It’s often noted that there are over 50 words for “snow” in Eskimo-Aleut languages. For New Yorkers, though, there seems to be a nearly infinite number of definitions of “smut.” For evidence, look no further than SMUT Visions NYC — a book of gloriously strange erotic illustrations by over 500 New Yorkers where images include a bird with a boner, ear hole penetration and Kermit the Frog in fetish gear.
SMUT Visions NYC was created by Danna Wexler — a New York-based curator, creative director, activist and founder of Please Knock (an erotic art platform dedicated to preserving the erotic art scene in NYC). Starting in 2023, Wexler took “a little black book” everywhere she went. She approached strangers, friends and collaborators alike and asked them to “draw something dirty inside.” The rules were simple: “One drawing per person, no do-overs, and colors were limited to black, pink, and/or yellow.” The book, Wexler shares, “was inspired by old graffiti black books, where artists collect tags from peers,” but more deeply it was informed by a desire to create something “tangible” that couldn’t be shaped by digital algorithms.
As Wexler began to take the notebook around NYC, she was met with a full gamut of reactions. “Some people ran away from the woman waving a porn sketchbook at them,” she shares. “One man presumed it to be an invitation to try out some of the sketches in real life (no thank you). One person offered to cum on my book for their contribution (I declined).” But most flipped through it, asked a few questions and just drew their piece. In the end, Wexler reflects that “the book wended its way through New York City, evolving into a beautiful work of folk art.” And the diverse range of what these New Yorkers drew is a display of the creative, horny undercurrent that pulses through our shared metropolis — a reminder that while rents may go up, no amount of high rise development or sleek, sleepy Blank Street Coffee locations can erase the city’s weird, wonderfully dirty heart.
The book’s artists include people from all walks of life (architects, activists, doctors, sex workers, bartenders, fashion designers), alongside notable local creatives like Eartheater, Richard Kern, Mike Diana, Cumgirl8, Olivier Zahm, Heather Benjamin, and Clayton Patterson. Sometimes, though, it was Wexler’s chance encounters that resulted in a magical addition. “I spotted someone with a long beard, blue wig and a leather blue miniskirt sitting at the counter [of a bar]. I asked them to draw something dirty in the book,” recalls Wexler. “They took it, pressed their thumb onto the paper, traced it, and handed the book back to me. Curious, I asked what was dirty about a thumb. They replied ‘You don’t know where this thumb has been or what it can do.’”
Photo by Sola Olosunde
Over time, SMUT Visions NYC became a practice in socializing, in communal creation and in pushing against censorship. “Please Knock began as a fun, dark-humor-inspired brand that grew into a community actively pushing back against censorship culture,” says Wexler. “In one aspect, it’s about injecting humor to a subject that most people — especially in a simultaneously hypersexual and prude America — find to be so serious or shameful. And the other aspect is about encouraging and celebrating creation and art.”
Given recent political shifts, Please Knock’s mission has taken on a new salience. As the United States continues down a path of increased intolerance and outright hostility towards expressions of non-”traditional” sexual and gender identities, it will increasingly fall on artists to push against the stifling atmosphere. That’s going to be especially challenging, though, as tech monopolies, run by conservative oligarchs, increasingly dictate the terms of public discourse.
“I founded Please Knock in 2020 to satisfy a desire that was unmet elsewhere; thoughtful, tasteful erotic art that is easily accessible online. Over time, it became clear why this genre of art was so scarce—severe online censorship,” Wexler tells PAPER. “From shadow bans and account deletions to financial restrictions, online platforms treat all erotic art, whether film, illustration, or sculpture, as explicit pornography.” That reality creates an environment that breeds self-censorship. “We should mourn the loss not just of the art that was censored but also of the art that was never created,” says Wexler.
With the rules of the digital game becoming increasingly difficult, physical art objects and IRL communal experiences (like Please Knock’s Erotic Art Fair) become a rare chance for sexually expansive expression to happen without the watchful eye of algorithms. SMUT Visions NYC is such a chance, because, as of now, it’s still legal to draw a penis with wings (thank god).
PAPER asked some of the contributing artists to offer a bit on how they would define “smut.” Take a look at what they wrote (and drew) below.SMUT Visions NYC is available for purchase, here. Curious readers can also subscribe to the Please Knock newsletter, to join their community of erotic art lovers, here.
Mike Diana, Artist and Creator of ‘Boiled Angel’
As a teenager I would sometimes get ahold of old copies of Hustler magazine. I liked the naked photos but even more the rude cartoons. I considered that as smut back then, it greatly influenced my own art. I wanted to make smut myself, it’s about a certain feeling you get when you look at something, excited but knowing maybe you are a bit naughty for wanting to see it. I got that same feeling when I discovered the old underground comics from the 70s. I certainly consider the word smut to be a complimentary one.
Alicia McCauley, Writer
Smut is campy. It is self-aware. It looks back and winks at you while you look at it, as if to say “I know you like this.” Pornography is different, it is consumed, devoured. It is often (though not always) artless. It is the capitalist answer to human desire, and it often strips eroticism out of sexuality. Smut celebrates the art in humanity’s strange proclivities. It allows us to see the diversity in how we process our desires. It steps across the divide of shame that our repressive society built and invites you to come in.
Josh Slater, Artist, Publisher and Collector
To me, smut is anything that puts a cold shiver down one person's spine while repulsing another.
The Super SUCKLORD New York City
Smut is inherently dirty. Originally referring to soot or other besmirching particulate matter, it became slang for sexually explicit materials during (of course) The Victorian era. Therefore, to me, smut is an embrace of the “wrongness” of sex, as defined by the puritanical culture we live in. It makes no attempt to sanitize, beautify, or normalize our deepest sexual inclinations. Instead it shamelessly celebrates the contradiction between what we are “supposed” to feel about sex, and what we actually do. It gives us permission to be gross, filthy, inappropriate, and profane. It goes beyond merely tolerating our dark side and joyfully celebrates it, in direct contrast to confines the world around us attempts to enforce. It’s a big FUCK YOU to rules and repression.
Nasa Hadizadeh, Producer
Smut is fun but not for everyone. If you get it you get it, and if you don’t you write it off as something inappropriate. I find it fascinating.
Mikael, Artist
Smut is dirty pictures that you would find under a yellow stained chair in your uncle's basement. Smut is also asking someone to put cheese on you while having sex. Smut is recycled pornography.
Veronika Vilim, Cumgirl8
Smut, to me, means something that visually makes you horny when you read it or see it.
ESTR, Artist and Musician
I mostly like the word “smut” for the way it sounds: a lip smacking expletive that phonetically joins the ranks of vulgar four-letter-one-vowel words. I also love its contradictory nature: it sounds like a derogatory slur (it was designed to be one after all) but designates something we all desire. Smut wouldn’t exist if we didn’t want it to.
Rebekah Campbell, Director & Photographer
It’s something that I wouldn’t want my parents to see me drawing — watching — looking at. But that’s what makes it something that you want to look at even more; like a little kid in a candy shop.
Charlie Harrell, Writer and Smut Peddler
Smut is physical. An artifact, even if it’s of the present. An embarrassing identity card, an unclearable search history, a tactile tattletale. Smut is onomatopoeic — the sound of a flat brown paper bag dropped unceremoniously onto a newsstand counter. An all-caps comic book sound effect. SMUT!
Danna Wexler in SMUT Wig by Paprika Velour
Photos courtesy of Danna Wexler
