Fond memories of ball torture

The recent posts on safewords and when ‘no’ can mean ‘yes’ triggered a happy memory of mine. It involves Lydia, ball torture and a unique event.

It occurred after Lydia and I had been playing together for several years and had done hundreds of hours of pretty intense sessions. The scene was CBT, with me bound on a bed and Lydia lying alongside, doing terribly evil things to delicate parts of my body. At some point she ratcheted the intensity up and I moaned something like “no….oh…no”. She paused momentarily, looked at me quizzically, and then said “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say no to me before.” Deep as I was in subspace, it took me a few seconds to figure out what she meant. Then we smiled at each other and went right back into it. Her squeezing and hitting; me moaning and yelling.

Of course I had said ‘no’ to her multiple times in the past. Or at least words to that effect. Things like “hold on, I have a cramp”, or “no, I need a moment” or “we better pause, I’m feeling faint”. Stepping out of scene was occasionally necessary and always easy to do. This situation was just the first time she’d pushed me to the point of actually saying a ‘no’ that really meant a ‘yes’ in the scene. It was an unconscious and unfiltered response to what was happening.

In hindsight it turned out to be a unique event. It’s not the normal way I respond, and I don’t think we ever got back into that particular headspace again. I’m glad it happened though. The event and her recognition of it while deep in the scene put a smile on my face both then and now.

Predicament CBT from Divine BitchesHere’s a gentleman enjoying some bondage and CBT of his own, courtesy of Divine Bitches. Although his position looks considerably more uncomfortable than mine ever was.

When no means yes

Ferns left me an interesting comment to my previous post on the use (or not) of safewords. You can read the whole thing here, but to excerpt a relevant part…

When I played, I pushed him to fall over into that space where his voice was unfiltered and when he was like that, he would say ‘no’ or ‘please stop’ or ‘I’ve had enough’. It was visceral and instinctual and he couldn’t stop it coming out, but he also *didn’t mean it*. He wasn’t role playing, everything in him was saying ‘no’, but he didn’t want me to stop.

I do think it is super hot when you get into that kind of space (as Ferns says), and her comment makes an excellent point, but I don’t think it changes my underlying idea. The goal is good communication, however that is achieved. If you’re role playing, or the kind of submissive who says no when you mean yes, then safewords are definitely for you. If you think you communicate more clearly without them, then I personally wouldn’t impose them unnecessarily.

Of course, in some ways it’s impossible not to have a safeword. If someone starts yelling ‘red’, ‘safeword’ or ‘vomit’ in the middle of a scene, I don’t think it really matters what you negotiated beforehand. The message is pretty clear. So in some ways picking a safeword is less about acquiring a way to stop the scene and more about negotiating away possible ways to stop it. Which is a kind of weird way to think about it.

happycbtThis image has nothing to do with safewords. I just thought it was a hot and fun. I always love a happy domme. This is Miss Annalieza.

‘No’ is a perfectly good word

I liked this article by Sinclair Sexsmith on the use (or not) of safewords. She makes the point that communicating in plain English with things like ‘no’ or ‘slow down’ is a entirely valid way to manage a scene. A safeword is obviously necessary when engaging in some types of roleplay or consensual non-consent scenes, but it’s by no means compulsory in every dynamic. Safewords are tools that can be selectively deployed.

I’m personally perfect happy to pick a safeword or use color codes if the domme requests that, but I do find it somewhat odd. I’ve had decades of using ‘no’ and ‘stop’ to mean ‘no’ and ‘stop’. So why complicate things unnecessarily? Does a safeword suddenly make ‘no’ not mean ‘no’?

sceneI believe this drawing is by the artist Dauinsaru. I found it via the Femdom Art tumblr.

Speedy

Regular readers may have noticed a few problems with blog loading times over recent weeks. The good news is I finally figured the problem out: The latest version of WordPress didn’t play nicely with my dynamic blogroll feature. The bad news is that I can’t find an equivalent of the old blogroll widget that does actually work properly. I really liked the fact it showed the latest posts of and update times of blogs, but it’s no use if doing that brings this site to a grinding halt.

While I’ll keep hunting for alternatives, I’ve switched back to a conventional static blogroll. If anyone knows of a WordPress widget that’ll work like my old one and is compatible with latest version of WordPress then please let me know via a comment. And for all my non-blogging readers, who have no clue what I’m on about in this post, here’s a nice hot image by way of apology for wasting your time.

ropebondageI’m afraid I don’t have an original source for this image.

More advice from the experts

I’ve always intended this blog to cover both professional and regular non-professional female dominance. So after the previous post on communicating with a pro-domme, I thought I should also provide some similar links for ‘lifestyle’ (to use a term I’m not fond of) dommes. Fortunately for me, three of the smartest and most interesting bloggers on my blogroll have already covered this exact topic.

enoranottThis images is from the Enora Nòtt site.

Slacking off (again)

Apologies for the lack of posts in the last couple of days. I’m once again on vacation. This time I’ve headed across the country to Chicago for some kink, food and fun. Hopefully I’ll get time to keep up with my posting in between all that. I’ve not visited the city before, or played with anyone here, so it has been an interesting new experience for me.

