Note that production of season 5 of Billions was interrupted because of COVID.
S05E01
Now that Chuck and Wendy are separated, he’s seeing Mistress Cassie, though we only glimpse her as he leaves her dungeon in the morning. When he turns his phone on, he finds messages from Wendy about his teenage son being sick overnight.

- The Rialto Report podcast has a episode on the adult film The Naughty Victorians (1975), from the “porno chic” era and adapted from the Edwardian sadomasochistic novel A Man With A Maid. Includes interviews with the director and the two lead performers.
- The Girls, Guts & Giallo podcast discusses the lesbian sadomasochistic drama The Duke of Burgundy (previously covered).
- The Other Forms of Pleasure patreon has an interview with Stef Dickers, the head of UK Leather & Fetish Archives. While in the USA, there are a few collections of kink-related materials, this is the first in UK. They’re still building their collection.
- Still more hashing out of the boundary between BDSM and criminal abuse, this time in the jurisdiction of Australia.
Stein, Stephen K. 2021. Sadomasochism and the BDSM community in the United States: kinky people unite. New York : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
Stein’s first chapter, which attempts to describe the proto-BDSM culture of the early and mid twentieth century, is a necessarily scattershot collection of data points. Research any historical field long enough and the gaps in the record become clear. We know so little about the sadomasochistic subculture prior to the 1970s. There’s some data about the gay subset, precious little about straights, and practically nothing about lesbians. Stein had access to the Kinsey Institute, the Carter Johnson Leather Library, the NLA Archives and more, and even then he couldn’t shed any new light on American BDSM before 1970.
Stein treats the BDSM culture as a whole, whereas I think it is more accurate to describe it as three parallel but separate streams (gay, lesbian, and straight), each with their own economy, and culture, that occasionally influence each other.
Continue reading »S04E01
Chuck speaking with Charles, his father.
Charles: “I would slap your face and tell you to act like a man if I didn’t think it would turn you on.”
Chuck: “Ah, It wouldn’t, Dad. Not from you. That’s not how it works. Good lord.”
Another kinkphobic comment from Charles Rhoades, Sr.

Welcome to Elust 136
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Erotic Non-Fiction
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Erotic Fiction
A weekend in a chastity belt -Part 1 the gift
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Billions Season 1: The Celluloid Dungeon
Thoughts & Advice on Sex & Relationships
Poetry
Sex News,Opinion, Interviews, Politics & Humor
Season 3 opens with Bobby free on bail, his assets frozen, his trading license revoked, and Axe Capital on hold. Chuck has lost most of his money and alienated his father and his best friend in his scheme to get Bobby arrested, and is in the delicate position of having to ensure that the scheme doesn’t link back to him. Wendy is even more involved in Axe Capital in Bobby’s absence. Chuck and Wendy have reunited, while Bobby and his wife Lara are de facto separated.

Chuck and Wendy are separated at the beginning of season 2 of Billions. Until episode ten, there are not even mentions of Chuck and Wendy’s BDSM practice season 2. Chuck gets into judo, which seems to be a partial substitute. They both have flings, by mutual consent, but only Wendy actually consummates it, with another billionaire like Bobby.

Billions is a 2016 drama about the conflict between US Attorney Chuck Rhoades Jr. and hedge fund billionaire Bobby “Axe” Axelrod.

The very first thing we see in the pilot episode is Chuck stripped and bound at the mercy of a woman in lingerie. This is his wife Wendy, who is also the in-house therapist of Bobby’s investment firm, setting up the triangle at the heart of the series.
BDSM is not a big enough theme in Billions to do an episode-by-episode review. Thus I will focus on certain episodes in which Chuck and Wendy’s BDSM relationship is a major element.
Continue reading »- San Francisco’s Folsom Street Fair might go ahead in September 2021, in a “modified” form, says the Bay Area Reporter.
- The American Sex Podcast covers the new sexual censorship, caused by the confluence of sex worker exclusionary feminism, moral panic over human trafficking, economic and technological centralization, and the economic impact of COVID-19.
- Atlas Obscura explores the National Library of Israel’s closed collection of notorious “stalag novels” published in the 1960s in Israel, featuring cover art pirated from American men’s adventure pulp magazines.
- A brief bio of Cheri Herouard, a French illustrator of erotic/BDSM art in the 1920s and 1930s.
The season 2 finale wraps up various plotlines.
Portia has departed, but she left a note for Frank instead of ghosting him.
Rolph still hangs out with Pete, apparently as his “friend who knows your whole schedule” rather than his submissive. Pete has put Josh behind him, but is still uncertain about Tiff, and his career in comedy.
Tiff and Doug have reconciled. She says she loves him, and knew it was because she was vulnerable to him. She even offers to show him around the dungeon sometime.
