Community Policing

I normally like to add some color commentary when linking to articles. For this post I’m not really sure I can. This Huffington Post article and this Vancouver Sun article are quite different stories but ostensibly the same issue. A member of the BDSM community is accused of abusive behavior, the community attempts some degree of self-policing, the law gets involved, and things do not go well. While the legal issues are very different, the message is the same. It discourages people from coming forward and makes challenging abuse harder.

I’m not really involved in my local BDSM community, and have no wise words to offer here. I would love to know if there are positive cases out there where people have had success in tackling allegations of abuse in the kinky scene. It would seem we’re sorely in need of good examples to highlight and point people toward.

This drawing is by Stig, an artist who specializes in judicial and corporal scenes.

Rebecca Ferguson

A final image in my sequence of posts featuring smartly dressed people. The image below is Rebecca Ferguson from the Mission Impossible movie Rogue Nation. I’ve not actually seen the movie, but now I kind of want to. I was very tempted to feature this alternative shot of her beating people up while Tom Cruise is tied up. That looks like a fun scene.

I’ve done plenty of scenes with very smartly dressed dommes, but I don’t think I’ve ever done one with the domme in a suit and a tie. I might have to add that to my bucket list. It’s one of those looks that provokes an anticipatory shiver.

The Boss

There’s something about combining smart conventional outfits and kink. It’s hot in a way I find hard to identify. Maybe it’s the contrast of the implication of strict social norms and then the trangressive element of kink. Maybe it’s a uniform thing, where the costume comes loaded with a history social rules and authority. Maybe it’s because I live on the west coast, where the typical business outfit is jeans and a polo shirt, so seeing anyone dressed in a smart suit is automatically a big improvement.

This is from a short film that Mistress Iris is shooting, with this particular image coming via a tweet by Mistress Eva. If you’re not  a member of Mistress Iris’ Patreon and like her content, then now might be a good time to subscribe. I suspect more hotness from this scene is in the pipeline.

 

Snow and the 7 Submissives

This fairy tale is brought to you by the artist Ludwig Van Bacon. I think he does a great job of translating the various personalities while adding a kinky slant. I particularly like Grumpy, with his butt plug tail. The nipple tape crosses are an interesting if odd touch. Gimp suits, leashes and chastity devices are fine, but nipples must be covered?

You can see and buy more from the artist at his site and twitter feed.

Anthony Vaccarello

Whenever I see a fashion editor going on about a ‘dominatrix look’ I brace myself for disappointment. It normally means one of the models wore a pair of boots or – even worse – a leather choker. However, I have to admit that this papermag article on the 2020 Saint Laurent collection by designer Anthony Vaccarello doesn’t get it wrong. It’s a pretty hot and kinky collection, with some serious dominatrix vibes. I particularly like the combination of pussybow blouses with shiny latex pants as shown in this linked image. That’s fetish meets old fashioned schoolmistress, a particularly fab combo in my eyes. I also love the latex dress in the image below. Impractical no doubt, but beautiful and sensual.

Louboutin

If there’s one shoe designer who is widely known across all genders and sexualities, it’d be Christian Louboutin. I have a very straight non-kinky male friend who has minimal interest in fashion, yet he still managed to spot and identify a pair of Louboutin’s that flashed past us in a restaurant one night recently. I’m sure it was the stylish lady sporting them that first caught his eye, but he still managed to pick up on that little flash of red from her shoes.

I’d always assumed, given how sexy and fetishistic his work can be, that he was at least a little bit kinky. However, according to this recent NY Times article, that’s probably not the case.

I remember Helmut Newton, the photographer, telling me one day — he had looked at some of my shoes — “I’m going to give you the best address for dominatrixes in New York.” And I said, “Helmut, I’m just not interested in that.” He was surprised. This is a suggestion from my work to a projection of his own mind. Me, when I think leather and spikes, I’m thinking Haute Époque, 17th century.
Christian Louboutin in the NY Times.

While he might not be interested in ‘that’, but I do know a lot of dommes and submissives who love his high heels and boots. If you’re in the Paris area then there’s an exhibition of his work running over the next few months at the Palais de la Porte Dorée. For those of us not in that area, the NY Times also has a multimedia piece with him talking about his work and his inspirations.

