“I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume…” Ah, Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass is a poem that must be enjoyed, nay, celebrated, with care, and in this case, a naughty little secret to help punctuate its lovely turns of imagery, assonance, rhythm and Transcendentalist themes.

“…For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you…” Watch the breaths. Listen to the sighs. Most importantly, pay attention to the words because they’re beautiful.

Welcome to part two of photographer Clayton Cubitt’s film project Hysterical Literature with Alicia. You may remember seeing the first one with Stoya reading Supervert’s “Necrophilia Variations” before it got flagged as NC17 for a little while there. YouTube is a tempestuous mistress. Clayton tells ANIMAL:

I’m really testing the limits with it, since it literally shows nothing but pleasure expressed on a face. Kind of hard to censor reasonably, when the women look Victorian.

The emphasis is really about the art and literature and the dichotomy between mind/body and high/low, between what is celebrated and what is considered dirty.

He’s got plenty more in the can and scheduled, both “known” and “unknown” from porn-stars like Stoya, to fashion models, journalist/columnists, and regular gals. It’s not a “porn” thing, that’s why he picked “the least porny porn star around” to kick things off, he says. The Pavlovian element of it is pretty explicit, but only if you overthink it. Just enjoy the reading. Always… enjoying… reading…Read about Stoya’s experience ”…and because this feels so beautifully filthy I don’t want it to stop yet…” and watch her ”lovingly punched with an orgasm” below. I really hope we don’t have to explain what’s going on here. Bzzz.

Check out Clayton Cubitt’s contribution to ANIMAL’s I Should Have Shot That!