Link Digests – The History of BDSM

Link Digest, October 2021

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Oct 152021

CBC’s Ideas podcast has a series called Body Language. One episode talks about the “the right to sex“, the thorny issue of sexual ethics and politics. In the BDSM world, we tend to treat consent as the be-all and end-all of sexual ethics, but that leaves issues of sexism, racism, transphobia, classism and so on, unaddressed.
The Official Bettie Page Podcast, episode 5, discusses the 2005 biopic, The Notorious Bettie Page, and some other documentary and biopic film projects about the iconic pinup and bondage model.
The Rialto Report covers the 1977 launch of the Ultra Room at the Mitchell Brothers’ O’Farrell theatre in San Francisco, a lesbian bondage show surrounded by two-way mirrors. This includes an interview with the room’s first headliner, porn star C.J. Laing, and photos.
A Refinery29 post by Gina Tonic asks what it means to be a bottom. “…the labels ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ are often used interchangeably with the labels ‘dom’ and ‘sub’ – but is this always true?”
20 years ago, Fetish Diva Midori published The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage, probably the first book published in English on Japanese bondage. Since then, kinbaku/shibari has grown immensely in popularity outside Japan, and some kinksters practice it exclusively. Spectrum Boutique interviews Midori about this pioneering project.

Link roundup, September 2021

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Sep 202021

The History of the Dominatrix talks about male masochism as a complex of behavior that goes back far earlier than 19th century Europe.
On Them magazine, Danny Thanh Nguyen talks about being a gay BDSM top who does not fit the masculine stereotype.
The Conversation talks about Fifty Shades of Grey 10 years later, mainly from a publishing perspective.
OnlyFans said they would ban adult content, then reversed their decision, in August 2021. Bitch Media talks about the causes and implications of a new wave of censorship of adult content on platforms.
The American Sex Podcast interviews Kitty Stryker about the OnlyFans flip-flop and goes into the peculiar history of censorship and pornography in the USA.
Related to the above, auction site Ebay has also banned the sale of adult material, which has implications for academics studying the history of pornographic media, says the New York Times.
IN magazine explores the history of the archetypal gay male leather accessory, the chest harness.

Link Roundup, August 2021

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Aug 152021

Kids comics of the 1940s and 1950s seemed rife with children being spanked, as revealed by the Teen Sleuth Haunted Library. Strangely, the Comics Code Authority, implemented in 1954, said nothing about the corporal punishment of children.
The Rialto Report explores the strange history behind the sadomasochistic film The Image (1975), including the first meeting between the film’s director Radley Metzger and the original 1956 novel’s author Jean de Berg, and the story of the film itself. Did you know that while there were exterior scenes shot in Paris, most of the interior scenes were shot in a building in New York City owned by the notorious Roy Cohn, former attorney of Donald Trump?
The FeatureBang podcast explores the 1975 art-porn movie The Story of Joanna, directed by Gerard Damiano.
The KinkyCast interviews Susan Wright of the NCSF, talking about how the new Model Penal Code decriminalizes consensual BDSM.
Actor Brendan Scannell, who played Pete on the Netflix dramedy Bonding, talks about his Emmy nomination and his experiences on the show.

Link Roundup, July 2021

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Jun 272021

The Leather Archive & Museum in Chicago celebrates its 30th anniversary.
In the 1960s, sculptor Nancy Grossman started a series of head sculptures covered in black leather, zippers and buckles, and later made larger works. This forerunner of the BDSM/fetish aesthetic talks about her career with Interview Magazine.
An English translation of an article on the birth in the early 1950s of the Japanese SM magazine Kitan Club, said to be the first “abnormal” (hentai) magazine.
The Rialto Report has the second half of their interview with Porsche Lynn, a big star in the VHS era of American porn, who talks about her transition from exotic dancing and vanilla porn to bondage movies and pro-domme work, and working with Leonard Burtman and Jutka Goz, major producers of BDSM magazines and videos.
A report from the US General Accounting Office says that the SESTA/FOSTA law, passed three years ago, has resulted in just one federal prosecution, and definitely had a chilling effect on free speech. The New Republic.
Now that Tumblr has been scrubbed of adult content and Youtube keeps changing its policies, video platform TikTok may be new new platform for BDSM education online.
Ezada Sinn, a pro-domme, talks about her experiences at the famous femdom/malesub Other World Kingdom in the Czech Republic, and how it has fared after the financial crisis and the pandemic.

