Susie Bright's Journal

How A Teenage Femme Snuck Her Way Into the Mineshaft— NY's Legendary Men's S/M Club

 

 

The "Meatpacking District" in New York City was once ironic shorthand for the patch of West Village blocks, centered roughly at 14th Street and Ninth Avenue, to which countless visitors flocked, seeking the alternative sexual universe that existed there before the invasion of slumming heterosexual tourists looking for Stella McCartney's latest couture designs.

At the height of the feminist, gay, and sexual revolutions of the 1960's and '70s through the mid-'80s, the Meatpacking District was home to the city's thriving and mostly queer S/M and sex club scene.

from: "Losing the Meatpacking District: A Queer History of Leather Culture"

by Abby Tallmer

from Best Sex Writing 2012 

Far from being a desirable destination, the Far West Village, as it was known back then, was unknown territory to most New Yorkers except for butchers, neighborhood residents, and the select group of queer and kinky people who roamed the streets and filled the clubs there in the late-night hours, staggering home in the early morning as the sun was rising and most others were heading off to work. During the day, strong men dragged animal carcasses through the garbage-filled streets. It was an area reserved for those with iron stomachs, given the stench of dead flesh and rotting trash that permeated the air.

Growing up in the neighborhood, I was ashamed to invite my grade-school friends over for fear they would think I lived in a garbage dump.

But at night, the place came alive and the unlit, otherwise desolate streets became filled with other men, also tough-looking, but clad in leather chaps and motorcycle jackets with hankies protruding from their rear pockets and keys dangling from their sides. They lingered on street corners, purposefully eyeing one another, striking up conversations, offering each other a light, and often disappearing down mysterious alleyways or spilling into or out from unmarked but much-trafficked doorways.

There were other characters as well— adventurous male/female couples; groups of nervous young gay men and women clearly new to the area and intent on a mission, most often clad not in leather/fetish gear but in "regular" clothes; and the ever-present trans hookers, most, but not all, of whom were black or Hispanic.

 

“Never take your present for granted, because there’s no telling how quickly and how thoroughly it will be erased.”

 

Many of the hookers almost completely passed as women, most of them as stunning as they were scantily dressed. They could been seen most often awkwardly climbing into and out of the limos and trucks driven by the married men from Staten Island or New Jersey who traveled there just for them.

In the early 1970s, I lived five blocks north of Christopher Street and three blocks from the Hudson River. I was then about nine years old, a queer kid waiting for the right time to spring this news on my parents. I was raised in a very permissive household and often walked the streets alone even after dark.

Needless to say, the night action in my neighborhood hardly went unnoticed by me and, in fact, served as the object of much curiosity.

I remember riding my bike around the neighborhood, making special trips past the piers and the bathhouses and through the deserted side streets west of Greenwich Street, and down 14th Street and the short blocks just below. Though I wasn't quite sure what exactly went on behind these hidden and locked doors, I knew somehow— God knows how— that whatever it was had something to do with being gay, with being sexual, and even with a particular form of gay sexual expression that I gathered was considered in some way shameful.

The very same men who cheerily said hi to me in my building's elevator usually looked more horrified than happy to see me when I greeted them from my bicycle as they loitered, regaled in leather, in alleyways or in front of dimly-lit clubs or bathhouses.

As I would learn later, the unofficial center of all of this action was the "Triangle Building" on 14th Street and Ninth Avenue, which now houses Vento, a popular Italian restaurant opened in 2004, but was then the site of some of the most notorious leather bars in the city.

 

Entrances to a stunning array of S/M and sex clubs and backrooms lined both the Eighth and the Ninth Avenue sides of the Triangle. Those directly on the Triangle included the nationally known Hellfire Club, the Vault, J's, The Man Hole and many others. 

Queer clubs within strolling distance included the notorious Mineshaft, the Anvil, the Asstrick, the Cellblock, the International Stud, the Glory Hole and, later, the Lure. Many patrons migrated back and forth all night long, every night of the week back when sexual freedom defined an era.

Nearly all of these clubs, except for the Hellfire Club and the Vault, were predominantly gay, though a few stray women here and there could at times be spotted in some of the less strict men's-only clubs.

The Mineshaft's door policy, however, was notoriously strict, and many gay men were turned away each night for violating its strict leather/macho dress code. That didn't keep some inventive women from testing whether it was foolproof.

I know this to be true firsthand, for one night just after I turned 18, my best friends, Saul and Brian, decided that it would be fun to dress me up and sneak me in with them.

...continued in "Best Sex Writing 2012"

Hasbian Pride, Worn-Out Sluts, and Bisexuality

 

Susie, I want to interview you about your bisexuality.

In your memoir, you mention a little girl in day care whom you had a crush on when you were two. Your romantic fantasy was that she was Rose Red and you were Snow White. You were already queering fairy tales, in daycare. What do you make of that?

Interview by  Sheela Lambert

 

Snow White and Rose Red seem like an iconic coupling: twins, lovers, best friends, opposites. Jungian soul mates. I also always got the feeling Snow was the virgin and Rose was the wise whore. 

 

Your girl-crushes obviously started early. When was the first time you had a crush on a boy?

Hmm… good question. I became aware that it was “cool” to have crushes on boys by sixth grade— as opposed to hating their guts, the previous playground protocol.

The boys I truly adored were The Beatles. I broke with the Church over them. I wouldn't burn my albums. 

Kids were so segregated by gender in my day. I never went to birthday parties or events that weren’t “girls only.”

In 6th grade, Tony Bauer (how on earth do I remember these names?) asked me to dance at a school event. The song was "Venus" by the Shocking Blue. He told me I “danced good”— which thrilled me to death. 

I didn’t have much feeling for him, but the compliment made me woozy.

Junior high school upped the ante on flirting. The boys would chase the girls on the ice, the frozen lakes— and I loved “the chase.” But again, I didn’t fix my hormones on them. I had fantasies about both men and women, older men and women, not kids my own age. I was like the girl in the "Sound of Music," Looking for Someone Older and Wiser.

Your question makes me realize I was a late bloomer. I didn't appreciate pure masculinity, sexually, in men or women, until after I'd had more sophisticated lesbian life in my 20s. 

 

When did you realize that not everyone has such wide-ranging attractions and that bisexuality was frowned on by many? What was your reaction to that?

I came of age in a political, “start the revolution”-type atmosphere. I thought that if everyone would just relax and liberate their minds, they would realize they were truly bisexual and non-monogamous... LOL.

I’m poking fun at myself saying this. But I also viewed society with critical eyes, as any puberty-struck individual does. I knew most people weren’t anywhere close to living their sexual potential, and that’s still the truth!

My family and best friends at school-- we were on the same page. My parents knew a lot more gay and bi people than I did; they’d been in gay intellectual milieus (Berkeley, Venice, Hollywood etc) since the 1940s. No one I loved was going to condemn me for bisexuality, far from it. 

My bisexual higher education came from becoming familiar with the Kinsey scale. I realized that liberated or not, people would always have their druthers. Sexual life is a lot more complicated than it looks on the surface.  

In your book, you don’t describe any coming out process and it appears that you always accepted yourself. Was it because of the era of free love and the sexual revolution? 

Yes!

 

Or are you just braver or more matter-of-fact than most people?

The feminist and gay liberation movement made me even braver and blunter, but those are probably typical characteristics of mine.

 

Bisexual people are often assumed to be gay or straight, depending on the gender of our partner. Have you experienced this? How has it affected you?

Oh sure. A little less than most people, because my reputation precedes me. 

Now that I’m in my fifties, sexual invisibility is the greater issue, rather than everyone imagining what a hot chick I am in either direction.

Fretting over people getting my label right seems dewy and fresh-faced to me from my older vantage point.

As one ages and fucks around, you and your peers realize that anything, at any time, could be possible with the right social lubricant. You have been around the block... no other label needed.

The peculiar thing I see as a public figure— and many activists know it well—  is that when you take an aggressive stand for gay rights, if you champion dyke culture and politics, journalists and scholars will call you “that lesbian So-n-So” for years to come. 

One is happy to be associated with dyke-identity. I don’t want to "correct" them if they think I am “shying away” from lesbianism… quite the opposite!

The journalists and scholars who make this error tend to be conservative in their thinking. I’d secretly pleaesd they assume everyone different from them is homosexual and let them stay awake at night, trembling with latent sweat.

