So long Bettie Page. So long, and thanks for the memories.

Like most of the rest of the world, for me it was the photographs first. Long before I knew anything about Bettie Page the person, I knew the curl of her lip, the intense look in her eyes, the dark hair, high heels and the stockings, gloves and corsets (oh my!)

Images of Bettie like the one here to the left still to this very day, hold the power to take my breath away.

I'm not going to attempt to tell her story here, most of you already either knew it, or have spent the past day or so getting acquainted with the realities of her life.

Her life beyond the photography studios and outdoor sets took her to people and places and parts of the world far from those idealized moments captured in the images.

So in writing this, I begin how it began for me, with the images themselves and the now long lost world they came from.

Her passing is an occasion to contemplate the vast changes that have taken place in the world of fetish and BDSM in relation to communications and community.

Bettie became the icon she was due to the growth of the camera clubs and Irving Klaw's mailing list of then deeply closeted (purely for day to day survival purposes) clients. She was for all intents and purposes the first bondage supermodel to what was not so much a "community," as a matter of individuals secretly purchasing the images.

The photographs and films she starred in were not so much depictions of her own sexuality, rather they were often based upon requests from those purchasing the materials.

For me, (like many of her fans,) it was always about a certain look in her eye. Be that playing the confident, playful, or sultry Mistress, or the looks of concern or even fear at impending suffering that might lie ahead of her, depicted as the helpless beauty usually whist held captive in some form of bondage.

Her acting classes aside, the photographs capture the feeling of some of the most rare moments that Kinky people treasure; looks of apprehension and loss of control, becoming a canvas to an artist, both needing and fearing what comes next.

Or the slight smile at the corners of one's owner's mouth as she prepares to correct or discipline a girl who is clearly in need of it.

Being S/switch, I've both worn and known each of those looks myself.

I've seen similar on the faces of those I've loved.

Most of all though, I understand Bettie's frequent expressions of playfulness or triumph or of sheer joy.

We catch glimpses of these, from time to time, sometimes on the faces of others, sometimes on the faces of those we love.

We know what those moments feel like.

Perhaps that was the secret of why Bettie connected with her audience in the ways in which she did.

Yes, she was beautiful, that was clear from the start. Beautiful in an iconic idealized, unattainable way when it came to real life for most. But we could recognize in those photographs moments that we ourselves had either cherished (for those so fortunate as to actually have lived such out,) or for those at the time, much more likely merely fantasized about.

Looking through the images today, one of the more interesting aspects of them is how contemporary the tools appear. So many of the same sorts of fetish items and tools were in use back then as well; laced up hobble skirts, arm-binders, hoods, leather corsets, furs, extreme heels and thigh high boots, metal fetters and shackles, chains, and clips, spreader bars, harnesses, leather gags and blindfolds, and of course, the ever present seductive lingerie.

Plenty of everyday household items make appearances as tools as well, plenty of rope and hairbrush spankings.

Another thing I find very striking about the images is that Bettie Page taught the world that yes, real Femmes can wield whips.

In a day and age where gender roles are so frequently broken down into Butch or Masculine being equated to "Dominant", and Femme or Feminine as equated to "submissive", it's remarkably refreshing to see images of a no-doubt-about-it Femme fatale not in the roles of "Service top" to a man, but as an active Mistress in her own right, secure in her own oh so Femme skin.

Which happily brings us to the obvious. Many of these were portrayals of womyn playing with other womyn- unapologetically so. While such clearly had much to do with the inner fantasy life of the (male) clientele, the interactions still portrayed possibilities.

For Queers such as myself, who discovered Bettie during her 'cult following' resurgence, these were some of the few images of womyn training, controlling, and "correcting" one another we had available to us that provided a sense of ourselves as having a form of a pre-existing historical yet fully modern context.

"Coming to Power" was first published in 1981, but by and large any form of organized Leather was in many ways still a male domain. Straightforward images of womyn "doing THINGS" to one another along these lines while certainly practiced, had very little imagery as fodder for fantasy.

You can only imagine my happiness at having discovered images of Bettie on her knees 'in service' as a Lady's maid, or of her lovingly domineering a bound and gagged female victim.

