Sigel, Lisa Z. 2020. The People’s Porn : A History of Handmade Pornography in America. London: Reaktion Books. Amazon
In the early 21st century, we think of pornography as a ubiquitous, mass-produced, and corporatized phenomenon. Sites like PornHub present the viewer with vast quantities, individually tagged according to theme and sexual act. Advances in video production and distribution technology means almost anybody can make and consume sexual content with a high degree of technical quality and specificity.
Sigel’s book explores an entire history of what might be called “craft” or “artisanal” erotica, produced in single items or small sets, and using a wide variety of media, from carved whalebone to modified mass-produced photos to handmade garments. Many of the items discussed in the book aren’t “erotica” in the usual sense, i.e. items intended to arouse the viewer, perhaps as an aid to masturbation. These artifacts, such as a carved wooden figure of Abraham Lincoln with an erection, might more accurately be described as “adult novelties”.
“Sado Machismo” is an essay written by Edmund White and published in New Times, 8 January 1979, reprinted in the collection The Burning Library (Knopf, 1994)
White wrote this at a very different time: Not even ten years after Stonewall, before Cruising and definitely before HIV. The collection notes this essay was “… published during the height of Anita Bryant’s anti-homosexual campaign in Florida and in the midst of the Briggs Amendment campaign in California.” Gays and lesbians fighting for their rights to work as teachers were in the news, but a certain kind of “queer chic” was in the air too.
Storr, Merl. 2003. Latex and Lingerie : Shopping for Pleasure at Ann Summers. Oxford: Berg. Amazon
Ann Summers is a UK brand of lingerie and sex toys, sold by brick-and-mortar stores, by online retailing and by a system of “Ann Summers parties”, in which saleswomen organize parties and directly market goods to the (all female) attendees. These goods include lingerie, sex toys, and related items. In particular, they sell bondage cuffs, light impact implements and other BDSM equipment. The Ann Summers parties are a point where “the rubber meets the road”, where people (i.e. hetero, vanilla women) have their first direct contact with BDSM toys, and the concept of BDSM play in general. Merl Storr’s book, based on interviews with party hosts and participant observation, presents valuable insights into how vanilla/hetero identities can change to accommodate the purchase of BDSM gear, if not the actual use of such.
The Presbyterian Lash is a short satirical play from 1661 by Francis Kirkman, a rogue-ish author, publisher and bibliographer, with an eye for capitalizing on scandal.
BREAKING: The Senate Appropriations Committee released a spending bill which is being voted on tomorrow.
It includes $1M of your tax dollars to go towards renovating an LGBTQ Center in PA which boasts rooms to try BDSM and s*x f*tishes and hosts BDSM and s*x k*nk parties.… pic.twitter.com/PKkj6TEd2q
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There are three prizes every month of £50 each for the first three people to publish a unique re-post of Elust.
To be eligible for one of the prizes, your re-post will need to include your own comments written in your own words.
Here’s an example of Elust 166 with a unique introduction and unique comments next to the links re-posted on Sandra’s blog.
For SEO purposes, non-identical re-posts of Elust are much better for your search ranking, and it’s more appealing for your readers, so I’m trying to encourage people to write their own comments next to each of the links, or a paragraph for each category and/or write their own introduction.
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Hooven, Valentine. 1997. Tom of Finland: his life and times. New York: St Martin’s Press.
One thing I’ve been curious about in the life of Touko Laaksonen, better known the world over as Tom of Finland, is did he participate in BDSM?
Hooven’s 1993 biography explores the deeply closeted, all-male, outdoors world that formed Laaksonen’s sexuality. There were a handful of bars and cafes in 1940s and 1950s Finland that catered to gay men, but they upheld a culture of effeminacy he didn’t care for. (Hooven makes the point that the “queen” stereotype was a way of asserting gay identity publicly in decades past.) His way to be gay was to partake in furtive, anonymous, nighttime encounters in parks, bus stations and the like.
