land. My garden is just beginning, but already this year I will end the season on a mountain of potatoes and tomatoes, which I will can. I have access to all the fish and deer meat I can get my hands on, because I know a lot of fishermen. I have stocked up on yarn and started spinning, so I can always look forward to having something new to wear, even when I am desperately broke. As I type this, my neighbor is installing the flooring on my cabin.

On top of the massive amount of smut I wrote, I also put on a play in my community, which had a small audience, but who received it very well. And, in fact, the theatre I put it on at has offered me a fiscal sponsorship so I can fundraise for my fledgling theatre company, and help them fill the space with theatre. Because they lack people who can do it, here.

There is a little shop in town that sells handmade works by artists to tourists. I am certain I can make a contribution there, in some way.

And I know how to make zines that effectively advertise. Even if making money off the zines themselves is difficult.

There is a local radio station here, too, which always needs volunteers, and which I could use to promote my work locally.

I have venues for creating arts that aren’t owned by techholes. But there’s no space for And all of those things are going to take years to build, with no guarantee of a paycheck.

Because, and I really want this clear: People do not pay for art unless there’s sex you can feel involved. Period.

Romance. Erotica. And yes–horror. All heavily censored (though horror FAR less so. It is good for Christian supremacy if sex is scary and leads to a horrible, violent death).

But, regardless, I’m hardly sad about the chance to perform and produce in a real theatre, and on subjects that are not JUST about sex. If I get a chance to chew on some Shakespeare, that’s me living my childhood dream. For as long as it lasts.

But I’m sad that I can never stray from that, and that it will keep me poor. That makes me sad.

But I am trying to take it as a challenge to go all in on my community. It’s quite literally do or die. I’ve spent my life trying to find a way for artists to make a living (lives) in their own communities, as artists, without corporate interference. And now…I have to just simply make it happen.

When we get pushed around, we can’t be demoralized. We just have to look for opportunity where we are, and run at it full force.

As for my erotica, I’m not sure how, yet, but I will be turning it into a physical book. And then, I guess I’ll wander the streets with a book cart yelling, “Hot! Hot! Hot! Have your ID’s ready, and step right up! Come one! Come all! Come see the woman so possessed by desire, she is ruined by an entire soccer team! Step inside the twisted spa where she encountered new strange feelings about the women surrounding her! Feel the dread and frustration as she reduces every man around her to a love-crazed beggar! All within the confines of this ancient medium!”

Or something like that.

I have built some good will in town. I have a whole body of work I’m proud of, that I can try and turn into something profitable. I have a place to sleep tonight. I’m fed. The cats are happy. That is what is true today, in this moment, and this moment is all that truly exists. In this moment, I am rich. I am capable. And there are many paths before me to try.

So maybe I’m not a failure. Maybe I’m just still in it. And the universe (or…rather, the fascists, but perhaps it works out in the universal plan) is forcing me not to take the easy way out.

Because the truth is…from the moment I started to see success on Substack–however short lived– I started becoming complacent. Watching YouTube a lot more. Spending too many hours staring into my computer screen. Spending more hours posting on social media (But it’s Mastadon! It’s the “Not evil” kind! Kind of like a safe cigarette…) Justifying that nothing could happen moving forward unless I found a way to earn my living.

Well, selling my writing on the internet is not an option anymore. And I know–I preach, and I know–that the only stable thing is earning a living in your own physical community. Because your local community is what will sustain you or kill you.

I do understand why people are afraid of one another. I am, too. Because your local community can either sustain you, or kill you. If they don’t like you–if they decide you are “bad for the neighborhood,” they will do their best to chase you out, bar your employment, smear your name.

This is what human beings do. They do it in work communities. And in online communities. And in gaming communities. And in knitting communities. In queer communities. In activist communities, and in local neighborhood communities.

If you are found to be beneficial to the predator human, the human lets you live. If you are deemed unhelpful to the predator human’s agenda, the human kills you. Whether literally, or passive-aggressively over the course of a thousand tiny stabs.

This is why it is such a primal drive to want to be well-liked. Why it is particularly brave to stand against the tide, and tell the truth, consequences be damned. Because the consequences are so often torture and death.

But if you don’t engage with them, they will definitely kill you. Through neglect. When you need them to run and help you, they will not. Whether you are the town reclusive, or have an active social life on the internet. Because they won’t even know you’re there. They won’t think of you at all.

You don’t get out of this life without having to be of benefit to something outside yourself. But the hope is that you will get to choose what that is for yourself, in accordance to your own sense of the truth.

I’m not sad about losing erotic writing because I just yearn to write about sex all day.

I’m sad because one day I may be called upon to tell a particular truth about sex, because it is pertinent to the moment, and because our understanding of humanity depends on the truth being said. And the financial censorship of erotic writing means that the penalty for telling the truth will be a kind of death. And death always leads to more death. Vanishing someone softly in a whisper is still death.

When we limit the ways we can tell the truth, the choice we are left with is to tell lies and make propaganda.

This is unacceptable to me. And I won’t fucking do it.

When the internet abandons you, it’s time to abandon the internet.

I don’t want to jump through hoops. I don’t want to count down the days until all of my opinions are found, and they send federal agents after me. I don’t want to contribute to this fucking machine anymore.

I’m going all in on my local community.

My website here at SmutMag.Art and SmutMag.Com are about to expire in 14 days. I’m going to let it. Because I’m going to start deleting myself from the internet.

The absolute last thing to go will be my email, which I got through tutamail, a German company. They allow end-to-end encryption. You can email me there at marlamaven@tutamail.com to be on my email list and stay in touch. Put “SmutMag” in the subject, so I know which audience you are.

And, yes, I’m doing one last fundraiser. I need to keep this land, no matter what. And even though I will hit the ground running, it’s going to take me a minute to get some sort of income going. I’m trying to raise a thousand dollars by July 5th.

And if you can contribute whatever you can, I truly appreciate it.

Times are getting real, my friends. The best you can do when you’re pushed out a window by Putin is try to control the landing.

This is my attempt. And I hope you’ll all email me so I can tell you about my adventures in the future.

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Here is a video of Madonna’s entire concert, at the age of 65, doing, as she says, the most subversive thing she’s ever done: Still be here.

That this video is age-restricted and must be viewed on Youtube is just….wow.

Oh! And a message for Bob!:)

As my cabin is having the interior done, I have lost my phone in the depths of my trailer. I won’t find it unload the trailer in a few days. And it’s already been a few days. So if you were trying to get a hold of me, I’m not ignoring you!