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Catacombs (sex Club)
The Catacombs was a gay and lesbian S/M leather fisting club in the South of Market area of San Francisco, which operated from 1975 to 1981, and reopened at another location from 1982 to 1984. It was the most famous fisting club in the world. Gayle Rubin, "The Catacombs: A Triumph of the Butthole", in ''Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice'', Alyson Press, 1992, , pp. 119-141; reprinted in ''Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader'', Duke University Press, 2011, , , retrieved September 30, 2014. The founder and owner was Steve McEachern. The location was semi-secret and admission was by referral only. It was originally a gay men's club, and Cynthia Slater persuaded the management to open up to lesbians.Call, Lewis. 2013. BDSM in American science fiction and fantasy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p.5 Among the patrons was Patrick Califia, known then as Pat Califia. The Catacombs has been exhaustively described by sexual anthropologist Gayle Rubin, who calls it "exemp ...
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Sadomasochism
Sadomasochism ( ) is the giving and receiving of pleasure from acts involving the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation. Practitioners of sadomasochism may seek sexual pleasure from their acts. While the terms sadist and masochist refer respectively to one who enjoys giving and receiving pain, some practitioners of sadomasochism may switch between activity and passivity. The abbreviation S&M is commonly used for Sadomasochism (or Sadism & Masochism), although the initialisms S-M, SM, or S/M are also used, particularly by practitioners. Sadomasochism is not considered a clinical paraphilia unless such practices lead to clinically significant distress or impairment for a diagnosis. Similarly, sexual sadism within the context of mutual consent, generally known under the heading BDSM, is distinguished from non-consensual acts of sexual violence or aggression.:"Sexual arousal from consensual interactions that include domination should be distinguished from nonconsensual ...
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Leather Subculture
Leather subculture denotes practices and styles of dress organized around sexual activities that involve leather garments, such as leather jackets, vests, boots, chaps, harnesses, or other items. Wearing leather garments is one way that participants in this culture self-consciously distinguish themselves from mainstream sexual cultures. Many participants associate leather culture with BDSM (Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/Submission, Sado/Masochism, also called "SM" or "S&M") practices and its many subcultures. For some, black leather clothing is an erotic fashion that expresses heightened masculinity or the appropriation of sexual power; love of motorcycles, motorcycle clubs and independence; and/or engagement in sexual kink or leather fetishism."Elegy for the Valley of Kings," by Gayle Rubin, in ''In Changing Times: Gay Men and Lesbians Encounter HIV/AIDS,'' ed. Levine et al., University of Chicago Press History Male leather culture has existed since the late 1940s, whe ...
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Fisting
Fisting, handballing, fist-fucking, brachiovaginal, or brachioproctic insertion is a sexual activity that involves inserting a hand into the vagina or rectum. Once insertion is complete, the fingers are either clenched into a fist or kept straight. Fisting may be performed without a partner, but it is most often a partnered activity. History Fisting's emergence as a popular sexual practice is commonly attributed to gay male culture and it may not have existed until the twentieth century. Robert Morgan Lawrence, a sex educator, however, believes the practice dates back thousands of years. The most famous fisting club in the world was the Catacombs, located in San Francisco, which operated during the 1970s and 1980s.; reprinted in The Handball Express was another such club. Crisco was commonly used as a lubricant, before more specialized personal lubricants became available. In the 1980s, it was assumed that unprotected fisting—which often produces small injuries to the ...
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Folsom Street Fair
Folsom Street Fair (FSF) is an annual BDSM and leather subculture street fair, held in September, that caps San Francisco's "Leather Pride Week". The Folsom Street Fair, sometimes simply referred to as "Folsom", takes place on Folsom Street between 8th and 13th Streets, in San Francisco's South of Market district. The event started in 1984, and is California's third-largest single-day, outdoor spectator event and the world's largest leather event and showcase for BDSM products and culture. It has grown as a non-profit charity, and local and national non-profits benefit with all donations at the gates going to charity groups as well as numerous fundraising schemes within the festival including games, beverage booths and even spanking for donations to capitalize on the adult-themed exhibitionism. Origin of the leather subculture Although sadomasochism has been practiced for many centuries, the modern gay leather scene in the United States developed beginning in 1945 when thou ...
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Gayle Rubin
Gayle S. Rubin (born January 1, 1949 in South Carolina) is an American cultural anthropologist best known as an activist and theorist of sex and gender politics. She has written on a range of subjects including feminism, sadomasochism, prostitution, pedophilia, pornography and lesbian literature, as well as anthropological studies and histories of sexual subcultures, especially focused in urban contexts. Her 1984 essay "Thinking Sex" is widely regarded as a founding text of gay and lesbian studies, sexuality studies, and queer theory. She is an associate professor of anthropology and women's studies at the University of Michigan. Biography Early life Rubin was raised in a middle-class white Jewish home in then-segregated South Carolina. She attended segregated public schools, her classes only being desegregated when she was a senior. Rubin has written that her experiences growing up in the segregated South has given her "an abiding hatred of racism in all its forms and ...
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Cynthia Slater
Cynthia Slater (1945–1989) was the cofounder of the second BDSM organization founded in the United States (after The Eulenspiegel Society), a San Francisco, California based BDSM education and support group known as the Society of Janus, which she founded with Larry Olsen in August 1974.Ortmann, David M., and Richard A. Sprott. 2013. Sexual outsiders: understanding BDSM sexualities and communities. p.156 According to the Leather Hall of Fame biography of Slater, she said of the Society of Janus, :"There were three basic reasons why we chose Janus. First of all, Janus has two faces, which we interpreted as the duality of SM (one’s dominant and submissive sides). Second, he’s the Roman god of portals, and more importantly, of beginnings and endings. To us, it represents the beginning of one’s acceptance of self, the beginning of freedom from guilt, and the eventual ending of self-loathing and fear over one’s SM desires. And third, Janus is the Roman god of war—the war w ...
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Patrick Califia
Patrick Califia (born 1954; formerly also known as Pat Califia and by the last name Califia-Rice) is an American writer of non-fiction essays about sexuality and of erotic fiction and poetry. Califia is a bisexual trans man. Prior to transitioning, Califia identified as a lesbian and wrote for many years a sex advice column for the gay men's leather magazine ''Drummer''. His writings explore sexuality and gender identity, and have included lesbian erotica and works about BDSM subculture. Califia is a member of the third-wave feminism movement. Early life Califia was born in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1954 and assigned female at birth. He grew up in Utah in a Latter-day Saint family, the eldest of six children. His father was a construction worker and his mother a housewife. Califia has said he did not have a good childhood, claiming that his father was an angry and violent man and his mother a pious woman. Califia recalled one incident where he told his parents he wanted to be a ...
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POZ (magazine)
''POZ'' is a magazine that chronicles the lives of people affected by HIV/AIDS. Its website, POZ.com, has daily HIV/AIDS news, treatment information, forums, blogs, and personals. History and profile The magazine was founded in 1994 by Sean Strub, an HIV-positive and openly gay businessman and activist. Before launching ''POZ'', Strub was involved with numerous social issues, including politics, environmentalism, civil rights, LGBT rights, and HIV/AIDS. He is now executive director of the Sero Project, which focuses on ending inappropriate criminal prosecutions of people with HIV. ''POZ'' is published by Smart + Strong, which also publishes ''AIDSmeds.com'', a website for HIV/AIDS treatment information; ''Real Health'', a magazine and website for African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally ...
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Carol Queen
Carol Queen (born 1957) is an American author, editor, sociologist, and sexologist active in the sex-positive feminism movement. Queen is a two time Grand Marshal of San Francisco LGBTQ Pride. Queen has written on human sexuality in books such as ''Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture''. She has written a sex tutorial, ''Exhibitionism for the Shy: Show Off, Dress Up and Talk Hot'', as well as erotica, such as the novel ''The Leather Daddy and the Femme''. Queen has produced adult movies, events, workshops and lectures. Queen was featured as an instructor and star in both installments of the '' Bend Over Boyfriend'' series about female-to-male anal sex, or pegging. She has also served as editor for compilations and anthologies. She is a sex-positive sex educator in the United States. Good Vibrations Queen serves as staff sexologist to Good Vibrations, a San Francisco sex toy retailer. In this function, she designed an education program which has trained many ...
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San Francisco South Of Market Leather History Alley
The San Francisco South of Market Leather History Alley consists of four works of art along the Ringold Street alley, at 8th Street, in San Francisco's SOMA district honoring leather culture; it opened in 2017. Artworks Collectively titled ''Leather Memoir'', the artworks, mainly created by landscape architect Jeffrey Miller, are: * A black granite stone etched with a narrative by Gayle Rubin, an image of the "Leather David" statue by Mike Caffee, and a reproduction of Chuck Arnett’s 1962 mural that was in the Tool Box (a gay leather bar), * Engraved standing stones that honor community leather institutions including the Folsom Street Fair, * Leather pride flag pavement markings through which the stones emerge, and * Bronze bootprints along the curb honoring 28 individuals who were an important part of local leather communities: ** Jim Kane (community leader and biker) ** Ron Johnson ** Steve McEachern (owner of the Catacombs, a gay and lesbian S/M fisting club that was the ...
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Gay Bathhouses In California
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 19th century, that meaning became increasingly common by the mid-20th century. In modern English, ''gay'' has come to be used as an adjective, and as a noun, referring to the community, practices and cultures associated with homosexuality. In the 1960s, ''gay'' became the word favored by homosexual men to describe their sexual orientation. By the end of the 20th century, the word ''gay'' was recommended by major LGBT groups and style guides to describe people attracted to members of the same sex, (Reprinted fro American Psychologist, Vol 46(9), Sep 1991, 973-974) although it is more commonly used to refer specifically to men. At about the same time, a new, pejorative use became prevalent in some parts of the world. Among younger speakers, ...
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LGBT BDSM
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is an adaptation of the initialism ', which began to replace the term ''gay'' (or ''gay and lesbian'') in reference to the broader LGBT community beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s. When not inclusive of transgender people, the shorter term LGB is still used instead of LGBT. It may refer to anyone who is non-heterosexual or non-cisgender, instead of exclusively to people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. To recognize this inclusion, a popular variant, ', adds the letter ''Q'' for those who identify as queer or are questioning their sexual or gender identity. The initialisms ''LGBT'' or ''GLBT'' are not agreed to by everyone that they are supposed to include. History of the term The first widely used term, ''homosexual'', ...
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