tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2013-05-24:/A blog documenting my research and writing on my book project: "Beauty in Darkness: A history of BDSM", by Peter Tupper. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.MokoFeed2013-05-24T00:37:07+02:00tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2012-05-30:/2012/05/30/shifting-to-a-new-site-historyofbdsm-com-13773747/ptupper722012-05-30T03:53:16+02:002012-05-30T03:53:50+02:00 <p>After seven years and over 700 posts, I've learned that beautyindarkness.blog.ca has somehow shifted out of the good part of the Internet and into the bad part. When I google "history bdsm", my site doesn't turn up on the first ten pages of search results. Obviously, this is a problem. Nobody is finding me, therefore nobody is aware of my writing, and also nobody is clicking on my ads. </p> <p>I've finally taken the big leap and moved to a new site with a more SEO-friendly domain name: historyofbdsm.com Thankfully, I've found it pretty easy to copy-and-paste the old posts over to the new site, and I'll soon have several hundred posts up on the new site. Eventually, beautyindarkness.blog.ca will be downgraded to a free hosting plan and, sometime after that, shut down. </p> <p>I'm going to put more thought into SEO, and also start a new sub-series on reading through <em>Fifty Shades of Grey</em> with my idiosyncratic commentary. As I mentioned before, I'm putting most of my attention into getting a draft of the book done, and therefore won't be posting detailed essays as much. </p> <p>I may shift over to another host, depending on the performance of the new site. My only real hitch is that Wordpress, the CMS for the new site, has some kind of unreasoning hatred of Amazon product banners. This is the major source of ad links for my site, and I'm not sure what to do about this. I've tried many different plugins, but none seem to work. The fact that I'm using a free hosting plan that doesn't allow certain functionalities is complicating the matter. </p> <p>One solid improvement over the old blog.ca hosting service is that I can backup the entire site and transplant it to another hosting service if I wish. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2012/05/30/shifting-to-a-new-site-historyofbdsm-com-13773747/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2012-02-18:/2012/02/18/follow-the-history-of-bdsm-on-pinterest-12815718/ptupper722012-02-18T05:11:29+01:002012-02-18T05:11:29+01:00 <p>I've started a "pin" for BDSM history images on <a href="http://pinterest.com/petertupper/bdsm-history/">Pinterest</a>. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2012/02/18/follow-the-history-of-bdsm-on-pinterest-12815718/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2012-02-16:/2012/02/16/help-janet-w-hardy-publish-her-book-girlfag-12805958/ptupper722012-02-16T19:54:37+01:002012-02-16T19:54:37+01:00 <blockquote><p> To my friends, family, colleagues and supporters:</p> <p>With just two weeks to go, we're past halfway in our fund-raising project for Girlfag: A Life Told In Sex and Musicals... but we're Image<br> going to need a big last-minute push to take us over our goal amount of $7500.</p> <p>Fortunately, we now have a great new tool to help with this project - an absolutely gorgeous cover by my longtime collaborator John Brenner of Johnny Ink, which you can see here. Hope you like it!</p> <p>However, new donations have slowed down in the last week, and if we don't get a kick of new people in the next couple of weeks we may miss our $7500 goal. Now, don't get me wrong - I am going to publish this book anyway, somehow. But in order to do it justice - to back it with the marketing, PR and merchandising it needs to reach its intended audience of people who don't feel comfortable with traditional categories of gender and orientation - we need to raise that money.</p> <p>So, please: If there's any way you can help - by donating what you can spare, by telling friends who might be interested, by posting our link to your Facebook page, or anything else you can think of - now's the time to do it!</p> <p>And, as if you needed any more incentive... if you refer a friend who donates at least $50, you'll qualify for a free Girlfag patch. Just ask your friend to drop me a note along with their donation so I know who's responsible.</p> <p>So stop by now to the <a href="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/janetwhardy/girlfag-a-life-told-in-sex-and-musicals">Kickstarter</a> page. You'll find everything you need - a complete description, some excerpts, and a nice big picture of the cover - plus a wide range of awesome incentives to loosen the strings on your wallet. Plus, of course, the knowledge that you've helped bring important new information into the world of sexuality and relationships (and, of course, musical theater)!</p> <p>Thanks to you all,<br> Janet W. Hardy </p></blockquote> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2012/02/16/help-janet-w-hardy-publish-her-book-girlfag-12805958/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2012-01-08:/2012/01/08/vancouver-bc-bdsm-conference-westward-bound-12413062/ptupper722012-01-08T22:27:44+01:002012-01-08T22:27:44+01:00 <p>While I missed the opportunity to present at this event, I will be attending Vancouver's <a href="http://www.westwardbound.org/">Westward Bound BDSM conference</a> on February 3-5, presented by <a href="http://www.metrovancouverkink.com">Metro Vancouver Kink</a>. This promises a great weekend of educational events and play parties in Vancouver's Maritime Labour Centre.</p> <p>I'm a co-founder and former board member of Metro Vancouver Kink, and I'm always pleased to support the organization. