Legends of Dominance - 42
Legends of Dominance - 42 by Mistress Michelle Peters et al. and posted with permission (All information herein is provided by author) Legends of Dominance Article Index |
Cynthia Slater
- Society of Janus
- San Francisco - A Reverent,
- Non-Linear, Necessarily Incomplete
- History of its SM Community
- By Carol Truscott
In May 1988, Geoff Mains and I met to pig out on sushi and to sketch the outlines of an article on what happened in the San Francisco SM scene that gives the community the reputation of being a model for much of the rest of the country. We divided up the world into people be would interview and people I would interview. 1 would transcribe all the interview tapes and he would write a first draft. Then we would get together and wrestle what we expected to be a monster into some kind of shape that we would both be proud of. Neither of us had written with a co-author before, and both of us were a little nervous: I because 1 would be working with a published author for whom I had profound respect, he because he was taking on an enormous task in addition to an already full plate of tasks and his health was not very good. As it happened, doing the interviews took more of Geoff's energy, and his novel, Gentle Warriors, was his top priority. He wanted to finish it before he died, and he actually saw the published book a couple of days before his death in June 1989. I was left holding the bag. Because of Geoff's death and the deaths of several other very close friends, all claimed by AIDS, I had a hard time even thinking about the article, and it took me until November 1989 to look at what I had to work with. My nervousness about trying to weave together the enormous amount of information we had gathered was exceeded only by my sense of loss at not having the perspective Geoff would have brought to the task. I suppose I could have written more, interviewed more people, followed up more trails. I could have wound up, I think, with several hundred pages, some time in 1993. I particularly regret not having Geoff around to tell me what he meant by all the notes he look, the fragments of ideas he had planned to expand upon. But this is my best shot, and I dedicate it, with love, to Geoff Mains.
They're all dead now, Steve McEachern, Fred Heramb, Cynthia Slater, Geoff Mains, respectively the father, the heir, the mother, the chronicler of the history of the formation of San Francisco's pansexual SM community. Some of their stories, interwoven, may give the reader some inkling of the quality of human energy that has nourished the many SM individuals who comprise this unique community. In the beginning, we are told by Geoff Mains, there were leather bars and motorcycle clubs. They existed in all the major cities in the United States. They were men's enclaves, places for men who were seeking and sharing the hot sexual energy of other men. We know from those who spent some evenings in those places that some of what the denizens did would now be subsumed under the term consensual sadomasochism. There were no such places for women to meet other women, partly because "women just don't do those things" and partly because they certainly wouldn't do them in those kinds of places. Even now there are few such places anywhere in the United States for women. And there were and are no such places at al 1 for men and women interested in SM to find each other. Some time about 1975 Steve McEachern opened the basement of his home to a few other men, many of them members of F.F.A., for fisting parties. Over time he decorated the space to suit: leather slings, cans of Crisco hanging between each pair, a whipping cross built on one of the house's beams, a cage. The parties were private: for a man to attend, he had to be, at first, a friend of Steve. As Steve cultivated more and more friends, they began to invite other friends. Steve interviewed each potential party attendee and invited those he liked. The parties' attendances grew to the extent that, by the time Steve died in 1979, 50 to 80 men were coming to the regular (primarily fisting) Saturday night parties, 20 or 30 were coming to the Wednesday night (more SM-oriented) parties. In between Steve held private-private parties, ad hoc get-togethers for his large circle of really close friends. Cynthia Slater arrived in San Francisco in September 1971, with an emerging taste for sexual sadomasochism. Although she had had SM fantasies since childhood and her current partner shared her emerging interest, neither of them knew anybody else who did. Cynthia set herself up as a professional dominant, advertising for clients in the Berkeley Barb. One of her clients introduced Cynthia to his wife, who wanted to know more about what her husband was so interested in, and the two couples met a number of times to exchange ideas. Out of her own hunger for more information about this part of her sexuality and for more contact with people who shared it, Cynthia checked out operations advertising themselves as SM clubs in the Barb. What she found were essentially commercial operations, providing the services of dominant women to submissive men, and a "swing party house" that had SM nights on a more or less regular basis. The party house also had policies that upset her emerging feminist consciousness by letting women in free and charging men high prices, "treating women as tickets of admission or chattel." At the beginning of 1973, confident there were other people "out there" who shared her interest and thirst for SM knowledge, Cynthia placed a small ad in the Barb. (In 1978, the sex advertising section separated from the Barb and became The Spectator, a weekly paper devoted to sex news, information and advertising.) The ad asked for a dollar and a self-addressed stamped envelope for an SM oriented newsletter and a calendar of SM events. The events were functions of the newly-named Society of Janus and the newsletter evolved into Growing Pains. But it didn't happen without a long struggle.
