The Eulenspiegel Society

The Eulenspiegel Society, also known as TES, is the first BDSM organization founded in the United States.

[1] It was founded in 1971 in New York City by Pat Bond, a music teacher, and Fran Nowve, as an informal association and support group for masochists; sadists joined shortly after in that same year.

The organization also launched Prometheus,[6] a decades-long-running magazine, in the early 1970s, exploring issues important to kinksters, ranging from advice columns and personal ads, to erotica and art, to conversation about the philosophy of consensual kink.

[9][4] In 1993, Leather Pride Night by The Eulenspiegel Society, Excelsior MC, GMS/MA, LSM, and NLA: Metro New York received the Large Event of the Year award as part of the Pantheon of Leather Awards.

[10] In 1994, Barbara Nitke attended her first meeting of The Eulenspiegel Society to see a presentation by underground photographer Charles Gatewood.

[12] In 1999, Gary Switch posted to The Eulenspiegel Society's USENET list "TES-Friends" proposing the term RACK (Risk-aware consensual kink) out of a desire to form a more accurate portrayal of the type of play that many engage in.

Noting that nothing is truly 100% safe, not even crossing the street, Switch compared BDSM to the sport of mountain climbing.

[14] TES (pronounced "Tess,") is an entirely volunteer-run nonprofit organization, including an elected board of directors.

TES generally holds two classes each week (over 100 a year) in New York City, both general meetings, and ones hosted by special interest groups, ranging from bondage to meet-ups for novices interested in alternative sexualities.

The original name, which cofounder Fran Nowve came up with,[4] was inspired by a passage from Austrian psychoanalyst Theodor Reik's Masochism in Modern Man (1941),[2] in which he argues that patients who engage in self-punishing or provocative behavior do so in order to demonstrate their emotional fortitude, induce guilt in others, and achieve a sense of "victory through defeat".

Reik describes Till Eulenspiegel's "peculiar" behavior—he enjoys walking uphill, and feels "dejected" walking downhill—and compares it to a "paradox reminiscent of masochism", because Till Eulenspiegel "gladly submits to discomfort, enjoys it, even transforms it into pleasure".