Tag: Blindfold

Jack Vettriano

The Scottish painter Jack Vettriano has passed away at the age of 73. He was a mainstream artist, not explicitly a femdom or fetish one, but kink was clearly an undercurrent in a good amount of his work. I featured two of his paintings in past posts – here and here.

While he had a lot of commercial success he was despised by the critics and art world. This article on him was one of the more positive ones I’ve seen, and even here the writer can’t resist finishing with how he finds his paintings ‘heinous and grim’. It’s a somewhat incoherent article, but I think there’s one thing it gets right…

The main issue for snobby art types like me isn’t the work itself. It’s that he lacked a conceptual edge, a sense of irony and any postmodern self-awareness. He didn’t paint sexy midnight trysts between half-clothed women and Brylcreemed men as a comment on gendered power dynamics or as a riff on art historical depictions of the female nude. He painted them because they were sexy.

There’s something to be said for that. One can enjoy a simpler message without it detracting from other more complex works. Unabashed sexuality and hedonism for the joy of it makes people uncomfortable. Undercutting it – as this writer does by likening it to a greasy double cheeseburger – relieves that discomfort.

They’re not paintings I’d choose to hang on my walls or spend thousands of dollars on. But one can still choose to appreciate them and their openly kinky themes.

This is by Jack Vettriano and entitled ‘Wicked Games’

On the Edge

In a further sign of kink slipping further into the mainstream, Glamour magazine has an article on Edging. It’s actually pretty good, covering the basics and giving handy tips.

The only thing I’d quibble with is their assertion that edging leads to stronger orgasms. Maybe that’s true for women, which is presumably Glamour’s primary audience. For men however, I think it’s the shift away from orgasm that makes it interesting. We’re conditioned into expecting sex to have a clearly defined build-up to an orgasmic stopping point. Stretching that out and leaning into arousal without orgasm makes for a very different experience. I love combining a steady endorphin buzz with the sense of denial and frustration. It’s a headspace that I can happily live in for days without orgasm.

This is by the artist Mare. You can find their Patreon here.

Dipping Her Wand

Starting the week with something for fans of extreme femdom crossed with just a touch of whimsy. That’s probably not a huge group, but I’m sure there are some who’ll fit that description in my readership.

This is by the artist KouYou. It’s not often you see a domme outfit that’d be at home in a Harry Potter Cosplay convention. Even rarer that such an outfit would be paired with an amputation and sounding fetish scene. As a fan of extreme contrasts, I like the mix of tenderness and cruelty, but I’ll admit it’s an unusual combination of ideas.

I sourced the image from this tweet.

Tip of the Moon

Today’s post brings you a new (at least to me) artist – Tip of the Moon. Their work tends to focus on submissives and the tricky bondage predicaments they find themselves in. I’m sure that will be an appealing focus for some of my domme readers. If you like what you see, then they have very reasonably priced commissions open.

You can see more from Tip of the Moon on Twitter, on Deviant Art and on SubscribeStar.

Giggles

I enjoyed this story about a woman who breaks into uncontrollable laughter after she orgasms. Apparently the sex with her boyfriend is so good that it tickles her in all the right places.

I can relate, as I often find after heavy kinky play my post-orgasm reaction is laughter. Partly it’s the sense of absurdity that follows from surveying the scene of kinky carnage. There’ll be ropes and straps and odd toys and spiky things and two slightly sweaty bodies relaxing in the post scene glow. It’s inherently absurd in the best possible way.

I suspect the laughter is also a natural reaction to the release of high tension. I personally don’t get that reaction with regular sex, as that’s fun but not intense for me. Add pain and control and long drawn out teasing into the mix, and suddenly the contrast in the post-orgasm come down is so much stronger. It’s the difference between gently stretching and releasing a rubber band or stretching it till it snaps.

We laugh at jokes because they play with our expectations and contrast reality with the twist the punchline delivers. The incongruity of a joke makes it funny, as does the release in tension from the initial set-up.  I find much same thing logic applies to a kinky scene.

