Tag: Photograph

Mommy Issues

It’s Mother’s Day in the US. That can mean only one thing: My social media feeds full of people leaning heavily into the mommy domme kink. While everyone else is figuring out where to get flowers and what spots are still open for brunch, kinksters are figuring out how to make it freaky.

I’m certainly not opposed to this. It can be a hot dynamic. I just find it odd how quickly this particularly one has moved from very niche to kinky mainstream. A decade or so ago, it was something I rarely saw outside of the handful of dommes who specialized in it. Now it seems to have become just another kink that people will casually lean into. Was there always pent up interest that wasn’t being addressed? Or has the internet’s tendency to normalize things created interest that wasn’t there before?

Whatever the answer to that, it does give me an excuse to feature someone who always maximizes mommy, whatever day it is. That’s NYC pro-domme Mistress Blunt. This year she’s even given a class on it (available online).

You can find more from Mistress Blunt via her Twitter feed and links page.

Subby School

I’m a bit late with a link to this article on a School for Submissives in Atlanta. It was first published just over a year ago. However, I thought it was interesting and still worth sharing. While the naming suggests classes and lessons, it sounds more like a support and experience sharing group.

It’s not something I’d find myself drawn to – I prefer to research and analyze alone – but I can see the value of the idea. Particularly if you’re mostly playing with lifestyle folk rather than professionals. There’s no link to the group in the article, but if you’re in Atlanta and interested, it sounds like they have a fetlife presence.

Of course I couldn’t mention a school without shamelessly using the opportunity to feature an attractive school mistress. Not sure what subject she teaches, but I’m willing to get a failing grade in whatever it is.

I think the originally site this is from has sadly ceased to be.

Happy Birthday Mistress T

My social media feeds tell me it’s Mistress T’s birthday, so here’s wishing a happy day to one of the most significant and productive independent creators of femdom media.

If you’ve not read her autobiography – ‘There is more to the story‘ – then I’d recommend it. I reviewed it and posted about it a few years back. Her blog is sadly dormant these days, but it has a lot of good posts still archived there.

Here’s a lovely image of Mistress T. Looking through my archives, I seem to have featured her image a fair number of times in the past. For example, this, this, this and this. She’s created a lot of really great content.

Session Time

Interesting thread here by Lady Vi on how she feels session time should be measured. In her view negotiation and aftercare is very much part of the scheduled session time, not something that happens outside it. She therefore always allows at least 15 minutes before the session ends for that aftercare and clean-up process.

Obviously every pro-domme runs her sessions how she sees fit. Totally not my place to suggest differently. However, I will make a few observations from my experience on the client side.

Firstly, while that approach is the most common one, it’s not entirely universal. I’ve sessioned with experienced dommes who used most of the booked time for play and let aftercare spill beyond that. They presumably built that fact into their schedules and their pricing structure.

Secondly, because there’s not a single approach, it can be confusing when playing with different dommes. My first domme used to play for almost all of the scheduled time, so I assumed that was the standard. I was confused and a little put out when I played with others and found that it wasn’t common. Of course I adjusted my expectations in time, but what a domme might have assumed was entitlement on my part was really just differing experiences.

Finally, there is the risk of feeling shortchanged if the aftercare period wraps up quicker than expected. Miss Grey makes this point in a tweeted reply. I’ve walked out of some sessions feeling buzzed, looked at my watch and realized there was theoretically 10+ minutes of session time left. That’s a quick way to lose the buzz.

Personally, I like the approach Miss Grey adopts. I’d rather pay a higher hourly rate and allow some flexibility on the time for aftercare. To draw a slightly odd analogy, I think of it a bit like the bonus dishes that a fine dining restaurant may send out. Logically, you know you’re still paying for them as part of the overall charge, but it creates a happy positive energy when you get them.

This shot of Miss Grey and friend is from her website. She’s an SF based pro-domme and disciplinarian.

Summoning the Maid

I spotted a tweet the other day that said chastity keys were unsightly when worn around the neck of a domme. Ideally they should be tossed into the back of an old kitchen drawer with all the other old keys and knick knacks you never use.

This lady doesn’t subscribe to that philosophy, given the obvious key she’s sporting here. Between that and her summoning bell, she’s clearly the household stuff under control.

I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for this. If you help out with who this is or where it’s from, please let me know via a comment.

Thanks to Michael I believe I can attribute this to Deni_C from the Power of Leather site. Worth checking out if – like me – it’s a new one to you.

Letsby Avenue

My Twitter feed has been full of this image today – a police station converted into apartments, where they left a holding cell as a ‘decorative’ feature. The Daily Mail featured it a few days ago.

The cell itself would be fun to have. I’m sure we can all think of a lot of uses for it. However, there are a couple of major drawbacks. Firstly, the horrible grey floor they’ve chosen. A nice brown parquet would have been much more fitting. Secondly, it’s in Dudley in the West Midlands. No offense to any readers from Dudley but – despite its long and rich history – that’s not a particularly desirable location. And I say that as someone who grew up not a million miles from there.

If you’re  into cages, it’s probably better to stick to the portable kind. Something like the one Juniper Dolor is playing with below.

Image sourced via this tweet.

Sociopaths

Interesting article here from the Guardian on Patric Gagne, a sociopath who has written a book on her condition and her life.

I think if you asked the general public what professions lend themselves to sociopaths then, alongside the obvious things like CEO and politician, there’d be a good chance of pro-domme coming up. After all, tying people up and hurting them does align with the cliched media portrayal of sociopaths as sadistic serial killers. Both tend to have secret dungeons and cages to lock people in.

However, if you read the article, I think it’s pretty clear a sociopath would be a terrible fit for a pro-domme. They’re typically impulsive, risk taking, lie easily and have very low empathy. Where a successful pro-domme needs to plan ahead, be risk aware and have a very high degree of empathy. A lot of what makes a great session with a domme goes on inside the submissive’s head. If the domme doesn’t understand that inner life then they’ll have great difficulty creating the desired experience. It’s easy to hurt someone, but hard to do it exactly the right way, both physically and mentally.

Of course, while you might not what to find yourself in a dungeon with a sociopath, the fictional versions can still be fun. This is Jodie Comer, who plays Villanelle in Killing Eve.

Choking

The NY Times has an opinion piece (free link) on the widespread trend of choking in otherwise non-kinky sexual relationships. As you might expect, it’s not a healthy trend, with both short and long term risks. It highlights that a lot of experienced BDSM players think choking is too dangerous, so it’s weird to find it spreading among the vanilla folk.

One part that initially caught my eye was this:

Sexual strangulation, nearly always of women in heterosexual pornography, has long been a staple on free sites…

My initial reaction was annoyance at the usual femdom erasure. We F/m types can do stupid dangerous stuff as well! But on second thoughts, it actually isn’t common in Femdom material at all. You see breathplay pretty often, often smothering with bums on faces, but rarely dommes putting hands around necks. Yay for sensible kinky folk!

I’m not entirely sure where this is from, but I’d guess it’s a mainstream fashion shoot rather than kinky porn.

Anne Hathaway

Ms. Hathaway was the cover story for a recent edition of Vanity Fair. There was even a kinky slant, with some very fetishistic outfits. While I’m a fan of her work and have featured her in past posts, but I’m not entirely sure about this photoshoot. I know I risk Servitor never speaking to me again,  but it does seem to waste her talents with odd shots like this one. How do you combine someone as iconic as Anne Hathaway with latex fashion and not produce an amazing photoshoot?

In better news, she’s also the face of new Versace Icons campaign. I think this shot and the other’s from that campaign are a lot more complementary and capture the fashion fetish aesthetic better.