Coming to Power: Writing and Graphics on Lesbian S/M

by Samois

Coming to Power is more than an attempt to put sex back into lesbian politics. It is an attempt to show, through stories, graphics and analysis, just how political lesbian sex really is. It is an attempt to remind all of us that we must continue our fight to define sexual relations in our own terms as something valid and important. And it’s the best thing that has been published on feminist theory/practice in a long, long time. So let’s go for that long-awaited walk on the wild side. (from the back cover)

Genres: Queer, Sexuality, Feminism, Lesbian, Nonfiction, BDSM, LGBT

282 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[HeavyReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this back when I thought I was a leather dyke. It helped me realize that I am not a leather dyke.

[tommy]

As someone who identifies as a leather dyke, this was a difficult read for me. I think it's super important in the context of the lesbian sex wars, and some of the stories were really hot. However, I struggled not to kink-shame others and found myself reacting strongly to the ways certain topics were framed. The essays by Gayle Rubin and Pat Califia reflect views that feel highly problematic today, particularly around age of consent. Still, it’s important to know your history, so I would recommend reading this critically, with an awareness of the time and context in which it was written.

[Javier · Rating 4 out of 5]

extra points for being a lesbian feminist classic written/published during the feminist "sex wars" by the legendary SAMOIS. minus points for one of the essays suggesting that paddling one another is a good way to resolve jealousy/other interpersonal conflicts within a relationship.
plus points for hot/thoughtful writing on what was, at the time, an incredibly contentious subject, and providing a diversity of viewpoints.

[Agnieszka · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic piece of second wave feminist history, showing the very beginnings of the schism between the anti-porn and pro-sex branches. It's not as simple as it looks in hindsight. Interestingly Samois (the women's SM organization that put out the book) didn't have an official stance on pornography and the essays don't address it much, focusing instead, as the title says on Lesbian S/M. I think this book is an important read for anyone interested in the history of feminism, lesbians, and the evolution of BDSM.

The essays are from a variety of writers and don't even all agree with each other. The book is part essays, part erotica. I mostly found myself skipping the erotica. I'm sure it'll be enjoyable for some readers but for me there was something just kind of dated and silly about it. The essays on the other hand were great, and full of fantastic insights on the nature of power, S/M, and life as a lesbian.

Most of the writers were based in the SF Bay area so another group that might be interested in it is Bay Area historians.

[boocia]

i did skim the back half more than not, and some of the erotica too. But! a VERY cool, clarifying piece of history, of the discourses around "the sex wars" -- anti porn / anti bdsm in the feminism community and its battle lines specifically in the lesbian community. there's also a v cool gayle rubin essay in this. i think what becomes trans-exclusionary radfeminism is already here, and the seeds of it are the fear of masculinity and patriarchy -- there's even an essay where a woman discusses working through her shame around being into using dildos (and fantasizing about her partner having a bio-dick that could make her pregnant). apparently dildo usage was super shameful and taboo for some lesbians at the time, because why would you crave the phallus? nowadays lesbians are always about the concept of slinging "strap" so idk, wild how things change. and wild how things stay the same, too. the fear around bdsm in lesbian communities is the fear of patriarchy, of woman battering as a patriarchical practice, of reproducing patriarchy. i was very taken with how, in Pat Califia's final essay on the history of SAMOIS / the SF lesbian kink scene, she discusses how as women's book stores and spaces shut the door on women's kink groups, the gay men's scenes and spaces were very welcoming. anti-bdsm is framed throughout this book as a woman's issue, a woman's neuroticism, a neuroticism around masculinity and patriarchy and therefore power dynamics. i guess more charitably, a traumatic response, a knee-jerk misapplied cultural suspicion (firework vs gunshot).

theory and politics aside, i was also inspired/taken with these v personal missives on what bdsm does; the classic stuff, though very submissive/bottom-minded; about the practice of pushing past and through boundaries, of becoming a sharp point of sensation, of accessing nonverbal forms of knowledge. inspires me to bottom again lol, or to want to push bottoms harder in the pain department. or something. i like this religionisation /therapeutization of the practice, it defo feels like Something is there, about types of personhood or animalhood or nonpersonhood you can reach through kink. fun stuff!