Link Roundup, June 2021

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Jun 172021

The Leather Archive & Museum in Chicago celebrates it’s 30th anniversary, as told in the Chicago Reader, which talks about staying operational during COVID and being more diverse and inclusive.
Sleek magazine talks about the costumes Karl Lagerfeld designed for the 1976 film Maitresse (previously discussed), and says that the men in the BDSM scenes were real-life members of Paris’ Scene.
The new British TV biography, Ann Boleyn, not only progressively casts black actors in a historical story, but includes hints of bisexuality and BDSM sexuality in the title character’s relationship with King Henry VIII, says Radio Times.
It’s June, and that means Pride Month, which means another round of the perennial debate over the presence of kink in Pride events, as XTRA magazine shows. VICE magazine says that the debate needs to be retired in favor of community solidarity against rising transphobia. The Atlantic says “the discourse is a strange sign of progress“.
The SF Gate examines the history of the landmark Armory building in San Francisco, once the home of Kink.com’s adult video production facilities and the company’s trademark. “The idea that a deviant sexuality would exist in plain sight was anathema to the growing movement for queer respectability.”
Though it doesn’t touch on black as the fetish colour par excellance, Nautilus’ “The Reinvention of Black” does cover the technological history of producing black dyes and paints, striving for the elusive true absence of reflected light, and how that affected the arts.

Link Roundup, May 2021

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May 172021

Pat Bond, co-founder of the Til Eulenspiegel Society in 1971 and arguably one of the founders of the modern BDSM culture, died on February 31, at age 94.
The History section of the New Books Network podcast has an interview with Stephen K. Stein, author of Sadomasochism and the BDSM Community in the United States: Kinky People Unite (2021, Routledge). (Previously reviewed)
Evie Lupine has a video on Jeffree Star’s use (appropriation?) of BDSM imagery to sell mascara.
On Shibari Study, you can watch Midori’s talk on the history of Japanese bondage for free until June 1, 2021.
CVLT Nation profiles 1960s BDSM paperback publisher Satan Press and its striking covers.
The Woodhull Freedom Foundation continues to lead the struggle against SESTA-FOSTA.

Link Roundup, April 2021

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Apr 192021

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.

Link Roundup, March 2021

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Mar 152021

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.

Link Roundup, February 2021

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Feb 162021

I regret to say that Pat Bond, the founder of The Eulenspiegel Society in 1971, arguably the first modern kink organization, died on February 13th. RIP. Fifty years later, TES is still going.
The Bad Books For Bad People podcast has an in-depth discussion of the 19th century Orientalist erotic novel The Lustful Turk.
Another month, another celebrity sexually harasses women with their kinks, another necessary round of essays explaining that being kinky is not inherently non-consensual and consent violations are not necessarily vanilla. This time it’s actor Armie Hammer and his cannibal/vore fetishes. Both Evie Lupine and Morgan Thorne address the topic.
Speaking of which, Pride Legal has a primer on BDSM and the law.
Montecristo Magazine talks about the corset as a fashion item over the 20th and early 21st century.
There’s a new non-fiction book coming Sadomasochism and the BDSM Community in the United States: Kinky People Unite, by history professor Stephen K. Stein.

Link Roundup, January 2021

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Jan 182021

I’ve talked before about the role of kinky people in the culture wars, and how kinksters get dragged into conflicts whether they want to be involved or not. Case in point: Blaire White is an alt-right Youtuber who, despite being a transwoman herself, posts a lot of videos criticizing other trans people for not being the right kind of trans. She’s extended this criticism to other people with non-normative sexualities. On December 15, 2020, White posted a video titled “‘I Identify as a Dog’..Okay, Bro.” This was a ten-minute clip of her commenting and criticizing on a Snapchat video documentary about a transman who does puppyplay. White is using this as a vehicle to push the “I identify as a helicopter” anti-trans canard, making it sound like if we recognize gender diversity, we will have to accept all kinds of bizarre identities. This is despite the fact that the transman in the video never says he “identifies” as a dog, or thinks of himself as “really” a dog. White also insinuated that the couple in the video are also committing bestiality because they own real dogs. This might seem to be a tempest in a teapot, but White has over 900,000 subscribers on YouTube, and this particular video got over 200,000 views. Once again, kinksters have been used for shock value.
Kinky Youtubers Kat Blaque and Evie Lupine have posted videos countering Blaire White’s misrepresentations.
A short piece on the history of the iconic Muir cap or leatherman’s cap. I’m curious when and how this particular item of fetish fashion began to appear on female dominants.
The Elephant in the Hot Tub blog has its own take on the history of fetishes.
Another piece on how the kink scene is adapting to the pandemic.
A Psychology Today article says that kink education is necessary, especially for clinicians. It cited a 2012 study which found that 25 per cent of clinicians automatically pathologized kink.
Meanwhile, another study debunks the idea that kink is the result of childhood trauma.
The Stop Internet Sexual Exploitation Act (SISEA) is another clumsy, moral-panic-based piece of legislation that would do more harm than good to sex workers and content creators.
The People’s Story Project has an essay by Bakang Akoonyatse on growing up black, queer and kinky in Botswana, which also talks about the sexual revolution in South Africa and Nigeria, instigated by performers and educators.

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A Lover's Pinch: A Cultural History of Sadomasochism