When it comes to the history of BDSM, most people credit the Marquis de Sade and his kinky erotic writings as a kind of origin story for the practice.
The 18th century French nobleman and politician spent much of his life in prison, writing his extremely dark fantasies with all the time on his hands.
His work was a philosophical examination of absolute freedom with no moral or social restraints, and explored topics taboo at the time, including violence, pain, pedophilia, anal sex, prostitution, power, and beyond.
His name became the source of the word “sadism,” meaning to take sexual pleasure in inflicting pain. BDSM history was being made.
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A century later the Austrian author Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch wrote Venus in Furs, inspired by his own fantasies and experiences, about a man who finds pleasure and fulfillment in being dominated by a cruel mistress.
His name became synonymous with “masochism,” or sexual pleasure in receiving pain.
A German neurologist, Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebing, coined the term “sadomasochism” as a reference to these writers in his studies on sexual pathologies.
Neither Sade nor Sacher-Masoch invented sadomasochism, however. Their honesty in addressing their fantasies in their literature was simply instrumental in giving voice to desires and practices that humans have explored, perhaps since time immemorial.
The rest is, as they say, BDSM history.
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Early Origins of BDSM
When it comes to the history of BDSM, some of the oldest records of humanity that we have reference what we call BDSM today.
Ancient ecstatic and erotic rites in sacred or divine devotion included sexual religious rituals from nude dancing to castration to orgies to crossdressing.
Cuneiform texts about the goddess Ishtar (also known as Inanna), Hymn to Innana, talk about initiatory transformation rites involving altered states through erotic pain and ecstasy.
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Goddesses wielding whips over sexualized slaves show up in ancient Etruscan and Pompeii art. India’s Kama Sutra, an ancient book on lovemaking practices, includes ideas about sensual hitting. Hindu culture had a vast pantheon of gods and goddesses, with many sensual beings also empowered with destruction. Literature held references to flogging academies in the 1600s, long before Venus in Furs was written.
Indigenous and tribal cultures from America to Africa to Australia had a diverse array of rituals and practices that explored pain and sexuality, sometimes both at the same time.
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Many experts trace the history of BDSM back much farther into the mists of humanity. When we think of “cave men” we invariably picture a muscular ape-like male with a club, dragging a scantily clad female by the hair. Primate and animal sex and early human sex was aggressive with elaborate rituals of hunting and seduction. Primal sex is revived as a kind of kink in today’s fetish options.
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BDSM in the 20th Century
The term sadomasochism was largely replaced by the 1990s when someone coined the acronym BDSM in a comment online. Because not all kinky practices involved pain and not all kinky people liked the experience of pain, the term BDSM proved a better fit.
BDSM recognized the power exchange dynamic at the heart of sadomasochism and other kinky play. Dominance and submission became essential terms, and bondage and discipline were recognized as key ways to express those power exchanges, along with sadism and masochism.
Naughty Postcards
Before Playboy, before mainstream porn access, before pin-up girls, French photographers took racy pictures of actresses and showgirls. While the vast majority of these were playful nudes with fun props, there were many variants, including woman-on-woman action, taboo interracial photos, and models taking a whip.
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Biker Culture
Leather culture is a syncretic phenomenon with at least two main merging origin channels—the motorcycle mystique, from biker subcultures emblematic of rebellion and freedom starting as far back as the 40s, and popular in movies in the 50s onwards, and parallel freedom movement in the gay male community.
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Leather Movement
While leather is a common fetish among people of all genders and orientations, it is part of the core of gay male culture. The gay leather movement was integral in establishing fetish culture and sexual liberation in general.
Secret and not-so-secret gay leather clubs started opening in the 50s. The famous Tool Box in San Francisco was just one of countless BDSM and leather culture gay nightclubs, from Australia to Berlin.