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a submissive bi female, I really enjoyed reading this older [from the 1980s] combined fiction and nonfiction book that really covers a diversity of topics, including of course lesbian S&M, feminism, politics, relationship development, and some practical guidance. The task to complete it quickly was directed by my BFF and Domme. She is quite persistent in seeking out interesting and informative reading materials to enhance our partnership. For my part, I always so love her attention, control, direction, and domination. This book is edited by SAMOIS. It was the first feminist / lesbian S&M organization [from the late 1970s to the early 1980s]. The name of the group came from the fictional French estate of the lesbian Dominatrix portrayed in the Story of O. OMG, it makes me so very, very wet just thinking about Anne-Marie of that classic tale and her training of O:) Please read this book.

[cosima concordia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Coming to Power was the first substantive leatherdyke anthology put to print, and when I finally got my hands on it I found myself alternatively both blushing and moved to tears basically constantly. Finding substantive leatherdyke history and writings is a difficult task as much of what was written only existed in long defunct zines, and even this title is long out of print and usually runs for over one hundred bucks. The members of Samois that put this title together in the early 80s are the first to admit that they could never agree on anything, and so you should take all of the content within the context it was written and with a grain of salt especially as some bits have not aged well. That being said, I hope that this deeply important anthology makes it back into print sometime in the future so more leatherdykes can read about their ancestors and feel a little less alone.

[Squirrel · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than 40 years later, this is still hot as hell. I'd also encourage my fellow queers to read the nonfiction articles at the very least. Not only do they add important context for why kink belongs at Pride, but they also show how the current anti-trans talking points are the same exact anti-kink and anti-porn talking points from 40 years ago. The safety advice is also still solid. Maybe even more so because it goes into issues of emotional safety as well.
My main criticism of this book is how white-woman-centric it is. Yes, it's pointed out that no people of color submitted work for this publication. I do also wish that Califia et. al. had actually listened to women of color about issues of terminology like mistress/slave instead of grouping their criticism with the criticism of anti-kink white feminists. Then again it's still a problem for many S/M orgs.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating coverage of the lesbian/feminist infighting that happened in the 70s and 80s. Should be required reading for dykes.

[Juniper Copley-Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot explain how grateful I am to have found a copy of this book at a local used book store. It has been such an amazing piece of history and such a good, surprisingly timely read. The erotic scenes in some of the essays are still unbelievably hot and had me having to read with one hand- it made me so happy to see that dykes in 1980 were planning scenes that are beat for beat the same scenes I fantasize about and plan for myself in 2025. This book made me feel a sense of community I haven't felt since reading Leather Folk, a sense that my love of leather is as deep apart of myself as my queerness and just as queer as my other dykery. The political essays were poignant and interesting- and in this current political zeitgeist I love to read about the people and groups on the forefront of anti-gay movements past, for the knowledge of what to do in anti-gay movements now. The wedge that seeks to divide queer communities was positioned between S/M queers and vanilla queers, now it's being shifted between trans and cis, and reading about the work of leather dykes to love and play and connect despite it all tells me that we will make it through this and it will be fun and sexy and happy and euphoric and erotic in the mean time.

[TheCalloftheLibrary · Rating 4 out of 5]

much more substantial collected work from samois; the articles here are much more dense, both in their exploration of sex/sexual dynamics, as well as chronicling community strife with regard to the sex wars. worth it just for the peaks into the back-and-forth between anti-porn and anti-S/M feminists and various sadomasochistic dykes only really aligned on sexual practice trying to combat their ostracitization from the feminist movement. many of the pieces here are shaded with some of the absurdity of lesbian-feminist obsession with separatism or spiritualism, but even the more dated ones have moments of interest worth considering in future contexts and perhaps transmuting them into more relevant (ie; trans-inclusive, for one) conceptualizations. very interested in many of the women here who speak about being specifically situated by anti-S/M feminists (who, not coincidentally, were themselves occasionally TERFs) as masculine, predatory, “like men” or reinforcing misogynistic fetishization of women for the sex they were having, i think there’s certainly a broader point to be made about the association of sexual violence with masculinity/victimhood with femininity and both past and contemporaneous trans panics. also resonates with C. Heike Schotten’s essay I read recently about TERFism and extinction phobia– specifically the emphasis on how reactionary movements with craft ontological victim statuses to essentially create existential ideological struggles they can always be justified in undertaking, there’s a bit of that here in a few of the essays and this overwhelming feeling that anti-S/M feminists resolutely don’t believe women are capable of autonomous choice or that every aspect of women’s lives are fundamentally a result of never-ending coercion.

