May 292018
Sep 202021
- The History of the Dominatrix talks about male masochism as a complex of behavior that goes back far earlier than 19th century Europe.
- On Them magazine, Danny Thanh Nguyen talks about being a gay BDSM top who does not fit the masculine stereotype.
- The Conversation talks about Fifty Shades of Grey 10 years later, mainly from a publishing perspective.
- OnlyFans said they would ban adult content, then reversed their decision, in August 2021. Bitch Media talks about the causes and implications of a new wave of censorship of adult content on platforms.
- The American Sex Podcast interviews Kitty Stryker about the OnlyFans flip-flop and goes into the peculiar history of censorship and pornography in the USA.
- Related to the above, auction site Ebay has also banned the sale of adult material, which has implications for academics studying the history of pornographic media, says the New York Times.
- IN magazine explores the history of the archetypal gay male leather accessory, the chest harness.
Sep 182021
Bitter Moon (IMDB) is a 1992 erotic/romance film, directed by the notorious Roman Polanski, based on the novel Lunes de Fiel by Pascal Bruckner
Nigel goes on an ocean cruise with his wife, Fiona, where he becomes fascinated by a beautiful, mysterious woman named Mimi. Her husband, a paraplegic would-be writer named Oscar, demands that Nigel listen to his story of his obsessive love with Mimi before Nigel has an affair with her. Like another tale of twisted love, Nabokov’s Lolita, we shouldn’t take the narrator at face value. Mimi privately tells Nigel: “You musn’t believe all he says. He’s a sick man. He imagines things.”
In Oscar’s story, he is a self-consciously literary archetype, an independently wealthy young American living in Paris to become a writer. On a bus trip, he becomes smitten with Mimi, a young French woman.
Mimi is a cipher, with almost nothing more to her than being a beautiful French dancer, at least in Oscar’s telling. The early stages of their romance go from sweetly romantic to an adolescent’s idea of eroticism.
Continue reading »Oscar: (to Nigel) “I’m only going into such detail to show you how completely enslaved I was, body and soul, by this creature whose dangerous charms have made such an impression on you.”
Aug 152021
- Kids comics of the 1940s and 1950s seemed rife with children being spanked, as revealed by the Teen Sleuth Haunted Library. Strangely, the Comics Code Authority, implemented in 1954, said nothing about the corporal punishment of children.
- The Rialto Report explores the strange history behind the sadomasochistic film The Image (1975), including the first meeting between the film’s director Radley Metzger and the original 1956 novel’s author Jean de Berg, and the story of the film itself. Did you know that while there were exterior scenes shot in Paris, most of the interior scenes were shot in a building in New York City owned by the notorious Roy Cohn, former attorney of Donald Trump?
- The FeatureBang podcast explores the 1975 art-porn movie The Story of Joanna, directed by Gerard Damiano.
- The KinkyCast interviews Susan Wright of the NCSF, talking about how the new Model Penal Code decriminalizes consensual BDSM.
- Actor Brendan Scannell, who played Pete on the Netflix dramedy Bonding, talks about his Emmy nomination and his experiences on the show.
Aug 132021
S&M Judge, originally titled SM Rechter, is a Belgian 2009 drama based on a true story. (IMDB)
Continue reading »Aug 102021
A few months ago, I perused the used books section at Vancouver’s venerable queer bookstore Little Sisters. In addition to a book on Kenneth Anger’s underground gay leather film Scorpio Rising, I happened across a book without a barcode or copyright date or even an author, titled The Female Disciplinary Manual. I had heard of this before and remembered something about it being connected with some kind of schoolgirl discipline fantasy operation. As it was only $9.00 Canadian and in excellent condition with dust jacket (copies on Amazon are priced at $148 or more), I snapped it up.
The book itself is a rather odd work, purporting to be from the 2030s when the school disciplinary regime of the early 20th century in England has been reinstated as the solution to a decadent culture. The prose is in an arch, deadpan tone that leaves the reader guessing how much of this is part of the school discipline fantasy and how much is sincere.