But then, LATER, a critic who’s touchy about the INTEGRITY of my bisexuality will come up to me and say, “Who are you to be calling yourself Miss Lesbian in this article?”

They think I am trying to “wear the crown” without earning it.

Well, lesbian activists all over can tell you the “crown” is no ring of gold. We get used for target practice, mostly. I’m happy to be thought of as “dyke” for any and all waving banners and political agendas. I am one. In my personal life, though, like everyone else’s, things are more unexpected and un-label-able.

 

Having a child was a turning point in your life. You say it forced you to take better care of yourself, because of your motivation to protect your child. What things in your life did you change as a result?

Number One: I stopped parenting "surrogate adult-children." Who has the time when you have a real baby? 

Suddenly Real Grown-Ups seemed SO sexually attractive to me-- a first. This was a bigger deal than being bi-sexual. I got out of the Peter Pan playground.

 

I was shocked to read that, when you made the decision to leave On Our Backs, which you co-founded; you were sued by your partners, who were also your close friends. 

Yes, I was shocked too. I hope I conveyed that disbelief in Big Sex Little Death. It was shattering.

 

Obviously, they thought you were irreplaceable and were afraid the magazine would go under without you.

No…  that’s not true. That wasn’t the language or the feeling of it. 

My business partner had been my best friend. I was the "little sister" to her. She didn’t think I was especially irreplaceable... it was more like, “What is Susie trying to pull?”

She didn’t believe my reasons for wanting to transition… my infant, the financial strain, my feeling that something “had to give.”

Debi Sundahl hired a new editor for OOB, sold it, it went on for years without me.  A different creature, to be sure— but still meaningful to readers and contributors.

It was terrible that seemingly overnight, we felt estranged, as if we'd never known each other well. It made me doubt myself more than her!

That’s the kind of blindness I was eager to recover from. It was the beginning of real therapy for me. I never want to have a friendship again where the important things remain unsaid, forever. I didn't want to be afraid of my loved ones.

 

I was mystified by their demand you couldn’t write or be published anywhere else, when you had been freelancing the whole time you worked there. 

You’re trying to be logical. None of it was rational. The lawsuit failed; it was a nuisance suit. Famously, anyone in America can sue anyone for anything.

 

After you had your daughter and left On Our Backs, you wound up partnering with a man. Reading the book, it seems as though you were lesbian-identified at the time….Did you surprise yourself? Was there any backlash from the lesbian community about that? 

It’s funny you said “partnering…” like it was premeditated and constructive.

I was lovers with several people, as usual. I had friends and sweethearts, and I didn’t think of any of them as my “partner.” Oh no. Some were good friends, which seemed to be as much as one could ask for.

I still feel that way. I don't feel like I've "wound up" anywhere except what's happening today. The story ain't over yet!

As time went by in the early 90s, my friend Jon and I spent more and more time together… it happened slowly, without precision. I wish I could remember what day we first kissed, or went to bed, or decided to mostly live together, and then to “really” live together. It all happened in such an unfixed fashion, I don’t know any of those dates! We are sadly without an anniversary date.

I was not surprised to love or be in love with a man; I had been in love with men before.

I WAS surprised to get along with anyone in a house together, day after day, that’s what I was surprised at. To have love's endurance instead of love's drama.

I wrote a lot about the the backlash you speak of in astory called “BlindSexual.” That IS my Bisexual RANT TO END ALL RANTS.

I quote Roland Barthes:

"I am reduced to endurance.... I suffer without adjustment, I persist without intensity, always bewildered, never discouraged. I am a Daruma doll, a legless toy endlessly poked and pushed, but finally regaining its balance, assured by an inner balancing pin."

 

According to your book, there was a time that all your relationships were open. Now that you’re living with a long-term partner has that changed? 

Nope. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

I know bi-sexuals are under some conformist pressure to proclaim that they can be "monogamous" lke anyone else... but that isn't me, nor does it speak to most sex lives looked at over the long haul.

My first sexual experiences were in groups, with more than "2" -- that's what felt normal to me. It still does. And it feels natural to be attracted to more than one person at a time, and to act upon that feeling.

It doesn't change my loyalty to my friends and family. I am bewildered how the two get confused.

 

Did you ever tell your father about your mother’s suicide attempts and abuse? 

Later, to a certain extent. Once I moved in with him at 14, he realized I was afraid of her. It made him feel so bad to know the details, it was like torture to put him through it. We both were happier to focus on "making it better now."  And for the most part, that was the right choice.

 

How did you recover from that emotionally?

a) I didn’t

b) Writing and the life of the mind

c) Therapy

d) Raising kids and breaking the cycle

 

I noticed that in your section about your time with On Our Backs, you mostly used the word “lesbian” instead of “lesbian and bisexual.”  Did you identify as lesbian at that point? I’m wondering, as a bi woman writer, why you didn’t try to integrate that more in your wording?

I know this isn’t going to answer your question, but I still feel like a dyke. Hasbian Pride.

Most of the lovers in my life are gay or bisexual, regardless of their gender. There really isn't a button big enough to explain the whole thing.

When I was editing OOB, it was no secret I was bi, or femme, or had varied sex with all kinds of people--- but what was the point of mentioning it like a social security number on every page?  

I was publishing a bohemian lesbian magazine. That’s what was the center of my life. We didn’t have conventional sex lives. Most of the lesbians I worked with were whores and strippers and butches. It was beyond lesbian, bi, or any acronym you can think of.

There were squares, the “civilians,” and there was us.

OOB ran thoughtful stories about transsexuality, bisexuality, married lesbians, sex worker dykes, all sorts of things, and in those situations, we were detailed in our descriptions. But I wasn’t going to print "LGBTFXXXXX" every time I touched the keyboard. We were artists, not sloganeers.

It was a given, if you embraced our philosophy, that we were the worn-out sluts, the unapologetic freaks, the whore diaspora.  For awhile, that’s why saying “queer” was a real relief. Then even that became politically correct. 

 

What is your advice to bi writers who want to write bi-themed works and get published?

I think the best bisexual stories I read now are just honest deliverance, no agendas. They may not even use that word; they just tell the tale. Don't try to win the community's approval; it's impossible. 

There's so many moments of bisexual life that no one talks about. It doesn't have to be Some Great Rant, although that's tempting. Take a day in the life and tell it well. 

Your subject is not a liability, at all.

Read American's greatest authors. A majority of them, I'm sure you notice, were and are bisexual.

 

Photo: Jill Posener 

 

 

 

 

The Impact of "Nothing But the Girl: The Blatant Lesbian Image"

Wonderfully titillating, January 3, 2011

I bought this book as a gift for my girlfriend. I was looking for a book of photos; something like a coffeetable book and this was perfect! The images captured are fantastic and the subject matter is raw. It is not just pretty pictures of mainstream sterotypical beautiful girls. It has pictures of gorgeous women from all walks of life- femmes, dykes, heavy, small, perfect, scarred, soft and hardcore. I was impressed and she LOVED it. I highly recommend it for those who appreciate the real deal and love artistic expression.

 

This book could save women's lives, November 22, 2010

This is not "I kissed a girl and I liked it." It's certainly not the Cosmo lesbian (even though I like Cosmo just fine, thanks). Listen to this line from Jill Posener: "When I was 15...I had recently seen the movie "The Fox". I went to the movie theatre on my own, I came away with this blinding headache--you know, that throbbing when you've just been told you have a fatal disease." This is when she told her mother "I think I'm a lesbian." 
There is a fierce quality to that quote that defines the whole book: When loving between women is so raw, so unstoppable, that it can't be undone, and a life is altered. Our society would say the "blatant lesbian image" is not marketable, not pretty enough--but these photos show it is. 

They are very explicit, especially the BDSM, and the Butch Bois are so, well, BUTCH, that it made my eyes hurt. Even underneath that, the reader can see how gorgeous women are, even when they're dressed up like macho men. The female presence persists, in spite of it all. I laughed when I read that some of the women only watch Gay Male porn, because female porn is just too LOVING. 

