“Coastbound Train, Rachael and Elexis,” 1985. Image by Honey Lee Cottrell. Among her well-known photographs is this powerful image of Rachael Williams (the first Ms. Leather) and Elexis that first appeared in On Our Backs.
You may have known Honey Lee Cottrell. For sure you know her life’s work as a photographer and cinematographer.
Honey Lee Cottrell passed away on September 21, 2015, of pancreatic cancer. She was 69. We lost a friend and compatriot of Nan’s from the early days of On Our Backs and Fatale Video. She was one of the “core four” at On Our Backs, along with Nan, Deborah Sundahl and Susie Bright.
Deborah Sundahl wrote of Honey Lee: “The most influential photographer of the 1980s and ’90s in her innovative and original representation of lesbian sexuality. Her specialty was articulating the butch-femme of the 1950s for a new era of lesbians.”
Honey Lee filmed Clips, which featured “the first-ever-seen-on-screen authentic female ejaculation. Nan said, “She was right where she needed to be to get that shot, strong and steady to capture the event.” What an historic event it was, too.
Honey Lee was a force behind the scenes at Fatale and lesbian pornography. She chronicled the world of lesbian sexuality at On Our Backs, Fatale Video and beyond. Her subjects were open and honest with her, gazing directly into the camera’s lens.
What writers and academics refer to as “the lesbian gaze,” Honey Lee personified in her work. Her images were published in books and journals and shown in exhibitions and shows. Her work is archived at the Human Sexuality Collection at Cornell University. (Read the whole obituary, written by Brenda Marston of Cornell University, here.)
Self portrait. 2009. Image by Honey Lee Cottrell
We’ll let Honey Lee have the last word:
“The lesbian gaze meant that there was a contemplation,” she said, “a restraint, a sincerity and a warrior-quality. This lesbian look was compelling. While your heterosexual woman model might compel the rest of the world to look at her, a lesbian was addressing you.”
Until next time,
Nan & Christi
nan@fatalemedia.com
christi@fatalemedia.com
P.S. You can see Honey Lee’s work in Clips and some of her photos on Fatale Media’s Pinterest boards. Kitty Tsui, Honey Lee with tux and oar, as well as some others.
Susie Bright is one of the smartest people we know, and one of the smartest sex people we know. She was the editor of On Our Backs for many years, working with Nan and Deborah as the magazine’s editor. You can read Susie’s OOB story (and see some good pictures), with links to more stories, at Susie’s blog.
You find most everything, including links to Susie’s books and her weekly podcast, “In Bed with Susie Bright,” from Susie Bright’s Journal.
Susie was recently on Sex Out Loud Radio with Tristan Taormino. Sex Out Loud, like its host Tristan, is smart, funny and always insightful. We highly recommend a listen (it’s free)…especially the part about the OOB and Fatale work at Cornell, and catch her vivid description of a certain sexy scene in one of Fatale’s videos…
We were in Minneapolis a couple weeks ago, when the Minneapolis SlutWalk took place, on October 1st, 2011.
The Minneapolis SlutWalk video, courtesy of Mill City Times, shows a typical cross-section of relatively young, relatively white Minneapolis, a city that with its sister city of St. Paul has a population of approximately three-quarters of a million people. That’s where Nan went to college, too, at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
SlutWalk Minneapolis was bound to be tamer than SlutWalk London, which was held in June, or SlutWalk New York, which was also held on October 1, 2011.
More men, it seemed, were in attendance at the Minneapolis protest, than at other protests. One was shirtless. The state was breaking autumn heat wave records, and it has turned out to be the hottest stretch in 132 years. In the 80s every day, ugh.
SlutWalks originated last spring 2011 in Toronto, when, according to a CBC report, a Toronto police constable in January told a York University personal security class that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.”
The antiviolence SlutWalk protests are sex-positive, unlike the mostly anti-porn Take Back the Night marches of the 1970s and 1980s, before women reclaimed their right to be sexual beings.
In response, and an historic turning point, On Our Backs was born, the brainchild of Deborah Sundahl, Nan Kinney, Myrna Elena and Susie Bright.
