Tag: Artwork

Extreme Breathplay

Rolling Stone magazine has an interesting article on waterboarding as a kink. It features Elise Graves, the bondage aficionado I played with and posted about last week.

Waterboarding is certainly a more extreme kink, although I think its intensity can vary dramatically depending on how it’s done. I actually experienced it a couple of times a few years back, but not in an inverted position and not with a huge amount of water. I was basically horizontal and could lift my head slightly, which meant the water tended to drain away from my nose and mouth. I suspect that makes a big difference to the degree of terror induced. The coldness of the water triggered the mammalian diver reflex, which combined with bondage and a D/s dynamic created quite an unusual and intense headspace.

It’s a kink I could never have indulged in during the years when America was actually using the technique to torture prisoners. That’s not entirely logical – what I did in a Seattle playspace had no bearing on what the government did thousands of miles away – but it felt wrong and immoral to get sexual kicks from something that was being used in such a horrible way. When I did eventually try a lightweight version of it, years after Obama banned its usage on prisoners, we still avoided any kind of interrogation dynamic or roleplay. That seemed too close to a terrible reality.

Of course water and cloth is just one way to take someones breath away. As this Rodzo artwork shows, there are other options.

Memories of Warmer Days

It’s pretty wet, cold and gloomy across a lot of the US at this time of year. I’m pretty certain there are no visual cures for Seasonal Affective Disorder, but if there were, this would surely come close. It’s a lovely Spring picnic scene with an elegant lady and her helpful pet. Hopefully the inevitable ants will focus on picnic basket and not any dangling lower parts.

I’m not sure who the artist is. Reverse image search suggests the name ‘hisano’, but I couldn’t track down any sensible links to other work.

Coming down the wrong chimney

If you celebrate Christmas then let me wish you a happy one. If you don’t, then let me wish you a happy Tuesday and add that all this festive nonsense will be over in just another day.

As someone who spends his Christmas at home, getting together with local friends, I’m always entertained by the twitter #DuvetKnowItsChristmas tag. Nothing is guaranteed to make me feel better about my travel plans (or lack of them) than seeing the terrible sleeping arrangements of strangers at Christmas.

I believe this is by the artist CoaX.

Slurping her Cherry

This very vore like image is actually a film poster from the 1970’s that someone has cropped and modified. You can see the original here. A site selling the original poster entitles it ‘Maraschino Cherry’ and credits the producer Radley Metzger.  I’m sure the original 70’s flick was a lot less kinky that the poster suggests. In those days the advertising of pornography and the actual pornography in question often had little to no connection between them. Plus, I doubt the vore kink was on anyone’s radar in the 70’s porn industry.

The Two Kinkster Problem Revisited

Last week I posed a kinky thought experiment to consider. For clarity, let me restate it here, with a minor modification. The added italic text really should have been in the original version, as it closes a potential area of ambiguity.

“Mistress Mary and Submissive Sam, both risk aware consensual adult kinksters, enter their own deserted, well equipped private playspace and close the door behind them. An hour later they emerge sweaty, breathless and happy. They both tell you that they had a great time, and then go on their way with no ill effects or further interaction. Later you ask them what they did. At this point, is there anything they can say that’ll make you think they did something ethically or morally wrong?”

I suspect most of my readers would answer that there’s nothing they can have done that was ethically or morally wrong. That was certainly the gist of the comments I received, which didn’t surprise me. If you believe that, then you also must be ‘OK’ with extreme roleplays focusing on race, childhood, incest, Nazis, genocide, etc. Because in their hour alone, Mary and Sam might have indulged in the most heinous fucked up roleplay you can possibly imagine.

Note that by ‘OK’ in this context I don’t mean necessarily enjoying the idea of the activity, or wanting to try it yourself. Just that you’d say that no kink that can be done privately between consenting adults can ever be morally or ethically wrong.

I posed the thought experiment as a response to my ‘Pick a Side‘ post and the online debate I’d see about controversial activities. It seemed that the debate about specific activities was often muddied by the bad behavior of those who did them. I felt this thought experiment crystallized the issues more clearly.

In my original post I said that there was no wrong answer to the question, and I do believe that. While I lean to the anything goes side, I think it’s entirely valid to say that there are things that Mary and Sam can do that would be wrong. However, if you believe that, then I also think it’s incumbent on you to consider why you draw a line between activities and why your own favorite activities are OK in this situation. Kinky people are always keen to emphasize the difference between fantasy and reality. If you deny that boundary for some kinks, why not all?

It’s tricky to pick an image for a post like this. What Mary and Sam get up to in private isn’t necessarily something I want to broadcast to my readers. Nazi’s are certainly a controversial topic, but I think shooting a pair of them should be relatively safe, particularly when it’s done by the Lace Panty Commandos.

The Two Kinkster Problem

I’ve finally got time to get back to my post from last week entitled ‘Pick a Side‘. That was all about the morals and ethics of certain kinky activities. Is it reasonable to cast some kinks as wrong or bad, while falling back on the argument of ‘as long as its consensual adults, its OK’  for other kinks?

I got some interesting comments, which prompted me to think more on the issue, and come up with a thought experiment. Let’s call it ‘The Two Kinster problem.’

Mistress Mary and Submissive Sam, both risk aware consensual adult kinksters, enter their own deserted, well equipped private playspace and close the door behind them. An hour later they emerge sweaty, breathless and happy. They both tell you that they had a great time, and you ask them what they did. At this point, is there anything they can say that’ll make you think they did something ethically or morally wrong?

