2000s – The History of BDSM

Killing Me Softly (2002): The Celluloid Dungeon

Jun 272026

Killing Me Softly is a 2002 erotic thriller directed by Chen Kaige and starring Heather Graham and Joseph Fiennes.

Alice (Graham) lives in London with her sweet but dull boyfriend. After a chance sexual encounter with a mysterious man (Fiennes), she tracks him down and learns he is Adam Tallis, a famous mountaineer who saved the lives of six people in an accident that killed many others. Alice leaves her boyfriend and starts a relationship with Adam.

Killing seems like an experiment in how many red flags a man can have and still be attractive. Adam is brooding, mercurial, controlling and haunted by the accident, in which the woman he loved died. When Alice is mugged on the street, Adam doesn’t just chase the assailant down, he brutally beats him, then immediately proposes marriage to Alice.

CSI S05E05 “Swap Meet”: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Nov 282025

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation S05E05 “Swap Meet”, aired October 28, 2004. IMDB

In “Swap Meet”, the CSI franchise checks another sexual subculture off its list: swingers. While not directly related to BDSM, this episode does illustrate how investigative procedurals like CSI handle alternative sexualities.

The episode opens with aerial scenes of Las Vegas intercut with soft-core style shots of a couple making out. Cut to a hetero couple going to a swingers party in a posh gated community, with the soundtrack of “Vertigo” by U2. This being TV, everybody is younger and prettier than they would be in real life. This being CSI, it’s only a matter of time until a dead body turns up. This time, it’s a woman in a fountain, stabbed in the back and drowned.

Shadow Hours (2000): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Feb 072025

Shadow Hours (2000) is an independent drama film written and directed by Isaac H. Eaton and starring Balthazar Getty, Peter Weller and Rebecca Gayheart. IMDB

Michael Holloway (Getty) is a recovering drug addict who works the night shift at a Los Angeles gas station. He’s trying to plan for the future with his pregnant wife, Chloe (Gayheart). The pressures and isolation of his job push Michael towards using again. One night, Michael meets Stuart Chappell (Weller), a wealthy, mysterious stranger who claims to be a writer. Stuart takes a liking to Michael, buys him a new suit, and pulls him along on nightly expeditions into the dark underside of the city.

CSI S05E15 “King Baby”: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Jan 102025

CSI‘s episode “King Baby” (S05E15) is another Jerry Stahl co-written episode, which focuses on another sexual kink, infantilism/ageplay/ABDL (adult baby/diaper lovers).

Choke (2008): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Oct 012024

Choke is a 2008 dark comedy based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, written and directed by Clark Gregg. Amazon

When I’ve asked leather guys whether they’d rather make it with a real Con Ed [repair] man or a lawyer who looks like one, the question baffles them. It lies outside the system of their fantasies. In their hearts they may know that the lawyer would be more adventurous and uninhibited lover, but their passion demands he at least appear to be a worker.
White, Edmund. 1979 “Sado Machismo”, from The Burning Library: Essays , Knopf, New York, 1994

Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) is a recovering, self-described “sex addict”, who fakes choking in restaurants so that he can emotionally manipulate his rescuers, which is to pay for supporting his Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother Ida (Anjelica Huston). He also works as a Colonial American historical re-enactor, performing a sanitized version of historical times.

(Spoilers ahead)

Latex & Lingerie: Shopping for Pleasure at Ann Summers Parties, by Merl Storr (2003)

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Sep 272024

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.

My Normal (2009): The Celluloid Dungeon

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May 132024

*Natalie (Nicole LaLiberte) speaks with her fellow pro dommes*

My Normal is a 2009 comedy-drama about a professional dominatrix living in NYC, directed by Irving Schwartz, written by Abdul Malik Abbott, Renee Garzon, Keith Planit, and Adam Sales, and starring Nicole LaLiberte. Amazon

Natalie (aka “Ashley”) juggles her work as a pro domme with pressures from her family to get married and have kids, and looking for love as a lesbian. She gets her break to work in the film industry but encounters a new set of problems.

Secretary: the script, by Erin Cressida Wilson: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Apr 092024

Secretary (2002) has taken up a disproportionate amount of time in researching and writing The Celluloid Dungeon. I already knew there were a lot of differences between Mary Gaitskill’s original short story and the finished film directed by Steven Shainberg, but I’ve since learned there were significant differences between Erin Cressida Wilson’s script and the finished product. (See Ariel Schudson’s “Secretary and Adaptation: the Telephone theory”) Thanks to inter-library loan, I’ve borrowed a copy of the script book, which also includes essays by Wilson and others.

CSI S04E05 “Fur and Loathing”: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Mar 142024

The notorious “Fur and Loathing” (aired October 30, 2003) episode of CSI is supposed to be about the furry subculture, but it actually demonstrates the investigative procedural’s particular view of sexuality and identity.

A routine traffic accident leads Grissom and Willows to what they at first think is a coyote but is actually a dead man in a raccoon fur suit. This leads to PAFCon (Plushies and Furries Convention), which the deceased, Robert Pitt, attended.

Walk All Over Me (2007): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Nov 022023

Walk All Over Me is a 2007 Canadian comedy/crime thriller.

Alberta, a young woman, flees a drug deal gone wrong in her small town. She arrives in Vancouver with only the clothes on her back and seeks out the only person she knows: her old babysitter, Celene.

Celene now works as a pro dominatrix, part of her “life plan” to become an actress. She reluctantly takes Alberta in.