The Mask of the Cambridge Rapist

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”

Link Roundup, December 2018

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Dec 162018

The big issue is the spread of Internet censorship, starting with Tumblr’s ban on adult content starting December 17th, 2018. The Verge says this will probably be the end of a unique, diverse and vibrant sex positive culture, such as a woman’s self-published nudes. Even before then, Tumblr was flagging completely innocuous posts as adult content. Wired has more details. While this may not be targeted at women’s sexuality, it will probably come down hardest on that.
Engadget covers Facebook’s own crackdown on sexual speech.
Perhaps paradoxically, Marcus K Dowling writes that kink is poised to explode into the mainstream in much the same way as porn exploded in the 1970s.
As I’ve dug deeper into the silent film era in search of the proto-dominatrix and the roots of fetish fashion, I found that a certain image I and many other people thought was of Musidora in her famous Irma Vep black catsuit was actually someone else entirely, from a Musidora-inspired photo shoot. The perils of uncredited images.
The Conversation documents the moral panic about sadism in 1930s Australia, and how this ended up doing a disservice to victims of violence.
Margaret Cho is producing a web series about a queer, Asian-American, professional and lifestyle dominatrix, called Mercy Mistress. First episode on Youtube.

The Woman in Black: in search of the proto-dominatrix

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Jun 182018

What are the sartorial origins of the black-clad dominatrix? I will skip the more familiar examples from recent years and try to find the earlier examples.

Certainly everyone will remember Diana Rigg as Mrs. Emma Peel (“Miss SM Appeal”) in the UK spy TV series The Avengers. Her most overtly kinky costumes were features in the episodes “A Touch of Brimstone” and “Death at Bargain Prices.”

Woman in black leather suit with zippers

Diana Rigg as Emma Peel in The Avengers, wearing the leather jumpsuit costume from “Death at Bargain Prices”

The semi-normalization of kink

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Feb 082017

T-Mobile recently launched at least two ads which make an interesting snapshot of how the mainstream views kink.

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)

1980: KQED airs “S/M:One Foot out of the Closet”

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Jul 162016

For a while, I’ve seen references to a 1980 documentary about kinky people, aired on public television station KQED. Online searches turned up nothing, but I finally put in the effort to look up KQED and see if I could somehow get access to it, if only partially. After a few emails, they were kind enough to give me access to a stream of the 36-year-old documentary. I had to sign a fairly restrictive agreement, so I can’t share any of it.

Submission, episode 6

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Jun 192016

Elliot and Ahsley continue their relationship, now into vanilla sex. This scene is fully in the conventions of softcore porn, with soft lighting and rich textiles in Elliot’s bedroom, instead of the hard lighting and concrete walls of his dungeon. He even makes her breakfast the next morning. While it’s competently done, it’s pretty standard, instead of the kink we were promised. I have nothing against romance, but you can get that everywhere.

Submission episodes 3, 4, 5

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Jun 162016

Episode 3

This episode starts off with another soft-core BDSM scene in Nolan’s dungeon. It’s competently shot, with implied cunnilingus and male butt exposure, but doesn’t go into the characters at all, except for hinting that Dylan is getting jealous of the women she brings to him.

Most of this episode revolves around a party. Borrowing Linda Williams’ observation in Hard Core that sex serves the function in porn that singing and dancing does in musicals, this provides a premise for various subplots and couplings. Such as Elliot getting Ashley in his sights. She fascinates him more than Dylan’s latest acquisition for him, who promises “nothing is off limit”.

Classic Hollywood spankings

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Jun 072016

Lying somewhere on the boundary between affectionate fetishism and domestic violence, spankings between lovers or would-be lovers were a staple of Hollywood romance movies. Jezebel has a pictorial and essay on the subject, by Andrew Heisel. This was reflected in real-life practices of the time, when husbands were expected to treat their lives like children.