Apr 152023
- Ketil Slagstad’s paper “Visualizing BDSM and AIDS Activism: Archiving Pleasures, Sanitizing History” explores the development of the Norwegian BDSM scene in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, particularly regarding the impact of HIV. Much as in the USA and UK, gay leathermen were stigmatized as the cause of the disease, and there were many arguments over BDSM’s place in feminism and socialism.
- Anne O Nomis writes about recreating the salon of Theresa Berkeley, famed early 19th century professional dominant, for Sky TV’s Sex: A Bonkers History. This includes recreations of the Berkeley Horse, birch rods, cats-o-nine-tails, stinging nettles, canes, and other tools of the dominatrix’s trade.
- Puritanism has waxed and waned in American society, and we’re currently seeing a rise of neo-Puritanism that is largely focused on the role of transgender people, but includes any non-heteronormative sexuality, from sex ed in schools to internet porn. On the American Sex podcast, Mike Stabile, of the Free Speech Coalition, talks about censorship and self-monitoring of the adult industry and how censorship comes down first and hardest on the queer and the kinky. Stabile also guests on the Watts the Safeword podcast on similar topics.