It can be argued that gay male freedom fighters helped give fetish culture in general its liberation, but leather itself is symbolic with BDSM. Everything from deaf leather groups to Ms. Leather spread like wildfire as the open practice of BDSM became more and more popular in diverse demographics.
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BDSM in Culture and Popular Culture
Fetish Photography
Pin-up girls and swimsuit models were enormously popular starting around the 1950s. One of the models was Bettie Page, who wore her hair cut harshly across and often appeared in rope bondage.
Artist and illustrator John Willie frequently depicted bondage scenes in his graphic art. He also took hundreds of fetish-themed photographs that became admired as seminal BDSM work much later.
Given the aesthetic sensibilities inherent in much of BDSM, combined with general human curiosity about taboo and about sex, perhaps it was no surprise how popular fetish photography as an art form became. Prints and coffee table books of fetish photography became conversation pieces in sophisticated homes from the 60s onward.
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Helmut Newton was an enormously influential fashion photographer whose fetish works are world renowned. His fashion focus revealed our fetishistic way of looking. He shot feet and shoes, long-legged sleek black-clad models, and controversially, models with medical braces, crutches, and devices.
Elmer Batters started the first foot and leg fetish magazine in order to publish his early foot photography. As other magazines on the topic sprang to life, his work was in demand and widely consumed as both pornography and art. Batters photographed female feet and legs in both playful and straight-up styles, zeroing in on pantyhose seams, spreading toe action, and feet posed to prop near the panties or pussy.
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Eric Kroll is a classic pioneer of fetish photography, bringing the mostly hidden beauty of kink into the mainstream intelligentsia with his provocative works for Taschen Books, the famous Beauty Parade and Fetish Girls of the 90s.
Gay photographer Robert Mapplethorpe died young, but his spare, stylized photography is iconic. He loved to shoot stark and simple flowers, and startling pornographic gay sex and fetish scenes, including rimming, whips, and full body latex and leather.
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Kinky Comics
Comic books were a natural contributor to BDSM history because they often combined distress and bondage with the erotic in their monster tales, superhero spins, and adventure stories.
Pin-up style imagery of beautiful women was woven into story lines about disasters, beasts, and crime. God or goddess like superheroes would use their lassos to subdue their beautiful foe. Women in bondage positions or busting out of bondage were on the cover of seemingly every comic book from Phantom Lady to Wonder Woman to Flash Gordon.
Hentai is a genre of erotic anime or manga, originating in Japan. Bondage, transformation fetish, anthropomorphic kinks and enormous breast fetishes are staples of their art.
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Kinky Movies
BDSM history in cinema is a sweeping subject that cannot be encapsulated in a few words. The quantity of erotica consumed in “moving images” is vast, and kinky erotica is no exception.
Lovers were filming hardcore BDSM as soon as they could get their hands on a camera. BDSM hid (hides!) in plain sight in horror and crime genres. Some famous appearances in film of BDSM history include the unforgettable 9 1/2 Weeks, the shocking Night Porter, and the weird and beautiful Blue Velvet.
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BDSM Online
BDSM history exploded with the online world, where like-minded people could find each other and shy people could flaunt their fantasies and fetishes behind a persona.
Forums, chats, porn, artwork, dating sites, confessional blogs, training academies, and much more have been a mainstay of Internet life since its inception, growing exponentially with every new virtual invention and connection.
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BDSM Clubs and Communities
Kinky clubs, parties, events, cruises, festivals, and even churches, art galleries, and family picnics—there is no area of life that BDSM history does not touch.
Thanks to those who fought for sexual liberation and the decreasing taboos, and our greater understanding of human sexuality, the history of BDSM is loud and proud in every neighborhood and walk of life.
Because of social media, kinky communities online can easily form locally. Once upon a time there was no way to know if neighbor Farmer Joe and his wife were interested in latex, leather, or golden showers. Now we can easily connect in the virtual world, facilitating real-life connections.
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Where did your history with BDSM begin? Please share!
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