For about a year Cynthia held gatherings in her living room, small groups of people mostly talking about SM. Between 8 and a dozen people showed up at each gathering, most of them heterosexual submissive men looking for dominant women partners. Cynthia did all the work: she chose discussion topics, produced the newsletter, made sure the advertising was placed. She was burning out, and she was getting bored with the submissive men crawling around trying to appeal to the one or two women present. However, over time, a few gay leathermen also heard about the group and started showing up occasional ly at the meetings, for despite the presence of the bars as gathering places in the South of Market area, there was no SM information exchange for gay men to back up the socializing spaces. Cynthia had also gotten involved with San Francisco Sex Information (SFSI), a free hot-line information service. A pansexual organization from its start, some of SFSI's participants were starting to come out of the closet around their own SM interests and because Cynthia was known as the initiator of the one SM information organization in existence, SFSI people gravitated to her. She collected their names, addresses, phone numbers and filed them, along with the names, addresses and phone numbers of the people who had been attending the living room discussion groups. After more than a year of running Janus, Cynthia was tired of all the work and its small return, so she just stopped producing and mail i ng calendars. Several months later, one of the gay men who had come to a couple of meetings called her to find out what was happening with the organization, since he hadn't gotten any mailings in a while. She told him she'd burned out doing all the work and didn't know enough about running an organization to restructure it to work better. The man suggested a brainstorming session, got about a dozen other gay leathermen together for a Sunday afternoon's work and out of the ashes rose the makings of the new Society of Janus. They generated a list of meeting topics and dates for the next few months. The newsletter, the first dated (August 1974), numbered issue of The Society of Janus, Volume 1, #1, was sent to everybody who had ever come to a meeting and to everyone else Cynthia had met whom she knew had an interest in SM. The organizing group took up a collection to pay the expenses, the labor of printing having been absorbed by a volunteer.
In August of 1974, at its first post-resurrection meeting, about 30 people showed up, gay and het and bi, to share information about SM. Under its new structure, the group held business meetings regularly to divide up the work, and some operating guidelines were developed and published. The organization would have no overt sexual activity at any function, and there were to be no play parties. The thinking of the people who were running the organization was that those prohibitions would serve as a self-screening mechanism, bringing in and keeping the kind of people they wanted, people who wanted to learn about SM, and they would discourage people whose interest was only "to get their lascivious jollies or to hunt for partners." The social functions were casual, dinners, potlucks and such, with flirting and talking but no SM play and no nudity. After program meetings, clusters of members would occasionally go out together to one of the leather bars for a drink, and because the Janus groups comprised women and men both, quietly and gently the once all-gay-male leather bars began to accept the presence of SM women on the premises. When Geoff Mains interviewed her, Cynthia said, "I found the gay men much more interesting than the straight men. They had a style that resonated for me." Working with the group that had re-formed Janus had been energizing for her, and in the course of the post-meeting socializing, there emerged a pattern of friendly flirting across people's "normal" self-definition as bi, gay or het. After all, as Cynthia put it, "if I was buying him a drink, for example, it was totally appropriate for me to hand him his beer saying, 'Here's your beer, Sir.' Now, is that playing, or not? We were at some place (on the continuum), if you look at playing as a continuum, and the very beginning of the continuum is flirting." Janus decided to have a Halloween party in 1975, asocial with lots of "high flirt and high drag," but not a play party. In the course of planning, one of the gay men members mentioned the possibility of holding the party at the Catacombs, as Steve McEachern's basement play space had come to be known. Arrangements were made for Cynthia to meet Steve to talk to him about renting the Catacombs for the Friday night party. Steve was intrigued with the idea, invited her over and walked her into "a totally other world ...It looked better than I'd ever fantasized." The Society of Janus rented the Catacombs for its Halloween party. Cynthia waltzed into the party on a leash held by one of the gay men, and the party was an outrageous success. It wasn't long after that that Cynthia and Steve developed a serious case of mutual lust for one another. The Ambush, a leather bar formerly in the South of Market neighborhood was one of the bars most open to the presence of women, either in groups, as with the Janus people, or alone. During 1976, it was one of Cynthia's haunts, and she often ran into Steve, who went to shoot pool there. One evening Steve cal led her and invited her over to The Catacombs play with him and two friends, her "piglet's dream" come true. "And that worked so well that a couple of weeks after that Steve was throwing a spontaneous mid-week party, only 20 or 30 people invited ... and invited me to it. And I believe that that party was the first mixed, in terms of mixed orientations and genders, (play) party that ever occurred."
