About The Library

The Carter/Johnson Leather Library and Collection, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, is a traveling collection of thousands of books, magazines, posters, art, club and event pins, newspapers, event programs and ephemera showing the Leather, fetish, kink, and S/M erotic history of the gay, straight, and trans communities.

The Library includes:

Early editions of “London Life,” magazines of special interest such as the first article on S/M in a major publication
The “Life Magazine” showing the Chuck Arnett mural of leather men
The Arrest of Monique Von Cleef
Complete collections of “Black Leather in Color,” “The Leather Journal,” “Dungeon Master,” “Drummer,” “Cuir,” “Body Play” and many other magazines of the last five decades.
DVDs of “The Story of O,” “The Pet,” “A Tour of the Leather Archives and Museum with Dr. Tony DeBlase,” “Kinky,” “Piercing Visions,” “Blood Sisters,” “Tattoo,” “Out of the Darkness,” “The history of the Satyrs Motorcycle Club,” event DVDs and other titles to numerous to name.”
Rare books dating as far back as 1701
Flagellation tracts from the 1700’s
The collected works of Moses Harmon including his newspaper- Lucifer the Light-Bearer
A special section of limited editions from European and American publishers dating back to the 1800’s
Classic works of Von Sacher Masoch, De Sade, Trocchi, Rabelais, Boccaccio, and Ellis
More modern writings of F.E. Campbell, Dolcet, Reage, Prescott and Vassi
Serialized books such as Bizarre and original copies of “Bizarre Magazine,” “Erotique,” “Fantastique and Physique Pictorial” from the 1940 and 1950’s
Autographed copies from many modern writers and modern educational classics from Nazca Plains Publishing.
Comic books such as Leather Lad, Bondage Pixies, Manga style comics, and adult graphic novels
Dissertations, theses and other scholarly works
Posters and various other forms of art.
Special tributes to bootblacks and people of color
And So Much More …

Information on the Library

History 1

When Jill and I were just starting out in “the scene” (what the very small community was called back in the early ’70’s) we were given reading materials by our mentors. The books and magazines that we were given accumulated as paper tends to do, and got culled with each relocation over the years.

In the mid ’80’s Jill’s job took us to Oklahoma and within a short time, we found the leather community. A brand new club was forming and we were its first female members. We were leather women with about fifteen years experience and by the standards that existed when we first came out of our leather closets the two of us should not have been community elders, yet we were. Tulsa and Oklahoma City had lost many of its old guard leathermen (and the history that belonged to those leathermen) to the first wave of aids. There were very few twenty plus year leather folk around to help guide the new generation just discovering its kinky sexuality.

We attended the early meetings of T.U.L.S.A and would occasionally travel to Oklahoma City for fundraisers and other charity events. The more active we became in the state, the more leather “kinklings” we would have picking our memories or asking us questions about our kinky past. Soon our home in Tulsa was the place where many of the next generation spent all or part of their weekends.

Sometime during the weekend laughter, fun and food one of the kinklings invariably would ask if we had this magazine, or that book. “Did we have pictures of this march or that event?” At least twice each weekend the three or four big boxes of books and magazines that we had saved got dragged into the living room so that the “kids” could go through them. But just as often as not, I had to apologize for what was *not* in those old boxes.

So very much had been thrown away with each relocation that we were missing far more than we had saved. Still, our old “stuff” became the reading and learning material of the next Oklahoma leather generation. Because it was precious to them, it became precious to Jill and me. No longer were those old boxes of leather books and magazines just old memories that we needed to go through one day, they were the resources our next generation read to learn about their history.

Soon we were saving everything. When I commuted to California to go to work I packed an empty duffle bag so that I could bring back multiple copies of the books and magazines that could not be mailed into the state of Oklahoma. I found myself browsing through used bookstores looking for many of the books Jill and I had read more than a decade before. If it was leather, fetish or kink related, I tried to bring it home.

The advent of online auctions provided access to materials that I hadn’t seen since the early years out of my leather closet. Browsing these auctions allowed me to occasionally purchase a copy of old books and magazines we had owned in the early days of our leather.

One day I sniped a man for a limited edition book published by Falstaff Press. In the process of email correspondence with him he told me that he was intending to purchase the book for the purpose of burning it. He went on to tell me that he, and a number of friends received money from right winged groups to seek out material they deemed morally questionable, heretical or unsafe for children and destroy it. I WAS FURIOUS!

There are many many tomes that I would never read or allow children in my family to read. That does not give me the right to destroy them. In the case of the book that started this, that volume was a limited edition, numbered book, less than two thousand had ever been printed. Who knows how many were still in existence.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a town that had burned Huck Finn on the steps of the town library. Maybe it’s because of the sacredness with which I hold the written word. Maybe it’s because burning a book is just plain WRONG! A society that will burn a book will also burn its writer.

A few weeks later I was attending an event in Atlanta when a young man approached me and asked if we could talk. He told me that he owned a small shop in Michigan. In his store were comics, role play materials, some new age and pagan things, computers where kids could play online games as well as some kink.

He was seriously thinking about selling his store and leaving because he was frightened for himself and those who came to his place of business. There had been a book burning in the parking lot in front of his little store, and he was afraid that if he stayed in business the store might be vandalized or that he or one of his customers might be hurt. We talked for quite some time. He eventually decided that he would not kowtow to those who wanted to frighten him. He would stand tall because he was doing nothing wrong.

That day my book search became my book obsession. I would actively seek out (to the extent our wallet would allow) the books, magazines, posters, and memorabilia that should be saved for the next kinky generation. Jill and I would not allow the history that was the rightful possession of our next generation to be destroyed. Nor would we allow revisionism because the books, magazines, and newspapers that proudly proclaim our existence had become fuel for bond fires or food for the worms at the dump.

We stand proud because we stand on the past achievements, hopes, fantasies, and dreams of those who have come before us. Their written record must be preserved.

Never again landfill. Never again flames.

Librarian – Viola M. Johnson – Mama Vi

Vi is a leatherwoman, activist, author, and archivist who embarked on her journey in the Leather/BDSM scene in the early 1970s. A strong advocate for the necessity of preserving leather/fetish/erotic history, Johnson speaks and writes with a single-minded focus on the broad spectrum of issues that concern her and her community.

A mentor and confidante to many in the fetish world, she has a protective fondness for the ‘boys / bois’ of the community and those who choose to serve as slaves and submissives and is often referred to as the “Mother of all Submissives.”

Librarian’s Spouse – Jill Carter

Jill is an amazing woman in her own right, but perhaps the most astonishing feat she has achieved thus far is her seemingly neverending patience with the Librarian and the ever-expanding obsession.