This Fucking Day we’re reading a book called Sex Spells, and right away I’ve proven magic doesn’t exist, because if it did, that would be the name of every book.
Stella Damiana published Sex Spells: The Magical Path to Erotic Bliss in 2006, five years after 60 Sexy Spells of Seduction by Gilly Sergiev, a nearly identical book about transmogrifying horniness into a scented candle hobby. I say “nearly identical,” but despite having the exact same goals (fucking), the spells are very different (nonsense). I don’t know if it’s because one of them is an artificer and the other is a druid or if it’s because all of this is stupid, but let’s go through Stella’s book and learn how to crush ass like a wizard.
Going in, Stella knows you have some questions. Questions like, “Wait, this isn’t a joke?” and “Do you think this is real?” or “Do you think I do?” and “Are there mage cops who will investigate what I’ve done?” But she only answers one: “How come?” And her only answer is: “I don’t know, man, magic is cheaper than dildos?” This is actually the tone of most of the book– a nerd who hasn’t really thought any of this through but figures if you’re already fucking, you might as well play D&D at the same time?
Oh, and when I call Stella a “nerd,” I don’t mean that in a cute way. I mean this woman definitely wrote the newsletter for her Asheron’s Call guild which she named “Keeping it Pyreal” after her 11th cat. I don’t expect you to read this next page I clipped; I just want you to know there are dozens and dozens exactly like it. Stella spends at least 20,000 unsexy words fussing over magic user insider terms like “Witch” as if her readers bought a fuck ritual book to finally put to rest the great “magic vs. magick” spelling debate.
Like you, I wanted to get straight to the sex spells, but I did find a couple gems in Stella’s pedantic rambling. She wants to let the reader know that while magic is very real, it also doesn’t do anything and you shouldn’t expect it to fix your life. She gives two great examples of when magic isn’t enough– when someone is threatening you, and when you’re horny and someone doesn’t want to fuck you.
According to Stella, if you’re being attacked, “it would be sensible to learn a martial art.” In other words, you will raise your M Defense over the course of this sex magic book, but you’re going to want to put some skill points into Karate. It’s worth reminding everyone this is not only a real human woman being serious, but one who thinks she can teach you how to fuck.
This nerd also reminds sex pests to, you know, “do everything you can” before you resort to supernatural coercion. I’m not a mage cop, but I think the words “compel that person to your side by means of supernatural forces” is a pretty clear confession of a 42-⛧C, the mage police code for “witch groping.”
Let’s skip ahead to the spells.
Not all of the spells are human rights violations. For instance, A SPELL TO SUMMON MORE STAMINA, great name, is a cardio and boner ritual. All you need is 1 red candle, something awesomely called “High John the Conqueror oil,” and “Sharp knife.” The spell itself isn’t very complicated– you rub some of the High John the Conqueror oil on the candle and you’re officially a witch because that’s the whole thing. The third ingredient is only there so your partner remembers you’re a literal wizard holding a knife and maybe this lovemaking deserves their best effort.
The DRAW TOGETHER SPELL is a little less complicated. All you need is a rope, a little caution, and yes, I know what you’re thinking. Does it legally count as “consent” if you’re tying them up and magically forcing them to love you? Look, Stella doesn’t have all the answers, but if she’s approaching you with a bag of reagents it would be, in her words, sensible to learn a martial art.
For the PULL-YOU-TO-ME SPELL, Stella teaches you how to stroke a candle with oil to seduce an unwilling lover. It sounds easy, but if you fuck it up, the invocation polarity gets reversed and you cast the PUSH-YOU-AWAY-FROM-ME SPELL. Weirdly, this is the only spell in the book Stella warns you may cast by accident. Every other ritual is caveated with language like, “it may not work at first” or “you should also maybe learn karate,” but Stella is fully confident the PUSH-YOU-AWAY-FROM-ME SPELL is going to work for her readers. Again, weirdly.
If you have a pen and paper and your sex partner is also a magic user, you can try the SEXY SIGIL SPELL. This is really how you do it: you each write down what you want, cross out any duplicate words, and make an anagram from the remaining letters. Then you each memorize it, keeping it in mind while you make love. If you’ve ever fucked after a night of board games, you’ve cast this spell, which oh my god, explains why I found that Gloomhaven minotaur in my wife.
After telling us about 25 instant recipes to bone anyone we want with only a knife and rope, Stella says “there are no instant recipes for success with sex.” Then she starts in on a chapter about “the senses.” I’ve seen a lot of sex authors hit a wall before they’ve finished their book, but we are only halfway through and this magic nerd has smashed into that wall unused genitals-first. Maybe she thought the ideas would come to her, but after “porking anyone” and “porking longer,” her spellbook was empty. So here we are getting her thoughts on how to use sex magic to enhance the sense of sight:
Stella has five visual sex magic ideas which are, in chronological order: watch porn together, cast spells, cosplay as the porn people, cast spells, and have fun. Maybe she thought her readers would go straight to the HYPNOTIZE THE BALDING CLERK AT PETSMART SPELL and skip over these raw notes from the world’s saddest brainstorming session.
