There’s a three-day period in Lovell Lykaon’s life where he has no recollection of the events that transpired that caused him to be admitted into the hospital as a non-disabled person, only to leave with all of his limbs amputated. The 27-year-old Atlanta native, graphic designer, musician, and adult entertainer tells The Reckoning that his usual stroll in the park during the fall of 2019 turned out to be the beginning of a dramatic shift in his life within a matter of days. 

“All I remember was going home from the park with my bestie,” said Lykaon. 

“I remember making it home. And she said, I went out, and I came back. My job was at [the retail store] Guess at the time. I’m thinking I was about to go up to Woodstock, Georgia to work at Guess, and I woke up in the hospital, like, what happened? And when I woke up, I couldn’t move, bandages were all wrapped up and everything. I felt my legs, but at the time they didn’t tell me they were going to amputate me, they said they just wanted me to recover. They said sepsis got into my bloodstream, which ended up spreading from my feet all the way up. It was attacking my body,” he said. 

“It went from sepsis to a blood infection, which caused gangrene. The gangrene turned my limbs black, and by the time that happened, there was nothing they could do. My limbs were black, my feet were solid [black] almost to my knees and my hands were black.” 

Lykaon says even after his doctor clarified that amputation would be necessary in order to stop the gangrene from spreading, he still tried to maintain his usual positive outlook, despite being so sick that he was vomiting black blood. It was soon thereafter that Lykaon’s positivity turned into despair. 

“How am I gonna live like this?,” Lykaon recalls asking himself as he laid in his hospital bed confused and trying to remember the events that led him there. “I literally told them the next day after the amputation, I was like, just let me go, let it be,” he said. 

But Lykaon’s husband of one year, who is referred to only by the single screen name, Kameo, also an adult entertainer and CEO of Atlanta-based Kameo Entertainment, refused to let him give up. The pair started dating after Kameo accepted an invitation from Lykaon to attend an erotic photoshoot at his home nearly seven years ago. And while they are partners in marriage, it’s not uncommon for followers of Lykaon’s sexy alter ego, @BionicXxXBunny on Twitter, or subscribers of @lovell_lykaon on Only Fans to see the couple partnering in business, too. Lykaon bravely ventured back in front of the camera to co-star with Kameo in scenes for his Only Fans, without his prosthetic limbs. A move that was met with both praise and intense scrutiny. 

How do you fake this? 

If Lykaon had to adjust to his new body with bionic limbs, then longtime followers would need a moment to learn to embrace the eye candy they’d become accustomed to seeing online in a new way. While some fans easily transitioned, Lykaon said others questioned if he’d fabricated the story for internet fame after a picture with a perceived flaw in his new prosthetics was posted on Twitter. 

“There was a little flaw in that picture near my foot. It was a little dent in the foot. I said, okay I’m gonna leave it because nobody’s gonna look at it,” said Lykaon. “That picture went viral on Twitter. Everybody was like, ‘this is fake.’ This is not really me. I ventured onto Reddit, and a lot of people were saying that ‘I hate the fact that you’re faking this to be popular.’ How do you fake this?"

Lykaon says this was the first time his skills as a graphic designer and editor backfired, providing oxygen for the rumors to breathe. And if the keyboard courage of Twitter followers questioning the reality of his amputee experience, and his decision to continue occupying space as an adult entertainer through images and video weren’t enough—former colleagues in the adult industry were prepared to add insult to injury. 

“Why are you doing this? You don’t belong here in this industry. This is not for people like you,” Lykaon recalls being told by other adult performers. 

“It was a real punch in my face, cause I was like, a lot of y’all I’ve helped with pictures. A lot of you people have “liked” my work and don’t know that I’ve edited this stuff. I’ve been doing graphic design and working with different models for a very long time. That put me in a really dark place,” he said. 

But luckily, Lykaon didn’t stay in that dark place for very long. He slowly began learning to walk on his own again, using his prosthetic limbs. But because of the pandemic, Lykaon says it has been extremely difficult to gain access to outpatient rehabilitation. Yet he has shown progress in meaningful ways that impact his day-to-day. 

“The first thing I learned how to use was my phone,” said Lykaon. “I was able to use my little nubs to use my phone to make calls. And that slowly developed to using the TV and photoshop on my iPad.” 

But what about sex? 

Fans of Lykaon or his alter ego Bionic XxX Bunny, who are used to consuming his adult material, were certainly interested in his new sex life. But Lykaon says for a period he didn’t feel sexy and expressed zero interest in sex. But that was before he experimented. 

“As I slowly became more comfortable with myself, I started experimenting,” he said. 

“I never really used a fleshlight. But I can hold things. I was like, hm? Do I try this? I’m gonna get it! And that worked perfectly. At first, I was like, how am I gonna grip this?” 

In a demonstrative moment, Lykaon then proceeds to grip a PowerAde bottle nearby to showcase his grip mastery, which has both aided in quenching his thirst and allowing him to continue to reach orgasm through self-pleasure by utilizing his fleshlight. 

“Intercourse was still the same. Everything still works below, so I was able to top, bottom, things of that nature,” said Lykaon, whose sexual transparency directly challenges the notion that sleep is the only thing happening between the sheets of people who have experienced an amputation. 

Yet, as the receptive partner during sex, Lykaon still had one more obstacle to overcome in order to be ready for penetrative sex with his husband. And like every other obstacle he’s faced, he met it head-on. 

“Bae was like, ‘I can help you.’ And I was like, no! I’m gonna research,” he said. 

“I ended up doing magnesium citrate, and that worked out well for me. My body literally had a reset. I found an alternative. I was like, I’m not gonna sit here and let you [Kameo] hold this bottle for me,” he said through laughter. “And being in the [adult] field we know what to eat and what not to. We know how to prepare for that.” 

But whether preparing for pleasure with his husband on screen together or in the privacy of their home, the steps always came easy for Lykaon. Yet, lying in a hospital bed for three months looking at the four walls of his room was foreign, unwelcomed, and one of the toughest challenges of his life to date. His decision to leave those dark moments behind and to choose joy going forward made the difference between simply existing in his new body or thriving. 

“I always tell people I left the dark places at the hospital,” said Lykaon. “That was my time of grief. When you get out—that’s the time to live life.”