Before the word
Flagellation, courtly submission, and the libertine writers, long before anyone said BDSM.
See it on the timelineSection · Eras
Seven periods, in order
The chronology is cut into seven stretches, each with its own essay. The divisions are editorial rather than natural: history does not change gear on a round number, and the boundaries below are chosen where the evidence shifts most sharply.
The chronological spine
One essay per period, in order.
The names become words
Sade and Sacher-Masoch give the practices their labels; Krafft-Ebing files them as pathology.
Read the essayClinics and coteries
Psychoanalysis, early sexology, fetish photography, and private circles between the wars.
Read the essayLeather and the postwar scene
Motorcycle clubs, leather bars, Bizarre magazine, and the culture that became the Old Guard.
Read the essayOrganising
Formal groups, the leather contest circuit, the feminist sex wars, and community under the AIDS crisis.
Read the essayThe community goes online
Usenet, mailing lists, munches, SSC and RACK, and the first mass-scale kink websites.
Read the essayDepathologised and mainstream
DSM-5 splits paraphilia from disorder, kink hits bestseller lists, and consent culture is rewritten.
See it on the timelineSeven periods, and a live one
The last era on this list has not closed. It is being made now, by people organising the same way every earlier generation did.
See where it happens now