Feature photo/book cover by Carnal Knowledge co-author Elizabeth Renstrom

Zoë Ligon wants you to know that “sex toys are sex tools.” It’s one of 52 tips in her newly released book Carnal Knowledge, which she co-authored with renowned New York photographer Elizabeth Renstrom for Prestel.

“It’s part art book, part sex-ed book, and I think–while it’s not written for any particular age–it’s certainly age appropriate for some adolescents,” she tells Loose Lips Mag over the phone from Detroit.

“But there are people who have been having sex their whole life who probably also could learn a thing or two from it,” she adds.

The 120 page book–published on September 22–touches on topics from self-pleasure to consent to sex workers’ rights, bound in a hardcover and full of glossy pages of deliciously suggestive photography, each turn educating on a new topic.

Those topics may come as no surprise to Ligon’s following, many of whom know her on Instagram as @thongria: a sex positive influencer, owner of Spectrum Boutique and self-described dildo duchess.

The now renowned sex toy enthusiast once had reservations about owning her sexuality, which is why she’s putting the spotlight on pleasure and education.

“My own sexual trauma is a lot of the reason I had no interest in wanting to discover my body more,” Ligon reveals. “Thinking about that stuff also meant that having to acknowledge all the other uncomfortable stuff that was going on… I didn’t even start masturbating until I was 19 and, honestly, it was sex toys that got me into masturbation.”

One can infer from her widely sex positive career that things have gone the other way. Ligon has bylines in VICE, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29 and, of course, Spectrum Journal–an article hub on her very own Spectrum Boutique website–in which she writes exhaustively about sex, topics spanning from lube to infidelity to the A-Spot. She also co-hosts Hot Brain, a podcast about sex, with her boyfriend Mark Sandford.

So, why, if we can find all of this great sexual education on the web, is it so far from the education we get in school?

“I think sex education is not just the responsibility of the school system, it’s also about having people in your family and your community and the media you consume reflecting sex positive messages,” she offers.

“For me, I had no context or education for any of things I was doing, and I certainly would have been a lot safer had I known all the stuff I know now.”

In fact, she writes in Carnal Knowledge’s foreword, “Perhaps if I’d learned some of the simple truths of sex earlier on, I could have spared myself years of performative, exploitative sexual experiences.”

There are many women–now years into their active sex lives–who would find this on the spectrum of vaguely to terrifyingly relatable. Myself included.

So, of course, it was imperative that consent was an important “tip” in Carnal Knowledge.

“Regardless of gender, if you’re the type of person who is a people pleaser… it’s really difficult to assert your boundaries,” Ligon elucidates.

In fact, boundary setting is something she dealt with in a public sphere in late 2019 when artist Richard Prince appropriated an Instagram photo of Ligon’s in his exhibition, Portraits.

Known as the inventor of “rephotography,” Prince recreated life-size inkjet printed Instagram posts by users without their consent for his exhibit at MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit), attempting to call attention to selfie culture and, in a broader sense, ownership of imagery.

Ligon fired back at Prince and MOCAD, calling for them to remove her appropriated image, which was used as the press image in her home of Detroit. Their response? It was all perfectly legal.

An earlier exhibition based on the same premise featured Emily Ratajkowski, now famously penned about in The Cut.

“What was frustrating is that people would cite Emily Ratajkowski, and say to me. ‘Look at this celebrity, and she loves her portrait… clearly these A-list celebrities love it.’ She was often used as the excuse as to why it was okay, and now obviously we know she clearly wasn’t [okay with it],” Ligon divulges. 

“I think she did such a wonderful job of describing how men–or anyone in a position of power over you–can so easily manipulate you,” she says of Ratajkowski.

“What [Prince] did is legal, but it doesn’t mean it’s moral or ethical,” Ligon says, “and I do agree that we should be criticizing Instagram, but it’s a tone deaf way of trying to explore digital consent. I don’t think he was expecting this nude selfie girl to be able to really command language around consent and what makes this so very wrong, even if it was legal.” 

And it is, indeed, her command of language and ability to philosophize on sexuality that makes Ligon’s work so revolutionary.

“I think being an educator in the realm of sex has so much more to do with your listening skills and your ability to relate to people who have gone through things that you haven’t gone through,” she offers. “It’s the ability to connect your personal struggle to theirs. That’s a lot more of what I do versus teaching about anatomy.”

You’ll find all of that and more in Carnal Knowledge, available to purchase here.

Carnal Knowledge: Sex Education You Didn’t Get in School by Zoë Ligon and Elizabeth Renstrom © Prestel Verlag, Munich · London · New York, 2020.