Madame Nhu

I’m currently halfway through reading Neil Sheehan’s ‘A Bright Shining Lie.‘ It’s a fascinating book on the many (many) stupid things America did in the 1960’s in Vietnam. The reason I mention here is the figure of Madame Nhu. She was the sister-in-law of President Diem, who ruled – with American support – from 1955 to his overthrow and assassination in 1963.

By most accounts she was a fairly terrible person and associated with an awful regime. She was also very forceful and dominated the men around her. She bullied her younger brother when they were children and dominated the men in the Diem government, yelling and shouting to get her way. She once stated that “Power is wonderful. Total power is totally wonderful.” Sheehan describes her household like so…

The servants were all men. They would shuffle in bent over in a low bow, bow lower, and acknowledge her commands with a long “Daaa…” (the D pronounced like a Z), a servile form of “yes” for servants in old, aristocratic households; then they would shuffle back out still bent over.

Of course, in reading it now, one also has to allow for the racism and sexism of the time. Women from Asia were stereotyped as either sexy and submissive or evil scheming seducers. The US media called her the ‘Dragon Lady’, which made no sense to the Vietnamese, and Defense Secretary McNamara described her “…as bright, forceful, and beautiful, but also diabolical and scheming—a true sorceress.”

She proved to be lucky as well. When her husband and brother-in-law’s regime was overthrown in a coup, she was is the US. While they were executed in ’63 with a shot to the back of the head, she lived to be 86, and passed away in 2011 in Europe.

Madame Nhu

Bum Note

I don’t feature a lot of Femdom/Febsub imagery. That’s partly because as a man I don’t have a great understanding of that dynamic. It’s also partly because most of the images seems so fake and porn-y. Mostly it’s because images of female submission show up everywhere on tumblr and porn sites, and as a femdom blog, I don’t feel it’s an area I need to add to.

Having said all that, let me immediately contradict myself, and share this vintage Ff spanking picture (courtesy of Spanking Blog). It’s from the 1930’s but looks like it could have been shot just last week. The expressions and outfits push all my buttons. I’ll take that teacher’s outfit over a domme bristling with studs and leather any day of the week. Beautiful poses and and a lovely sexy behind.

Spanking during Violin Lesson

This is from Ostra Studios, a Paris based photography studio of the 30’s that was a spin off from Biederer Studios. The two brothers who created both studios were Jewish and died in Auschwitz in 1942. It’s hard to grasp that the human race can produce people of such beauty while simultaneously delivering those that would burn them to death.

The cloud knows all

Smart advertising is already pretty spooky. I’ll do a casual search on Expedia for a trip idea, and be bombarded with hotel ads in my Facebook feed. Or I’ll search Google for a kitchen appliance, and suddenly every website has an opinion on what toaster I should buy. The combination of smarter AI, corrupt politicians and the ever expanding amount of user behavior data stored in the cloud is only going to make it spookier in the future. Pretty soon you’ll post-coitally murmur into your partner’s ear that maybe next time you might be up for a little light anal play, and the following morning you’ll have a grinning UPS guy outside with a 55 gallon drum of lube and an inflatable gargantula dildo.

The reason I mention all this is not because a Canadian dildo manufacturer just got caught tracking the behavior of its users. That’s a great example of what the future holds, but not what prompted this post. Instead it was triggered by my Facebook feed advertising ballgags to me. At least that’s what it looked like at first glance. It turned out to be for the Jawzrsize – a weird jaw exercise device. As images like this and this show, it does really resemble a ballgag. So I’m let wondering – what do the Facebook algorithms know about me? I’ve shown zero interest in fitness products or home exercise equipment. So are they just being dumb, or really really smart? Is there somewhere a Facebook AI thinking “So far he’s not been into exercise, but based on that blog he writes, he is into freaky sex toys. Perhaps this is the crossover product that’ll finally snag him?” If the next FB ad I see is for an exciting new weights workout device for the lower body, then I’ll know Facebook is really onto me.

I’ll leave you with a happy young woman doing her best to help a man develop a firm and square jawline of his own.

I believe this is from the bondishboys site.

Bleeding Heart

As I mentioned in my last post, I caught up with Cynthia Stone and Inga Larsson last week while they were visiting Seattle. I was happy to see them in my part of the world, but I was a touch nervous about doing a session with both of them together, particular given how little I’ve played recently. I’d seen them separately before in LA (posting about it here, here and here), and our play had tended towards the intense and in-your-face end of the scale. Doubling that up, combined with a lack of match fitness, felt like it might be a challenge too far. In the end my concerns were proven both right and wrong. I was right that it’d be very intense, but wrong that it’d be a problem. It was wonderful.

We snapped some photographs, which I’ll share in the hot links below. Fair warning to those of a sensitive disposition: They include close-up shots of naked me and some very small amount of blood. I will not be offended if you choose to skip the click.

