Tag: Cage

Letsby Avenue

My Twitter feed has been full of this image today – a police station converted into apartments, where they left a holding cell as a ‘decorative’ feature. The Daily Mail featured it a few days ago.

The cell itself would be fun to have. I’m sure we can all think of a lot of uses for it. However, there are a couple of major drawbacks. Firstly, the horrible grey floor they’ve chosen. A nice brown parquet would have been much more fitting. Secondly, it’s in Dudley in the West Midlands. No offense to any readers from Dudley but – despite its long and rich history – that’s not a particularly desirable location. And I say that as someone who grew up not a million miles from there.

If you’re  into cages, it’s probably better to stick to the portable kind. Something like the one Juniper Dolor is playing with below.

Image sourced via this tweet.

Dealing with Ambiguity

I’m returning here to my prior post on the question of what is owed when ending a relationship between a pro-domme and a client. What’s a respectful way to navigate that transition?

The obvious response is that it depends on the history. If you’ve played together intermittently and just a handful of times, then the answer is likely nothing. It’d be ruder to reach out to announce you’ll not be requesting another session than silently moving on. If you’ve developed a deep and personal relationship, where the financial aspect is only part of the arrangement, then the answer will be very context dependent and impossible to generalize about here. But how about the middle ground? What about an ongoing relationship, with regular encounters over an extended period? The sessions wouldn’t happen if the client wasn’t paying, yet there’s also a shared understanding and familiarity that has developed over time. What then?

I think this situation can be awkward for clients to navigate for a number of reasons. Firstly, pro-dommes all have very different ways they approach things. That’s not just in style of domination, but also protocols, approach to sessions, communication, expectations, etc. For some, reaching out to explain would be a form of time wasting. For others, it’d be common courtesy. It might be hard to judge which scenario applies to your case. It’s not exactly a question you can easily ask!

Another challenge is the fact that pro-dommes can and do retire with little to no notice. Or decide to move and practice their profession elsewhere. I’ve had both happen to me and it can be quite disconcerting. Obviously, a domme can manage her career however she wants, but the possibility of a sudden departure is now always at the back of my mind.

Ultimately, I think what we owe each other should be the same thing. If I’d expect unusual consideration from a pro-domme if she moved on, then I should extend the same courtesy if I choose end the relationship. Outside of that very rare situation, I think a thoughtful email is a very reasonable approach between long term professional play partners.

In this gentleman’s case, moving on doesn’t appear to be one of his current options, although hypothermia might be. I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for the image.

Update: Thanks to my awesome readers I can now attribute this. It’s Princess Amber shooting for Brat Princess.

Meditative Metal

A final post in my metal bondage series. Where the last two looked pretty intense, this looks almost relaxing. I think it taps into that protected and secured headspace that some bondage can create. Although having said that, now I look closely, those metal thumbcuffs might be a touch intense. It’s often the little things that can mess with your mind the most.

This image is from the twitter feed of Bondage in Paradise, featuring Queen Ariana Chevalier and Ms. Luna.

Dripping by Blonde Redhead

While I was browsing the stream of tweets paying tribute to Namio Harukawa I came across one that made reference to a music video inspired by his work. That obviously caught my eye, given how explicit his drawings are and the kinks they target. It’s the kind of subject matter that’d be niche even for porn, let alone a mainstream music video.

The track in question is called ‘Dripping’ by the alternative rock group Blonde Redhead. I was assuming the video would try and capture the lush and sensual feel of his work, while only making subtle allusions to the kinky elements. It turns out I was two thirds right.  The first part is very sensual and rich with the odd kinky motif. The final third is … well …. watch it for yourself.  I just can’t believe it’s been around four years, and this is the very first I’ve heard of it. There’s a bit of background on it here.

Art is obviously by the late great Namio Harukawa.

Chasing Cars

I was musing yesterday on the contradictions in how I play and find pleasure. After I wrote the post it struck me that what initially seemed strange is actually pretty normal when it comes to kink. A lot of it is inherently contradictory.

Take chastity play for example. The internet’s caption industry would have you believe that there are countless women out there who live for locking dicks away. In reality I’m sure that the vast majority of instigators for chastity play are men. They’re so desperate to orgasm while being simultaneously desperate to be told they can’t orgasm. Denial is a hell of a drug.

Bondage is often a similar story. It’s all very briar patch. Most scenes involve a dynamic of “Oh please don’t tie me up and do terribly painful things to me! Oh no! I simply can’t get away…. hold on … that lower rope is pinching. Can you … OK … that’s better. Now where was I … Oh! That hurts so much…”

Kinksters are like dogs chasing cars. The end goal doesn’t make much sense and we probably wouldn’t enjoy it much if we ever got there. It’s the thrill of the chase, the joy of the moment and the idea of the unobtainable goal that we live for.

This particular doggy clearly chased one too many cars, and is now being caged for his own safety. Sadly I think the site that originally created this image has ceased to exist.

The proliferation of animated gifs

It used to be easy to find appropriate images to illustrate my posts. I’d jump onto tumblr with a theme in mind and typically find something suitable within a few minutes. Now I try that and I’m faced with wall to wall animated gifs. They’ve gone from old fashioned and annoying web page gimmick to what feels like 90% of tumblr contents in a couple of years.

Ironically, like the Oatmeal, I’m actually a fan of animated gifs. They work particularly well for sex and kink shots. I just wish tumblr had an option to filter them out. Sadly, given the number of sites only producing movies these days, and the shift away from commercial image sets, I suspect it’s a trend that’s not about to reverse itself. With movies as source material, animated clips is the natural way to feature them.

In the meantime I’ll have to look further afield for good image sources. For example, the shot below is from twitter, specifically Mistress Amiko’s feed. So far twitter does not seem to have succumbed  to the animation craze in quite the same way as tumblr.

Home improvements

Regular readers may have noticed my posts have been more erratic than usual in the last few weeks. Partly that was due to my mother visiting from the UK, but mostly it was because I was busy purchasing a new condo. Much paperwork, planning and packing was involved – three things I do not excel at. Amusingly while house hunting I did look at units in the Escala, which is where the infamous Christian Grey of fifty shades fame supposedly lives. Unfortunately, whatever E L James might think of the place, I couldn’t find a unit for sale with a good city view. Happily, where I eventually ended up has an awesome view (I took that from the living room).

One nice feature of my new place is a really big master bedroom. Right now my bed looks pretty lonely in there, so I’m pondering what kinky things I could do with the space. A suspended cage, like the one below, would be cool but possibly a touch obvious. Perhaps I could claim I was planning on keeping a really enormous pet parrot?

Suspended CageThis is another shot from Divine Bitches that I found on the Alternative Femdom tumblr.

Cramped and crated

I’m flying down to San Francisco for a long weekend. Kinky fun is on the cards, along with some good food and drink. Hopefully I’ll have some interesting experiences to report back on. In the meantime I’ll try and keep the posts coming, but they may be more erratic than usual.

Flying on US domestic airlines is never a particularly pleasant experience, even for a short trip. However, I’ll hopefully end up with a bit more leg room than this poor guy. If Emirates First Class is at the top of the travel scale, and United Coach at the bottom, where does a dog crate rate?

Cramped in a crate

I believe this image is from the Riding Mistress site.