Erika Moen is a Portland based illustrator and cartoonist, who also happens to be really fascinated by sex. Moen and her husband of six years, Matt Nolan, began the wildly popular web comic, “Oh Joy Sex Toy
Essentially the duo provide a comic formatted review of sex toys and sex positive topics.
Moen, who proudly claims years of extensive field research in matters of consensual, pleasurable sex, draws the wildly popular webcomic which releases each Tuesday on her website, ohjoysextoy.com
Moen plans to release a hard copy of the first year of the “Oh Joy Sex Toy” comics in tandem with new comics created specifically for the OJST Book. Moen and Nolan are self-publishing the 268-page project. The book should be available in November on the OJST website.
She will be at the Rose City Comic Con at the Oregon Convention Center, September 20-21 and will be tabling with Periscope Studio. She will have copies of her autobiographical comic DAR! series available for sale, which will soon fall out of print. She has the last few copies left and when they’re gone, they’re gone. Moen will also have an advance copy of the OJST book to show off.
She recently returned from some international travel, and I asked her about her trip. Erika Moen: Um, well, I got hit by a car.Sue Zalokar: What? E.M.: Yep. With my settlement, my husband and I went to go visit his family in England.S.Z.: Let’s back up though. You were hit by a car? E.M.: I was a bicyclist in a crosswalk. I bike every single day, but I’m really cautious. I know lanes of traffic don’t all stop, so I don’t know how this happened. I poked out and it looked clear, so I started to go out – very slowly, I wasn’t moving fast at all – it was walking speed for sure. There wasn’t a car, and then there just was a car. It’s a miracle, but he happened to hit me in such a way that I didn’t break any skin. But I didn’t get hurt! I went into shock immediately and I was shaking so hard that somebody else had to help me call my husband. I was shaking so hard somebody else had to dial for me.
I definitely was hit by a car, but I didn’t have a scrape on me.
So, if you ever want to take an international trip, you just have to cross Powell Boulevard. S.Z.: You’ve been making comics and putting them online for 16 years – over half of your life. How did you start drawing? E.M.: I always kind of drew the same way that all kids draw. Comics always appealed to me. Not just specifically comics, but picture books as well. I could just spend hours going over the exact same books as a kid.
My dad had this giant hardback book — it was just huge, you could smoosh a toddler with it — called “The Smithsonian Collection of Turn of the Century Sunday Comics.” Or Sunday Funnies, maybe? I don’t remember exactly, but it was all the classic comics from way back in the day. I would spend hours just going over it.
I really loved drawing for a really long time. I kind of lost it for the last few years, but I’m getting it back… I’ve been enjoying drawing. And I do love making comics. Comics have this unique ability to communicate difficult or complex subjects in this really easy to digest way. And controversial subjects as well. S.Z.: There are stylistic distinctions between Erika Moen drawings and non Erika Moen drawings. How has your style evolved in the time you have been drawing? E.M.: Since I’ve been drawing OJST, I’ve been trying really hard to simplify my lines. I know even in the very first strips, it’s simple. It’s cartoony. But as I’m going on, I’m trying to eliminate every superfluous line. And really get it down to the essence of conveying information in a single line.
The reason why I have a limited color palette, and if you look at all of my comics over the last 16 years, they almost all have a very limited color palette, is because I’m scared of color.
It takes a good eye and artistic training to know how to put together all of these different colors and not have it look like, as my friend Dylan MeConis likes to say, it looks like vegetable soup. I like to choose one tone and three shades of one tone and then just work with that.S.Z.: You pretty much built a college curriculum for yourself and then made your passion into your art and trade. For those of our readers who may not have followed your autobiographical comic, DAR!, or may not be familiar with your current project, the wildly popular, “Oh Joy Sex Toy,” can you tell me about how you came to identify as a sex educator? E.M.: I don’t identify as a sex educator. S.Z.: Really? Because that is how you are portrayed. I’ve even heard you refer to yourself as a sex educator. E.M.: I’m making a distinction that nobody else will give a damn about and really, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t mean anything. But, I see myself as a cartoonist who does comics about sex education. Again, a subtle distinction – but an important one.