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2012/01/08/vancouver-bc-bdsm-conference-westward-bound-12413062/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2012-01-08:/2012/01/08/roman-sex-tokens-12409961/ptupper722012-01-08T05:45:06+01:002012-01-08T05:45:06+01:00 <p>UK newspaper the Guardian has a piece on the recent discovery of a bronze <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/jan/04/porn-roman-brothel-tokens-erotic-art">token specifically made for spending in Roman brothels</a> in Britain. </p> <blockquote><p> While the Putney token has been hailed as a rare discovery from Roman Britain, such artefacts showing similar scenes were actually well known in Renaissance Italy. Scholars in the 16th century didn't know what they were – maybe something to do with the reputed excesses of the emperor Tiberius? – but they did leap on evidence of ancient Roman erotic art. Anything from antiquity was considered noble in the Renaissance, so these "coins" (as they were misnamed) licensed saucy 16th-century art, including Giulio Romano's famous series of pornographic illustrations I Modi. </p></blockquote> <p>Again, this ties into Howard Bloom's "strong misreading" idea I talked about earlier, that this misunderstanding of a given text (the token) fertilizes more creativity. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2012/01/08/roman-sex-tokens-12409961/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2012-01-07:/2012/01/07/guest-post-on-bdsm-book-reviews-the-archaeology-of-erotica-12405849/ptupper722012-01-07T05:39:59+01:002012-01-07T05:39:59+01:00 <p>My brief history of erotica has been posted on <a href="http://www.bdsmbookreviews.com/2012/01/06/guest-blogger-the-archaeology-of-erotica-by-peter-tupper/">BDSM Book Reviews</a>:</p> <blockquote><p> I would argue that the bulk of what is categorized as erotica today can be traced back to two highly influential books, one from the early twentieth century, the other from the middle, both by women, both with women protagonists being initiated into exotic realms of pleasure, both widely dismissed as sensational, pornographic, misogynistic trash. </p></blockquote> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2012/01/07/guest-post-on-bdsm-book-reviews-the-archaeology-of-erotica-12405849/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-12-20:/2011/12/20/his-holiness-wc-12329431/ptupper722011-12-20T08:59:09+01:002011-12-20T08:59:09+01:00 <p>Slate has a peep into <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/welltraveled/features/2011/vatican_inside_the_secret_city/vatican_guide_the_pope_s_pornographic_bathroom.html">one of the most secluded parts of the Vatican</a>: </p> <blockquote><p> Rumors that the Vatican is filled with perverse artworks are as old as the palace itself. Most of the stories are fabrications. But one is not: In 1516, the Renaissance master Raphael decorated a bathroom within the Papal Apartments with erotic frescos. Today, the wicked gallery is called the Stufetta della Bibbiena, the “small heated room of Cardinal Bibbiena,” after the worldly official who commissioned the work. </p></blockquote> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/12/20/his-holiness-wc-12329431/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-12-18:/2011/12/18/10-months-to-first-draft-12320299/ptupper722011-12-18T07:57:03+01:002011-12-18T07:57:03+01:00 <p>"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_unius_libri">Beware the man of one book.</a>"<br> -attributed to Saint Thomas Aquinas</p> <p>My <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2005/07/05/when_passion_reigned/">first post</a> on this blog was back in July, 2005. That's six and a half years of blog posts on this, with no actual book. </p> <p>It's been fun, certainly, but I've realized that I could keep doing this indefinitely, without ever actually writing my supposed book. Blogging is certainly more fun than the grind of delayed gratification and possible rejection of conventional publishing, but an actual book, if published, means more status and money. While I've maintained a fairly steady output on blog postings, I've gone for six months or even a year without working on the book directly. </p> <p>I also have to ask when enough information is enough. Is this going to be the last word on the topic, or is it one of many books on the subject?</p> <p>You can look at it like two different modes of creative production. JRR Tolkien, for example, basically wrote one big story, the saga of Middle-Earth, investing just about everything he knew into it. It's hard to see the the connection between <em>The Hobbit</em> and the <em>Silmarilion</em>, but it's there. Tolkien wrote other fiction, but he's been known for his magnum opus.</p> <p>Michael Moorcock, by comparison, wrote lots and lots of novels short novels, allegedly writing 15,000 words a day at his peak. A lot of his generation of writers just wrote a lot more. </p> <p>So, do I want to invest all my time and energy and hope into one great work, or write many different works that can succeed and fail independently?</p> <p>The history of BDSM isn't the last non-fiction book I want to write. It isn't even necessarily the last book on BDSM I want to write. </p> <p><strong>So, I hereby state that by my 40th birthday, October 27th, 2012, I will have completed a first draft of my book, and will have begun submitting it to publishers.</strong> </p> <p>This will be a much scaled down work of about 60,000 words, and more tightly focused than the encyclopedic 100,000 words I originally planned. Call it 10 chapters of no more than 6,000 words each. By necessity, this will mean leaving out a lot of stuff, in favour of a tighter narrative. </p> <p>My biggest fear, of course, in saying this is that in 10.5 months I will shamefully admit to all of you out there (crickets chirp... chirp... chirp) that I didn't do this. My success in this task is up to me and nobody else. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/12/18/10-months-to-first-draft-12320299/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-12-12:/2011/12/12/men-s-adventure-magazines-gallery-12291198/ptupper722011-12-12T09:03:14+01:002011-12-12T09:03:14+01:00 <p><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6091/6335209837_0163dcd64b_b.jpg" alt="" title=""></p> <p>Retrospace has a selection of scans, and not just the covers but the interiors, of <a href="http://my-retrospace.blogspot.com/2011/12/vintage-mens-mags-20-100-pages-of-pulp.html">old mens adventure magazines, variously known as pulps or sweats</a>. </p> <p>You can see earlier pornographic genres embedded in here: the same combination of xenophobia mixed with wish-fulfillment in <em>The Lustful Turk</em>, <em>Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk</em> and so forth. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/12/12/men-s-adventure-magazines-gallery-12291198/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-11-12:/2011/11/12/reading-in-burnaby-bc-november-15th-12156697/ptupper722011-11-12T21:09:41+01:002011-11-12T21:09:41+01:00 <p>I'll be reading some of my fiction at Spoken INK in Burnaby, BC on Tuesday. </p> <blockquote><p> Spoken INK's guest for November 15th will be author Peter Tupper. Tuesday's reading begins at 8:00 p.m. Open mic sign-up is from 7:30 p.m. at La Fontana Caffe, 3701 East Hastings (at Boundary) in Burnaby.</p> <p>Peter Tupper is a writer and journalist in Vancouver. His fiction includes <a href="http://innocentsprogress.com"><em>The Innocent's Progress & Other Stories</em></a> and "Koenigsberg's Model" in the <em>Whispers in Darkness</em> Lovecraftian anthology. His non-fiction has been in Wired, the Globe and Mail and Utne Reader. Head on down to La Fontana Caffe next Tuesday to listen, and maybe share some of your own writing. See you there!</p> <p>Burnaby Writers' Society/Spoken INK<br> 8:00 PM -- 3rd Tuesday of the Month<br> @ La Fontana Caffe<br> 101-3701 East Hastings<br> Burnaby BC Canada<br> bwscafe (at)gmail.com </p></blockquote> <p>Wish I had some print books to sign and sell. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/11/12/reading-in-burnaby-bc-november-15th-12156697/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-11-11:/2011/11/11/domi-dollz-talk-kink-in-nyc-november-17th-12148747/ptupper722011-11-11T09:21:28+01:002011-11-11T09:21:28+01:00 <p>Black Book has a post on the <a href="http://www.blackbookmag.com/good-night-mr-lewis-1.109/the-domi-dollz-bring-the-kink-this-thursday-1.40993">Domi Dollz doing a kink information session next week in New York City's Museum of Sex</a>. I'm glad that there will be some kind of historical background. </p> <blockquote><p> This is an introductory class, but we have a huge entertainment aspect to the class. It's really an educational performance. We're going to have all the ladies dressed up, greeting the guests in our lovely dominatrix gear, and we're going to have little toy boys running around, welcoming the guests as well. Once we get the class started, it's all about going over the history of BDSM, talking about the psychology behind it. We're going to talk a little bit about how to prepare for your own session, or what your play partner can expect as far as safety goes. </p></blockquote> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/11/11/domi-dollz-talk-kink-in-nyc-november-17th-12148747/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-11-08:/2011/11/08/punish-me-a-film-by-angelina-maccarone-12136618/ptupper722011-11-08T19:01:25+01:002011-11-08T19:01:25+01:00 <p>Ranai's blog has an <a href="https://ranai.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/verfolgt-hounded-punish-me-a-film-by-angelina-maccarone/">interesting discussion of the German BDSM film <em>Verfolgt</em></a> (meaning "Hounded" in German), released as <em>Punish Me</em> in English. (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0488903/">IMDB</a>) Briefly, a young male criminal and his older female probation officer begin a sadomasochistic relationship, with her on top. (I haven't seen it so I can't discuss the film itself in detail.)</p> <p>There's a lot of food for thought here, about the nature of male submission and female submission, its depiction in media (both mainstream and pornographic), and the influence of the commercial BDSM scene on the non-commercial. Fashion choices are only the most obvious form of this influence. </p> <blockquote><p> Elsa doesn’t need a costume. Inside subcultures, dictates of commercialisation and sexism still cause a good deal of female hetero beginners to ask ‘I want to dominate my man for the first time. What should I wear?’. This does not refer to people who actually have clothing fetishes themselves, but to people being collectively or individually pressured into costumes. It is immensely pleasant to see a female character simply going right ahead. Costume? What costume?</p> <p>Jan and Elsa don’t buy and sell their interaction. They are in a personal relationship. Most people don’t get told by pervasive cultural narratives that the default of their sexuality is sex work. Heterosexual dominant women and submissive men get told just that. Our culture still overwhelmingly frames a man submitting to a woman as a commercial service which a man buys from a woman he is not otherwise in a relationship with. To the point of casting dominant and sadistic women as sex workers by default, and submissive and masochistic men as clients by default. To the point of pressuring many women into imitating prodoms and porn performers in their personal lives, and to the point of causing many men to act as if they were clients even in non-commercial, personal contexts (client mentality). To the point of, in the wider culture and in many sadomasochistic subcultures, effectively erasing and repelling women who happen to be sadistic and/or dominant in their personal lives. It is gloriously refreshing to see a story of a submissive man and a dominant woman doing their own sadomasochistic stuff inside a personal relationship. </p></blockquote> <p>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. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/11/08/punish-me-a-film-by-angelina-maccarone-12136618/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-11-03:/2011/11/03/author-chat-on-whispers-in-darkness-12110537/ptupper722011-11-03T09:04:35+01:002011-11-03T09:04:35+01:00 <p>Now that <a href="http://www.circlet.com/?p=3573"><i>Whispers in Darkness</i></a> is officially on sale, I did a series of posts on the Circlet Press LJ group to promote it. While the chat is over, you can still read and comment.