Synopsis
Leather, Dykes and Sadomasochism
From pushy bottoms to macho femmes, Bloodsisters is an A-Z documentary guide that takes an in-depth look at the San Francisco Leatherdyke scene during the mid-nineties.
BloodSisters
1995 Directed by Michelle Handelman
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Not enough films feature dykes talking about fisting.
There's a special feeling when someone in a film, or the film itself, gives voice to your thoughts or feelings. When those thoughts and feelings come from someone real, someone who was speaking to a camera 25 years ago, it brings a sense of history. When those thoughts and feelings come from someone who shares identities with you, it brings a sense of community. We have always been here. I'm not alone.
Certainly, there's been an evolution in the language, the identities (...and hairstyles), the political landscape, but so much of it hasn't changed. We still use codes, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of simple continuity. Many of the words we…
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A proud, uncompromising documentary about the S/M leatherdyke community in San Francisco in the mid-1990s, BloodSisters is an often thrilling watch, shot through with confidence, politics, and a hard-earned refusal to hide.
Despite its transgressive subject, there's a sense of something like purity to the film's opening section, in which several figures from the scene that's being examined talk about their discovery of both S/M and the very specific community around it of which they've become a part. There's pure joy in several of the interviews, as well as relief that, finally, they'd found a community like them, in which they could not only be open about their identities, but also ask questions, try new things, and find a new…
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Obsessed with some of these cinematography choices. When they cut to a butch talking about psychological SM, they use black and white evocative of a Bergman confessional scene. This is a beautiful, hot documentary and a pleasure to watch with a partner. No representation politics but I am also a macho femme :)
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I think every queer person should watch this movie at least once to understand the value and beauty of leatherdyke community. It means so much to me.
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PLEASURE IS A PRIORITY
The other day, I saw Skeeter at her place of business and she asked me if I found everything I needed and it took every fiber of my being to not say "...well I have now @_@"
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If I was on that [feminist sex wars] with my [sex-positive feminists], it wouldn’t have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of [discourse] in that first-class [period of time] and then me saying, ‘OK, we’re going to [come to agreement about how BDSM is cool and good], don’t worry.’
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I think most tops are big fat co-dependents.
Essential viewing for everyone, even (especially?) if u only into missionary sex for the sole purpose of procreation. The knife-play montage, surprisingly echoing both Bergman and Lynch, feels like a true glimpse to another plane that few forms of the moving image can accomplish
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feels grounding every time I see this. To see dykes like me engage in the same intimacies in the same city I formed in but twenty years prior. Like some of these dykes are still kicking around the scene. I've bought a hard rubber paddle off of one of these butches i'm pretty sure
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“I think S/M gives you a clearer sense of self, a clearer sense of how to communicate with people, especially very directly, and a clearer sense of your boundaries and what is going to be—you know, ‘That’s absolutely no. I don’t stand for that. And that’s not just sexual things... that’s things in everyday life.”
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“It’s a way for me to go someplace besides here. And it’s a way for me to take everything that happens to me outside that hurts, make hurt reality, and then it can heal for me.”
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“Plastic tubing. You can never have enough plastic tubing.”
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“In fact, the few people I’ve met who try to be tops 24 hours a day, I…
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Reject modernity (corps at pride), embrace tradition (getting whipped by a butch lesbian on the parade route).
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“I’m a butch but I primarily identify as a faggot. I’m very effeminate.” “You’re like a prep school butch.” 🌹🌹🌹