An Elder of Our Tribe - Part 2 of 3: The Sex Positive Photo Project Interview of Dossie Easton

by Airial Clark

(You can find part one of this interview here.)

Copyright 2011 Shilo McCabe

 It was March when the Sex Positive Photo Project had the opportunity to photograph and speak with Dossie. She was preparing to leave the country soon, and with a twinkle in her eye told us that Schmact! was on her travel itinerary.  Schmact! is the International Women BDSM Conference held annually in Berlin. The organizers of Schmact! have been keeping the kink in women’s sexually since 1999 and Dossie had many friends she was looking forward to seeing again.

I asked Dossie what she thought about the ever-expanding size of the BDSM community. “It is fabulous!” she gushed, “I’m totally excited with what I find all over the world.” Yet again, Dossie can bare witness to the time before BDSM was a common enough referent to an alternate sexuality. When there was no “scene”, no support networks, no Folsom Street Fairs or SchMact!’s, no acknowledgement of darker desires, “I am very pleased to see this larger community growing.”

In comparing the 50’s and 60’s to today she says, “We have so many resources now. I’ve spent a lot of time in the places where the scripts have been written. Which is a great privilege, I was born at the right time I got the rebel urge at the right time.  I was in the places where we deciding that the old reality wouldn’t do and so we’re going to make up a new one.” I ask her for an example of this new reality and she tells me with a whispered excitement, and I feel like I’m being let in on a secret sexy conspiracy: “All over this country there are hotels hosting BDSM conferences where we build dungeons in the banquet rooms. It’s so exciting.” The look on her face leaves no doubt that this is a woman proud of the collective kinksters, perverts, tops, bottoms, freaks and sluts that she has dedicated her life to helping.

In Part 3 we conclude our interview with Dossie’s belief in the power of Eros and how BDSM can be healing.