050: Fetish and the Kinky Goth

This month we are discussing what elements create a goth identity and how we define them, we review the new album from A Thousand Hours, and we dive into the world of BDSM and Kink as we explore how those lifestyles and symbols relate to and interact with goth culture.

Our guest is Victor Moregore!

News: 10:32
-Anyone Can be Goth
         -Homology Hypothesis
         -Goth Points

Album Review: 1:01:54
-A Thousand Hours

Philosophy Corner: 1:17:33

Goth has an older history with the S&M community than one might think. In the 80’s these sex shops were a refuge for goths, punks, and alternatives alike, both as a safe space for expression and one of the few options to buy and modify alternative clothing. S&M was also seen in several deathrock and goth micromedia outlets, from music videos by bands like Nervous Gender, to transgressive publications like Propoganda Magazine, to full blown communities like the one centered around psychic TV. Even today, clubs that cater to BDSM clientele often host goth nights, blurring the lines between where goth and explicitly sexually deviant lifestyles start and end. Both BDSM and goth share lifestyle components, and both have seen their sartorial style, mined by pop artists and fashion lines, in an attempt add a darker edge to the mundanity of mainstream aesthetic, as if goth and BDSM were simply spectacular styles to be appropriated for similarly vacuous purposes. So on today’s episode, I’d like to explore those boundaries of style, community, and lifestyle, to see where these two cultures crossover and where they diverge.

Sinister Suggestion:

Vampire Journals

References:
-Aesthetic Sexuality: A Literary History of Sadomasichism
-Goth Culture: Gender, Sexuality, and Style
-Playing it Queer: Popular Music, Identity and Queer-World Making

Outtakes