I found the feminism refreshing, because it's not politically correct. Every photographer in the book agreed: women can't be liberated if our voices are ignored, made soft and sweet--because it's just another cage. It's not misunderstanding of sexuality that leads to violence against women, but hatred of women, period. At least that's what I got out of the essays. 
There's alot of grief, too, in the writing. The dedication reads:" for the lesbian artists who are not in the collection, because you fear for your job, because you fear abandonment..." and it's a relief that someone admits it. 

When I was in college, I read a pretty heterosexual feminist who wrote "The male body is my homeland." I wonder if she ever had to pay a price for loving men. Did it change her life? Her religion? Did her family kick her out? For the writers and photographers in this book, the female body and soul is the ultimate homeland, worth every fight and every price.

 

A different look at a classic vision, June 20, 2008

The female nude has been a staple of western art for at least the last half-millenium. More often than not, male artists and male viewers (me included) approach that vision with a rational esthetic edged with an animal desire. The thing is, others look at women's beauty with animal desire, too. 

Other women, for example. Sex being what it is to our species, even minor differences in approach take on large meanings. Likewise, even large differences can take on minor meanings, or none at all. This remarkable collection shows both aspects of that contrast (or lack) between the lesbian and the classically straight images of desire. That cover shot appeals to me, for example. I've always liked the woman's figure that radiates physical power so different from men's. 

All that said, I come away from this collection with mixed impressions. Parts of it seem more documentary. Yes, some ladies do have a muff nearly from knee to navel and fuzzy bits in other unfashionable locations, but the same hormones that tend toward body hair also tend to intensify sexual expressiveness, as at least one model demonstrates. I'm not one to take prettiness for beauty - if you prefer to think of it this way, "God doesn't make mistakes." There's a strong fetish element in this collection, often with leather and occasionally with pain, that does nothing for me, likewise the femme extreme of seamed stockings, lingerie unrelated to real underclothes, and tottery heels. Other exaggerations don't appeal to me either. I don't see that much distinction between the super-butch and the macho man, or control play no matter who controls whom or how harshly. But others parts attract me strongly. Gentle play always appeals to me, even solo or gentle-with-an-edge; given that, the specific players tend to matter less to me. And simple photographic statements that a woman's figure is a really cool thing, well, I'm right there for it. 

I'm not in this collection's target demographic, even though I'm in its target species, so parts of its esthetic passed by me. Many of the photos captivated me, though. Many others documented a view that I don't share, and so piqued my interest. 
-- wiredweird

Thank You Susie! from a Man, March 14, 2007

I do love this book! It's so far removed from the glossy, polished, airbrushed world so many perceive as the norm for Lesbians, all their (mis) information having come from the fantasy world of pornography, a world run by mostly male or compliant, obedient, submissive women. Real lesbians are more likely to have hairy underarms and vaginas, have their own behaviours and love rituals, possibly even involving hurting each other and the subsequent compassion of that shared pain and they mostly don't live in the Penthouses and Billion dollar properties that high gloss image creators can afford to hire for a day's photo-shoot. 

Real lesbians are often overweight by comparison (as are most of the straight peers to the glamour/fantasy industry's girls), living real and normal lives in real and normal places and suffering the same real and normal emotional harrowings the rest of us do on life's path. 

I enjoy the casual candour of this book, so accepting of everything from some pretty `out there' behaviours to the same casual acceptance of the possibility of lesbians wanting sex with a man now and then (often a demonized lust in the `scene' circles where we men are sometimes more perceived as `the enemy' by the militant). 

I don't care what your `thing' is, gay, straight, outrageously kinky, bizarre or whatever. What I will always applaud is open acceptance of anyone's behaviour that doesn't interfere with any other's right to the same (and that protects the aged, the children and the infirm-the responsibility of all of us who are blessed not to be in the vulnerable categories).

The other thing I love about this book is it so readily acknowledges the power and force of female sex drive-That connection to the sacred when in it's purest form there is no taboo-Where it can be Blood, saliva, vaginal fluid, menstrual discharge, where all is felt, expressed and experienced with abandon and total absorption in the fragility and momentary nature of our humanity and the indestructibility and eternity of our spirituality.

For all the books about sexuality and `guides' by people who write like it's a manual and provide pictures that are so sterile and unemotional they could make a red blooded bloke contemplate celibacy, it's almost a pity that the heights and power provided by abandon and surrender is found in a gay womens' manuscript, but who cares? At least someone is acknowledging it and maybe it's some compensation for Lesbians having to deal with being a marginalized minority most of the time. (Access to `the secret'?!!) 
Cheers 
Lloyd 

Larger than life compilation, September 12, 2006

This is an amazing collection. Explicit photos and top of the line production quality. 

I enjoyed how the chapters and photographs were presented. The introductions do a great job explaining to the reader what they are about to see and they should not be skipped. The first four sections (labeled Dyke, C*unt, Butch and Sex) carry a huge spectrum of images from the lovely to the not so lovely, from the sensual to the outrageous. I can't imagine the editors believe all the images would appeal to all the readers so I chose to enjoy what I found appealing, study those I didn't and move on. 

I initially bought the book as it has a wealth of material by the artist Tee A. Corinne and devotes 8 pages to her and another 5 of her images are carried in other sections. The other major artists profiled are Honey Lee Cottrell, Della Grace, Morgan Gwenwald and Jil Posener. 

I especially enjoyed the sidebar that accompanied many of the pages `Behind the Camera: Interviews with the Artists'. The candid replies by the artists made for exceptional reading. 

 

Provactive, Challenging, and Honest, July 11, 1998

A provactive look at real lesbian sexual life at the edge. Some of the photographs are artistically brilliant, some are fascinating, and some may be repellent, but all have an honesty and intensity which is refreshing and unusual. As a photographer, I highly recommend it. Some of the images are quite graphic and powerful.

A different look at a classic vision, June 20, 2008

The female nude has been a staple of western art for at least the last half-millenium. More often than not, male artists and male viewers (me included) approach that vision with a rational esthetic edged with an animal desire. The thing is, others look at women's beauty with animal desire, too. 

Other women, for example. Sex being what it is to our species, even minor differences in approach take on large meanings. Likewise, even large differences can take on minor meanings, or none at all. This remarkable collection shows both aspects of that contrast (or lack) between the lesbian and the classically straight images of desire. That cover shot appeals to me, for example. I've always liked the woman's figure that radiates physical power so different from men's. 

All that said, I come away from this collection with mixed impressions. Parts of it seem more documentary. Yes, some ladies do have a muff nearly from knee to navel and fuzzy bits in other unfashionable locations, but the same hormones that tend toward body hair also tend to intensify sexual expressiveness, as at least one model demonstrates. I'm not one to take prettiness for beauty - if you prefer to think of it this way, "God doesn't make mistakes."

There's a strong fetish element in this collection, often with leather and occasionally with pain, that does nothing for me, likewise the femme extreme of seamed stockings, lingerie unrelated to real underclothes, and tottery heels. Other exaggerations don't appeal to me either. I don't see that much distinction between the super-butch and the macho man, or control play no matter who controls whom or how harshly. But others parts attract me strongly.

Gentle play always appeals to me, even solo or gentle-with-an-edge; given that, the specific players tend to matter less to me. And simple photographic statements that a woman's figure is a really cool thing, well, I'm right there for it. 

I'm not in this collection's target demographic, even though I'm in its target species, so parts of its esthetic passed by me. Many of the photos captivated me, though. Many others documented a view that I don't share, and so piqued my interest. On the whole, I find this collection decidedly mixed in its match to my preferences. 
-- wiredweird

 

Reviews: Amazon Customer Page

 

Top to Bottom Photos:

Jessica Tanzer

Clare Garoutte

Jill Posener

Del LaGrace Volcano

Honey Lee Cottrell

Romy Suskin

 

 

 

A Brief History of On Our Backs, 1984-1991

A History Of On Our Backs: 

Entertainment for the Adventurous Lesbian

 The Original: 1984-1990

 

January, 2009: I wrote this very brief history because when I checked online for a history of On Our Backs, there was nothing at all. 

OOB was an influential and remarkable part of lesbian, feminist, and publishing history. I had to cobble something together, and this was a start.

I was the editor in chief from our first year, 1984, until early 1991.

The magazine itself has been long out of business. It had two owners and several staffs after I left. Hopefully, others will write their story someday!  

There is a complete set of On Our Backs magazines at Brown University library, available to scholars to review at the library.