Women and lesbians began celebrating sex and sexuality in a way they hadn’t before. Women’s desires were shown in all their glory in On Our Backs magazine and those first Fatale videos.
For a perfect example of a now-classic lesbian video, don’t miss Fatale Media’s Clips. Nan and Deb star, and there is one scene in there from Deborah that is still our favorite.
Susie Bright and Honey Lee Cottrell. Credit: Mariette Pathy Allen
Imagine our surprise to learn that Honey Lee Cottrell was being evicted from the apartment she’s had since the early days of On Our Backs.
On Our Backs was the seminal lesbian porn magazine first published by Deborah Sundahl and Myrna Elena. Nan Kinney became publisher not long after that first issue came out, and Susie Bright became editor.
Susie and Honey Lee shared that apartment back in the early days of OOB. Many of the magazine’s sexy shoots took place in it or nearby.
Susie’s piece is an amazing chronicle of the OOB shoots and that apartment on Bessie Street in San Francisco.
There are fabulous pictures in this piece. One in particular, The Voyeur shoot at the York Theater, with Susie, Honey Lee and Nan, brought a big smile to our faces. Nan’s hair!
<Snip>This Friday I am losing my long-standing home in San Francisco: 25A Bessie Street. My first books Herotica and Susie Sexpert’s Lesbian Sex World were written inside this little nest. I grew up as a young woman in this apartment, my daughter grew up here from infancy to adulthood. The… <snip> Read more.
Here are two good articles about On Our Backs, should you want to know more:
May, 1991: Close to Bessie Street was a dilapadated grand movie theater, called “The York,”on 24th Street, which had seen better days. Nan Kinney, Honey, and I went over early one morning while they were cleaning up and asked the dyke ticket-taker if we could shoot there… and if she’d like to play the “voyeur” for a story we were illustrating.
In Memoriam: Honey Lee Cottrell
Friday, October 9th, 2015“Coastbound Train, Rachael and Elexis,” 1985. Image by Honey Lee Cottrell. Among her well-known photographs is this powerful image of Rachael Williams (the first Ms. Leather) and Elexis that first appeared in On Our Backs.
You may have known Honey Lee Cottrell. For sure you know her life’s work as a photographer and cinematographer.
Honey Lee Cottrell passed away on September 21, 2015, of pancreatic cancer. She was 69. We lost a friend and compatriot of Nan’s from the early days of On Our Backs and Fatale Video. She was one of the “core four” at On Our Backs, along with Nan, Deborah Sundahl and Susie Bright.
Deborah Sundahl wrote of Honey Lee: “The most influential photographer of the 1980s and ’90s in her innovative and original representation of lesbian sexuality. Her specialty was articulating the butch-femme of the 1950s for a new era of lesbians.”
Honey Lee filmed Clips, which featured “the first-ever-seen-on-screen authentic female ejaculation. Nan said, “She was right where she needed to be to get that shot, strong and steady to capture the event.” What an historic event it was, too.
Honey Lee was a force behind the scenes at Fatale and lesbian pornography. She chronicled the world of lesbian sexuality at On Our Backs, Fatale Video and beyond. Her subjects were open and honest with her, gazing directly into the camera’s lens.
What writers and academics refer to as “the lesbian gaze,” Honey Lee personified in her work. Her images were published in books and journals and shown in exhibitions and shows. Her work is archived at the Human Sexuality Collection at Cornell University. (Read the whole obituary, written by Brenda Marston of Cornell University, here.)
Self portrait. 2009. Image by Honey Lee Cottrell
We’ll let Honey Lee have the last word:
“The lesbian gaze meant that there was a contemplation,” she said, “a restraint, a sincerity and a warrior-quality. This lesbian look was compelling. While your heterosexual woman model might compel the rest of the world to look at her, a lesbian was addressing you.”
Until next time,
Nan & Christi
nan@fatalemedia.com
christi@fatalemedia.com
P.S. You can see Honey Lee’s work in Clips and some of her photos on Fatale Media’s Pinterest boards. Kitty Tsui, Honey Lee with tux and oar, as well as some others.
Tags:Deborah Sundahl, Fatale Video, Honey Lee Cottrell, Nan Kinney, On Our Backs, Susie Bright
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