Cynthia was the only woman present and she remained the only woman present as the mid-week parties became more regular, with 20 to 30 men. Over time the relationship between Steve and Cynthia evolved to the extent that, although she kept her own apartment, she spent most of her time at Steve's place, except for Saturday night. "On Saturdays I'd help him set up for the big Saturday parties and then leave. And then go back on Sunday morning to go out for brunch with him. And one Saturday afternoon, some of the fellows who were part of the 21st Street Family, who were around all the time, started teasing us about that: 'Isn't that ridiculous? She comes to the mid-week parties. She sleeps in your bed almost every night. She opens the cans of Crisco and helps do the laundry and everything else around these parties and yet she goes home instead of being at the party with us.' When Steve looked at that, he realized that his concern was a legal issue. Was there a possibility, since he was charging (money) for these parties, that if he had men and women there, in some way the vice squad would start to look askance at the parties and view it as some kind of prostitution going on?
"Well fortunately I happened to have a friend who was a cop on the vice squad. Steve and I had my friend over for dinner so they could meet and discuss this and how it would work. According to my friend, no, 'you wouldn't be bothered any more than the swing parties are bothered. People are paying to come to the party, they're not paying for a particular sex act. Whether or not they connect to have sex is totally private and independent.'And that led to the first Saturday night private but semi-public party that had not just gay men at it." The response of the gay men who had been accustomed to all-male parties on Saturdays was, like the parties, mixed. Some refused to come to the Catacombs any more because there was a woman there. Steve's comment to this, said to be an all-purpose response, was "They'll get over it." And there were those, a clear majority, who were absolutely delighted. Fred Heramb came to a Catacombs party on a Saturday night and was surprised to find three women there."! kept looking at the women and thinking to myself, well, I hope none of them comes over and puts the make on me or anything like that. I didn't know how I'd handle it. And then the more I got to watching the women play in the men's space and with the men and the men reciprocating enjoying the women, I really enjoyed it... Cynthia came over and asked if I was having a good time and I told her it was my birthday and she said she'd give me a birthday gift soon ... A couple of weeks later we got together ... I was wondering what other people were going to think, and two minutes after we started, I thought to my self, 'I don'tgive a shitwhatother people think!'"
Fred's own interest in SM grew out of his presence at the Catacombs parties. He'd gone in as a fister and, to his surprise, he found himself getting turned on watching "the kids" whipping each other. "And I went out and bought myself a whip and I got back there and I whipped someone and it looked like a kid in kindergarten, playing with a course of planning, one of the gay men members mentioned the possibility of holding the party at the Catacombs, as Steve McEachem 's basemen t play space had come to be known. Arrangements were made for Cynthia to meet Steve to talk to him about renting the Catacombs for the Friday night party. Steve was intrigued with the idea, invited her over and walked her into "a totally otherworld ... It looked better than I'd ever fantasized." The Society of Janus rented the Catacombs for its Halloween party. Cynthia was led in to the party on a leash held by one of the gay men, and the party was an outrageous success. It wasn't long after that that Cynthia and Steve developed a serious case of mutual lust for one another. The Ambush, a leather bar formerly in the South of Market neighborhood was one of the bars most open to the presence of women, either in groups, as with the Janus people, or alone. During 1976, it was one of Cynthia's haunts, and she often ran into Steve, who went to shoot pool there. One evening Steve cal I ed her and invited her over to The Catacombs play with him and two friends, her "piglet's dream" come true. "And that worked so well that a couple of weeks after that Steve was throwing a spontaneous mid-week party, only 20 or 30 people invited ... and invited me to it. And I believe that that party was the first mixed, in terms of mixed orientations and genders, (play) party that ever occurred." Cynthia was the only woman present and she remained the only woman present as the mid-week parties became more regular, with 20 to 30 men.
