The beauty of dominant women
A short and sweet post to start the weekend. This cute artwork is by Yumine Guo and is day 3 of a #kinktober challenge. It makes me smile, as I’m never quite sure what to do with my legs in an over the knee spanking, and it looks like this young man has much the same problem. It’s really not an ideal pose for grown-ups, but the symbolism of it ensures it’s always going to be a popular one.
This drawing by Arrakis made me smile, but I have to quibble about the reaction of the submissive. I don’t think anyone at the end of a beginner’s beating is going to be bored and strumming their fingers. You never know quite what you’re going to be on the receiving end of. Particularly if there is an implement involved. Only the most leather skinned submissive will be blase about that situation.
Thimble has published a very emotive article on a Femdom experience that went badly wrong. Despite the fact that it’s very well written, I found it hard to read. The session it describes sounds like an emotional slow-motion car crash. That sense of something careering dangerously out of control, but with no idea why or how to bring it safely to a stop.
I’ve previously written about my own experience with a bad session in a two part post here and here. That was back in 2012 and I’m happy to say I’ve had no further posts to write on the subject. I’ve had a few scenes where the chemistry wasn’t quite right, or the activities didn’t unfold as I’d hoped, but genuinely bad scenes, the kind that leave you emotionally messed up, are thankfully rare in my experience.
My bad session wasn’t in the same league as Thimble’s. Unlike his, the domme wasn’t my dream domme, we hadn’t interacted much beforehand and for the first hour or so the session was actually fine. Despite my example being very minor in comparison, I found it interesting how many parallels can still be found. In both cases the dommes seem to lack control of their own emotions, be unable to adapt when things don’t go as planned and make negative comparisons to ‘true’ lifestyle players. From the submissive side, we were both confused, off-balance and unable to adapt to the uncomfortable dynamic. Thimble kissed the domme’s foot at the end of his experience. I thanked mine for the session. And then felt angry and upset about that for days.
Looking back at my bad session, the actual issue itself seems like a minor conflict. In normal life I’d have brushed it off. You can’t get far in life without encountering a good number of angry and unreasonable people. What makes BDSM so tricky is the heady mix of adrenaline, endorphins and powerful emotions it creates. After all, that’s one of the primary reasons people do it. Yet that also means when it turns sour, it can mess you up in weird ways for days. Kinksters are typically well aware of RACK and SSC when it comes to the physical side of play, but rarely talk about what happens when the dynamic goes wrong. So while I feel bad for Thimble, I am glad he shared his experience and cast light on this topic.
I wanted to avoid using a photograph of a practicing domme for this post, just in case anyone got the wrong idea and thought it was about them. This artwork by NK of an angry looking lady seems appropriate enough.
My previous post on music in sessions was written with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. However, all humor aside, there is an underlying truth behind it. Background music is universally used in sessions and it has a significant affect on their atmosphere and energy. Yet it’s never a part of the pre-scene negotiation. At best it’s music the domme likes to listen to and at worst it’s an afterthought to cover the screams. From the professional domme perspective, isn’t there an opportunity for differentiation or even monetization here?
I’m not going to go as far as suggesting that submissives simply be allowed to bring along their own playlists. That’d most likely end up with the wrong person in the room being tortured. Instead maybe a domme could offer a selection of session playlists of her choosing. Or offer regular clients a chance to curate a playlist within her defined parameters. Or, for an extra $100, allow the submissive to choose a Pandora station that’s acceptable to her.
One could of course argue that the domme is supposed to be the one in charge, so why is the submissive getting any say? I understand that perspective when talking about the energy and direction of how a scene unfolds, but the broader context for a scene is something that is very much a shared discussion. Roleplays, activities, limits, interests and even outfits are all fair game for pre-scene negotiation. So why not music? Whether it’s an upsell to make money or an opportunity to reward regular clients, it seems like an opportunity going begging.
This artwork is by the American artist Robert E. McGinnis.
I’m going to resist the urge to get into the politics of Brexit here. Firstly, because I’m sure nobody comes here for British politics. Secondly, because it’d take me a dozen posts just to start to unpack it, and frankly I don’t have the time.
However, I did have to laugh at John Bercow repeatedly admonishing an MP to ‘Be a good boy’. It’s such a classic femdom expression. I’m sure a non-trivial number of Members of Parliament have received that instruction from a leather clad domme while they grovelled at her feet. I’m not sure who the Speaker was yelling at, but I hope the target of his ire resisted the urge to bend down and kiss the Speaker’s shoes. Although, on the other hand, maybe Boris would have thanked him for the welcome distraction from everything else that was going on.
