Artwork – Page 51 – Femdom Resource

Autonomy continued

At the risk of making the blog endlessly self-referential, I’m going to continue the theme of autonomy from yesterday’s post, and respond to an interesting comment that was left. You can read the whole thing here but the essence of it was: What about 24×7 mistress/slave relationship that doesn’t use safewords? That is a loss of autonomy, but in the context of a loving trusting relationship. How can that be abuse?

I think the issue of safewords in this context is a red herring. I also don’t use safewords when I play with people I know well. I trust they’ll play safely and respond when I communicate a problem. And in the context of an daily 24×7 relationship it’d be kind of weird to safeword. They’re really a very specific safety mechanism that’s useful when doing particular types of scenes or playing with someone new.

What I think is key is that the slave always has an option to step-back and renegotiate (in the loosest and most general sense of that word). Ultimately they must always have the option to walk away. That doesn’t necessarily give the slave control of the relationship. The dominant might simply say it’s my way or the highway, and that single simple choice to consent might carry a lot of significant implications. But meaningful consent can only come from autonomy – from the ability to make an un-coerced decision. If you don’t have that then you can’t consent. And if you don’t consent then that’s an abusive relationship.

I was going to go on to say that you can never negotiate away the need for consent, but with further thought I’m not sure that’s true. I can conceive of doing it for short time periods. For example, a heavy corporal scene where a submissive agrees to be tied down and given 12 stripes of the cane with no option for escape. That seems a reasonable situation for a submissive to briefly give up his autonomy entirely. It might be painful, but it’s not dangerous, and it’s for a very limited time period. I don’t think it’s reasonable to stretch that kind of agreement for weeks or months. I’m not sure where that line is drawn, but I’m sure there is one.

Of course there is one scenario where a lack of autonomy doesn’t necessarily imply abuse, and that’s if you’re unlucky enough to be caught up in the penal system. Prisons don’t go much for negotiated scenes and safewords. I’m not sure what crime the man below committed, or what police department issued her uniform, but I’m sure justice will be served.

The image is by the very talented artist Vernice61. I believe she’s saying ‘And drink it down!”

Owner and pet

After a modern image and a funny image, here’s a pretty image to finish my trio of artwork posts. I think it’s kind of sweet. Other people go ‘ahhh, how cute’ at kittens and small children. I do it for pictures of leashed guys exchanging tender glances with dominants.

Based on the image’s distinctive style I believe it’s by the artist Kahori. I found it on the Elegant Femdom Art tumblr.

Supergirl to the rescue!

After yesterday’s post featuring some very modern femdom art, I thought it’d be a nice contrast to reach into the past for this post. This particular image is very much of its time and genre – from the artistic style, through the exposition style of speech (clearly it’s important they’re told she’s got super powers) to the cliched green aliens. What particularly made me smile was the look on the aliens’ faces. They don’t look all that upset about the situation. In fact they almost appear to be queuing up. Perhaps their nefarious plot to take over the earth was simply a ploy to get a good spanking from a cute girl in red boots?

I found this on the Lunar Black tumblr.

Virtual reality kink

The Oculus Rift headset is one of the hot stories in the tech world. It’s getting a lot of positive reviews and some heavyweight support. Virtual reality started out as the hot new thing in the 90’s, and quickly became a joke thanks to the limits of display technology. It seems that after almost two decades the hardware is finally catching up with the concept.

Of course, it wouldn’t be an exciting new technology without someone trying to use it for sex, and fortunately this is no exception. Their sales pitch suggests imaging playing Leisure Suit Larry but actually being in the game. Frankly that sounds terrible, but I do think the concept is an interesting one. It’s a step towards the Holodeck and, as Scott Adams rightly observed, that will be society’s last invention.

I’ve a personal interest here, as I worked in a research group on VR in the 90’s. Back then only incredibly desperate teenagers would have been turned on by the low resolution graphics, but today it looks like the visuals are rapidly becoming a solved problem. Haptic techology – meaning touch and tactile feedback – is the next big area. I can imagine that BDSM sex apps have an advantage here. After all, it’s easier to create a painful sensation that it is a pleasurable one. However, I wonder if BDSM also requires a greater degree of connection between participants. After all, a lot of people can enjoy masturbating to images or movies, and not feel any particular connection with the people they’re watching. Yet most masochists in my experience don’t get off on hurting themselves. Pain is only enjoyable in the right context and establishing that context might be trickier when some of the participants don’t actually exist.

The image above is by Tink2001 (sites here and here). I think he was one of the most talented femdom artists working in the rendering world, but sadly seems to have stopped publishing new work. As an image I think it’s a great fit for this particular post for several obvious reasons.

Enter the dominatrix

Apparently there’s a new videogame due out called ‘Enter the dominatrix‘. That’s a really stupid title, but that’s pretty much par for the course when it comes to videogames. In a similar vein, I can’t get too annoyed at the use of a dominatrix as the main villain. Yes, it’s lazy and cliched, but so are most videogames. Given the stereotypical view of a dominatrix – an attractive woman in fetish gear who enjoys hurting people – I’m surprised more games haven’t featured them.

The thing that’s even more annoying than the title and the cliched villain is the plot and accompanying press release…

In order to thwart her nefarious schemes and escape to the real world, the Saints will have to counter her army of gimps and sex-workers…

Sex-workers? Really? I’m supposed to fight off hordes of strippers, escorts, cam girls and sensual touch masseuse? The evil minions in this game are people who offer sexy fun times in return for money? Those are not the kind of people I want to virtually gun down. I get that Nazis, demons and aliens have been over-worked as protagonists at this point, but swapping them out for sex-workers is pretty fucked up.

