At least it looks that way according to this beautiful young lady and her submissive foot cleaner.
Image is a very old one from the Young Goddess site.
My nipples explode with delight*
Ms Marie has a recent post soliciting options on nipple torture. Seeing as it is one of my favourite activities, I obviously had to write a lengthy comment as a response. And then, having done that, I felt a post of my own might be in order. It’s actually quite tricky to find a good image of male nipple torture. Probably because it’s less visual appealing than a lot of other activities like spanking or CBT. However, I did manage to track down the image below from the English Mansion site.
There’s actually a lot going on for the submissive here. There’s some scissor style nipple clamps, with a fancy ironwork stand to hold them in place. There’s various straps and cock bondage. And there’s a a hood and collar to keep his head firmly in place. But I suspect when she slides down to take her place on the queening chair, the one thing she’ll be playing with will be those big tempting clamps that look so easy to twist and pull.
* For anyone who doesn’t get the title reference, hang your head in shame. This major gap in your comedic cultural knowledge can be rectified here.
Added Kimberly Wilder to Femdom Artwork
Fans of young men being sissified, punished and forced to serve elegant older women may enjoy Kimberly Wilder’s work.
Domme School
Vice magazine recently posted an article describing several days in the life of a NYC pro-domme. The purported set-up was one of their writers following the domme with a view to becoming a professional herself. But the actual format is much the same as it always is for these type of articles, offering readers a chance to look at someone else’s weird and twisted lifestyle.
I’m in two minds about the article itself. On one hand the writer seemed to enjoy herself, and it’s certainly not written from a negative point of view. Coming from something called ‘Vice magazine‘ that’s probably not unexpected. However, I find it hard to imagine a vanilla but potentially kinky person reading it and thinking “Yes, that sounds like something I want to get involved in.” There’s an undercurrent of sleaziness that comes through to me, although I struggle to put my finger on exactly why that is. Perhaps its comments like this one.
The whole scene makes me feel like I’m an actress in a really bad porno. It’s pretty cool.
Having a session that feels like a bad porno movie definitely doesn’t sound cool to me. And in fact, setting the tone of the article aside, the main thing that stood out for me was how incredibly different my sessions are from the ones described. I don’t role-play at all, and my interactions with the domme are both lighter (chatting and joking in early parts of the session) and darker (floating in subspace after some intense pain later on). I also tend to involve a lot more equipment and tools, utilizing everything from simple needles and clamps through to custom dungeon furniture. The type of play in the article sound like a kind of sexual community theater. Where I always feel mine are more like a cross between extreme sports and medieval torture.
That contrast led me to two different conclusions. The first was that it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming most people play in a way at least vaguely similar to your own preferences. I always get annoyed when non-kinky people pigeon-hole BDSM as simply leather, whips and chains, but I’m probably guilty of doing a similar thing at a different level. It’s easy to forget just how big the kink universe really is. The other conclusion was that a good pro-domme must posses an incredibly ability to shift quickly between different head spaces. I tend to think of the domme skill-set as being a highly technical one: How to do a rope suspension; how to wield a single tail; what’s a safe way to do cutting and piercing. I’m very aware of these kind of technical skills in each and every session. What I don’t see is the transition between sessions and the mental gymnastics needed to create new moods and session themes. Offhand it’s hard to think of another job that requires quite that level of versatility.
Image is taken from page 5 of Vice Magazine article.
The beautiful armpit
When I first saw this image a number of thoughts immediately came to my mind. One was how much I love the scent of a women. Not the perfumed, deodorized and anesthetized scent that the cosmetics industry tries to sell. I mean the real natural earthy scent of an active female body. Another was an appreciation for the expression on his face. That look of relaxed contentment. But I have to admit, the first thought I had was of Stephen Colbert.
Stick with me on this. Weird I know, but I haven’t completely lost it. Earlier this week he did a cutting satirical piece on a new Dove product designed to solve a very serious problem that has plagued women for years – the truly hideous nature of their armpits. If you missed it, the clip is online here. Seeing this image a few days later just reinforced to me how screwed up the cosmetics industry can make people. And watching the Colbert clip again may have just given me a new fetish for licking ice cream from a woman’s armpit (like I need any more weird kinks).
The image comes from the Aeric Meredith-Goujon photography site, under the erotic portraits section. They have a large collection of really incredibly images. Some of the piercing ones caught my eye in particular. For example, I liked this one a lot.