By happenstance, I also came across the strange story of the organization that wrote and published the book and apparently lived by its ethos. The fifty-year saga links into pagan cults, lesbian separatists, Victorian-Edwardian cosplay as a lifestyle, early text-only video games, the English schoolgirl-discipline fetish, and far-right politics.
Continue reading »Jul 162021
Welcome to Elust 139.
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. Want to be included in Elust #140? Start with the rules, come back August 1st to submit something and subscribe to the RSS feed for updates!
Books and Movies
Maitresse (1976): The Celluloid Dungeon
Erotic Non-Fiction
Kidnap Fantasy Roleplay Duo with Madam Helle
Erotic Fiction
Thoughts & Advice on Kink and Fetish
Jun 292021
Before there was Dyanne Thorne as Ilsa, there was Audrey Campbell as Olga.
The Olga films were a series of exploitation “roughies” or “kinkies” released in the 1960s, all directed by Joseph P. Mawra, and starring Audrey Campbell as the sadistic mob boss, Olga. These films were released under several different titles and release dates.
Continue reading »Jun 272021
- The Leather Archive & Museum in Chicago celebrates its 30th anniversary.
- In the 1960s, sculptor Nancy Grossman started a series of head sculptures covered in black leather, zippers and buckles, and later made larger works. This forerunner of the BDSM/fetish aesthetic talks about her career with Interview Magazine.
- An English translation of an article on the birth in the early 1950s of the Japanese SM magazine Kitan Club, said to be the first “abnormal” (hentai) magazine.
- The Rialto Report has the second half of their interview with Porsche Lynn, a big star in the VHS era of American porn, who talks about her transition from exotic dancing and vanilla porn to bondage movies and pro-domme work, and working with Leonard Burtman and Jutka Goz, major producers of BDSM magazines and videos.
- A report from the US General Accounting Office says that the SESTA/FOSTA law, passed three years ago, has resulted in just one federal prosecution, and definitely had a chilling effect on free speech. The New Republic.
- Now that Tumblr has been scrubbed of adult content and Youtube keeps changing its policies, video platform TikTok may be new new platform for BDSM education online.
- Ezada Sinn, a pro-domme, talks about her experiences at the famous femdom/malesub Other World Kingdom in the Czech Republic, and how it has fared after the financial crisis and the pandemic.
Jun 242021
Dogs Don’t Wear Pants (Koirat eivät käytä housuja) (IMDB) is a 2019 Finnish drama, directed by J.-P. Valkeapää and co-written by the director and Juhana Lumme, based on a story by Lumme.
A depressed widower finds relief in breath control sessions with a pro dominatrix.
Continue reading »Jun 172021
- The Leather Archive & Museum in Chicago celebrates it’s 30th anniversary, as told in the Chicago Reader, which talks about staying operational during COVID and being more diverse and inclusive.
- Sleek magazine talks about the costumes Karl Lagerfeld designed for the 1976 film Maitresse (previously discussed), and says that the men in the BDSM scenes were real-life members of Paris’ Scene.
- The new British TV biography, Ann Boleyn, not only progressively casts black actors in a historical story, but includes hints of bisexuality and BDSM sexuality in the title character’s relationship with King Henry VIII, says Radio Times.
- It’s June, and that means Pride Month, which means another round of the perennial debate over the presence of kink in Pride events, as XTRA magazine shows. VICE magazine says that the debate needs to be retired in favor of community solidarity against rising transphobia. The Atlantic says “the discourse is a strange sign of progress“.
- The SF Gate examines the history of the landmark Armory building in San Francisco, once the home of Kink.com’s adult video production facilities and the company’s trademark. “The idea that a deviant sexuality would exist in plain sight was anathema to the growing movement for queer respectability.”
- Though it doesn’t touch on black as the fetish colour par excellance, Nautilus’ “The Reinvention of Black” does cover the technological history of producing black dyes and paints, striving for the elusive true absence of reflected light, and how that affected the arts.
