The History of BDSM – Documenting my research in the history of consensual sadomasochism

May 18, 2025: The Celluloid Dungeon at Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago

Mar 072025

Ask any kinky person where they got their first hint of BDSM desire, and chances are they will name something from mainstream film or television: Catwoman or Emma Peel on 1960s TV, the whipping scenes in gladiator movies, the damsels-in-distress in a thousand melodramas. Generations of fans found these scenes of fetishistic pleasure and assembled them into collections, piecing together a history of sadomasochistic moments.

The Celluloid Dungeon uncovers the hidden history of BDSM in the mainstream media, a complex dance of repression and desire. For every step to expand the visibility of kink on screen, there’s an equal and opposite reaction to contain it. Popular successes like Secretary or Fifty Shades of Grey show kink, but only the most conservative form of it.

About the Presenter

Peter Tupper is a Vancouver, BC writer and historian. He is a two-time winner of the National Leather Association’s Geoff Mains award for non-fiction, a co-founder of Metro Vancouver Kink, and author of A Lover’s Pinch: A Cultural History of Sadomasochism (2018). He has presented at events across North America on the history of BDSM. He blogs at www.historyofbdsm.com

Date: Sunday, May 18, 2025
Time: 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Time Zone: Central Time – US & Canada (change)
Location: LA&M Etienne Auditorium,
6418 North Greenview Avenue
Chicago, Illinois, United States

Leather Archives & Museum event

Fetlife event

History of BDSM Mailing List

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May 292018

Link Digest, March 2025

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Mar 172025

Filmmaker Magazine has an interview with Angelo Madsen, director of a new documentary on the late Fakir Musafar.
From the Internet Archive:
- Rubber Life magazine, 1974
- Stanton Archive catalog, 1994
- Scan of the booklet that accompanied a CD recording of Dave Stevens interviewing Betty Page, including a transcript. Published 2001
- Scans of a 1956 FBI memorandum regarding “Interstate Transportation of Obscene Matters”, with mentions of Bettie Page.

The Idiots (Idioterne) (1998): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Mar 172025

The Idiots is a 1998 Danish black comedy/drama written and directed by Lars von Trier, shot under the rules of the Dogme 95 manifesto.

The semi-mockumentary film concerns a small group of people who pretend in public to be mentally disabled, which they call “spazzing”. They do this as an elaborate prank, as a kind of performance art, as a passive-aggressive attack on society (épater les bourgeois), and for other reasons. Rotating members of the group play “the minders”. Karen, a seemingly lost woman, is swept up in the group and stays with them.

Stoffer draws Karen into the group of “spazzers”.

George Costanza: [In a depression clinic] I should be in a place like this. I envy this woman. You get to wear slippers all day. Friends visit. They pity you. Pity is very underrated.
Seinfeld, S03E02 “The Truth”

I discuss this film because it brushes up against certain expressions of masochism, particularly those that involve public roleplay and abjection. We know that Hannah Cullwick and Arthur Munby often did public roleplay, as did Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Aurora Rumelin. This connects with the kink of disability fetishism, such as the creative works of “Paracathy“, as well as certain forms of ageplay.

Babygirl (2024): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Mar 032025

Babygirl is a 2024 drama directed by Halina Reijn and starring Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson and Antonio Banderas.

Romy (Kidman) is a corporate executive in an automated shipping company. She’s also the mother of two teenage daughters, and wife to her stage director husband Jacob (Banderas). One montage shows that she subjects herself to exercise and cosmetic treatments, like botox.

Her backstory is that she was raised in hippie communes, but went into the corporate world, and brings her smartphone to bed with her. Much of her job appears to be performing prepared scripts for corporate videos, full of neoliberal buzzwords. She puts a human face on what is basically an inhuman process, represented by shots of blocky robots working in an automated warehouse.

The pressures of Romy’s seemingly ideal life leave her stretched thin. After faking an orgasm with her handsome and loving husband, she tiptoes to her home office, plays maledom/femsub porn on her laptop, and masturbates while covering her own mouth.