Nikki Domino
I’ve posted in the past on the importance I place on eyes when shooting a close-up face shot. There’s that old cliche about them being the window into the soul, but like a lot of cliches, there’s a kernel of truth to it. More than any sneering expression, a woman’s eyes can convey a powerful impression of dominance, and nothing consistently pushes me into sub-space quicker than lengthy eye contact during an intense play session. I may also have occasionally mentioned, just in passing, only now and again, my attraction to dominant women in glasses. This particular images was therefore a show stopper (click cutter? browse blocker?) when I stumbled across it.
The lady with the beautiful green eyes is Nikki Domino, a pro-domme based out of D.C. I found this particular image in her gallery page, and should you wish to see her with your own eyes, then her contact information is here.
What are you?
The terminology in BDSM is always a source of confusion for me, and in particular the labels people attach to themselves and each other. I remember joining fetlife and being stumped by the mutually exclusive set of options they provided. I think my choices included submissive, bottom, masochist, slave, fetishist and kinkster. I kind of get masochist and fetishist. But what’s the difference between submissive and bottom? Or submissive and slave? Where does kinkster fit in? And why are these mutually exclusive decisions? Can I not have an ‘All of the above’ option?
I was therefore happy to stumble on this post by the very knowledgeable Irene Boss which gives her thoughts on the definitions of these terms. From a personal perspective I also particularly enjoyed the following comment in the article.
It is not uncommon for me to bond (and become friends) with a submissive masochist who also digs bondage, which is the rarest and most enjoyable breed of client for me.
I think that combo of labels captures my particular predilections fairly well. So while I’m guessing it’s unlikely I’ll ever be friends with Irene Boss, it’s nice to know I might make an enjoyable client! Although I am a little surprised by the rarity, as she observes it, of that specific kinky wiring.
When it comes to the D side of the equation, there are an equally mixed set of labels: Dominant, Mistress (or Master), Top and Sadist. But it seems people feel a lot more relaxed about using these interchangeable, or at least that’s my impression. Sadist has a very clear and distinct definition, but the other three get used and swapped fairly freely. I wonder if that’s down to the existence of professional dominants, who are happy to blur their personal boundaries in order to work with a wide variety of clients. Or if it’s a natural outcome that flows from the attitude of a typical dominant personality. i.e. Less obsession with labels and less need to carefully categorize their preferences.
Of course none of this even touches on the idea of a switch, which adds a whole new dimension to the matrix!
So what are you? And do you think the label is useful or matters in anyway?
An illustration of a Mistress/Top/Dominant/Sadist/Kinkster/Fetishist with a Slave/Submissive/Bottom/Masochist/Fetishist/Kinkster (strike all that aren’t applicable depending on your preferences).
OK, so I’ll admit, the image doesn’t relate to much to the text. But I liked it and wanted some eye candy to end the post!
Vintage Domme
This doesn’t exactly look like the kind of outfit you’d see a domme wearing these days, but I do love this look. The boots, belt and gloves are great, and the whole ensemble has a subtle military vibe to it (albeit with undertones of Sgt. Pepper when it comes to the top).
I found this on the fetish pop culture site.
Relaxing on her favorite piece of furniture
It’s probably not as comfortable as a normal armchair, but I expect it is a great deal more satisfying for her to sit on. Not to mention the added benefit of a chair that can quickly move itself to any desired location.
Three new blogs
I’ve added the following three blogs to my blogroll over on the right.
Mistress160’s Abode is run by a lifestyle dominant and documents her ongoing D/s relationship with her husband Sol. There’s a wealth of information there, covering everything from getting started in BDSM to more extreme edge play. I particularly enjoyed her very lengthy description of a chemical play session she’d organized, which has inspired me to try something similar in the near future. That also happens to be the post that led me to Mistress160’s blog in the first place, thanks to the miracle of referral logs and her link to an old post of mine.
The Fetish Furniture Factory is managed by Vanessa Chaland and features a large amount of queening and cuckolding. She also describes the custom furniture that she designs and modifies specifically for those acts. The one based around a Sardax drawing looked fairly ingenious, and was even appreciated by the great man himself.
Finally, last but certainly not least, is Sexonomics, a new blog by Brooke Magnanti aka Belle de Jour. As its name suggests, she intends to focus on social and political issues relating to sex. It’s still early days for the blog, but given how much I enjoyed her writing as Belle, I have high hopes for this one. As I alluded to in my earlier post on ‘Women and porn‘, I’m very grateful to intelligent sex positive people who can reach out and confront some of the lazy stereotyping that passes for analysis of sexual issues in the mainstream media.
The image is of Billy Piper playing Belle de Jour in the television version of ‘The secret diary of a call girl’. Which I admit is a bit of a loose connection to the blogs themselves, but it seemed a shame to mention Belle and not take the chance to post it.