I think the whole world of sex is incredibly fascinating. I’m a hobbyist. I’m not trained, I’m not a professional, I’m not an expert. S.Z.: Shall we talk about sex education for our youth? E.M.: It’s appalling. S.Z.: Yes. But fifth graders don’t necessarily need to know about butt plugs yet, so how ... E.M.: They do need to know about pleasure. It is left out of our sex ed (curriculum). However in our culture, pleasure for men – I’m going to be sexist. Right now I’m just gonna talk about cis gender stuff.
Men, we are taught in our culture, men want sex. We know sex must feel good for men because they always want it and they’ll do anything to get it.
And women are supposed to not want sex. They want relationship. They want emotion. In our culture we don’t get that women have pleasure from sex. S.Z.: The two couldn’t be combined ... you couldn’t have an emotional connection and have hot sex. E.M.: Right? That couldn’t work. And remember this is all very heterosexual based.
So that’s our pop culture and then you go into the classroom where kids are having their sex ed and it’s just the biology. It’s just about reproduction.
If it’s a comprehensive sex ed class, at least they will cover contraception: Use a condom when you put a penis in a vagina, use birth control if you’ve got a uterus. Or, it’s abstinence only and sign your name on this card that says you won’t engage in sexual activity.
It’s just focused on penis and vagina. That’s sex. They’re not talking about oral, anal, manual or digital even, because you’ve got your digits. S.Z.: That could easily be confused with Skype or Internet sex. E.M.: That’s cyber sex.S.Z.: Oh. Right. E.M.: So anyway, pleasure is not taught. It’s not explicitly said. Another huge problem, is if you aren’t teaching about pleasure, then you’re not teaching about consent either.
They are not taught consent. They are not taught both parties need to be enjoying this.
This is non negotiable. This needs to be a pleasurable experience for both people.
Pleasure and consent go hand-in-hand and that needs to be taught. Our society is producing people who don’t understand how sex works. Who don’t understand that they need to ask permission. Who don’t understand they need to give permission. Who don’t understand that permission is not a one time thing and then it’s a free pass forever. That permission can be rescinded. That when you agree to something, if it starts feeling bad you can rescind your agreement. And it stops. And both sides of this equation don’t know that. S.Z.: You have dealt with periods of depression in your life. In the last frames of your autobiographical comic, DAR!, you tell us that you suffered a couple of deep depressions and have been medicated and weaned yourself off meds. Most recently, I read the comic that you drew in response to Robin Williams’ suicide. What is your own experience with mental health issues? E.M.: I had a very negative view of people who get on antidepressants. I know that there are people who seriously need that. In my head it was like people who are suicidal or can’t function. I am somebody who can function.
My life is very de-railed and difficult and there are lots of roadblocks because of the depression, but I’m still functional. I can still go to work. I can still go to my pole dance class and ride my bike. I just need to suck it up and pull my shit together. I’m being self-indulgent. I’m being weak. I’m being a whiney baby. I’m not somebody who needs meds, I need to boot straps it up. And it was very hard for me to get on antidepressants for the first time years ago. It did help.
But then, I lost my job, and because of our medical system, I lost my medical insurance. I couldn’t afford to stay on antidepressants. I was in a position where I can’t afford medication. I can’t afford to see a therapist. Let’s just try this because we don’t really have any other options. So I did have to wean myself off. And by wean off I mean I just stopped taking them.
The last few years have been OK. I’ve done pretty well and then this last year my shit was just shutting down. I was becoming non functional.
I do not think of myself as suicidal at all, but there is just this lack of desire to be alive. The thought of not being alive is such a comfort and a relief.
No matter how good it is. S.Z.: You’ve got it pretty good. E.M.: I’ve got a great life. I have a loving, wonderful, supporting husband who I’m crazy about. I am doing the career that I am passionate about and care a lot about. I’m getting recognition and praise and all the stuff I need to feel good.
