“Essays, fiction, and interviews compiled by a San Francisco lesbian-feminist SM support group. Chapters include ‘If I Ask You To Tie Me Up, Will You Still Want To Love Me?’ ‘Proper Orgy Behavior,’ ‘Handkerchief Codes,’ ‘How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love My Dildo,’ ‘Dangerous Shoes, or What’s a Nice Dyke Like Me Doing in a Get-Up Like This?,’ ‘Girl Gang,’ and ‘The Leather Menace: Comments on Politics and SM.’”

Publisher: Alyson
Paperback: 288 pages

A well-written and highly entertaining collection of erotica which shares a common bond of dominance and submission. While it is not specific to a particular gender orientation, the high quality of the writing makes this a compelling read for all comers. It is not about incest or child abuse, but it does raise a lot of questions for the reader who might proclaim, “That’s not my cup of tea.” The editor explains it the best. “Daddy has gotten to be so popular that he threatens to eclipse Master as an honorific… Daddy fantasies sometimes function as a kind of SM-lite. A daddy is more accessible, flexible, and loving than a master or a sadist. A daddy-boy or daddy-girl scene is more likely to include genital sex than an SM scene. And there is less codification of the daddy role.” With 18 writers to select from, this book really does offer something for everyone. The introductory essay is one of the most intelligent essays on gender, family and role playing ever set in type. And for those who would balk at the bad name that such a book might give to Log Cabin types, Califia reminds us: “Books like this one make the rest of gay literature safer, because they push the edges and enlarge the territory of what can be said, thought about and done.” SA

Publisher: Alyson
Paperback: 240 pages

When he put this compendium of testimonials from SM practitioners together back in 1992, Thompson probably had no idea he was rounding up what would become the usual suspects whenever “constructive” representatives of the leather community were sought. Since this book was first published, contributors Gayle Rubin, Pat Califia, Guy Baldwin, John Preston, Joseph Bean and, for that matter, Thompson himself, have become constituents of a thriving leather-community press that supports several imprints and a number of serious publications. In the process, they have come to represent that community in the wider debate over sexual politics in the culture overall.
For all the familiarity of the names, faces and opinions that predominate in this collection, the ideas expressed retain much of their freshness and bite. In an era when sexual desire has become confused and attenuated background noise to the clamor of the marketplace, it’s bracing to encounter such passion for the personal expressed in such direct emotional language. Particularly valuable are the recollections of such ur-leatherfolk as Thom Magister (describing his initiation into the very much underground bar scene of the ‘50s) and Jack Fritscher (on pioneering artist Chuck Arnett) in reconstructing the hidden history of the SM demimonde before Stonewall. That a subculture so savagely suppressed could give rise to the rigorous ideals of safe, sane, consensual SM play now generally acknowledged by practitioners of all orientations is nothing if not inspirational. Leatherfolk, in addition to its historical value, offers a refreshing tonic to the cynicism and ennui that prevail in the intellectual discourse of those who consider themselves “normal.” IL

Publisher: Alyson
Paperback: 328 pages

Short stories with the theme of (mostly) lesbian SM. Subjects range from the family that is a little more disciplined than most, to an unusual test of a new partner’s mettle: “I want a gang, a pack, a bunch of tough and experienced top women. I’ll leave the exact number up to you, but I don’t want just a threesome in warm leatherette. I would rather it not be women Roxanne already knows. And no novices, they would just get in the way. Once you get that group together I want to give them Roxanne, and if she makes me proud I want her to belong to me, wear my rings. If she still wants me. She might decide it’s too much, or maybe she’ll tumble for one of the other tops.” NN

Publisher: Alyson
Paperback: 298 pages

All-American clipcocks vs. the monk’s hood, the Roman shade, the anteater, the wingflap or the lace curtain, as foreskinned cocks have been called. “But even on the question of sensitivity, there is no universal agreement. Sex researchers Masters and Johnson, in their tests, found no difference in sensitivity between circumcized and uncircumcized penises. Most modern researchers agree that sensitivity is such a subjective perception that it would be difficult to measure. They also agree that premature ejaculation is primarily caused by psychological factors, not by differences in penile sensitivity.“ So what was everyone complaining about? Was there anything missing from the circumcized penis, besides the ‘superfluous’ foreskin? The men belonging to the USA (Uncircumcised Society of America) certainly argued that something was missing. One man wrote, ‘My foreskin is the best part of my penis.’” GR

Publisher: Alyson
Paperback: 208 pages

Kissing or embracing another man, gossip spread by neighbors or receiving a letter from a gay friend were grounds for arrest under Paragraph 175, a strengthened German sodomy law pushed through in 1935, endorsed by the SS and the Gestapo. Tagged as “degenerates” and “undesirables,” lesbians and “filthy queers” were systematically hunted down, brutalized and exterminated along with the rest of Hitler’s Aryan phobias: the Jews, Gypsies, the mentally ill. The story of a gay Austrian man who endured the death camps, forced to wear a pink triangle to identify his crime against the state. GR

Publisher: Alyson
Paperback: 120 pages
Illustrated

The tragic rise and fall of major gay porn star Joey Stefano. Equipped with a gorgeous face and body, Stefano starred in more than 35 hardcore videos, danced in clubs across America and Europe, hustled his way through thousands of dollars paid to him by clients around the globe and died from a drug overdose at the age of 26. With insight and empathy, Isherwood traces Stefano’s immersion into the chaotic and dark world of the porn industry—the fast money, the professional rivalries, the plentiful drugs, the nonstop sex. The picture of Stefano that emerges is one of a sexually adventurous beauty who lived in the moment and was determined to live out his fantasies at all costs. With photos, revealing snippets of Stefano interviews and a videography listing some of his more notable and widely available videos. Particularly distressing is the event recounted in the prologue: friend and director Chi Chi LaRue unsuccessfully attempting to make sense of Stefano’s death to a pack of bloodthirsty boneheads on The Marilyn Kagan Show. An all-too-familiar retelling of the potentially lethal effects of fame, Wonder Bread and Ecstasy is a well-written and disturbingly compelling read. MDG

Publisher: Alyson
Paperback: 209 pages
Illustrated