Tag: Boots

Opt In or Opt Out

A couple of comments to my previous post got me thinking about the dynamics of session negotiation. Specifically, what gets treated as opt in and what as opt out. In theory, if you listen to most kinksters, all play has to be consensual and explicitly negotiated ahead of time, so everything should be opt in. The reality can be murkier.

The comments in question – from Servitor and Al about my pet peeve of ‘gotcha questions’ –  were slightly different but both raised the same basic point. I might not like questions designed to trip a submissive up, but that’s a valid thing to do for some scenes. Your kink is not my kink and all that. I absolutely agree with that. It can be a fine style of play if you’re into that dynamic or the roleplay requires it. But it’s also not quite the point I was trying (and probably failing) to make. Gotcha questions are a specific activity or style, and yet often get used without discussion. Which brings me to this posts title. My pet peeve isn’t so much with the approach itself, but that it is something I have to actively opt out of. Shouldn’t the default be opt in? Not so much YKINMKBYKIOK, but that YKINMK – and it’s in my session damn it! – BYKIOK.

I can think of other examples where the default is the reverse of what you might expect. Bondage for example. That’s part of almost every scene I do, yet I don’t think it ever gets negotiated. It’s treated as an intrinsic part of kink that you’d have to explicitly request not to do. Impact play is another. I’ve lost track of the number of times I didn’t mention impact play in session negotiation, yet 10 minutes later somebody was whaling on my ass. I suspect that’s probably because almost all domme’s like it so much! Neither of those activities count as a pet peeve for me, because I also enjoy them, but it might be an issue for someone else.

What exactly gets treated as opt in versus opt out clearly varies from domme to domme. At one extreme, every domme I know treats edge play activities like piercing, cutting or breathplay as opt in. They always get discusssed first. On the other side, along with bondage and impact play, I’ve typically found blindfolds and hoods are opt out. If I don’t call them out as an issue then there’s a good chance they’ll be pulled out at some point and I’ll have to start negotiating mid-scene, which is never my favorite time to do it. In between those two groups there’s a lot of fuzziness. For example, face slapping for some people is a very specific activity to be discussed ahead of time, for others its just an intrinsic part of kink that it’s up to the submissive to opt out of.

I’ve more to add here, but I’ll save that for the next post. In the meantime, I’ll continue my photographic theme of impact play. If this gentleman has a desire to opt out of caning, he probably needs to speak up asap.

This is from the High heels & Fetish tumblr.

Splashproof

There’s a lot to dislike about this image. It’s got the classic 70’s domme stare, the limp whip holding and the collar that’d be better suited to a submissive. Not to mention the weird crossed swords behind her. Who ever though that fake medieval weapons were a good look for a room?

On the plus side, her boots, gloves and natural beauty do make it work. However, what really sold me on it was the fetishistic apron-like dress. There’s something both disturbing and sexy about that. What’s going to spurt, splash or squirt that she needs protection from? And not just a small amount of protection. That’s a waist to heel cover. She’s ready for things to get seriously messy.

Don’t be scared

Mistress Jadis has published some wise words for any submissives that are put off from playing with a particular pro-domme because of the intense images or descriptions she posts on social media. The basic gist of her post boils down to  – don’t worry about it. The kinky world is a big one, whatever your experience level there’ll always be somebody out their doing something more extreme, and a domme will adjust and enjoy playing at whatever intensity is appropriate for you.

Browsing kinky social media can be entertaining, but I don’t think it’s particularly representative of the daily reality. If it was then 90% of pro-domme clients would be annoying assholes who cancel at the last minute, the other 10% being hard core bullwhip loving masochists who get locked in chastity 364 days a year. Fin-dommes would all make thousands of dollars every day, munch planning would always be a disaster and every relationship would either be amazing or a trainwreck. There’d be barely be time for actual kinky activity to happen.

My general observation is that the more experienced and skilled a domme is, the greater her ability to judge someones limits and provide a very gradual and controlled escalation of intensity. So the ability to build to a particularly intense scene is a good indicator for all levels of activity. And any professional who only wants to do extreme scenes is probably not going to be making a lot of money.

Ms Jadis is a Sydney based dominatrix with a social media presence here.

Mistress Stephanie Locke

I have to admit to being very conflicted on social media. It’s ability to spread lies and poison is undoubtedly high, but at the same time, it does enable me to discover amazing people. As an example, I give you Mistress Stephanie Locke.

I first encountered Mistress Locke via a series of black and white images posted on usenet back in the 90’s. I had absolutely no idea who was in the images, but I remember being transfixed by them. I thought they were the hottest thing I’d ever seen, but I couldn’t understand why I reacted as strongly as I did. It was only later that I realized I was reacting to the realism in the shots. Most femdom and kink shots at the time looked horribly staged and featured bored models.  There were lots of floggers being waved towards the camera by people who looked desperate to escape their boots and corsets. In contrast, the shots with Stephanie Locke seemed to feature people who were genuinely interested in who they were beating and why.* It amazes me that today I can read the thoughts and tweets of a domme who seemed like a mythical figure to the young paltego.

Sadly I don’t have a copy of the original usenet series of images that first caught my eye. The image below looks like it’s from a few years later on. I just wish I was at DomCon in LA to pay my respects in person. I love this selfie she posted with a crop on the bathroom counter.