And even in the midst of all of that. It’s like, “No, this is great. I recognize that. Wonderful. If I could just stop being alive right now, I would totally go for it.”
I didn’t even count that as depression. I figured nobody wants to be alive, we just have to be. S.Z.: You recently got back on meds? E.M.: I got back on meds and got a therapist. Just getting on meds by themselves wouldn’t have done it. But I got a therapist. And she is kick ass. It’s important to find the right therapist. S.Z.: You are transparent and overt about your sexuality – genuine, enthusiastic and open. E.M.: Here’s the thing. I don’t think I’m a nymphomaniac. I don’t think that I think about sex more than other people. I think I’m just somebody who’s okay talking about it more than other people. I think I have a very normal, regular sex drive.
People think I have no filter. That is not true. I am very specific in what I talk about. I only talk about the things I’m comfortable talking about. And for some broken reason in my head, sex falls into that category. I think sex is super funny. I love making jokes about it. I think it’s super fascinating – our whole culture around it. When is it OK to have sex, when is it not OK to have sex? The people who are allowed to have sex with each other. The ways people have sex with each other. Sex can damage someone for the rest of their life or it can be healthy and positive. S.Z.: What does the term “Sex positive” mean to you? E.M.: I want to say what sex positive is not. Sex positive is not, “Sex feels so good for me. Therefore, I’m sex positive. I like to have sex, therefore I’m sex positive. Everybody should be having sex.” That’s not sex positive.
Sex positive is looking at sex, at all the possible ways that sex can manifest itself.
In saying that for all of the participants involved, it should be a positive, good experience. Everybody should be willingly, happily, enthusiastically consenting.
Sex positive is saying consent is mandatory.
Sex positive is saying you need to be educated about all of your different options.
Sex positive is saying you have the right to pursue your life liberty and happiness, sexually.
Sex positivity is about sexual respect. You don’t get to push it on others either.
And sex positivity is inclusive of asexuals. It’s respecting that there are people who have no desire for sex or have a very reduced desire for sex. Sex positivity is respecting people’s consensual, healthy, sex life styles and sexual orientations.S.Z.: You have referred to your “Battle hardened cunt.” Is sex a battle then? Have you any war stories? E.M.: (Grunts and laughs). I say battle hardened cunt because I think it’s real funny. Cunt is my favorite word. It always has been. I mean it both in the empowered, beautiful word way and also the, “Man-that-person’s-being-a-jerk-I’m-gonna-call-them-a-cunt” way.
I’m a really bad feminist. S.Z.: Really? E.M.: Mmmmm. Read tumblr ... So, “battle hardened cunt.” It’s not like a delicate flower. I don’t have a delicate garden orchid growing down there.
I wanted to do a sex education comic before I started OJST and it was going to be geared toward youths – teens specifically. And it would be a giant book that would walk through stages of how to become sexually active safely.
In my research for it, I was looking up all kinds of sex ed resources. And there have been some other people who have made some sex-ed comics, and I was so offended by this one that I found. They had done one for the penis and one for the vulva to explain how they work. And the cover for the penis one, was made to look like a rocketship, it’s a drawing, a cartoon — rocketing through space, like coming at you. Here’s everything you need to know about the penis. So powerful and full of fuel and virility.
The cover for the vulva, which they called the vagina. Hey buddy, that’s the inside bit.
So right off the bat, they’re calling it the wrong thing. And the cover for that was a female body with her panties on with a flower on the panties.
I was so offended by that. Oh it’s so passive, it just sits there. It’s just waiting … It’s a flower. It didn’t even show (her body). The penis was drawn. This was panties.
It goes back to battle-hardened cunt. I know “empowered” gets over used, but when I say it, (my pussy) becomes an active participant. It’s getting what it wants. It’s having adventures! I’m trying to show pussies as strong and active.
