History of BDSM-- 1950

SophieB

Novels with a side of science.
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In a large American city in 1950, how much information would be available about BD?
Would the concept of Dom mentoring be "a thing" yet? What about edge play? Safe words?

I have a 24-yo, naturally dominant male-- an important secondary character in a novella, but not a MC. I don't need to go overboard on his history, but there is a sexual component to his relationship with an MC, so I need more than I have now. This seems like one of those topics where I'll start by "doing a quick search" which will end next year, if I'm lucky, so I appreciate any help you all can offer!

Tentatively-- he picks up a lot of what he knows at private parties and/or shows, but again, I need to know period-appropriate formal concepts.
 

Xelebes

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As much as I understand it, there was not much of a community for it then. After World War II, some soldiers kept their leather bomber jackets and formed biker gangs to keep themselves travelling. Road leathers started to appear more and more after that. Sexuality became a focus for many of these gangs as many sexual minorities found safety and community in them, especially in the mid-part of the decade. And it is largely through here we get the social side of the BDSM community, specifically the leather community.

Other than that, in the big cities it was pretty discrete. Professional mistresses might educate other women on it on a friendly basis and for paying men on a professional basis. Professional masters and gigolos might also give experience to men for those willing to bend that way.

Many of the safety policies and jargon terms that we currently see developed later in the decade.
 
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King Neptune

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Tentatively-- he picks up a lot of what he knows at private parties and/or shows, but again, I need to know period-appropriate formal concepts.

I don't know much about the subject, but I recall reading that there was a store in Times Sq. that specialized in it in the early 1950's. The police didn't do anything about it, because they didn't have any concept of what was involved. There must have been a fair number of people into BDSM to support a store, but there doesn't seem to have been much communication that police might have noticed. The comment I read was in regard to C. M. Kornnbluth having gone there often enough that someone noticed and connected it with character creation of the torturer in one of his novels.
 
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Eluveitie

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Story of O was a novel published during the 1950s with a focus on BDSM. You might want to read it.
 

Maryn

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Another bit of research not to be overlooked is the work of pin-up model and actress Betty Page, whose specialties included bondage and S&M.
 

snafu1056

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There must've been an audience for bondage magazines, movies, and even comics by the 50's because these things all existed. Those Bettie Page pics, for example, weren't made for artistic reasons. They were for commercial consumption. And it's well known that the creator of Wonder Woman was a bondage fan (as the lasso might suggest). A lot of those early Wonder Woman comics were quasi-bondage comics themselves. She was tied up half the time. A lot of old pulp magazines also trafficked heavily in "damsel in distress" imagery on their covers.

I have no idea what the bondage community might've looked like back then, but I'm guessing your best entry point into that world would've been strippers, burlesque dancers, models, "smut" photographers & movie makers, and maybe gangsters too, because porn is vice and gangsters bankroll vice. I'm assuming there were private parties and clubs that catered to bondage fans too. You might have to look into what was going on in Europe too, because I think America borrowed mostly from whatever Europeans bondage fans were doing. Very hard to research because so much of it was probably on the extreme down-low.
 
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