This image is completely unrelated to my trip, but I wanted to post it anyway. I think it’s unusual in that it manages to be exciting and erotic, while featuring no faces or traditional erogenous zones. I like the contrast between the delicately feminine foot, the textured rope and the heft of his hand. A perfect example of erotica that sparks the imagination.

foothandI’m afraid I don’t know where it’s from.

Stuffing a hole

I always enjoying reading how film sequences and photoshoots are created. There’s often a huge discrepancy between the carefully curated end product and the much messier act of making it. It’s particularly interesting when the filmed scenes are unusual, and even more so when they’re porn and wacky kinky sex is involved. An article by performer Rain DeGrey, entitled ‘My sex life requires a tractor‘,  featuring her being buried upside down and forced to orgasm, was therefore right up my street. It’s obviously not femdom, but it does show the effort required for some porn shoots. Who’d have thought you’d ever need a working tractor to pull off a kinky scene?

Inverted burial is of course not the only reason to dig a hole outside. You can also use them for slave storage as the English Mansion has done here. I wonder if they also keep a tractor around for digging these holes?

hole

Frozen treats

Blogging about the cuckold cum eating scenario put me in mind of my favorite Dan Savage letter. And when I say favorite, I mean the kind that’s memorable in  a – “Wow, good for you I guess, but just …. wow” – kind of way. It’s the third letter in this column, and features an F/m couple who want to make the man eat his own cum. The problem is he loses all desire to do so immediately after orgasm. Their solution to this catch-22 involves zip lock bags and a freezer compartment.

I’m a fan of letting your freak flag fly. I’m also a fan of creative solutions to kinky problems. That said, frozen sperm ice cubes freak me out. I really hope they never have guests who want to make a drink and grab some ice from the freezer. Just eat the damn cum and stop being such a wuss about it. Or, alternatively, use some straps and tubes to solve the problem. These ladies don’t seem to be worrying too much about his post orgasmic emotional state.

cumfeedingThis is of course by the creative and amazingly talented Sardax.

Cosmo recommends

This Cosmos article entitled 7 Kinds of Porn You Don’t Watch — But Might Love is pretty self-explanatory. It’s a pointer to porn that women might enjoy but hadn’t considered trying. The good news is that both femdom and pegging are on the list. The bad news is that it doesn’t really given any suggestions how to experience them. The only link is to the kink.com site, and I don’t think that’s a great starting point. You have to pay to play and it has a lot of intense scenes, neither of which are good if you’re a tiny bit curious but not convinced.

That got me thinking – what actually what would be a good recommendation in this case? Are there sites that portray femdom in a positive light, that aren’t awash in porn cliches and won’t scare a newbie off? It’s a tricky question. I can think of some tumblrs I’d recommend, but tumblrs tend to come and go and are often hard to find. If you’re curious about spanking then I think Pandora Blake’s Dreams of Spanking hits the spot. It shows a positive side to kink and manages to be professional without being porn-y. Outside of that, I’m kind of stuck. Any other suggestions from readers?

This image is from the Tickleberry site, which actually would be a fairly good one to point newcomers at. It’s not porn, but it has got a bunch of articles explaining a lot of basic stuff like pegging, chastity, domination, etc. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like it has been updated in the last year or so.

chastity

Better than yoga?

Articles on BDSM and mindfulness have been popping up across the web in recent days. The first I spotted was at Time magazine, and since then I’ve seen similar articles at sites like Bustle, Instinct Magazine and Medical Daily. They were triggered by research published in the journal Psychology of Consciousness that claimed that BDSM could put people in a state of ‘flow’, where the rest of the world falls away and their concentration is heightened on the present moment.

It’s good to see positive BDSM stories on mainstream sites, and I doubt many people in the kinky world would dispute the idea of BDSM leading to altered mental states. Getting into subspace might not be the only reason people play, but it’s often an important one. That said, I do have problems with the study (as it’s described in the mainstream press)…

  1. They only picked 7 couples, which is a tiny number to study. On top of that, the couples had a variety of relationship states (from long term to just met), introducing more variables into the tiny sample.
  2. They randomly assigned top/bottom status. If everyone involved was a switch that might be OK, but if not, then it would seem very problematic. Ask me to top someone and you will not get mindfulness. You’ll get anxiety, stress and a partner stuck in a tangled web of granny knotted ropes. Switching for non-switches is not a good measure of normal BDSM play.
  3. It doesn’t appear that they distinguished between top and bottom space. I’m not an expert on top space, but from what I’ve read it seems quite different to bottom space. Both have elements of being in the moment and the rest of the world falling away. However, top space seems to be about concentration and focus, a sense of mastery that aligns with the more traditional ideas of mindfulness and flow. Bottom space, for me at least, is not like that at all. It’s about not thinking clearly, surrendering to the moment and disassociating. I hear tops describe their state as having heightened intuition and understanding, where I can barely form words when deep in bottom space.

Hopefully the study will at least be a good starting point for further research. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with an image of a couple in their own particular state of flow. From the watermark I assume it was something to do with this event (I found it here).

flow