About this Archive

Administrative/biographical history

Eric Chaline (1957- ) is a London-based author, journalist, blogger, and academic researcher. The archive focuses on Chaline’s academic work on MSM BDSM, which he began in Sydney, Australia, in 2003, and which he continued on his return to the UK in 2004. In 2005, he began his doctorate under the supervision of Professor Jeffrey Weeks and Dr M.J. Barker at London South Bank University.

His unpublished thesis, From Leather Outlaw to Sexual Consumer? Gay SM in the United Kingdom, 1950s-Present (2008), was the first PhD on the sociology of MSM BDSM in the UK. He used both quantitative (survey of 100 participants in the MSM BDSM scene in the UK facilitated by SM-Gays and Recon.com) and qualitative (in-depth interviews of 31 participants in the MSM BDSM scene in the UK) research methods to study MSM BDSM in the UK from its emergence as the “Leather scene” in the 1950s, following its evolution through several historical phases, which culminated in the commercial, consumerised scene of the 2000s.

The thesis features a full account of the academic and medico-psychiatric literature on MSM BDSM since the sexuality and sexual identity was first defined as “sadomasochism” by Richard von Krafft-Ebing in Psychopathia Sexualis (1890 edition) and provides the first complete history of the UK MSM BDSM scene from the 1950s to the 2000s, which was compiled from interviews with participants, the archives of British clubs and societies, and from materials made available to him by the Leather Archives and Museum, Chicago, U.S.A., which he visited in 2006. The Eric Chaline Archive also contains copies of publications and blogs relating to MSM BDSM published since 2008.

Scope and quantity

Research archives compiled by Chaline while completing the PhD thesis From Leather Outlaw to Sexual Consumer? Gay SM in the United Kingdom, 1950s-Present (2008), including:

Printed, draft, and digital copies of the thesis (MS Word and PDF formats)
Printed and digital copies of quantitative research: 100 surveys of participants in MSM BDSM in the UK from 1950s – 2000s; statistical analysis of quantitative research.
Printed, audio and digital copies of qualitative research: 31 in-depth interviews of participants in MSM BDSM in the UK from 1950s – 2000s.
Printed and digital copies of thesis notes and admin
Printed copies of miscellaneous MSM BDSM research papers and materials
Digital copies of blog editions of whatisgaypowerexchangesex.blogspot.com (formerly whatisgaybdsm.blogspot.com)
Printed and digital copies of selected publications related to MSM BDSM in the UK: Gay Planet: All Things for All Gay Men, section on MSM BDSM in “Eros”, pp. 80-95, Gay Times Press, London, 2000; Lesbian and Gay Psychology Review, vol. 6 No. 3, November 2005, Special Issue: Contemporary Perspectives on Sadomasochism (S/M), “Researching Sexual Difference: A Survey of Gay S/M in the UK”, pp. 240-252; Safe, Sane and Consensual, 2007, ed. D. Langridge and M.J. Barker, “On Becoming a Gay SMer: A Sexual Scripting Perspective”, pp. 155-176; Sexualities, vol. 13 No 3, June 2010, “The Construction, Maintenance and Evolution of Gay SM Sexualities and Sexual Identities: A Preliminary Description of SM Sexual Identity Practices”, pp. 338-35