The Greenhouse in the Bathhouse: Ecosexuality and the Legacy of Libertine Botany

This article offers a reflection on the legacy of libertine botany from a contemporary perspective, arguing that its impulses and quirks can be found in projects such as Pony Express's "Ecosexual Bathhouse" art installation and the artivisim of Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens. The essay also offers a critique of some of these projects from an asexuality studies perspective, noting that they tend to take plants as avatars of sex positivity – thus occluding their asexual capacities—and that they often conflate categories such as the erotic and the sexual.