Tag: Artwork

Shoe Fitting

Fetishism and repression always seem to go together. The more forbidden or subversive something is, the greater the thrill.

Take for example this Victorian illustration (found via the Whores of Yore twitter) of what I assume is a device for privacy when fitting shoes. I guess it’s supposed to separate the lady from the process of measuring and fitting the shoe, and hence make it a more mechanical and impersonal act. In actual fact it’s a foot fetishists dream. The gentleman involved is even sporting a lascivious grin.

It looks like the top of the device has some sort of crank system and the panel has a split across the middle. So does it separate and then close around her foot once it’s in the hole? If so, it’s even kinkier than it looks at first glance. It’s device bondage crossed with foot fetishism.

Complex Theological Issues

Here’s a final vintage pulp novel cover to complete my trio of posts featuring them. I’m definitely not a religious man, but even an atheist like myself can see this book clearly raises some challenging theological issues.

Firstly, there’s the whole Satan as a gay woman thing. Is that actually a progressive view? As John Oliver might say – #satanism #feminism. And then there’s the past tense aspect of the title. Is Satan now dead? Or still a woman but no longer gay? Or maybe trans? She’s definitely looking pretty masculine in the background of the cover drawing. For all the sexual and gender confusion, at least Satan is maintaining the tradition of villains with an evil goatee. It’s important to have standards.

Two Runners

Regular readers will know that I occasionally feature a post on women who aren’t necessarily dominant in the femdom sense (as far as I know), but who perform impressive feats and set an example in their field. Today’s example of such a post is a twofer, featuring a pair or runners.

Firstly, there’s this feelgood story of Susan Sellers, who just finished second in the Boston Marathon. It was only her second marathon, and she was a complete unknown, with no sponsors or agents. After a promising junior career, she picked up a major injury, causing her to quit running and take up a nursing job. Now, at age 26, she’s found quite a way to make a comeback with a second place in Boston.

That story put me in mind of Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to officially run the Boston Marathon in 1967. It seems incredible now, but women weren’t allowed to enter the race because organizers thought women were too ‘fragile’ to handle it. So she entered under the gender neutral name of K. V. Switzer and then relied on her boyfriend and her coach to block officials who tried to physically pull her out the race. Impressively, aged 70, she came back to run it again last year.

It wasn’t until 1972 that women were officially allowed to enter the race. The Boston Athletics Association director said of the 20 year old Switzer – “If that girl were my daughter, I would spank her.” I can only guess his bookshelves were filled with novels like the one below, and he considered himself in the front line of the fight against those evil feminists.

This book came out in 1971, and while the cover suggests it might fall into the ‘so bad it’s good’ category, this review suggests otherwise.

Tears

Two beautifully contrasting expressions in this drawing by Lotus Art. It’d be a great starting piece for an erotic short story competition. A chance to spin the tale of what came before or what comes after this moment.

I never tear up in kinky play. Which is odd, because I’m actually pretty emotional and can get tearful at the most random things. I’ll cry at a Buffy episode I’ve seen a dozen times, and yet remain entirely dry eyed when being beaten about the genitals. I’d sometimes appreciate the cathartic release of crying in a session, but I just don’t have that reaction to stress, pain or control. The only time I did cry was in my last session with Lydia, and that was as the end  when we were unwrapping the ropes and putting the toys away. Those tears weren’t really anything to do with kink.

I believe this is fan art from the Sadistic Beauty series by Lotus Art.

Walkies

I love this advert for Trice Insurance. I’ve no idea about the product – the fact youtube removed the ad for deceptive practices doesn’t bode well – but the puppy play in it is as cute as anything.  He’s just so enthusiastic. Thanks to Ferns for pointing me in its direction.

The weird thing for me is that I find the lady’s English accent sexy, despite the fact I was born and raised there, and my own English accent hasn’t changed a bit in almost 20 years of living in the US. Maybe this is part of the process of US naturalization. After 5 years I started spelling color without the ‘u’, after 10 years I said gas instead of petrol, and after 20 years I’m now thinking the English accent makes people sound smart and sexy. I guess that’s good for my own confidence and sense of self-worth. If only I was gay, then I could talk dirty to myself in a sexy English accent.

This artwork is by Arrakis.

Excessively Excitable

I know this is erotic artwork featuring an entirely fictional scene. Unfortunately, I have a stupid brain that picks up on strange things. All I can think is that it must have taken her forever to tighten up all the laces on that ridiculous outfit, and now he’s ejaculated as soon as she entered the room. What a waste of time. I can only hope this fictional woman is going to inflict some post orgasm torture on our fictional male. Or, if she’s a professional, that she charges him some fictional money for the time spent dressing.

This is generally attributed to Bernard Montorgueil.  I’m personally skeptical of that attribution. It doesn’t fit the style of the work known to be his. Sadly I don’t have a better suggestion for the artist. I found if via Trained Tool twitter feed.

