Link Digests – The History of BDSM

The podcast You Must Remember This does an in-depth study of the 1980s kinky romance (?) 9 1/2 Weeks. Its exploration of 1990s cable TV erotica series Red Shoe Diaries is also worth a listen.
In another example of fashion appropriating fetish, Neon Coyotes is selling, or rather re-selling, chokers but calling them “day collars” and explicitly referencing BDSM in the promotional material. “We craft bespoke pieces that serve as instruments for personal expression, with an added touch of high fashion and a hint of kink.”
From Archive.org:
- Trevor Jacques’ BDSM manual On the Safe Edge: A Manual for Safe SM Play (1994)
- Guido Crepax’s 1975 comics (bande-dessinee) adaptation of Histoire d’O.
- Jack Fritscher’s 1994 memoir of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
- Guy Baldwin’s collection of essays Ties that Bind (1993).

Link Digest, August 2025

Aug 152025

The Joyce Project talks about the Victorian/Edwardian softcore fetish magazine Photo Bits, which inspired author James Joyce.
Evie Lupine talks about the anti-BDSM ideas being spread by the Decolonizing Love influencers
Kat Blaque has her own opinion on Decolonizing Love
From Archive.org:
- More scans of Janus spanking magazine
- Scans of Janus spinoff Februs
- Scans of Good Spanking magazine
- Collection of femdom/forced feminization art by Juan Puyal

Jul 162025

Jun 152025

The Pink Kink podcast talks about the history of the spanking community and its relationship with the broader BDSM community, the growth of spanking events, and spanking content creators like Shadow Lane and the late Ed Lee. (Starts at 30 minutes)
Due to the rise of anti-queer politics, this year there will be much less corporate sponsorship for Pride events. This might be a good thing.
Lavender magazine covers the dual exhibit of leather columnist Steve Lenius and photographer Andrew Bertke.
Audrey Warne explores the sadomasochistic imagery in the work of surrealist photographer Man Ray, 1929-32.
In Religion Dispatches, Jeff Sharlet writes about the dominatrix/superheroine aesthetic adopted by Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem and other women in the Trump/MAGA orbit. “…in the gendered politics of Trumpism certain women convey their particular authority by conforming to conventional ideas of “sexy,” ultra-femme variations of styles appropriate to the situation… [.] Trump women, goes the thinking, are “real” precisely because they try hard to perform “woman”; liberal and Left women are not “real women” because, in this logic, feminism makes them rebel against their “natural” roles.”
From Archive.org:
- Scan of November 1994 (#147) edition of Italian BDSM magazine Club
- The exploitation film One Shocking Moment (1965), which includes a scene of a woman beating a man.

May 152025

A British TV show called Hodson Confidential in 1988 profiled the British fetish/kink scene.
It’s close to Pride season again, and Aphyr tells of the long-running controversy over kink at Pride.
The American Hysteria podcast explores the anti-Catholic gothic-sadomasochistic bestselling book of the early 19th century, Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk.
Holly Randall interviews her mother, veteran adult media photographer Suze Randall (who appeared in Not a Love Story).
From Archive.org:
- Mark Thompson’s essay anthology Leatherfolk (1992)
- An assortment of books and articles on BDSM in Spanish
- Jean de Berg’s 1966 novel The Image
- James Cleugh’s biography of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, The First Masochist (1967)