While these may have been images created for men, certainly the Lady's maid imagery implies a fantasy relationship wherein for even just a snapshot, the world narrows down to just these two womyn, a shared intimate moment, and a smile.

These images were important, not only to me, to other kinky and Leather womyn as well. They were more than fantasy material.

For S/switch womyn they held double meaning, did we want to submit to her or feel powerful and beautiful like her when we are in control. Did we empathize with her as the bound beauty or did we long to be with, and a possess a womyn like Bettie ourselves?

These were images that related to how we envisioned structuring our relationships, not of an occasional hot date on a Saturday night.

They had to do with both womyn we dreamed of sharing our lives with and at the same time, our own self images as womyn of Leather.

Unfortunately, unlike the fantasy world of the images themselves, and the aspects of womyn's sexualities portrayed in them, Bettie's own life experiences beyond the lens had a very great deal of sadness to it.

Her "real world" actions and religiosity cast a dark cloud over the photographs which had been at the time so important to me.

In the late 50's she underwent a religious conversion experience that ultimately aligned her with the very people who sought to stamp out the very things she herself had participated in. This led to a self imposed closeting, and later life fraught with contradictions.

(For more detail on some of the following see Chapter 10 of "The Real Betty Page" by Richard Foster. The book is well, the book, but this particular chapter does give an account, with many of the names and dates being useful.)

On New Year's eve 1958, she attended a service of what has now become the Key West Baptist Temple (At the time it was the "Latin American Baptist Temple." The preacher that night was Morris, or M.O. Wright. He had gotten his start in the jesus business after killing a man in a fatal car wreck. He was sentenced to a year in jail. While there, he got religion, and got his start by preaching at cellmates. )

Having been born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1923, and lived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Betty found herself attracted to the interracial service.

Keep in mind this was America in 1958. The Civil Rights movement was in many ways in its early years. 1958 was after the Montgomery bus boycott and Little Rock, when President Eisenhower had called up the paratroopers to escort the nine black students to Central High, but well before the Freedom Riders, James Meredith, Medgar Evers, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, the King assassination, etc.

She went on to be described as having had a "born-again" experience when she returned to the church and participated in the altar call the following week. (Not terribly long thereafter, in 1959, the English speaking growing portion of the congregation under Wright would go on to break away from the pre-existing Cuban and Spanish speaking congregation.)

When Bettie arrived at the Latin American Baptist Temple that night it was after an argument with her then husband, Armond Walterson, one of many such arguments, that ultimately led to the end of her marriage.

A series of misfortunes had struck her in the year before, from enduring a back injury that had left her in a wheelchair for four months to financial woes that led to her being evicted from her New Jersey storage space, the owner selling all her possessions including her modeling portfolio.

In a very real sense, she had come to a place of her past being gone, and her marriage being in a very real sense over. That night as she walked down White Street, she was at a moment of openness and vulnerability.

Evangelists often prey upon those who have as they like to put it, "come to the end of themselves." And Bettie was no exception.

Though she didn't speak about her past, she was incorporated into the religious infrastructure just as many "trophy converts" are. Wright counts the infamous Betty Page among his converts.

She worked full time for the Billy Graham organization, and while at Multnomah, one of several bible school programs she was involved with, (BIOLA, the Bible Institute of Los Angles, Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Multnomah School of the Bible, in Portland Oregon, and a christian retreat called "Bibletown" put on by the Boca Raton Community Church in Florida,) she volunteered at "The Louise Home" (a nonsectarian missionary proposition focused upon "unwed mothers".)

Also while at Multnomah she wanted to go to Africa as a missionary, but the Multnomah Mission board disqualified her for having divorced. She went on to briefly remarry her first husband, Billy Neal, which did lead to her being able to do missionary work, but that marriage was but one of her many that ended in divorce.

So why go into all this?

Well, I too have spent some long dark nights in Key West wandering down White Street towards the shore. Fortunately though, her story is most definitely not my story.

The Baptist Temple is out on Stock Island now, but it's still the local damnation awaits YOU "problem child."

They are, in short, the resident bat-shit homophobic church.

Wright can be counted onto make comments the likes of, for example, him having decided Key West's annual Halloween festival, Fantasy Fest, is "a revial of demonism and Babylonianism" and brings down the wrath of god upon Key West.

