Link Digests – Page 4 – The History of BDSM

Link Digest, June 2022

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Jun 162022

The newly launched Zipper magazine has a feature article on “How the Pandemic Made Us Kinkier“.
Cornell University has an online exhibition on the making of On Our Backs magazine, the pioneering lesbian sex magazine in the early 80s.
Get Your Hands Dirty has an essay on the history of bootblacking, going back to our friend Hannah Cullwick, and the rise of bootblacking contests in the 1990s.
I had long thought Robert Yang’s Hurt Me Plenty was the only videogame to incorporate BDSM themes directly into the gameplay, but further research led to Mighty Jill Off, a platformer game that makes playing it an act of masochism, and Consensual Torture Simulator, a text-only game about a sadist negotiating with a masochist.
By 2022 standards, the nude photos published in Penthouse that cost Vanessa Williams her title as Miss America back in 1984 were a bit tame, and the controversy even more quaint. What I didn’t realize was that the images had her in black leather boots, harness, cuffs and collars, in other words, BDSM gear. Penthouse has always been a little racier than Playboy (within the constraints of the heterosexual male gaze), and would tiptoe onto the side of fetish and kink imagery. Perhaps that was what pushed the pageant into de-crowning Williams. A black Miss America was already a stretch, but one who associated with deviant sexuality was too much.
My interview on the Betwixt the Sheets podcast introduced me to another historical figure with at least an interest in kink: Christian apologist and fantasy writer C.S. Lewis, best known for the Narnia books. He was one of those individuals whose sexuality was hard to pin down; was he closeted homosexual, closeted bisexual, asexual, or just upper-class British? Regardless, he did have an interest, if only theoretical, in the idea of whipping beautiful women, including Lily Greeves, the sister of his friend Arthur.

Link Digest, May 2022

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May 242022

Slate magazine considers the way sex is depicted in current TV shows like Euphoria, And Just Like That and the like. “It’s as if the wide availability of sex—and porn—and frank discussions of various sexual lifestyles have all combined to render purely hedonistic or transgressive approaches to it as retro or passé or even quaint.”
The Betwixt the Sheets podcast has a fascinating look at medieval sexuality, which was quite different from what most might think. There was a lot of discussion about “sodomy”, which then could be defined as any sexual activity other than coitus for the purposes of procreation. It included manual stimulation of the self or other persons, and “femoral intercourse”, i.e. a penis pressed between a person’s thighs. This was also when women were seen as the more sexually active gender, not men. It shows that our modern views of sexuality are not universal.
Evie Lupine provides a video update on the BDSM-related court cases in the news, such as Arnie Hammer and Marilyn Manson situations.
Gayle Rubin speaks on the Feminist Sex Wars of the 1970s and 1980s in a presentation recorded at Cornell in 2022.
The Washington Post mused on the juxtaposition of Balenciaga’s BDSM/fetish themed fashion show being held on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Is money the ultimate fetish?

Link Digest, April 2022

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Apr 162022

The Kinkycast has re-published their interviews with three pioneer female dominants, whose careers go back to the 1970s: Sybil Holliday, Dr. Charlayne Grenci, and Cleo Dubois.
Reason magazine writes about the rise and fall of the sexually diverse Internet, epitomized by PornHub and Tumblr, both of which have been massively censored. Conservative activist groups have pressured the commercial middlemen of the industry to make it financially precarious.
The American Sex Podcast interviews Susan Wright of the NCSF about decriminalizing BDSM.
It’s Pride season again, which means another season of arguments about whether kink belongs at Pride. OUT magazine reviews the argument.

Link Digest, March 2022

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Mar 172022

Kinbakunomicon posted a translation of the transcript of a 1971 roundtable discussion in Kinbaku Taizen, which is full of interesting perspectives from Japanese people on different forms of BDSM in Japan, Europe and America.
A video interview with an elder of the spanking community, which is BDSM adjacent.
Mashable covers the loss of a unique space for diverse sexuality in the censoring of Tumblr.
XBIZ covers the history of adult industry content prohibitions, which appear to be based more on industry folklore and urban legends than actual laws or policies.

Link Digest, February 2022

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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.

Link Digest, January 2022

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Jan 172022

The Decoder Ring podcast explores the notorious X-rated 1982 videogame Custer’s Revenge.
On Guard is a Youtube channel spun off from the Watts the Safe Word BDSM educational channel, which covers the gay leatherman culture of the 1970s and 1980s.
The Internet Archive has a scan of the December 1983 issue of the gay magazine The Body Politic, which has an article by Geoff Mains called, “The Agony and the Ecstasy” about gay male S&M, extracted from Urban Aboriginals.
The Dirty Sexy History podcast has a number of episodes on kink or kink-adjacent topics, including episodes on 19th Century dominatrix Theresa Berkley, the consensual Master-slave relationship of Arthur Munby and Hannah Cullwick, and the death of composer Franz Kotzwara from erotic asphyxiation in 1791.
Another magazine has an interview with Jack Fritscher, legendary publisher of gay leather/BDSM magazine Drummer and porn producer, as promo for an upcoming documentary Raw! Uncut! Video!: A Love Story About Fetish Porn by Ryan A White and Alex Clausen.

Link Digest: December 2021

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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.

Link Digest, November 2021

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Nov 152021

Shunga Gallery is a site focusing on erotic art, and goes deeper than just providing a gallery. The pages on BDSM artists Erich von Gotha and Joseph Farrel include short biographies.
Kinbakunomicon has a new English translation of a 1959 article from Kitan Club magazine, “The Beautiful Feelings of Shibari” by Shinryo Masaki
Thrillist profiles the still-functioning (as of 2018) BDSM regions of the virtual world Second Life.
The Sex Workers Archival Project twitter has scans of a 1995 Bondage Life interview with Mistress Olivia Outré, who was a 20 year bondage work veteran at the time.
Actress Gwyneth Paltrow has launch an anti-porn campaign, calling in harmful to women. This is the same Gwyneth Paltrow whose GOOP brand sold a variety of harmful “lifestyle products” to women, not to mention a few BDSM items.

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.

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