Beauty in Darkness: the history of BDSM

In response to:Shifting to a new site: historyofbdsm.com

2012-05-31T02:18:02+02:00

Done.

In response to:Shifting to a new site: historyofbdsm.com

2012-05-30T15:25:44+02:00

Please add an RSS email subscription option to your new site! Thanks.

In response to:Fetish recognition, classics and cliches

2011-12-12T01:16:12+01:00

I have talked to many fetishists. I have found that most of them can go back in time and say when it began. I have heard many stories about some beautiful affectionate and attention-giving woman (friend, teacher, neighbor, baby sitter, especially aunts...) who stood out by dressing in a certain outstanding fashion that made them appear special or unique, made a certain impression on them.It's conditioning. It's like a child's mother buying her child an ice cream cone everytime they go to a doctor's appointment. Instead of hating the doctor they like it, because they have been conditioned that doctor appointments mean ice cream. Little boys think about how some very affectionate and attention-giving person in their life wore boots and gloves, so they get conditioned that boots and gloves have to do with affection and attention. You will find that 20 years after the 1960's when women wearing boots and gloves were popular fashion, that fetishism became popular. Why? Because those kids grew up. Many of them also mention Catwoman too.

In response to:Rise and fall of a fetish: quicksand

2011-12-12T00:31:49+01:00

I met a man on AOL (America On Line) that had a quicksand fetish. I told him that I had seen on mythbusters that they built a quicksand pit. I suddested that he make one. I assume he has already. It's been a few years since I last chatted with him. He said he got this fetish and his other fetish (Scuba Suits)came from watching Gilligan's Island (That's a slapstick comedy TV show in the USA for you foreigners). He said in one episode that Gilligan ends up sinking in quicksand and in another he is wearing a home made scuba suit. I found that very interesting. He had been in quicksand as a kid. Perhaps the rush of adrenaline turned him on. When I mentioned that I had once sunk into quicksand he wanted to be my AOL buddy.

In response to:Punish Me. A film by Angelina Maccarone

2011-12-07T01:48:15+01:00

well, I think any movie talking about sex, and even kinky sex is better than war movies.

Shame we allow war and death to be so popular but sex is still taboo.

In response to:Punish Me. A film by Angelina Maccarone

2011-11-10T11:52:50+01:00

Glad you find it interesting to read. The film can be a good starting point for further reflections.

A malesub-femdom love story would be so against the grain of culture's rules about love, sexuality and gender that it might be illegible as a love story. People would look at it and scratch their heads, unable to understand it.

Yes, this aspect of incomprehension you mention is shown in the plot. There are side characters who can not grasp the main characters' beautifully enacted love relationship at all, and their reactions amount to more than merely benign bafflement.

Reviewers in newspaper feuilletons (who I assume aren't all SMers themselves) have used expressions like 'dangerously intense liaison', 'emotionally moving', 'love story', 'human fragility' and 'passion'. One review concluded 'Well, love has infinite variants.' The words illustrate how movie audiences are able to read 'Verfolgt' as a love story – albeit an extremely problematic one.

One text mentioned that the story is told 'without any SM clichés'. As my review shows, I don't agree with that assessment. The clichés transported in this film aren't the trite commercial and visual ones, but more insidious prejudices about ethics and consent, as well as (specific to relationships between dom women and sub men) strong negative prejudices about female dominant sexual agency and desire. Even with the various problematic aspects the plot has, as a love story conveyed to a general audience it's a success.

In response to:Kink film festival in Germany

2011-08-24T22:14:12+02:00

I went last year (my "Venus" screened there), and will go again this year. Very nice event indeed! Wish you could come!

In response to:Men (and women) in black uniforms

2011-08-04T22:02:16+02:00

The Waffen SS stopped wearing the black uniform before WWII (except on parade). The Allgemeine SS continued to wear black throughout WW2.

