Kink For All_1

This is the slide show I gave at the first Kink For All. Click on the images to view larger.







The secret password is "orgy".

I was dating a guy who was pretty vanilla. He wasn't completely green about kinky stuff, but it became really clear that he just wasn't into it. Or at least into anything I was into. So, I said to him, "This stuff isn't really your thing, is it?" And he said:

"Not really. I just like the way it looks."



At the time, I knew exactly what he was talking about. I got it immediately. But it wasn't until later that I stopped and thought, what does that mean? What does kink "look like"?




When I was younger, this what kinky used to look like for me. "Story of O", "Sleeping Beauty". Very Helmut Newton. Everyone was rich and spoke French.
Ellen von Unwerth / Revenge




These images have been in the culture as early as the 1930s.
Charles Guyette




John Willie / Bizzare




Bette Page was created out of a customer demand for BDSM-like images in mainstream movies. While the outfits and the photos were created and sold underground for a audience of practitioners and fetishist, the style would make it's way back into the media.




British shoe makers, Anello & Davide designed Emma Peel's boots for The Avengers (and shoes for The Queen of England). They also crafted high-heeled, thigh-high fetish boots that appeared in fetish magazines.









I remember the news footage of long lines and crowds in suburban bookstores when this was released. It sold 150,000 copies in the US on the first day. All 1.5 million copies sold out worldwide in 3 days.
Madonna / Sex





Getting it right: high quality photography by Steven Meisel, sophisticated and innovative design.




Getting it wrong: initially filmed as a dramatic, straight interpretation of the book, Exit to Eden the script was heavily re-written by the studio and a comedic sub-plot with O'Donnel and Aykroyd was tacked on.




Like any once subversive subculture, eventually it will be co-opted by the corporate mainstream and commodified.






Stock photography as a cultural indicator.



The people buying these images are not individuals looking for porn, it's marketing and design firms, publishing companies and advertising agencies...
Getty Images














Luxury kink: no longer regulated to mail-order catalogs and SM leather shops, kink turns boutique.
Kiki de Montparnasse, Coco de Mer







Now, there are friendly starter kits and bachelorette party gifts sets complete with blindfolds, feathers (for some reason) and comfortably cushioned handcuffs.




Even material created by kinky people, for kinky people uses the same imagery and symbols. Considering the variation and complexity of sexuality, maybe a more realistic representation of kink is something like this:



The End


For more information: The Development of Sadomasochism as a Cultural Style in the Twentieth-Century United States by Robert Bienvenu

Kink For All 2

I wasn't sure if I was going to be going to Kink for All 2, but I'm so glad I did. The variety of topics and the diversity of participants is so refreshing. The opportunity for anyone to share anything is so important and giving people who normally are not invited to speak at the bigger, paid conferences or don't have a two hour long class to teach, but just an idea they want to share (all for free) is such an important part of the ever changing and expanding kink community. Plus, it makes me feel smart.

I hadn't prepared anything to talk about since I wasn't sure I'd even be able to go, but once there I was encourage to give a presentation. I figured I would revisit my last subject of Kink and Popular Culture (someday soon I'll post my notes for that, I promise), but specifically about the film Secretary. I hate doing these things without a slide show, it's a lot easier talking about visual things when there's a picture of that thing to look at, but here's just a few notes from what I can remember I rambled on about:

By the way, if you never saw the movie this is your spoiler alert.



Normality: most of the time depictions of BDSM are portrayed by for a laugh (East of Eden, High Anxiety, Family Guy) or as a sign of pathology or desperation (Blue Velvet, The Piano Teacher, Night Porter). Refreshingly, Secretary is primarily a love story between two fully formed, complex human beings who have issues just like anyone else. It was really the first time I saw a BDSM relationship that looked like something I could identify with.

