The emergence of BDSM subculture, in the form that we’re familiar with today, can be traced back to 1940s’ gay leather communities, which appeared in the United States after World War II.

From the 1940s to 1970s, leather bars and bikers’ clubs began to appear in multiple cities in the US, most obviously in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Chicago.

In 1975, Drummer magazine, amongst others, began to circulate within  the communities. The 1970s to 1980s was the time when BDSM sub-culture started taking on a non-rigid but structural formation. During this period, many educational and social BDSM organizations were founded. This included the establishment of International Mr. Leather (IML), which involves events by local communities in many cities throughout the US culminating in annual meetings and competition in Chicago,

The Leather Pride Flag was designed by Tony Deblase in 1989 and has been recognised and established internationally. The Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago also opened in May 2009.

Today, events such as the San Francisco Folsom Street Fair, Annual IML competition and many others, including academic conferences, successfully foster sub-cultural gatherings and discussions nationally in the US and internationally. On a local level, it is hard to find a city anywhere that does not have some form of active community with munches and social and educational opportunities.

BDSM-related organizations and events have been blooming around the world, taking collectively tailored diverse forms. There is also plenty of intersection between BDSM aesthetics and art performance in music, performance art, photography and theatre, among others. Here is one where music merges with rope bondage.

However, the discourses and epistemology around BDSM sub-culture of sadomasochism, power exchange, violence and transgression has been largely Western. The existence of sadomasochism or BDSM in Asia, Africa, South America and other parts of the world remains largely undocumented within academic discourse.

For instance, the origin of Japanese BDSM subculture significantly differs from the conception of BDSM in the Western context. In the book 绳缚本事 by小林绳雾, he explains that Japanese culture, sadomasochism is largely rooted in the cultural conception of 責の研究 (seme no kenkiu), similar to what we would term “interrogation” in a Western context, but substantially different. The literal translation of 責の研究 is: “the research/knowledge of blaming that causes mental and physical distress”. It’s cultural denotation can be translated as “the exploration of human cruelty and violence – both inflicting and receiving”.

History is the foundation stone for culture, so while Western BDSM culture stems from gay leather culture (and further back than that, the Marquise de Sade’s literature), Japanese sadomasochism anchored itself in the rope bondage culture of 捕縄術 (Hojojutsu), used to restrain prisoners.

FURTHER READING

• Deviance & Desire –  A (Very) Brief History of Modern BDSM Porn in the US
• International Mr. Leather
• Leather Archives & Museum
• Deviance & Desire – Guest Author: Fledermaus aka Tony DeBlase
• Cultural Anthropologist: Margot Weiss 
• Deviance & Desire – The Origin of Shibari Japanese Rope Bondage
• Deviance & Desire –  Why Japanese Hentai Manga Still Upsets the West
• 皮繩愉虐邦