</p> <p><a href="http://circletpress.livejournal.com/167685.html">HP Lovecraft, erotica and why they actually do go together</a><br> <a href="http://circletpress.livejournal.com/168354.html">Author commentary for "Koenigsberg's Model"</a><br> <a href="http://circletpress.livejournal.com/168498.html">Miss Lovecraft's students learn about their bodies</a><br> <a href="http://circletpress.livejournal.com/168838.html">HP Lovecraft, erotica and why they don't necessarily go together</a><br> A guided tour of the book, part <a href="http://circletpress.livejournal.com/169527.html">1</a>, <a href="http://circletpress.livejournal.com/169848.html">2</a> and <a href="http://circletpress.livejournal.com/170201.html">3</a><br> <a href="http://circletpress.livejournal.com/170323.html">Wrap up</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/11/03/author-chat-on-whispers-in-darkness-12110537/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-10-27:/2011/10/27/guy-baldwin-on-the-leather-old-guard-12079366/ptupper722011-10-27T18:51:33+02:002011-10-27T18:51:33+02:00 <p>Leatherati has posted <a href="http://www.leatherati.com/leatherati_issues/2011/09/the-old-guard-classical-leather-culture-revisited.html">Guy Baldwin's essay on the Old Guard</a>. As per the site's editorial request, I won't post any excerpts here. </p> <p>The most important thing Baldwin says about this misunderstood and much mythologized era (in large part because HIV killed most of the people who were actually involved) is that there were no universal protocols of leather. The idea that there was such a thing was a pernicious myth that other related subcultures have inherited to their detriment, and I'm glad to see an authoritative statement on the subject. The problem was that what local leaders of each community's Scene handed down their own particular set of protocols as if they were universal. </p> <p>Baldwin describes the primordial scene as three overlapping interests (motorcycles, "rough sex" and S/M fetish) and the people into the sex gradually segregated out over time, losing the bikes but retaining the military discipline culture. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/10/27/guy-baldwin-on-the-leather-old-guard-12079366/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-10-27:/2011/10/27/koenigsberg-s-model-in-the-lovecraftian-erotica-collection-whispers-in-darkness-12076824/ptupper722011-10-27T09:06:11+02:002011-10-27T09:06:11+02:00 <p></p> <p>We interrupt your regular blog to mention another fiction publication, my short story "Koenigsberg's Model" in Circlet Press' collection of HP Lovecraft-themed erotica, <em>Whispers in Darkness</em>. You can get it from Amazon at the above link, or from <a href="http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-whispersindarknesslovecraftianerotica-624975-140.html">All Romance Ebooks</a>.</p> <p>I'm also giving an author chat on <a href="http://circletpress.livejournal.com/">Circlet Press' Livejournal group</a> until Friday. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/10/27/koenigsberg-s-model-in-the-lovecraftian-erotica-collection-whispers-in-darkness-12076824/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-10-24:/2011/10/24/just-your-daily-dose-of-wtf-12059886/ptupper722011-10-24T06:05:05+02:002011-10-24T06:05:05+02:00 <p><img src="http://data7.blog.de/media/456/5962456_12e46a072a_m.jpeg" alt="Lois_Lane_73"></p> <p>From the goofier end of the Silver Age comes this little oddity. The image reads a little like a dream, with the dreamer's aggression directed at the image or effigy of the beloved, instead of the beloved itself, who watches heplessly. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/10/24/just-your-daily-dose-of-wtf-12059886/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-09-11:/2011/09/11/nazi-fashion-in-east-asia-11821578/ptupper722011-09-11T08:18:55+02:002011-09-13T08:13:35+02:00 <p><img src="http://postimg1.mop.com/2011/08/14/13133098979686131.jpg" alt="Asian man in black SS uniform and Nazi armband with Asian woman in white wedding dress, blonde wig and Chobits-style ear horms" title=""></p> <p>For a while, I've been aware that Nazi imagery pops up in Japanese and Chinese culture every now and then, such as <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/culture/nazi-regalia-east-asia/">this set of pictures in the Daily Dot</a>. I attribute this not to fascistic tendencies or even ignorance, but a historical and geographical distance so great that swastika armbands and black SS uniforms carry no real semiotic meaning, and signify nothing in particular. They're just another fashion note, like the Chobits-style ear horns the "bride" wears in the above picture. </p> <p>Contrary to what you might thing, people in Asia don't just shrug this off. From the comments to the <a href="http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictures/nazi-chic-cosplay-chinese-netizen-reactions.html">Chinasmack blog post</a>:</p> <blockquote><p> To say you are mentally retarded doesn’t seem appropriate for your age . . . So, in the end I won’t be describing you both but instead wish for you: That the guy will forever remain a virgin, that the girl also forever remain a virgin, that you will be hit by a car when leaving your house, that you will be electrocuted when you bathe, and that for all of your offspring, the boys will from generation to generation forever be slaves, and the girls will from generation to generation forever be whores.</p> <p>...</p> <p>What’s the difference between this and someone wearing a [Imperialist] Japanese military uniform to take photos?</p> <p>...