Crafting Desire: An international design history of gay male fetish making
A walk around any ‘gaybourhood’ in Berlin, London, Chicago, Amsterdam, or Stockholm reveals that, in an age of globalised manufacture, there persists a shop in many Western cities with a workshop for hand-making leather harnesses, whips, cages, torture racks, and other products. Around the corner might be a club built by amateur makers containing spaces for sexual encounters and equipment for contorting the body into uncomfortable positions. As remnants of the sexual liberation of the 1960s and 1970s, how have such businesses, clubs and stores evolved? How has gay leather and fetish culture been physically made? Through a design historical approach that emphasises acquisition and transfer of skills, practices and aesthetics, the project will examine gay male leather and fetish culture through enquiry into modes of amateur and professional making. Using recent craft theories that connect the everyday experiences of making to questions of identity formation, labour, skill and time, the project analyses how a frequently anti-assimilationist network of gay men were affected by the global socio-economic changes that witnessed ‘normalization’ of same-sex relationships in a neoliberal economic setting. The three-year project comprises four investigations that combine archival research with oral histories to identify and analyse cultures of making from international BDSM networks in the 1970s, to contemporary Finnish textile printing.
Final report
•Purpose of the project and how it has developed during the project period.:
The aim of the project was to reposition histories of the gay leather and BDSM scene as an important socio-economically embedded feature of LGBT history by taking the material realities of designed objects as its starting point. The main research questions asked how knowledge of leather and fetish making can tell us how gay men were effected by economic globalization and ‘normalization’ of same sex-relationships since the 1960s. In the initial proposal, this was broken down into four investigations that explored the emergence of object typologies, advice literature, aesthetics of leather clubs, and marketing of products licensed by the Tom of Finland foundation.
As the project was heavily based on research in physical archives located internationally, general travel restrictions imposed during 2020-2021 made it impossible to complete to project as planned. The initial purpose of the project had been to provide a chronological overview of the development of fetish making from the 1960s to the present in order to better understand the relations between amateur and professional making practices, and how leather iconography and objects became more integrated within design culture in general. Due to the richness of material that was collected relating to the 1960s to the 1980s, the project’s focus shifted to examine the historical emergence of cultures of making and consumption in an international context, and was complimented by an additional investigation that examined the Swedish context and emergence of gay consumerism.
A short description of how it was implemented.:
The project, which was shortened due to pandemic related travel restrictions, resulted in three completed investigations:
The first explored the work of fetish designer Jim Stewart who founded the company Fetters and examined the development methods used for adapting military equipment to be used in bondage situations. This included oral history interviews conducted in the UK and US, as well as archival research at the London Leather Archives (Bishopsgate Institute), Leather Archives and Museum, Chicago and the GBLT archives in San Francisco.
The second investigation constructs examine the role of DIY culture in the development of the sex furniture in the gay leather scene, using materials from private collections and publications housed at Chicago’s Leather Archives and Museum.
The third investigation concerned the role of material culture and the establishment of gay markets in Sweden during the 1970s using collections housed at The Archives and Library of the Queer Movement, Gothenburg, The National Library of Sweden, and interviews conducted with individuals involved in the Swedish gay press during the period.
The project’s three most important results and contributions to the international research front and a discussion about this:
The investigation into the history of the British bondage equipment makers Fetters has shown how the development of standard BDSM garments have been derived from the material environment of the UK military and embedded within normative discourses of appropriate masculine leisure in the mid-twentieth century. This case study is an example of how kink practices were embedded in broader social practices of collecting and leisure that blur the boundaries between kink and other forms of leisure.
The second investigation demonstrates the importance of DIY culture and community engagement in the production of new types of objects, and the porosity between commercial and community-based furniture design activities.
The third investigation reveals how the trade in leather and bondage equipment was an important precursor to the emergence of a broader gay consumer market in Europe. From a visual culture perspective, the investigation traces the connection between the expressions of desire, availability of fetish consumer objects and the idea of sex liberalism as an ‘anti-authoritarian’ political movement. The study highlights some of the contradictions inherent in the notion of sex liberalism on the one hand, and the adoption of sexual styles through consumer practices.
