Latex Fashion

Jezebel recently published a lengthy article/interview with Sonia Agostino. If you don’t recognize that name (and I didn’t), she’s a fashion designer specializing in latex. Her most recent claim to fame is providing the outfits for Kylie Jenner in her recent controversial photoshoot.

I thought it was interesting because she repeatedly emphasizes her lack of interest in fetish and kink. She originally started with the Baroness – who is very much a fetish designer – yet has evolved to use latex outside a specifically fetish focused scene. I think her work presents an interesting question – can you create non-fetish fashion from a material inextricably linked to fetish? I’m not sure she’s succeeded in that yet. Celebrities who wear her clothes seem to do so to create an alternative/edgy/kinky image. People still like latex for the fetishistic message that comes along with it, even if the clothing is interesting and elegant in it’s own right. Personally, I hope she succeeds in broadening the appeal of latex. It’s a fun material and I’d love to see non-kinky friends of mine trying it out.

Bird SmokeThis image is entitled Bird Smoke and is from Sonia Agostino’s site.

AVN Season (final)

There might have been little attention paid to kink and BDSM at AVN, but one of the winners does have a femdom connection. Riley Reid, who picked up the Female Performer of the Year award, has done a number of shoots for Femdom Empire. She’s one of a growing number of conventional porn stars who seem to be happy to cross over and shoot kink.

Years ago there was a fairly clear distinction between people who shot BDSM and those who shot conventional porn. That now seems to be breaking down. Partly I suspect that’s down to the growth of BDSM porn and the larger professional studios shooting it. However, I’d guess that an even larger factor might be how often regular sex (PIV, oral, anal, etc.) now gets mixed in with more hardcore bondage and pain shots. I think that mixture puts off a lot of potential BDSM performers, particularly dommes. I’ve talked to several who wouldn’t shoot for kink.com anymore because sex in a femdom scene was considered part of the shoot. Instead they decided either to not shoot or stick to their own clipstores where they had more control. This in turn opens up opportunities for regular porn stars who don’t mind mixing sex and kink. So it has been less a simple removal of barriers, and more an expansion of regular porn and retreat of BDSM specialists.

Riley ReidHere is the aforementioned Riley Reid demonstrating some of the skills and attributes that made her female performer of the year. I hope the owner of this pair of testicles feels that he contributed in some small (painful) way to her ultimate success. This was obviously shot for Femdom Empire.

AVN Season (cont)

I’ve noted the lack of awards for kink, fetish and BDSM at AVN in the past. I think the last time, in 2013, there were only 3 vaguely relevant awards. This year, based on this list of winners, they’re now down to one. That’s the very generic ‘Best BDSM movie’. They don’t even break out separate awards for maledom and femdom. I doubt it’ll surprise anyone to learn that for the last three years that award has gone to a maledom movie.

Breaking out every kinky niche into an award would probably be unmanageable, but I’d have thought top level awards for best male/female top/bottom would at least have been considered. It is after all a very challenging job. Regular porn stars will often tell interviewers how hard it is to have sex in odd positions on unusual furniture when surrounded by a film crew. BDSM performers have to handle all that, plus whips, gags, ropes, canes, crops, chains, cattle prods, nipple clamps, needles, hoods and anal probes. Although hopefully not all at the same time. When a regular porn performer has an uncomfortable position that’s an unfortunate side-effect of getting the right shot. When a BDSM performer has an uncomfortable positions that’s often the goal of the shot.

Here’s an image of Mika Tan and Danny Wylde earning their money for Men In Pain. He’s either very good at acting or that hurts quite a lot.

Earning their money

AVN Season

The annual AVN awards were announced this weekend in Las Vegas. They style themselves as the ‘Oscars for Porn’ and, having attended them myself many years ago, I can confirm they’re as boring and repetitive as the Oscars and other similar industry award evenings tend to be.

This year they were held at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas, which decided it’d be a smart move to harass and expel transgender performers. That’s based on what Lorelei Lee reported on her twitter feed. So someone could get an award on stage one minute and get kicked out of the restroom the next. That’s both incredibly stupid and not at all surprising to me. For a supposed center of hedonism and debauchery, Vegas is incredibly conservative and old fashioned.

The other big story was James Deen and what would be the fallout from the rape accusations. The AVN management didn’t get things off to a great start by cancelling a panel on consent. You’d think that this would be a great time for a conversation about consent in porn, but apparently not. As for the attendees themselves, it seemed that nobody wanted to go on record with an opinion either way. I suspect that means it’ll be business as usual in a few months.

