Helena: the face behind Spunk Rock, Manchester's most prolific erotic artist.

I met up with Helena (otherwise known as Spunk Rock Art) in a little pokey Cafe in Withington. I've met them in passing at a few events, but we've never stopped for a real chat before. There's always something a little awkward meeting somebody who you've known for years but have little to no familiarity with their face. 

Once we had clumsily bumped into each other in the queue of the cafe, we settled down in the corner and began chatting. 

So how did you originally get into drawing erotic art?

“Since I was little, I've always liked drawing. Basically I was drawing erotic art when I was about seven, I did not really know what I was doing, just fascinated with bondage situations and the intricacies of those. I would draw them as a kid, which was really strange. If I ever saw a cartoon where someone was tied up, I was just like what's going on? It was a big thing for me, and I didn't understand that it was sexual, but I think it definitely was. I'd always been drawn to express that. And then I had a long break, and then fell back into it ”

How long was the break? 

“So I did an art B Tech. But then it was really drummed into me, and I think it's drummed into a lot of people, that you're not going to do this as a job. So I was like, Okay, well, let me become a professional person and just, carry on life in a non creative way, and I didn't know what I was doing, I wasn't drawing seriously in my formative years, from my teens to my mid to late 20s”

Do you think drawing these depictions as a child, aided you into accepting your sexuality?

“I think it cemented in me as a kid that I had an attraction to women because it was hard to ignore while I was drawing all this stuff… (So) yes, it has, because I think the acceptance of it by other people has just made it completely feel like no big deal.”

Would you say you ever get backlash for what you do? Or have you found yourself in quite an echo chamber of people who follow the same lifestyle? 

“I'm definitely in a safety net of people. I think maybe once or twice I've found myself on the wrong side of social media, but it's never been in a massive, overwhelming way. And I think I'm at the point where, if I ever do, I'm so unwavering, and un-flinching in what I do that it wouldn't make me doubt anything.”

Are you currently working on illustration full time?

“At the moment, yeah, but feeling impending censorship, I'm on a job hunt at the moment, which is the first time since 2017 so it's a bit Oh my god. I'm a completely different age now, a completely different person. And it just is weird to go back into this world of job hunting where I didn't even consider how you have to find out these newfound ethics and morals in choosing a company that is not destroying the planet” 

How are you finding the increase of censorship within the media? 

“I have a lot of thoughts on it, I don't want to get bogged down in complaining about it, because I feel like complaining on a personal level doesn't make me feel very good. Obviously, it's important to talk about previsions because they are extremely puritanical and dangerous. But there's a lot of things that I'm taking hope from as well at the same time. My work's always had issues with being censored on social media. But in the last year, it's obviously gotten extremely weird, and over the last few weeks. And never before have I felt my days are numbered with it, because it's obvious, even the government, now doesn't want work like that to be seen. But my takeaway is that I think that with all things, when you get pushed back, it's normally indicative of a rise in the thing that is good. So things like sexual liberation and freedom and expression, more and more people are coming into doing that and building communities off the back of it. And I think that we're literally having our identities taken from us if we want to access things like communities, or access artwork, just goes to show, the strength of it and how powerful eroticism is, and sex work and finding your group of people. It's obviously scary, but people end up coming down so hard on censoring it, because that just proves how much power there is in it. And I've always thought that, but now I definitely feel validated in believing that.”

Oh, absolutely. I feel that I'm getting almost paranoid, like conspiracy theorist level, watching all this stuff happen. It's very tinfoil hat of me to say “surveillance state” but that's literally what we are now.

“I don't know if it's for you, but for me, the weirdest part is it's, I don't know what they're gonna use the stuff for.” 

We went on to discuss how by having all of our faces and personal information so readily available, made us even more susceptible to lawmakers. (For example, with the threat of the Nordic model being posed on sex workers and clients.) By having absolutely all of our habits and information on file, our entire lives could be massively regulated and restricted.

“Yeah, it's bone chilling, and I think we're at this point where, with face scanning, I haven't really processed what massive implications that's gonna have. The government is lucky that this country runs on a lot of sexual shame, and doesn't have the equipment, or sex education to talk about these things openly with one another. People are going to be hesitant to resist identity scans, because they don't want to say, oh, like, I'd quite like to look for something sexual. And I think, like, if we could let go of that we'd be able to fight it”

How will this change the way you work and operate? 

“People (like myself who) are doing similar work just roll with the punches. I think it's good to have backup plans… I'm just gonna see what happens. I feel like there is a lot of power in what I do. This is the thing, I have a lot of confidence in what I do, that it's not gonna just disappear. People always find a way, especially with sex… I've been banned from every platform possible. At some point I was banned from Twitter, when it was Twitter, which is a difficult”

Do you think certain regulations should be in place to limit children's access to NSFW content at all? 

“We need to be able to talk. It's easy for me because I don't have kids. Maybe in a dream land, we're able to tell children that they're going to encounter adult content online. Obviously, do what you can to prevent that. But I think it also starts with having conversations with the kids. I'm pretty sure it's just a right of passage for the young person to see something that shocks you online. There are parents who are absolute trash, but there's some people that could say, hey, let's talk about the thing you've just seen, ask any questions about it, and maybe demystify it. That is what comes to mind for me. It's difficult. It's really difficult because I don't want to be straight up being like, Oh, just let children see whatever, because I don't have a vested interest in it, so I don't care about the children. But at the same time, I hate the excuse of it. I hate that it goes back for decades, it's dangerous for children to see… homosexuality, or drag story times is dangerous. It's hard for me to have sympathy for that statement, because I know what it masks a lot of the time. So I think I'm very biased towards considering children.”

We talked about Helena's neurodivergent tendencies, and how they've caused her to fixate on her work and become as successful as she is. But we also talked about the downside of hyperfixation around work and how it can be all consuming, and even detrimental to mental health sometimes. 

“I always try to seek out things that I can take inspiration from, rather than choosing someone to just entertain me. Which is probably not healthy… I realized, like you were saying earlier, your identity gets wrapped up in your work. And you end up with this scary kind of thought, who actually am I without this work.”

Who are some people who inspire you? 

“There's a slight resurgence in people appreciating femdom artwork by Namio Harukawa, the Japanese guy that drew big women sitting on skeletal men, people are all over that at the moment. And I think what my takeaway from that is, actually, I'm a woman doing it, so I'm kind of coming at it from the perspective of the artist's subject.”

Do you ever draw inspiration from real people? 

“Yeah, I did have, like, a dicey situation once where someone took me to task on how I had drawn a person. It was a little bit too close to the bone.”

Who would you say your average customer is? 

“I would say my average audience member is probably somewhat resembling me in some way. I think either a woman or gender fluid, possibly fat person.” 

Do you think women erotica artists are underrepresented?

Helena explained that they were at the heart of a subculture where queer women are building an environment for each other to thrive. A lot of the time stemming from an interest in fan-art.

“In my opinion, there is only so much a guy can bring to the table when it comes to depicting women or people who aren't men.”

If you'd like to see more of Helena's artwork, you can find them on Instagram at @spunkrock.art, where they're selling their book through dm as well as taking commissions!