TITLE    : Jeri Lee and His Fine Publications
STORYID  : jeri-lee-and-his-fine-publications
SUMMARY  : Transformation and Forced Womanhood.
AUTHOR   : Cal Y. Pygia@lit
DATE     : 2016-05-05
CATEGORY : reviews-and-essays
FLAGS    : 
TAGS     : |magazine|transsexual|transvestite|crossdresser|cross dresser|bondage|sissy|submissive|mistress|master|


Jeri Lee smokes a pipe--one of the final concessions he makes to his manhood--but wears dresses, high heels, jewelry, and other feminine accessories. A transvestite for the last eighteen years of his sixty-plus-year-old life, Jeri has, in the last few years, come to terms with his identity as a cross-dresser and is comfortable in his own skin. He has also reached a level of economic success as the owner of Peachy Ventures, Centurian Publishing, and Transformation Distributing. Jeri also owns a company that manufactures customized bondage-and-discipline attire and accouterments, among the latter of which items is the "pussy gag," an artificial vagina that is sewn between pieces of leather and is worn strapped to one's face. In the course of his career, he has done business with suspected Mafiosi, been set up by the FBI, sold videos to Larry Flynt, built his own castle, and been sued multiple times.

His flagship publications, all now defunct except as digital versions, are the magazines Transformation, Forced Womanhood, and Enslaved Sissies and Maids.

Transformation magazine, published in Sparks, Nevada, by Jeri Lee, as a Centurion publication, debuted in 1996 for $22 per issue. Against the backdrop of a red silk curtain cover, a transgender blonde woman wrapped in a mink coat sits upon red satin sheets. A table of contents of sorts, in text alternating between blue-green, white, and yellow, lists the premiere issue's featured articles: "Crossdressers in the Movies," "Miss Gay America Pageant" (a national beauty contest for female impersonators initiated in 1971 by Jerry Peek; Kerri Nichols was the 1996 winner), "Real Transformations (Men into Women), "TV &amp; TS Movie Reviews," "Transsexual Gallery," and "She-Male Maid," "Readers [sic] Letters &amp; Photos," and "TV News."

Text at the bottom left announces the issue's "Special Features: 'Heather' on being a real doll 'Jodie.'" "Adults Only," the cover warns potential buyers. (The cover price later decreased, presumably as it began to sell more copies, and ranged from $8.95 to $12.95 per issue.)

Devoted to male transvestites and male-to-female transsexuals, or transwomen, it bore the subtitle The Magazine Created For Men Who Enjoy Being Women. A caption, shown in a sunburst, appears on every cover to further indicate the periodical's fare: "Men changed into females." Its cover girls included the "Boy-Girl of the Month" who were well known in the pornographic film business of the day. 

In addition to its regular contents, future issues added a few new features and dropped previous ones on occasion. Some of the new features, for example, were "Video Reviews," "Make-Up Tips," "Fashion Tips," "Feminizing Your Voice," personal stories such as "Wild College Boy Becomes Submissive Girl Cheerleader," "Venturing Out--Will You Pass?," "NYC's Wigstock Festival" (an annual outdoor drag festival which took pace, during the 1980s and intermittently during the early 2000s, on Labor Day, in Manhattan's East Village and was hosted by co-creator Lady Bunny) and "Thailand: Home of the Most Beautiful Transsexuals."

Artwork--was soon added, featuring drawings and paintings, for the most part, by such artists as Heather, Mark Catalina, Rachel Strom, S. A. Carlson, Silvia C., Salina, Billie, Nikki, Wayne Ewald, Shane Alexander, Shannon, Caveman, Lisa, Marcus, and others. (Sadly, an extensive Internet search failed to turn up any examples, past or present, of their work, which is not surprising, perhaps, since many of these artists used pen names, often consisting only of a first name.)

Typically clothed in bikinis or lingerie, cover girls include Kimberly Devine (issue 17), twins Gena and Geneva (issue 18), Lilienne Li (issue 19), Silvia Boots (now, sadly, incarcerated for the murder of Laura Banuelos) (issue 20), Gia Darling (issues 21, 53, and 92), Sierra Feiraro (issue 25), Tonya issue 26), Mia Turiano (issue 27), Shawna (issue 30), Ivana Diamonds (issue 34), Allenina (issue 35), Tara Emory (issues 37 and 97), Giselle (issue 38), RuPaul (issue 50), Frank Marino (issue 52), Joanna Jett (issue 59), Wendy Williams (issue 61), Danielle Foxxx (issue 77), Domino Presley (issue 79), Venus Lux (issue 84), Lady Bunny (issue 87), Tyra Scott (issue 88), Kelli Lox (issue 91), Kylie Marie (issue 93), and many others. Bare butts were sometimes cover assets, too, and some of the models who bared theirs for readers are Allenina (issue 35), Vanessa (issue 76), Venus Lux (issue 84), and Kelli Lox (issue 91). An early debate as to whether to show models' male genitalia ended with an affirmative decision.