Voters should have a safeword

So the grade A bullshit that is the FOSTA-SESTA bill (as covered previously here) was passed by the Senate this week. It’s a good indication of the level of dysfunction in American politics that while this dangerous bill was sailing through with no significant opposition, Senator Risch was holding up a one trillion dollar budget bill over the naming of a nature park after a political rival. Words fail me.

The effect was immediate. Craiglist dropped its entire personals section, reddit dropped sex related forums, CityVibe went dark, sex worker advertising forums vanished, etc. And that’s on day 1, before before the bill even becomes law.

It’s possible that you’re reading this and thinking ‘Why do I care? I don’t use any of those things.’ To you I’d firstly say ‘Don’t be such an asshole. Don’t you care about anyone other than yourself?’ This is a bill that’s going to cause active harm to many thousands of sex workers. Secondly, I’d say ‘Just wait. Stuff you do care about is going to follow closely behind.’

My prediction is that in the near future a grandstanding prosecutor is going to pick on some sex workers and claim (incorrectly) that they’ve been trafficked. Then he’ll use this law to go after whatever social media or online sites these workers have used or posted on. The facts won’t matter – just some juicy headlines about his crackdown on online filth and human misery. At which point all sorts of online platforms – twitter, tumblr, instagram, reddit, Google, etc. – will start to aggressively purge anything vaguely related to sex and kink. Or I guess I should say, ramp up their already aggressive efforts in that area. The effect on sex related speech will be chilling and widespread,

In theory the law shouldn’t affect sites like this one. In reality I rely hugely on those kind of platforms to provide interesting content and links. The majority of the images here feature sex workers of some form or another. This site literally wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been for my experiences playing with Lady Lydia – a professional dominatrix I found online.

Hopefully the constitutionality of the bill will be challenged in the courts. In the meantime, I’d suggest doing whatever you can to support any sex workers you interact with, make yourself aware of their perspective on the issue  and donate to organizations like SWOP and EFF.

It’s a shame this lady wasn’t on the floor of the Senate to knock some sense into people.

Kinky Knees

Mistress Ayn has wise words to share for anyone who wants to avoid passing out while playing.

I can’t comment on the effect of erectile dysfunction drugs or eating erratically. I’ve not tried the former and my eating schedule is weird at the best of times. However, this part definitely resonates…

When placed in standing positions. like on the St. Andrews cross, don’t lock your knees.

I’ve come close to fainting a few times, and on every occasion I was in a vertical position, I was tense, my knees were locked and our play was intense. The end result was a classic Vasovagal Syncope response and a concerned domme, keen to get her suddenly ghost white submissive into a non-vertical position. It’s interesting to note that the causes listed for a vasovagal syncope response include standing for long periods, heat, fear of bodily injury, seeing blood and straining. Which clearly align with some types of BDSM play and the points Mistress Ayn makes.

My advice would be to avoid vertical positions for any new types of intense play. For example, always lie down for a first piercing. When standing is required, ensure knees can bend and are regularly flexed, focus on breathing deeply, try and relax into the pain and wiggle the torso and hands whenever you get the chance. From the domme side, a smooth escalation and deescalation of pain can help the submissive adapt to the rhythm, and regular physical contact can keep them grounded in the moment.

This gentleman clear has the right idea. He has a good knee bend going and it looks like he’s wiggling his torso. She should really be able to ratchet up the intensity.

This is from Djeki spanking artwork site and specifically this gallery. If you like their artwork, it appears they have originals available for sale.

Pie

Apparently it was Pi day last week. I’m slightly baffled as to why a mathematical constant gets its own day, but there we are. Can we look forward to the Euler number festival and the feast of the Lapace limit? Meanwhile, in Indiana, they presumably celebrate it on an entirely different day.

It’s tough to find a suitable image to connect femdom with π. Stern yet attractive ‘teachers’ brandishing a pointer in front of a bunch of blackboard equations don’t count. However, it’s a lot easier to connect pie with femdom. That’s a particular specialty of the artist Bakerman.

Give him the finger

Writing about consent apps in yesterday’s post reminded me of a tweet that made me laugh. Unfortunately, age or possibly alcohol is muddying by brain tonight, so I can’t actually remember who wrote it or the exact words. I’ll have to go with just the gist of it here.

It was from an escort rather than a domme and was targeted at those vanilla  guys who think it’s OK to operate in the ‘I’ve started so I’ll finish” paradigm.  She suggested sticking a finger in their asshole without prior warning and then seeing how long it took them to grasp the concept of continually negotiated consent and the option to stop and discuss boundaries at any time. Obviously I don’t encourage random anal exploration without discussion, but I do think it’s an amusing picture to paint to help some guys to understand consent a little better.  Pretty certain most of the ‘Oh no, I can’t stop now’ vanilla crowd would quickly turn into the ‘What the hell! Get away from me and lets discuss this’ crowd.

Of course in the kinky world a finger sometimes isn’t enough. With the appropriate prior discussion, some people can even be persuaded to lose a whole hand in there.

I believe this is by the French artist Kevin Herault aka Kiwine.