i also want to shout out whomever submitted a pulpy sci-fi erotica short story with anthropomorphic feline aliens who do bdsm to the collection. of course it has politically relevant alien/human intergalactic relations to flesh out before the sex could happen. i hope this dyke knows i literally love her.

anyway some quotes:

- “S/M is very cathartic & healing for me. A lot of nonspecific anxiety is gone from my life, especially anxiety around sex. One benefit I’d not looked for came in my fantasies. All my life I’d tried not to have fantasies ‘cause they were almost always about rape & mutilation & death. Sometimes I’d feel like I couldn’t push them out of my mind, like I’d been permanently invaded. Well those fantasies are almost all gone”

- “One common ration is the fear that once a lesbian gets into S/M she’ll never want or be able to be sexual like she used to be. It’s the victorian thing of being “ruined.”

- “In my own life, I’ve had friends scream insults at me, tell me I’m to be pitied, like a man, oppressive to womyn, disgusting, not welcome in their home, untrustworthy, etc” (emphasis mine)

- “The main problem with this view is the exaggerated emphasis that it places on sex acts in explaining women’s oppression. For these people economics, culture (apart from representations of sex), socialization, reproductive issues, have all faded into the background. Race and class barely exist for them at all as analytic categories… They believe that feminists should be focusing their energies primarily on eliminating or purifying sex acts, and, by extension, sexual fantasies, as in this system erotic fantasies are as potentially damaging, and play as central a role in the construction of the cosmic rape scene as do the sex acts themselves”

- “The attack on S/M was led off by Janice Raymond… The gist of her remarks was that lesbian S/M recapitulates and reinforces the oppressive structures of the society. And not just any oppressive structures but the very worst. At one point, she compared people with tolerant attitudes toward pornography and S/M to those who deny the Holocaust ever happened” (another commonality with Schotten’s thesis, Raymond evocation of Holocaust denialism is consistent, this was a rhetorical point in Transsexual Empire wherein trans women represented some sort of flagrant association with nazism, specifically a kind of parallel Daly/Raymond have made wherein “gynocide” is somehow a comparable horror to the Holocaust, that this gynocide is somehow located in the same impetus of a medical depravity. to see it here reinforces the victim narrative. anyway how did anyone ever take these women seriously!!!!!!!)

- “According to Sheila Jeffreys… heterosexual women think they are freely choosing to sleep with men, and some of them are even so deluded as to reach orgasms with men. But in actual fact they are completely without choice, victims in a totalitarian world organized by men. It follows from this, Jeffreys went on, that when a woman reaches an orgasm with a man she is only collaborating with the patriarchal system, in her phrase ‘eroticizing her own oppression’”

- Also “birth control was a tool of the patriarchy”

- “of course, there is no free choice in this world-view. Consent is an ontological impossibility. Free will is an illusion”

- “Calvinist Geneva, policing the sex-lives of its citizens, persecuting prostitutes and fortune tellers, instituting severe judicial penalties for children who defied their parents and justifying these authoritarian policies with the argument that since people had no free choice in the great and hopeless struggle with sin (read “patriarchy”), they needed to be saved from themselves”

- “I play with costumes for sex, but I’m finding that I’m also playing with my image of myself and my fears of embarrassment. I’ve spent much of my life on guard, the original wallflower, trying to make sure I wouldn’t do anything that would call attention to myself. Solid walls of coolness, distance, toughness, practicality and stoicism are great attributes for the consummate butch, but sometimes it’s harder to breathe inside those walls than when I wear my corset”

- “I want to be made to get dressed up. I will resist. It’s not me. Being physically naked isn’t as exposing as being in costume. I’m talking about emotional exposure… The dressing up must be “against my will” because surely I would never, ever wear anything like that of my own accord. Well…”

- “This is sex with my eyes open”

- “You want to know whether I’m into “heavy” S/M? What’s that mean? Well, I figure it’s anything I have the strongest resistances to, like dangerous shoes. Ummm, let’s see. Recently I’ve been cruising down at the drugstore. Making surreptitious passes at the make-up counter, if you really must know. Checking out the wet-look lipstick and the rouge. Phew! I tell you, now that’s heavy.”

