POD: A FAQ for alt.sex.cthulhu
Kevin Blackburn
A FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) On The alt.sex.cthulhu USENET
Newsgroup revised 5/10/2006
WHAT IS THIS GROUP FOR?
The description of, and discussion about sex, love, and lust
with beings of the Cthulhu Mythos, and other dimensional over-achievers.
The Cthulhu Mythos was first described to the general human population
of Earth by H.P. Lovecraft, though many others have contributed to the
Mythos.
For some strange reason, there are very few posts on this
wide-ranging topic, of clear interest to all enlightened fun-loving
beings.
Sex with an elder being is unlikely to leave participant's
sanity intact, and is carried out at considerable risk to life and limb,
and limb, and limb, and limb, and limb, and limb, and ....
You have been warned!
See HISTORY section below for further reasons.
ARE YOU SERIOUS?
What do you think?
HOW DO YOU PRONOUNCE CTHULHU?
1) However he(?) wants you to.
2) Don't pronounce it at all, it only attracts their attention,
unless you want that attention...
3) "...and heard the ominous syllables which can be rendered
only as Cthulhu" - H.P. Lovecraft, Call of Cthulhu.
SHOULD I PRACTISE SAFE SEX WITH EXTRA-DIMENSIONAL BEINGS?
You should be so lucky as to last for the incubation period of
any earthly disease if you have sex with Cthulhu!
WHICH ELDER BEING MAKES THE BEST SEX PARTNER?
There are many opinions, but shoggoths come well recommended for
sheer versatility. Thus:
Found posted by: Ny...@blibble.demon.co.uk, November 1994
Retyped in by: Ke...@fairbruk.demon.co.uk(so typos are all my
fault)
10 Reasons why a shoggoth is the perfect lover
----------------------------------------------
1) It can form any pseudopod, and thus can form the perfect
extrusion or cavity to suit your needs.
2) It will sleep on the wet patch, or on the floor, or even in
the garage.
3) It can keep going as long as you want it to.
4) Since it has a different biological basis, it cannot give you
any form of STD, and thus barrier methods are not required. Please
remember to wash your shoggoth in an antiseptic if sharing between
partners.
5) It cannot get you pregnant
6) It can give you a back massage, answer the phone, open a
beer, have sex with multiple people, change the CD _and_ take dictation
all at the same time. (They also make good secretaries.) They do have a
slight problem with Microsoft Word for Windows though, no-one is quite
sure why.
7) It can hold the door shut so no-one can burst in on you.
8) It never suffers from impotence or headaches.
9) It will respect you in the morning and will not leave you for
someone else (unless they happen to know 'bind shoggoth' as well. At
this point your shoggoth will get very confused, split into two
shoggoths, and bits of both will keep commuting between the two masses.
Great for parties.)
10) It won't insist on you meeting it's parents. (If you do meet
its parents, lose 1d6/0 SAN.)
Nyar - now all I have to do is learn to summon one...
--------------------------------------------
Advanced readers might be able to find the post:
"THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO SHOGGOTH SEX"
by kay...@aol.com
for further enlightenment. Poke around those web sites below -
but alas, this seems lost.
DOES THIS NEWSGROUP HAVE ANY RULES OF GOOD TASTE?
No.
Surprising as it may seem, with the title of alt.sex.cthulhu,
many parents probably would not want their children to read some of the
articles posted. Posters may warn of particularly gruesome or extreme
articles, but there is no newsgroup convention demanding this. You read
at your own peril. If eldritch pornography offends you, please flee to
the peace and safety of a different newsgroup.
ARE ADVERTS WELCOME?
Adverts for products or services exclusively concerned with the
subject of the newsgroup are welcome. This includes personnels from
elder beings or willing sacrifices, adverts for sources of mythos smut
and cthuloid sex lines and sex toys for shoggoths.