I'm not saying that Betty herself was anti-gay, merely that the preacher and church that she turned to based on her impression of its inclusiveness that was such an instrumental aspect of her conversion process, has gone on to be known for being anything but.

Betty did not talk about her former modeling career and the "naughty pictures" in her past, but clearly, if her newfound "friends" would reject her for having divorced, you can imagine what they would have thought of her had they known the full story at the time.

She embraced an identity that precluded her own history. Her quest for acceptance, while not invalidating her earlier life in any way, led to it being buried and lost to everyone except those few who perhaps having kept the pictures of the jet-haired beauty keeping memory itself alive.

A number of Bettie's later years were spent in mental hospitals under state supervision. She was finally released in 1992.

In one of the better summations of her life I've seen since her death, Peter Tupper on Beauty in Darkness: the history of BDSM described her as a "cipher," going on to explain:

"Maybe it's because she dropped out of public view before the sexual revolution really got going, and issues of sexual expression became politicized. She was an icon to a revolution that she didn't really participate in. A sex object without sexual politics, never a speaking subject."

(Although as I'll mention below Bettie herself came to be a key example of politicized sexual expression due to the Congressional hearings.)

In the end, I don't know whether or not she ever understood how much she meant to the men who hid and kept her pictures, let alone the Queer womyn who later saw in them important reflections of our sexuality, self images, and desires.

The sexual abuse and poverty she endured may have made it difficult for her to look back on parts of her modeling days.

But certainly in recent years, she has been celebrated and as new generations have found her, they too have seen in those early pictures images of beauty, or strength, of power, and a womyn not ashamed of either her actions and interactions with other womyn, nor of her body.

Klaw and thereby Bettie were subjects of the notorious Kefauver Hearings (of the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency.) She was called before Congress to explain the photographs but in the end was excused from testifying. Many of the negatives of the original prints were destroyed by court order.

Those that survived, survived by acts of both defiance and love.

They survived long enough for me to see myself, and the womyn I've loved in them. Long enough to provide a role model of sorts in today's kink community, that of a strong womyn of both whips and lace, a womyn whose otherwise invisible sexuality is outside of state sanction, and in relation to other womyn.

The images helped some of us see some of our desires reflected in an external culture, enacted by someone who despite her conversion experience did not feel regret over them

To quote Bettie herself, commenting on her pin-up career in a 1988 Playboy interview:

"I never thought it was shameful. I felt normal."

In feeling "normal" before the cameras, she helped some of us feel a bit more "normal" as well.

When I look at her bondage pictures now, I take them at face value, as what they were at the time. Beyond a girl earning a living, they represent a moment in time, when the " Leather community" had more to do with a bunch of gay fellas riding motorcycles who had been home from WWII for a few years.

Finding such images as close as a web search to those who lived in that climate, is an undeniable quantifiable change, (and in many ways, simply beyond comprehension.)

These were "dangerous" images that came close to being destroyed forever. Those who would if they could are still with us, many of them wearing crosses around their necks.

While remembering the history, I try to look past those whose bigotry nearly led to the destruction of these images and Bettie's own embrace of Wright, hiding her past lest she no longer be considered part of the fold, and instead, look to all that I first saw in those images.

So so long, and thanks for the memories.

Nothing can negate those.


(With special thanks to "It's just Jack"'s Bettie Page flickr photo collection and Queen of Pinups- Bettie Page)

When there are no words

Last Tuesday evening. I'm ready for bed but Sir is still quite awake. I ask him to tuck me in.

Sir surprises me.

We're trying to be a bit more intentional about some of our small rituals, trying to take time out of our all too often busy lives to make time for the building of habits and small gestures that in many ways reinforce the 'us'.

For many in the Leather community such come perfectly naturally.

When I am the Dominant partner in a relationship, for example, I live sleep eat breathe rituals; everything from morning coffee rituals to how my girl enters a room, or dresses. I suppose you could say I'm highly demanding when it comes to protocols.

Yet when I find myself on the other end of the power dynamic, well, I often end up feeling somewhat adrift. Unfortunately, particularly with Sir, as clear articulations and demands upon me are often in short supply.

