“Hence love spells suffering for us in so far as it is a quest for the impossible, and at a lower level, a quest for union at the mercy of circumstance.”
“Eroticism” by Georges Bataille (1957)
01/08/2023, London, UK
My dear,
Welcome to the first ever digital newsletter for the White Lily Society! Such a silly little thing technology can be- if it was at all doable I would’ve sent you all a very pretty raven. Or a murder of crows. But alas, this is very much a digital world we live in. Though that doesn’t mean we can’t bring the romance back to technology, of course.
Big things first, the official White Lily archive is now live! After about three months of work curating and reading, there’s now a good selection of writing available to peruse. This archive document will serve as one big catch-all for all manners of articles and resources related to the White Lily Society values that you might be interested in.
It is this same archive that will be the main purpose of this newsletter, though I intend to also use this platform to discuss other adjacent topics like books, new White Lily Society write ups on Instagram (and on Substack), some personal updates, museum recommendations, etc on here. Basically, I intend to use this platform as a digital scrapbook of sorts, and I will be furiously pasting all sorts of things in it. Somebody, bring me my scissors! If it concerns the intersection of love and violence, and/or romanticism and related topics, it will most definitely be included.
Additionally, I’m toying around with the idea of a separate newsletter add-on for my personal writings and ramblings, but currently that is all still very much within the realm of ideas only. For now, the classic White Lily Society manifesto (ie. Angel Talks on Love and Violence) is available to read on the substack here.
So, what do you say we get on with some of the updates, shall we?
I. Archive updates
It would be foolish of me to try and give you a list of all the sources in the archive, as there is quite a wealth of them at the moment, even just starting out. What you need to know is that there are five main categories of sources on offer; “Articles, essays, texts”, “Non-fiction work”, “Short fiction work”, “Full fiction work” and “Databases & resources”, within which a whole host of other subcategories exist. The archive is fully tagged and searchable, and ready to be browsed at your own leisure here. For now, let me just select some of my favourites.
“The Aesthetics of Fear” - link
This essay was one of the instigating sources for the idea of the archive. It’s so succinct, so well-written. Truly a great rumination on fear, horror, terror, the Gothic, our cultural attraction to vampires, and yes, the intersection of love and violence.
“Horror through the prism of a reflective consciousness" & "Something in us wants to be seduced, violated, transformed: our innocence, like our virginity, torn from us.”
“On Self Respect” - link
A classic 1962 essay from Joan Didion, and the reason I ever stop all my procrastinating. From way back from the days when Vogue still had top notch journalism enclosed within its pages, this essay is classic rumination on what it means to respect yourself.
“However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves.”
“My Vampire Boyfriend: Postfeminism, ‘Perfect’ Masculinity, and the Contemporary Appeal of Paranormal Romance” - link
Of course this newsletter wouldn’t be complete without a fully dedicated mention of vampires. This paper looks at a slew of different vampire shows and books, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to the Silver Kiss books. Most of all, this paper is an interesting dive into the vampire as a romantic figure, and the vampire’s status as the ‘everyman’ of romance media boyfriends.
“By giving the entire story a fantastical premise, such exacting gendered expectations are rendered less fantastical themselves. […] they also make qualities desirable, which, in actual men in real relationships, might be quite unsettling.”


