Set in an authoritarian “morally” rigid San Francisco, in SFSX #1 (Safe Sex) kink writer Tina Horn and artist Michael Dowling introduce us to a world closer to real-life than many would like to believe. With the better parts of modern society owning all aspects of identity, and experience, “The Party” in SFSX #1 reflects a conservative right that has ramped up its efforts to secure white supremacist patriarchal capitalism, staunch gender binaries, and toxic heterosexuality. Unfortunately in this universe, The Party is successful, pushing former sex worker Avory into the kink closet and her peers even further underground.

SFSX is NSFW PERIODT. The book opens with an orgy on Sex Worker Appreciation night at The Dirty Mind (a club, a dungeon, a safe space of sorts) and little is spared. It’s fucking fantastic. Horn leverages sex in these first few scenes to describe a freedom that The Party has taken away from Avory and the rest of the city. Horn specifically details orgasm in a way that reminds readers that (a) there are different kinds of orgasms AND (b) real-life restrictions on who can have what kind. For example, in cities where communal living is almost mandatory, the pleasure of indulging in an audibly guttural orgasm can be limited. Horn’s description of this depth of freedom reminds readers that sex is richer than mechanics or a series of graphic images.

Avory has fond memories of The Dirty Mind, where she spent most of her time, before opting for a vanilla life of moral appropriateness and dry ass basic ass clothing. The Party has set the rules, and extreme modesty is the order of the day. In fashion and in the bedroom. Artist Michael Dowling lights Avory’s past life with the sultry pinks and warm blues of sex on South Beach, dungeon style. The rest of the world is intentionally bland as fuck, excluding Avory’s brown skin and the fight that Dowling’s intentionally left in her eyes.

Like most safe spaces for marginalized people, The Dirty Mind is under constant threat and must be protected. With sex workers rights and safety under attack, schools and churches being raided in search of undocumented immigrants, Black trans women being murdered at an alarming rate, and poor folks being pushed further into subjugation, SFSX mirrors a reality that many in the “civilized world” already experience. SFSX does a great job at intentionally overlapping sex and social commentary without being heavy-handed, establishing itself as more than a dirty comic (no shade or shame to dirty comics of course).

Grade: A