As a further demonstration of the idiocy of the game developers, they couldn’t even put together a super sexy dominatrix to battle. If you’re going to play to a cliche, at least really go for it with a smoking hot domme, and not someone with a stupid cloak and a penis helmet. There are hundreds of better virtual dommes floating around on the web. Take the one below for example, created by Andrew Hickinbottom. It’s excessively exaggerated, and the ring on the collar is a classic fetish faux paus for a domme, but she still looks a way more interesting character than what the Volition team were paid to come up with.

Joining the medical establishment

Just hours after writing yesterday’s post on piercing I was intrigued to stumble across this article from Japan on a domme getting arrested for needle play. She’d posted images of it on her blog (link anyone?), and obviously the Osaka police have such low crime rates that they’ve time to waste hassling adults having consensual fun. Apparently it’s illegal in Japan to do anything that might draw blood without a medical license. That would seem to make a lot of BDSM play potentially risky, as even canes or single tails can draw blood if applied with sufficient force.

Obtaining a medical license seems like a tough requirement just for getting your kink on. I’m guessing it’s not the kind of thing you can obtain with a few evening classes at your local adult education establishment. In fact according to this article, even medical students in Japan can’t do minor procedures like give an injection. They have to graduate, which takes around 6 years. Yet despite that rule, the US somehow still manages to spend 2.5x times what Japan does on healthcare. Getting arrested for play piercing images clearly isn’t the only screwed up thing here.

I really wanted to find a sensual and visually attractive piercing shot to feature with this post (something like this). Unfortunately, despite a lot of hunting around, I’ve come up short. Ironically needles tends to feature in a lot of Japanese femdom movies, but there’s little good imagery out there. Most of what there is tends to be extreme and lack any D/s vibe to it.

Instead I’ll go with the medical theme and something from the pen of the great Sardax. I’m not sure what ailment this course of treatment is for, but I’m sure it’s a highly effective approach.

You can find more of Sardax’s fine work at his site. You can also pick up his illustrated and translated version of Venus in Furs at Amazon UK.

A pull, a slap and a buzz

Another day, another image I can’t attribute to the original artist. I’m beginning to get a touched vexed by my repeated failures in that respect. I’m not finding or researching images differently. I’m beginning to wonder if Google’s reverse image search is crawling less adult images these days.

Whoever the artist is, I like the sense of energy they’ve brought to the image. There’s aggressive some hair pulling, ass slapping and buzzing vibrators. It’s playful, but with an edge. Based on the visual evidence, he’s certainly not too upset about the situation.

I found this on the Elegant Femdom Art tumblr.

Perverting perversity

I thought this was an interesting article on the history of the word pervert. Apparently it started off as a word to describe an atheist. It wasn’t till the end of the 19th Century that it became associated with sexual depravity. Prior to that unconventional sexual acts were simply seen as a sign of moral degeneracy and decadence. It was the early sexologists who created the idea of sexual desire being an orientation and re-purposed perversion (‘turning away from the right course’) to describe people who fitted into that group.

The really shocking thing about this is that it means the highly historically accurate Blackadder II, set in 16th Century Elizabethan England, used the word incorrectly for the character of the baby eating bishop of Bath and Wells.

Bishop: Yes. You see, I am a colossal pervert. No form of sexual depravity is too low for me. Animal, vegetable or mineral — I’ll do anything to anything.
Edmund: Fine words for a Bishop. It’s nice to hear the Church speaking out for a change on social issues.

The clip itself can be seen here. And for any of my US readers who have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, I suggest checking out one of the most brilliant comedy series ever recorded. It’s currently on NetFlix streaming, although I’d recommend skipping the first season and sticking to seasons 2, 3 and 4.

As for an image I wanted something featuring a whole heap of perversity, and the one below seemed to fit the bill. There’s bondage, cross-dressing, cuckolding, homosexuality and butt plugs. All sorts of good stuff.

I found the image via the sissiebondage tumblr and once again I’ve failed to track down an original source for it. Either Google reverse image search is really sucking these days or I’m picking particularly obscure images. If anyone knows the artist then feel free to leave a comment.

Sit on my face and tell me that you love me

I’m not sure who the artist is, but this drawing puts a smile on my face. What submissive guy, or indeed any guy in touching distance of sanity, doesn’t want this? It’s simple but sexy.

Madame in a world of fantasy

I always enjoy stumbling across old BDSM pornography, although not typically for erotic reasons. Some of it does still carry a sexual charge – Bettie Page shots or Ed Lee’s work spring to mind – but a lot of it is pretty terrible. What I actually enjoy is the time capsule nature of it. Most of it was made in murky legal circumstances, with minimal distribution channels, using a small pool of performers and very little community support. I often get the impression it was being created by people who didn’t really have a clear plan and were forced to make it up as they went along. When I see a modern commercial BDSM porn I tend to focus on the image itself. When I see a vintage BDSM image I wonder who was involved in creating it and what the story behind it was.

The internet changed all that, but it has also made it easier to share this old material. Anyone else who enjoys traveling back in time to the days of mail order magazines in extremely plain envelopes might appreciate this fan site on the ‘Madame in a world of fantasy’ magazine. It’s very well put together and features a lot of scanned covers and snippets from articles and artwork.

I’ve featured two of the covers below. The artwork one is particularly strange. I’m not sure if the men are trying to hold her back or simply prostrating themselves at her feet. Her pose suggests she’s about to wrestle with another enormous woman in a strange underwear/cape combo. In contrast the photograph is far more traditional, with an upward shot of a vaguely stern/condescending lady.