rape – The History of BDSM

Law & Order Special Victims Unit S24E16 “The Presence of Absence”: The Celluloid Dungeon

Dec 162025

Air date: March 23, 2023, Director: Norberto Barba, Writer: Brendan Feeney

Two women, Zoe Greene and Jenna Scott, are in a nightclub. Jenna is pushing hard for Zoe to date again after the death of her husband. Jenna introduces Zoe to a dating app and gets her to connect to “Klaus Darcy”. Zoe’s online relationship with Klaus escalates to sexting, a little D&S, and gift exchanges, like lingerie. (Zoe mentions that she and her late husband used to get “a little freaky”.)

Zoe sets up a meeting with Klaus at a hotel room, including bondage with her late husband’s neckties. She’s wearing black lingerie and a collar with an O ring. The text messages tell her to pose by the window, and she answers “Yes, sir.”

Lipstick (1976): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Nov 132023

Lipstick is a 1976 rape revenge drama.

The first two acts are a straightforward drama. Chris McCormick, a famous model known for sexually provocative pictorials, agrees to meet with the music teacher, Gordon Stuart, of her teen sister, Kathy. Gordon, angered by Chris’ indifference to him and the glamour of her lifestyle, assaults and rapes her in her apartment, including tying her to her bed. Kathy briefly witnesses the end of this.

Law & Order: SVU S14E03: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Nov 232021

“Twenty-Five Acts”, aired October 10, 2012 IMDB

The Law & Order franchise often fictionalizes real-world events. In this case, it alludes to the publication and popularity of the Fifty Shades trilogy, in an episode aired only 6 months after the trilogy was re-released by Vintage. (FSOG was first published May 25, 2011 by Writers Coffee Shop, and the trilogy was re-released by Vintage in April 2012.)

I thought that this episode also referenced the case of Jian Ghomeshi, a Persian-Canadian radio host and interviewer who allegedly strangled his girlfriend and excused it as consensual BDSM. However, in an odd moment of life imitating art, I found that this episode actually aired 2 years before the allegations about Ghomeshi went public in 2014.

The author of the hot new erotic novel Twenty-Five Acts, Jocelyn Paley, appears on a talk show. The host, Adam Cain, meets her for dinner, and she secretly gives him her panties under the table. They go back to his place. After some sex she initiates, he crosses the line, throws her on the bed and chokes her with a belt.

The L Word S02E11 “Loud and Proud”: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Jun 072020

“Loud and Proud”, aired 1 May 2005 IMDB

The L Word was a night-time soap about a group of lesbian and bisexual women in West Hollywood, with multiple continuing storylines.

“Loud and Proud” is centered on Pride Weekend in LA. In the previous season, Jenny arrived in West Hollywood and began exploring her sexuality, which caused some complications with her boyfriend. Jenny broke up with him and joined the other characters.

The cold-open shows two women having a BDSM session, in the red-on-black color scheme we will see repeatedly in this episode. The bottom is cuffed to a St. Andrew’s cross. There’s no nudity, and only a couple of light impacts with a flogger.

The top says, “I’m going to give you a minute to think about how badly you want me to fuck you.”

Romance (1999): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Apr 072020

Romance is a 1999 French drama film, written and directed by Catherine Breillat.

[Unless noted otherwise, all quotations are from the subtitles.]

Breillat is notorious for explicitly showing sexual acts in her films, as well as her unsentimental view of heterosexual relations. Sex between men and women is always a conflict in Breillat’s films, though who is winning isn’t always clear.

The protagonist is Marie (Caroline Ducey), a young woman who lives with her boyfriend Paul (Sagamore Stévenin), a model. In the first scene, Marie watches from a distance as Paul is posed as a matador in a photoshoot with another female model. The photographer instructs Paul and the model in performing proper masculinity and femininity.

Marie (Caroline Ducey) tries to arouse Paul (Sagamore Stévenin)

They return to their apartment, where their clothes and the furnishings are all white and off-white. Instead of innocence, it suggests sterility and emptiness. Paul rejects Marie’s sexual advances again, in a reversal of the usual gender roles.

Paul’s passive-aggressive head game is that if he completely eliminates sexual desire in himself, he gains the upper hand in his relationship with Marie. Having her dance on the end of his string is more interesting to him than actually fucking her.

The Mask of the Cambridge Rapist

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Jun 162019

Peter Samuel Cook was a serial rapist who attacked women in their homes in Cambridge, England, between October 1974 and April 1975. He was known in the press as the “Cambridge Rapist”.

Cook’s crimes were peculiarly theatrical. Today, we are still grappling with the idea that most rapes are committed by people the victim knew. Cook fit the stereotypical view of a rapist at the time, a socially marginal figure who broke into homes and assaulted strangers. Reportedly, if he didn’t find a victim, he would write taunting messages on their bathroom mirrors.

What’s significant for this discussion is that he wore a black leather hood with the word “RAPIST” literally written across the forehead. What puzzled me was, why and how did Cook get a leather mask? An ordinary cloth or wool ski mask or balaclava would have sufficed to conceal his identity.

Black leather hood of the “Cambridge Rapist”

The Piano Teacher (2001): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Apr 282019

The Piano Teacher (2001) is a drama about the relationship between a sexually repressed middle-age woman and an aggressive younger man. This is what happens when an incautious masochist encounters a real sadist.

Erika (Isabelle Huppert) instructs Walter (Benoît Magimel)

1975: Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will on BDSM

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Dec 012016

Brownmiller’s statement probably had a lot to do with the anti-SM strain of feminism in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In her view, masochism is merely a myth of patriarchy, an excuse for rape.

Westworld: black hats and white hats

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Nov 142016

William looks at displays of white hats and black hats

White hat or black hat?

HBO’s Westworld TV series postulates a fantasy world where guests interact with non-human “hosts” in a simulated Wild West setting. The narrative, much like the previously discussed Dollhouse, explores the issue of what happens when people are removed from their usual social restrictions and are able to act on their fantasies and desires.

(Note: spoilers ahead)

Leopold and Loeb and their master-slave relationship

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May 062013

Baatz, Simon. For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder that Shocked Chicago. HarperCollins, 2008 Amazon

I wish there were more case studies to examine in this field. It’s rare to find a documented sadomasochistic relationship in the pre-modern era; I shudder to think how easily the Munby-Cullwick papers could have been lost. Sometimes one must make do with what one can find. In this case, there’s the case of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb who probably would have been remembered as eccentrics if they hadn’t kidnapped and murdered a teenage boy, basically just to prove they could.

After their capture for the murder, the two men were thoroughly examined by physicians, neurologists and psychiatrists, who couldn’t agree on a diagnosis. Eventually they were found competent to stand trial. Their examinations and testimonies revealed both had vivid fantasy lives.

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A Lover's Pinch: A Cultural History of Sadomasochism