ALL OTHER ADVERTS, INCLUDING THOSE FOR OTHER SEX PRODUCTS
AND SERVICES, ARE OFF-TOPIC AND NOT TO BE POSTED IN THIS
NEWSGROUP.
ARE THERE ANY CTHULHOID SEX LINES?
Any elder being worth the summoning can travel along phone
wires, so the illusion of safety given by using the phone is false.
Mobile phones are not a problem, direct manifestation through the ether
is a common mode of transport. Thus the demand for cthuloid sex Lines is
limited.
ARE OFF-TOPIC POSTINGS CANCELLED?
To reduce spam, this group requires that proper obeisance be
made to the Old Ones. Thus alt.sex.cthulhu is now keyword retromoderated
by the Great Cthulhubot (called by unbelievers the ascbot) and if this
obeisance is not performed properly, the malformed posts will be fed to
Shub-Internet!
Well, that's the theory. Alas, the ascbot seems to be lying
dreaming, but with strange aeons even death may die, and it might be
back.
A proper obeisance may be made in either or both of two forms:
1) One of the following *Names* may be invoked in the body of
the message: Azathoth, Byakhee, Cthulhu, Hastur, Lovecraft, Nightgaunt,
Nyarlathotep, R'lyeh, Shoggoth, Shub-Niggurath, or Yog-Sothoth;
2) the six character string " POD: " may be inserted in the
Subject field of the post. The leading space is not necessary at the
start of a subject line.
The latter is also recommended irrespective of keywords; see
FINDING THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK
During the transitional period, these keywords may also be
effective in certain other headers. This behaviour of the Cthulhubot is
not guaranteed, so don't depend on it.
Postings that do not make proper obeisance will be cancelled by
the "ascbot", with the exception of properly formatted FAQs and
administrative postings. Well, they might be, anyway.
These cancels follow the "<cancel.", "cyberspam!" "retromod!"
"ascbot!", and "X-Canceled-By: " conventions. News administrators may
block these cancel messages specifically by aliasing out
"ascbot", or generally by aliasing out "retromod" or "cyberspam".
Reports of these cancels will be posted to alt.sex.cthulhu,
alt.retromod, and news.lists.filters. They will also be e-mailed to
each "From:" and "Reply-To: " header in the canceled posts.
Please direct private feedback about this policy to
sex...@cthulhu.org,
and private feedback about the 'bot itself to
asc...@redpoll.mrfs.oh.us.
All hail, Dick Depew, beloved of Cthulhu, for his fine work in
organising this. Well, when it was organised.
The posters of off-topic postings are also assumed to be
inviting mockery, abuse, e-mailed complaints, visits from irate elder
beings, and anything else that appeals to the denizens of the newsgroup.
HOW ABOUT SPAM CANCELLATION?
This newsgroup also welcomes the cancellation of messages
meeting the generally accepted criteria of being SPAM, Excessive
Multiple Postings, and so forth, so long as the proper cancellation
procedures are followed. See news.admin.net-abuse.misc for details of
these criteria and procedures.
Other than the ascbot and cancels based on the above USENET-wide
criteria, further cancels are not welcome.
A NOTE ON RETROMODERATION
Note that the ascbot form of retromoderation, even by a
respected member of USENET, and even though it is keyword based, is
still controversial.
There are people who object to this approach on principle, for
understandable reasons (See "APPENDIX : REALLY BORING PIECE ON REASONS
WHY YOU MIGHT CONSIDER RETROMODERATION BAD") Retromoderation was agreed
on without dissent amongst the active posters to the group at the time,
and was actively discussed in the proper forums. Other mechanisms, such
as a moderated group, were discussed, but were rejected for various
reasons (also in the afore-mentioned appendix).
IF THE ascbot EXISTS, HOW COME THERE'S STILL SO MUCH SPAM?
There are at least three possible reasons:
1) The ascbot is lying dreaming.
2) Retromoderation sends cancels for already posted messages.
