tv – Page 2 – The History of BDSM

Dying for Sex S01E03: The Celluloid Dungeon

Oct 152025

Dying for Sex is a 2025 dramedy series about a woman, Molly, who is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and leaves her husband in search of sexual fulfillment.

In S01E03 “Feelings Can Become Amplified”, Molly starts taking a medication that gives her mood swings, while also struggling with vaginal dryness. She has a peculiar relationship with a man in her apartment building (aka “Neighbor Guy”): she’s disgusted by him, but she has a “mistake orgasm” by masturbating while she can hear him masturbating through their shared thin wall.

Red Shoe Diaries S01E13 “How I Met My Husband”: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Sep 222025

Red Shoe Diaries S01E13 “How I Met My Husband”, Aired June 26, 1993 IMDB

“How I Met” starts off like a cross between a music video and a fashion show. Mistress Miranda’s dungeon is having an exhibition, with women and men in fetish gear strutting on a catwalk while a female announcer talks about the outfits and how much they cost. The frame is “dressing for power”. “Remember, leather, rubber and steel equals power and control.” It’s very aspirational and consumerist, locating kink in a fantastic world of wealth and glamour.

Red Shoe Diaries S01E03 “You Have the Right to Remain Silent”: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Sep 162025

Red Shoe Diaries S01E03 “You Have the Right to Remain Silent”, Aired July 14, 1992 IMDB

Zalman King, a former actor who produced Nine and a Half Weeks and a few other softcore mainstream films, created the anthology series Red Shoe Diaries which became the flagship of 1990s direct-to-cable-TV softcore erotica, free from the constraints of both the MPAA and Broadcast Standards and Practices. The framing device is that Jake (pre-X-Files David Duchovny) is haunted by the suicide of his fiancée. He found her diary and learned she was having an affair with another man. He places ads in newspapers asking women to tell him their stories of desire. The confessional mode, as an inquiry into the “truth” of female sexuality, is built into the series’ premise.

The Marburger list: BDSM in film and television, pre-1975

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Jul 242025

Linda Evans is a damsel-in-distress in *Beach Blanket Bingo* (1965)

My most intriguing find in the Kinsey Archives was a 51-page mimeograph of a typewritten document from 1975, Bondage Fantasies in Popular Entertainment, attributed to “G. Allen Marburger.” It’s an idiosyncratic list of bondage scenes in mainstream film and television, possibly an unpublished magazine article, as there are references to kink-media company HOM (House of Milan).

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).

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.

Police Woman S03E21 “Bondage”: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Jan 152024

Police Woman S03E21 “Bondage”, aired March 1, 1977, dir. Arnold Laven, wri. Irv Pearlberg & Frank Telford

Police Woman was a 1974-1978 cop show that starred Angie Dickinson as Sgt. “Pepper” Anderson, set in Los Angeles. Episode “Bondage” involved Pepper infiltrating the porn industry.

The opening scene is set in an old-timey looking room, with a woman tied up by the wrists, standing. A maid (in a completely ahistorical uniform) comes in to help her “Countess”. (The background sound of a camera whirring betrays that this is a performance.) A man in period-ish wig comes in, dismisses the maid, and rips the back of the Countess’ nighgown. (No actual nudity, of course.)

Manny the Director: “And cut!”

NYPD Blue S04e13 “Tom and Geri”: The Celluloid Dungeon

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May 262023

NYPD Blue S04E13 “Tom and Geri”, aired January 28, 1997

Geri, a police administrative assistant, has had an un-returned crush on Detective Andy Sipowicz. (In a previous episode, S04E06, she told him she was wearing rubber underwear.) The B story of this episode is that Geri tells Sipowicz that a friend she knows, Tom, has died in bondage gear in his apartment. Sipowicz, who wants nothing to do with Geri, hands it off to his superior, who in turn delegates it to a pair of female detectives, Russell and Kirkendall. Even at this stage, Geri seems distrustful of everyone.

June 18, 2023: Webinar on Kink in Mainstream Film

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May 252023

I’m giving a webinar on kink in mainstream media on 18 June 2023 at 10:00 AM Pacific. This is based on my ongoing research for The Celluloid Dungeon. I’ll be digging deep into the history of kink in film, going back to the dawn of the moving image and showing some of the moments and images and individuals. Admission is free for CARAS subscribers and $25 for everyone else.

Lost in Space S02E25 “The Colonists”: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Apr 192023

Lost in Space is a science fiction TV series about a family stranded in deep space. Episode S02E25 “The Colonists” aired March 15, 1967.

Many science fiction or fantasy TV series would include episodes that featured amazonian or matriarchal societies, doubtless for an element of sex appeal and the carnivalesque pleasure of inverting gender roles.

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