Hanging 10 on a Wave of Historic Inevitability

• Presenter: M., Alan
• Date: Jun 20 2007
• Location: Diamond Jim's Saloon

Revolutions occur when individuals react to impersonal forces in large numbers. This creates a critical mass of people doing something new, which in turn produces a backlash from those committed to the old way of doing things. Technology in particular has driven revolutionary changes as powerful and diverse as the overthrow of monarchies and the creation of youth cultures which altered the lives of nations. Technology is a genie reluctant to go back into the bottle, and technologically driven change has proven very hard to stop.

The changes brought to the worlds of Leather, fetish and S&M by the internet have lead to a rapid growth in size, visibility and economic power of our movement; this has in turn created a reaction against us. The resulting conflict is growing in intensity and is unlikely to disappear without a resolution. In this presentation historian Alan M. provides an analysis of BDSM and Leather’s recent development in the context of earlier movements such as organized labor, Civil Rights, the Women’s Movement and even Rock ‘n Roll.