</p> <p>Asshole, your ancestors just rolled over in their graves. </p></blockquote> <p>I also wonder if there is some kind of "beautiful loser" thing going on here. We view these signifiers in the context of the defeat of fascism decades ago, so we can see them as signifying tragedy, of good people in bad situations. For example, here's the Wikipedia plot summary of the "Slipstream" segment of <a href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/The_Cockpit_%28film%29"><em>The Cockpit</em></a> anime:</p> <blockquote><p> A disgraced German fighter pilot is assigned to escort a captured American B-17 bomber carrying his childhood sweetheart, her scientist father and a fearsome secret cargo - a Nazi atom bomb. The night before the mission the pilot's sweetheart begs him to let enemy planes destroy the bomber before the cargo can be used, even though she and her father will die with it. On the next day, After shooting down two of three RAF attackers by using the brand new Ta 152, the pilot allows the third Spitfire to destroy the bomber. </p></blockquote> <p>Here's an inherently dramatic situation, a character torn between duty and humanitarian concerns, opening up the possibility of masochistic sacrifice and redemption in annihilation. </p> <p>You could also see this as a way of Japanese people thinking about their nation's legacy as a defeated, surrendered power by displacing the narrative onto another defeated military power, Nazi Germany. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/09/11/nazi-fashion-in-east-asia-11821578/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-08-27:/2011/08/27/detective-magazines-11736251/ptupper722011-08-27T20:16:00+02:002011-08-27T20:16:00+02:00 <p><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4046/4452084692_63469a24ef_o.jpg" alt="Magazine cover, bare-chested man holding knife to throat of woman in old-fashioned nurse" title=""></p> <p><a href="http://my-retrospace.blogspot.com/2011/08/cover-gallery-11-detective-magazines.html">My Retrospace</a> has a gallery of detective magazine covers, which almost always showed "women in danger" images. </p> <p>The blog's curator says:</p> <blockquote><p> I would argue that, of all the possible vintage topics, detective magazines are the most derided. They were nothing more than lurid depictions of man at his worst. Unlike even the most violent horror comics, the detective mag has no avid collectors. The detective mag has no kitsch value, no nostalgic charm, no historical importance. Even vintage porn has its share of enthusiasts - no so the detective mag. </p></blockquote> <p>I'm not sure why detective mags get no respect (or love). Are they any more misogynistic than the men's adventure magazines? Perhaps, as there don't seem to be any scenes of men being attacked by women or animals in the detective magazines. Perhaps the use of photography instead of paintings is the problem, a more immediate medium. Or perhaps placing the "women in danger" in the here and now, not in far-off lands or in the past. </p> <p>Nonetheless, these are part of the porngraphic, sadomasochistic tradition. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/08/27/detective-magazines-11736251/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-08-24:/2011/08/24/kink-film-festival-in-germany-11721361/ptupper722011-08-24T18:56:14+02:002011-08-25T19:29:24+02:00 <p><a href="http://www.fetisch-film-festival.de/">Fetisch Film Festival</a> is a kink event held in Kiel, Germany, on October 25-29, 2011.</p> <p>The schedule includes a documentary on <a href="http://www.kinkcrusaders-themovie.com/">International Mr. Leather</a>, Kim Wood's <a href="http://www.kimwood.org/onmyknees"><em>On My Knees</em></a> about the Arthur Munby-Hannah Cullwick relationship, a documentary on Maria Coletsis' book of dominatrix portraits, <a href="http://www.behindthewhip.com/"><em>Behind the Whip</em></a> and the new David Cronenberg joint, <a href="http://adangerousmethod-themovie.com/"><em>A Dangerous Method</em></a>.</p> <p>Wish I could go. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/08/24/kink-film-festival-in-germany-11721361/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-07-28:/2011/07/28/bring-on-the-dancing-pagans-11563209/ptupper722011-07-28T22:40:15+02:002011-07-28T22:40:15+02:00 <p>The Secret History of Rock has a post and clips on the <a href="http://secrethistoryofrock.blogspot.com/2010/10/bring-on-dancing-pagans.html">influence of the sword-and-sorcery (known as <em>peplum</em>) films</a>, both European and American, and their aesthetic, contrasted with the stodginess of the 50s and 60s. </p> <blockquote><p> The formula was simple- an American muscleman playing a mythic hero (usually Hercules or one of his equivalents), an evil king or queen, a scheming priesthood bent on human sacrifice, a virtuous maiden in need of rescue and lots and lots of exposed Mediterranean flesh for every possible taste. To an America stuck in the corporate monotony of the Cold War, these films were like an explosion of pure id, an atavistic knife to the heart of a denatured West. </p></blockquote> <p>I would add a lot of slavery-type imagery: women imprisoned and auctioned, virtue in distress. This of course went into the Frank Frazetta-Boris Vallejo school of paperback cover art and heavy metal album covers, etc, etc. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/07/28/bring-on-the-dancing-pagans-11563209/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-07-18:/2011/07/18/mightier-than-the-sword-the-long-strange-life-of-uncle-tom-s-cabin-11499220/ptupper722011-07-18T18:18:16+02:002011-07-19T00:30:13+02:00 <p><a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2298982/">Slate's review</a> of David S. Reynold's book on <em>Uncle Tom's Cabin</em>, <em>Mightier than the Sword</em>:</p> <blockquote><p> In Reynolds's telling, much of the book's original appeal had to do with how Stowe blended together many disparate ingredients of antebellum culture, creating a confection perfectly flavored to tickle Victorian palates. Angelic women, adorable children, snug little houses, mawkish religiosity—all were part of the mix. Appearing at the moment of America's—indeed, the world's—first great flowering of mass popular culture, Uncle Tom's Cabin drew on minstrel shows, pulp fiction, abolitionist broadsides, temperance propaganda, and evangelical tracts. (Reynolds even speculates that Stowe may have read some of the early work of Karl Marx, which was being serialized in the New York Tribune just as she was picking up her pen.)