Link Digest, February 2025

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Feb 172025

Out reports on how Durk Dehner, co-founder of the Tom of Finland Foundation, has resigned from his position as president. This comes after International Mr. Leather removed Dehner as a judge because of the discovery of private photos of him in Nazi regalia. Of course, this sparked a lot of discussion on Facebook about fascist aesthetics and ideologies in gay male leather.
The New Books network podcast has an interview with Judith Giesberg, author of Sex and the Civil War: Soldiers, Pornography, and the Making of American Morality. She talks how the American Civil War affected developments in sexuality, including the rapid growth in pornography and the subsequent backlash led by crusaders like Anthony Comstock, and how anti-slavery media had the perverse effect of eroticizing slavery.
The Women at Warp podcast discusses kink in the Star Trek universe
Archive.org finds:
- Four issues of 1990s UK gay leather magazine !SIR!
- Four issues of 1990s UK gay leather magazine Houseboy
- Video of Judy Tallwing McCarthy’s speech at International Ms. Leather 1987
- Video of David Blyth’s 2007 documentary Transfigured Nights about rubber fetishism, female masking and related kinks.

After Fall, Winter (2011): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Feb 172025

After Fall, Winter is a 2011 drama film, written by, directed by, and starring Eric Schaeffer, along with Lizzie Brocheré.

Michael (Schaeffer) is an American writer who is borderline suicidal because he is $600,000 in debt and struggling to sell his next book. On impulse, he takes a friend’s invitation to travel to Paris for the winter holidays. He also sees a pro-domme for humiliation.

Shadow Hours (2000): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Feb 072025

Shadow Hours (2000) is an independent drama film written and directed by Isaac H. Eaton and starring Balthazar Getty, Peter Weller and Rebecca Gayheart. IMDB

Michael Holloway (Getty) is a recovering drug addict who works the night shift at a Los Angeles gas station. He’s trying to plan for the future with his pregnant wife, Chloe (Gayheart). The pressures and isolation of his job push Michael towards using again. One night, Michael meets Stuart Chappell (Weller), a wealthy, mysterious stranger who claims to be a writer. Stuart takes a liking to Michael, buys him a new suit, and pulls him along on nightly expeditions into the dark underside of the city.

eLust sex blog digest #181

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Jan 172025

Elust is the only place where the smartest and hottest sex bloggers are featured under one roof every month.

Whether you’re looking for sex journalism, erotic writing, relationship advice, or kinky discussions, it’ll be here at Elust.

If you have a post included, please re-post the latest edition on your own blog, ideally with your own unique comments next to each link, or a paragraph for each category and/or write your own introduction.

For SEO purposes, non-identical re-posts of Elust are much better for search ranking, and it’s more appealing for readers.

Here’s an Example of Elust 180 published by Sextoy DB with unique comments for each post.

Click here to Subscribe to email updates if you’d like to receive Elust as an email once per month.

Erotic Fiction

Fern River Cub, Come-In (Part 2)

Jerusalem Mortimer, In the Realm of the Sensei – Prologue 5

Peach Kisser, Mid-Flight Hospitality

Simone Francis, Fetish Secretary

Ambyr Leigh, My Terrible Date Fucked Me Bareback In The Backseat Of His Car

Schey Place Books, The Story So Far

Link Digest, January 2025

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Jan 152025

The Official Bettie Page podcast interviews Jane Garrett, author of a new biography of fetish artist, photographer and publisher John “Willie” Coutts
Authentically Kinky interviews Fetlife founder John Baku.
Youtuber Trash Discourse discusses the new (to me, at least) kink of forced masculinization, or “forcemasc”.
From the Internet Archive
- Youtuber Evie Lupine has had many struggles with Youtube over her kink education content. That’s why she has archived her videos.
- Claudia Varrin’s 2002 A guide to New York’s fetish underground
- West German, multi-lingual BDSM magazine Madame X #18, published 1985
- A 1927 psychoanalysis journal, which includes “A Tentative Formulation of the Origin of Sadomasochism”
- Sexual Deviance, by Anthony Storr, published 1964, includes a chapter on sadomasochism
- The Boarding-School, an anonymous pamphlet of Ff corporal punishment erotica, published 1989 by Ryder Publishing, UK. (No illustrations)

Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom (1975): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Jan 132025

Salò (1975) was written and directed by Pier Pasolini as an adaptation of the notorious pornographic novel, The 120 days of Sodom, written by the Marquis de Sade while in the Bastille. It was part of the Naziploitation film boom in the mid-1970s. It was also Pasolini’s last film, released three weeks after his murder.

This movie will bore you, horrify you, or both.

Pasolini transplanted the story to Italy in the last days of WWII. Four fascists marry each other’s daughters, and form a covenant. They select a group of beautiful young women and handsome young men, some armed enforcers, and some elderly brothel madams, and seal themselves up in a chateau.