That’s all fairly depressing, but at least mentioning Lorelei Lee does give me an excuse to feature some of her excellent work. This is her pulling a fairly dramatic expression out of David Chase in a shoot for Divine Bitches.

LoreleiLee

Worst submissive ever

After a post on a terrible domme, I feel like I should balance it up with something about a terrible submissive. Sadly, that’s not a difficult thing to do. If you read any lifestyle domme’s blog there are inevitably multiple articles on dealing with crazy letters from obnoxious guys. Similarly, most blogs featuring professional domination have plenty of posts on assholes and weirdness. So the problem here isn’t finding an article to feature, it’s finding what I think is the right one.

What I’ve decided to go with is one from Mistress Matisse’s (sadly dormant) blog. In it she writes about Mr. Defensive – the kind of guy who can’t make peace with his desires and sexuality. He’s conflicted about kink and it comes through as a need to distance himself from what he is doing and being guilty about why he enjoys it.

I picked that link for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I think it’s a surprisingly common problem. I’ve observed many different dommes talking and writing about this kind of behavior. Matisse’s client is just one of the more spectacularly bad examples. Secondly, I think it’s very sad. Rude assholes who get all their ideas about femdom from porn might be annoying, but they’re at least obvious and ignorable. Being so unhappy in your own skin that it pisses off people trying to create a good experience for you seems so much sadder.

EricStantonHere’s a guy who definitely doesn’t seem to be in touch with his inner kinky self. Calling a domme a ‘two faced bitch’ is probably not going to win you any submissive of the year awards either. The artist is of course the distinctive and incomparable Eric Stanton.

Worst domme ever

After yesterday’s terrible boss post, today we have this story of a terrible domme. What started as some kinky bondage fun turned into a less fun game of hide from the crazy stalker lady. Bad breakups and nutty ex’s are always a bad scene. I imagine it gets a hell of a lot worse when they have photographs of you cross-dressing, tied to up and surrounded by sex toys. Particularly when they send them to your friends, family and work colleagues.

It’s not an amusing story, despite the tabloid attempts to stick in puns about restraining orders. However, I had to smile and marvel at the ladies logic. Apparently, after indulging in all manner of kinky play with him, she then felt it was her ‘civic responsibility’ to expose his ‘sexual deviance’ and that she was ‘trying to protect the world from this man’. That clearly makes sense. She might have vandalized his car, bombarded him with texts, outed him to his family, tried to get him fired and chased him across the country, but he’s clearly the dangerous one.

thecrueltouch-paperbackThis vintage femdom book cover seemed an appropriate illustration, given the title and tag line on it. The great artwork is by Paul Rader.

Worst boss ever

Forced feminization is always a fairly controversial topic. Some people find the idea insulting to women and refuse to do scenes involving it. Sue Stenhouse, an ex-city official from Rhode Island, is clearly not one of these people. She thought it’d be a great idea to make a male bus driver dress up as an elderly lady and sit behind her at a press conference.

As stories go, it’s a pretty spectacular one. I particularly like the part where the bus driver had to drop by the local beauty salon in order to borrow a wig. If Sue had asked around, I’m sure she could have found plenty of guys willing to give it a shot and with a full collection of outfits already. After all, it does combine the two hot button topics of forced feminization and public humiliation. Alternatively, and this is just a crazy thought, maybe she could have got a genuine elderly lady to sit behind her for the press conference?

forced-feminizationThe above image is the kind of sleazy porn art from the 60’s and 70’s that I love. I found this on the Femdomology Site.

International Fetish Day

Apparently International Fetish Day is a thing and I just missed it. It’s the third Friday of the year, which seems a rather silly scheduling decision, as there’s no memorable date. Are they trying to overlap it was workplace casual Friday’s? Maybe forget the jeans and t-shirt and turn up in your gimpsuit?

Fashion and horological issues aside, there’s a good article on it at The Debrief. It talks about kink, fetish and queerness in a very open and approachable manner. It’s the kind of mainstream article that can help demystify kink and encourage discussion.

Personally, I’m more of a masochist and power exchange kinkster than a fetishist. That said, if I was going to pick out a few specific things that push my fetish buttons, this image would be a good starting point. There are boots, leather gloves, facesitting, a happy lady and red wine. Those last two may not typically be listed as a fetish, but all five of them make me smile.

Facesitting