</p> <p>"By bringing together all of these strands, Stowe directed the whole range of America's favorite pop-culture images toward an assault on slavery," Reynolds writes. The radicalism of Uncle Tom's Cabin was in the way it manipulated readers into identifying with its black characters. This may not seem especially noteworthy today, but for 19th-century readers, it was nothing short of a revelation. Enslaved men, women, and children were no longer mere political abstractions, but three-dimensional human beings. In Stowe's telling, they even became archetypal American heroes, as well as Christian saints. This was especially true of Tom himself, portrayed not as a white-haired Uncle Remus (as he would be in later stage adaptations) but as a muscular man in the prime of life who is sold South and ultimately beaten to death by Legree's overseers. </p></blockquote> <p>I hope that Reynolds discusses the pornographic aspects of the Uncle Tom phenomenon. I've already reserved this in my local library. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/07/18/mightier-than-the-sword-the-long-strange-life-of-uncle-tom-s-cabin-11499220/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-07-16:/2011/07/16/the-stalag-books-and-holocaust-porn-11490679/ptupper722011-07-16T21:00:56+02:002011-07-16T21:33:15+02:00 <p><a href="http://blog.angelacaperton.com/2011/06/28/taboos---part-i.aspx">Angela Caperton's blog</a> pointed me towards several Youtube clips from the documentary, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1479963/"><em>Stalags</em></a> (2008), about the Israeli stalag novels:</p> <p>The Introduction</p> <p>A discussion of the standard plot.</p> <p>A professor talks about his schooldays, when Stalag novels were circulated as porn, while the works of <a href="https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Yehiel_De-Nur">Ka Tzetnik 135633</a> treated the same subject matter but legitimately. </p> <p>A publisher talks about the premise of the books, in which a "pinnacle of manhood", American pilots, are dominated by women. </p> <p>An interview with present-day Israeli who talks about his fantasies when having sex with a gentile German woman. </p> <p>Interview with filmmaker Ari Libsker</p> <p>I think this is an example of fantasy as a reparative/redemptive rewriting of an earlier experience, either first hand or indirect. Definitely gotta see this one. </p> <p>More on Ka Tzetnik 135633 in a future post. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/07/16/the-stalag-books-and-holocaust-porn-11490679/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-07-14:/2011/07/14/still-more-canadian-pulp-porn-11482141/ptupper722011-07-14T22:57:54+02:002011-07-14T23:08:29+02:00 <p>Brian Busby's tour of the seamy side of Canlit brings us to the work of Danny Halperin, who wrote under the name of Neil Perrin. </p> <p><em><a href="http://brianbusby.blogspot.com/2010/12/and-these-were-her-magnificent-breasts.html">This was Joanna</a></em> (1949) begins like <em>Twin Peaks</em>: a beautiful woman, Joanna, is found murdered in water. One of her beaus delves into her life and turns up a sexually dysfunctional husband and a kinky lover:</p> <blockquote><p> On the walls of the room were hung all sorts of gadgets of torture; long needles, small, hairy whips, knouts, knives sharp as razors, silken threads of unbelievable length. Over the mantlepiece were afixed two large peacock feathers; the end of one was a rubber stopper, the end of the other a handgrip. I dared not ask the significance of these feathers for fear of being told.</p> <p>Suspended from the ceiling were two long cords, obviously used to hold a person up from the floor by his (or her) thumbs. On the floor, as if alive, lay the stuffed corpse of a sinuous cobra. The most unspeakably evil paintings adorned the walls and, in one corner of the room under a blue light, sat the grinning statue of Priapus, the phallic symbol of the ages. </p></blockquote> <p>Another Perrin work was <em><a href="http://brianbusby.blogspot.com/2010/03/torontos-tortured-sexual-souls.html">The Door Between</a></em> (1950), about a damaged WWII vet who stalks the vamp who lives in the next room in his boarding house. </p> <p>From another <a href="http://brianbusby.blogspot.com/2010/03/climax-happy-ending.html">post</a>: </p> <blockquote><p> Moving past the well-scrubbed, antiseptic couch romps shared by Bruce and Sheila we find relationships in which sex and violence are invariably entwined.</p> <p>The first glimpse we're given comes courtesy of Clara, Bruce's downstairs neighbour, who gets off on being knocked around by her husband. The morning after Bruce's arrival, the nightgown-wearing battered wife corners Bruce in the rooming house hallway, teasing: "Bet you'd like to beat the hell out of me, wouldn't you?"</p> <p>Jump to Vera, who shares a loveless sex life with Jake, one of the three men in her fawning entourage. "It is zee glandular love", she sighs. "I suppose it will have to do until zee real love comes along. Some day he vill come to me, zee lover I need. He vill be strong and filty; he vill beat me and kiss me and feel everything – everything!" When one of her lapdogs dares describe her as a masochist, she responds: "I am not to be labelled. You can say I am zee masochist, I am zee sadist, I am zee pervert – anything that pleases you. But all I really am is zee voman. How do you explain zat?" </p></blockquote> <p>This novel ends with the hero beating the bad girl in a jealous rage, right in front of the good girl, who persuades him to stop so they can go get married. Charming.</p> <p>As to viewing this a piece of BDSM history, there's certainly a lot of sadism and masochism in <em>The Door Between</em>, but it appears to lack the formalism of the interaction that characterizes the dungeon in <em>This Was Joanna</em>. I'd categorized them more as "rough sex" stories than BDSM fiction. