The beauty of dominant women
Real life continues to get in the way of my blogging. It’s now 4am local time, and I really need to get to bed, but I also don’t like to leave it this long between posts. So I’m continuing the intermission concept with some more eye candy. This time it’s a beautiful piece of suspension bondage, shot by the photographer Weronika Bachleda. The rigger is Gestalta.
I found this via a tweet by Ruby Marks.
Over the years I’ve poked fun at a fair number of domme outfits. This vintage photograph is one of the rare examples where the WTF factor is all about the submissive. I’d love to know what the thinking was behind the spikes. Shouldn’t it be the submissive in the predicament situation, not everyone around her? That rather striking domme is going to feel pretty silly if she stabs herself while trying to apply her flogger. Perhaps it’s designed as an all body chastity device? No matter how cute she might be, you can’t get close enough to enjoy any sort of intimate encounter.
According to this tweet, it’s from Studio Biederer around 1935.
I’m not exactly sure what’s going on in this image, but I do know that it’s sexy as hell. Possibly a shot from a new kinky version of Cluedo? This’d be Mistress Green, in the library with the rope.
I suspect its from Dudes in Distress, a tumblr filled with plenty of hot bound dudes, but if it is, I haven’t managed to track down the original posting.
The Guardian has an interesting article on female sexual pleasure featuring five women speaking out on the topic. It packs in a lot of complex issues, and left me wanting to hear more from everyone interviewed. From the perspective of this blog, the most relevant voice was the last one featured, that of Reba Maybury. The article labels her as a dominatrix, but she seems to be part performance artist, part political agitator and part pro-domme. It’s hard to tell from the article if kink is an intrinsic part of her life or just an interesting tool for exploring power dynamics and gender politics.
What struck me as particularly odd was this section…
A socialist of mixed-race background, Maybury only dominates white, preferably right-wing, men. “I can’t force myself to be even fictionally cruel to any other type of man. It makes the performance a lot easier,” she says. “I could never be mean to someone who wasn’t white, because the world is run by white men, isn’t it?”
To a kinky submissive person such as myself that seems …. odd. Her white, right-wing male clients will doubtless enjoy being dominated. That is after all why they reach out to her. I’m sure being called selfish, disgusting, misogynistic assholes is exactly what some of them desire. On the other hand, a non-white or left-wing man who would also enjoy being dominated, has to go without. So she meets the needs of those she dislikes and withholds it from those she supports. That doesn’t seem optimal.
I think it’s absolutely possible to mix kink and progressive politics. For example, as I covered here with Mistress Couple and the Trump voters. I also love the idea of Dominatrix Maybury getting her right wing submissives to help her create a book whose profits go to sex workers. That’s a fabulous concept. But as she recognizes at the end of the article, our kinks and our politics align in complex ways and they don’t necessarily influence each other. If you want to punish wealthy white conservatives, then maybe don’t beat or humiliate them if that’s what makes their dicks hard?
I’m not sure who this man voted for, but he’s a white guy in a suit, so there’s at least a chance he matches up with Reba Maybury’s criteria. The sexy bondage here comes courtesy of the TS Seduction site.
I had a very functional view of bondage when I was a neophyte kinkster. Adding anything that wasn’t being used to hold a limb in place was wasted time and effort. After all, what’s the point of wrapping up toes, fingers or torsos if you’re already immobilized?
Time and experience has taught me that there’s a lot of pleasure to be had in the little details. What was taken for granted suddenly becomes a point of focus. It’s all about the intimacy of control. A strange but hot combination of caring and objectification. Her focus makes my body important, but her actions reduce my sense of self. I must be just as she wants me, in every detail.
This image is from a tweet by Alchemical Seductress. She’s the headmistress of the Ritual Chamber in Toronto.
I must be getting old. In past years I could stack up play sessions over a short period without a problem. On this trip I’ve done three, and now feel like I need to trade my beaten up body in for an updated model. I’d love to think that’s because I’m doing more intense play, but frankly I think I’m not recovering as fast. Age may bring wisdom, but it also bring flab, aches and slow recovery. However, I’m not letting that slow me down, and will be playing again one final time before my flight home. While the body says no, the Id and Ego say ‘bring it on’.
I found this image on the Alternative Femdom tumblr.
I couldn’t finish a trio of posts on bondage and its related equipment without featuring two renowned experts of both the tools and the art – Elise Graves and Troy Orleans. These two shots feature some beautiful leather bondage and a very cool suspended table. I also like the very simple clean space that they’re playing in. For me it always feels a lot more intense and serious to play in a ‘normal’ looking studio space than it does to play in all black dungeon with chains and whips hanging off the walls.
I know from experience that heavy bondage can create a floaty headspace. In this case it also looks like he’s floating in space.
I found this via a tweet on Elise Graves’ twitter feed. It’s obviously from her Bondage Liberation site, which contains all sorts of interesting intense bondage shots.
While I’m on the subject of unusual dungeon equipment, here’s an interesting bondage box from the English Mansion. I’ve never seen anything similar in any playspace I’ve visited, which, now I think about it, seems kind of surprising. I imagine it’d be quite a head trip and it doesn’t look too hard to manufacture. Although maybe it would be tricky to use? You couldn’t really wrap someone in place, so you’d have to wrap them first, and then somehow get them into the box. Of course you could always use a leather body bag with it rather than mummification, combined with packing material to pad for different body shapes.
I love the objectification element of it, although I’m not sure how my mild claustrophobia would cope. From the clasps on the side, I assume there’s a lid that would go on. That’s simultaneously hot and scary.
The lady on the other end of the nipple lamps is of course Mistress T.
This is a pretty clever design for a restraint system. It reminds me of a bondage chair, which is always one of my favorite things to be strapped to in a dungeon. They create a great sense of vulnerability, while also allowing the submissive to see the dominant and know exactly what she’s about to do to him.
In this case hanging the submissive on the walls not only removes the need for an extra piece of furniture, but also adds a touch of objectification. It’s not very clear, but I assume there’s some sort of shelf that he’s perched on, so all the weight doesn’t fall on the limbs. Just perfect for some CBT and nipple torture.
This particular piece of dungeon apparatus is located at the Sub Rosa space in Portland Oregon. This image came courtesy of Mistress Viola’s twitter feed.
I hadn’t intended a second post on books, but then this Daily Beast article popped up on my radar and I couldn’t resist featuring it. The book being plugged in it is ‘The Ultimate Guide to Bondage‘ by Mistress Couple. I’m sure the book is great, but what really caught my eye in the article was the broader value of kink and bondage that Mistress Couple describes, outside of simple sexual pleasure.
She talks about how consensual bondage helped her work through some traumatic experiences of her own, overwriting the negative with the positive. She also emphasizes how being vulnerable in safe situations can make you stronger. The article finishes with a lovely story of a nervous couple trying out bondage together at La Domaine Esemar. It’s not exactly a happy femdom story, given the woman ends up being tied, but it certainly comes across as a happy kinky story.
Mistress Couples Ultimate Guide To Bondage comes out on Dec 11th, just in time for Christmas shopping. Caveat Emptor – I’ve not read it and know nothing beyond what the article and Amazon page tells me. However, given the background and skills of its author, I’d expect it to be well worth acquiring. Plus, it’s nice to have a bondage book where the cover image is a bound naked dude, rather than the usual lithe lady.