I am known as Digital Desires . When I first started digital art I created work in a variety of styles, of fantasy and surrealism trying to discover my own unique style.I like to think of my art being special in many different ways from the creating process right through to the finished piece. I now love to create mostly what I think of as “Fantasy surreal Female Portraits." I do from time to time create using both male and female images. Isabella: It makes me comment on the projections [people make]. I make fun of it [in my music]. People are like, ‘Wait, wait, wait, are you making fun of me? Are you agreeing with me?’ Like Grey, Lovestory understands the modality of desire—the many different shapes it takes, how gritty and dark it can get, and how funny it can all seem after the moment’s passed. “Love can be nasty and violent, it’s not always a sugary fairytale,” says Lovestory of the passionate stories behind her songs. “Sex is liberating and the most primal creative expression, but this same feeling can be found in other sides of life, not everything sexy is about sex.” Recently, Lovestory was shot by Richard Kern, the legendary downtown New York photographer known for his transgressive portraits of unvarnished female sexuality and an early collaborator of Grey’s. I’m trying to be the star I was envisioning, or the girl I needed, when I was young.”—Isabella Lovestory

Isabella: It’s such propaganda. There are so many more ways to make a change in real life with these issues and to actually heal people. It’s so performative to always be talking about all these issues [only] online. Isabella: It’s [all] so destroyed by the algorithm and censorship. What is the ultimate social media? Where is it going? I think it’s all about [finding] ways of making things tangible and easier to absorb because now everything’s so fast. You can’t fully grasp art in the way that it should be. Culture Bookmarked: Everything the Document editors watched, read, ate, bought, and listened to in OctoberReggaeton is sexual dancing music; it’s all about liberating yourself and moving your body. By discovering my sexuality [through music], I’m doing my past self a favor. I’m trying to be the star I was envisioning, or the girl I needed, when I was young. Isabella: With the internet, it’s so hard to own everything you put out. You’re always going to get misinterpreted and misused. Sasha: I’ve found myself in situations where somebody was aesthetically presenting themselves as potentially submissive, and I went up to them, politely, and asked something sexual and they scoffed at me. This is the danger of presenting this aesthetic but being unable to just turn it down. If you don’t like it, if you’re not into me and you’re not vibing, turn it down. It’s like we don’t have the experience to say no, or, ‘I’m not comfortable with that.’ But why then why are you representing an aesthetic? Biz: I think focusing on that opposes the atomization and alienation that social media does to us all. Sasha Grey: We are all sexual beings. Sex is just as an important part of our lives as the need to eat, breathe, drink water, and socialize. There will always be a group of people who are asexual and people who don’t relate to it, but as a whole, it is vital to our survival.

Isabella: There aren’t a lot of women in reggaeton. Especially in Honduras, the only recognized reggaeton artist is one guy. There are amazing woman producers, but they’re hard to find, especially Latina producers. But it’s growing, and it’s inspiring to see [that growth] and to infiltrate this man’s world. I think the powerful thing about porn is that it is the one industry where women as performers are the dominant figures. But then at the end of the day, who owns those companies? Men.”–Sasha Grey The porn legend and reggaeton pop princess on sexuality, art in the attention economy, and making their Catholic guilt work for them Biz: You’ve both been confronted with people being rude about the fact that you’re making music about things they don’t think a woman should make music about. Sasha: I think, culturally, we’re living in a moment I’ve dubbed stripper chic. It’s taking over everything. It’s even taken over the fashion industry; it’s taken over every aesthetic aspect of how people are presenting themselves. My worry is that people are depicting themselves in a certain way, but they’re not really understanding of their own sexuality or of other people’s. So it just [becomes] an image, and by not having these conversations about sex, [we’re] just perpetuating an aesthetic.As an individual, I’ve also tried to find ways to reconnect and communicate desire and empowerment in new ways outside of social media, where the goal is to get you to stay embedded in these platforms. I’ve been thinking of ways to create a more tactile object. How do you give something tangible to people that will give them a lasting impression that isn’t just a photo they like and scroll on from? From the words of Mary Gatskill to reluctantly-acquired gorpcore goods, our team shares the very best of what we consumed this month Literature ‘The Future Future’ is obsessed with words and their failures These days, the line between civilian and sex worker is not as sharply drawn as it was ten or fifteen years ago. Much of that is thanks to Grey, whose success across a variety of creative mediums helped normalize the idea that pornstars are people with talents, abilities, and interests outside of having sex on camera. First came aTelecine, Grey’s experimental noise collaboration, followed by a buzzy transition into mainstream acting—landing the lead role in Steven Soderbergh’s 2009 indie drama, The Girlfriend Experience. She’s also published a photobook, a series of novels, and toured as an international DJ. Recently, Grey’s taken to Twitch, where she streams gameplays and cooking segments to an audience of over 670,000. Isabella Lovestory: Sex is everywhere, and to say otherwise is just maintaining shame about it. Aesthetically, I love eroticism and the darkness [of sexuality].