call for subs: wordplay
flirting, sexting, innuendos, love letters, confessions, body language. issue 9: wordplay is about all the ways we communicate love and desire (or fail to). write about healthy and unhealthy communication, perpetual yearning, ghosting, misreads, the first (or worst) message you’ve sent someone on hinge. gives us a peek into the rehersed and rewritten messages in your notes app.
send all proposals or initial drafts to ucgargoyle@gmail.com by january 30th at 5 p.m. with “issue 9 proposal for section x, contributor’s name” as the subject line. include a sample paragraph (about 200 words) with your proposal. final drafts are due february 4th at 11:59 p.m. pieces can be anywhere from 1 to 1000 words. production night will be february 12th at 5 p.m.
as per usual for our annual sex and love issue, our nudes contest returns. hope we didn’t keep you on the edge for too long 😉 — our sex issue nudes contest returns! submissions can take the form of photos, illustrations, paintings, any visual medium really! all submissions will be published in the sex issue (print only!). please make sure to read over the full guidelines before participating
- YOU MUST BE 18 YEARS OLD OR OVER TO SUBMIT
- send your submissions to our email by eod of tuesday, february 3th with your name and age (these will remain private and emails will be deleted after publication).
- nudity, partial nudity, or illusions to nudity are encouraged.
- pages containing the nudes contest are print-exclusive and won’t be published online. names or identifiable information will NOT be published alongside your submissions, however, we have no control over who picks up a copy and thus can’t guarantee anonymity after publication.
- the contest will be judged solely based on CREATIVITY; all your bodies are beautiful!!!
- you can email us to withdraw your submission at any point prior to publication.
winners will be contacted via email! first place gets a cash prize of $25; $15 and $10 will go to the second and third places respectively.
some prompts ( ͡ ° ͜ʖ ͡ °)
uc: give us a dramatic retelling of the freak nastiest place you’ve gotten down on all fours, in public, from the back (?), mouth agape, slobbering, sweating, getting stickier by the minute and hotter by the second, unidentifiable liquid lathered all over the already dirty ass floor…after all, diversity is our strength.
arts & culture: take smut seriously. or don’t! but read it closely. write about the craft of getting people hot with words alone. why is yearning often hotter than fucking? talk about the ambiguities of language that leave you in crisis. defend the fanfics and bodice rippers. what’s on your sex playlist? what’s your netflix n’ chill movie? edging but make it literary.
politics: is there such a thing as sex without power? is that even worth aspiring to? emancipate me harder: what we get wrong about kink. why doesn’t gen z fuck (it’s prob bc of a lack of third spaces)?!?! algorithmic dating is where the erotic goes to die. the situationship/nonmonogamy industrial complex. have you ever wanted to fuck a character.ai chatbot and how morally grey did it make you feel?
opinions: why do we label desire: top/bottom, sub/dom? has kink lost its teeth? sexting, innuendos, love letters, body language—how do we communicate intention? does he call you ‘babe’? rice purity, body count—why do we quantify sex? dead dove: do not eat? do you send nudes? did you moan the wrong name? don’t panic, let’s explore the depths of human desire together. transcribe aftercare. thirst traps, yay or nay? sext us, seduce us, serenade us into surrender.
avant garg: poeticize the scrawls on bathroom walls you’ve been pushed up against. write about destructive dirty talk and the psyche. trace your lover’s script tattoo in the afterglow and document the sensation. have you ever fucked someone under a false identity or name, roleplay or otherwise? tell me more. what are your safe words? transcribe moaning using the international phonetic alphabet.
comics: tell it to my heart! tell me i’m the only one! draw us valentine’s cards for that special someone. illustrate a diagram of the depths of your heart’s desires. make a comic about the things that are too hard to say out loud. draw us puns you need to see to understand. GIVE US SHIP ART!!!
stay greasy,
amareena saleh
communications editor