 Update, 3.25.11: I have written a more complete and intimate history of my time at On Our Backs, called “Big Sex Little Death.”

For a photographic history of OOB, I'd suggest the book Jill Posener and I edited, "Nothing But the Girl."

Update, 9.1.11: OOB staffers, models, and contributors, from 1983-1991:  We have created a private Facebook group. Please contact Susie or Lulu or Nan, at their FB addresses, if you would like to join us.

 If you know of any other histories of On Our Backs in print, please contact me at susie@susiebright.com.

  

I moved to San Francisco in 1980, where I  lived the life of the femme diva starlet in an anarchist commune in the barrio. In other words, typical City living. 

One night, I read a poem comparing fisting my girlfriend to quantum physics at Modern Times bookstore in their newly title queer poets series.  Queer was a subversive word at that time. Afterwards, this blonde chick with a pageboy slipped me a personal letter. She said she loved my poetry, and invited me to be a part of the first issue of On Our Backs, "entertainment for the adventurous lesbian." 

 If anyone has ever been seduced by the mere title of a promise, that was me. I had been a voracious teen reader of OFF our Backs, the feminist newsweekly, and it had broken my heart when their staff turned so viciously against sexual liberation.  This new magazine offered the perfect antidote.

That blonde with the blunt cut falling over her eyes was Myrna Elana, one of the cofounders of On Our Backs.  Her "work wife" and partner in crime was Debi Sundahl-- they worked in the peep shows and strip clubs of the Tenderloin district, and shared a Victorian in the Haight Ashbury with Debi's lover, Nan.  

In the beginning, i was just a contributor waiting for the bells to go off. But after several months of silence, I sought out these mysterious OOB girls. When I found them, I told them I had been part of a high school underground newspaper, and I could perform any shit work connected with getting a magazine out--- what could I do to help?  I could see they were overwhelmed. 

The main problem was... you guessed it... money.  They asked me to be the "Advertising Director," which if you knew my communist past, was a real laugh. But I worked at Good Vibrations at the time-- in fact, I was the only employee at Good Vibrations. 

I earnestly called all the vendors  I did business with, and asked them to take out little $25 and $50 ads in our debut issue. Hey, buy the whole page for $100! I remember our two big advertisers were Last Gasp Comix-- Ron Turner told me it was a "fine lesbian humor magazine" and just handed me cash-- and the Mitchell Brothers Theater-- Debi, as well as many of our first models, all worked in their sex club, or starred in their movies.

Kathy Andrew of Stormy Leather, the first woman to tailor leatherwear for women, was another one of our first advertisers. Kathy had an antique sewing machine that she  operated like a crazed elf in a leaking basement on Sanchez St.  Gosnell Duncan, who invented the silicon dildo, paid  us to do a crazy beach/mermaid photo shoot with his "products". It was the first national advertising for dildos, and every issue he let us do another “campaign”, culminating in our Mapplethorpe-esque Perfect Moment where we modeled his favorite item, "The Susie," with a callalily and a beautiful round mirror.

My lover Honey Lee Cottrell, shot most of our first photography for the first issues, including those ads for Gosnell. When I think back, she might have worked harder than any of us-- the photo shoots were so hard to arrange, and then there was endless printing in the Harvey Milk public photo labs.  She and HER ex-lover, Tee Corinne, had literally invented lesbian erotic photography in the 1970s. Morgan Gwenwald in New York was another pioneer.

You look at the first lesbian sex books, "Sapphistry" by Tee and Pat Califia, and "Coming to Power" by the Samois collective, and there you’ll find the first lesbian women opening showing their bodies and their sexuality. 

 It was no coincidence that the S/M, punk-era women were the first to show their faces to the public... they were the first to have the nerve. It was as if you had to be a  career whore, a dedicated outcast, to show your face in a lesbian  magazine... let alone your pussy. 

When OOB debuted, some readers complained that they wanted to see vanilla, "bank-teller" type babes in the pictures.  We replied, "Well, come on down and let us shoot you!"  ---Because the punk strippers didn't want to put on bank teller outfits, they wanted to express themselves.

I'd like to mention some of the models that changed the way lesbians think about themselves:  Terri and Caerage--- the most beautiful punk /butch -femme couple  ever. Rachel and Elexis-- who turned the black lesbian community upside down. Kitty Tsui did the same in Pacific/Asian dyke culture. Pepper, and  Rock ‘n’ Roll Ramona were the darlings of the first lesbian burlesque--- the girls would drown them in flowers and shots.  Cassie and Raven, both now deceased, ( breast cancer and suicide, respectively)  were the sexist women I ever laid eyes on. They started the first women's escort service and without a doubt could make ANY woman’s dream come true between the two of them.  I haven’t seen such sexual charisma since.

I'm not kidding about the revolutionary effect they had on strangers lives. ONe woman told me she took one look at the OOB cover of Rachel and Elexis, packed her bags in Minnesota that evening, and moved to California. That story was multiplied many times.

Expressing yourself was what it was all about. I look back on that first year and just sigh at all that talent, and the rage that had pent it all up. Dorothy Allison, Joan Nestle, Pat Califia, Sarah Schulman, Sapphire, myself--- we couldn't be published in the lesbian presses because of our politics and sexuality, and we couldn't be published in the mainstream world because of its overt homophobia and misogyny.  These were some of the best American writers of their generation!

Honey Lee and I were very close to Nan and Debbie, like a little family. There weren't a lot of butch femme younger couples at the time— in fact, we felt like the new demonstration. Even though Honey and Nan weren't technically "editors" they worked on the magazine all the time. When Nan got mildly injured at her day job  we were  delighted, because she got disability leave, and she never went back. She took over magazine distribution and embarked on the first lesbian porn video production with Deb.

Myrna and Debi had a falling out after the first issue, and I honestly don't know to this day what it was all about. I could see that Myrna was not into working 24/7 on On OUr Backs like the rest of us, which in hindsight, might have been wise of her!  But she dropped out, in any case, and I became editor.

I remember writing my first sex column “Toys For Us”-- that was fun. Those columns eventually became the basis for “Susie Sexpert’s Lesbian Sex World.”

In my first paragraph, I tried to convince dykes to get over their sex toy phobias, especially about penetration.  I said, "penetration is only as heterosexual as kissing is".  I teased everyone about how they could revolutionize their sex life with a little humor and playfulness.  My sentiments were quite spontaneous, but I realize now it was a novel approach. People had been SO GRIM about vibrators and sex toys-- they were called "marital aids,"  at the time, as if they were some kind of awful crutch. Only hookers and sex workers called them “toys!”

 

 Everyone thought sad, dirty old men were the customer base for such “aids”.  I had lesbians come into my sex toy shop and actually start CRYING about how they worried that they were going to be kicked out of the gay universe because they wanted to get fucked.   No one would believe it now.

The early OOB writers came from a few places, including a lot of classified ads we placed around lesbian journals that would take us. We inherited the Samois mailing list, which was huge at the time. Even though Samois was a lesbian S/M group, it ended up attracting every kind of women who was into sex on any level, because there was nowhere else to go! Plus, it was stuffed with intellectuals and artists.  The east coast counterpart was in New York, the Lesbian Sex Mafia (LSM).  

The gay men who edited Drummer were our mentors in many ways. John Rowberry, John Preston, Jack Fritscher.  They had patience and wisdom for everything from printer nightmares to diva models who suddenly acted like they were going to run for Miss America.

The magazine started out with three pieces of fiction, one major feature, a few columns of advice and reviews, and three pictorials. Just like Playboy! We even had a "Bulldagger of the Month" in our first issue.

We were so controversial in the beginning, it completely defined us. There were about three women's bookstores in the whole country who would sell us. Instead, we were distributed by gay men’s bookshops, anarchist/commie bookstores, the underground comix people, and a few old porn purveyors who thought we were a kick in the pants. Prominent women's bookstores either banned us, or carried one copy with a big sign on it about how treacherous and gynocidal we were. Just try and ask them for a copy! 

 It was bittersweet when I watched all those same bookstores go out of business  as the years went by. Part of their misfortune was tied to the overall demise of independent bookstores --- but to some degree they had alienated their natural audience by being such elitists and censors.  They never relented.  I loved the stubbornness of lesbian separatism, I even miss it now, but the anti-sex germ within it was nothing but pure destruction.

