One of Fryar’s pieces that were displayed was of a masculine figure wearing underwear. Ella Banken//AS Review
Warning: This story contains photos of erotic embroidery that have graphic representations of sex and naked bodies. The images also show a piece that features a reclamation of the f-slur.
By Soleil De Zwart
Rhys Fryar just started making and selling his erotic embroidery in December 2018. He had previous experience with sewing from doing cosplay, but this was his first stab at embroidery. So far, he’s made 30 individual designs and 50 embroidered pieces, he said.
Fryar’s boyfriend cautioned him that he wouldn’t be very good right from the start. But he was good from the start, Fryar said.
Two months later, Fryar is getting commissions for pieces and leaving business cards around campus and downtown Bellingham.
“Just by putting [the business cards] up, you get a few gasps,” he said.
The business card has a few of Fryar’s designs as the background, with a pink triangle in the foreground. The triangle is there because, during World War II, gay people were forced to wear the pink triangle, Fryar said in a text.
Fryar also has a pink triangle tattoo, he said.
Many of his designs are inspired by the porn shared on his Twitter feed, primarily from the gay Twitter community, he said.
“When you’re thrown into [the gay Twitter] world, it’s all porn,” Fryar said.
He begins every embroidery piece by first drawing it out on his iPad and sketching it on the fabric before he makes the first stitch, he said.
This hobby is nothing like his day job, Fryar said. At his day job, he’s a substitute teacher for elementary schools. Between work, classes and sleep, there isn’t a lot of time left for embroidery.
On the average weekend, Fryar spends half the time working on his embroidery, while listening to an audiobook or watching Game of Thrones with a friend, he said.
The first embroidery piece Fryar made took about six hours, he said. Since then, he spends an average of 20 minutes to a few hours on them, depending on their size and detail.
For detailed work, it can take longer. Fryar’s brother, a professional piercer, asked him to add a geesh piercing, between the scrotum and anus, and a Prince Albert piercing, through the head of the penis, for one of his commissions. The detail alone was time consuming, but the thin metallic thread added even more time, he said.
“I know for some people it can be offensive, because it is blatantly an asshole. But I don’t think of it that way, it’s probably because I was exposed to it differently,” Fryar said.
Fryar is planning on doing a series of different erotic embroidery inspired by the different pride flags. He’s recently completed a pansexual flag inspired piece, he said.
During the interview, a passerby stopped to admire the embroidery.
Rhys Fryar’s erotic embroidery can be found @x.x.x.embroidery on Instagram and @xxxembroidery on Twitter.
