Apr 172019
- The Dig History podcast has a couple of relevant episodes on, first, the career of the “great American censor”, Anthony Comstock, whose influence is still being felt today, and second, the history of rape and consent in culture in the law and culture of early America, showing that consent, as we define it today, is a very recent development.
- The Guardian has posted Lasting Marks – the 16 men put on trial for sadomasochism in Thatcher’s Britain, a 15-minute documentary on infamous Operation Spanner case, in which 16 gay men were arrested for consensual sadomasochism in the 1980s.
- We’re still struggling to get the police-judicial system to understand BDSM. A recent case in San Francisco demonstrates this, in which a man was assaulted during a BDSM scene, and was told by police and lawyers that it didn’t count.
- The Black Party, a NYC-era gay circuit party with a strong BDSM element, has a forty-year history, but it’s struggling due to rising rents.
- There are a handful of articles on BDSM subcultures around the world, especially in places that are less tolerant of sexual difference, such as the Kinky Kollective in India (podcast), the Phillipines, and Turkey.
- The GOOP lifestyle brand, known for selling jade eggs for vaginal insertion which may cause bacterial vaginosis or life-threatening toxic shock syndrome, now sells BDSM gear, specifically a nude leather bra and thong and a black leather flogger. Shows just how acceptable BDSM has become, among a certain affluent segment of the population.
- Bonding is an upcoming comedy/drama series on Netflix about a gay man who works as a assistant to a professional dominatrix.
- Rick Castro, whose career of fetish photography goes back to 1986, has an exhibition at the Tom of Finland Foundation in Los Angeles, CA.
- Fashion has turned its wandering eye back to the fetish subculture again.
