Claude Cahun
Claude Cahun, born Lucy Schwob, challenged gender norms through her art, adopting an androgynous identity. A pivotal figure in Surrealism, her self-portraits explore identity, sexuality, and power dynamics, forging paths for queer theory and feminist art. Cahun’s work, overshadowed during her life, gained recognition and inspires contemporary artists today. Continue reading Claude Cahun
Seiu Ito
Seiu Ito (1882–1961) is recognized as the father of modern kinbaku, blending Edo-period elements with eroticism in bondage art. Despite facing censorship and losing much of his work in WWII, he influenced contemporary BDSM culture through his innovative techniques, illustrated life, and artistic contributions that captured the spirit of his time. Continue reading Seiu Ito
The Dr. Lamb Library
The Dr. Lamb Library, launched in the early 1970s by Star Distributors and credited to Paul Little, is significant for pioneering taboo subject matter in literature, influencing BDSM and fetish genres. Its limited runs have made these vintage paperbacks valuable collectibles, fostering a subculture that traded and discussed explicit themes among enthusiasts. Continue reading The Dr. Lamb Library
Mysteries of the Verbena House
In the dim hallways of Victorian England, where strict decorum hid the most intense cravings, a notorious piece of early BDSM literature appeared: Mysteries of the Verbena House. It first saw the light of day in 1882 under the pen name “Etonensis” (a cheeky reference to the elite Eton College) where the rod symbolised both authority and hidden excitement. The novel has since become a landmark … Continue reading Mysteries of the Verbena House
Juan Crisóstomo Méndez Ávalos
In the colonial cradle of Puebla, Mexico Juan Crisóstomo Méndez Ávalos was born on May 12, 1885. Raised amid the city’s textile mills and fervent Catholic fervor, young Juan apprenticed at fifteen in the German import house of Soomer & Herman, surrounded by crates of optical wonders and photographic paraphernalia. This immersion ignited a passion that would eclipse his formal training in drawing at the … Continue reading Juan Crisóstomo Méndez Ávalos
Franz Rehfeld
In the post-war haze of Germany, where the scars of conflict still lingered in the streets of Berlin and Hamburg, Franz Rehfeld turned his lens to the whispers of desire. Active in the 1950s and 1960s, he began as a fashion photographer, capturing the sleek lines of couture in an era of reconstruction and repressed passions. But Rehfeld’s work soon transcended the runway; he plunged … Continue reading Franz Rehfeld
Bruce Bellas
Born July 7, 1909, in the austere plains of Alliance, Nebraska, Bruce Bellas began as a chemistry teacher, stirring formulas by day while his imagination churned with visions of bodies in motion. By 1947, he traded the chalkboard for the raw pulse of California’s Muscle Beach in Venice, where bodybuilders glistened under the relentless Pacific sun. What began as competition shots evolved into something far … Continue reading Bruce Bellas
Étude sur la Flagellation
A Medical Treatise or Erotic Bible? Published in Paris in 1899 by Dr. Jean Martin Charcot’s circle (anonymously, under the pseudonym Docteur Jaf), Étude sur la Flagellation à travers le monde au point de vue médical, historique, religieux, domestique et conjugal is the most exhaustive 19th-century study of spanking, birching, and ritual punishment ever written. At 400+ pages with over 100 illustrations, anatomical diagrams, historical … Continue reading Étude sur la Flagellation
Jacques André Boiffard
Jacques-André Boiffard (1902–1961) is best known as Man Ray’s darkroom assistant in 1920s Paris, printing solarized nudes and surrealist masterpieces for Minotaure and Documents. Yet behind the scenes, Boiffard quietly pursued his own obsessions: fetishistic close-ups of feet, masks, and bound bodies The Unseen Bondage Series Between 1929 and 1933, Boiffard produced a small, undocumented body of BDSM-themed photographs: Big toes in extreme close-up, treated … Continue reading Jacques André Boiffard
John Willie
When the world thinks of fetish photography and illustration, the name John Willie inevitably surfaces. John Alexander Scott Coutts (1902–1962), better known as John Willie, was a British-born illustrator, photographer, publisher, and bondage pioneer whose work defined the golden age of mid-century fetish art. With a pen in one hand and a rope in the other, he turned restraint into high art and fantasy into a shared … Continue reading John Willie
