Changing of the Guard

The kink.com site has a new CEO. As covered in this Vice article, Alison Boden has replaced Peter Acworth. I’m happy to see a woman get the top job at a very high profile kinky porn producer and, an engineer myself, I’m particularly happy to see that she got there via a technology background. She started as a software engineer and was their VP of technology prior to the CEO job. It’s frequently the finance, marketing or product management people who get the fast track to the top job. Given the lack of female software engineers in general, and in top positions in particular, it’s great to see one heading a company like kink.com.

These images feature Lorilei Lee shooting for Kink’s Divine Bitches site.

Two Emails

I had a couple of different emails recently. One was sadly all too common, the other sadly all too rare.

The first was someone asking me to set them up with the Goddess of their dreams. Apparently they thought I had hot and cold running Goddesses on tap and I’d be willing to divert a few of them to a random internet person on the basis of a one line email. As emails go, it’s about as effective as emailing Bill Gates with the line ‘Give me the job of my dreams!” and then signing it with a smiley face. On second thoughts, it’s actually less effective than that because, unlike me and the Goddesses, Bill at least has the theoretical ability to actually deliver.

The second email was someone thanking me for running this site and saying that reading it had played a part in them reaching out to a domme to set up their first ever play session. That gave me the warm fuzzies. Even better was the fact that they’d had a great time and they were planning to play more in the future. If there’s one single thing I’d want this site to achieve, it’d be to encourage people to get physically involved in kink. It doesn’t matter if it’s going to a munch, visiting a pro-domme or  exploring something new with a partner. Just venture out there and try it. The only lasting regret I’ve ever had about my kinky experiences is not starting them years earlier. If I can encourage others to avoid that same mistake, I’ll be a happy bunny. Just don’t expect this particular bunny to fix you up with a Goddess. That parts on you.

As for which email is the common one and which the rare one, I’ll leave that for you to guess. Absolutely no prizes for guessing right.

Here’s an example of the kind of kinky fun that’s out there to be explored. I believe this is Lady Hinako and Mistress Kawa with human thing from this tweet. Even better than one happy domme, is two happy dommes.

Yogi

These shots by Mistress An Li made me happy. Not because it’s a great bondage set-up, although it is that. Not because it looks like something I’d want to try, although it’s also that. Not even because Mistress An Li looks so pleased with her creation, although a smiling domme is one of my favorite scenes. No. It’s because I saw the first shot and went “Oooh, that looks like reclined bound angle pose.” And then I felt all unjustifiably smug and pleased with myself that – after 18 months of regular yoga – I’d finally been able to remember and recognize one pose. Admittedly, that might be because it’s got a kinky sounding name, but I don’t care. I’m officially upgrading myself from yoga idiot to yoga novice.

Mistress An Li is a LA based pro-domme. You can find her professional site here and here twitter feed here. She also has a short video shot from this scene tweeted here, with the full video available at her onlyfans site.

Foot Binding

I find this style of rope sexy as hell when used in bondage. Something about the more natural color gives it a rawer edge. I was initially so caught up by the binding, that I didn’t even notice the domme’s leg jammed into his crotch. There are no fancy outfits or tortuous looking toys involved, but this is a lovely and sexy scene.

This is from a tweet by Elise Graves, who also provided the bondage and the foot to the crotch. The man on the receiving end is Kino Payne and the shot was captured by steelwerks.

BoundCon

I’m safely back in Seattle, my East Coast adventures at an end. I’ve family staying with me for the next couple of weeks, so posting may be a bit erratic over that period.

While I’m happy to be home, the place I’d really like to be is Munich for BoundCon. My twitter feed is full of fun images featuring great dommes doing crazy bondage stuff. Some worth checking out are Troy Orleans, Elise Graves, AliceInBondageLand and Lady Chiaki. This image is from an Fm bondage show as featured in this Elise Grave’s tweet. You can see more from the same show, featuring more bound men, in another tweet here.

Foot Torture

I’ve already posted about how much I enjoyed my session with Mistress Tess earlier this week. What I neglected to mention was how educational it was. For example, I learnt that you could use a goat to torture someone’s feet. I should hasten to add that this information was imparted verbally, and not through any kind of practical demonstration. While Mistress Tess may have a wonderfully well equipped studio, she definitely does not keep any goats out back ready in case any really kinky perverts show up.

Apparently the torture method involved coating the victims feet in salt and then encouraging a goat to lick it off. Ticklish at first, as the rough tongue rasped away at the skin, it’d become progressively more agonizing. It seems a somewhat complicated way to hurt someone, rather than say just beating them on the feet, but maybe there were some really lazy medieval torturers who wanted to delegate everything to their four footed friends.

Amazingly I even managed to find a femdom themed advertisement featuring goat tickle torture.  I’m not exactly sure what’s going on or why a goat is needed – my French is limited to reading menus – but it’s kind of hot.

When it comes to tickle torture, there’s one particular artist who comes to mind, and that’s Augustine.  I don’t think he has ever featured goats in a drawing, but there have certainly been plenty of tortured feet.

Apologies for the ugly watermark on this image. I’m sure it has been added after the fact. Unfortunately I can’t track down a clean version of the drawing. You can find plenty more of Augustine’s art on his tumblr.

Bondage Fun in NYC

My East Coast vacation has moved onto New York, and today I was lucky enough to spend some time with Troy Orleans. Much bondage fun was on the menu, featuring chains, open mouth gags, leather straps and plastic wrap mummification. There were also some needles and electricity mixed in there for good measure.

Bondage for me is often the starting point of a session, not the ultimate goal. It’s the thing you have to do before starting the actual kinky activity you’re targeting. But when you’ve got someone with the mad skills of Troy Orleans, not to mention her amazing studio space, it’s nice to turn it around and make bondage itself the focus. It can lead to quite unique headspaces that are somehow stressful and relaxing all at the same time.

This image is Troy in her space, but not with me. This is from her Instagram feed (shot in March) and the domme at the back is Elise Graves. Those metal wires can actually be used to suspend the submissive in space, with that lower bench pulled entirely clear.

Keep in on the hush-hush

This autostraddle article has some good tips on how to subtly soundproof a room for kinky sex. Handy if you have children, roommates or thin walls between you and the neighbors. It’s particularly important for that last one, as explaining strange noises to a house guest can be embarrassing, but explaining that they’re not a sign of domestic abuse to the police is infinitely worse.

Even in professional spaces noise can be a problem. As I covered previously, I was banned from a San Francisco playspace during office hours for fear my vocalizations would disturb the surrounding tech start ups. I was also recently amused when arranging a first session with a new domme to be told, totally out of the blue, that my screams wouldn’t be a problem in her space.  Apparently my references had been particularly descriptive in their feedback!

The two standard approaches to excess noise are either soundproofing the room or gagging the submissive. Lady Chiaki appears to have come up with an interesting alternative here – provide the submissive with his own little soundproofed private room just for his head. There’s even a handy front door on it.

This is from this tweet in Lady Chiaki’s twitter feed. I believe the creator of the box is OSM Works.

Absence of Activity

Sorry for the posting gap. I picked up some bug over the weekend and have spent the last few days curled up under a blanket. I haven’t felt like I could do much of anything, other than watch bad television and sleep. Hopefully, normally service should be resumed from this point on.

Talking of guys unable to do much of anything, here’s one in a similar bind. Although I guess if looking stylish counts, he’s definitely managing to pull that off.

This is from the instagram of kinkbaku (also on twitter). It’s not exactly femdom, but if you like images of bound men, then it’s worth checking out.