Aesthetics: one of the things I truly appreciate about this film is that is finally breaks away from the well established tropes of black leather, corsets and high heeled boots that have come to be equated with kink. The depiction of BDSM as something dark and dangerous only to be practiced after midnight in stone walled "dungeons" with red drapery is getting a little old. Not that it's not sexy, but sexy doesn't always look the same to everyone. Those signifiers used to have a real purpose and meaning when BDSM was truly a subversive, underground activity. But now when those same images are used to sell shower gel, cars and soft-drinks, the edge goes a little soft.

In the film, all of the action takes place in the offices of E. Edward Grey during working hours. Before she gets the job as Mr. Grey's secretary, Lee Holloway's environment, her parents house, the "normal" world is all bright colors and plastic. The interiors of his world is all warm wood and earth tones. There are plants everywhere. Rather than the dichotomy being light -vs- dark / normal-vs-deviant / safe-vs-dangerous it is closer to artificial -vs- real. And no one is in leather.

Hardcore: In her essay "Mainstreaming Kink: The Politics of BDSM Representation in U.S. Popular Media", Dr. Margot D. Weiss, PhD discusses the difference in perceptions of BDSM to a non-kinky audience. What did this movie mean to the uninitiated?

... even interviewees who enjoyed the love story in Secretary expressed disappointment that these images of the other were too mainstream, too conventional, too mundane, or too consumerist. Ty thought that if real SM is “violent, dark, and more depressing,” the representation in Secretary, “tone[s] it down a little bit” and “cast[s] a nice humorous light” on BDSM. Suzy thought Secretary made it “a little bit safe,” while Jenny thought the film was a little “too Hollywood.” Abby said that, in Secretary, “SM was portrayed as like not as harsh [but as] something that could bring two people together, and you know, make them fall in love with each other. It was just like more subtle SM, softer.”

These interviewees are pointing to a basic disappointment: Nothing truly shocking and out-there can appear in the in-here consumer culture. Once mainstreamed, these images of BDSM are a little too safe, a little too nice, and a little too easy to swallow. (124)

I never understood this. She waits for him (for days) at his command, sitting at his desk, never moving, not eating, and urinating on herself in determination to not disobey. It's so much more hardcore than anything you'd see in a dungeon, but it's not "obvious". No one's being whipped bloody by a single tail, no one is screaming in pain. No one's in black leather.

Don't get me wrong, the outfits can be sexy and sometimes you want an atmosphere fitting for dark, dangerous and generally naughty behavior. But limiting the images of BDSM to such a narrow range of costumes, colors and decorating choices ignores the complexity and diversity of the people who call themselves kinky.

Kink For All

I gave my first pervert related talk Sunday at the first ever Kink For All, held at the LGBT Community Center. Let me first say, it was fantastic and I left energized, excited, with pages of notes, some business cards and a whole lot of encouragement.

It was a rather spontaneous decision on my part to speak and I signed up without really knowing what I would talk about. I'm not particularly skilled in anything. I'm usually at the receiving end of other people's expertise. I thought about doing something related to my Kink + Culture site, but I didn't want to just do a show and tell. Then it came to me.

Half of my life is firmly planted in the vanilla world and half is pretty solid in the kink world and I like going back and forth across the border. I have a tendency to look at the vanilla world through a kinky filter and the kinky world through a vanilla filter and nothing pleases me more than when those two worlds collide.

I was dating a guy who was pretty vanilla. He wasn't completely green about kinky stuff, but it became really clear that he just wasn't into it. Or at least into anything I was into. So, I said to him, "This stuff isn't really your thing, is it?" And he said:

"Not really. I just like the way it looks."

At the time, I knew exactly what he was talking about. I got it immediately. But it wasn't until later that I stopped and thought, what does that mean? What does kink "look like"?

So, I did a presentation called Fishnets and Furry Handcuffs: The Perception of Kink in Popular Culture. It was an absolute blast putting it together, so much so that I can't stop working on it. It got a very good response and the discussion afterward could have gone on and on for the rest of the afternoon. Now I want to keep going. I think I have a nice little seed of an idea here. I'm gonna water it and see what happens.

On another note, I did my talk in the Keith Haring bathroom, which could not have been more perfect.






KFANYC