Link Digests – The History of BDSM

Link Digest, July 2026

Jul 152026

Jun 182026

Kenney Jones’ essay “Kristi Noem’s Sex Life, Conservative Swingers, and the ‘Real Sin’ of Visibility” probes the paradoxes of conservative American sexuality, such as why swinger clubs are most common in the most repressive states. Conservatives expect people to fall short of their heteronormative, monogamous and vanilla ideals; what they can’t forgive is people questioning those ideals.
The Chicago Reader profiles the Leather Archive & Museum.
Interview from 2017 with indie video game developer Robert Yang, creator of Hurt Me Plenty.
Podcasts:
- Behind the Bastards tells the story of the One Touch “orgasm cult”, which is what happens when a pyramid scheme/cult gets a hold of sex positivity. Part 1
- Authentically Kinky interviews Isabella Sinclair, a pioneer in online streaming and the woman behind the Ivy Mansion and Gwen Media video series.
From Archive.org:
- Centurion gay BDSM magazine, No.41 (1992)
- An archive of SandMutopian Magazine, No. 18 (1995) – No. 39 (last issue)
- Mel Gordon’s book Voluptuous Panic; The Erotic World Of Weimar Berlin (2000)

May 192026

Xtra Magazine covers the history of the pro-BDSM lesbian magazine On Our Backs.
LGBTQNation profiles the forthcoming book on BDSM and spirituality by Dr. Melissa Wilcox, Devotions: Spirituality and Religion in LGBTQ Leather and BDSM Communities.
Many key figures of the “bizarre underground” of the mid-20th century are still largely unknown. Richard Perez Seves has pulled together as much research as possible about Leonard Burtman, kink magazine publisher and film producer.
Consensual Torture Simulator is a text-only video game published by Merritt Kopas in 2013, in which the player is urged by their lover to make them cry.
Podcasts:
- The eroticization of breasts is so widespread that it’s hard to think of it as a “fetish”, but that wasn’t always the case. The Sex and Psychology Podcast covers the historical evolution of the kink so ubiquitous it seems normal.
From Archive.org:
- Nick Broomfield’s documentary Fetishes (1996)
- Documentary Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997)
- Lesbian BDSM magazine Venus Infers Vol.2 No.1 (1994)
- Librivox free audiobook of Venus in Furs (In English; not sure which translation)
- Lynda Hart’s Between the Body and the Flesh: Performing Sadomasochism (1998)

Apr 212026

Last month I posted the wrong URL for the Canadian documentary series KINK (2001). You can get the entire series here.
Back in 2005, Valerie Steele, author of Fetish and The Corset, gave a talk at Cornell about fetish fashion history.
RUSSH magazine in 2021 writes about the history of the intersection between fashion and fetish/BDSM. “But when mainstream fashion adopts culturally significant optics from those whose identities sit in the marginal rings of society in the hope to capitalise on a subversive trend, what does it mean for the communities who pioneered the kink movement in the first place?”
Grailed provides a short history of the meeting of BDSM and high fashion
So.gay highlights fashion designers who have been inspired by (taken from?) the kink subculture.
From Archive.org:
- A number of issues of lesbian BDSM magazine Bad Attitude.
- A number of issues of lesbian sex magazine On Our Backs.
- Bondage Life 82 (2001)
- The Sexual Fetish in Today’s Society, by Hugh Jones (1965)

Mar 162026

Brief bio of independent porn pioneer Lady Sonia, aka Gill Ellis-Young
The Decoder Ring podcast explores the long strange story behind Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, and the conspiracy theories about how the director supposedly hid an expose about child sex trafficking in his last film.
Mr. Q on Substack writes about how the arguments over the film Pillion (2025) represent two different philosophies of BDSM.
The Public Medievalist explores the history of the “nocturnal ritual fantasy”, a recurring belief that deviant groups hold bizarre transgressive rituals, which continues into the present day.
Short bio of Pat Evans, the bald black model on the Ohio Players’ kinky album covers.
From Archive.org
- Kink (2001) is a documentary TV series about kinky people in different Canadian cities. I knew some of the people who appeared in the first season, shot in Vancouver, BC.
- Equus Eroticus magazine No 12.

Feb 162026

Jan 152026

Nicholas Tanek interviews Fetlife founder John Baku.
Comedian and actress Margaret Cho talks about her background in BDSM and polyamory in The Advocate.
On the New Books Network podcast, Hannah Frydman talks about her book Between the Sheets: Sexuality, Classified Advertising, and the Moral Threat to Press Freedom in France. It explores the sexual subculture in classified ads in early 20th century French newspaper, which used coded language like “English lessons” to refer to erotic flagellation.
Another NBN podcast discusses Fierce Desires: A New History of Sex and Sexuality in America by Rebecca L. Davis, which is a 400-year history of sex in America, showing that even in 19th century there were queer people and sexual mavericks.
The Dominican Republic is having its first BDSM film festival in May 2026.
Leather Times magazine, Spring 2004
On Archive.org:
- Dutch femdom magazine Doma No.50, 1987
- Dutch BDSM magazine Slave Girl No.44, 1989