We thought our scene was awfully smart. I remember composing an ad for UTNE Reader, which read: "The most intelligent sex magazine in the world just happens to be lesbian."  That was truly our point of view. We were witty and incisive and outrageous. The men's' sex magazines were a torpid bore, straight women hadn't crawled out of their egg yet, and the academics were only talking theory while we were DOING IT.  We attracted subscribers from a new hip strata of the counter culture.

Here's another marvel:  On Our Backs is the first-- the very first-- national magazine produced with desktop publishing. Debi was the Mac visionary. She though Steve Jobs was  a genius and bought us their first personal computer. I remember SOBBING because I thought I wouldn't be able to operate it because I was no good at MATH!  That makes me laugh so hard now. We used PageMaker 1.0 to design and typeset the magazine. It had TWO fonts, HElvetica and Palatino.  It just cracks me up to think of our design disadvantages.  But there was no way to pay the printer bills otherwise. But Apple put us into the nascent geek world, and as everyone discovered, geeks were very sex-positive, in fact, they came up with the word.

Nowadays a gay or sex magazine can make credible ad sales. But in the early 80s, it was like soliciting charitable contributions. No one except the old school porn boys were making any money in the sex biz and they didn't understand our audience or mission.  We got most of our content for little or nothing. I worked for free until the very end. We all made our nut in other ways. 

But because it was a sex magazine, we had to pay a premium to find a printer who would take us. This is the most clear example of how sexual expression is suppressed--- he who owns the press makes the rules. We had to pay 5-10 times the amount a normal magazine would pay who didn't have "dirty pictures." I am still furious about this discrimination to this very day.

The printers were afraid they'd be closed down by the federal government if they printed porn. In truth, they hadn't been bothered since the early 60s. It's just that the same old farts ran the place, like elephants, and they never got over the McCarthy era. Never.  I found that being treated like a pariah as a pornographer in America was very much like how I'd been treated  as a socialist in America.

I still remember a few other benchmarks...  one was that that we were the first lesbian press of ANY kind to run a real article about AIDS, and its risk to lesbians. The leading lights of the lesbian movement had their heads in the sand when it came to this disease. The standard issue was "lesbians cant' get it." Period.  What did they know?  

I can't believe how irresponsible they were. AIDS also inspired great dread among dykes because it exposed the fact that  the majority of lesbians had had some intercourse with men since the epidemic started. In fact, lesbians at that time were more likely to have sex with "high risk men"-- ie, gay or bi men-- than exclusively straight women were. (This was before AIDS became such a big issue for hets as well).  

Anyway, we ran the story that no one wanted to tell. ANother instance of speaking the unspeakable was something a bit more fun. At the end of the 80s, I met a number of dykes who told me they liked to watch gay pron. Funky!  I thought it was a hoot, since I'd never tried it.  But when I started talking about, I found that many lesbians thought this was another new low in dyke aesthetics. We decided to do an article about dykes digging gay porn, and Honey Lee shot our first pictorial with a real PENIS... two gay guys doing it on the floor while Kitty and BC watched. 

Not long after that story, we ran the first lesbian story  about female to male transsexuality, and Loren Cameron and Justin Green posed for Honey Lee again. I had no idea what a huge story that would end up being... how many women would be inspired and touched by their words.

On a more practical level, I would easily claim that On Our Backs created the first mainstream acceptance of "women's erotica', the practical steps to finding one's g-spot, and having a free 'n' easy attitude toward dildos and vibrators. We taught the world how to use a strap-on. We made sex fun and smart for women, something that was entirely in a female self-interest. It went way beyond homosexuality, it was really feminist sex liberation.

Lesbians have often asked me if I have any regrets about On Our Backs, and why I ended up leaving my work there after 6+ years. 

My regret is that very subject, the leaving. It was brutal. I couldn't' read On Our Backs at all for a few years after I left, it made me so upset. They might have been great issues, btu I was still heartbroken.

In retrospect, I see that when I had my daughter in 1990, even though I planned to go right back to work, I was naive about how my life would change, as many new moms are. 

I had a real baby on my hands, and yet OOB had always been my “baby” as well. It was really rough to divide my time without feeling like I was l was an utter failure at both responsibilities. 

At the same time, my business co-partner, and best friend, Debi, was going off in her own new directions. At the time I would have told you, “She’s nuts, she’s inside her office screaming about wallpapering her bedroom!”-- but nowadays I wouldn’t presume to judge. 

We were all way overdue for a first-rate nervous breakdown. The entire lesbian establishment hated our guts. Mainstream publishers and pornographers ignored us or cheated us. The money pressure was hideous and any moment I expected to be taken away to debtors prison. We had  a couple thousand starry-eyed fans who had no idea what kind of trouble we were in, and we didn’t want to spoil their illusion. The reality of our impossibility was devastating, and it didn’t help anymore to hear we were “ahead of our time.”

When I decided I needed to change the balance of my tightrope act in favor of Mommy-ness, Debi hit the roof. She hit the roof, of the roof, of the roof. If only I had let her wrap herself in wallpaper first, maybe I could have avoided the whole thing!

Debi served me with a subpoena for subordinating my corporate responsibility. She had a meeting with me and a lawyer where she said she wanted me to pack my bags in a week (I had in mind a yearlong, find-the-new-editor process) and she wanted a stipulation that I could never write professionally again, at least without paying a hefty portion of my income.   

To this day, I have no idea why she went so vengeful I walked out with nothing but my baby in my arms, but that was the reason I had to leave anyway.  I don’t regret it, because my motherhood improved about 5000%-- I actually took care of her and saw her little face when I wasn’t one my way to or from work, crabby and exhausted.

But my OOB breakup was gutwrenching. We really did love each other, and I guess that was what made it so bewildering. If everyone had taken a chill pill, I would have loved to work 20 hours a week and find the next new hottie editor. My only solace when I look back on this nightmare is that I hear many other creative teams have had similar fireworks when they broke up. So we were not unique!

Debbie got married to a man, then divorced, and continued to promote her Female Ejaculation video along with other sex education and spiritual projects. She had always wanted the magazine to make money-- real money-- and it must have galled her to ultimately sell the whole operation for a pittance. She realized that videos were where the profits were. I never saw her again after the lawyer nonsense. 

Nan got a new girlfriend and moved to Minnesota, working at one of the women's bookstores that used to be a hard ass about On Our Backs, but then changed their ways!  She looked me up one year a decade later and when we reunited, we hugged each other for an eternity. She and her lover Christi Cassidy, run Fatale Video, still the original lesbian video company.

Nan and I, along with Debi and Honey, are the only ones who truly know the hair-raising, insane stunts we pulled, day after day, to put out our beloved bit of revolution. 

Honey Lee and I broke up after 7 years, and subsequently I was a most fickle and gadabout gal about town for a few years before I settled down with my current lover, Jon.  My “baby” is now a grown-up artist herself. and her godmother, Honey Lee, taught her a great deal about photography and film, just as she did with me.

 I’m very close to many of the artists I met through OOB-- they’re my family. Aretha has shown photo prints from the early On Our Backs to show her classes. I’m so touched she sees the beauty and authenticity in those things that made me feel so powerful in the very beginning.

 

Photos, top to bottom:

Phyllis Christopher, Honey Lee Cottrell, Honey Lee Cottrell and Tee Corinne, Honey Lee Cottrell, Cathy Lee Prochazka, Jill Posener, Jill Posener, Tee Corinne.

 

Some Like It Taut— From the Mixed-Up Porn Files of Mrs. Susie Bright

"Some Like It Taut"

—July 1987

S&M is often accompanied by bondage, the art of restraint. You can watch all kinds of modern bondage demonstrations, but the classic bondage master of all time was a man named Irving Klaw, who worked in the late 40s and 50s.

Klaw’s work is immortalized in a series of bondage tapes he recorded in 16mm film, they are now available on video. The vintage of these movies will surprise and impress you, as I discovered last Thanksgiving, when my dinner table party watched Classics of Irving Klaw, Vol 1.

Klaw’s models, particularly his star, Betty Page, are so wholesome, so adorable and curvy and bright-eyed you’d swear you were watching Betty Crocker doing rope tricks. Cheerful, post-war swing music accompanies the women as they demonstrate dozens of bondage tableaus and costumes. I felt like I was in Barbie’s dream bondage house.

