Beret Time

A couple of weeks back I posted that the veil was the least fetishized item of women’s clothing. I think this image introduces a late contender into that particular race – the beret. In all the years I’ve sacrificed to the studious and dispassionate analysis of attractive models in fetish gear, I think this might be the first hot beret shot I’ve found.

In my previous post on veils, I expressed surprise that it didn’t feature more often in femdom. I’m not going to go that route with berets. I think the hotness of this image is more a tribute to the talent of the women involved – Mistress Iris and Mistress Adreena Angela – than the hat in question. It’s like an UGG boot. You can make it sexy, but you have to work against its natural tendencies to do so.

Image was from this tweet, with latex outfits from Blacklickorish and shot in LA. I’ve had amazing sessions with both Mistress Iris and Mistress Adreena separately, so can’t imagine what the two of them would be like together. If they were taking joint sessions during this time, I hope the lucky LA submissives appreciated it.

Holiday Fun

Submissives in the Los Angeles area might want to circle next Saturday (the 14th) in their diaries. The Chi temple is holding their annual holiday party, with an all star list of dommes. I’ve never been in town at the right time to attend, but I have played privately with a fair number of the dommes involved, and I’m sure they’ll make it a very fun and sexy event. It’s also a beautiful and well appointed space. Frankly, if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m hosting my own (non-kinky) holiday party for friends that night, I’d be tempted to jump on a plane and escape the Seattle rain for some much needed fun in the sun.

Note that based on this post by Mistress An Li, I believe that only ‘established’ submissives may attend. Presumably that means you need to have played in the past with one of the dommes involved.

Use Your Words

Cosmo has an article out on picking and using a safeword. I’m going to go ahead and say that if you need help to pick a safeword, then BDSM probably isn’t for you. It’s only going to get a lot more complicated from that point onward. Maybe start with a good therapist to address your chronic indecisiveness and/or lack of imagination before getting the rope and whips out.

I also think it’s strange how all these articles assume beginners are starting off with heavy consensual non-consent scenes or  elaborate roleplay scenarios.

The minute you’re starting to feel uncomfy is the exact moment when you should go ahead and holler whatever safe word you and your partner chose to go with.

Obviously you could do that, but how about using your words? I’ve done hundreds of scenes, some of them pretty intense, and I don’t think I’ve used a safeword a single time. That has never stopped me communicating a wide variety of issues. In fact I think it’s quicker to say something like “I’m feeling faint” than it would be yell a safeword and then explain what’s going on.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a safeword. It’s good to have a single unambiguous stop button that brings everything immediate to a halt. But that’s not necessary for most scenes and most problems. Common issues that make people uncomfortable are pinching bondage, awkward positions, tingly fingers, anxiety, a bad fantasy headspace or just too much intensity in the sensations. It’s a lot easier to adjust for these as the scene progresses by communicating as you go rather than by simply stopping everything. Plus, it saves your safeword for those times when something is seriously awry and you want that to be communicated entirely unambiguously.

Let’s hope that these two negotiated a non-verbal safeword before starting this scene. He’s not going to be able to yell ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ with that funnel in place.

Artwork is of course by the famous Jim.

Centerpiece

We’re heading into the festive season. A time where friends and family gather to celebrate and share food.  For anyone hosting such an event and looking for ideas for a table centerpiece, can I suggest a naked man with candles and rope? Admittedly, he will take up a lot of table space. Wriggling due to hot wax may also be a problem. On the plus side, what a fabulous talking point! Much better than politics or listening to boomers complaining about the young people today. I can imagine several of my more senior female relatives getting a total kick out of this.

This image comes courtesy of Michelle Lacy of Order Of Indomitus. She’s a South Florida based pro-domme and her professional site is accessible here.

Problem Solver

A few posts back I wrote that “…watching dommes creatively problem solve and experiment on me in realtime is hot AF.” Thanks to a recent blog post by Bastienne Cross, I’d also now add that reading about them doing kinky problem solving to craft compelling sessions is also pretty damn hot.

Before I go further and actually provide the post link, I should add that the kinky session in question is a full toilet one. There’s no explicit detail or pictures, but if the very thought of that squicks you out, then it’s probably best avoided. For everyone else, the post in question is here. It provides the backstory to the unusual toilet design that I featured in this previous post. I’m guessing the ‘Panda’ of the original scene is also who commented on that post.

