Jun 172018
- I had only known the Renaissance writer Pico dela Mirandola was the author of the first known discussion of masochistic flagellation is non-spiritual terms, but in fact his influence and accomplishments extended far beyond that. He was perhaps best known as the author of the early humanist Oration on the Dignity of Man, which contained 900 theses on religion, philosophy, natural philosophy, alchemy, astrology and magic. And he did this before he was 25 years old. The History Unplugged podcast has an in-depth exploration of his life, though it doesn’t touch on his writing on flagellation.
- There’s an Indiegogo fundraiser for a documentary on the Sixty Nine Group, the oldest gay leatherman organization in Europe, founded in 1965.
- Susan Wright of the NCSF talks to the New York Times about the boundary between BDSM and abuse. One of the few good things to come out of these recent cases of BDSM excused as abuse is that even mainstream publications are willing to explore the distinction.
- The riding crop has become one of the most common symbols of kink. It has an odd and complicated history, according to this Kink Academy essay. Like other tools intended for handling animals, like buggy whips, it isn’t intended to inflict pain, just get the animal’s attention. The article suggests this steams from a confusion in Venus in Furs, as Wanda is often described as going riding, and then cracking a whip; creating a link between the equestrian woman and the dominant woman. It was also a common decorative element for rulers and military officers.
- Psychology Today has an interview about a study of kinky people and how they form their kinky identities, comparing it to developing a homosexual identity. “Kinky people also reported much less of a desire to ‘come out’ that we see in gay and lesbian populations, likely because it is much easier to hide an interest in kink in a relationship than it is to hide a relationship with someone of the same gender.”
- Messy Nessy Chic has a collection of John Coutts’ (aka John Willie) bondage and fetish photography from the 1940s and 1950s.
- Has bondage, specifically Japanese-influenced rope bondage, become so popular that it has lost all sexuality? Ayzad asks the hard questions.
- Alexis Lykiard’s essay claims the antebellum-slavery-themed erotic novel Memoirs of Dolly Morton was obscure French man of letters Georges Grassal, a literary author who fell on hard times and wrote prolifically in both French and English, under many pseudonyms. The author also wrote an introduction to another Victorian erotic classic, Man with a Maid, and a biography of another French author of flagellation erotica, Pierre Dumarchey, aka “Pierre Mac Orlan”.
- CVLT Nation talks about the impact of SESTA/FOSTA on Fetlife and other segments of the kinky internet. “It’s puzzling that a bill that could shut down the search for a sugar daddy might make it across the desk of a man [I.e. Donald Trump] who is the sugar daddy to his own wife and couldn’t get laid by porn stars or otherwise if you took his bank account out of the equation. I suspect this has nothing to do with a moral witch hunt, and everything to do with money.”
- Generations ago, the gay male leather scene was revolutionary, a post-WWII antidote to the effeminate, “nelly” stereotype, showing that gay men could be masculine. Now, masculinity is in deep crisis, with the excesses of the privileged revealed by the #MeToo movement, and the incel subculture spewing toxic misogyny and violence. Do gay leathermen need to re-evaluate what masculine means, and should they open their doors to a more diverse range of bodies, sexes, genders, and gender expressions? Slate has an essay.
