Sex History

In researching the history of consensual sadomasochism, there isn’t a comprehensive body of knowledge to draw upon, no established canon of reference works, no Journal of Sadomasochistic Studies.

 

Instead, I have data points: case studies, books (often anonymous), anecdotes, images, etc. I’ll admit that sometimes what is and isn’t a data point is decided on the “I know it when I see it” principle. Connecting those points requires a certain amount of guesswork and judgment calls.

 

For example: Dr. Samuel Johnson, English man of letters of the Enlightenment, and his relationship with his close friend Hester Thrale.  The latter’s posthumous effects, sold at auction in 1823, included a padlock and fetters. Thrale identified it as “Johnson’s padlock, committed to my care in the year 1768.” In 1767 or 1768, Thrale wrote that “our stern philosopher Johnson trusted me… with a secret far dearer to him than his life”. On other occasions , she wrote that “this great, this formidable Doctor Johnson kissed my hand, ay & my foot too upon his knees!” and quoted him saying, “a woman has such power between the ages of twenty five and forty five, that she may tie a man to a post and whip him if she will.”

Via Peter Tupper

Women in Japan's island chain of Okinawa have demanded an apology from an outspoken Japanese politician who suggested US troops there make use of its thriving sex industry.

 

The comments from Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto came after he said "comfort women" – who most historians agree were pressed into sexual slavery for the Japanese imperial army during World War II – served a "necessary" role by keeping soldiers in line.

 

"Regardless of whether it is war-time or not, a view to use women as a tool [to let out sexual frustration] is intolerable," said Masako Ishimine, a senior member of a local women's body, quoted by the Okinawa Times, the day after Mr Hashimoto spoke.

 

"Does he mean women should simply take it because men work hard?"

 

The outrage came on the day Okinawa marked the 41st anniversary of its reversion to Japan at the end of post-WWII US occupation and after comments on history that provoked ire in South Korea and China.

 

Up to 200,000 women from Korea, China, the Philippines and elsewhere were forcibly drafted into brothels catering to the Japanese military in territories occupied by Japan during WWII, according to many mainstream historians.

Yes, Virginia, like courtesans who rouged their breasts (or, more accurately, their areolas), flappers heightened the color of, and therefore the attention to, their knees. My guess is though, that they rouged post placement of their stockings.

I’ve researched and written a lot about vintage nylon stockings over the years because the history of nylon stockings is quite fascinating to me. I’m sure most of you have heard about the scarcity of nylon during WWII — just months after the new invention hit store shelves on May 15, 1940. Even silk stockings, second choice to the preferred fit and feel of nylon, were in very short supply as silk was also used for the war effort and the war itself interfered with over-seas shipments.

 

...Here, 1942 Hollywood starlet Kay Bensel applied her faux stocking seams with a device “made from a screw driver handle, bicycle leg-clip, and an ordinary eyebrow pencil.”