Earlier than that in popular American culture - The Wonderwoman comic had a S&M subtext, she'd be tied up, tied down every adventure (sometimes several times an adventure):
Marston is credited as the creator of the systolic blood-pressure test used to detect deception, which became one component of the modern polygraph.
From this work, Marston had been convinced that women were more honest and reliable than men, and could work faster and more accurately. During his lifetime, Marston championed the causes of women of the day.
Marston was also a writer of essays in popular psychology.
In 1928 he published his book "Emotions of Normal People" which became a classic for the DISC-Theory later developed further by John G. Geier. He viewed people behaving along two axes, with their attention being either passive or active, depending on the individual's perception of his or her environment as either favourable or antagonistic. By placing the axes at right angles, four quadrants form with each describing a behavioral pattern:
* Dominance produces activity in an antagonistic environment * Inducement produces activity in a favourable environment * Steadiness produces passivity in a favourable environment * Compliance produces passivity in an antagonistic environment.
His best known theory was that there is a male notion of freedom that is inherently anarchic and violent, and an opposing female notion based on "Love Allure" that leads to an ideal state of submission to loving authority. His concerns about the effects of gender stereotyping in popular culture were expressed in a 1944 article published in The American Scholar:
"Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power... The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman (Marston, 1944, p. 42-43)".
quote:Themes
Marston's Wonder Woman is often cited as an early example of bondage themes entering popular culture: physical submission appears again and again throughout Marston's comics work, with Wonder Woman and her criminal opponents frequently being tied up or otherwise restrained, and her Amazonian friends engaging in frequent wrestling and bondage play (possibly based on Marston's earlier research studies on sorority initiations). These elements were softened by later writers of the series. Though Marston had described female nature as submissive, in his other writings and interviews he referred to submission to women as a noble and potentially world-saving practice, leading ideally to the establishment of a matriarchy, and did not shy away from the sexual implications of this:
"The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound ... Only when the control of self by others is more pleasant than the unbound assertion of self in human relationships can we hope for a stable, peaceful human society. ... Giving to others, being controlled by them, submitting to other people cannot possibly be enjoyable without a strong erotic element".
About male readers, he later wrote: "Give them an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to, and they'll be proud to become her willing slaves!"
quote:I think others need convincing that people are genetically gay, and deserve the same rights based on something they cannot change about themselves.
What if they just like being gay? what's the issue then?