Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos is a non-fiction book by Bobby Derie, published by Hippocampus Press in 2014, that looks at the role of sexuality and gender in the life and work of H. P. Lovecraft, and in the Cthulhu Mythos that he inspired.
Derie first looks at the role sexuality and gender played in Lovecraft's life, particularly in the context of his marriage to Sonia Greene, and the ideas he expressed about sex and love. Lovecraft's views on homosexuality and miscegenation are examined.
He then turns to Lovecraft's fiction, first looking at the way sexuality was expressed in the literature that influenced him, particularly Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Machen. Derie goes on to analyze the sexual content in various Lovecraft stories, including “Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family” (1920), “The Outsider” (1921), “The Lurking Fear” (1922), “The Rats in the Walls” (1923), “The Unnamable” (1923), “The Horror at Red Hook” (1925) The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926–27), The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927), “The Dunwich Horror” (1928), “The Shadow over Innsmouth” (1931), “The Dreams in the Witch House” (1932), and “The Thing on the Doorstep” (1933).
Turning to the Lovecraft's legacy, Derie discusses a number of writers in the Mythos tradition whose work has dealt with sexual themes to a greater or lesser extent, including Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Ramsey Campbell, Richard A. Lupoff, Peter H. Cannon, Brian McNaughton, Robert M. Price, W. H. Pugmire, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Edward Lee, and Alan Moore.
The book makes note of the magazine Cthulhu Sex (1998–2007) and anthologies of erotic Mythos fiction such as Eldritch Blue: Love & Sex in the Cthulhu Mythos (2004), Cthulhurotica (2010), and Whispers in Darkness: Lovecraftian Erotica (2011).
While critical discussions of the Mythos generally focus on written fiction, Derie looks more broadly at the sexuality in the Lovecraftian occult, and in art, comics, and cinema.