This is a series of images published on Facebook on June 22, 2020 by Karada House Berlin.
Continue reading »Jul 162020
Apr 182020
House is an American TV medical procedural drama. “Love Hurts”, aired May 10, 2005, is the twentieth episode of the first season.
The episode begins with a man in the Emergency Room with what appears to be a stroke. The patient, Harvey (John Cho), also has nominal aphasia (difficulty naming things), as his friend Annette (Christina Cox) explains.
As Harvey has a metal plate in his jaw from an earlier injury, the doctors can’t do an MRI scan, and have to diagnose with other methods. They also notice oddities like how Harvey enjoys having needles inserted, and how Annette hovers around the patient. Finally, they find Annette in Harvey’s hospital room, apparently strangling him.
One of the doctors, Chase, explains that she is a dominatrix.
Feb 172020
In honor of black history month, I want to highlight some of the African-Americans who have contributed to kink and BDSM.
- Gene Bilbrew, also known as “Eneg” or “Bondy”, was one of the classic American fetish artists of the 1960s, illustrating many magazines and pulp novel covers. See my review of his biography
- Vi Johnson is a lesbian kinkster who has been involved since the 1970s and currently runs the Carter-Johnson library.
- ONYX is an organization of Men of Color who enjoy the leather lifestyle, founded in 1995.
- Mama’s Family is an leather family that founded by Mama, aka Sandy Reinhardt.
Aug 192019
GENE BILBREW REVEALED: The Unsung Legacy of a Fetish Art Pioneer (African American Artists Series)
Pérez Seves’ previous work on Eric Stanton gave an interesting picture of a man, his work and his time. However, the author has less to work with when it comes to Gene Bilbrew.
Continue reading »Jun 252019
The Mask of Fu Manchu is a 1932 adventure thriller.
Many other people have written about the racial and gender politics of this film. Suffice it to say, they’re awful. This was at the peak of “yellow peril” racism in America, portraying a world on the brink of a cataclysmic war between West and East. Asians are portrayed as both vicious and weak, needing a leader like the Western-educated Fu Manchu to lead them.
This was also before the Hays code was put into effect in 1934, and it displays a degree of sex and violence that is still surprising today.
The two villains are both portrayed by white people in yellowface: Boris Karloff as Doctor Fu Manchu and Myrna Loy as his daughter Fa Lo See (“fallacy”?). Before Loy was the ideal American wife Nora Charles in the Thin Man movies, she played “exotic” or “ethnic” women in brown, yellow or black face.
Jun 052019
The People Under The Stairs (1991) is a horror film written and directed by Wes Craven
Though categorized as horror, People is better understood as a contemporary Gothic fable. A young African-American man, known by his nickname “Fool”, is desperate to help his poor family in the ghetto. He breaks into the sprawling home of a wealthy couple who are the neighborhood landlords. The couple, who call each other “Daddy” and “Mama”, look and act like they stepped out of the 1950s, but they and their house is not what they seem. (They’re a bit like Paul and Mary from Eating Raoul, just taken a few steps further.)
Apr 232017
Cruz, Ariane. 2016. The Color of Kink: Black Women, BDSM, and Pornography (Sexual Cultures)
In the (now missing) tumblr post above, raceplay is called a “gross kink”, equated with “fetishizing little girls”, and placed outside the realm of sex positivity. Why exactly is raceplay on the other side of the line marked “edgeplay”? And where do black women fit within the current kink culture?
Nov 082015
Weiss, Margot. Techniques of Pleasure: BDSM and the Circuits of Sexuality. Duke University Press, 2011. Amazon
You can get an idea of how thought-provoking I found Weiss’ book was by the sheer density of post-its as bookmarks.
Side view of Weiss’ Techniques of Pleasure, with many post-its
Feb 162014
The Kink Realm has a list of daily links for February 2013 and February 2014, on the history of black people in BDSM, including profiles of Viola Johnson and Mollena Williams, discussions of the issues of bottoms with darker skin, Marvin Gaye’s little-known song “Masochistic Beauty”, and more.
I hope to see posts on fetish artist Eugene Bilbrew (aka “Eneg”) and actress/singer Eartha Kitt.
Dec 312013
I want to give some signal boost to True Stories productions’ documentary-in-progress Black Pervert: the f***ing history of a double minority, both because I like to support BDSM history projects in general, and because POCs deserve more representation and recognition in kink. I look forward to seeing this.
