May 292018
May 242018
Now available for pre-order (hardback and ebook) from Amazon.com
Follow @aloverspinch on Twitter for news * Google Play * Google Books * Goodreads
May 152018
- Goreans are an insular bunch. Vice got a few self-described “kajirae” (female slaves) to talk about their lives.
- The Dig History podcast has an episode on the culture of sex work in 19th century America. As far as I can tell, sexual flagellation was not popular in American pornography or sex work, and what little there was was produced overseas and imported. The podcast does include an intriguing reference to sex workers who provided “ropes and braces” (18:29), likely some form of bondage. Another common practice was living tableaus (26:40), in which women would adopt a pose and costume based on popular paintings or sculptures, one of which was Hiram Powers’ The Greek Slave. I suspect there were a lot of themes of capture and bondage in these displays.
- Another Dig History podcast episode spotlights that “hero in evil”, the Marquis de Sade.
- Jean Genet, a French playwright, included many queer and kinky themes in his works. The Balcony, one of his plays written in 1956, was one of a series of dramatic works produced for TV broadcast in a joint project between the Open University and the BBC between 1977 and 1981. This shortened version of The Balcony never made it to TV broadcast. The linked essay isn’t clear if the film survives in any form, other than a few stills, though a comment says that a brief clip appears in a documentary on Genet.
- A short essay on the meaning and history of the Phyllis riding Aristotle trope.
- The myth of “secret European kink training houses” has been around for a long time, even before the publication of Story of O. There’s never been, to my knowledge, credible evidence of them. That’s why I’m highly suspicious of this interview with Ernest Greene and Nina Hartley about Greene’s forthcoming book, The Truth about O, which claims that these elite, secretive organizations do exist.
- Episode 222 of the Kinkycast interviews Tori and Jeff of the Leather History Preservation Foundation. Leather history doesn’t preserve itself, you know.
- Speaking of preserving history, San Francisco will designate part of the South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood to be a “Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District.” It’s home to the Folsom Street Fair and many gay and kink bars and shops. The Washington Post says, “It will give the cultural district negotiating rights in future development and access to public money.”
- Dame magazine has a feature on the particular issues of kink for Orthodox Jews.
- D/s sometimes awkwardly rubs elbows with the Christian domestic discipline subculture. The Sexing History podcast has an episode on Evangelical Christian marriage manuals, and their efforts to expand the sexual opportunities within conservative marriage.
- In an echo of the Jian Ghomeshi incident from 2014, New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman has defended himself from accusations of abuse of women by claiming he had “engaged in role-playing and other consensual sexual activity,” within “the privacy of intimate relationships.” It is painful but necessary to again educate people on the basics of consent, and fortunately even mainstream publications like Lifehacker and the BBC have taken part in this education.
Apr 162018
- The American anti-sex-trafficking legislations SESTA and FOSTA may have a profound effect on the sexual subcultures on the Internet. This is the latest in 8 years of anti-sex lawmaking. The primary targets are sex workers, forcing sites like Backpage.com to shut down, but this may also have an effect on sites like Fetlife.com or even Reddit.com if they have anything to do with sex work. See more from TIME.com and EFF.org.
- As I’ve noted before, accusations of sexual deviance are frequently linked with accusations of religious and/or political deviance. This includes both Protestant views of Catholics and Catholic views of Protestants. This essay covers accusations of alleged Protestant orgies. “Most of the time this is plainly prurient, hyperventilating scaremongering. It’s linked to the blood libel (the claim that Protestants secretly murdered and ate babies, just as witches, Jews and early Christians had been accused of doing): after all, orgies are hungry work.”
- Possibly the closest thing to the Laura Antoniou‘s Marketplace we’ll ever get in real life, the Other World Kingdom gets an in-depth article.
- Bitch magazine has an essay on the particular issues of Muslim people (or people from a Muslim background) being into BDSM.
- Found a video essay on Youtube on the history of latex fetishism.
- BDSM has always been closely linked to technology, and this article describes how technologies like remote access, smart houses, and cryptocurrencies are being used in kink.
- There’s a surprisingly large amount of rape and abduction in classical art. How do we talk about this in a post-#MeToo era?
- Ever wonder what a Dionysian orgy in ancient Greece was actually like? Now you can know.
Mar 292018
I just found out that you can pre-order A Lover’s Pinch in hardback. It probably won’t arrive until August of this year, but advance orders help. Order from the publisher’s site.