Together, these findings complicate the notion of the processes through which queer identity was constructed from the 1970s to the 1980s. Whereas there is often a tendency within studies of queer culture to focus upon queer exceptionalism, the investigations undertaken in this project constitute methodological examples for locating queerness within the mundane and normative aspects of material culture that constituted everyday experienced for gay men in the period under study.
•New research questions generated through the project:
One of the most interesting features of this project has been meeting the many small-scale craft practitioners working today, whose input and insights were not initially included in the project plan. I am currently considering whether it is feasible to design an investigation that looks at the motivations among contemporary practitioners for starting small and medium-sized enterprises. The methodology draws on approaches found in Susan Luckman’s Craft and the Creative Economy (2015), and could provide data to work with beyond the project period. Here, I am interested in exploring to what extent such businesses can be considered as integrated with the craft economies outlined by Luckman, and to what extent they rely on the historical networks outlined earlier in the project. In what ways do small scale craft businesses drive innovation in production of kink objects today?
A further potential area for exploration that emerged from the literature review I undertook in relation to the history of Revolt Press relates to the potential for a design historical investigation into RFSU. This has resulted in a preliminary internal research proposal to examine design histories of RFSU and RFSU Rehab, based on collections available at Arbetarrörelsens arkiv and Centrum för Näringslivshistoria.
The project’s international dimensions, such as contacts and material:
Fieldwork has been undertaken in London, Chicago, San Francisco, Antwerp, Amsterdam and Stockholm. This has enabled a broad understanding of the scene as an international entity. This is important because previous studies of leather culture have focused on one country (Andersen, 2019) or one city (Rubin, 1994), whereas businesses frequently operated across regional and national borders. This international focus that relates transatlantic making practices in the leather community has been a unique feature of this project.
How the project team has disseminated the results to other researchers and groups outside the scientific community and discuss and explain how collaboration has taken place:
Research related to the project has been presented at a number of events based at HDK-Valand:
• October 2018: “Queer Heritage and its contradictions” panel discussion in conjunction with Ben Campkin and Laura Marshall of the UCL Urban Laboratory
• September 2019: I organized a symposium entitled ‘Materials! Sex! Heritage!’ in collaboration with Isabelle Held (Royal College of Art) with funding from the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies.
• I participated in the annual symposium “Att framfora kropp” at HDK-Valand Campus Steneby with a lecture entitled “The Design of Leathersex.”
Research has been presented at the following international conferences:
• Queer History Conference, San Francisco State University, June 2019
• Design History Society Annual Conference, Newcastle University, September 2020
• PARSE Biennial Conference on the theme “Human”, HDK-Valand, Gothenburg November 2020
• Nordic Design Cultures in Transformation, Linneus University (online), May 2021
Interview material gathered during the project has been donated to the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago.
• Publication list and links to own websites. Please use headings to provide an easier overview (e.g., monographs; articles; textbooks; websites including Wikipedia; debates; popular science publications). Mark what is published using OA. (Note that researchers receiving RJ grants from the 2010 application round must publish their peer-reviewed writings in journals and conference publications through open access, so that they become freely available online. As such, indicate how open access has been ensured.)
Peer-Reviewed Book Chapter
Tom Cubbin (2022) Revolt Press, Internationalization and the Development of Gay Markets in Sweden before HIV/AIDS, in Queer Print in Europe. ed- Glyn Davis and Laura Guy (London: Bloomsbury, 2022). [The text has been parallel published through the University of Gothenburg’s online repository to ensure open access.]