- “Riddle: How many S/M dykes does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: Two– one bottom to do it and one top to tell her what to do
Riddle: How many anti-S/M feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Answer: At least four. One to handle the bulb, one to critique the word “screw”, one to lend professional credentials to the operation, and one to find common ground with the utility company” (lol)

- “those with the inclination and the courage to explore realms of pain, power, and sexuality should be free to do so. Power is not an invention of men, to be wished out of existence in a new women’s society. Power is the capacity to make things happen– power is energy– and we would do well to know as much as we can about it”

- “Even the elementary bourgeois freedoms have never been secured in the realm of sexuality. There is, for instance, no freedom of sexual speech. Explicit talk about sex has been a glaring exception to first amendment protection since the Comstock Act was passed in 1871… it remains true that it is still illegal in this country to produce (or show or sell) images, objects, or writing which have no other purpose than sexual arousal. One may embroider for relaxation , play baseball for the thrill, or collect stamps merely for their beauty. But sex itself is not a legitimate activity or goal. It must have some “higher” purpose. If possible, this purpose should be reproductive” (considering that, while the Comstock Act is largely unused in the present, it continues to be brought up in the context of a possible future application to abortion-related articles– abortion pills sent through the mail– this point still stands. the illuminating overlap here is the act’s overlapping purpose of targeting obscenity with anti-reproductive healthcare and how they reflect twin goals)

- “The anti-gay repression [of the Cold War 50s] was seen as a hygienic measure since gay life was depicted as seedy, dangerous, degraded, and scary. The impact of the repression was in fact to degrade the quality of gay life and raise the costs of being sexually different. During the 1950s, the Communist Party was just as apt to purge homosexuals as the state department. The ACLU refused to defend homosexuals who were being prosecuted” (emphasis mine)

- “used to quash any discussion of the way in which statutory rape laws function, not so much to protect young people from abuse, as to prevent them from acquiring sexual knowledge and experience” (Califia’s discussion of child/adult relationships has been pretty thoroughly examined– he later recanted his support of NAMBLA and contextualized it within the context of his own family history of emotional incest and physical abuse, as well as a naive application of strengthening adolescent autonomy without extra consideration for the power imbalance. that’s all worth considering. i do think Califia takes points that have resonance- like the fact young people are not provided accurate information about sex or are presumed sexless and punished for sexual indiscretion- and is ultimately sloppy with the conclusion from this considering the easy parallel to make with “persecution” that someone who has experienced extreme stigma for their sexual behavior, not realizing that while the specter of the pedophile is a useful target of conservative sex panic, actual adult/child relationships are very much normalized/excused within patriarchal systems. anway. this quote is right though. children get put on sex offender registers for engaging in peer-to-peer sexual relationships, like the resource officer at my school used this as a threat when talking about sexting, its absolutely bullshit)

- “Six men who own or have interests in the gay baths in Toronto were charged with an array of offenses including keeping a common bawdy house, distribution and sale of obscene matter, and conspiracy to live off the proceeds of crime. The men charged were prominent gay businessmen, lawyers, and gay political activists, including George Hislop, a gay political offical. The charges against them relied upon the whole carefully constructed edifice of redefined sex laws which the police had been building for three years. Any gay bath can be prosecuted as a bawdy house. Sex toys, leather items, enema bags, dildos, and even lubricants can be treated as contraband. In this case, the obscenity charges were related to the sale of sex equipment in shops at the baths… What has happened very clearly in Canada is that S/M has been used to decimate mainstream gay institutions and the bastions of mainstream gay political and economic power. Police have used the media, and manipulated sexual prejudice and ignorance, to criminalize whole categories of erotic behavior"

- “In San Francisco, the vice squad and the ABC (Alcoholic Beverage Commission) have either warned, raided, brought suspension proceedings against, or revoked the licenses of virtually every leather bar within the last five years”

- “Meanwhile, the straight media have discovered that they can bait homosexuals, smear sadomascochists, and increase their circulation ratings all at once. The infamous CBS ‘documentary’ Gay Power, Gay Politics used S/M to question the credibility of gay political aspirations. The program implied that if gay people are allowed to acquire significant political power, S/M will be rampant, and people will be killed doing it”

