First of all, thank you for asking me about my favorite thing to talk about!! having the opportunity to encourage people to learn about this history is a big part of why I’m still here on this blog and it’s also a big reason for why I’m majoring in queer studies and want to become a librarian.
Awhile ago (some of you may remember) I put up a burner g—gle drive with a bunch of these texts, but the post that links to it is now impossible to find (thanks Tumblr) so I’m going to do this one a bit differently. This post is a bit of a mess, my brain is NOT in peak performance condition right now, but I didn't want to miss this opportunity to share either. I added headers, I'm not sure they help much though.
FIRST OFF, KINK:
For kink/leather theory and practice, I will almost always recommend starting with Leatherfolk: Radical sex, politics, people, and practice, edited by Mark Thompson. It is available on the internet archive here, you just make a free account and you can check it out. https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781555831875 (I personally struggle with the internet archive’s lending model, I know I know I’m a bad aspiring librarian. I read quick, but I can’t seem to read THAT quick. So, in case you are like me, this is also available on libgen) Leatherfolk is great in that it includes pieces from both before and after the AIDS crisis, along with many reflections on the impact which the crisis had on the leather community and the community’s response.
From Leatherfolk, I recommend the works of Patrick Califia (who also published work under the name “Pat Califia” prior to his transition). I really liked Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex for its investigation into how we have pushed sexuality so far into the private sphere that we are inevitably losing our ability to express it and to find people who share our desires. Public Sex is not currently available on the internet archive, but you can find it on libgen. Patrick doesn’t have a site to pay him directly right now, nor are any of his works in active publication, which is unfortunate because he deserves money for his labor as his work has been pivotal to many kinky queers developing a greater understanding of ourselves, our history, and our community.
To understand the THEORIES of sexual deviancy and kink, I have leaned on the works of Gayle Rubin. Her theory of the charmed circle really helps explain how certain types of sex are heavily policed/politicized, and how certain groups fall further from the center of the circle than others. You can find Gayle Rubin readers on libgen, but she’s also been republished in many different feminist theory readers. I’ve found repubs of the charmed circle all over the place, honestly. There’s a really easy-to-read explainer of her sexual deviation theory in the book “Queer: A Graphic History” by Meg John-Barker and Jules Scheele (this book is very popular at libraries, so I’d start there for a copy if you can’t afford your own).
SEX WORK
Sex work heavily overlaps with the kink stuff, you’ll find discussions of sex work in most of these texts especially in Leatherfolk. For sex work specific research though, my go-to specialist right now is Melissa Hope Ditmore, whose works include Sex Work Matters and The Encyclopedia of Prostitution (available on libgen, but also PAY her if you can because she’s alive and deserves money for her labor). I’m currently debating shelling out for a copy of her newest book, Unbroken Chains, which is a look at human trafficking and I’m sure it is impressive because all of her research has been.
To get into the real lived experience of sex workers, I just finished “Working It: Sex Workers on the Work of Sex” which was edited by Matilda Bickers, peech breshears, and Janis Luna. It was REALLY good. This one you’ll have to pay money for or convince your local library to buy (in my experience, they usually will). I bought my copy from PM press. https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1323
DISCLAIMER!!
If you’ve read this far, I want to make a point to address something which I know will come up if you do actually read some of these works. Specifically, I want to address the fact that our community and its history is imperfect, and very culturally contextual. The works of Gayle Rubin and Patrick Califia have been both misconstrued and misguided in their attempts to make sense of the complex relationship between queer youth and queer adults. In the past, both of these individuals have made statements which suggest that they’ve supported relationships between queer adults and queer teenagers. Since then, both of these individuals have either/both changed their position on these issues or clarified that they did not intend to be supportive of these relationships. This is a really important piece of queer history, though. We cannot necessarily easily explain away the fact that for many queer youth in the past, the only way out of an abusive environment was to find a queer adult to take them under their wing. There were not as many ways for queer youth of the past to find and support each other. We are in a position now to understand more fully that this is not a healthy or appropriate model for a romantic or sexual relationship due to the inherent power imbalance, but anyone who wants to do research into historical queer/kink information will need to be prepared to encounter some “problematic” (I kind of hate that word) takes, and to be willing to think critically about the context in which those takes were reached. It is NOT okay for adults to have romantic or sexual relationships with teenagers/youth, but we have to be more willing to understand the ways in which those types of relationships have existed in the past and have even been things that saved lives in the past. Our history and the context in which it occurred will not go away, we can only seek to learn and grow from it.