Meet a group of talented performers who excel at expressing their sexuality on the canvas as well as on the screen.
Art is meant to evoke thoughts, provoke discussion and elicit responses from the viewer. A surefire way to nail all three is to use sex as the subject matter! I had the privilege of interviewing an amazing group of artists who draw and paint erotic, sex-friendly (and downright hot) artwork. Prepare to absorb some culture and be turned on!
Ro Salarian
website: rosalarian.com
Ro Salarian is a prolific comic book artist/writer who doesn’t shy away from sex, erotica and smut. Given some of the off-the-wall scenarios and narratives that grace the pages of their works, we have to wonder—where do those ideas come from?
“While I do have a very, ahem, wild sex life that occasionally influences my stories, most of the plots of my erotic work comes from thinking of a situation and then thinking of a reason for the people in that situation to get naked,” Ro shares. “I’ve also been doing burlesque as Florence of a’Labia since 2011, and it’s the same deal: ‘Oh no, I’m possessed by a demon who is making me take off my clothes!’ ‘I’m afraid of a witch who eats virgins, so I have to have sex so she won’t eat me.’ ‘I got caught shoplifting and now I’m being strip-searched!’ I tend to lean into the camp elements of porn, over the top, clearly not realistic, larger than life.”
That sensibility, it turns out, is an ideal match for Ro’s chosen art medium. “One of the best things about comic book smut is that you can portray situations that real life actors physically can’t do. People fly, sex toys come to life, someone gets eaten because they are made of candy,” Ro explains.
Not only can erotic comics entertain and turn us on, they can also serve a bigger purpose—especially for those who may not get the proper representation others are awarded.