I never thought I’d find myself impressed by someone coming up with creative and thoughtful ways to literally crap on people, but here we are. Life can lead you in odd directions at times.

This is the creative domme in question – Toronto based Bastienne Cross. Should scat play not be your thing, she has a pretty wide variety of other interests.

On the Steps at Night

Right now I should be somewhere warm and sunny relaxing with friends. I’d planned a non-kinky but fun getaway for a few days post Thanksgiving. Unfortunately I’ve been hit by one of the seasonal viruses that love to show up this time of year. So I figured I’d rather be miserable at home than miserable travelling. Bleah!

While I head off to crawl under a duvet, I’ll leave you with a totally random image to enjoy. This is pretty much the opposite of warm and sunny and has zero to do with seasonal bugs. I just spotted it via this tweet and loved the atmosphere of the shot. I believe that’s Mistress Niko Flux and Mistress Sybil Fury, both pro-dommes based out of NYC.

The image was posted by Kareem Montes, who I assume is the photographer.  You can see more great work from her via her instagram.

Command and Control

A few week ago Mistress Troy Orleans posted an interesting twitter thread on her approach to play and the difficulty of finding appropriate labels for it. I liked a lot of things about, particularly this sexy as hell digression, but I wanted to pick up on the following section in particular…

During a scene, I’m undeniably in control, but if something’s not working, I’ll adjust. My ego’s not attached to the action.

I think that’s an important point for people on both sides of the D/s equation. BDSM is complicated, particularly when doing heavy bondage or intense play. No matter how skilled the participants are – and Troy Orleans is very highly skilled – not everything will work out exactly as expected.

I’ve played with a small number of dommes who did tend to get frustrated or annoyed when a particular setup wasn’t working out as they’d imagined. Those were typically one off visits, because that reaction really kills the dynamic for me. I’m looking for someone in control, which means of themselves as well as of me. Control is about remaining in command of the situation when things don’t work, not trying to make the impossible possible. Plus, watching dommes creatively problem solve and experiment on me in realtime is hot AF.

On the flipside of the coin, from the submissive perspective, I think there can be a danger of treating play as a form of theater, with the domme as the actor and the submissive as both audience and props. That feeds into the bad idea of a scene as crafted narrative that needs to be executed for it to be successful. In reality it’s a highly collaborative process, where the end goal is a creation of a particular energy. Adjusting to something not work out should be viewed as part of building that energy, not a failure of the process. Variation and adaption are what make each experience unique.

Here’s a shot from Mistress Troy Orlean’s twitter feed of a man under her very tight control. You can see more media from her via her OnlyFans.

Self-Improvement

I’m starting on my New Year’s resolutions early this year by ordering myself a tight neoprene hood from Mr S Leather. Admittedly, buying fetish gear sounds more like kinky fun times than self-improvement, but there is method to my madness.

Regular blog readers may be aware that I have an issue with hoods. They stress me the hell out. A fact which I find annoying. Anytime I don’t like something it annoys me. I feel like I’m missing out. Hoods tend to be a big part of heavy bondage and I’d love to be able to incorporate them into my scenes. I totally understand both their aesthetic and sensory value, but so far that knowledge hasn’t helped when it comes to my stress levels.

My brilliant plan for 2020 is therefore to buy one for home and wear it in non-stressful situations. Like while washing up or doing food preparation. If I can train my brain to realize that wearing a hood doesn’t equal instant death by suffocation, then perhaps I can start to use them in scenes. I know of at least a couple of dommes who’d love to get me into their hood collection. In the meantime, if any of my Seattle readers spot a strange hooded man through the windows of a condo building, then rest easy. It’s just your friendly neighborhood femdom blogger trying to improve his kinky life skills. I shall keep you all up to date on how my experiment goes.

This is exactly the kind of fun hood I hope to condition myself to handle. Sadly I don’t have an attribution for it. As ever, if you know the source for this image, then please leave me a comment.

Adjusting His Level

Here’s a somewhat unusual way to do foot worship. I can’t tell if it’s clever or really lazy. I think I’m going to work on the assumption that it’s a hello or goodbye moment, and so he’s paused briefly on the stairs to mark that. Not that he’s been standing halfway up his staircase for the last 20 minutes because he can’t be bothered to kneel down. I certainly can’t imagine that the white wood railing is doing much to improve the kinky mood.

I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for this image.