The Ladies' Fetish & Taboo Society is an ethereal, ever-shifting group that does not believe in meeting. Instead, it venerates and chronicles its seemingly unceasing encounters with the weird. We also engage in devotion to efficiency and strive for that intactness of self known as Harmonica Virginity. Attaining Society membership is not achieved by seeking it, but is a mysterious process along the order of divine revelation.

Co-Founder, Publisher & Editix:  Lady Kathy

The Usual Suspects

                     Rex Celestis                          Left-Brained Lady Susan

                     Fellow Buddy David               Lady Susan O’ The Vortex

                     Ben Her/ King Leer                Special Pals Paolo & Lizzie-Ba

                     Ask A Guy                              The Interpreter of Omens

                     The Divine Mandrake            John The Not-So-Terribly Weird

From 1988-1998 the Society’s exploits were chronicled in the ‘zine The Ladies’ Fetish & Taboo Society Compendium of Urban Anthropology. The Compendium continues in virtual form here on this site, in The Compendiblog, in the archives of the email newsletter Demitasse and, alas, in the life of its co-founder, publisher and editrix, whose life is an unending demonstration of the maxim “You can run, but you can’t hide.”

"Pushing publishing into the fourth dimension." -- Pagan Kennedy, Voice Literary Supplement.

The Compendium began as a vehicle for self-amusement and morphed into a coping mechanism for a world that had abandoned the playing field for which we’d been emotionally prepared. We elevated recurring incidents, details and social abuses into theories and new universal laws, to corral the pervasive chaos into something with the appearance of making sense.

A prime motivation for me was chronicling and outing outrageous behavior. “If you did this,” I frequently thought, “Others need to know.”  Recent years have brought home the wisdom -- and, often,  kindness -- of leaving some things unspoken. For the time being at least. I’ve long suspected that the highest and best use of my existence will be writing my memoirs.

Many, many, appallingly many back issues of The Compendium are still available. Plans are always in the works for compilations. Contact me if you’re interested in either.

"Try being a single, straight woman navigating a Bermuda Triangle of bad dates, unhinged friends, and encounters with minor celebrities.... The zine will convince you that we're all controlled by perverse universal forces."
                                                                                        Pagan Kennedy, Voice Literary Supplement

"Don't let the name fool you; this is not a sexzine; it's a smart, funny chronicle of the strange world we live in."

                                                                                        Twisted Times                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

"I liked your mag, but if you printed pictures of naked women in it, I would have looked at it longer."

                                                                                        Penn Jillette

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