The whole leather, rubber, studded collar master/slave, whip-chain style fetish wear. What is the history and origin of these outfits and styles of clothing? How far back does this stuff go?
How is = What is
I had a thread on this a couple of years back, but search isn’t cooperating with me. There wasn’t anything conclusive… some folks said it started with bikers, some folks said it originated from the downtime pursuits of well-placed military men in WW2, others ask why there has to be a reason at all.
I still don’t get how gas masks could ever be arousing to anyone. It seems awfully specific to have arisen at random.
I’m not finding anything definitive, but the Scold’s Bridle, invented in the 16th century, sure looks like it has possibilities along the submission/domination line.
Not sure how precisely this relates to the question, but this thread is the one I thought might speak to the issue somewhat.
Whips/floggers are historically made from leather. Leather has a distinctive smell. If the slight smell of leather on the flogger is good, the strong smell of it on clothing is even better.
The whole S-M theme of sex was pretty well developed in the writings of the Marquis de Sade, around the mid- to late- 1700’s. And some of the documents about witches from the late 1500’s seem to have some definite strains of S-M sex activities in them.
Don’t forget Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, author of Venus in Furs, and the source of the word masochism.
An extract:
Venus in Furs (first published 1870)
What I wonder is where the NAME comes from how does the name of a type of African Animist Priest get associated with western S&M wear (or conversely how did African Animist Priests get named, at least in English, after western S&M wear)
I don’t recall any leather clothing in de Sade, though whips certainly abound.
Fetishism is the attribution of power to an object – it’s not the name of any particular religon or practitioner. Psychologists then extended the concept to sexual paraphilia; sexual fetishism as the attribution of sexual significance to an object.
It seems to me that several factors contribute to the development of fetish fashion: leather, latex, and PVC can all be made into tight, glossy clothing that highlights the form of the body, and can even shape it; leather in particular is popularly associated with the power and violence of biker gangs, Nazis, etc.; gags, collars, masks, whips, and such are rather obvious tools and symbols of dominance and humiliation; as was pointed out in that other thread, a lot of BDSM is about abnegation.
So there’s not really some older common inspiration for it all? It’s simply an expanding sub-culture feeding on it’s own memes.