Over time the relationship between Steve and Cynthia evolved to the extent that, although she kept her own apartment, she spent most of her time at Steve's place, except for Saturday night. "On Saturdays I'd help him set up for the big Saturday parties and then leave. And then go back on Sunday morning to go out for brunch with him. And one Saturday afternoon, some of the fellows who were part of the 21st Street Family, who were around all the time, started teasing us about that: 'Isn't that ridiculous? She comes to the mid-week parties. She sleeps in your bed almost every night. She opens the cans of Crisco and helps do the laundry and everything else around these parties and yet she goes home instead of being at the party with us.' When Steve looked at that, he realized that his concern was a legal issue. Was there a possibility, since he was charging (money) for these parties, that if he had men and women there, in some way the vice squad would start to look askance at the parties and view it as some kind of prostitution going on? "Well fortunately I happened to have a friend who was a cop on the vice squad. Steve and I had my friend over for dinner so they could meet and discuss this and how it would work. According to my friend, no, you wouldn't be bothered any more than the swing parties are bothered. People are paying to come to the party, they're not paying for a particular sex act. Whether or not they connect to have sex is totally private and independent.'And that led to the first Saturday night private but semi-public party that had not just gay men at it." The response of the gay men who had been accustomed to all-male parties on Saturdays was, like the parties, mixed. Some refused to come to the Catacombs any more because there was a woman there. Steve's comment to this, said to be an all-purpose response, was "They'll get over it." And there were those, a clear majority, who were absolutely delighted.
Fred Heramb came to a Catacombs party on a Saturday night and was surprised to find three women there. "I kept looking at the women and thinking to myself, well, I hope none of them comes over and puts the make on me or anything like that. I didn't know how I'd handle it. And then the more I got to watching the women play in the men's space and with the men and the men reciprocating enjoying the women, I really enjoyed it ...Cynthia came over and asked if I was having a good time and I told her it was my birthday and she said she'd give me a birthday gift soon ... A couple of weeks later we got together ... I was wondering what other people were going to think, and two minutes after we started, I thought to myself, 'I don't give a shit whatother people think!'"
Fred's own interest in SM grew out of his presence at the Catacombs parties. He'd gone in as a fister and, to his surprise, he found himself getting turned on watching "the kids" whipping each other. "And I went out and bought myself a whip and I got back there and I whipped someone and it looked like a kid in kindergarten, playing with a whip." But he watched Steve one evening, "and the trip he did on the kid just made my mouth fall open and I couldn't believe all this was coming from one person." And Fred learned, well enough that he was often asked to do presentations at Janus programs on whipping, and the kiss of his whip, wielded in what has come to be cal led the Catacombs style, was much sought after by those of us fortunate to know how sweet it was.
When Geoff interviewed her, Cynthia said, "I define myself as a pan-sexual person, and out of that self-definition I had a persona) investment or agenda about there being more women at the parties. So I kept finding women friends who were on the outrageous side, too and I invited them to the parties." The number of women attending, however, grew very slowly, until, some time in 1978, Cynthia met another SFSI woman who had been holding SM play parties for 8 to 12 people in her own home. These were theme parties: for instance, a women's party that men could attend only if they signed a service-oriented slave contract. Cynthia got herself invited to a party and afterwards she contacted the party giver to thank her. In the course of several conversations, the women realized that, between them, they could easily compile a list of 200 or more people who would be hot party players and that the list would be a pan-sexual list. They defined "hot" as people who would all be okay with all genders and orientations, who had well-developed social skills and who played SM safely. They approached Steve about renting the Catacombs for a Friday night SM party. Steve agreed, and every 2 or 3 months for a couple of years after that the two women hosted large pan-sexual SM play parties at the Catacombs. Not long after the first of the regular mixed parties, several SM lesbians started renting the Catacombs every few months for women's play parties. According to [Pat Califia]], in her essay, "A Personal View of the Lesbian S/M Community and Movement in San Francisco" (published in Coming to Power), by the end of 1977 there were a number of places where SM women were meeting one another: Janus meetings, Cardea (a short-ived women-only support group sponsored by Janus), Catacombs arties and leathermen's bars, particularly he Ambush and the balcony. After an abortive attempt at forming a women-who-do-SM-with-women group a few months earlier, the group that evolved into Samois convened in Jne 1978. (The founders chose the name of the estate of the Lesbian Dominatrix in "The Story of O" for the organization's name.) Samois held talk and demonstration programs about various aspects of SM, was actively involved in supporting the right of women to be sexual as they chose, and produced two books. What color is Your Handkerchief? and Coming to Power during its existence. It was laid down in 1983, in part because many of its members felt it had outlived its function.
