Letter from the Editors
Our world is filled with erotic energy.
The word erotic is loaded and, at best, ambiguous; yet, for most of us, it’s also excitatory. It elicits
sensations, memories, fantasies, an entire world that is most often submerged below the surface of our
everyday selves. But what, exactly, is erotic and what does it mean to publish a magazine dedicated to
the erotic in arts and literature?
Perhaps in contemplating the erotic, we should gaze backwards toward ancient Greece where the
concept was borne from the flutter of Eros’s wings. The word erotic comes from the Greek myth of Eros.
Eros, once a primordial force within the universe and then, in later myths, the offspring of Aphrodite and
Ares, Eros came to represent those forces of love and fertility. In part, the early myths have endured and
even transmutated from culture to culture because they capture the complexity of the human experience and distill it into simple archetypes and stories. Eros is no different. Though Eros’s origins evolved over time, he has remained a force active in the lives of all of us, igniting within us our own carnality and desire.
With this in mind, I like to think of Eros as the seat of our soul from which the most primal and sexual
parts of our natures emerge. The erotic, then, is the form in which our carnality takes shape.
When contemplating the themes of Pink Disco, I thought hard about what it means to feel that energy.
On the one hand, we could easily look at what has become commodified as sex in our society and point
to that as erotic. To some extent, this works. But I also firmly believe some of the most potent sex we
encounter is found in the sublime and secret whispers of our everyday lives.
Don’t get me wrong. Pink Disco welcomes latex, leather, nipple clamps, and feathers. We want to see your O face. But we also believe the most explicit sex is not an isolated act but the apex of the totality of our experience; it is a celebration of what it means to be human, to have a body, and to experience sensation.
Pink Disco, then, is a celebration of the erotic, our carnality, our bodies, and ultimately our humanness.
Come play with us.
Pink
MASQUERADE
September 22, 2025
Letter from the Editor-in-Chief
This season’s theme, Masquerade, automatically elicits for me images that at once seem vintage and
otherworldly. The idea of dressing up or momentarily donning the persona of something or
someone other than oneself, has roots across cultures, religions, and traditions. The priest in
chasuble and stole. The pet donning mask and tail for pet play. It evokes mystery, uncertainty,
debauchery, and fun. Costume provides for us a doorway to move from one reality, perhaps one
with more rules, with more structure, one where our conditioned self naturally finds a home, and
into a reality where uncertainty pervades.
Anais Nin at the 1953 masquerade, Come as Your Madness, hosted by artists Renate Druks and Paul Mathieson.
For this issue, we had an overwhelming number of submissions, but decided to keep it taut, concise. The pieces featured here all spoke to the desire to seek out new frontiers and to wear new masks, whether in a boudoir shoot, or while shedding the skin of your former spousal identity, or in the exploration of one’s body in the company of another during adolescence. As always, we are grateful for our contributors and for you, our readers.
___
This issue’s playlist can be found here.
Anais Nin at the 1953 masquerade, Come as Your Madness, hosted by artists Renate Druks and Paul Mathieson.
For this issue, we had an overwhelming number of submissions, but decided to keep it taut, concise. The pieces featured here all spoke to the desire to seek out new frontiers and to wear new masks, whether in a boudoir shoot, or while shedding the skin of your former spousal identity, or in the exploration of one’s body in the company of another during adolescence. As always, we are grateful for our contributors and for you, our readers.
___
This issue’s playlist can be found here.
Visual Art
Creature
With Everyone Watching
The Mask of Lingering Whispers
Desperate as the Perfume of Mad Honey
With All the Sky Waiting in Your Eyes
Poetry
Beyonce Isn’t Mentioned in the Bible
Buried
Vicious
Commandments
Adolescence
In the Northwest
Fiction
The Shape in Sunlight
The Release Party
Nonfiction
Ouroboros
Myth of a Woman
