333 images (or so)

1910s ↘↖

Here’s a painting of a barbary pirate with his new slave.  Their very odd poses suggest all the ambiguous eroticism of orientalist/white-slavery rhetoric.  Is she a helpless victim before his lawless animal lust?  Or is she entranced because she knows that here, finally, is a Real Man? White racists could never really decide which was worse. Also, his shoes.  No.

Here’s a painting of a barbary pirate with his new slave.  Their very odd poses suggest all the ambiguous eroticism of orientalist/white-slavery rhetoric.  Is she a helpless victim before his lawless animal lust?  Or is she entranced because she knows that here, finally, is a Real Man?

White racists could never really decide which was worse.

Also, his shoes.  No.

4 October 2011 • reblog: olderoticart • pirates slave mf race orientalism piercing dom(me) clothing fail breasts pubic hair oil painting 1910s

Franz von Bayros was a Spanish erotic artist, born in Zagreb, kicked out of Germany, and now mostly associated with Austria.  His works often featured zoophile and other fetish themes, and were a pretty constant obsession of the censors.

Franz von Bayros was a Spanish erotic artist, born in Zagreb, kicked out of Germany, and now mostly associated with Austria.  His works often featured zoophile and other fetish themes, and were a pretty constant obsession of the censors.

2 January 2011 • snail female nude riding crop cock pen and ink 1910s franz von bayros

Fraternity pale from Yale, 1919. Fraternities and sororities are definitely the closest precursor to BDSM clubs (both the real kind and the fantasy).  Hazing of pledges has often included D/s, spankings, public humiliation, nakedness, bondage, and even tatoos or brandings.  And it’s been going on for over a century.  And despite opposition from school administrations, it’s all seen as perfectly vanilla, even non-sexual, by the wider culture.  You can strip the pledge boys naked and put them on leashes and pain their cocks blue before paddling them silly.  It isn’t about sex.  Obviously.  ’Cause that would be gay.

Fraternity pale from Yale, 1919.

Fraternities and sororities are definitely the closest precursor to BDSM clubs (both the real kind and the fantasy).  Hazing of pledges has often included D/s, spankings, public humiliation, nakedness, bondage, and even tatoos or brandings.  And it’s been going on for over a century.  And despite opposition from school administrations, it’s all seen as perfectly vanilla, even non-sexual, by the wider culture.  You can strip the pledge boys naked and put them on leashes and pain their cocks blue before paddling them silly.  It isn’t about sex.  Obviously.  ’Cause that would be gay.

20 July 2010 • paddle toys 1910s wood

The Orientalist slave fantasy reached prime time in 1919, with the publication of Edith Hull’s colossal best-seller, The Sheik, which basically invented the rape/romance novel genre (Gone with the Wind wasn’t until ‘36).  In 1921, it was made into a “photoplay” starring Rudolph Valentino in the title role, and he quickly became one of the first Hollywood sex symbols, with frequent reports of women screaming and fainting in the theaters.  (The book itself had sold so many copies that reviewers claimed that 2/3 of the women in America had read it.  Surely a lie, but…) The heroine of the novel, Diana, is a straw feminist tomboy who hates men, but it’s OK, she just needed to get abducted and made into the sex slave of a dashing Arab chieftain, and she got over it.  Here she is right after being told she’s going to be raped the first time: Terror, agonising, soul-shaking terror such as she had never imagined, took hold of her. The flaming light of desire burning in his eyes turned her sick and faint. Her body throbbed with the consciousness of a knowledge that appalled her. She understood his purpose with a horror that made each separate nerve in her system shrink against the understanding that had come to her under the consuming fire of his ardent gaze, and in the fierce embrace that was drawing her shaking limbs closer and closer against the man’s own pulsating body. She writhed in his arms as he crushed her to him in a sudden access of possessive passion. His head bent slowly down to her, his eyes burned deeper, and, held immovable, she endured the first kiss she had ever received. And the touch of his scorching lips, the clasp of his arms, the close union with his warm, strong body robbed her of all strength, of all power of resistance. With a great sob her eyes closed wearily, the hot mouth pressed on hers was like a narcotic, drugging her almost into insensibility. Numbly she felt him gather her high up into his arms, his lips still clinging closely, and carry her across the tent through curtains into an adjoining room. He laid her down on soft cushions. “Do not make me wait too long,” he whispered, and left her.

The Orientalist slave fantasy reached prime time in 1919, with the publication of Edith Hull’s colossal best-seller, The Sheik, which basically invented the rape/romance novel genre (Gone with the Wind wasn’t until ‘36).  In 1921, it was made into a “photoplay” starring Rudolph Valentino in the title role, and he quickly became one of the first Hollywood sex symbols, with frequent reports of women screaming and fainting in the theaters.  (The book itself had sold so many copies that reviewers claimed that 2/3 of the women in America had read it.  Surely a lie, but…)

The heroine of the novel, Diana, is a straw feminist tomboy who hates men, but it’s OK, she just needed to get abducted and made into the sex slave of a dashing Arab chieftain, and she got over it.  Here she is right after being told she’s going to be raped the first time:

Terror, agonising, soul-shaking terror such as she had never imagined, took hold of her. The flaming light of desire burning in his eyes turned her sick and faint. Her body throbbed with the consciousness of a knowledge that appalled her. She understood his purpose with a horror that made each separate nerve in her system shrink against the understanding that had come to her under the consuming fire of his ardent gaze, and in the fierce embrace that was drawing her shaking limbs closer and closer against the man’s own pulsating body. She writhed in his arms as he crushed her to him in a sudden access of possessive passion. His head bent slowly down to her, his eyes burned deeper, and, held immovable, she endured the first kiss she had ever received. And the touch of his scorching lips, the clasp of his arms, the close union with his warm, strong body robbed her of all strength, of all power of resistance.

With a great sob her eyes closed wearily, the hot mouth pressed on hers was like a narcotic, drugging her almost into insensibility. Numbly she felt him gather her high up into his arms, his lips still clinging closely, and carry her across the tent through curtains into an adjoining room. He laid her down on soft cushions. “Do not make me wait too long,” he whispered, and left her.

23 June 2010 • 1910s books photo The sheik orientalism Mf rape male soft media