With Klaw’s models, the accent is on the voyeur – the ropes are arranged on the women’s bodies as if by the most eccentric weaver. The actresses pose in their restraints looking like other cheesecake shots of the era.  Klaw is single-minded, he doesn’t deviate from his subject or style.  But compared to today’s porn, your imagination will be uplifted by his work, and you will never think about the 1950s the same way again. 

Contined in "Susie Bright's Erotic Screen, Volume 1"

 

 
"The Summer of Love"

—November 87

 ...Sexploitation showed a lot of trends throughout the 60s and early 70s. Lesbianism and stewardesses were two of the more influential fads.

Lesbianism in early erotic film was hardly a feminist or gay effort. Few gay women can watch Therese and Isabelle or Bilitis without a lot of giggling and head-shaking. Why? Because the vision of "lesbian love" in mainstream erotic cinema shows us a woman and her double. As one woman touches herself, the other touches herself the same way. They not only look the same, their sexual behavior is based on a lack of contrast, an absence of power and extremes. No one ever loses control, and femininity is distilled into refinement— a perfectly smooth, glassy surface.  

 Hand me the hammer. 

Contined in "Susie Bright's Erotic Screen, Volume 1"

 

"The Dark Brothers Legacy"

...What I liked best about the Dark Brothers were their one-liners. At the beginning of their reign, they issued a slogan: “Porn is dead, long live the Dark Brothers.” Truer opening words were never spoken. That sentiment– "let’s bury the tired clichés and kick into something new–" will be the battle cry of every sexual entrepreneur for the next twenty years.

Contined in "Susie Bright's Erotic Screen, Volume 1"

 

"Fetish flicks"

Main Attraction Video, known for their Co-Ed Oil Wrestling, has a new entry called Foxy Food Fight. Interestingly, in this era of couples' tapes and tapes appealing to a female audience, this comparatively tame feature is entirely addressed to men.

It’s a true stag novelty. The emcee delivers a “just-us boys, heh-heh,” patter that prompted me to cut the sound. I won’t try to explain: women don’t like to listen to men joke about yeast infections, even if it is in connection with a vat of pasta.

Contined in "Susie Bright's Erotic Screen, Volume 1"

 

Antiquarian Hippie Sex poster, courtesy of Charles Sorkin. 

Steve Jobs' Passing & The Legacy of the Lesbian Erotic Revolution

Fall, 1984

On Our Backs publisher Debi Sundahl always liked to say, “What would Steve Jobs do?” 

I had no idea who, or what, she was talking about.

This “Steve Jobs” was her number-one favorite man in the whole world. I had the impression she must know him personally; she quoted him so extensively I presumed they'd met where she worked, in the Copenhagen Room at the O’Farrell Theatre, some extraordinary lap dance customer.

“We’re not going to pay for typesetting anymore,” Debi announced one day. “It’s too expensive, and it’s irrelevant. Steve Jobs has a computer for us that’s going to change all that; we’ll do it right here in the house.”

She said this as she pointed at our living room, which had been transformed into our paste-up and layout den.

A computer?

I imagined "Hal" in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Impossible! I couldn’t program a rocket ship; I only knew how to write, edit, wax down copy, and use a proportion wheel.

Debi came home one day with an enormous, beautiful white box that looked like it belonged on a Milan runway. It was the 1984 Macintosh desktop computer.

I started whimpering. “I can’t do it. You don’t understand... I barely passed ninth-grade algebra.”

She took a cassette tape out of the package and loaded it into her boom box. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

Flute music started up on the tape, as if we were about to attend a New Age seminar. I felt as though someone had placed either an egg or a bomb over my head, but I couldn’t tell which.

A woman’s voice came over the speaker; she sounded beatific. “Take the monitor out of the box,” she said. She patiently explained how to insert the power cord on both ends. Debi rolled her eyes.

The disembodied Apple Voice said, “Press the power button on.” It was like a priest declaring, “Body of Christ.”

A heavenly tone came out of the computer, as if something were being born. 

The screen flickered and a smiling little “box face” appeared on-screen. It twinkled at me. It said, I don’t care if you didn’t understand ninth-grade algebra.

I blew my nose into my wet Kleenex one last time, and Debi said, “So, how fast can you type?”

Debi wanted everything Steve Jobs had. —Like investors. Giant loans. People clamoring for our innovation. I felt she was ignoring political reality. 

“People don’t think Steve Jobs is a pervert! We're lesbian sex publishers!” I said. “No one’s trying to take him away in leg irons for frightening the horses.”

“He is frightening the horses,” Debi said. She cupped her face in her palm like she and Steve had just spent all last night having pillow talk... 

 

Deb was absolutely right. Within a year, our "entertainment for the adventurous lesbian" magazine took PageMaker 1.0 software, tossed out the typesetter, and published On Our Backs completely on Mac software.

We didn’t realize it at the time, but we were the first magazine to do so. We printed our 13,000 copies, and sent them all over the country. 

Our On Our Backs Winter 1986 edition was what the first magazine— on any subject, anywhere— looked like, built on a 1984 Apple machine with Pagemaker.

The kerning is atrocious. You could only choose from Helvetica or Palatino fonts. I remember crying about that, too. But we could afford it; it was the only thing we could afford. And considering our content, which no one else in the printing industry would touch, that was saying something.

I look at our first Mac-built issue now, and some of it still seems avant-garde. If you read the “Letters to the Editor” page, you’ll get an idea of how our readers' stunned reactions.

I love the note that says: "Enclosed is $15 for your magazine. Thank you! I have been a lesbian for all of my 76 years."

Inside our landmark "Mac" issue, you'll find:

Announcement of the first feature film based on a lesbian-written novel: Desert Hearts, by Jane Rule, directed by another dyke, Donna Deitch. No one ever came out of the closet to do such a thing before, and few have since.

First lesbian genital piercing article and photos with pioneer Raelynn Gallina.

First lesbian foto-funny, by Honey Lee Cottrell.

Sarah Schulman's Dyke-Kafkaesque prose, “a short story about a penis”— which was refused by every other feminist press she approached.

The first feature on lesbians' relationship with AIDS, again, from an author who could not find another feminist publisher who would publish this information or statistics.

Advertising-wise: the first dildo harness designed for  a woman’s figure, from Kathy Andrew’s Stormy Leather studio, and the first-ever advertising for dildos, based on Bruce Springsteen’s BORN IN THE USA album cover. Our advertiser invented the silicon dildo, and we ran with it. 

 

 

I am very sad today about Steve Job's passing. I know many of us are thinking about how his life touched ours, through good times and bad. For authors, artists, and publishing outlaws of every description, the Mac revolution was the puzzle piece we had pressed for, longed for, and finally achieved.

Some of my friends went to work at Apple, it was their dream come true, and I know they must be devastated by this loss. My heart goes out to them.

It's rare that a man "you never met" feels like part of your coming of age, your extended family. It's raining hard outside tonight in Santa Cruz, and that voice is calling out again from my illuminated screen.

I can hear it  . . .

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Illustration: Kim Larson, On Our Backs Winter 1986 Cover

The whole 48 page issue of OOB, Winter 86 is here. I made a quick scan, so the photo quality suffered— but I thought you'd like to see it. One of these days we'll have to make a digital archive.

My memory of Debi and our first Mac is from my memoir, Big Sex Little Death.

Annals of Bessie Street: From Revolution to Eviction

 

 
This Friday I am losing my long-standing home in San Francisco: 25A Bessie Street.

My first books Herotica and Susie Sexpert's Lesbian Sex World were written inside this little nest. I grew up as a young woman in this apartment, my daughter grew up here from infancy to adulthood. 

The best and most outrageous of On Our Backs pictures were conceived and often shot at Bessie Street. This is where Honey Lee Cottrell, my partner, and OOB's staff photographer, became a legend.

We had a tiny garden that got a few rays of sun. We turned a roving green briar into a wandering rose. I held my first porno pajama parties there, which later became my big screen road shows: How to Read a Dirty Movie and All Girl Action. The thumb-size cactus we planted outside on the sidewalk grew into a behemoth.

We raised kids here— Honey Lee captured so many of our children's best moments.

Some things I can't get out of my mind. Fanny Fatale demonstrated "how to female ejaculate" on our kitchen linoleum one afternoon, and I said we should never clean that spot again. I think our apartment should be made into a feminist historical monument. 