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/07/14/still-more-canadian-pulp-porn-11482141/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-07-13:/2011/07/13/david-cronenberg-s-a-dangerous-method-11472915/ptupper722011-07-13T02:47:33+02:002011-07-13T02:47:33+02:00 <p>Speaking of Canadian's with a kinky attitude towards sex, check out this trailer for director David Cronenberg's next feature, a film about the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung and their masochistic female patient, featuring a fair bit of costume drama and kink. </p> <p>Cronenberg's had an interesting career trajectory. His early films, such as <em>Shivers</em> (aphrodisiac parasites spread through a Montreal apartment complex) and <em>The Brood</em> (people start externalizing their psychologies through literal bodily transformations), were far more experimental and visceral and political, in the best traditions of 1970s horror films. </p> <p>Over the decades, he's become a lot more respectable. He complains in interviews that he is still listed in IMDB as "Dave 'Deprave' Cronenberg". While I still consider myself a Cronenberg fan, and I respect his career decisions, I also feel that his latest films just aren't as gripping as his earlier works. If I wanted to sell people on the idea that Cronenberg is a great director, I'd show them <em>Dead Ringers</em> or <em>Crash</em>, not <em>Spider</em> or <em>Eastern Promises</em>. </p> <p>You can see the same concerns in his latter works like <em>Eastern Promises</em> or <em>A History of Violence</em> as in his middle period <em>The Fly</em>: a man struggling against his transformation into a monster. I still maintain <em>The Fly</em> is the superior work. </p> <p>My hope is that this story will allow Cronenberg to loosen up a little and not understate his themes. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/07/13/david-cronenberg-s-a-dangerous-method-11472915/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-07-13:/2011/07/13/more-canadian-bdsm-porn-11472880/ptupper722011-07-13T02:24:18+02:002011-07-13T02:24:18+02:00 <p>Brian Busby's blog is proving to be a cornucopia of Canadian literary BDSM history.</p> <p>His posts on Dianne Bataille's <em><a href="http://brianbusby.blogspot.com/2009/02/canadas-olympians-part-one.html">The Whip Angels</a></em> (1968), and the <a href="http://brianbusby.blogspot.com/2011/02/elusive-diane-bataille.html">author</a> herself, married to George Bataille. </p> <p>Science fiction writer AE van Vogt wrote <a href="http://brianbusby.blogspot.com/2010/09/sf-not-sm.html"><em>The House that Stood Still</em></a> (1952):</p> <blockquote><p> Nine men and four women were standing in various tensed positions. One of the women, an amazingly good-looking blonde, had been stripped to the waist; her ankles and wrists were tied with thin ropes to the chair in which she sat sideways. There were bloody welts on her tanned back, and a whip lay on the floor. </p></blockquote> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/07/13/more-canadian-bdsm-porn-11472880/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-07-08:/2011/07/08/a-billion-wicked-thoughts-by-ogi-ogas-and-sai-gaddam-11446050/ptupper722011-07-08T22:32:16+02:002011-07-08T22:32:16+02:00 <p>When I received this book for review, I thought it would provide some fodder for this blog. It didn't. It's a thimble-deep, simplistic application of evolutionary psychology to pornography, romance novels and fanfiction, full of questionable methodology and reductionist conclusions.</p> <p><a href="http://thetyee.ca/Books/2011/07/05/SexOnBrains/">My review at The Tyee</a>. I'm not even going to add an Amazon purchase link. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/07/08/a-billion-wicked-thoughts-by-ogi-ogas-and-sai-gaddam-11446050/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-07-01:/2011/07/02/the-function-of-queer-pulp-11408620/ptupper722011-07-02T00:13:12+02:002011-07-02T00:13:12+02:00 <p>I twigged something when I read <a href="http://ceciliatan.livejournal.com/308315.html">Cecilia Tan's blog notes about the IASPR romance conference</a>. </p> <blockquote><p> Which leads me to wonder if I did an analysis of BDSM-based and queer-focused romance if I would find a greater emphasis on the value of the sex (and its place in validating personal identity) than on the more “traditional” romance ideals of true love tied to a diamond ring and landed estate/portfolio? Of course, there are the same-sex romances, for example, which take place in an alternate universe where there is no homophobia, and where everything is entirely the same as possible to a traditional romance except for the one key point that the two main characters are man and man or woman and woman. These would have to be counted separately, I suppose… or I’d have to posit a separate axis on which to divide the genres. Hmmm.</p> <p>Validation of personal identity for those who are marginalized is perhaps a bigger prize than financial security or the attention and love of a powerful/high status mate. Does that change the rules of romance for queer-identified authors/protagonists/readers? Or does it merely establish the rules more firmly, it’s merely that the prize is different? </p></blockquote> <p>So, the old gay and lesbian pulps had the additional function of validating personal desires and types of relationships that mainstream society didn't recognize. Even if the story isn't a variation of the marriage plot, i.e. ending in Happily Ever After, just saying it is okay to desire a person of the same sex or something other than heterosexual coitus is important. That undermines the erotica/romance distinction, and/or gives erotica a higher purpose of exploring and experimenting with desire, rather than endlessly renegotiating monogamous domesticity. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/07/02/the-function-of-queer-pulp-11408620/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-06-27:/2011/06/27/the-life-of-wilhelm-reich-11383520/ptupper722011-06-27T19:17:54+02:002011-06-27T19:21:51+02:00 <p>Slate has a review of <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2297527/">Christopher Turner's new biography of all-around superfreak Wilhelm Reich</a>. (Yes, the guy with the orgone boxes.)