Celluloid Dungeon – The History of BDSM

The Idiots (Idioterne) (1998): The Celluloid Dungeon

Mar 172025

The Idiots is a 1998 Danish black comedy/drama written and directed by Lars von Trier, shot under the rules of the Dogme 95 manifesto.

The semi-mockumentary film concerns a small group of people who pretend in public to be mentally disabled, which they call “spazzing”. They do this as an elaborate prank, as a kind of performance art, as a passive-aggressive attack on society (épater les bourgeois), and for other reasons. Rotating members of the group play “the minders”. Karen, a seemingly lost woman, is swept up in the group and stays with them.

Stoffer draws Karen into the group of “spazzers”.

George Costanza: [In a depression clinic] I should be in a place like this. I envy this woman. You get to wear slippers all day. Friends visit. They pity you. Pity is very underrated.
Seinfeld, S03E02 “The Truth”

I discuss this film because it brushes up against certain expressions of masochism, particularly those that involve public roleplay and abjection. We know that Hannah Cullwick and Arthur Munby often did public roleplay, as did Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Aurora Rumelin. This connects with the kink of disability fetishism, such as the creative works of “Paracathy“, as well as certain forms of ageplay.

May 18, 2025: The Celluloid Dungeon at Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago

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Mar 072025

Ask any kinky person where they got their first hint of BDSM desire, and chances are they will name something from mainstream film or television: Catwoman or Emma Peel on 1960s TV, the whipping scenes in gladiator movies, the damsels-in-distress in a thousand melodramas. Generations of fans found these scenes of fetishistic pleasure and assembled them into collections, piecing together a history of sadomasochistic moments.

The Celluloid Dungeon uncovers the hidden history of BDSM in the mainstream media, a complex dance of repression and desire. For every step to expand the visibility of kink on screen, there’s an equal and opposite reaction to contain it. Popular successes like Secretary or Fifty Shades of Grey show kink, but only the most conservative form of it.

About the Presenter

Peter Tupper is a Vancouver, BC writer and historian. He is a two-time winner of the National Leather Association’s Geoff Mains award for non-fiction, a co-founder of Metro Vancouver Kink, and author of A Lover’s Pinch: A Cultural History of Sadomasochism (2018). He has presented at events across North America on the history of BDSM. He blogs at www.historyofbdsm.com

Date: Sunday, May 18, 2025
Time: 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Time Zone: Central Time – US & Canada (change)
Location: LA&M Etienne Auditorium,
6418 North Greenview Avenue
Chicago, Illinois, United States

Leather Archives & Museum event

Fetlife event

Babygirl (2024): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Mar 032025

Babygirl is a 2024 drama directed by Halina Reijn and starring Nicole Kidman, Harris Dickinson and Antonio Banderas.

Romy (Kidman) is a corporate executive in an automated shipping company. She’s also the mother of two teenage daughters, and wife to her stage director husband Jacob (Banderas). One montage shows that she subjects herself to exercise and cosmetic treatments, like botox.

Her backstory is that she was raised in hippie communes, but went into the corporate world, and brings her smartphone to bed with her. Much of her job appears to be performing prepared scripts for corporate videos, full of neoliberal buzzwords. She puts a human face on what is basically an inhuman process, represented by shots of blocky robots working in an automated warehouse.

The pressures of Romy’s seemingly ideal life leave her stretched thin. After faking an orgasm with her handsome and loving husband, she tiptoes to her home office, plays maledom/femsub porn on her laptop, and masturbates while covering her own mouth.

After Fall, Winter (2011): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Feb 172025

After Fall, Winter is a 2011 drama film, written by, directed by, and starring Eric Schaeffer, along with Lizzie Brocheré.

Michael (Schaeffer) is an American writer who is borderline suicidal because he is $600,000 in debt and struggling to sell his next book. On impulse, he takes a friend’s invitation to travel to Paris for the winter holidays. He also sees a pro-domme for humiliation.

Shadow Hours (2000): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Feb 072025

Shadow Hours (2000) is an independent drama film written and directed by Isaac H. Eaton and starring Balthazar Getty, Peter Weller and Rebecca Gayheart. IMDB

Michael Holloway (Getty) is a recovering drug addict who works the night shift at a Los Angeles gas station. He’s trying to plan for the future with his pregnant wife, Chloe (Gayheart). The pressures and isolation of his job push Michael towards using again. One night, Michael meets Stuart Chappell (Weller), a wealthy, mysterious stranger who claims to be a writer. Stuart takes a liking to Michael, buys him a new suit, and pulls him along on nightly expeditions into the dark underside of the city.

Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom (1975): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Jan 132025

Salò (1975) was written and directed by Pier Pasolini as an adaptation of the notorious pornographic novel, The 120 days of Sodom, written by the Marquis de Sade while in the Bastille. It was part of the Naziploitation film boom in the mid-1970s. It was also Pasolini’s last film, released three weeks after his murder.

This movie will bore you, horrify you, or both.

Pasolini transplanted the story to Italy in the last days of WWII. Four fascists marry each other’s daughters, and form a covenant. They select a group of beautiful young women and handsome young men, some armed enforcers, and some elderly brothel madams, and seal themselves up in a chateau.

CSI S05E15 “King Baby”: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Jan 102025

CSI‘s episode “King Baby” (S05E15) is another Jerry Stahl co-written episode, which focuses on another sexual kink, infantilism/ageplay/ABDL (adult baby/diaper lovers).

TammyJo & Peter discuss Venus in Furs (1969): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Dec 022024

https://youtu.be/7lQ4sZ2nq-k?si=DAsMXBfYTtFqPpkj

Sanctuary (2022): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Nov 142024

Margaret Qualley as Rebecca and Christopher Abbott as Hal.

Sanctuary is a 2022 drama film directed by Zachary Wigon and written by Micah Bloomberg. IMDB Amazon

This essay contains spoilers.

Sanctuary resembles David Ives’ stage play Venus in Fur (film adaptation by Roman Polanski): it focuses on two people in a single location, and deals with the constantly shifting power relations between a man and a woman.

Hal (Christopher Abbot) is the heir of a hotel empire. He’s about to be appointed the CEO after the death of his father. In the luxury suite of one of the hotels, he meets with Rebecca (Margaret Qualley), who at first appears to be a lawyer who will interview him for the position. This escalates into a humiliation scene of Rebecca watching while Hal cleans the toilet in his underwear.

The Leather Boys (1964): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Nov 012024

The Leather Boys is a 1964 British “kitchen sink” drama film about the working-class motorcycle club culture of the early 1960s. While featuring little explicit sex of any kind, it does provide a glimpse of the leather-clad biker culture of the time in the UK. It was also an early sympathetic treatment of male homosexuality in British film. Amazon

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A Lover's Pinch: A Cultural History of Sadomasochism