2026.06.12: 'Brief' thoughts on fae and genitalia.
I was thinking on this piece of mine earlier, unfinished, and how it doesn't fit into the human ideas of sexual or non-sexual when categorising it for censoring and warnings. Specifically, though "fae" refers to innumerable species - and I use it just as vaguely too for my own reasons - it can be said fae often have entirely different expressions tied to genitalia and very different perspectives on sex and sexuality than us, leading to some connotations, experiences, and feelings being entirely alien to them.
For reference, this character is a high fae and embodies many of my connections to them and appearances with and as them. It doesn't have a story, it's just a vessel for Otherworld experiences.
On the Exposed Penis
Even if the nepenthes were only a crude censoring of an erect penis and not representing what I will get into later, it still wouldn't be inherently sexual. I know many species that communicate with erect, unsheathed, or otherwise displayed genitalia, whether that's through scent or "energy"-scent, or visuals, or general "energy", or the millions of other ways communication and existence occurs and is sustained. There's a deer-like species I know, for example, that uses it as what could be described as a dominance display but without any human connotations of sexual violence, or even sex. The erect penis, its colouration, and, well, its intraspecies symbolism akin to how flashing teeth means happiness for humans stands like a body language symbol for discomfort, disapproval, and the will or more so power and presence to do something about it. It's a sign that you are encroaching and you're being warned, that this fae - generally the head of the local territory - is in charge, confident in its power, and getting ready to... likely try and gore you with its horns.
What's significant here, I think, is understanding these are not "animal-level sentience" fae. Sentience is a null concept beyond this current space-time's human ideas, not even existing as a spider graph compared to a line, not as a sphere compared to a spider graph, but something so vast and varied that it can only really be taken in instances, not spectrums. These fae live much longer than humans, as they aren't tied to Physical Plane age-drain; they have intelligent maps of their forests, knowledge on plane-crossing, and innumerable other things I couldn't begin to exhaustively list, specifically in the way that these are in-depth knowings akin to what would make a human call it "sentient" rather than "animalistic", or reactionary.
They may not study written books and chemicals and technology, but they know the names of the trees, their energies, and communicate with them as they go along and they do so through what humans might call chronomancy, weaving "energy" not just spatially but temporally. They walk through their forests weaving spells, taking specific instances of existence and could-be existences, as keenly seen as a dog smells, in all directions of time, moving, altering, utilising these instances to see beyond sight, act beyond body, and so on. They delve deep into their own arts. Technology, written language, and other things associated with "sentience" are just human specialisations. There are many, many more specialisations possible. On top of that as suggested by the word "reactionary" being used as an antonym for "sentient", they aren't necessarily not reactionary, they don't necessarily sit and think and consciously recall reasoning and debate internally. First, neither do humans on the day-to-day as much as they think, and second, it's not necessary for high levels of intelligence, ability, knowledge, and so on.
To bring this back to the topic at hand: It's not a case that exposed genitalia is an animal thing, that the higher the sentience of a being the more it's likely to clothe itself and feel some shame at being exposed, becoming "aware" of some intrinsic objective shamefulness towards that part of the body. Ignoring the issues with sentience even on this plane being... I'd argue a pseudoscientific human-centric concept, and even in the cases of fae that can think as deeply and have thoughts as complex and nuanced as humans do, still are not physiologically or psychologically obliged to see human concepts like humans do. Genitals are a part of the body, and body language uses that body, assigning all different parts different meanings among different forms of body.
In the instance of the art above, the subject is fae royalty, the highest ranking or at least joint-highest with another. The erect penis is asserting that status, and again, not threatening sexual violence. The penis is shown as akin to the staff or crown. It asserts territory, wary power, and a reminder with its colour and shape and all other features that its owner is to be respected. I say "wary power", as I believe phallic power to the humans I may reach with this has such a sour taste that can only be dissuaded by being very obvious with modifiers. Think of it akin to a frilled-neck lizard opening its frill, or a cat arching its back and tail; there is an inherent uncertainty and lack of a want for meeting, arguing, fighting, or so on. It's avoiding more than precipitating, using the idea of something bad - or, in this case, invoking within you the idea what you are doing is bad - in order to mask a need to escape. Something that wants violence won't generally warn you and try to dissuade you from starting it, something that knows it will easily kill you won't bother putting up a display to get you away from them. Threat displays are a strange and unobvious submission and the reminder that they can revoke said submission at any time.