Of course, while I may laugh at the end of a session, the domme typically gets to laugh all the way through it. This is Lady Pim, who plays out of the Ritual Chamber in Toronto. You can find her professional site here.

Location, Location, Location

For submissives who primarily play with pro-dommes, where is the best place in the world to live? Setting aside existing relationships – assume we’re talking about a newly minted fresh faced submissive with no history or experience – what location offers the greatest possibilities?

Having just returned from the UK, I think my answer would probably be London. Obviously, like other great cities such as New York or Tokyo, it’s home to a large number of talented pro-dommes and plays host to a lot of visiting dommes. If you want to turn a kinky session into a day trip, then dommes in places like Paris, Manchester, Birmingham and most of the South of England are options. Make it into a long weekend, and suddenly cities like Berlin, Stuttgart, Amsterdam, Edinburgh and Glasgow are all possibilities. On top of this, the UK sex work laws are less stupid than the US (while still being very stupid), and social attitudes to kink tend to be relatively liberal. It’s not perfect, but on balance I think it might just be the best place to be a kinky person in the professional scene.

Obviously quality always beats quantity, and you could have a fabulous D/s relationship with someone while living in a tiny hamlet that’s miles from anywhere. But chemistry is important whether a relationship is professional or lifestyle, and the more people you have to meet, the better your odds of finding that elusive fizzy reaction.

This is Lola Ruin, a Manchester based pro-domme. She’s about a two hour train journey from London. Not exactly a quick trip, but still faster than jetting between major cities in the US. The image is from her twitter feed.

See No Evil, Speak No Evil

This shot from Lady Pim is very cute and sexy. It has a lovely contrast between the sensual and the harsh.

As a personal aside, I do find it weird how things I don’t like in sessions can still continue to appeal to me visually. Blindfolds like this one are a good example. Enemas are another. Both of those are on my ‘meh’ list for kinky activities. Yet I still like the idea of them a lot.

I get how the idea of something can be exciting, but the reality of it disappointing when tried in play. That’s a fairly normal thing to happen. But how does the idea remain exciting beyond that? Somehow the reality never intrudes into the theoretical sexual fantasy.

Lady Pim is a Toronto based domme and her site for professional sessions can be found here.

Love of the Visual

There’s an old stereotype that men respond far more strongly to sexual imagery than women do. It’s an idea I’ve always been skeptical of. Partly because as a man I’ve always enjoyed the written word just as much as the visual image. Partly because it has a suspiciously neat fit with an old fashioned view of sexuality, where men are decadent pleasure seekers and women the gatekeepers of pleasure, rather than active participants. Mostly because women’s magazines are packed with sexual imagery via their advertisements. I’m pretty certain those ads don’t exist just for men in waiting rooms browsing old copies of Cosmo and Vogue.

According to this article in the Guardian I’m right to be suspicious. A study of studies has shown that men and women’s brains respond in the same way to pornography. Basically the same bits of circuitry light up, whatever your gender. The studies authors go on to say that it’s more likely social pressures and stigma are the reason for the stereotype, rather than fundamental biological differences.

Hopefully all my readers, whatever their gender, can enjoy this image. It’s by Mistress Iris, creator of a great deal of sexy imagery.

Her Delicate Touch

Here’s something sweet to start the week. This image is from the SF based pro-domme Mistress Wild Iris, via this tweet.

Ironically, I find one of the things that makes a great pro-domme isn’t their ability to crack a single tail, or rig a fiendishly complex bondage scene, it’s the delicate touches they bring to their scenes. It’s knowing when the submissive needs a grounding contact to bring them back. The breath of a whisper into their ear. The press of a sensual warm body on a bruised back. It’s that momentary physical and emotional connection that allows intense sensations to be sublimated into a D/s dynamic.

You can see more from Mistress Wild Iris on her twitter feed.