Outcasts was formed in 1984, as an SM education and social organization for women who do SM with other women, regardless of their orientation identity. There have been other women's SM groups, kept very private, in the last few years, open only to Lesbian women. Among the gay leathermen, a fraternal organization, The Fifteen Association, was formed in 1980. It was (and still is) open only to men committed to an SM lifestyle. A similar organization, Knights Templar, was founded late in 1983 and laid itself down at the end of 1988. At this writing, an SM education organization for gay leathermen seems to be in formation. And a support organization for clean-and-sober gay SM, men,Trusted Servants, has recently begun to meet regularly. The Service of Mankind Church, initially organized in 1978 as Service to Mankind Church under a charter from the Universal Life Church, reorganized and marks its birth date as December 21, 1979. Its "practices ... embody ancient forms of Goddess Worship and pathways of Tantric Yoga," with women dominant and men submissive. Gemini, a couples club for dominant me and submissive women was founded in 1978. These organizations continue to thrive, and to relate to other organizations as they find consistent with their own charters. Other organizations for heterosexual and bisexual SM people have also come and gone. Following Steve McEachem's death,the 21st Street Catacombs was closed. A group of male Catacombs regulars opened a play space on Larkin Street for men only. For undocumented reasons, that operation failed. Along with two friends, Fred Heramb, who had also become emotionally involved with Steve, bought the building that became the real successor to the original Catacombs. Through a lot of work he was able to retrieve some of the artifacts that had graced the 21st Street location, and he added some of his own, including "just the right motorcycle." "My two partners said, 'Fred, you're crazy. No one will ever use it!'And l just thought to myself, first night I put that thing in there someone doesn't use it, I'm going to use it. And so I bought it, and my partners said, 'This is your fantasy, not theirs,' and I said, 'Well, you wait. It will be theirs.'And from there on out it was never empty."
The new Catacombs was, indeed, a monument to Steve, but after a short time early in its life, the "anti-woman" faction got the upper hand, and women were not allowed at the Saturday night parties, although they were still welcome at the Tuesday parties. In the time between the closing of the first Catacombs and the opening of Fred's successor location, there had been no large pan-sexual parties, Cynthia, having burned out and laid down those responsibilities. Although the precise sequence of events and names is not clear, what is clear is that, given a new Catacombs in which to hold pan-sexual parties, individuals emerged from among the people who had attended the old Catacombs parties to start holding all-genders/all-orientations parties again. For about three years, the parties were held on the third Friday of each month, with the same wonderful mix of gays, lesbians, bis, hets, cross-dressers, undressers, Tops, bottoms, switches. And the Saturday night men's parties continued unabated. According to several people who attended the original Catacombs parties, Steve did magic with music. He made his own tapes from contemporary recordings. When he decided the people in the dungeon had had enough playtime, he switched tapes and the music drove the players out to the lounging area. When he decided there was too much conversation and not enough playing, he switched tapes and the music lured the talkers to gather up their gear and get down to play. Some of those tapes were recently found and an effort is being made to reconstruct the sequence of the songs he used, for continuing use. There is the legend of a certain well-known Dyke-About-Town who was heard to scream, "Fuck me, Fred, fuck me!" and Fred, knowing he couldn't get his cock up for a woman, fetched a pair of VERY large dildoes, offered her a choice of "this one or the big one," and fucked said Dyke silly. It is said that people found out what the rules were at the Catacombs parties by being told they'd broken one. The rules were transmitted by word of mouth and had mostly to do with basic etiquette. People who broke the rules too often were eventually told they could no longer come to parties. With the ad vent of regular women's parties rules were written down and they evolved: as one of the party-givers saw something that made her hair curl, the offending behavior was proscribed. It wasn't until after the opening of Catacombs II that copies of the written rules were handed to all party attendees. Now, virtually anyone who gives SM play parties