II. Romeo and Juliet
One of my most recent obsessions has been Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. For the past month or so, there’s been quite a lovely, brutal, engrossing production of it at the Almeida Theatre here in London. I’ve gone to see it three times.
This particular production has been my first ever time interacting not only with the full text of a Shakespeare work, but also with a stage production of his work (I know, I know), and I have plenty of thoughts. Most of them I’ve saved for a potential YouTube video, but I would like to add here that this play is truly the embodiment of the intersection of love and violence. Not only in the direct plot itself, but also in all those wonderful sections and lines foreshadowing our star-crossed lovers’ inevitable fate. Sections like this;
“O son, the night before thy wedding day Hath death lain with thy wife. There she lies, Flower as she was, deflowerèd by him. Death is my son-in-law. Death is my heir. My daughter he hath wedded [...]"
IV.5 Capulet, “Romeo and Juliet”, William Shakespeare (1597)
From Juliet’s lines to Romeo as he leaves for his banishment, to the Friar’s lines about the flower, vice and virtue, or even all the little mentions of death peppered in through the text. There is so much sumptuous, sneaky foreshadowing within the text. Which is exactly what I love to read! And now, having seen the play three times there are plenty of parts of the text practically and permanently burned onto my brain. Therefore, this classic deserved a mention in this month’s letter.
III. What’s new: Baby’s first Instagram suspension
Now, let’s discuss something much less exciting. Yesterday afternoon, right after announcing this very archive and newsletter launch, the White Lily Society Instagram account got suspended for sexual solicitation. What a horror, to see something I attach a great deal of meaning to be struck down by something so ungraspable. I swear, every time I have to interact with these huge platforms’ hellscapes of bureaucracy it’s downright Lovecraftian. Even when it is obvious that the account was in no way violating Instagram’s content policy, it’s still something so uniquely out of reach that it makes me want to yell into the void. So frustratingly far-removed. A premature burial at worst, a temporary curtain call at best.


Thus, seeing as this has obviously been plaguing my mind, I thought it would be fun to share my thoughts on being suspended on Instagram. And by ‘fun’ I mean it would be a good way to discuss censorship, art, morality, and trigger warnings for a bit. Oh boy.
Thought the White Lily Society may be dedicated to the intersection of love and violence (romanticism, eroticism), there has always been a sort of barrier to posting content explicitly discussing or engaging with these topics directly. It’s uniquely mind-boggling that Instagram does not have proper age-restriction and trigger warning features. Even having read the, admittedly vague, content guidelines it feels like a gamble trying to post anything that could at all be considered “risqué” to the platform. And that’s annoying, to say the least. It’s excruciating.
Nobody is advocating for Instagram to become Tumblr 2.0, but I think there should be more tools in place to be able to post light gore (ie. images containing [fake] blood) and light artistic nudity (ie. free the nipple!). Now, there is simply no way to make sure these kinds of posts don’t accidentally get shown to un-consenting audiences or minors. There is no way to create a safe environment to engage with these ideas and artworks within Instagram, and so they’re not posted at all. But there should be a space for these artworks and images, there should be tools in place to allow willing, consenting adults to view such images that toe the line between the ultra-sanitised artwork often seen on Instagram and the ultra-violence of yonder. So; not pornography, not footage of beheadings, but simply artwork with more mature themes.
The core of the issue goes a lot deeper though; allowing such content means drawing the line on what would be seen as art, and what would be seen as pornography or excessive violence. In how far does a trigger warning negate the potential effects of seeing a disturbing image? Does '“viewer discretion advised” apply to algorithmic social media platforms? How much, or how little, should we be applying a trigger warning to, to begin with?
I fear I’m rambling and posing questions I haven’t even got a crumb of an answer to (a bad habit of mine), so to return to the White Lily Society suspension; there is absolutely zero doubt that the artwork shared there has been completely safe and by the book. All the more “explicit” stuff has remained exclusively on Tumblr. So I guess now that the appeal’s been sent in, and I’ve said my piece on here, all that’s left to do is wait. Sucks that I’m the most impatient person on planet earth, but I remain ever stubborn and determined. So if this is a waiting game, I’ll be sure to count the minutes, and think some more about social media trigger warnings in the meantime. Oh, and update the archive of course. Those new readings aren’t going to add themselves.


And that, my dear, concludes the first ever White Lily Society newsletter! From vampire boyfriends to star-crossed lovers and social media suspensions, that’s about as thick a slice of my brain I’m willing to serve you this August. Cherry on top available on request, at an extra charge of course. Thank you so much for tuning in for the newsletter, and for being a part of the White Lily Society. Remember to always sink your teeth into what you feel passionate about, and never to let go. Until we next meet,
x Sabrina Angelina, the White Lily Society
Currently reading: “the Ophelia Girls” by Jane Healey // Most recent read: “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare
White Lily Society links // Sabrina Angelina links
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