May 292018
Nov 282022
- Consent is, undeniably, an important part of BDSM, but it’s actually a far more complicated issue. The New Inquiry has an in-depth discussion of sexual consent, and how it can be a difficult thing when structural inequality is so pervasive in our society. (Check out the Consent Mixtape while you’re at it.)
- Since the fate of Twitter is uncertain under the new management, I’ve been looking for a fall-back. Mastodon seemed promising, but for some reason there are no BDSM-themed servers. The fall of Switter, a sex worker-themed Mastodon server, may provide some insight.
- From the 1980s, an interview with a British woman in fetish fashion for Skin Two magazine.
- The Schlockmeisters Youtube channel reviews the other 1969 film version of Venus in Furs.
Nov 282022
My friend and fellow scholar TammyJo Eckhart and I discuss the 1997 Preaching to the Perverted.
Oct 162022
- Lash of the Penitentes (1936) is a post-Hays Code exploitation film. Producer Henry Revier put together actual documentary footage of religious practices in rural Mexico, sensationalized recreations of certain acts, and a mystery story based on the actual murder of a travel writer living in New Mexico. There are at least two versions, one of which showed a young woman being stripped naked and whipped. This is a classic example of anti-Catholicism being “the pornography of the Puritan”, to quote Richard Hofstadter.
- Historia flagellantium (1700) by the Abbe Boileau is one of the classic texts about flagellation, concerning the improper relations between the Franciscan priest Cornelius Adriaensen and his secret, flagellant order of young women. It was preceded by another, anonymous book, The Historie of B. CORNELIS ADRIAENSEN, which also probed into the secret flagellant order of young women.
- The Independent examines the literary and cultural legacy of the Marquis de Sade, now that his chateau has opened as a luxury hotel.
Oct 152022
Congratulations to Milady for winning the monthly Elust Contest for September!
Hope you enjoy your £50 voucher for Victoria’s Secret.
Everyone with a post included here in Elust 154 now has a chance to win the top spot in Elust 155 and a gift voucher of your choice to buy something sexy.
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Choose any voucher from a reputable site that has gift vouchers I can buy and send by email.
The winner will be the first person to score 5 out of 5.
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Erotic Fiction
Moon Feather: Part 56: A Well-Earned Reputation
Quickies: Competition (A Breeding Story)
Product reviews
The 6 Best Vibrators Out There, Whichever Buzz You’re After
Triple Teaser Vibrator – Review
TOY TEST – Leyuto Electroshock Anal Vibrator Butt Plug
LELO Smart Wand 2 Large wand vibrator review
Erotic Non Fiction
Sex Work
Tutti Frutti, Threesome with a Sexy Young Couple
Thoughts & Advice on Kink & Fetish
Chemical Torture in BDSM – How and Why to Begin
Writing about writing
Adventures in Writing: Why you Need to Separate Professional & Personal
Books and Movies
Preaching to the Perverted (1997):The Celluloid Dungeon
Thoughts & Advice on Sex & Relationships
Oct 102022
L.A. Law S07E10 “Spanky and the Art Gang”, aired January 14, 1993
L.A. Law was an ensemble dramedy about a Los Angeles law firm. LIke detective procedurals, legal procedurals bring the characters into a variety of situations, and one popular topic is BDSM, usually in the form of pro dominatrixes.
In this case, the law firm takes as a client Claudia Von Rault, aka Mistress Zenia (played by Lillian D’Arc). She’s charged with involuntary manslaughter of Eric Schuller, who died during a session. The lawyers are initially reluctant to take the sensational case, but the deceased had business entanglements with the firm’s partners and they want it handled in-house.
Continue reading »Oct 062022
Preaching to the Perverted (IMDB) is a 1997 romantic comedy written and directed by Stuart Urban, starring Guinevere Turner and Christian Anholt.
Preaching has a lot of similarities to Exit to Eden. Both are romantic comedies that try to present BDSM to the mainstream. Both feature dominant women who are rulers of kinky realms (with female aides de camp) who have difficulty opening up to intimacy until a special man comes along.
Preaching is a superior film in many ways. There’s no extraneous MacGuffin plot grafted on. Exit tried too hard to soft-pedal kink for a mainstream audience, and barely showed anything. This film has lots of different kink activities and more queer content. It at least considers the political realm, as the police and government act against Tanya’s parties.
Tanya Cheex (Guinevere Turner) is a notorious American performance artist who does elaborate stage shows at UK fetish clubs. A tabloid newspaper gets photos of this and editorializes about who will control this American filth. (Like the British need any foreign influence to be kinky.) Conservative Member of Parliament Henry Harding decides to make her a target of a moralistic crusade, and recruits a young Christian computer tech, Peter Emery (Christian Anholt) to infiltrate the fetish underworld with a hidden camera.
Continue reading »Oct 042022
Sep 272022
- Article on the history of the Carter/Johnson Memorial Library
- The Marysue covers how health authorities are asking people to change their sexual practices in light of the new monkeypox virus.
- Poly.land writes about the history of polyamorous and non-monogamous films.
Sep 272022
Exit to Eden (IMDB) is a 1994 romance/comedy/thriller movie, based on the sadomasochistic novel by Anne Rice.
Exit was the first feature film released based on an Anne Rice novel, mainly because Interview with the Vampire was tied up in development hell for a long time. I suspect this was a case of the author selling the film rights on the assumption that it would never actually get made into a film. Rice wrote and published Exit to Eden between the second and third books in her original Sleeping Beauty trilogy, and it’s full of hardcore sex, hetero and otherwise.
Even more bizarre, the film was directed by Garry Marshall, a guy with a long background in American sitcoms. Why would the guy who created Happy Days direct a movie about BDSM? The Bad Gay Movies podcast suggest it was because of the commercial success of Marshall’s film Pretty Woman (1990), which managed to be a sweet rom-com about LA street prostitution.
Marshall had his work cut out for him. Exit is about Elliot, a war photographer, who travels to the Club, an elite BDSM club on a tropical island, on a quest for self-knowledge. There he meets and falls for Lisa, the head trainer.
Continue reading »Aug 202022
- Research into Devil Girl from Mars (1954) and the dominatrix-ish costume of the title character lead me to an in-depth exploration on Scifist.net. The costume was designed by Ronald Cobb. He had only one film credit, but had a long career designing sexy, fetishistic costumes for cabaret shows at Murray’s Club in London in the 1950s.
- The Projectionist Booth podcast has an in-depth exploration of The Duke of Burgundy (2014), including an interview with the director, Peter Strickland.
- On the 20th anniversary of the landmark BDSM film Secretary, the BBC discusses what made this oddball film a surprise hit, and how it walked so Fifty Shades could run.
- Kitty Stryker talks about queerness, BDSM and respectability politics.
- Vintage Fetish Art has collected the artwork from various editions of the Marquis de Sade’s novel Justine, from 1799 to 1965.