I believe this is from a Managa by Hiroaki Samura.
I saw a tweet from a pro-domme a while back that made me laugh and stuck in my head. I can’t remember who it was from or the exact words, but it was along the lines of – “Important reminder: Edging does not count as edgeplay.”
There was no context to the tweet, but I imagine it being triggered as cry of frustration. She’s ready and raring to go with needles, sutures and knives, and then yet another ‘edgeplay’ client turns up expecting lube, vibrators and some sensual tease and denial. He’s a hardcore edge player, willing to push the limits of having his dick stroked.
The inherent humor of the tweet made me smile, but I think it stuck with me because of the contradiction: Edging can actually be incredibly intense. Particularly when the bottom has no control over it. Clearly it’s not edgeplay, as there’s no risk involved, but when I think about some of my most intense sessions, often edging and denial was involved. Pain comes and goes. It can often feel very binary. I can either take it or I can’t. Yet sensual frustration and pleasurable denial is a wave of sensation that can mess with the brain in strange ways for hours. I’ve even sobbed in those kind of scenes. I’m not saying it’s more intense than needles through the dick but, at its best, it can be of comparable intensity, which seems very counter-intutive.
This artwork is of course by Kami Tora.
The Huffpost has an article about a woman who discovered BDSM in her 50’s and ended up with a kinky partner twenty four years her junior. It’s a cute tale and I liked the part about their cleverly constructed cover story for how they met.
What I found surprising about it was the idea of being awakened to BDSM late in life by going to a class on it. I absolutely don’t mean that critically. I’m always keen for more people to discover kink and I totally get her attitude of “OMG! I need to try all the things!” when exploring the physical side of it for the first time. It’d be great if more people could be converted to the joys of BDSM via classes. I just find it odd – as someone who had kinky thoughts from a very early age – to imagine being not kinky for decades and then suddenly getting into it. For me it seems like a very fundamental love/hate kind of thing, but obviously that’s not true for everyone.
I’m afraid I don’t know the artist for this drawing.
Update: Thanks to a helpful comment I can now attribute this to the artist Kirsty Whiten.
I thought this article covering the latest research on the link between sexual orientation and genetics was interesting. The short version is that’s no such thing as a single ‘gay gene’. Instead there are multiple genes that play a role in sexual orientation, and genetics are only part of the story.
Another interesting aspect – as this tweet makes clear – is that sexual attraction needs to be judged on two dimensions rather than one. The classic kinsey scale is one dimensional, running from 100% heterosexual to 100% homosexual. This latest study shows that we need to think in two dimensions – same sex and opposite sex attraction. Feeling more attracted to the same sex doesn’t necessarily mean being less attracted to the opposite sex, and vice-versa. You could be attracted to strongly to both, strongly to one or strongly to neither.
This image is from the Sunstone comic series by Stjepan Šejić. It’s a series that manages to cover a pretty full set of sexual dimensions.
When the US government was passing SESTA/FOSTA and shutting down backpage, sex workers were very vocal in claiming it would do nothing to stop sex trafficking and would actually make it harder to track. Now thanks to this article on newly discovered government memos, we can see how right those sex workers were. Backpage was apparently incredibly helpful in tracking dubious advertisements and alerting authorities when they thought children might be being trafficked. They allowed users to report ads, flagged photographs of anyone looking underage, worked with authorities on best practices and suggested filtering based on phone numbers that law enforcement could provide.
None of this stopped prosecutors spinning horror stories in the press about backpage, because of course the attack on backpage and sex workers (by proxy) was never about stopping trafficking. It was all about the look of the thing, scoring cheap political points and imposing control over what women can and cannot do with their bodies. The end result has been exactly what sex workers said would happen. Rather than working with a site with established expertise to solve the problem, the authorities have spent a fortune prosecuting them while losing any visibility they had into genuine exploitation.
I had no idea what an appropriate image for this post would be, so I’ll settle for a drawing showing exactly what I’d like to happen to every prosecutor involved in this fiasco. The artwork is by Annmo Night.
Apologies for the lack of posts recently. This might have been the longest I’ve ever gone without a post. I was staying with friends in a fancy Scottish manor house. It had relaxing couches and people who’d supply snacks and a bottle of scotch at any hour of the day. That is great for happy, drunken social time, but bad for my liver and writing blog posts.
Being back in London hasn’t been much better so far, but hopefully normal service should be resumed soon. Until then I’ll leave you with this image from a tweet by maid marta. The artist is identified as Caregan. As someone who has spent a fair amount of time recently dealing with travel security, this has a particular appeal. Sadly, none of my interactions have been quite this exciting.