</p> <blockquote><p> Merging abandoned versions of Freudianism and Marxism, Reich saw repression and neurosis as causes and results of bourgeois property ownership and patriarchy. He established free sex clinics and roved the city in a van from which he proselytized for Communism and orgasm. The open expression of libido, beginning with free love between adolescents, would raise the proletarian political consciousness. Soon, Reich was drummed out of the analytic movement and the Communist Party.</p> <p>Reich had admirers among the young analysts and the literary and artistic avant-garde. One observer of a Reichian lakeside gathering in 1930 described indulgence in "a voyeuristic exhibitionistic fashion of semi-public love affairs, dramatized promiscuity, risqué parties and play-acting, and bathing in the nude." As Turner also demonstrates, the idealization of sex had its victims. Reich took up with a former patient; months into the affair, she died, possibly of a botched abortion. Reich promptly pursued and then married and divorced another patient, Annie Pink, later Annie Reich. (She kept him from his children, out of concern over abuse.) The pattern of sex with patients, students, and acolytes—relationships that were often disastrous for the women—continued for the whole of Reich's life.</p></blockquote> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/06/27/the-life-of-wilhelm-reich-11383520/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-06-13:/2011/06/13/laura-kipnis-on-the-lack-of-female-sex-scandals-11310845/ptupper722011-06-13T19:48:31+02:002011-06-13T19:48:31+02:00 <p><a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/05/23/where-are-all-the-female-sex-scandals/">Laura Kipnis opines on the DSK scandal and the apparent lack of female sex scandals</a>, drawing on Louise Kaplan's <em>Female Perversions</em>: </p> <blockquote><p> In her influential 1991 book “Female Perversions” (later made into a movie starring Tilda Swinton), psychoanalyst Louise Kaplan writes that we tend to think of sexual perversions as a male province only because female perversions are more hidden. In fact, they’re hidden in plain sight. The point is applicable to sex scandals too, I believe. According to Kaplan, perversions aren’t primarily about illicit or deviant sexual behaviors, they’re actually pathologies of gender identity. “What makes a perversion a perversion is a mental strategy that uses one or another social stereotype of masculinity or femininity in a way that deceives the onlooker about the unconscious meanings of the behaviors she or he is observing.”</p> <p>...</p> <p>Women too, are capable of perverse behavior, and enlisting others in such stratagems, but this kind of thing generally doesn’t make the headlines. Very occasionally we see women getting themselves into scandals in ways we’d consider “masculine”—high school teachers sleeping with their students for instance—but it’s rare. More often, when we see a woman behaving in caricatured feminine ways, the response is, “Thanks for doing the laundry, baby.” </p></blockquote> <p>The stereotypical cliche of perverse sexuality, the CEO who pays a dominatrix thousands of dollars to dress in a French maid uniform and do her laundry, doesn't seem to have a direct female analogue. When we look for female scandals with this perspective, things start to pop up, of female celebrities under tremendous pressure and acting out in bizarre ways. I think of Angelina Jolie's (perhaps excessive) display of maternity in adopting African children, or Tammy Faye Bakker's grotesque exaggeration of female makeup back in the days, or women who have multiple cosmetic surgeries. Still, these examples are something inward directed.</p> <p>As women move into more positions of authority in the corporate and political realms, will they start to display more male-like sexual perversions, or will we have to create a new category of scandal for them? Tabloid journalism obsesses over the bodies of female celebrities (too fat? too thin? botched operation? pregnant? infertile?) but not their sexualities, not the objects of their desires. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/06/13/laura-kipnis-on-the-lack-of-female-sex-scandals-11310845/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p> tag:beautyindarkness.blog.ca,2011-06-07:/2011/06/07/ann-coulter-vs-conversio-virium-11281329/ptupper722011-06-07T23:29:55+02:002011-06-07T23:29:55+02:00 <p>After hearing about this 2006 incident on the <a href="http://masocast.com/2011/05/15/theyre-going-to-want-to-run-around-naked/">Masocast</a>, I dug up a transcript of <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,232859,00.html">Ann Coulter's views on the Conversio Virium</a>, the BDSM educational group at Columbia University:</p> <blockquote><p> Well, what's sort of surprising about it, and which is why I really think you should get a picture of the members of these clubs and, you know, a picture of the young College Republicans and the Christians, because someone who needs to join a club at college to find a way to have sex, probably not your lookers. </p></blockquote> <p>I realize this was five years ago and documenting Coulter's inanities at this point is akin to flogging a dead horse, but it bears repeating. </p> <p>Coulter's attack is based on unsupported assumption about the people in this club. Coulter doesn't take the standard feminist tack of arguing that this legitimizes sexual coercion and violence against women. Instead, she makes social attacks on the people involved: they must be ugly or socially inept, coming from broken homes. Conversative Christians are implied to be the true sexual experts, and more physically attractive. </p> <p>This is a different strain of outside criticism against BDSM, that kinky people are unattractive, damaged and deeply unhip. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://beautyindarkness.blog.ca/2011/06/07/ann-coulter-vs-conversio-virium-11281329/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>