“Ashes to ashes, filth to filth:” Reclaiming kink spirituality with the creators of ANARKISS Zine

 Art by Annika Simmons included in ANARKISS's Reclamation issue. © 2026 ANARKISS. All rights reserved.

BY EMMA CIESLIK May 31, 2026

On May 17th, ANARKISS, a queer-led counterculture zine, published its latest and twelfth issue. Reclamation explores queerness as ritual and the power and potentials of embracing and celebrating blasphemy and devotion and divinity of the queer body. And with the zine’s focus on decriminalizing and destigmatizing sex work, this issue explores religion as inherently kinky, as well as sex as prayer and prayer as protest. 

Filled to the brim with art and prose that explores queerness as inherently holy and kink as an inherently transcendent and ritualistic experience, this issue especially intrigued me as someone who researches the rich history of queer Catholic eroticism.

The cover boasts articles about adventures where people “get tied up in the Word of the Lord™” and practice “The Bedroom Hail Mary.” Within the “Get Closer to God™” article is a tantalizing proposition: “Ever wanted to get closer to God™? For the low price of ‘your hard earned money’ you too can experience God™ inside you, around you, against your flesh.” I felt a kinship with the zine’s creators, who shared in the lead up to the issue’s publication that at the root of this latest issue is the idea, the truth, that “queer people have always existed in religion.” 

After the latest issue was published, I reached out to Lisa Raine Fouweather, editor-in-chief of the zine, and their partner, Lucy Ella Moore, the zine’s creative director, about the power of queer and trans people reclaiming religiosity and divinity as a language of bodily autonomy and reverence through the art of kink.

Emma Cieslik: Would you mind introducing yourself and Lucy however you feel comfortable?

Lisa Raine Fouweather: We are a queer, masc/femme couple based in Northern England. We met on Feeld, so our love of all things filth has been there from the start. We’re now engaged and live with our six fur babies in a little mid-terrace in South Yorkshire.

Cieslik: What motivated your founding of the zine in 2024?

Fouweather: I (Lisa) started ANARKISS in January 2024. I’d just come out of a situationship and didn’t want to spiral back into unhealthy coping mechanisms, so I fuelled all of my energy into something that I’d wanted to do for ages and started a zine! I am a poet, and I know how much of a struggle it is to get published when you have no connections in the industry, and that’s basically where the premise of ANARKISS came from. I wanted to create what didn’t exist - a publishing house for the marginalised and misunderstood. Lucy joined the zine a few months ago. She has a background in marketing and has really helped me with the overall creative direction of the zine. 

Art by Mars included in ANARKISS's Reclamation issue. © 2026 ANARKISS. All rights reserved.

Cieslik: Historically, zines have been critical communication methods and later archival records during times of fascism. How is that part of your mission?

Fouweather: Zines are more important now than ever. We are living in an age of censorship, where using the word ‘sex’ on Instagram can get you shadowbanned or even deleted from the site entirely. Zines don’t require approval. They are self-published and therefore entirely self-governed. In times of fascism, they provide proof that we exist in a society that wants to erase us.

Cieslik: How is your zine an archive, and what is the importance of creating an uncensored kink archive? 

Fouweather: We don’t have an external publisher. We have our own website. We govern ourselves. In terms of kink specifically, our business model is extremely important because self-ownership means that we aren’t limited by censorship rules. We create what we want to create and share it to the world. The way art should be.

Cieslik: How is platforming sex work, kink, and art part of resistance against homophobia, transphobia, and sexism? How do you collaborate with and platform sex workers?

Fouweather: We talk about sex workers because they are some of the most marginalised and stigmatised people in society. The quote “no one is free until everyone is free” is so true, and when we advocate, like when we vote, we must have the most vulnerable people at the forefront of our minds. Sex work, kink, and art all share one thing in common, and that’s the sense of being ‘othered.’ 

We might be the minority in society, but in ANARKISS, we are the majority.

Art by Angel Lovely included in ANARKISS's Reclamation issue. © 2026 ANARKISS. All rights reserved.

Cieslik: Your most recent issue "Reclamation" explores queerness as ritual and sex as sacred. In the preface, you write that "we don't kneel in the ways we were taught. WE don't confess, repent, or make ourselves small to be held by institutions that have never held us with care. Instead, we turn toward the body, desire, pleasure, and rage, and we call it sacred." What inspired this issue? And what is its importance and impact for people raised in high control religious spaces (including purity culture)? 

Fouweather: Reclamation was my favorite zine that we have published so far! It was incredible seeing all the submissions rolling in from people of all walks of life, and it was equally really beautiful to witness people taking ownership of what a “higher power/God” means to them. Organised religion often likes to preach about what is “wrong” with queerness, Reclamation preaches all that is right.

Cieslik: What is the power in reclaiming the eroticism of religion through art? 

Fouweather: If God really is watching over us all, then what better way to put on a show than through eroticising religion?! “Ashes to ashes, filth to filth” and all that…

Cieslik: I absolutely love--and in what ways does erotica already play a role in religion--and in the lived experiences of people for whom religion has restricted, isolated, and punished people for who they are?

Fouweather: Erotica has been evident in religion since the beginning of time. Ancient cave drawings show this. The issue(s) that organised religions have against erotica isn’t actually about erotica at all, but rather about their inability to control how it is performed. This is why embracing the erotic is so cathartic for so many people who have felt the prejudice of religion. Embracing erotica reinforces the fact that, try as they might, religion cannot control us anymore. 

Cieslik: How can prayer be a protest, and blasphemy be a form of resistance and redemption? As you write in the preface, "sex is not separate from spirit. It's not something to be hidden, disciplined, or redeemed. It is prayer - intentional, embodied, unruly. And prayer, in turn, is not quiet. It's not obedient. It's a protest. It's a refusal. It's the act of insisting that our existence, our pleasure, and our ways of loving and become are not outside the sacred, but central to it."

Fouweather: “Prayer is anything you get on your knees for.” A protest for sin.
Blasphemy is a form of resistance because it gives us the power over all the ideas that they tried to tarnish us with.

Art by Ro Holmes included in ANARKISS's Reclamation issue. © 2026 ANARKISS. All rights reserved.

Cieslik: If you feel comfortable, what religious tradition were you raised in? I was raised Catholic so this issue especially spoke to me, and written along the bottom of the cover are the words “ANARKISS is not responsible for your ongoing commitment to the Catholic faith.” 

Fouweather: Lucy grew up Catholic, going to Catholic school and being an altar server, before finding witchcraft at the age of 24 and being the hottest witch of them all. Lisa dabbled with Christianity for a while in her early teens, but her love of women proved too much of a conflict with the church. She still believes in God, but in terms of the universe being God, not a man in the sky.

Cieslik: What is the power of recognizing that queer and trans people have always existed (and largely been recognized as leaders) within religious systems?

Fouweather: Fascism is upheld by fear. And when we can see that queerness has always existed in religion, we can, in turn, see that their fearmongering holds no weight. Queerness is not a sin, it is natural. Always has existed, and always will exist.

Art by Vinya Paula Margaux Severin included in ANARKISS's Reclamation issue. © 2026 ANARKISS. All rights reserved.

Cieslik: What do you hope for the future of ANARKISS?

Fouweather: We hope to start hosting events in the near future to bring the community we’ve made online all together in person! We’re not exactly sure what that would look like yet, but it will likely be a mash-up of art and kink, as all the best things are.

Learn more about the zine on the ANARKISS website.