gives a written copy of party rules to all guests. In the Catacombs tradition, the best parties are held in scrupulously clean play spaces; people are expected to let the hosts know in advance that they will be there; doors open at a given time and close at a given time, so the hosts can also play. The room temperature is kept on the high side for the comfort of naked people; safe sex supplies (condoms, dams, gloves: people usually bring their own lubricants), towels, assorted food and music are all provided. And the watchwords, "safe, sane and consensual" have been adopted, albeit informally, as gospel. In 1984 the Catacombs was closed. In the months just before, the specter of AIDS and a great deal of information, both real and imaginary, had hit the press. Flourishing rumors said men involved in fisting were especial ly at risk of AIDS and that "casual" sex (apparently meaning with multiple partners) created a particularly high risk. Angry, confused, and always at least a little sex-negative, the bureaucracy in San Francisco lashed out at what seemed to be the most obvious target, gay men's gathering places, bath houses and bars. In the face of the outcry, gay men and people who care about gay men mobilized to fight back. Attempts were made to set up voluntary behavior codes including issuing safe sex guidelines and providing rubber barriers in these places and there was much confusion and anguish as, one after another, owners chose to shut down rather than to police the activities of their patrons. Fred chose to sell the Catacombs. He said to me at the time, "I've never told anybody what they could do here and what they couldn't do, and I 'm not going to start now." The people who bought the building agreed to continue to operate the play space for the benefit of the SM community. And with that change of ownership for the first time New Year's Eve parties were pan-sexual. Threaded in and out of the parties, other more broadly-based events and activities joined people of all genders and all orientations. After a great deal of disagreement and argument with the parade committee, The Society of Janus built a float of sorts and marched in San Francisco's Lesbian Gay Freedom Day parade in 1978, carrying, among others, a placard saying "A woman's right to choice is absolute." Janus and Samois marched in the 1979 parade. Although they didn't march again for several years, Janus has had a table at the Civic Center Plaza display space after the parades just about every year since. Beginning in 1986, the San Francisco Bay Area SM Community Contingent has marched, with the clubs flying their own banners as well. (The million-dollar liability insurance now required in order to have a motor vehicle in the contingent has made a float out of the question financially). When they were active, the One and Only San Francisco Precision Whip Drill Team marched with the community contingent as well. The Society of Janus, Outcasts and The 15 have served as co-sponsors of the contingent in various years. Twice coalitions of SM-related organizations were formed and twice they were laid down. The first one seems not to have had a name and existed for only a few meetings in 1980. Again according to [Pat Califia]] (op. cit.), the potential members, two commercial SM clubs, Samois, Janus, Gemini and SMC, and the South of Market bars that catered to the SM crowd weren't ready to work together. The second coalition, called KISSSM (Keep It Simple, Stupid, SM), was created in late 1985 and laid itself down about 2 years later.
KISSSM met every six to eight weeks to share information about SM-related issues, such as arrests of SM people and pending legislation. KISSSM's goal was "to lay the foundation for better communication between the groups in our S/M community, to facilitate sharing of information, and to be better prepared to cope with a political environment that is increasingly hostile toward S/M. This group will think small, stay informal, share information, have no bureaucracy and be open to representatives of S/M groups and to individuals by invitation only." Except for avoiding bureaucracy, KISSSM met its goals, so the members shelved the organization, subject to recall if necessary. The newest addition to the roster of organizations was made in mid-1989, when a group of SM women and men convened to form a San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the National Leather Association. This organization's first activity was creating and managing a fund to help SM people who had suffered damaged during the October 17, 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. This group has recently elected its first officers and is working on developing its program to avoid duplicating the efforts of existing organizations.