In response to:Ann Coulter vs. Conversio Virium

2011-06-13T09:18:57+02:00

I left a comment on the MasoCast episode page you may find interesting:

Huh, I just listened to this episode and recently wrote a blog post about some of my own experience with Conversio Virium from 2002 through 2009, including the Ann Coulter experience. Here are the records Maja mentions on CV’s website about the fallout with Ann Coulter, except it wasn’t on her own show, it was on “The Big Story With John Gibson,” November 28, 2006. Also, for those interested, Conversio Virium’s former President and Vice President were also interviewed on Kink On Tap Episode 4, where to the best of my knowledge, Ann Coulter was, in fact, mentioned.

Moreover, this incident is also documented on CV's Wikipedia page.

In response to:Foucault: "Will they or won't they?" vs. "How will they?"

2011-05-28T07:33:04+02:00

"If there's an intellectual patron saint of BDSM, it's..."

Dr. Ernst Schertel ;)

In response to:Farewell, Wicked Grounds

2011-04-23T03:37:13+02:00

Sad -- I visited one afternoon last summer and had a lovely time there. Not a great location; perhaps in another it might have thrived.

In response to:Goodbye Uncle Tom: the facts and myths of slavery

2011-03-12T20:59:19+01:00

The Monty Python reference was more about the "smashing film" part, using historical events as the basis for exploitation film and video.

In response to:Goodbye Uncle Tom: the facts and myths of slavery

2011-03-12T16:30:00+01:00

I guess that the Monty Python quote on the Spanish Inquisition has to do with the big difference between myth and fact. Spanish Inquisition had on its favour that its love for bureucracy kept its activities well documented, ando those records still exist and have been well researched during the last decades:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition

A susprising fact: unlike similar European courts, Spanish Inquisition did not really believe in, or cared for, witchcraft. Go figure.

In response to:The psychosexual development of Adolf Hitler

2011-02-20T02:12:53+01:00

Not sure what you mean by "does spur the imagination". Surely if its just fabrication, it shouldnt spur any associative thoughts that would apply a negative perspective - since they are just lies?

In response to:The history of the Other World Kingdom in Second Life

2011-02-02T23:24:50+01:00

So THAT's where OWK went! I know they dissolved. I just didn't know they went 'virtual'.

I suppose it was time to go back to fantasyland. Reality rules. Got to give OWK credit. They made a reality out of a fantasy on a grand scale.

In response to:Late 70s European kink: No secret handshakes, just cash

2011-01-24T08:38:17+01:00

I don't read German, alas. I'm reporting what Violet Wanda posted.

I'd love to find evidence of heterosexual, non-commercial BDSM culture in Europe in the late 70s period.

In response to:What price virginity in 2011?

2011-01-24T08:33:01+01:00

I expect she already approved the three guys, and which one actually did the deed, whatever that means, didn't matter much.

In response to:What price virginity in 2011?

2011-01-21T18:21:03+01:00

Very well written, very well said.

Supposed that it must be Blue's own choice to have this done in a ritualistic fashion, but I do find it personally unsettling that it's her fans who are choosing the partner.

In response to:Late 70s European kink: No secret handshakes, just cash

2011-01-20T19:13:12+01:00

Sorry but just because VioletWanda didn't experience non-commercial SM (or just doesn't mention it) doesn't mean it didn't exist.

I don't know if you can read German Peter. There is a chronic of SM available here.

It lists the first meeting of a gay Leather club in 1964 or the publication of a spanking/flagellations magazine called "Free Forum for disciplinary questions" in 1967 which is still being published to this day (http://kelm-verlag.info/freiesforum.htm).

In response to:Midori on Japanese BDSM slang

2010-12-21T03:32:40+01:00

You should try Master K's book about Japanese bondage. Given the identity between kinbaku and BDSM in that country, it gives the best research information about it I've ever found.