Other regular features included news of interest to the transgender community, makeup tips, transsexual and transvestite movie reviews, reports on the party and club scenes, and a medical doctor's column concerning male-to-female transitioning, hormone therapy, and sex-change surgery. 

Covers typically featured a background of a solid color, against which the model and the contrasting colors of the text (title, list of contents, and captions) stood out well.

According to Lee, with the second issue of the magazine, he had increased the number of subscribers to "25,000 worldwide." By the fifteenth issue, there were 100,000 subscribers, Lee told his readers in one of his occasional "Letters From the Editor," and he had convinced a national distributor to distribute the periodical. At this time, Hustler had 395,000 subscribers, he added, by way of comparison. With issue twenty one, the magazine began to appear on a bimonthly, rather than a quarterly, basis. Perhaps to generate more advertising revenue, Transformation began to list web sites on its front cover in its new, ongoing "Web Review."

Although he said that he "usually" avoided the impulse "to spout off about politics," he did so in several of his "Letters," railing against Republicans and criticizing Ronald Reagan, claiming Reagan had ruined both California and the United States, making the nation a "laughingstock" to the rest of the world, but defending President Bill Clinton, claiming that Clinton had done a "good job running the country" and shouldn't be impeached over receiving "a blowjob!"

Besides Transformation, Centurion Publishing also published Forced Womanhood, a magazine devoted to "submissive men" who serve "mistresses and masters." The premiere issue sold for $16.50 and was chock full of drawings and photographs of sissies, or "submissive men serving mistresses and masters."

Most of the sissies wore metallic sleeves around their penises, keeping them perpetually erect even as the sleeves denied them the pleasure of any sensations. By the invitation of the publisher, much of the content was supplied by readers. "Your story has a better chance of getting in," Lee advised would-be contributors, "if you include photos."

The sissies were often restrained in creative ways. In one drawing, for example, a submissive man, wearing a dress the bottom of which is hiked around his waist, revealing a sheathed erection tied to a hook in a bar that, to either end of which one of his ankles is shackled. Another bar is used to secure the victim's wrists, one at either end of the pole, by attached handcuffs. Other drawings show a sissy on a leash; a sissy strapping on a new pair of patent leather Mary Janes adorned with pink satin bows; a sissified employee wearing a min-skirt, stockings and high heels on her hands and knees beneath her mistress' desk, where she is restrained by a chain attached to her collar; sissies wearing stylish dresses and and jackets; sissies strapped into chairs; a sissy being introduced to her first cock, as her mistress points a hooded male slave's erection toward the squatting sissy's face; a mistress bringing a wig to a seated man wearing a bra and a pair of panties; a female executive about to administer a spanking to a the bottom of a naked sissy chained to a "servant's punishment post"; a woman scolding a sissy maid; and other scenes. Photographs depict similar situations.

At the back of the magazine, advertisements sell everything from feminine clothes to herbal supplements which claim to "feminize" men, tablets that supposedly enlarge male breasts and prompt milk production, "breast cream," "beard retardant cream," "body hair removal cream," other Centurion publications, such as Transvestite, Centurians catalogs, Exotic Bondage, and, of course, Transformation.

A selection of "she-male and bondage videos" was also available: Virgins, Warehouse Wenches, Transsexual Submissions, Porsche Lynn: Vault Mistress, Real Bondage: The Movie, Rituals of Submission, and She-Male She-Devils. "These videos usually sell for up to $79.95," the advertisement reads, but Forced Womanhood readers can purchase them for $39.95 each.

The back cover shows a supine sissy, wearing only a top, licking her mistress' pussy while a masturbating man appears about to ejaculate over the sissy, who wears the mandatory penis sleeve. "This Enslaved Sissy Could Be You!" the painting declares, in no uncertain terms.

Lee says that, over the years, he has been sued many times, has gone broke, has started new businesses several times, been investigated by the FBI, and, perhaps, unwittingly associated with the mob. However, his publishing efforts have paid handsomely, at last, and he and his girlfriend are doing well. Lee lives openly as a crossdresser, even traveling as a woman during vacations. His publications continue to be successful, ensuring good times for all, including Lee himself.