* It’s also possible that the fact that I have a thing for dommes in glasses also played a role here.

Better Know a Lamp: Part 4

Welcome to another entry in my intermittent series of posts on submissives as lamps. The series has only had 4 entries in almost 7 years, but that is 3 more than I was expecting. Past examples are here, here and here.

It’s not a fetish I personally get, but it does make me smile. It’s both kinky and surreal. Clearly not widely popular (given that I don’t see many lampshades featured as equipment in play spaces) but it does seem to persistently pop up in kinky imagery. For those that do like it, standby for  another entry in the series sometime in 2019-2021.

This is from the instagram of latex.Jacqueline The-ripper.

High Heels & Fetish

The vast majority of tumblr sites are simply content re-blogged from elsewhere. For sexually explicit tumblrs I suspect that 99.9% of them fall into that category. It’s therefore nice to find (or be pointed at) a site with original content, particularly one featuring photographs. In the femdom realm, that’s even rarer than sites featuring original drawings and illustrations.

The site in question is 5-inch-and-more aka High Heels & Fetish. Stylistically and thematically it has pretty narrow focus – high heels, boots, legs, stockings and kneeling men, all shot from the waist down. It’ll probably only appeal to a subset of readers, but I suspect those that do like it, will like it a lot. It certainly captures a very specific fetishistic view.

This image is from this tumble post. I’m afraid the site doesn’t give any background details on its creator. The imagery might not be entirely my personal kinks, but I have to applaud whoever it is for the time and effort taken to create and share such quality content.

Tackling the Dangerous Issues

I try and keep the politics fairly light around here. I don’t want to put people off with a rant or alienate readers who don’t share my views. Yet, I think we might have now reached a point in the US where the politicians are so stupid, it almost doesn’t matter what side you’re on. Pretty much anyone can point and laugh at them.

After the recent tragic Florida school shooting, The Florida House of Representatives leapt swiftly into action  – by declaring pornography a public health risk. This was immediately after they’d declined to debate gun control. Note that it wasn’t that they declined gun control, but they declined to even debate it. I’d hope we can all agree, not matter where you stand on gun control or on the political spectrum, just from a PR perspective this is incredibly stupid. How can people by smart enough to get elected, but dumb enough not to recognize how bad this sequence of decisions would look? I have strong opinions on the issues, but I oddly find it more depressing that the politicians can’t even by smart about managing their image, which is 90% of the job of being a politician.

Then Florida Senator Marco Rubio came out and basically said that bad guys will get guns whatever the laws say. Essentially there’s no point legislating control, because people will always find a way around. So when it comes to pornography – something that can be made by anyone, endlessly copied, easily encrypted, transmitted freely across borders and stored in the cloud – legislation about its risks is clearly necessary. When it comes to guns – things that are hard to make, not copyable, difficult to ship across borders and can’t be stored in a million different ways – well there’s no point legislating control of those. Again, I don’t think it matters where you stand on the actual issues here, but the cognitive dissonance involved is incredibly. I’m amazed Marco’s head doesn’t explode from holding such contradictory positions simultaneously.

I’ll leave you with some more of that public health hazard. If you feel that this has put you at risk, then I guess you should contact your senator.

I’m afraid I don’t have a source for this.

Updated: Thanks to a helpful comment I can now attribute this to the 5-inch-and-more tumblr.

The Big Boot

This is one for fans of boots and bondage – two things that aren’t normally combined in this way. I’ve heard of thigh highs, but never armpit highs. Now I come to think of it, I’m surprised no enterprising fetish manufacturer has produced a leather bondage sack that’s shaped like a boot. I can’t think it’d be to hard to modify a standard sleep sack to look like one. The intersection between bondage lover and boot lover is probably a decent size market.

I found this via Pitt Prickel’s twitter feed, where it’s attributed to Rudolf Schlichter.

Knees and Elbows

What do you think is the least fetishized part of the body? It’s a question that this image got me thinking about and, if I had to hazard I’d guess, I’d go with knees and elbows. Those joints really don’t get much love.

Obviously things like breasts, legs and buttocks are widely fetishized even in mainstream sexuality. Feet, lips and armpits pop up fairly regularly in kinky porn. I’ve personally got a bit of thing for long hair, and I know that’s another common kink. Yet, despite a vast amount of wasted time on the internet, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any elbow or knee porn. It obviously must exist because internet porn is much like the multiverse – if it’s a physical possibility then it will exist. And it it’s not a physical possibility, then it’ll exist in erotic fiction. But knees and elbows must be a very well hidden niche interest.

I’m afraid I don’t have an original attribution for this. I’d guess it’s actually from a sequence of boot, leg or foot porn that just happened to have an image where he’s licking the knee. But maybe I’m wrong, and there’s a thriving knee licking community out there that this was targeted at.

Playing Dead

This image made me laugh. His posture and expression are unusual for this kind of shot. Has he collapsed, exhausted after a vigorous rogering? Did it take her so long to put on all that fancy fetish gear that he dozed off? Or is he playing dead, in the hope that the scary lady with the enormous strap-on will get bored and leave him alone?

This is originally from the StrapOn Dreamer site.