The Marquis de Sade was obsessed with the torture of women. “Sex without pain is like food without taste,” he wrote — and his life was positively a buffet. When he was not writing horny screeds from behind bars in …
Neil Gaiman and the perils of BDSM
In the literary world this week, a hackneyed writing genre got an unexpected revival: the stern-faced #MeToo callout. Fearlessly exposing a famous person’s sexual impropriety for the scandalised enjoyment of all, the long read in New York Magazine took as …
The original feminist BDSM cult
In 1984, the tiny Irish seaside town of Burtonport attracted a swarm of international press attention. The occasion was the opening of a new educational establishment: St Bride’s School for Girls, residing in a former hotel previously home to a …
Was the sexual revolution a mistake?
One of the many clashes within the modern feminist movement is between sex-positive feminists and sex-negative feminists, otherwise known as the prudes. The former argue for the virtues of no-holds-barred sexual freedom, while the latter believe that liberal feminism’s focus …
The case for the sexual revolution
If Nineties America was consumed by panic over teen pregnancy, sex bracelets, and the terrifying (albeit entirely fabricated) scourge of “rainbow parties”, today’s big concern is the absolute opposite: now, we’re very worried about all the sex young people aren’t …