We started with a nice mix of corporal, using crops, paddles, whips and even the belt from my trousers. A particular highlight was being paddled on the ass by Cynthia while Inga was in my face prodding an acupuncture needle in my forehead. The combination of the impersonal heavy impacts and the very personalized sharp pain was a big headrush. I was also introduced to the idea of removing a nipple clamp for a short while and then re-applying it. The result is agonizing, with the clamp multiplying the pain of the returning blood flow. I think in years of playing, that’s the first time I’ve experienced that particular combination.

After that we moved onto some medical style play, with Cynthia suturing and Inga cutting. You see the suture work on the genitals here and here. While that was going on, Inga was drawing a heart on my chest with a scalpel. You can see this here and here. The combination of the bursts of sharp suturing pain and rhythmic cutting strokes was another amazing combination. I ended up shaking with the adrenaline but also relaxing completely into the sensations. There was also some nipple piecing happening, which the suture thread ended up getting tied off to, shown here.

Cynthia didn’t want to be left out of the cutting action, so decided to cut her name into my cock, shown here. That looks extreme, but was actually less painful than the suturing. What was extreme was being forced to masturbate afterwards with a mixture of lube and salt. Even with a normal cock status, salt is not something you want anywhere it or your lube. Mix in some thin paper-like cuts, and much groaning will ensue.

In the end I was left with an amazing headspace, that persisted for 3 or 4 days. I still break out in a big smile just thinking about the time we spent. I was also left with a very distinctive collection of marks to admire, both on the ass and the chest. This was the heart a couple of days later.

If you’re in LA or NYC, and looking for an imaginative and talented pro-domme, then I absolutely recommend seeking out Inga or Cynthia. And if you’re lucky enough to catch them both in the same city at the same time, then a double session will be a lifetime memorable event.

This shot is of Inga Larsson taken from her web site.

Happy puddle

A short post tonight. Typing anything is tricky. I’m a happy puddle of endorphins and smiles after playing with two wonderfully talented women. I’m also missing some blood, which I’m now replacing with red wine. Not sure my doctor would approve. Forget a long post. Even long sentences are taxing.

We did snap some photographs, which I’ll feature tomorrow.  Until then I’ll leave you with the two ladies in question. This the lovely Cynthia Stone and amazing Inga Larsson.

Happy International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day has grown in coverage and importance in the US over recent years, which can only be a good thing. This years event gives me a chance to share a couple of quote that I’ve always liked. No doubt a lot of my readers will have heard them before, as they’re far from new, but they still put a smile on my face

The first was from Charlotte Whitton in ’63 – “Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult.”

The other is about the famous dancer Ginger Rogers and her partner Fred Astaire – “Sure he was great, but don’t forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did, …backwards and in high heels.” This was originally from a cartoon in ’82 although widely misattributed.

This image is very much not Fred and Ginger. In fact it’s the professional latin dancers Nikolai Voronovich and Maria Nikolishina.

We need to talk

I’m not entirely convinced by the ropework in this drawing. It has a suggestion of the randomly wrapped clothesline style from 1970’s bondage magazines. He could probably escape if he wanted to, but I’m guessing he’s happy where he is.

Ropework aside, I do like this image. Being bound, straddled and grasped around the throat is undoubtedly hot. The artist is S. Yoshiko and it was created for Lady Merreth. I’ve featured their artwork previously.

Fake News

According to this Vice article, pro-dommes have seen a big upsurge in business since Trump took office. If you think that means that Vice did a thorough survey of dommes across the country, using data from both before and after the election, then I can only admire your optimism in the quality of on-line journalism. As far as I can tell, they talked to exactly three dommes. Their anecdotal comments are interesting, but I don’t think three data points qualifies as a fully representative sample set of an entire industry.

If there has been a change, I actually like Mistress Tiffany’s suggestion – it’s due to backpage closing it’s adult ads section in January. Journalists tend to know and talk to well known and well established dommes. The kind of dommes who have proper websites optimized for search engines that are easy for clients to find. Journalists are unlikely to talk to the hundreds of lower profile women working mainly from backpage ads that have seen their business evaporate in the last couple of months. It would be a surprise to me if the backpage decision hadn’t triggered changes in client patterns, but it’s obviously hard to measure what those might be.

Whatever has happened, if anything at all, the article does at least give me an excuse to feature this image of the lovely Mistress Iris. She’s an LA based pro-domme, and the third one interviewed in the Vice article.

Birching in Watercolor

There’s a lot of kinky artwork online, but it’s not often that I find examples using the medium of watercolors. It’s a style I personally like a lot, so I was therefore happy to be sent a link to a website run by Djeki featuring spanking, whipping and birching watercolors created by her husband.

The site actually boasts spanking art in a variety of styles, along with some impressive and fearsome spanking furniture, but it’s the watercolors that caught my eye. I also like the fact that the artist was identified to me simply as Djeki’s husband. That seems appropriate for Femdom themed artwork.

Birching WatercolorIf you’re also a fan, it looks like a lot of the artwork is available for sale.