When: 4 - 6pm, February 14th 2026

Where: BARZAKH Café, Brooklyn, NY

Tickets: Luma

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CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER: Romance vs. Eros ❤️‍🔥

​join ly & jun (aka The Flat Men) as they battle it out ~ literary style ~ romance vs. eros!

• ​we will start by setting the scene with some smutty-sexy-romantic readings

• ​followed by a chance to write your own romantic/erotic pieces

• ​ending with an open mic (sign up for open mic here).

​plus, a raffle to win items including from The Ripped Bodice, Taillors, and Desert Island! 🌹 (if you'd like to donate to the raffle, please get in touch!)

​let's take the bullshit capitalism out of vday and get hot & literary together bc there ain't nothing sexier than community <3 so bring your friends, lovers, crushes and we'll see you there!

​Sliding scale tickets on the door, with $20 suggested donation. 100% of donations and sales will go to The Immigrant Defense Project, which has been assisting against deportation for 30+ years.

​₊˚⊹♡₊୨ৎ˚⊹♡₊୨ৎ˚⊹♡₊୨ৎ⊹˚♡₊୨ৎ⊹˚♡₊୨ৎ⊹˚₊

​“Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world, rather than merely settling for a shift of characters in the same weary drama [...] For not only do we touch our most profoundly creative source, but we do that which is female and self-affirming in the face of a racist, patriarchal, and anti-erotic society.”

​― Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

​“what makes erotica radical is not the sex, it’s the honesty. it allows women to name what they want without having to redeem it. romance tells women that love will save them. erotica suggests they might save themselves through desire and curiosity. and that’s what makes it ethical, even when it’s transgressive. it’s the literature that lets women be whole.”

​— caitlyn on substack

​"I have become more romantic the more acquainted I get with the realities of the inevitable apocalypse. I find myself extremely acquainted with those realities right now and that presents a reality that requires me to understand not that "love cures all', but that I have to find a way for my affections to thrive in a landscape that is hostile to them.

​And that requires innovation, an innovation steeped in a depth of romantics and an almost aggressive seeking of pleasure that isn't stagnant, a pleasure that keeps me alive and sends me back into the world, looking for a way to make something better. My understanding of apocalyptic realities doesn't mean that I'm ushering in the apocalypse or trying to accelerate it. To the contrary, I'm trying to hold it off for as long as I can.

​And in order to do that, I need to be renewed by just a real commitment to pursuing and keeping alive the affections that hold me more firm to the world that is so that I can hopefully help build a world that is not."

​— Hanif Abdurraqib