- “KPIX program also alleged that S/M is harmful to those who do not do it…S/M imagery in the media is a kind of miasma from which no one can escape. Therefore, S/M was “corroding the fabric of society,” it was affecting everyone and something ought to be done about it. Historically, crackdowns on activities which primarily affect those who are involved in them are rationalized on the basis of some similarly flimsy connection with social decay, Notions that marijuana, prostitution, or homosexuality by some vague mechanism lead to violent crime, disease, or creeping communism are used to rational punitive social or legal action”

- “did propose that parents who do S/M be relieved of the custody of their children”

- “Today people are grasping at all kinds of straws, at erotic religious sexts, mysticism, sex orgies, Trotskyism, etc” <- did make me laugh

- “While gay people can be anti-imperialists we feel feel that they cannot be Communists. To be a Communist, we must accept and welcome struggle in all facets of our lives, personal as well as political. We cannot struggle with male supremacy in the factory and not struggle at home. We feel that the best way to struggle out such contradictions in our personal lives is in stable monogamous relation between men and women… Because homosexuals do not carry the struggle between men and women into their most personal relationships, they are not prepared, in principle, for the arduous task of class transformation” (american commies always some of the most unserious people on planet earth, though i do think there’s a perniciousness of homophobia among mid-century communism that deserves to be considered outside right-wing gotchas. when reading about the history of the kl (concentration camps), the overriding intolerance gay men experienced without the ability to form alliances of solidarity reflect a parallel with so-called “asocial” and “criminal” inmates who were viewed in diagnostic/criminological terms that political prisoners sometimes subscribed to themselves– communists are not immune from seeing “deviance” in certain populations and they too find ideological ways to justify it)

- “the confusion between sexual orientation and political belief which originated in the idea that feminism is the theory, lesbianism is the practice… It has actually inhibited the development of lesbian politics and consciousness” (if you subscribe to the theory of ontological victimhood, then there is no development, you are already justified and on a righteous path)

- “The most liberal feminists admitted that some women had masochistic fantasies, but this admission was only the introduction to a discussion about how such fantasies could be cured by rooting out internalized oppression, self-destruction and misogyny through intense consciousness-raising and carefully selected reading. Within feminist rhetoric, S/M existed only as a metaphor for sexual inequality in a male-dominated society”

- “None of these places [Society of Janus, and gay men’s clubs and leather bars like the Catacombs, the Balcony, the Ambush] were ideal for us, but it is historically important to remember that the first people who supported lesbian sadomasochists were gay leathermen and professional (usually bisexual) dominatrixes”

- “Many of the spectators assumed we were the gay Nazis, despite the fact that not a single swastika was in evidence. This confusion was increased when Priscilla Alexander published ‘Masters and Slaves by Any Other Name’ and compared us with Nazis”

- “In times of repression, it is always tempting to police and censor your own community. But I don’t believe gay people can make themselves conventional enough to escape persecution. We are hated because we have a different kind of sex, the wrong kind of sex”

- University of California Berkeley forum where WAVPM “associated S/M with battery in lesbian relationships, with rape and mutilation, with pornography, with white slavery. Individual members of Samois were named, mis-quoted, and attacked for being pro-rape or fascistic” (sophie lewis chapter about enemy feminisms and their absolute obsession with white slavery comes to mind)

- Argument with a monitor about a regulation against leather at a pride parade, a monitor told a member of Samois “Well, when people don’t obey the monitors, we turn the matters over to the police”

- “During this period of reorganization, it became clear that someday Samois would split into special interest groups… Samois was the kind of organization that appears at the first stage of politicization and community formation. It was open to just about any woman who had an interest in lesbian S/M; it did basic consciousness raising and education; it had only the most basic politics since consensus was difficult to achieve with such a variety of members. However, until there were enough of us to make more specialized groups feasible, we would have to coexist and work together. The compromises, negotiations, and diplomacy necessary to make that work took up much of the energy of the leadership”

- “I was especially amazed by the leaflet’s (for Against Sadomasochism) suggestion that somebody research Krafft-Ebing for damaging information about S/M. Krafft-Ebing was a Victorian sexologist who believed that masturbation caused insanity, that normal women had little to no interest in sexuality, and that sex itself was a disease” (literally INSANE)

- “OOB’s (Off Our Backs) coverage of the conference controversy included a report from an anti-S/M feminist who infiltrated a lesbian S/M sex party and wrote a hostile, nasty account of it” (oh so this is literally just the og TERF playbook for real)

and my favorite dedication maybe ever? “special thanks to It, who wears her keys on the right and her blue pencil on the left (sexually submissive, editorially dominant)”

also! a blurb on the back from Dinah/Lesbian Activist Bureau in Cincinnati which is cool. ohio forever <3