I moved to Bessie Street with my girlfriend, Honey Lee Cottrell, when I was 23 years old— and she was 37. It's a tiny basement apartment on the steep north face of Bernal Hill. The bathtub is in the kitchen, which looks out over all of downtown and the Mission district. The kitchen windows are the one place where the light pours in.

Our first landlord was unsure if I could qualify as a tenant, because at 5'10", I had to duck to get into some of the corners of the low-ceilinged apartment. I assured her I could— at $400 a month, the price was just right for the two of us. In the early 1980s, Bernal was still a poor and working class, multi-racial neighborhood, adjacent to "Needle Park," which nowadays is filled with bouncy houses and miniature-dog birthday parties.

I moved out of Bessie Street when I was 30— we broke up after seven years— but I never "left." I moved a few blocks away, and when Aretha was born, she went back and forth between our two homes. That never ended, no matter how many miles I moved away. The last two years, my daugther lived at Bessie Street with Honey, graduating from college.

Early this winter, the Bessie Street building was sold to a new owner, and after 30 years the changing of the guard is here.

Honey Lee is 66 now, Aretha 21, me, 53.

I went through my collection of On Our Backs magazines yesterday to scan some of the published highlights from the Bessie Street Revolution, which you'll see below.

Note: These pictures are from a radical, fine-art, lesbian feminist erotic magazine. The links lead to, in some cases, more revealing photos on my Flickr site.

Summer, 1984: The original, unheard-of "Lesbian Burlesque Show" at Cesar’s Latin Palace on Mission and Precita, to raise money for the first issue of On Our Backs. The most memorable party I ever attended and the very definition of sisters doing it for themselves.

 

Spring, 1985: Cassie and Raven’s cover for On Our Backs. The two most seductive dyke strippers in the world decided to start a "Lesbian Escort Service," and Honey shot their "advertising" in front of the garage.

More Cassie and Raven here.

 

 

Summer, 1985: Honey Lee took two of our models/readers (all OOB models were readers or contributors or all three) down to the nearby 3rd Street railyards to shoot one of our most arresting pictorials: "Desperately Seeking Rachel and Elexis." I've had women from back East tell me they moved to San Francisco because of this spread.

Elexis was our first out trannie model, we met her at The Black Rose cabaret in the Tenderloin where she performed.

(More Rachel and Elexis here.)

 

Fall, 1985: The "Born in the USA" Scorpio Products advertising shoot. In the early 80s, I got a handwritten and illustrated letter from a Granadian inventor in Flatbush, who told me he had a spinal cord injury and had created an item out of silicon that he thought might change the world. He was right.

Honey Lee and I asked him if we could make advertisements to do his inventions justice. He gave us artistic carte blanche and $200 per ad.

No one— and I mean no one— had ever advertised dildos, period, or sex toys to women. We did a seaside mermaid shoot in Bolinas, we did a Mapplethrorpe-inspired "Perfect Moment" shoot with calla lillies. But this one, my favorite, was an homage to Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" album cover. Those are my jeans and my grandmother's handkerchief.

(More Scopio ads here.)

 

Winter, 1986: Centerfold comix shoot, "The Naughty Gourmet" with Sue Trayling. Every single one of those kitchen tools has been in use since. The breadbox has an Austrialian Communist Party sticker on it. That stove has seen some of the best cooking you can imagine.

The rest of the photo comic is here; it's wonderful.

 

 

 

The "Frances" Pictorial— this was the strange young woman who showed up at On Our Backs and demanded she be patted all over in talcum powder and photographed. She was very pretty, but months later she contacted that magazine and said she had decided to compete in straight beauty pageants and didn't want anyone to know she was gay. 

 

Spring, 1987:  Herotica comes out, my first book, and the first-ever anthology of women's contemporary erotic fiction. It went through three editions and a long series career with other editors, but this was the first cover, which I designed.

 

Summer, 1987: Honey Lee's most ambitious pictorial was her "Psychosexual Subway Map of Urban Lesbian Life." Gertrude Stein, our old bed, Madame Cleo in bondage, MUNI transfer slips.

This is the first of six pages; you can see the whole series here.

 

Fall, 1987: On Our Backs took HIV and AIDS seriously when it was a total joke in the rest of the women's press. They wouldn't allow it  to be mentioned. Honey Lee and I went downstairs in the garden to demonstrate what you could do to have fun with latex gloves and dental dams; it became the  "Let’s Go Safe Sex Shopping" pictorial.

More Safe Sex Shopping here.

 

Spring 1988: That's me in a jean jacket wearing one of my favorite buttons: "Stop Staring at My Tits." It was an illustration for a story called "Wild Side."

 

Summer 1988:  Cecilia Doughterty one of the avant-garde video scene's progenitors, made two of her videos with me, Grapefruit and Kathy.  I played "John Lennon" in Grapefruit. The erotic footage we shot in Kathy was later a major inspiration for the sex scene I wrote for Bound.

 

 

Our famous kitchen bathtub never looked sweeter. This is me and Honey, (smoking her Shermans, of course), shot by Mariette Pathy Allen.

 

Angry Women, 1991: Christian Mann, one of my erotic cinema gurus, and I, under the house, figuring it all out. 

January, 1989: Honey Lee had a business the likes of which I'd never seen before: "Erotic Portraiture." It wasn't "boudoir" photography, (I don't think that appellation had been invented yet). Honey's mission was whatever the subject's imagination desired— and the very few people who phoned her up for an appointment were one-of-a-kind. 

 

July, 1989: "When Girls Look at Boys." On Our Backs was the first to report on women's interest in gay porn. We created a scandal over having "real men" in our pages for the first time— they were such good sports! It would be another ten years before this notion of women's interest in gay hardcore hit the mainstream.

First page of the story is here.

 

September, 1989: Rachel Williams, one of the most charismatic leatherwomen who ever lived, on Bernal Hill.

 

January, 1990: "The Hunt," Starring Nina Hartley and Bobby Lilly.

This pictorial answered an argument that had been put to us by antiporn feminists since Day One of our publication. The Dworkinites declared early on that On Our Backs eroticized S/M, violence, phallicism, and penetration— which they conflated as one and the same.

Honey Lee said, "What if I do a pictorial for them that has absolutely none of those things, but is profoundly erotic?" Would they be able to enjoy it?

We shot all day in the garden with nothing but Nina, Bobby, fruit, and vegetables (not penetrated or phallic but sometimes eaten or licked). Above is one of the watermelon shots.

We never heard from our critics, one way or another. Our sincerity was quite amazing especially compared to their complete double-lives. As time went on, we found that our most severe critics were the ones who were privately obsessed with cock, S/M, bondage, etc.

Nevertheless, this was an original and amazing shoot.

(More Nina and Bobby here.)

 

March, 1990: "What to Expect," was my column to announce my pregnancy. I decided to make an all-American Apple Pie with a flag in the middle. We scrubbed that stove for hours in advance.

When I told my colleagues at our Xmas party I was expecting, one of my favorite contributors asked, "Did you inseminate, or did you party?" ;-)

 

June, 1990: It’s a Girl!

We shot Aretha's first photo, the baby announcement, above the tub in her car seat, balanced on a plywood tabletop.

When I got pregnant, it was 1989, and the only lesbians I knew who had children were older women who'd had their kids in long-ago marriages. I was a constant source of questionning, as if I had conceived by a miracle.

Of course, after 1990, the "gay-by boom" exploded, and this doesn't seem remotely shocking now. But at the time, I felt like I was the "Dr. Spock" of single-bi-lez-questionning-motherhood.

Isn't she beautiful? She was born that way...

 

Fall, 1990: Susie Sexpert’s Lesbian Sex World Comes Out, a collection of all the columns I wrote for On Our Backs. Aretha and I went on a book tour and she was such a big hit. I wish she could remember that infant adventure, because she got soooooo much love, from Dallas to Montreal, San Diego to Miami.

 

May, 1991: Close to Bessie Street was a dilapadated grand movie theater, called "The York,"on 24th Street, which had seen better days. Nan Kinney, Honey, and I went over early one morning while they were cleaning up and asked the dyke ticket-taker if we could shoot there... and if she'd like to play the "voyeur" for a story we were illustrating.