Peer-Reviewed Article
Tom Cubbin (2022) Building the sex dungeon: Gay leather culture and the development of spaces for recreational sex at home, Interiors, 12:1, 75-99, DOI: 10.1080/20419112.2022.2047527 . [Published Open Access. At the time of writing, this was the most read article of all time in the journal, which has been running since 2010]
Tom Cubbin (2022), Fetters and the Design of Bondage Objects in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s, Journal of Homosexuality, Published Online 26 September 2022. DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2022.2122359. [Published Open Access]
Other
Tom Cubbin (2020) Crafting Fetish Across Materials and Sexual Styles: An Interview with Skeeter of Mr. S Leather, The Journal of Modern Craft, 13:2, 179-187, DOI: 10.1080/17496772.2020.1815337 . Published Open Access.
The aim of the project was to reposition histories of the gay leather and BDSM scene as an important socio-economically embedded feature of LGBT history by taking the material realities of designed objects as its starting point. The main research questions asked how knowledge of leather and fetish making can tell us how gay men were effected by economic globalization and ‘normalization’ of same sex-relationships since the 1960s. In the initial proposal, this was broken down into four investigations that explored the emergence of object typologies, advice literature, aesthetics of leather clubs, and marketing of products licensed by the Tom of Finland foundation.
As the project was heavily based on research in physical archives located internationally, general travel restrictions imposed during 2020-2021 made it impossible to complete to project as planned. The initial purpose of the project had been to provide a chronological overview of the development of fetish making from the 1960s to the present in order to better understand the relations between amateur and professional making practices, and how leather iconography and objects became more integrated within design culture in general. Due to the richness of material that was collected relating to the 1960s to the 1980s, the project’s focus shifted to examine the historical emergence of cultures of making and consumption in an international context, and was complimented by an additional investigation that examined the Swedish context and emergence of gay consumerism.
A short description of how it was implemented.:
The project, which was shortened due to pandemic related travel restrictions, resulted in three completed investigations:
The first explored the work of fetish designer Jim Stewart who founded the company Fetters and examined the development methods used for adapting military equipment to be used in bondage situations. This included oral history interviews conducted in the UK and US, as well as archival research at the London Leather Archives (Bishopsgate Institute), Leather Archives and Museum, Chicago and the GBLT archives in San Francisco.
The second investigation constructs examine the role of DIY culture in the development of the sex furniture in the gay leather scene, using materials from private collections and publications housed at Chicago’s Leather Archives and Museum.
The third investigation concerned the role of material culture and the establishment of gay markets in Sweden during the 1970s using collections housed at The Archives and Library of the Queer Movement, Gothenburg, The National Library of Sweden, and interviews conducted with individuals involved in the Swedish gay press during the period.
The project’s three most important results and contributions to the international research front and a discussion about this:
The investigation into the history of the British bondage equipment makers Fetters has shown how the development of standard BDSM garments have been derived from the material environment of the UK military and embedded within normative discourses of appropriate masculine leisure in the mid-twentieth century. This case study is an example of how kink practices were embedded in broader social practices of collecting and leisure that blur the boundaries between kink and other forms of leisure.
The second investigation demonstrates the importance of DIY culture and community engagement in the production of new types of objects, and the porosity between commercial and community-based furniture design activities.
The third investigation reveals how the trade in leather and bondage equipment was an important precursor to the emergence of a broader gay consumer market in Europe. From a visual culture perspective, the investigation traces the connection between the expressions of desire, availability of fetish consumer objects and the idea of sex liberalism as an ‘anti-authoritarian’ political movement. The study highlights some of the contradictions inherent in the notion of sex liberalism on the one hand, and the adoption of sexual styles through consumer practices.
Together, these findings complicate the notion of the processes through which queer identity was constructed from the 1970s to the 1980s. Whereas there is often a tendency within studies of queer culture to focus upon queer exceptionalism, the investigations undertaken in this project constitute methodological examples for locating queerness within the mundane and normative aspects of material culture that constituted everyday experienced for gay men in the period under study.
