POSE is a drama series set in the ballroom culture of New York City, set in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In contrast to the beauty and glamour of the ballroom scene, the performers (mostly poor, non-white, and queer/trans) make their livings through work of varying legality. The second season features a plotline about working as a pro domme.
This is a series of images published on Facebook on June 22, 2020 by Karada House Berlin.
Continue reading »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.
In honor of black history month, I want to highlight some of the African-Americans who have contributed to kink and BDSM.
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 »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.
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.)
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?
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
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.