Thus the cancel message may not arrive at your Internet Service Provider
before you download the offending message.
3) You may use a service provider that doesn't accept some, or
perhaps any cancels. Some big providers take this attitude. AOL and
AT&T* are known to be Elder Sign protected, and there are certainly
others who do not accept the workings of the Cthulhubot.
<Note: *based on W Allen Montgomery's mention in 'Hold onto the POD'
thread>
SOME HISTORY
From: pal...@netcom.com (Vidushaka)
Hi, it's me again, the guy who newgrouped this newsgroup. I
figured it's about time to reveal the hidden agenda of a.s.c., as the
recent FAQ I saw posted kinda missed this point (Who? Me? Ed.).
Two things became very apparent to me awhile back:
First, that people who know what Cthulhu is are relatively
intelligent. At least, intelligent enough to have actually read a few
books!
Second, that USENET was getting eaten alive by 1-900-JACK-OFF
phone numbers, and that system admins and the like weren't going to do a
damned thing about it - after all, they make money by letting this
activity go on, and why should they cut off their nose to spite their
face?
So I newgrouped this not only to discuss the possibilities of
screwing around with hideous, evil creatures from beyond space and time,
but also to encourage back-spamming. That is, the 1-900 and similar
articles are usually posted indiscriminately to all alt.sex.* hierarchy
newsgroups; thus, they'd often land *here* as well. This, in turn,
would encourage the people on this newsgroup to reply in a way that
would make the original posts the subject of as much ridicule as
possible. After all, anyone who's reading alt.sex.cthulhu has *got* to
have something of a sense of humor! By making intelligent fun of the
spamming 1-900 fools, it might, in turn, discourage people from using
the phone services. A downturn in results from such spams would
(theoretically) reduce their number.
Has it worked? Probably not in the way it was intended, and it
probably never will. Still, it's a good way to pass a few idle minutes
in constructive thought (if not constructive action).
In any case, I just thought that this point might be added to
the existent FAQ (your obedient servant, Ed.), since it's a big part of
the reason this newsgroup was created in the first place. This is NOT
meant to discourage people from doing other things with it (such as the
general posts, the stories, etc., that have appeared here); it's merely
intended to encourage more people to ALSO use it to have a good laugh
while the alt.* hierarchy descends into smarmy oblivion.
Thanks, and remember:
CTHULHU LOATHES YOU!
*-*-*-*
Or else:
In article <9ve058$pmg$1...@samba.rahul.net>, Justin Campbell
<j...@rahul.REMOVE.invalid> writes
>Having recently discovered Google.com's amazing archive of almost all
>Usenet postings, I searched back to the early days of our beloved
>group. I believe I have found the very first post to alt.sex.cthulhu
>(message 4 is the first in this thread with a.s.c in the Newsgroups
>line).
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&frame=right&th=e8695b44af10c914&see
km=CqA6xt.1uDH%40yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU
Some else tells me of:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=CqA6xt.1uDH%40yuma.ACNS.ColoState.ED
U
ARE PICTURES (GIFS, ETC.) WELCOME?
This is not a newsgroup in the alt.binaries hierarchy, and so,
strictly, no. However, readers of the newsgroup are happy to see a small
number of mythos-related pictures. An ideal is perhaps that no more than
an average of 1 GIF per day should be posted, from any source.
Furthermore, posting "Does any one wish to see GIFs of ..." messages
before actually submitting the pictures is to be encouraged.
HOWEVER, some Internet providers are strongly against such
postings by their users. You may want to find an appropriate binaries
group and post a pointer in this news group.
ARE THERE ANY ARCHIVES?
From: Justin Martin Campbell <j...@rahul.net>
Newsgroups: alt.sex.cthulhu
Subject: POD: A.S.C Archive
The alt.sex.cthulhu archive is now up. You can check it out at
http://www.cthulhu.org/smut/.