•New research questions generated through the project:
One of the most interesting features of this project has been meeting the many small-scale craft practitioners working today, whose input and insights were not initially included in the project plan. I am currently considering whether it is feasible to design an investigation that looks at the motivations among contemporary practitioners for starting small and medium-sized enterprises. The methodology draws on approaches found in Susan Luckman’s Craft and the Creative Economy (2015), and could provide data to work with beyond the project period. Here, I am interested in exploring to what extent such businesses can be considered as integrated with the craft economies outlined by Luckman, and to what extent they rely on the historical networks outlined earlier in the project. In what ways do small scale craft businesses drive innovation in production of kink objects today?
A further potential area for exploration that emerged from the literature review I undertook in relation to the history of Revolt Press relates to the potential for a design historical investigation into RFSU. This has resulted in a preliminary internal research proposal to examine design histories of RFSU and RFSU Rehab, based on collections available at Arbetarrörelsens arkiv and Centrum för Näringslivshistoria.
The project’s international dimensions, such as contacts and material:
Fieldwork has been undertaken in London, Chicago, San Francisco, Antwerp, Amsterdam and Stockholm. This has enabled a broad understanding of the scene as an international entity. This is important because previous studies of leather culture have focused on one country (Andersen, 2019) or one city (Rubin, 1994), whereas businesses frequently operated across regional and national borders. This international focus that relates transatlantic making practices in the leather community has been a unique feature of this project.
How the project team has disseminated the results to other researchers and groups outside the scientific community and discuss and explain how collaboration has taken place:
Research related to the project has been presented at a number of events based at HDK-Valand:
• October 2018: “Queer Heritage and its contradictions” panel discussion in conjunction with Ben Campkin and Laura Marshall of the UCL Urban Laboratory
• September 2019: I organized a symposium entitled ‘Materials! Sex! Heritage!’ in collaboration with Isabelle Held (Royal College of Art) with funding from the Centre for Critical Heritage Studies.
• I participated in the annual symposium “Att framfora kropp” at HDK-Valand Campus Steneby with a lecture entitled “The Design of Leathersex.”
Research has been presented at the following international conferences:
• Queer History Conference, San Francisco State University, June 2019
• Design History Society Annual Conference, Newcastle University, September 2020
• PARSE Biennial Conference on the theme “Human”, HDK-Valand, Gothenburg November 2020
• Nordic Design Cultures in Transformation, Linneus University (online), May 2021
Interview material gathered during the project has been donated to the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago.
• Publication list and links to own websites. Please use headings to provide an easier overview (e.g., monographs; articles; textbooks; websites including Wikipedia; debates; popular science publications). Mark what is published using OA. (Note that researchers receiving RJ grants from the 2010 application round must publish their peer-reviewed writings in journals and conference publications through open access, so that they become freely available online. As such, indicate how open access has been ensured.)
Peer-Reviewed Book Chapter
Tom Cubbin (2022) Revolt Press, Internationalization and the Development of Gay Markets in Sweden before HIV/AIDS, in Queer Print in Europe. ed- Glyn Davis and Laura Guy (London: Bloomsbury, 2022). [The text has been parallel published through the University of Gothenburg’s online repository to ensure open access.]
Peer-Reviewed Article
Tom Cubbin (2022) Building the sex dungeon: Gay leather culture and the development of spaces for recreational sex at home, Interiors, 12:1, 75-99, DOI: 10.1080/20419112.2022.2047527 . [Published Open Access. At the time of writing, this was the most read article of all time in the journal, which has been running since 2010]
Tom Cubbin (2022), Fetters and the Design of Bondage Objects in Britain during the 1970s and 1980s, Journal of Homosexuality, Published Online 26 September 2022. DOI: 10.1080/00918369.2022.2122359. [Published Open Access]
Other
Tom Cubbin (2020) Crafting Fetish Across Materials and Sexual Styles: An Interview with Skeeter of Mr. S Leather, The Journal of Modern Craft, 13:2, 179-187, DOI: 10.1080/17496772.2020.1815337 . Published Open Access.