May 292018
Aug 182022
My friend TammyJo Eckhart and I go in-depth on the 2014 film The Duke of Burgundy, including topping from the bottom, shapewear, and what’s with all the mannequins.
Jul 172022
Here’s our next video discussion the Australian coming-of-age movie My Mistress (2014).
Jul 172022
- Kinbakunomicon has another translated Japanese article about bondage, and accompanying art, from a 1960 issue of Kitan Club.
- Los Angeles magazine looks at how the LA BDSM scene has been affected by COVID and how it is recovering.
- Russia Beyond profiles the Godzhi BDSM hotel in Moscow, one of many across Russia. It circumvents legal restrictions by listing rooms as “fitting rooms” for devices it rents out.
- Lisa Duggan on Substack writes about the relationship between Lydia Laurenson (aka “S&M Feminist” Clarisse Thorn) and “computer engineer, Thielworld monarchist and neoreactionary luminary” Curtis Yarvin (aka “Mencius Moldbug”). “Whatever impact Laurenson may have had on Yarvin’s ideas about sex and gender, she certainly has not mitigated his devotion to Thielian techno-corporate monarchism.”
- Dr. Mark Griffiths has been researching the more obscure corners of human sexuality for years, and his blog provides some insights on Nazi fetishism.
Jun 212022
Mercy (2000) (IMDB) is a late entry in the erotic thriller genre that dominated in the 80s and 90s. This kind of movie was getting stale by the turn of the millennium, and many scenes seem strongly reminiscent of Body Double (previously discussed) and Se7en.
It starts, as usual for this kind of film, with a dead body. This time it’s a nude woman, one of a series with signs of being tied up, bite marks all over her torso, and her eyelids cut off. Detective Catherine Palmer (Ellen Barkin) forms a relationship with Vickie (Peta Wilson), a friend (and likely more) of the victim, Dorothy.
Palmer searches the victim’s home and finds a hidden briefcase full of BDSM toys, and pictures of the victim being dominated by a masked man. She calls up a pro dominatrix via Vice and visits her dungeon in an upscale building.
Continue reading »Palmer: “And what’s your area of expertise, Terry?”
Dominatrix: “Japanese silk ropes and the finer psychological aspects of the relationship between the players. I can tie you so you can’t twitch your ass cheeks. Of course it’s time consuming. It’ll cost you a couple of grand. Mostly the businessmen like that.”
Jun 162022
- The newly launched Zipper magazine has a feature article on “How the Pandemic Made Us Kinkier“.
- Cornell University has an online exhibition on the making of On Our Backs magazine, the pioneering lesbian sex magazine in the early 80s.
- Get Your Hands Dirty has an essay on the history of bootblacking, going back to our friend Hannah Cullwick, and the rise of bootblacking contests in the 1990s.
- I had long thought Robert Yang’s Hurt Me Plenty was the only videogame to incorporate BDSM themes directly into the gameplay, but further research led to Mighty Jill Off, a platformer game that makes playing it an act of masochism, and Consensual Torture Simulator, a text-only game about a sadist negotiating with a masochist.
- By 2022 standards, the nude photos published in Penthouse that cost Vanessa Williams her title as Miss America back in 1984 were a bit tame, and the controversy even more quaint. What I didn’t realize was that the images had her in black leather boots, harness, cuffs and collars, in other words, BDSM gear. Penthouse has always been a little racier than Playboy (within the constraints of the heterosexual male gaze), and would tiptoe onto the side of fetish and kink imagery. Perhaps that was what pushed the pageant into de-crowning Williams. A black Miss America was already a stretch, but one who associated with deviant sexuality was too much.
- My interview on the Betwixt the Sheets podcast introduced me to another historical figure with at least an interest in kink: Christian apologist and fantasy writer C.S. Lewis, best known for the Narnia books. He was one of those individuals whose sexuality was hard to pin down; was he closeted homosexual, closeted bisexual, asexual, or just upper-class British? Regardless, he did have an interest, if only theoretical, in the idea of whipping beautiful women, including Lily Greeves, the sister of his friend Arthur.
Jun 102022
My Mistress is a 2014 Australian drama film. A teenage boy, struggling after the death of his father, forms a relationship with a lonely older woman who turns out to be a pro-dominatrix.
Despite the title and the promotional images, My Mistress is not primarily about a BDSM relationship. It belongs in the category of films about the male fantasy of being initiated in sex by an older attractive woman. E.g. Private Lessons (1981), Class (1983), My Tutor (1983), They’re Playing with Fire (1984), and even Weird Science (1985). Right away, we’re getting into some difficult areas about consent and double-standards about sex between younger men and older women. (For the record, the age of consent in most of Australia is 16.)
Charlie, a teenage boy, aimlessly bikes around his neighborhood. He sees an older woman with a French accent, Maggie, move into a house nearby. He returns home, only to find his father has committed suicide. Soon after that, he learns his mother has been having an affair.
Distraught, Charlie forms a casual relationship with Maggie. He bikes to her house and goes inside. He goes upstairs to find her playroom where she is in full dominatrix dress and in mid-session with a man. He runs off.
Continue reading »Jun 102022
I’ve been interviewed on the history podcast Betwixt the Sheets, which is full of interesting looks into the past of “sex, scandal and society”.
May 242022
- Slate magazine considers the way sex is depicted in current TV shows like Euphoria, And Just Like That and the like. “It’s as if the wide availability of sex—and porn—and frank discussions of various sexual lifestyles have all combined to render purely hedonistic or transgressive approaches to it as retro or passé or even quaint.”
- The Betwixt the Sheets podcast has a fascinating look at medieval sexuality, which was quite different from what most might think. There was a lot of discussion about “sodomy”, which then could be defined as any sexual activity other than coitus for the purposes of procreation. It included manual stimulation of the self or other persons, and “femoral intercourse”, i.e. a penis pressed between a person’s thighs. This was also when women were seen as the more sexually active gender, not men. It shows that our modern views of sexuality are not universal.
- Evie Lupine provides a video update on the BDSM-related court cases in the news, such as Arnie Hammer and Marilyn Manson situations.
- Gayle Rubin speaks on the Feminist Sex Wars of the 1970s and 1980s in a presentation recorded at Cornell in 2022.
- The Washington Post mused on the juxtaposition of Balenciaga’s BDSM/fetish themed fashion show being held on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Is money the ultimate fetish?
May 242022
My friend TammyJo and I discuss Going Under (2004), which I previously discussed.
Apr 292022
Aired April 7, 2011 IMDB
“Unleashed” is the first Lady Heather episode without William Peterson as Gil Grissom, after the actor’s departure from the show. It also retreads some of the same ground as the notorious “Fur and Loathing in Las Vegas” episode (to be discussed).
This time, the dead body is a woman in a leotard who got mauled to death by a mountain lion in the woods. The woman shows signs of having been beaten and restrained.
Further examination reveals feline dental prosthetics and signs of being hit by a stun gun. ID’d as Iona Vail, who ran a battered women’s shelter. The co-manager of the shelter, Debra, says Iona left weeks ago.
Examining the victim’s address book reveals she was seeing “Dr. K”, which turns out to be Dr. Heather Kessler, formerly “Lady Heather”. She now has a PhD, a certificate in sex therapy, and an office that shows her taste for Victorian furnishings.
Continue reading »
