autumn Off The Leash

on WARHOUND, transbian porn, and censorship. aug 19, 2025

i recently read Kallidora Rho’s WARHOUND: Volume One, a collection of four erotic sci-fi/horror stories, and have found myself with almost too much to say about it. it’s difficult to even know where to start; the world contained within these four stories has escaped into countless derivative works—each one with a unique perspective on power dynamics, mind control hypnosis, ego death, and much, much more. there are so many stories out there that i’ve barely scratched the surface of what the genre has to offer (though my personal favorite so far is “ANTIPLUG”), and already i’ve found myself inspired enough to want to write some of my own.

what makes WARHOUND so undeniable, in my opinion, is its fierce dedication to tackling its subject matter with unflinching honesty. there is some deeply disturbing stuff happening in this book. it is haunting and gut-wrenching and panic-inducing, and it’s also completely irresistible. from the very first pages it sliced into my psyche and buried itself there. it doesn’t promise a light at the end of the tunnel; there is no healthy dynamic that can grow from the brutality in these pages. there is only the reality of manipulation, abuse, and rape laid bare.

at the same time, the eroticism to be found within the horror unfolding throughout WARHOUND is equally undeniable. the lack of agency granted to any character within these stories is vital to what makes the work tick. “The dubious consent is the point, the source of erotic appeal,” AO3 user CloudDreamer writes in their essay on the feminist politics of WARHOUND. “It is what leaves the reader unable to stop thinking about the text long after they’ve finished, in both senses of the word.”

it’s easy to want what Sartha Thrace has been so graciously gifted: a chance to be less than human, to be so lost in the euphoria of her debasement that she is utterly without shame. it’s a perfect catharsis to witness. the acts of violence committed against her are more than just sadomasochistic fantasy (though they are excellent as that); the violence is the axis on which the story turns. this is a work where depersonalization is viscously calculated, dissected, and examined for maximum effect. it puts forth a world where psychosexual trauma is a tool to be deliberately wielded against vulnerable women, and then has the tact to ask: “isn’t that fucking hot?”

while reading WARHOUND, i had also been reading a collection of essays from Feminist Review on women’s sexuality and sexual politics in the early to mid 80s. it was an intriguing albeit rather dense read, covering topics as broad as attitudes toward sexual differences in a group of high school students (“Slags or Drags” by Celia Cowie and Sue Lees) and as narrow as a fierce struggle between queer S&M enthusiasts and the organization Lesbians Against Sadomasochism over whether S&M groups could meet at the London Lesbian and Gay Center (“Upsetting an Applecart: Difference, Desire, and Sadomasochism” by Susan Ardill and Sue O’Sullivan). i’m hoping to do a more complete writeup on this collection in the future, but suffice to say: it’s a fascinating time-capsule of materialist feminist writing, illustrative of both how far the movement has come as well as how long we’ve continued having similar discussions.

what i want to highlight for this post is Rosalind Coward’s article “Sexual Violence and Sexuality,” about pornography and the broader representations of women in pop culture. this article was written in the midst of a slew of anti-porn campaigns in both the US and Britain, and takes a staunch anti-censorship stance, arguing that attacking pornography is the wrong angle to be considering women’s sexuality from. “Arguing that women should put aside the degrading fantasies that seem to surround pornography seems yet again to to put women in a position of being ‘above’ sex,” Coward writes. “It seems to pre-empt any proper consideration of sexuality...one strategy towards women developing more power would be the exploration of sexual identities.”

in the wake of payment processors bending to the will of right-wing censorship campaigns, Coward’s advice reads as especially poignant. WARHOUND is precisely the type of deliberately boundary-pushing smut that organizations like Collective Shout are railing against under the guise of “preventing violence against women.” however, much like Coward pointed out back in 1981, these groups have no real interest in tackling real institutional violence against women. they are only concerned with exercising control over the way that sexuality can be expressed online and in the wider world. “The political terrain surrounding pornography is already carved up with hard and fast positions: are you for intervention in sex or are you against it? This should not be a feminist question.”

unfortunately, it seems that the campaigns to disrupt queer art will only continue to ramp up. but that doesn’t mean that we are helpless to the tide of censorship. despite the massive blow Collective Shout inflicted on countless queer creatives, the pressure on Stripe, Mastercard, and Visa is working. the corporations are beginning to crack. we cannot stop now.

to bring things back to WARHOUND, i am finding myself in a state of creative fervor after reading it, despite the hostile atmosphere for queer creatives right now. the fact that such profoundly abrasive pornography not only exists, but has spawned an entire community of dazzling authors, illustrators, 3D modelers, and even LEGO sculptors is inspiring to see.

whether you personally resonate with WARHOUND or not depends on how capable you are of stomaching the horrific in combination with the erotic. but i would encourage anyone still reading to check out the first, eponymous short story. and if it stirs anything in you, then i also encourage you to sit with that, examine the feeling, and see what else you can pry out of it. if you let it pierce you deep enough, you might find a story worth telling.