In our relationship I am "property" to him, yet we have few protocols.

There are many counterbalances, though, that do help me find my way. Sex with him is one of those many ways I find clarity in my position.

Thus, the simple act of tucking me into bed, every so often, at unexpected times, like Tuesday night, sometimes escalates into good hard sex. And thereafter, even though the words may not come, I do know my place and feel secure in it.

I suspect many womyn who are slaves to, or bottom to (or whatever in relation to) particular men find their Dom/Owner/Sir's lack of articulation of expectation difficult from time to time. Perhaps it's a bit more acute for me, in that I have at times both been on the 'other end' as both 'owner' of a sort, and as an at times Dominant woman's beloved.

The particular womyn I've chosen to partner with have tended to have at least some ability to spell out many of their needs. With the men in my life, Sir included, their wants and needs at times seem to fall off the edge of language, or perhaps they simply don't feel the need to use language to express them.

Either way, me being a person for whom clarity in communication is important, I sometimes find that lack of articulation deeply frustrating.

Yes, there are inarticulate about such things, (desires and details) womyn Dommes, and perfectly articulate male Doms. But that is not quite the way that has played out for me with my Sir.

So finding those times when it's somewhere other than words, but things are perfectly clear between us is very important, in that that clarity is rarely spelled out in detail between us.

In day to day life, both of us fully understand what this is and how we relate to one another, coupled with the fact that this is my life (and his), I'm not going anywhere. But finding the clarity in expression of those things at times is subtle, it's in a look, a touch, and the pulling of my hair, not necessarily words.

Thus times, such as Tuesday night, become quite precious to me.

No S/switches allowed

(I'll probably do several BRXX posts, this is one of them)

'Flashback' to Snoopy from Peanuts, confronted with a 'no dogs allowed' sign.

Yeah, like that.

Or the archetypal boys clubhouse with the 'no girls allowed' sign posted on the side.

Yeah, like that.

There are days when I'm just so sick of this shit.

No, I'm not going to be able to say all I'd like to, because much of what goes on in spaces like BRXX, even things like the schedule or who presented what are tucked behind the wall of the members area. (See the public schedule and list of presenters. This is all you got unless you registered.) But I'm going to speak somewhat generally about what I've had enough of.

In the workshops, one segment was geared towards "submissives", and another towards "switches" (apparently dominants didn't get a space of their own on the schedule.)

In the end, I attended neither of them, partially out of being told I wasn't welcome at one, but primarily out of disgust.

(I'm at a difficulty here, as I cannot quote the program/descriptions in full, to give full context. I don't like that, but basically, by the nature of the event itself, they've made it unnecessarily difficult to write what really needs to be said here. Most events at least post a list of workshop descriptions and who will be presenting them publicly, with BRXX it was all behind the wall of paid registration. Even the dungeon rules were behind the wall of registration, which made making the decision about whether or not to even attend in the first place tricky, as you don't know what exactly you're agreeing to until after you've registered. Certainly made me raise eyebrows at their notions of 'consent'. In essence, you don't know exactly what it is you're agreeing to be bound to until AFTER you've registered.)

The S/switches roundtable was listed as discussing various issues regarding switching and "misconceptions" about switches.

The submissives roundtable on the other hand was explicitly labeled as only for those who identify as "slave, sub, or bottom only"..."Sorry no tops or switches allowed".

So let's review-

* No space set aside for Dominants

* A space dealing with the topic of switching, more a discussion about switching and dealing with misconceptions about it, open to anyone far as I could tell.

* And finally (paraphrasing here) a "submissives only" kind of space, for an internal dialog amongst those who identify as purely that end of the 'spectrum'.

This is somewhat problematic from where I sit for lots of reasons.

Among other things, it means that someone who uses the word "submissive" to self identify EVEN IF THEY DECIDED THEY WERE SUBMISSIVE LAST WEEK/EVEN IF THEY HAVE NO EXPERIENCE IN THE REAL WORLD WHATSOEVER is allowed into the sub room, even as someone like me, who has spent the past 11 years in service, collared, living our version of 24-7, and wearing a locked on 'permanent' 'collar' of sorts about my wrist for the last year and half or so can't.