This boot is called the Corset d’Amour and is featured at the start of the NYT media piece.

Pet Peeve – Contact Form Feedback

Time for another PPPP – Paltego Pet Peeve Post. This time it’s pro-domme contact forms for scheduling sessions. Specifically, the type of contact forms that give little to no feedback to the user. From my experience, that’s 9 out of 10 of them.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, allow me to explain. Rather than having submissives send random and badly structured emails, many pro-dommes have a contact form that elicits the specific information they require. This is a good thing. The problem comes when, after many rounds of editing and proofreading, you say a silent prayer and hit the submit button. At that point almost anything can happen. Maybe it’ll clear all the text and give you no clue if it worked or not. Maybe you’ll get some obscure error code or connection error. Maybe you’ll get a blank page. It’s impossible to predict.  Even if it gives a ‘Thanks for your submission’ type response, you’ve still no idea if it really worked or not. Did it email the info to the domme? Did it delete everything? Or did it just email all my contacts with the fact that I’m interested in exploring watersports, puppy play and like being called a dirty little boy?

What prompted me to talk about this was actually the rare example of a contact form done well. Domina Esme Crane’s – built on Jot Forms – actually emailed me back with all the information I’d just submitted. That not only let me know it’d worked, but also allowed me to see it had got all the relevant information. Genius!

If you follow any pro-dommes on social media you’ll often hear complaints about submissives who are too demanding and expect rapid responses to any communication. I’d suggest one way to reduce that is to remove ambiguity from communication. It you’re not sure if something worked properly or not, it’s always going to be tempting to assuming not and to try it again.

This is the aforementioned Domina Crane in an image from her twitter feed. She’s a San Francisco based pro-domme. Sadly, despite her well executed contact form, it doesn’t look like we’ll manage to intersect on my next visit to the Bay area. Hopefully I’ll be better organized for future visits.

Shy Puppy

The man on the end of the leash is unsurprisingly depicted as blushing in this scene. What’s slightly stranger is that, if you look closely, the artist has also given the woman holding the leash a touch of blush. That’s an unusual slant on a public humiliation scene. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a situation where both the dominant and the submissive are supposed to be embarrassed about what’s going on. Is she a switch who is pulling off both roles simultaneously? If so, that’s some inception level kink.

I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for this artwork. There’s a hint of a signature at the bottom left, but I can’t make it out.

A Stroppy Server

Apologies if you tried and failed to access the site in the last day or so. All the tiny electronic wizards that carry my wise words down to your phones and computers went on strike. I did file a ticket with my hosting company, but I guess that one of their customers sites being totally offline doesn’t rate as an important issue. Presumably I’d need my server to actually explode and burn down their data center to get a timely response on a weekend. I finally managed to get the tiny wizards back into line by rebooting everything, so we’ll see how long that lasts.

Talking of frustrating and annoying situations – it’s tax season in the US. Even a masochist like myself struggles to eroticize that kind of pain. However, I was happy to see this article in the NY Times about Mistress Lori the Tax Domme. She specializes in tax preparation for anyone in the adult industry. While the US government might do everything it can to make life difficult for sex workers, that’s still not going to stop them demanding a share of their earnings. They really should change the motto on the dollar bill from ‘In God We Trust’ to ‘Fuck you. That’s why.’

Oddly enough, while I don’t use Mistress Lori for my tax returns, I do use an accountant recommended to me by a pro-domme. I figured if they could handle her complicated returns, they should have no problem with mine. So far that logic seems to have worked out pretty well. I just wish I could figure out a way to write off my session tributes. Medical expenses maybe? They do feature a lot of needles, sutures, electroshock and prostate exams.

I’ve never actually met my accountants, as everything is handled over email, but this is definitely how I picture them when I send in my paperwork. Given my horrible financial organization, this look of scorn, pity and disappointment would not be unwarranted.

This is from Femme Fatale Films, featuring Mistress Eleise and Mistress Miranda. It’s from a scene called ‘Not Good Enough.‘