I've got a few more stories to add, but it has a number right
now, as well as pictures, and articles. Enjoy, and if you've got
anything to submit please send it to: sto...@cthulhu.org. Thanks,
Justin Campbell
FINDING THE NEEDLE IN THE HAYSTACK
With the quantity of spam in the newsgroup it can be hard(!) to
find on-topic posts. Some posters has taken to prefixing their subject
lines with "POD:", from the Miskatonic U. slogan "Go, 'pods, go!". Given
that this also is one of the proper obesiances to the Elder Ones the
approach is doubly recommended. Furthermore, some readers of the
newsgroup, your humble author included, killfile any message not so
prefixed, unless it comes from particular sources.
WHAT RELATED NEWSGROUPS ARE THERE?
Not that they would admit it, but:
alt.horror.cthulhu: addresses the more literary aspects of the
Cthulhu Mythos. Not a good place to send tales of wild eldritch sex,
just reminders of where to find it. Also quite a bit on the Call of
Cthulhu Role-playing game.
alt.horror.shub-internet addresses those elder beings who dwell
within the Internet. Be kind to this group, Shub-Internet has so long
gorged here that on topic posts are very rare.
If someone doesn't feed Shub-Internet soon she may break forth and roam
wild and free - if you thought spam was bad, think rogue canceller on
psychedelics. Various people are cross-posting all their alt.sex.cthulhu
posts there for others who are having newsfeed problems, or are choking
on the spam in a.s.c. No objections by Shub-Internet have yet been
seen, but I'd keep looking.
alt.necronomicon: Very quiet at the moment.
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.anime (more populous) &
alt.binaries.pictures.erotic.anime - erotic anime art, but some
of the art is girls and monsters, so ...
These are the obvious places to post japanese-sourced
pictures of Cthulhu porn, and then pointers in alt.sex.cthulhu.
alt.sex.hello-kitty: Hello Kitty, and perhaps more importantly
Evil Goodbye Kitty, sometimes manifest in forms very reminiscent of our
own eldritch fan-favourites. Sometimes they even stalk our own "happy"
hunting grounds.
alt.coven.cthulhu - Not a clue what this is for, but it
generally preserves an eerie silence. Oh, and H. West, uber-troll.
WHAT RELATED WEB SITES ARE THERE?
Other than http://www.cthulhu.org/smut/ (updated Dec 2001),
mentioned above you could try:
(all checked at least 4/9/2005)
http://www.wildlife-fantasy.com/tentacle.html (updated sometime
in 2005) Web of Tentacles
http://home.pacbell.net/rlacher/warning.html (Seems to only have
the skeleton of a site left)
Shub-Internet's House of Writhing Tentacles
http://www.io.com/~djuneau/Podophilia.html lies dreaming with
Cthulhu
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~bs904/ (updated November 1998)
Andrew Nellis's work
http://www.naughtytentacles.com - alas once turned into
a webcam site of some human wench with not a hint of
tentacles, now an anime porn guide.
http://www.fastwww.com/thewomaneater (lies dreaming with
Shub-Internet)
The Woman Eater (the guy who runs it is trying to do a
low budget movie of some loony in an old country house feeding his dates
to his pet monster from beyond, sounds very Lovecraftian)
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necshog.htm (from 1997, site
(c) 2004) How to summon a shoggoth
http://www.cthulhusex.com
Cthulhu Sex Magazine: Blood, Sex and Tentacles
(last mutilated 10/5/2006)
Well worth poking around the links
http://www.epberglund.com/RGttCM/
The Reader's Guide to the Cthulhu Mythos and Nightscapes
(last mutilated 9/9/2005 so I'm told)
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6716/cthulhu.html (eaten by
Shub-Internet)
http://www.general.uwa.edu.au/u/toivo/cthulhu/
Cthulhoid entities - how to spot them and what to do
when spotted.
