Sunday, March 17, 2013

Origin story

I had the pleasure of giving a class on the Perception of Kink in Popular Culture at Dark Odyssey Winter Fire in February and as I was preparing my presentation, it occurred to me that I really think this could be a book. I'm not sure what exactly it will be, something in between an academic exploration and a Taschen book. So, I'm going to be using this blog as a kind outline and a place to organize my ideas and thoughts and hopefully get some inspiration and information from all of you.

So here's where all of this started for me:

There were three things I can trace back to the origins of interest in BDSM.

Allen Jones, Table, 1969


The first was this photo of this Allen Jones (1969) sculpture. I'm not sure where I saw it, I'm assuming it was from one of my father's art magazines. I don't remember what I thought of it at the time or what I thought it meant, but it stuck with me and has never really left.

The Jones inspired Korova Milk Bar scene in A Clockwork Orange, 1971

The second was the nymphomaniac scene in Fellini’s Satyricon. Here, the hero who is suffering from some erectile dysfunction is sent to a man in the middle of the desert. To cope with his wife's uncontrollable nymphomania, she is kept tied up in a wagon, available for the use of any man who wants her.

Fellini’s Satyricon, 1969

The third is My Fair Lady. With it's blatant pygmalionism and dominant / submissive power exchange, I always thought it was one of the kinkiest movies ever made.

My Fair Lady, 1964

Bill Ward

Then I discovered porn, Anne Rice and the Sleeping Beauty trilogy and I started to learn what S&M was "supposed" to be and the visions I had in my head were replaced by what was essentially an Ellen Von Unwuerth photo.

Revenge by Ellen von Unwerth, 2003

That picture in my head turned out to be the picture in most people's heads, too. An ex-boyfriend once told me that he wasn't kinky, he just liked the way it looked. I understood what he meant immediately. I had a pretty clear image in my head and you probably have a similar image in your head, but then I thought what does that mean?

What does kink look like?

Human Fetish

Doujin Kim