About This Site

Sections below:

* Introduction
* Privacy Issues
* Magazines That This Site is Seeking
* Acknowledgments
* For the Purists: Why Does This Site Refer to "Magazines" Rather Than "Periodicals"?

INTRODUCTION

Over the years, some leather magazines have published erotic writings and art. Others have provided information to their readers on leather sexuality. A great many have done both.

At the time this project was started, no leather magazine had appeared in any of the research indexes or databases that catalogue the contents of periodicals. Yet the works of quite a few critically acclaimed authors and artists have been published in leather magazines, and the magazines provide valuable information on popular culture.

This site is intended to provide the missing information, for the sake of researchers and other interested readers who are seeking information on a particular author, artist, or subject. The site will also give a sense of the changing and varied nature of leather magazines over the decades.

Tables of contents that are prepared by other sources are linked to if they are available online. Pansexual BDSM magazines (mixed-orientation magazines on sadomasochism and related topics) are included at Leather TOCs, provided that they have substantial gay/lesbian content. Likewise, links are provided to leather-related selections from tables of contents for mainstream magazines.

Leather TOCs is an ongoing project and is updated periodically.

PRIVACY ISSUES

Some leather magazines were sold at news-stands and had a large circulation. Others were circulated to a select group. In most cases, the contributors to such magazines could not have contemplated that the contents would one day be published to the entire world by means of a computer network.

I have not reprinted names of the magazines' readers (authors of letters to the editor, etc.) except in cases where the readers were public figures from within the leather community – that is, if they chose leather-related professions, if they wrote in their capacity as an official of a leather organization, or if they served openly as leather advocates. Even in these cases, I have withheld names or other identifying information where it seemed appropriate.

As far as staff contributors or freelancers are concerned, I have published the real identities of pseudonymous or anonymous contributors only in cases where the information is available from the magazines themselves, or where the information is available on the Internet or in other easily obtainable sources. I have not identified every pseudonymous author, only those who published under more than one name.

If it was possible for me to do so, I would contact all of the living contributors to see whether they have any objections to having their names posted on the Internet. Obviously, there's no practical way in which I can do this.

I will honor requests that the identities of contributors be deleted or obscured (provided that the requests come from the contributors themselves). However, because of the nature of the Internet, it's likely that the original form of the altered page or pages will continue to exist elsewhere. In addition, I do not have control over other people's decisions to publicize this information on the Internet. All of the magazines whose tables of contents I reproduce are available from libraries, archives, or dealers, though they can often be hard to track down.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Donors of magazines and newsletters to this site are listed on a separate page.

In addition, I offer my thanks (I think that's the proper way to phrase it) to the Webmaster of Smutjunkies, who, when he answered a research enquiry in which I mentioned that I'd just bought some copies of a leather magazine, uttered the fatal words: "No requirement, but if you are looking through an issue or two, and you feel like listing some of the key contents . . ."

FOR THE PURISTS: Why Does This Site Refer to "Magazines" Rather Than "Periodicals"?

Because this site is aimed at a variety of readers. Not everyone knows academic terminology.

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This text, or a variation on it, was originally published at duskpeterson.com as part of The Leather Research Reference Shelf. Copyright © 2004 Dusk Peterson. Some rights reserved. The text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0). You may freely print, post, e-mail, share, or otherwise distribute the text for noncommercial purposes, provided that you include this paragraph. The author's policies on derivative works and fan works are available online (duskpeterson.com/copyright.htm).