http://www.thevalkyrie.com/main.html
Once upon a time this had a story concerning a
superheroine taking on a Cthulhu cult in the Caribbean?!? Can't find it,
but there's plenty of very silly looking stories therein.
http://www.cthulhulives.org/shoggoth/
Concerning the production of the musical "A Shoggoth on
the Roof". Sadly, this never got staged - but in October 2003, Chicago
something may happen too mind boggling to imagine (alas lawyers may have
spoilt this perfect moment, unable to understand parody). Until that
time there is a professionally-produced CD featuring all eleven numbers
from A
Shoggoth on the Roof, performed by a small hoarde of professional
singers and crazed thespians, a libretto, even and MP3 samples on the
site. Oh, and the CD is marvellous! Poke around the rest of site, and
you will also find some exceedingly silly carolling to the Old Ones for
sale. Last updated November 2006.
http://gravenimages.scifi-fantasy.com (The stars don't seem to be
right for this site)
Various bits of artwork, some of which may appeal to
patrons of the group. Including RJL's art work of
vorophilac monstrosities from beyond time and space preying on nubile
women that would give Freud a field day.
http://www.dorianart.com/index.html
Various bits of artwork, including some of those seen on
A.S.C. of old.
http://angelfire.com/ks/leah1/index.html
Leah's Loathsome Corner - Leah knows all about the
tribulations of being a cultist. And was rearranging
the site when I checked (still is 4/9/2005) but still
fun oddments
http://www.abcb.com/ency/t/tentacle.htm
For a definition of tentacle porn.
http://www.shoggoth.net
Not much sex, but might entertain.
http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/Cthulhu/Shaggy
The Doom that came to the Mystery Machine *twitch*
http://ghastly.keenspace.com/
"Tentacle monsters and the women who love them"
Web comic.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Cthulhu_Smut
If you prefer Yahoo for such things. Which people seem
not to as the last post shown is in April 2003.
http://www.eroticadrawings.com/ing/hokusai_.htm
Girl and octopus - a classic picture
http://galaxy-of-terror.com/critters.html
Various monster sex film "shorts" for sale, with stills.
http://www.gotfanart.com/Stories/TentacleYourFancy1.html
Incomplete parody of tentacle anime, but fun.
http://home.wanadoo.nl/mh/museum/194.htm
http://home.wanadoo.nl/mh/museum/196.htm
Odd little statuettes. Very odd.
http://www.zapatopi.net/cephnews/
ZPi Cephalopod News - all straight science, but
different.
http://www.tentacle-hentai.com/
What it says in the URL, I guess. Requires Cyberage ID.
http://www.schnada.de
Various bits of art, some Cthulhoid, for example
http://www.schnada.de/bilders/monge/tentaculious.html
HISTORY OF THE FAQ
13/8/95 Updated to mention alt.binaries.pictures.erotic.anime
30/11/95 Added HISTORY section as verbatim from a posting to
a.s.c. added Pronunciation section.
29/6/96 Added Shoggoth section
23/1/97 Removed pictures alt.binaries.pictures.erotic.anime
suggestion, added stories note.
23/2/97 Changed Archive section, and added mention of POD.
19/6/97 Added mentions of the ascbot, removed old comments on
cancelling.
6/7/97 Various improvements, inspired by Asi...@aol.com.
13/8/97 Various reorderings and tinkering, again inspired by
Asi...@aol.com. Noted "THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO SHOGGOTH
SEX".
20/9/97 Mentioned two web sites.
21/9/97 Mentioned mirror of one of those sites.
19/10/97 Added Boring Bits. Updated related newsgroups list.
Added URL's.
27/1/98 Added another URL
22/2/98 More URL's
20/5/98 Another URL.
3/9/98 Minor tidying.
20/10/98 Checked & tidied URLs.
20/6/99 Checked URLs - added a guess at "last updated" for each
web page.
19/4/2000 Updated web links following notes by
toff <tof...@earthlink.net>.
