Blog
This is the honesterotica blog, where every month or so we will post a thought-provoking article on a subject related to the content of the site.
We are always looking for thoughtful, interesting and well-researched pieces for the blog, so if you are a writer or researcher in this area please get in touch with us – [email protected].
A sixteenth-century lesbian poem that has never been illustrated
The earliest poem in English about love between women has been sitting in John Donne’s collected works for four centuries, yet almost nobody seems to know that it exists. It’s intimate, emotionally direct, surprisingly explicit, and unlike almost anything else written in English at the time. And, unlike many other Donne poems, it has never been illustrated. It’s called Sapho to Philaenis, and Donne probably wrote it in the 1590s, though some scholars place it slightly later.
The censor in the studio
In the past, when we’ve been discussing the censorship of erotic art we’ve usually been referring to suppression after the fact – a book banned, a print seized, a painting removed from display. The work already existed; the argument was about whether the public should be allowed to see it. But today something much more profound is happening. The real question is no longer simply what gets removed – in this age of digital dissemination and censorship algorithms it’s often more to do with what never gets made and displayed.
The great honesterotica feedback questionnaire
The results are in! Thank you all so much for taking the time to respond, and in many cases in such detail. It really does give us a clear idea of who you are, how you use the website, what you like and value about it – and importantly how we can help make your experience of the site even better.
The questionnaire closed with 219 responses, which are summarised question by question below. All percentages are rounded and calculated against the number of respondents who answered each question, since not every respondent answered every question.
Illustrator and Portfolio Lists, May 2026
One of the most common requests we get (and the responses to the recent questionnaire confirm this) is that it would be really useful to have complete listings of all the artists and portfolios on the website – as of May 2026 728 artists and 2,003 portfolios!
So we’ve listened and heard … and below you will find links to PDF files with these listings in alphabetical order (and where there are several portfolios with the same name their artists will be in order too).
The absent image: where has lesbian intimacy gone?
In 1925 the Danish artist Gerda Wegener, now living in Paris, created a series of twelve coloured pochoir plates titled Les délassements de l’Éros (The Amusements of Eros), created in collaboration with Louis Perceau, a French poet and connoisseur of erotica. The plates depict women in close, exciting relationships, clearly enjoying their shared intimacy.
Is There Really an ‘Exception Française’ in Erotic Art and Illustration?
As you explore the riches of erotic art and illustration on the honesterotica website, it quickly becomes apparent that from the late eighteenth century until the 1940s, and especially in the first half of the twentieth century, the dominant contribution of French artists, writers and publishers is hard to ignore.
Our new 700 Artists Appeal
It seems only yesterday that we were celebrating having reached 600 artists (it was actually just over a year ago), but here we are at 700 and counting! When we started this project seven years ago we could not have imagined that the world could possibly contain so much high-quality erotic artwork; how wrong we were. Seven years, 700 artists, more than 100,000 high-quality images, by far the world’s best and most comprehensive resource for important erotic art and illustration.
An added bonus (for those who haven’t discovered it yet!)
We’ve realised recently that a lot of people are enjoying the website but missing out on one of its most useful and interesting features. Not only does every one of our 700 artists include a full biography with links to resources and websites as appropriate, but so does every portfolio.
Exploring the value of homoerotic art
This post has been contributed by Barry and Gwen from Vallot Auctioneers in Providence, Rhode Island, to whom we extend grateful thanks.
Statistics, statistics
It’s always interesting to know what our followers find the most interesting on the website, which now has 615 artists, 1,715 portfolios, and 51,305 artworks. Yes, by far the largest resource for erotic art and illustration on the internet, if not in the world!