 

1990: Angela, our friend and one of Honey's most beautiful and enigmatic subjects. She was our Garbo.

 

 

The Smirnoff Billboard, 1983: This is the first photo Honey Lee ever took of me. Within a couple months, we moved in together on Bessie Street, a few blocks from this billboard.

 

Honey Lee Cottrell, on Bernal Hill, today. Photo by Caitlin Morgan.

 

Bessie Street, Night Sky

 

 

All photos by (c) Honey Lee Cottrell, unless otherwise credited.

 

 

An Evening with Russ Meyer -- Susie's Adventures in the Golden Age of Porn

  I knew quite a bit about erotic cinema history by the time I met Russ Meyer in 1992, but I knew nothing about bourbon. That was my downfall. 

We met in his favorite Pasadena steakhouse, where Russ announced he was ordering for me, the young sprat who was barely of drinking age.

Between Makers Mark and mouthfuls of raw steak, I scrawled increasingly incoherent notes on our evening-long conversation. Meyer was no better than me, frequently tearing up and snapping at me, “This stops here!”— only before galloping off again in another indiscreet direction. 

I met Meyer when I contacted him by mail in the 1980s, as I was researching lesbian sexuality on screen for my “How to Read a Dirty Movie” clips show.

But back in the day, I was all a-twitter because I discovered that Meyer’s “Vixen,” from 1968, was the first American film to show two women in torrid embrace. It’s still one of the best, frankly. And you haven't seen anything since you've seen the dildo harness he invented for one of his other Nazi-hunter epics, Up!.

Russ appreciated my serious interest, and we began to be pen-pals, until his death in 2004. These are my notes from our one face-to-face Pasadena date, September 9, 1992:

 

Russ starts in as soon as he has his drink in front of him, as if reciting a diary: “I was born and raised in Oakland, California, in 1922. My father was a cop who left my mom before me and my sister were born. It was my mother, Lydia Haywood, who brought us up.” 

He shows off his mother’s ring to me, which he wears on his right hand, a bloodstone for both their birthdays in March. Meyers’ fingers tell a lot of stories. He wears one large initial ring from his leading lady, Kitten Natividad, whom he says taught him “more about carnality than anyone, and really loved me more than anyone.”

His third initial ring is from a old army buddy. He won’t tell me his name, and he never takes any of them off. 

“My mother Lydia taught me thrift, integrity, working hard… Presbyterian. Never spoke ill of my father even though she was very bitter about it.

“My sister has been in loony bin for past fifty years from schizophrenia— that happened to another girlfriend of mine, too. 

“I joined the service at age twenty-two, landed in Normandy. I was one of those people who loved the war; I never wanted it to end.”

“What did you do, exactly?” I asked.

“Combat photographer; I was in the Signal Corps. You’ll find a lot of us in this business.”

“Didn't you get overwhelmed from all the death around you?” 

“No, after a while, you get immune, the dead body becomes a good prop.”

“I don’t believe you; you have tears in your eyes.” 

“Well, somewhere, something has been written about it, about that secret you share with a man who dies in front of you. It’s just you and him; you are his witness. His family doesn’t know, they won’t know for days, only you know… I can’t say more than that.”

After the army, Meyer tells me he made industrial films. But he doesn't want to talk about that, he wants to change the subject to politics, where we were on opposite ends of the spectrum. It was the middle of the 1992 U.S. Presidential campaign.

“I hate that cone-head, Clinton. He’s a draft evader.”

“So is Dan Quayle! (on the GOP Vice presidential ticket). What’s the difference?” 

“It’s not the same. George Bush is our man, he’s the one.”

“Are you trying to convince me? It’s not working. Tell me one good thing that would impress me about George H. Bush. “

“He’s a great fuck.”

“WHAT? Is this your personal experience?”

“Don’t be smart. You’re disrespectful. George Bush is a good fuck. Don’t ask me why I know, I know. Where there’s tits or wheels, there's trouble— I always told him that...”

Interview Continues HERE

To read the rest of Susie's date with Russ Meyer, check out: 

The Erotic Screen, Vol. 1: The Golden Hardcore and the Shimmering Dyke-Core 

 
Available at Amazon, B&N, & Smashwords. Here's the whole Table of Contents.

Interviews from the 1980s with legendary artists like Russ Meyer, John Leslie, Sharon Mitchell, Jeannie Pepper, Christopher Rage... and many more.

 

My First Gay Bar

 

The first gay barroom I ever stepped into was my Aunt Molly's place, The Bacchanal, on Solano Avenue, near Berkeley. 

She took me inside before it opened to clean it up and do a little carpentry work— I must've been eleven years old at the time. 1969, perhaps? I had no idea what "gay" was, let alone the nature of the establishment I was mopping down.

We listened to Marlene Dietrich records while I dusted and oiled the wooden bar, (see photo!) which was quite glorious.

Molly had decorated it with all kinds of antiques, including a handsome beaded purse with a red silk lining, that once belonged to my Grandma. I begged her for it, and she scolded me— but then put it my hands at the end of our sweaty day. I used that little flapper handbag for years, until my bisexual boyfriend ran it over with his motorcycle.

I figured this all out in the early 80s, a good ten years after I'd been active in the lesbian scene, which for my generation, took place as much in meeting rooms and demonstrations as it did in bars. I'd just graduated from school, living in San Francisco with my 13-years-senior lover, Honey Lee Cottrell, when I heard her mention a venerable lesbian bar called The Bacchanal, in Albany. 

I cut her short— "What are you talking about? That's my aunt's place!" 

A million family dramas, wounded looks, and years of silent treatments came together in a snap. I remember my mom sobbing one night, "Molly won't, she won't wear a dress!" And it was true, my aunt could pass as a man and didn't seem to care. One time her sister forced her to put on some lipstick for a family reunion and she scrawled it on like The Joker.

I learned from Honey that Molly wasn't "Molly" among her peers, she was Sean. Sean Halloran. She moved out to the Bay Area in the 1940s, after the war. In Minneapolis, in the Phillips neighborhood, where she grew up, the stores had signs in the windows that said,"No Dogs No Indians No Irish." You could certainly add "Queers" to that list.

She worked as a bio lab tech, for the dyke City Pathologist of Oakland, a holy terror I remember she called Gertrude. She opened the Bacchanal (probably with others) before its most famous owner, Joanna Griffin, bought the place in the mid-1970s.

I didn't hear much from my aunt when I came into my prime, because when I looked her up, eager to have a "gay history chat," she turned me down cold. —Told me gay "pride" parades made her want to "throw up." She was old old old school.

Molly felt guilty that maybe she'd passed something to me in her genes... "It can't be true," she'd say, "you have those little doe-shaped eyes."

It was only when Honey Lee accompanied me to visit her one night that she opened up like faucet.They looked like each other, a truth-telling mirror. Molly's coming-out had been brutal. She didn't see one damn advantage to being a homosexual, and yet she was so NOT straight, so entirely off the grid, that it was hard to believe she didn't see she was as queer as they come.

I tried to show her a copy of my magazine, On Our Backs, and she told me to "bury it." 

"I'm a writer, Molly, that's what I do," I said. I was good for something besides dusting and mopping!

"Any Irishman can write— what else are you doing with your life?" She slammed me like a book. I wish she was still alive today so I could scandalize her, once again, with this little homage.

LOVE YOU MOLLY

[This story came about because June Thomas of Slate, who was one of the original off our backs collective, has started on series of essays on the history and meaning of the gay bar in queer history.

[June asked, "what's your first gay bar memory?" to me and many others, like Alison Bechdel, Matt Crowley, Dan Savage, Pam Spaulding, and other lavender luminaries. Here's the whole crowd, with an abridged version of my story.]

Photo: by Cathy Cade, a still life of the bar I dusted and oiled so thoroughly. The graphic below is from the Bacchanal's later years, when it was "out of the closet."

 

A Fitting Tribute and a New Book from Allan Bérubé, My Hero

Allan Bérubé is one of my most inspiring comrades and colleagues, whom I learned so much from, especially the scope of gay history and perspectives on working class gay life.

He died in 2007, but his dear friends, Estelle Freedman and John D'Emilio, have finished putting together a new collection of some of his most influential essays and stories. I wouldn't miss this for the world!

Thursday, July 7, 7-9pm

GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th Street, San Francisco