7/5/2000 Bit more work on new URLs
21/10/2000 URL checking, ascbot notes
20/11/2000 Added a URL
20/12/2000 Added Dorian Art URL
22/2/2001 Added Leah's Loathsome Corner URL
14/6/2001 Added another URL
21/12/2001 Added a little more history
20/2/2003 Checking URLs, adding a couple
16/3/2003 Added another link and a snippet
21/7/2003 Corrected a link and added a few more
27/2/2004 Added a URL
26/3/2004 Link checking
4/9/2005 Link checking
19/8/2006 Link checking
5/10/2006 Added http://www.schnada.de
****** Warning - Only Boring Bits follow *******
APPENDIX : REALLY BORING PIECE ON REASONS WHY YOU MIGHT CONSIDER
RETROMODERATION BAD
This is just an old rant by the FAQs primary author, ignore it...
Cancelling Usenet messages (used by retromoderation) is fundamentally a
bad mechanism:
It's misusing a method intended for an entirely different purposes;
It generates a message per message to be cancelled per canceller
(cancel messages are now starting to be a few percent of the total
USENET messages!);
It has no authentication mechanism other than ad hoc ones. That is,
any kook, vandal or fool can write cancels, and those cancels look
as good as "proper" ones.
Addressing these points is what NoCeM is all about, but fewer ISPs
pay attention to NoCeM than cancels, so ...
The presence of retromoderation is not clear to a new poster:
The newsgroup name doesn't end in ".moderated";
The charter at creation never mentioned it;
And those poor little lambs who want to come onto USENET and not read
newsgroups before posting are going to be so hurt when some big bad
netcop stomps all over their now lost-for-ever masterpiece ('cos
they'll never figure out how to repost it, dear little losers that
they are). And all this without any sort of warning. Such as in that
FAQ that it be surely death to read before posting, or that odd
collection of letters all the on-topic posts have at the start for
presumably no good reason. Err, sorry, I'm ranting, I think this
reason stinks, but never mind, I can sort of see the nanny mind that
thinks it proper.
The people who argue this way would say the proper thing to do,
regardless, is create a new group, properly tagged, and properly
chartered. There are a variety of reasons we don't choose to do this:
It's defeatist;
It would lose us people who only pop in "from time to time";
The propagation through ISP's of a new alt.sex newsgroup is
likely to be atrocious to non-existent.
The mod. hierarchy, a plausible alternative, is not currently
fully functional (or at least wasn't when the decision was made)
In general, retromoderation merely means that one or more people cancel
messages for some reason or other:
The fear is that the reasons may be censorious, or petty hatreds;
And the fear is that, no matter how honourable the initial intentions
the cancellers might go bad (who, us, worshippers of all the evil you
might need?);
And the fear is that the canceller might not reflect the group's
desires;
And the fear is that any set of rules are open to interpretation of
what is on-topic.
On alt.sex.cthulhu we address these fears in these ways:
We discussed the matter, and no regular poster or plausible
lurker objected (Ia, Ia, Kramer, get thee far from my side)
We publish the set of rules on which we cancel, and don't
deviate from those rules;
The rules are objective: if the post doesn't have POD in the
subject line, or certain keywords in the body, it is cancelled.
There's no sense of judgement there - it is black and white;
The cancellation is carried out by a robot run by an impartial
(if most praiseworthy) outsider, Dick Depew, just in case we
were tempted to bend the rules.
LEGAL GUFF, AS IF CTHULHU WOULD PAY ANY ATTENTION
(C) 1995-2006 K. Blackburn, Ke...@fairbruk.demon.co.uk, except for items
specifically acknowledged. This material may be freely distributed and
excerpted from, as long as the source is acknowledged, this statement
reiterated, and no charge is made for distribution beyond reasonable
costs.
--
Kevin Blackburn Ke...@fairbruk.demon.co.uk