Mar 172022
 
Feb 212022
 
  • Fashion designer Thierry Mugler, who did a lot to bring the worlds of fetish and fashion together, died on January 23rd 2022, at age 73.
  • The American Sex podcast has an in-depth report on censorship in the podcast space, particularly regarding sexually explicit works, which is exacerbated by Spotify’s project to monopolize and exploit the entire podcasting ecosystem.
  • The second episode of the On Guard Salon talks about dating and cruising for gay leathermen in the pre-Internet days.
  • The Dildorks podcast interviewed Leigh Cowart, author of Hurts So Good: the Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose, a book that explores the many ways in which people seek out pain and other intense sensations, including BDSM but also experiences like eating hot peppers, body modification, marathon running, and more.
  • In Rolling Stone, Tina Horn profiles Netflix’s thriller Brazen, which reiterates tired stereotypes about kink and sex workers.
  • Internet platforms come and go, and Tiktok is in the “come” phase of that cycle. For our purposes, Esme James is running a video series called Kinky History, and you can read an interview with her on BI.org.
Jan 172022
 
Dec 152021
 
  • The Kinky Cocktail Hour interviews Vi Johnson, BDSM world elder and keeper of the Carter-Johnson Memorial Library.
  • Octavius King’s video profiles the notorious X-rated Atari adult videogame from 1982, Custer’s Revenge, and its bondage box art.
  • Back in 2011, there was a videogame for the Wii console called We Dare. Among other things, it encouraged you to put a wiimote in the back of your pants or skirt and get spanked.
  • Anne Rice, best known in the BDSM world as the author of Exit to Eden and the Sleeping Beauty quadrology, died on Dec 11, 2021. The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty was a huge influence in the 1990s BDSM culture.
  • Auto Erotica in San Francisco’s Castro district, located in the former office of Drummer magazine, is a shop/museum for kinky and queer books, posters, magazines and other materials.

Nov 152021
 
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.
Sep 202021
 
Aug 152021
 
Jun 272021
 
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.