threatened with the crop
I love this lesbian photo from the 1920s. The eye contact between the two women; their voluptuous curves; the contrast of the thin, whippy crop pressing into the soft side of the sub; her wordless plea for mercy, which she will quite clearly not receive...
Whenever I look at old pictures like this in general I wonder what became of the people; what their lives were like, what they experienced and saw. This is particularly poignant with openly bdsm pictures, and even more so with one with a gay scenario. I wonder what their motives were for modeling: money and poverty, genuine kinkiness, artiness, combinations of these? As it is now we don't even know their names and probably no-one does or ever will again. Even so they are able to communicate to us over the decades with a deep carnal humanity. Good stuff!
ReplyDeletePaul H - Aye, I often think that about old photos: we sometimes have the photographer's name, but rarely the models. I think alternative sexualities were much more common, with a certain amount of discretion, than a lot of modern commentators give credit for - sure, they didn't have the legal rights or open acceptance we do now, but the writing I've read from the decades before the war suggest that licentiousness in private was perfectly normal. Of course, especially as a young woman, achieving the independence to indulge in it was rather trickier. I tend to assume that the models were adventurous friends of the artist, not necessarily kinky, but happy to indulge in play-acting for the camera. Although of course professional models existed, so I'm probably being silly and romantic.
ReplyDeleteIt would be wonderful if all the fetish models of yesteryear had written diaries, though. Assuming the digital age doesn't suffer an immense data catastrophe, at least kinksters in a hundred years time won't have this problem! :)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete