The Carter-Johnson Library & Collection

The Carter-Johnson Library & Collection

Presenters: Viola Johnson, Gayle Rubin, Ph.D., and Robert Bienvenu, Ph.D.

Sunday, July 20, 2025, 10-11am (US Pacific) / 11am-noon (US Mountain) / noon-1:00pm (US Central) / 1-2:00 pm (US Eastern) / 6-7:00pm (BST - London) / 7-8:00pm (CEST - Prague, Berlin, Stockholm); 1 hour presentation; discussion may extend beyond one hour.

Please use 1:00pm/1300 (Eastern), New York City, as a reference to confirm your local start time.

To register for the webinar, please visit: https://forms.gle/Pra1sy3GdMutbapx7

Continuing Education (CE) credit: n/a

Cost: Attendance is free for all CARAS subscribers. Attendance for non-subscribers is $25

Pre-registration is required. Registration will close at 3pm (Pacific)/6pm (Eastern) on Friday, July 18, 2025 Please register early!


Abstract

The Carter-Johnson Library & Collection (CJLC), named after co-founders Jill Carter and Viola Johnson, is a unique resource created within and serving the kink, Leather, BDSM, and fetish communities. The CJLC took shape over a period of decades beginning in the 1990's, starting as a small, traveling collection of community magazines, books, and artifacts that was displayed at various community events around the country. Geographically, the collection was based with the co-founders as they lived in different locations in the United States, initially the East Coast, then the Los Angeles area, Oklahoma, and today in a small, picturesque community on the Ohio River close to Evansville, Indiana. The CJLC is physically located in several buildings that have been converted to house the collection, and also provide accommodations for visiting scholars. 

The CJLC includes: books, magazines, art, photographs, oral histories, physical artifacts, and organizational materials such newsletters, flyers, meeting documents, and other ephemera. Historical materials date back to the 18th century, although the majority of the collection addresses the modern kink communities that took shape in the 20th century. The geographic scope of the collection is international.

This session will include an overview presentation describing the current collection by Rob Bienvenu, a discussion with co-founder Viola Johnson, and comments by Gayle Rubin that will situate the CJLC in the broader context of queer and kink community archives that exist today. Participants will have the opportunity for an extended discussion and question and answer session following the initial hour-long presentation. 


Learning Objectives

At the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

  1. Describe the history and general contents of the Carter-Johnson Library & Collection (CJLC)

  2. Provide two examples of research projects that can be supported by the CJLC.

  3. Compare the CJLC to other queer community archives in terms of characteristics such as mission, community engagement, accessibility to academic and community researchers, funding, and institutionalization.

Presentation Content Level: Introductory - Intermediate. This webinar will provide an introduction to the topic but also provide an opportunity for discussion at a more advanced level that presupposes basic knowledge of alternative sexualities communities.

Disclosures: There is no commercial support for this presentation. Facilitator Viola Johnson is a current Director of the Carter-Johnson Library & Collection. 


About the Presenters

Viola Johnson is a leatherwoman, activist, motivational speaker and author who has been active in the leather BDSM scene for well over four decades. She has served as a mentor to countless individuals, and was dubbed "Mom" by several generations of Leathermen and women, and is delighted to now be Grandmom and Great Grandmom to a whole new generation of kinklings. Mama Vi is a firm believer in preserving leather history, and is the Director and Senior Griot of the Carter/Johnson Library and Collection, a compilation of over 15,000 books (both fiction and non-fiction), periodicals, posters and other art, newsletters, and ephemera documenting the history of SM/Leather/Kink from early drawings documenting human sexuality to the present day.  One of the original Pearls of Onyx and a proud member of the ONYX Pearls Mid-Atlantic chapter, she is also the wife of the first Black IMsL, Jill Carter, International Ms. Leather 1996. They have been together 48 years.

Gayle Rubin, Ph.D. is a noted scholar of San Francisco leather history and social life, and of the politics and economics of South of Market. She was a founding member of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Historical Society, and was involved in the establishment of the Leather Archives & Museum, on whose Board of Directors she currently serves. She is also a member of the Board of the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District in San Francisco.  Rubin has been active in many leather organizations and events, including Samois, Janus, the Outcasts, LDG, CLAW, and the Leather Hall of Fame. She has taught at the University of California Santa Cruz, the University of California Berkeley, the San Francisco Art Institute, and Harvard University, where she was the F.O. Matthiessen Visiting Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. She is Associate Professor of Anthropology, and Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan.

Robert Bienvenu, Ph.D. Rob is a sociologist, a co-founder of CARAS and is CARAS' Executive Director. Rob's research has focused on two areas: health, and the history and social organization of kink communities. Following completion of his doctorate at Indiana University, he served as an active duty research psychologist in the U.S. Army, where his research focused on mental and physical health of DoD personnel. Rob has worked in academic and administrative positions focused on research, regulatory affairs, academic program management, and bioethics. He is a member of the CARAS Institutional Review Board (IRB). Rob's current community roles include service on the Board of Directors of the Leather Archives and Museum, and the Selection Committee of the Leather Hall of Fame.

References

Adler, Melissa. 2017. Cruising the Library: Perversities in the Organization of Knowledge. Fordham University Press. 

Boutchma, Marta. 2017. “Coming Out: Moving LGBT Archives From Private to Public Spaces.” The iJournal 2 (2): 1–8. https://theijournal.ca/index.php/ijournal/article/view/28125 [Open Access]

Coloma, Roland Sintos. 2022. “Queer Archives.” In Encyclopedia of Queer Studies in Education, edited by Strunk, Kamden K. and Stephanie Anne Shelton, 490–493. Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004506725_096

Johnson, Viola M. 1999. To Love, to Obey, to Serve: Diary of an Old Guard Slave. Mystic Rose Books. 

Marshall, Daniel and Zeg Tortorici, eds. 2022. Turning Archival: The Life of the Historical in Queer Studies. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478022589


About the CARAS Education Program

CARAS is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. CARAS maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

For more information about the CARAS Education Program, including CE policies and procedures, please visit https://caras-researchlink.org/education

Robert Bienvenu