[springsnotfail · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an extremely interesting book, and at times inspiring, but it's such a product of its time and place that it's difficult not to read it as part of a historical moment. It's a combination of essays, short fiction and poetry pieces, memoirs, autobiographical fragments, rants/opinion pieces, and other kinds of writing from an American lesbian BDSM community in the eighties. Some of the short pieces are super hot; some of them are so bogged down in a particular kind of political language and set of ideas about pornography and feminism that they're more offputting than anything else. Some of the essays are great and wise; some of them are annoying and/or profoundly dated. Worth reading, overall, but I think there are better books out there about the history of lesbian BDSM, and better books out there about exploring a BDSM-oriented sexuality now.

[Grace · Rating 2 out of 5]

wanted to like this more than i did. in some ways this changed my life as it was the first book on bdsm i ever read and opened my eyes to that being possible as a thing that wasn't shameful. but there's a lot of weak points in here - from the usage of the word 'fags' to describe gay men in one section, to the outdated 70s language, to the relatively repetitive erotica, to Gayle Rubin's essay .... it's a really important historical document but not essential reading.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provided a lot of insight into the so-called "lesbian sex wars" that Third Wave feminists are too young to remember. The mix of erotica, analysis, history, and memoir is a bit odd, but it manages to provide a multifaceted account of a virtually unknown chapter in lesbian feminism in the US. This is a very important book.

[Dharma · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read this book at least twice, though not for a very long time. It is probably the first book I ever read on bdsm and it holds a sweet spot in my heart. It may be time to reread it, with the acknowledgment that I and the bdsm world have grown and changed.

[Elizabeth Cage · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really great book. Intelligent and very erotic. I first bought it from the Uni bookshop when I was a student, devoured it and then lent it to a friend. I never got it back but recently bought it again. Must re-read.

[Alden Hollow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Parts of this were interesting from a historical standpoint and I have a lot of respect for how radical it was in its day and for the women who paved the way for modern acceptance of BDSM in the queer/lesbian community. As a modern read, It was a honestly little boring.

[fausto]

No me atrevo a darle una calificación concreta.
Para cualquier persona entendida en teoría feminista (especialmente feminista radical) Coming to Power es un trabajo difícilmente digerible, los distintos ensayos y narrativas de la antología muestran la gran variedad de miras respecto al S/M por parte de las propias integrantes de Samois. Hay algunas que intentan integrar el S/M a una visión separatista-lesbiana, otras que lo entienden como una expresión más de la sexualidad lesbiana, otras politizan al S/M como una práctica de resistencia, otras la integran a la "diversidad sexual." En general, todos los ensayos teóricos intentan cohesionar una visión feminista-lesbiana y sadomasoquista a la vez, aunque algunas como Gayle Rubin ya coqueteaban con una teoría queer temprana. Las narrativas de ficción son explícitas, y varias de ellas me hicieron dudar que las propias S/M dieran importancia alguna al "consentimiento" (concepto defendido en toda la antología.) Algunas de las historias más crudas que describen fetiches con excrementos, laceraciones y "fist-fucking" son demasiado problemáticas para cualquier visión feminista (a menos que la violencia extrema ahora sea también "feminista")
Algunos de los textos están muy bien escritos, otros son un tanto repetitivos, particularmente rescato los ensayos de Rubin (sobre la política del S/M) y de Califia (sobre la historia de Samois)
¿Recomiendo su lectura? Sí.
¿Concuerdo con su política? Ciertamente no.

[Elliotte · Rating 1 out of 5]

Although it was interesting to learn about the history of the pro-bdsm movement in the 70s/80s, this book was hard to get through at times. It opened my eyes to how deeply rotten that movement is. Patrick Califia and Gayle Rubin's essays argued for the right of older people to have sex with underage people, and showed support for the lowering of the age of consent. They frequently lumped trans people and sex workers in with pedophiles. Certain essays and works of fiction in this collection sexualized domestic violence, rape, animal abuse and child abuse. Tw for child physical abuse and pedophilia for the spoilered section: One of these works featured a character masturbating to a story about a little girl being punished by her teachers. The language in other works was overtly religious, idolizing bdsm and portraying it as a spiritual experience connecting the participants to a higher plane. It gave the impression that they were in a cult. I was already critical of bdsm going into this book, but even if I had been a supporter, I think this book would have turned me against it.