Mar 242018
- The Splinter blog has an essay on the particular problems of black people being into BDSM.
- NYC’s Museum of Sex will have a retrospective on the 50-year career of Japanese erotica and bondage photographer Nobuyoshi Araki.
- MEL Magazine has an essay on neo-Nazi porn.
- Gloria Brame writes about the recent coverage of a serial killer preying on the BDSM scene in the TV series Web of Lies. “…arguably the single biggest danger in the BDSM Community are non-BDSMers who prey on us. They don’t share our values, they don’t believe in consent, they exploit us because they think submissive people are easy marks. They are not us. They never will be. The minute you violate the concept of mutual consent and safety, you are not a BDSMer, just a morally bankrupt predator or a straight-up violent sadist.”
- Academia.edu has a paper (in French, alas for me) about the historiography of BDSM and particularly Michel Foucault’s view of gay BDSM as subversive.
- A profile of Australian musician, practicing sadomasochist, and noted eccentric (and raving racist) Percy Grainger.
Mar 202018
The Page Proofs of A Lover’s Pinch
It’s finally on its way. After combing through the page proofs, I thought it was done. Then the editor called and said that I needed to make some last minute revisions, specifically to the chapters on slavery and fascism. Fixing the terminology in the slavery chapter was fairly easy, but the fascism chapter proved difficult. I wrote that part of the book before 2016, when I assumed that fascism was largely over, except for a few goofy guys living in their basements. That was before the alt right, before Richard Spencer, before Trump became president, before Charlottesville, and all their attendant evils.
The resurgence of white supremacy and quasi-authoritarian movements in the West are as much about gender as about race. Gavin McInnes’ Proud Boys is about projecting an conservative masculine image to the world. Writer and skinhead Jack Donovan extols the virtues of all-male gangs as the fundamental unit of society. These suggest a (perceived) crisis in gender roles, with certain people doubling-down on a reactionary ideal of white masculinity.
The more I thought about this topic, the more I thought it deserved full consideration, and yet I had only a few days to write it, and only at most a page to fill. I wrote a few paragraphs and filed the rest away for some article or future book.
A Lover’s Pinch is due to launch in July 2018, in both hardcover and ebook formats.
Mar 062018
Here it is, folks. (This is not the final art.) The book and ebook should launch in late July 2018.
Feb 172018
- A short essay on Jack Fritscher’s life as founder of gay leather magazine Drummer.
- The BackStory history podcast has a segment on the lurid, porno-Gothic, anti-Catholic accounts of Rebecca Reed and Maria Monk. (Episode transcript)
- French philosopher and historian and practicing sadomasochist Michel Foucault was an influential figure in the study of the history of sexuality. Now, more than thirty years after his death, the fourth volume of his History of Sexuality, Confessions of the Flesh, will finally be published.
- Yes, Fifty Shades Freed is in theatres. No, I don’t want to see it or talk about it. You can read reviews at Pajiba or the BBC. There’s also an interesting essay about how Fifty Shades dramatizes the dilemma of affective labor.
- Leatherati has an interview with longtime leather writer and titleholder Guy Baldwin, from 2012.
- Garage magazine has an essay on the recent history of BDSM, especially in the arts, from the Old Guard leatherman days to the post-Internet world.
- In Alaska, Rep. Zach Fransler allegedly assaulted a woman he was dating by hitting her during sex hard enough to rupture her eardrum. In a later text message apologizing to the woman, Fransler called what he did a “BDSM kink”, but the woman said in interviews she never negotiated.
Jan 152018
- Katherine Gates, author of the new edition of Deviant Desires, talks on the Sex Out Loud podcast about fetishes. Specifically, she came out of the zine scene of the late 80s and early 90s, when people would self-publish and distribute paper zines for their own niche fetishes, such as sploshing or crushing or giantess. This was largely supplanted by the Internet in the mid-90s.
- Susan Wright, NCSF co-founder and tireless advocate, talks on the Kinkycast about the threat to kink and freedom of expression from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, formerly known as Morality in Media. Among other things, it claims that the EBSCO academic research database is a purveyor of pornography to children.
- A 2016 GQ article claims that “Kink isn’t just for weirdo side characters anymore.” I don’t know about that, but it is an interesting list about kink in mainstream television, including Transparent, Nip/Tuck, Billions and other series.
- BDSM has always been influenced by the changing times, and new technologies. An Engadget article talks about a pro dominatrix who specializes in “consensual blackmail” and Internet-enabled surveillance.