In response to:"Extreme values": Use of BDSM and transpeople in political attack ads

2010-12-05T04:02:00+01:00

Unbelievable! The Folsom Street Fair is a huge tourist draw, I believe exceeded only by Pride in S.F.

On a note aside from the BDSM, I can't believe that this ad is portraying Newsom as being SOFT on deportation! This guy (as part of an effort not to look soft on juvenile crime) is for the deportation of juveniles! The S.F. city council has repeatedly tried to pass a "sanctuary" law for juveniles convicted of non-serious crimes, that Newsom has fought. Actually, scratch that, he doesn't always need to see them convicted - if they're legally in the states convicted, illegally deported immediately. And THATS the money they're talking about being spent, rather than (in his opinion) wasting money jailing, trying and deporting them he puts people on a plane immediately, saving the costs of 2 of those 3 steps.

In response to:Men (and women) in black uniforms

2010-10-28T05:42:37+02:00

"Fussel is a snob, a crank and a square (he refers to "skate-board enthusiasts and other pseudo-degenerates"), and he would probably agree with all those adjectives."
It may be snobbish, cranky and square (isn't calling someone square a little...square, nowadays?) to point it out, but I think you mean he would probably agree with all those nouns, or attribures.

In response to:Late 70s European kink: No secret handshakes, just cash

2010-09-14T14:29:49+02:00

The one thing that always amazes me when this kind of talk comes up is how to an American mind Europe is as alien as Jupiter. Sorry to break the news, but Europe is in fact just behind the corner and a pretty normal place: having a historical past doesn't mean we act all crazy out here! Usually, coming over and having a look is enough to clear your head of strange myths.

However, coming to the point of this post, I can confirm that in most of Europe "kinky sex" was in fact based off the "normal" sex trade until the Eighties, just as described. There were exceptions, though: the Scandinavian area, where any sexuality was already seen just as part of everyday life and thus more openly shared; and some of the Southern sea countries, where affluent bon-vivants enjoyed the rivieras and the Greek islands also for the sexual freedom they allowed (offshore on their yachts, mostly).

The Eighties were however a turning point thanks to several publishers who flooded the market with Bdsm videos (allowing common people to actually see what the thing was about) and magazines promoting a proper Bdsm culture, including readers' parties and direct contact through personal ads.

Then, as soon as the cat was out of the bag, the rise of the fetish culture/market and the advent of both the Internet (quick information sharing!) and low-cost flying (easy access to parties!) did the rest.

Finally, I strongly suspect that the "European houses" myth came from the worldwide success of "Histoire d'O" running on the tails of the Victorian pulps like the one you mentioned.

In response to:High fashion trafficking

2010-07-31T14:29:51+02:00

Hey Peter -- I love this post but I notice that the images are now broken. Do you still have them?

In response to:Carrying off white women

2010-07-07T08:46:49+02:00

That would be the elusive "forth" figure my dear...

In response to:Tibetan nights

2010-05-27T21:35:52+02:00

Maybe. And thanks for the tip.

In response to:Tibetan nights

2010-05-26T04:53:05+02:00

Perhaps this is from the Ken Anger attempt to film the novel?

In response to:Future of this project

2010-05-10T11:39:17+02:00

Among other factors, a book written for the general interested public while based on documented research, vs. a thesis mainly for an academic audience have different writing styles. You can consider your intended audience (broad/narrow), which style you want this particular book to be in, and in which style your existing bulk of text is written.

In response to:Future of this project

2010-05-07T04:21:47+02:00

It's such a hard decision.

I ended up taking the self publishing route a few years back. Did my own editing / layout and image copyright research and permissions (LOTS of images). It took time, but having that extra control was great and the final product was pleasing.

Only regret: wish I'd done a larger print run, the damn thing is now out of print!

In response to:The Last Two Centuries of SM

2010-05-06T22:10:38+02:00

Hrm.

Latex in the '20s?

I guess Bienvenu research wasn't so thorough - or the writer was very approximative.