[Leor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recommend reading this now. A different time, but relevant during the current moral panic, as it was written during a different moral panic. Lots of history here that I was not aware of; lots of analysis that pre-dates the acceptance(?) of BDSM into mainstream lesbian sexuality, and which is still vital.

My favorite essays in the book:

"If I ask you to tie me up, will you still want to love me?" by Juicy Lucy

"Being Weird is Not Enough: How to Stay Healthy and Play Safe" by Cynthia Astuto and Pat Califia

"Report on a Conference on Feminism, Sexuality, and Power: The Elect Clash with the Perverse" by Margaret Hunt

"How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Dildo" by Sophie Schmuckler

"Girl Gang" by Crystal Bailey

"The Art of Discipline: Creating Erotic Dramas of Play and Power" by Susan Farr

"The Leather Menace: Comments on Politics and S/M" by Gayle Rubin

[Ellis Billington · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful primary resource, compiled by the lesbian S/M organization Samois during the Feminist Sex Wars, on the experiences of lesbian sadomasochists, from the exclusion they faced in many feminist circles to the joy and belonging they found in community with one another. The final essay in the collection, Pat Califia's "A Personal View of the History of the Lesbian S/M Community and Movement in San Francisco," is one of the most thorough accounts of that particular part of history that I've ever read.

How mixed-genre this book is (including nonfiction research, creative nonfiction essays, short stories, poetry, and even drawings and photographs) could seem messy to some, but it's messy in a way that honors the complexity of the community that so lovingly put this collection together. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to dig deeper into queer history.

[Diana Gutiérrez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una pieza muy difícil de conseguir que me ha dado una panorámica extraordinaria de cómo era el mundo del BDSM, el feminismo lesbiano y las tormentosas guerras feministas acerca de la sexualidad en los años 70-80. Probablemente uno de los mejores textos sea el de Gayle Rubin. Los fragmentos de ficción erótica son interesantes (sobre todo por su intento de crear una erótica igualitaria Y sadomasoquista), pero el punto fuerte de este libro-fanzine son los ensayos. Conviene leerlo y releerlo para entender de dónde vienen ciertos debates cíclicos y cómo evolucionan.

[Mars · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished it. My crops are watered and my heart is full.

In all seriousness though, it's really amazing to learn about what S/M lesbians before my time went through to find community and combat stigma. I'm immensely grateful for them. Special love for Gayle Rubin's essay "The Leather Menace" and for Pat Califa's "A Personal View of the History of the Lesbian S/M Community and Movement in San Francisco."

[Sabina Husberg Götlind · Rating 5 out of 5]

A bit of a time capsule from the 70-80’s lesbian S/M community and/vs the lesbian feminist movement and/vs the women’s movement on the west coast (mostly) of the U.S.
A mix of fiction, fantasy, relationships, politics, essays etc. and imagery 🔥
Shorter and longer pieces.
If anyone ever finds this in print, buy me the copy!!
E-books are great but this is one I would like to have as a physical copy for sure. Sadly it’s hard to come by.

[Layla · Rating 4 out of 5]

i learned a lot from this book, glad i finally finished it. there is some beautiful and weird erotica (ft. ecosex and furry sci-fi as well as more straightforward bdsm stuff), poetry, photos, and a pretty comprehensive history of samois at the end. of its time obvi, but really valuable for anyone interested in queer histories.

[Graveblanket · Rating 5 out of 5]

Combines historical lessons+guides with erotic stories. Such a good story in Jessie (by Patrick Califia) and final chapter describing the lesbian sex wars. If you're at all interested in leather sex and you're queer, it's a must read. At worst you'll walk away with a much better understanding of the political factions in lesbianism that are still present today

[MangoLoverReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 — Interesting look at BDSM in the lesbian community in the 1980s and gives perspective.

[Joy Anyanwu · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up really didn’t like it as much i thought i would

[Saoirse Wall · Rating 4 out of 5]

gayle rubin and pat califa’s essays rly slay,,, there’s some hot erotica and some real cringe erotica that i skipped through,, love that this book exists and makes me feel very inspired. excited to read the second coming next!!!!

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

some hits some misses. cest la vie! super cool as a historical cultural piece