The conscious, explicit origins of why genitalia - not just penises, and certainly not just Physical mammal genitals in general let alone only binary human ones - are used in displays varies both with what they're communicating in each species, and what purposes and attributes they hold and have. In some species, for example, "energy"-pheremones are a sort of sticky web that bind the minds and memories of the herd together, and the genitals of all in the herd and (generally) especially the leaders have their own properties that cause things from enhanced group awareness, to "stirring" the herd-collective, to giving unspoken and non-physical directions and alerts, and so on. In others, it may just be their colours and shape, like a baboon's rear, that signify things such as sex-cycle ripeness, or mood, hierarchy, health, and more. At the core of all body language, though, is a Venn diagram of the ineffable and inconceivable; this is no different.
On Natural Sexuality
Not all species of fae reproduce sexually. Not all who don't reproduce sexually reproduce asexually, not if we go by Physical understandings. There are many, many ways of reproducing, in this case meaning "to create another of your species" given that fae may also produce other life minus the "re-" part.
Where this is relevant to the art is the nature of the penis as represented by something floral. This isn't cheeky censoring; it's quite natural for fae to reproduce through or in collaboration with - and in such a way have what's classified as their "genitalia" extend to - the environment around them. For many species, fertility is directly linked to that of the environment, not in the indirect way that say pollution could negatively affect gamete production, their very being and its physiology is blurred into the environment itself. Local trees can "sponsor" clans, often in a reciprocal relationship where the fae clan will become custodians and even perhaps rule from the tree as there's not inherently a danger to said tree in residing within it. Fields can be "sponsored by" clans, with their growth being akin to the production of cells in the living body, flowering and thriving through being an expression of the local fae. And, of course, as "fae" tends to refer to nature spirits, as I was saying before, when a species' bodies are blurred into nature, nature itself holds organ-esque functions for those bodies leading to no "sponsoring" needed... and no ability to withdraw such sponsoring in the case that environment or fae becomes too ill to reliably reproduce.
The environment and systems of an area, concept, archetype, or whatever other "nature" a fae may be a part of, are in and of themselves bodies. Especially in the Otherworlds, environments are comprised of systems of waste management and removal, consumption, growing and shedding, as well as reproduction and general productivity. "Energies" of fertility may exist as fields that fae are "tapped into", not like witchcraft and ritual magic, but like how a human body is "tapped into" cell division through holding the key that is DNA. When that field is affected, well, the field is affected, and the fae in question are a part of the field and thus affected.
This is a complex topic made more complex by the nature of English and this plane not having the Otherworlds' biology jargon necessary to actually pinpoint and communicate concepts. What can be said, though, is that the environment to varying levels is the fae. Not "of" the fae, not "an extension" of them, but the fae themselves. There is no body and body-holder dichotomy to the extent there is for Physical humans, their nature as "fae" is to be multibodied, complex, and, well, nature itself. Once CO2 leaves the lips of a Physical human it ceases to be a part of the body, but this does not happen, and the relationship between fae and nature tends to be closer to two twin bodies stitched together at the mouth, forever passing that air back and forth.
The nepenthes in the art are a way to communicate visually, at least, where there is no divide between the reproductive protrusions of the fae and the environment's own body. The erect penis partly represents the assertion of the territory and power of the leader, and the nepenthes actively assert that with him, one with him though in a separate body, and, significantly in relation to Otherworld things, in resonance with his will, wants, and personhood. It isn't forced between his legs to be mindless attire or decoration, it isn't like thorny brushes cut and torn to build a fortress then personified as "defending", nature itself moves to - and has reason to move to - his side, as all bodies have their own natural instinct to defend their own selves.