I’m not sure how to even follow this advice. She wants me to watch porn and dress like the characters? Maybe in 2006 you could do that when erotic films were about cheerleaders and delivery men. I don’t think it works today. I’m not going to put on the chain belt from Milfs Look Right Into the Camera and Make it Clear the Viewer is Meant to Be Their Biological Son 7. Maybe Stella is picturing a zany XXX movie parody? If so, should amateur wizards really be making porn parodies of porn parodies? I know enough about magic to know that sounds like a TURN YOUR DICKHOLE INSIDE OUT RITUAL. Sorry for the rough language. I’m a little cranky because I got tricked into this Spider-Woman costume and prolapsed dickhole.
The great thing about Taste magic, or “kitchen witchery,” is that you are already doing it if you season your food. If you haven’t noticed, the expectations in this book are pretty low. By Stella’s standards, an unburnt egg sandwich is a level 9 conjuration. And it will taste fine if you’re a non-magical piece of shit. Ah, but if you’re “attuned to a magical life?” Then, only then, will you appreciate the complexities of food spices and use them to enhance your lovemaking. I think I can translate this for you: Stella once fucked in some soup and decided it made her Fairy Queen of Progresso.
This entire section seems very forced, and Stella comes across smug and condescending. I don’t think it represents her true personality of horny dingbat, so let’s skip ahead to a fun one:
The MOULIN ROUGE SPELL is my favorite spell in all the book. It takes four times the materials and preparation of the most powerful FUCK YOUR WAY TO ANYTHING spell, plus you have to bind the night goddess Hecate to your will. You call upon her cosmos-burning powers! Center the flames on you, and only you! Now! Unleash them! Unleash them to sort of make a big splash when you show up at an event! “By the radiance of the night, I HAVE ARRIVED!” you shall scream into the intercom outside your friend’s building. All eyes will be upon you when you tell the hostess, “CAN YOU NOT HEAR THE SCREAMS OF THE STARS!? HECATE AND I WILL TAKE A TABLE FOR TWO, AND BY THAT, YES, I MEAN A TABLE FOR ONE!!”
And again, I don’t want to sound like a dick, but if your magical spell for making a big entrance requires you to put on your most flamboyant and luscious clothes, can you really call that a magical spell? This is sort of like tying someone up with a rope and thanking the rope god for bringing you a lover. Speaking of testable science, here’s the potion recipe for calling God:
I’m starting to worry Stella is making all this up. Only because these are the two oils Jesus got on his birthday and salad dressing, which is exactly what I think the dumbest idiot would come up with if you asked them how to call God with a potion.
I mentioned this earlier, but this is not my first sex spell book. So I knew we would eventually get to a ritual where we read love poems to a doll made out of our victim’s hair. These are called “poppets” and as long as they have two ears and kind of look human, you can die alone, but with the knowledge that if you could force a person to fuck you, you would.
Magic is easy and foolproof, but not very fast and Stella needs it now. So pick up your phone and call your lov– you know what? We don’t have time for a call. Or some long text conversation where one of you is all, “I told you not to contact me after I found your doll made out of me hair.” Instead, just text your message of desire directly to Ganesha. What happens next is up to you!
A. “yeah, i’m up. you gonna get this elephant trunk wet, girl?”
B. “witch, my girl knows my passcode and she’s the no bullshit goddess of death”
C. Roaming rates may apply to users outside the Infinite Celestial Realm lmao!
D. “I told you not to contact me after you asked me to help kidnap that hair doll guy.”
Let’s do some more quick sex spell tips:
This is an idea only wizards know– make a CD of your favorite music and bone to it!
Have you non-mages heard of “erotic dancing?” This erotic dancing thing going around? It’s like moving around, but oh boy, not like any moving around you’ve ever seen!
Okay, all jokes aside, this is good advice for people who need to charge an amulet and it never occurred to them to smear their wet dick on it.
When you’ve made it your job to give financial sex ritual advice and you say “try squirting on your loose change,” you’ve done it. You’re the best there will ever be and they should retire your jersey. And yet Stella isn’t done. She tells us another thing only witches know about sex– sometimes you need it, and you need it now.
Texting Ganesha is fine when your holes can wait two or three seconds. SPONTANEOUS RITUALS are for when things are urgent. These can be done instantly and with no preparation. What you want to do is call a deity, any deity, and shout into the night how open you are. This is a woman who thinks magic is real and she’s pleading to unnamed primal gods for dick. It’s a loneliness too glorious for human eyes to look upon, but before we get too sad, let’s remember the time she taught us how to get rich quick by cumming on cash.
Stella decided, after 80 pages of sex crimes and summoning prehistoric dark forces to penetrate her every orifice, it might be time to go over some safety tips.
This is all pretty standard stuff. Respect your partner, be prepared to modify your spell if a weird monster shows u– wait, holy shit, safe words don’t work with sex magic and it’s not safe to stop!? What have you gotten us into, Stella? Are you telling me I have to smear this stuff on my cash for the rest of my life? I buy my kid toys with this fucking cash, Stella!
Before she closes with fifty pages of herb spreadsheets, Stella includes a small section for single witches who jerk off with magic, as if the rest of this book was for someone else. And while she never convinced me spells were real, or that she has had sex, I do think she commands unknowable powers. To be clear, she thinks second base is pulling her butt apart and standing in front of an Addams Family Values poster, but she told her potential reader, a forsaken witch about to magically masturbate, they’re “not necessarily beautiful in any obvious way.” And there’s no way you put together an insult that destructive without the help of dark forces.