In my day to day existence I self-identify most clearly as Sir's property. But apparently my 'contaminating' S/switch influence would somehow infect their submissive "safe space". Yeah, this is a problem.

This is a problem in that in much of Queer Leather culture, anyway, Sirs and Masters usually began as slaves. One usually didn't tend to spring forth fully formed, a MASTER with whip in hand, at least not if one hoped to be recognized as such by a broader community. Nope, you began in service. Learning skills, being mentored, earning your leathers, and eventually in time with the support of those around you, and with community recognition of where one was headed, you transitioned into a position at the other end of the spectrum. At least, that was the (Queer) Leather community I once knew.

So any notion of a 'safe space' set apart from any tinge of dominance- brought in either by "tops" (to use their word) or "switches" is laughable from where I sit- or at least (possibly) an extremely heterocentrist view of things.

Both of which are made all the more ironic in light of the fact that person/'presenter' running the submissives' roundtable is not het identified and has made a living off being labeled/self labeling as "Old Guard". (A term in and of itself blog worthy.) One might think that this presenter would be uniquely qualified to undermine such assumptions about everyone in a room of 'slaves' would intrinsically evermore REMAIN on the 'slave' end of things, but no. Apparently not.

Saddest part of all this? By hanging the 'no switches allowed!' sign out, they turn away a wealth of experience and to put it bluntly insight. Yes, at times some insights born of having experience both ends of the whip, which leads to it's own understandings and explorations of empathy. But also the experiences and insights of those who have lived as 'slave, sub or bottom'.

And to be sure, I can't have been the only S/switch too discouraged and disgusted to even set foot in the place. That said, how prey tell, did they intend to ensure their 'pure zone' in the first place? I mean, what, asking everyone walking in the door 'you're not a ~SWITCH!~ are you?' DNA tests? Some kink equivalent of Kinsey scales to be filled out while connected to polygraphs? The mind boggles.

The main thing I walk away from this particular incident with a feeling of sadness. Sadness that the voices of those who have 'been there' and might actually have meaningful, perhaps even useful things to say are once again shut out out of prejudice. Our years of experiences are once again swept aside out of fear that a S/switch might somehow damage the intended 'purity' of a space. And that's everyone's loss. It's a community loss.

I wrote about that community loss back here, saying

"Thus I find myself talking with two sets of friends- would be mentors bemoan their lack of ability to find someone to pass on their skills, history, traditions and knowledge to, and those young in Leather, bemoaning their inability to find voices of experience."

Prejudice, specifically in this instance against S/switches is (one example of) exactly the kind of thing keeping these two sets of people apart. And I know we as a (much broader) 'community' could do better.

On a more personal note, the other side effect of what I carry away from this whole experience? The presenter running the submissives' space was one of the swaying reasons I had decided to go to BRXX in the first place, I wanted a chance to hear said presenter speak.

Worse, due to scheduling, the submissives' roundtable, (yes, something I was actually looking forward to- until I saw I was being told get the hell out) was going to be the only chance during the weekend to actually see anything they were presenting.

Now, on the back end of it, I feel no need to go out of my way to see this particular presenter at all. At some point, if it's convenient to me, at an event I'm already at, I may sit in- somewhere I'm allowed, if only to see firsthand what the hell went this wrong.

I slept in instead of going to the switch's segment. They weren't going to be gathering a mob with pitchforks and torches, ready to storm the castle (i.e. the 'submissives only space,) and educating ME about the misconceptions about S/switches ain't exactly the problem here. (Although the presenter for the submissives' roundtable probably belonged there more than they'll ever know.)

And I wasn't allowed in the submissives' roundtable, so that was that.

I went to a good 'how to' sort of workshop instead.

As a self identified Radical Feminist, can I understand the value in 'womyn only spaces' and similar? Yes. The feminist community went through its own, yet different version of this in terms of Lesbian only spaces and the 'contaminating influences' of heterosexual womyn.

The difference here is that some S/switches do live in their day to day as submissives, slaves, and bottoms, whereas heterosexual womyn don't in their day to day lives live as those who sleep with womyn- although some of us Bisexual Womyn do. Bisexuals like S/switches go through precisely this kind of being ostracised. Being both Bi and Switch, I can't help but feel like I've been here before.