There’s obviously no incorrect answer. I’m just curious what answers or comments readers might have to the question.

When it comes to philosophical questions, I only know of one famous philosopher with a femdom connection  – Aristotle. I’ve covered the story of him and Phyllis previously. This particular image of them is by the French painter Étienne Jeaurat.

Intermission

I had intended to write some followup thoughts to yesterday’s post. Unfortunately, I ended up spending too long in the kitchen tonight. The chicken escabeche, roast potatoes and spicy arugula salad that resulted was well worth it, but I ran out of blogging time. I’ll therefore offer up this rather lovely artwork by way of an intermission. This is by the Spanish artist Anna Dart.

Update: Via a comment Ferns pointed out that this is actually based on a photograph of David and Victoria Beckham. Oddly enough, I  featured that original photograph in a post just over a year ago.

Pick a Side

Apologies if you’ve one of the tiny handful of people who follow me on twitter, as this post is going to be a rehash of a twitter rant I posted there recently. The tweets were an experiment to see if I could use twitter threads for thoughts longer than 280 characters, and if I’d get better engagement with them. The answers were respectively ‘not easily’ and ‘no’, so I think blog posts will remain my primary form of expression.

The rant in question was brought about by multiple social media arguments I’d seen on controversial kinky activities. Topics like race play, extreme age play, incest porn/roleplay and nazi outfits. All these arguments ultimately boiled down to two basic viewpoints. On one side was ‘as long as its consensual, adults can fantasize about anything’, on the other was ‘this activity has serious implications and you’re selfish/evil for treating it as way to get off’. I think both of those can be defensible opinions. What struck me as crazy was people flipping between the two depending how they felt about the topic in question.

The ‘as long as its consensual’ view is basically a get of jail free card. It’s a perspective that puts kinky play in its own little bubble, with no obvious relationship between what happens in the bubble and the outside world. If you believe it, then you can do a non-con sex roleplay, and not think you’re encouraging rape. Or beat someone and not spend any time wondering if you’re encouraging violence. That’s a valid viewpoint in my opinion, but it’s important to realize, it’s activity agnostic. You can’t logically claim your kinks live in a bubble where consent is all that matters, but arbitrary other kinks don’t.

On the other side, I think it’s also reasonable to argue that kinks very much interact with a broader social context. For example, one could discuss the intersection of race play and racism. However, if you’re going to do that, it means all kinks have to be considered in that context. That means a lot of kinks become potentially problematic, and require deeper analysis and justification. I typically don’t see anyone out there wanting to do that work for their personal favorite kinks.

In actuality, what consistently happens is that people play the ‘as long as its consensual’ card for their favorite kinks, and then try to withhold it when the activity in question gives them yucky feelings. Which seems broken to me. Either play the card consistently and let others do the same, or don’t play it at all.

In the femdom realm the combination of cross-dressing and humiliation is one of those controversial topics that can trigger a similar ‘consensual adults’ versus ‘this is wrong’ debate. The artwork here is by Voloh.

Pegging Problems

Dan Savage’s advice column is always worth reading. This weeks column caught my eye because it featured a man who enjoyed being pegged and his partner who very occasionally, when the stars aligned, enjoyed doing the pegging. Dan’s advice about talking more and carving out dedicated time was good and wise. However, I did think he missed a trick by not following up on this part of her letter…

I just want to get it over with and move on with our day, not deal with the pageantry of dress up, stiletto heels, collars and cuffs, lubricating buttholes, graduating to bigger dildos in a session, etc.

I’m not averse to a bit of femdom pageantry myself, but it’s always a nice optional bonus when time and circumstances allow, not the main event. You can have a mind blowing pegging scene with just a simple lubricated strap-on. If time and energy are the issue, then cut the fluff rather than dropping the entire event. Hell, if anal play is the goal, then just a disposable glove, a bit of lube and an enquiring finger (or two) can create amazing sensations.

Despite the fact that I’m lucky enough to experience a lot of femdom dress up and elaborate scenes, my personal pegging fantasy features absolutely no kinky accouterments at all. I always picture a snuggly Sunday morning, when our only plans are to sleep in, read the papers and for me to cook Sunday dinner. I’m happily dozing as my partner slips out to grab her harness and slide back into bed with me. There’s no ropes, leather or stiletto’s. Just some nibbling, nuzzling and hot, intimate sex, that happens to be a pegging scene. I guess we always fantasize about what we don’t have.

This pegging artwork is by Jas. She has a Patreon you can support here and merchandise available here.

Baby Bird

This 1970’s Japanese Femdom image comes courtesy of Bacchus at ErosBlog. In his original post he mentions the prevalence of spitting in modern porn and how it’s often used to add a note of humiliation into a scene. That’s certainly true, and it’s not a kink that does much for me. However, I think that spitting can be a surprisingly flexible act. Much like a golden shower scene, it can work as humiliation, reward or intimacy at a distance.  It just depends where you direct it.

One spitting technique that’s particularly fun is ‘baby bird’. That’s where the domme carefully drops her spit into the open mouth of the submissive. Done with a snarl it could of course be humiliating, but its typically more an offering dynamic. It’s an intimate act, a reward, but with a sense of control and distance from the domme. Where tease and denial meets kissing. A neat variation on it is for the domme to take a swig of water and then trickle it into the mouth of the submissive. This pushes much the same buttons, but has the added advantage of being able to hydrate a submissive in the middle of a scene when he’s still tied up. I will add, from personal experience, that throwing an open mouth gag into the mix makes this kind of scene particularly hot.