LESBIAN SADOMASOCHIST SEX WORKER in SAN FRANCISCO 1992-1994 - HANDWRITTEN JOURNALS

The heated, horny early-nineties journals of a gal named Kara, include five notebooks with roughly 800 pages in total. They are filled to the brim with sadomasochistic lesbian scenes and stories. One of the notebooks has to do with a college photography class. There are also 15 photographs (many of which are explicit/graphic).

The writer is expressly filled with rage, fear, resentment, lust, shame, and waxes extensively in these self-conscious journals. Written between 1992-1994, these documents provide a glimpse into the private lives of lesbian Dom/sub, S/M sub-culture in San Francisco. She's befriended folks along the Tenderloin in SF, namely queer women, "transsexuals", and drag queens.

Mention of self-mutilation, cutting, emotional and sexual abuse, incest. Photographs depict blood play, needles, cutting, flogging, leather daddies, and other "Dyke Portraits".

Kara's a switch, a stripper, a self-proclaimed power slut, and a punk. She's deep in the bar scene and a big cruiser (and bruiser). Fantasies of being overpowered, punched, cut, and otherwise degraded. She likes pain, whips, paddles, needles, and leather. She loves a good beating. An excerpt from one journal reads: "God I wanna taste her cunt - she's probably too much of a top for that - but god I wanna suck on her toes, lick her toes, nibble on her hot nipples - I begin to wonder if I was breastfed at this point... I tell her to practice her punches for Wednesday - I dare her to punch me."

In another excerpt, a note after her first play party, she writes: "When I was watching the piercing scene at Josie's I sighed upon seeing blood. [Nicola] grabbed my hand and held it, placing it over her heart. Mmmmm I've got it for her."

Her sex work includes dominating men, where she gets to hear them whine and see them writhe and wiggle. In these journals, she grapples with the idea of topping women in her personal life. She shies away and has feelings of insecurity, but she allows herself to be a beginner and to grow within negotiating different dynamics. But, mostly she wants to be somebody's good little butch pet.

A few examples of her writing include:

"I peed on "Jane". I also peed into his mouth. He was erect the whole time. He begged me to let him drink my nectar - hmm - so I did - and then a train started coming when we were through - danger! Suspense! The perfect scene - I called him a cuddly play toy... I knew he liked that - cuddly play toy with jewels around his neck so pretty. I know I could do this professionally - and should be."

"Trying to switch careers - sex work to graphic design, get music connections, come out into S/M, hmm[...] Time for me perhaps to slut around - what the fuck - make up for lost time hell started when I was 22 - how dysfunctional - well I own the repression - damn that's ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous - nuts - who knows, suppose it's slightly insane, but then everyone is slightly nuts."

"Out of the corner of my eye I spot her freshly shaved head - I am fully bedecked in my freshest whore wear - lace pattern stockings, fringe shorts revealing half my ass, platform heals which turn me into a 5'8" goddess - rusty forties fox colored lipstick... I see her - deliberately I nonchalantly look the other way[...] Pink chain around my neck, around my waist - dangling. I have reclaimed femme - tomboy - chick femme... A hand cool, assured on my back startles me, send sparks electricity through my veins. My breathing becomes shortened, shallow, rapid even before I meet her eye. She runs her hand down my back. I got her message. She acknowledges me but still has to "save face" as the term goes. I play hard to get, cool, so nonchalant, like I don't want to fuck her brains out."

One of her journals is dedicated to the practice of 3 morning pages, popularized by Julia Cameron's The Artists' Way. Many of these pages are filled with dreams from the previous night. Others have to do with waking dreams, fantasies, and frustrations. She grapples with feelings about her abusive father (she wonders if the nightmares and flashbacks she has have to do with repressed sexual abuse.) She calls her father a "sick fucker" for violating her privacy. She sees a therapist. She fills the pages with anger and fears, but also with self-affirmations, thanks, and praise to Goddess. An example of affirmations: "I am not a victim, I am courage, I am light, I am love. I release the need in me to create anger, fear and resentment. I love and approve of myself. And I AM STRONG"

She enjoys PJ Harvey, Sinead O'Connor, Ani DiFranco, Mazzy Star, Thalia Zedek. She is a fan of the artists Diane Arbus, Paul Strand, Annie Leibovitz, and Barbara Kruger. At times she's read Girl, Interrupted, and considered auditing a class with Kathy Acker (likely when she was teaching at the San Francisco Art Institute).


Her handwriting is mostly legible and it is a rare look at a lesbian sex worker in the 1990s.