Without the knowledge and patience of people who knew much more than I, I could not possibly have written this article. Thanks go especially to D.L., G.R. and J.N., as well as to Fred, Cynthia and Geoff. I apologize for not being able to use everything you all told me. Any errors are, of course, my responsibility. —C.T.
Compiled by Mistress Michelle, I might add I corresponded with Cynthia in the mid 70's, she sent me an honorary Janus membership card and was invited to attend Janus. I never attended any San Francisco events, my first Janus meeting was 1987 in LA. A few months later Janus LA became Threshold. MM
http://www.theslatersociety.org/dedication.html
- Woman of the Century
At Grand Opening of the Leather Archives & Museum in February 2000, Joseph W. Bean, the LA&M’s Executive Director, named Cynthia Slater "Woman of the Century." The 20th Century, according to Joseph, was the first century of the leather community, and he honored those leatherfolk who made a difference. In his opinion, the "Woman of the Century" could be none other than Cynthia Slater.
- Cynthia Slater
Now let me tell you of Cynthia Slater. A bisexual woman who created pansexual space before there was such a word, Cynthia was responsible for opening the Catacombs to other groups. In the early 70s, Cynthia founded the Society of Janus, which became a point of connection between straight, bisexual, and gay sadomasochists in the Bay Area.
It was through Janus that Cynthia met and, by 1977, became lovers with Steve, who ultimately began including Cynthia at the Catacombs. Cynthia subsequently introduced some of her female lovers into the space as well and, by the summer of 1978, there were often one to five women intermingling at The Catacombs with the 60 to 80 men.
"In a very real sense," Rubin says, "SM lesbians learned how to party from the Catacombs. The lessons of the Catacombs were transmitted to a generation of kinky gay women."
"On March 21, 1980, Cynthia and a friend rented the Catacombs for a big mixed gender/mixed orientation SM party, marking the first time significant numbers of gay male, lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual perverts partied together in the Bay Area. This party, combined with subsequent play parties, fostered " an attitude of respect for difference, creating a comfortable atmosphere in which diverse populations could observe one another, appreciate their mutual interest in kink, and discover what they did have in common."
On August 28, 1981 Steve died suddenly of a heart attack; within two days of his death, the Catacombs had been completely dismantled. An unsuccessful Catacombs II lasted a mere three months.
On February 13, 1982, however, Steve’s lover Fred reopened the Catacombs in a house on Shotwell Street in San Francisco. "Ultimately, the different genders and sexual populations mingled even more successfully at this location than they had at the original," Rubin tells us. At various locations over the years: "The parties still run, heirs to the traditions established by Cynthia at her mixed parties and by Steve at the Catacombs?"
- HIV/AIDS… and the end
AIDS was in the distance when the Catacombs on Shotwell opened, and as safer sex guidelines began to surface in 1983-84, the Catacombs responded quickly and responsibly. But the landscape was changing forever, and Fred chose to close down the Catacombs. The last party was held on Saturday night, April 21, 1984.
The discovery of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (then called HIV-III) was announced on Monday morning, April 24, 1984.
Cynthia Slater died of AIDS in October 1989.
- The Catacombs
The Catacombs celebrated a deep love for the physical body; the body and its sensate abilities were valued, celebrated, and loved. It was a friendly place, a sexually organized environment where people treated each other with mutual respect, and where they were lovingly sexual without being in holy wedlock. The Catacombs facilitated the formation of deep friendships and lasting networks of support, relationships that sustained them through time, nurtured them with affection, cared for them in sickness, and buried them in sorrow.
Gayle Rubin concludes the article: "The individuals who have built [successful sexual environments] should be recognized for their accomplishments. Places and events like the Mineshaft, Inferno, and the Catacombs (among others) can serve as models and provide inspiration to other times and other places. There will be a renaissance of sex. There will be new clubs, new parties, and new horizons. I hope that some of these will have the grace and verve and spunk of the Catacombs."
- Dedication
I dedicate The Slater Society in memory of Cynthia Slater, the Catacombs, and the many, many individuals who have opened the doors for us, showed us the possibilities, and have brought us to this point in history, this point in our lives, this point in our BDSM growth. May we carry on in the tradition of Cynthia Slater and thus fulfill Gayle Rubin’s hope.
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