I've fought these battles before. And damn it, while we get to learn over and over and over from everyone else's mistakes, those fucking us over never seem to learn. As I said, I'm sick of it.

Unfortunately, this can't be confined to just 'oh it was one presenter'. This was systemic in terms of Black Rose allowing the creation of such a space within its event. Glancing over the other workshops, this barring of people, even people who often identify as the very group the workshop was about stands out as rather unique. (Yes, ageplay- adults acting as "littles"- spaces often bar other adults entering without a "little" with them, but the adults in this senario are not people who sometimes self identify as "littles".)

I can understand asking Dominants not to attend, (or perhaps not participate in) a discussion by submissives for submissives about submission (although in watching they could potentially learn a great deal). But to tell S/switches, many of whom live our day to day lives primarily on the submissive end of things to 'get out and stay out' is just, well, bullshit. And Black Rose OKed that.

Had I been able to go, I would not have been there to discuss 'profound observations from the handle end of the whip'- those would have been off topic and out of place, it was simply neither the time nor the place for such. As a sometimes workshop moderator myself I can understand how easy it can be for someone to sidetrack a discussion, but rather than barring us premptively as a class, instead give us the chance, and then if there's a problem deal with individual behaviour (hint, this is where moderators MODERATE! Facilitators FACILITATE, and get back on track), don't deal with such by excluding a class of people.

Had I been allowed in, I would have been there to discuss the things submissives discuss. Believe it or not, just because I'm a S/swtich that doesn't mean I'm incapable of staying on topic.

And I sure as hell would not have been there to 'scope out the subs' for later hunting purposes. Although if that was the moderator's fear, barring S/switches isn't going to do a thing about the other 'sub/slave/bottoms' in the room who decide later that they're more interested in being the Dominant/Master/Top. In short people's identity often changes through time, and no amount of prejudice against people who self identify with a certain label is going to 'protect' anyone from someone else who once sat next to them in a workshop coming back at some later date with a different self identity or a different set of realizations about their identity or experiences under the belt.

So I guess you could say part of my Black Rose XX experience was in being told in no uncertain terms, from the organizational level down that I was unwelcome in one of the very spaces I was particularly interested in going to. I don't think most other attendees had that experience.

The sad things is it's ultimately a community loss.

I'm not saying this was my primary experience of the event, just that it was an important one, and one that left an impression.

I hope other people running events in the future will keep such in mind in their own planning.

Hallows

I'll get towards writing about this morning later, but for the moment, just a brief post about Hallows.

Being a Witch (that's another blog!) I find myself furnished a number of preexisting excuses, if you will, for Sir and I to have sex. This often gets expressed something along the lines of "it's a pagan holiday! We should fuck!" Which is only all the more amusing when he brings it up, (Sir, not being a Witch.)

All of which tends to harken back to a wonderful Beltane spent one year with Sir and 'my' girl, this being many years back.

So, it's Hallows and Sir comes downstairs, somewhat annoyed that I wasn't upstairs seeing as to how he wanted me, right then and there. This is a good thing. Spontaneity makes me happy.

But I waver for a moment, and in an extraordinarily rare bit of 'giving him lip', I make it clear I'm busy. (This is deeply out of character for me, I don't do "brat" play.) This of course, cannot stand. (Yes, if my 'not now' were a real 'no' of course he'd respect that, but this is clearly me being 'playful' and we both know it.)

And so he has me stop whatever it was I was doing at the time, kneel on the big black leather couch, and he takes me, roughly.

And I'm happy.

This has everything to do with the dynamic between us. Any real 'not now' would have been clarified, and we would have gone on about our day, getting to sex at a later point.

But knowing one another as we do, we both know I'm 'asking for it' in my own rare way (usually I'd never DREAM of giving him shit!) and what comes next, no matter how much some might mistake it for vanilla what, with the lack of tools and all, is anything but, because we're both working with power, and his Dominance, and my risking, and that's where so much of the magick of the dance is for us. (That, and the smell and touch of leather as I'm being taken from behind never hurts. I am after all, far too much of a fetishist for it to be otherwise.)