The holy trinity

I always enjoy analyzing the dynamics of BDSM play. How it works and how actions map into emotions. It’s an infinitely complex space and I’m sure everyone reacts to it differently. However, after playing earlier this week, it struck me that there are three main styles of interaction in the majority of my sessions: Pain, pleasure and comfort.

Pain is an expected part of BDSM. It’s the needle to the nipple, the cane to the inner thigh. Pleasure is also an easily understandable aspect. It’s the pressure of a vibrator or a gentle pegging. The third and final component, comfort, is the hardest to describe. It’s the soothing hand to the cheek or a murmured word of praise. It’s what calms me down when the pain begins to build and helps anchor me when my stress levels rise.

The dynamic can shift rapidly between these three themes, and I find it particularly interesting how that affects the connection between myself and the domme. I think most non-kinky people would assume that pleasure would bring you closer to someone and pain would push you away. Yet for me it’s very much the opposite. The pain elevates the domme in my eyes, making her the center of my world, and the comfort draws me to her. The interplay between the two is a very powerful and attractive one. In contrast the pleasure sends me into myself and weakens our connection. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy it or appreciate it. Just that it has a simpler, baser appeal, that’s much more about me than it is about us.

When it comes to femdom porn, it’s normally big on the pain and pleasure, less on the comfort. This shot seems a happy exception. Judging by his red marks he’s certainly experienced the pain part.

Comfort

I found this one the adore femdom tumblr. The originally site has sadly ceased to exist.

Return of a blog

I was happy to recently discover that Orlando over at In Scarlet Ink had started blogging again. He’s one of the more literate and thoughtful male submissive bloggers I’ve come across. His blog went through a period of being password protected, and then went on a long hiatus while his partner dealt with a major health issue, but it seem he’s back. If you’ve not read him before a few good background posts might be how he and his partner Murre got together (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4) and his recent return post after the blogging blackout.

He also has a tumblr with a varied collection of images on it. I’ll leave you one he posted based on a theme of ‘inspections’. His comment with the image seemed pretty spot on – “O god she has a clipboard.  That can’t be good.”

Inspection

The image is originally from the Adventures in CFNM site.

Slap happy

I recently stumbled across a news article on the ancient art of Thai face slapping. Allegedly it’s a traditional beauty treatment for removing facial wrinkles, and it’s now being offered at a San Francisco massage and beauty parlor. I have to admit to a degree of skepticism. Hunting around on-line I couldn’t find any web pages dedicated to this ‘traditional art’, although there were a rash of articles last year on how it was being used to enlarge breast sizes in Thailand. One wonders if it’s a different type of slap in that case? It would be terrible to get the two techniques mixed up and end up with a much bigger face than you started with.

Whichever the case, it would appear the gentleman below is in luck. He’s either going to end up with bigger balls, or much smoother prettier balls. Sounds like a no-lose situation. I just hope the lady applying the treatment has done all the required training courses. You wouldn’t want an unlicensed therapist slapping away down there.

Ball slappingI found this on the Pure Beauty tumblr.

Waiting

There’s an unusual element of ambiguity in this image for a commercial porn shoot. The power balance between the naked man and corseted woman is fairly clear, but there’s plenty of room left to spin personal fantasies from this poised moment. There’s a hint of ancient Rome to it (or Rome via Hollywood), with the raw pillars and the oiled slave. Subsequent scenes reduce the ambiguity but offer particular pleasures of their own.

Naked slave waiting for mistress

I found this image on the Male Pet tumblr. It features Parker London and Bobbi Starr.

Loving submissive men

I was browsing the blog ‘Tits and Sass‘ over the weekend when I came across this article. If you’ve not encountered it before, the blog itself is run by sex workers and provides all sorts of commentary and links relevant to their industry. The article in question is by Paris Lee, a former dancer and cam girl, and describes her decision first to get and then to get rid of breast implants. It’s not at all femdom related and, although I found it interesting to read her perspective, I had no plans to blog about it. Until I read her short sign-off section…

Paris lives in Ohio and loves ferrets, dogs, and submissive men…

When I saw that it struck me just how unusual it was. Outside of dedicated D/s and BDSM blogs, I don’t think I’ve ever see that before. The article in question may have been related to sex work, but it had nothing to do with kink or submission. Paris just decided that loving submissive men was a fact about herself worth sticking in that brief biographical sign-off paragraph. I’m glad she did (and does), but it’s kind of depressing to realize just how surprising it was to see that sentence. I probably shouldn’t hold my breath to spot it in a match profile anytime soon.

I’ll leave you with a shot that might encourage more women to adopt a similar sentiment. He looks just so damn cute and perky. I hope she has a treat available if he behaves himself.

Perky submissive at the end of leashThis image is originally from the CBT and Ballbusting site. I found it on the Femdom Archive tumblr.

Reality 1 Fantasy 0

I’m back in Seattle after a vacation packed with a little more incident than I was hoping for. My mother is in town from England for a few weeks and I thought I’d show her the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately she got a little too up close and personal with some of the beauty, after slipping and falling on the beach. Two days, two hospitals and many hours later, she was sporting a cast and couple of metal pins to hold a broken wrist bone in place. Not a great souvenir to bring back from vacation.

I have to say that if you ever want to cure somebody of a medical or nurse fetish, just make them spend time in some real medical establishments. I wasn’t the one being treated, but I did get to kill a lot of time just hanging around different bits of the hospitals. They’re horrible places. Beige and grey throughout, with drab utilitarian furniture, scuffed surfaces and condescending public service posters plastered everywhere. The only gleaming white and visually interesting places – like the ICU or operating theater – are the spots you’ll only experience in really bad situations when sexy fun time is definitely not in your thoughts.

The nurses varied from brusque and surly through to efficient and helpful. But none had me rushing out to fake up a minor injury to get treated. I saw more eye catching women in 10 minutes in downtown Vancouver than I did in 10 hours at nurse central. My favorite was the highly officious one who insisted on getting my agreement on the $600 initial fee before starting treatment. This while mom was moaning in pain and going into shock. I’m not sure what poor foreigners are supposed to do if they injure themselves in Canada. Just moan quietly and try not to bleed too much before they can get home?

Anyway, just because reality sucks, doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the fantasy. Here’s an image from Peter Coulson featuring a nurse and patient depicted as many of us would wish them to be.

Nurse and patient in a photograph by Peter Coulson

Invisible touch

Yesterday’s post triggered several interesting comments and prompted some further thoughts on the perception of a scene. One particular comment was by Mark on the touching hands in the image I featured.

Notice her hand gently resting on his. For me, an incredibly powerful element of the scene.

I wonder if that gentle, reassuring touch would mitigate, somewhat, the ramp up in intensity that you described when under the blindfold.

I had noticed (and enjoyed) that aspect of the image, but the post was getting so long I decided not to comment further on it. Mark’s observant comment got me thinking about touch, and what a great example of shifting perceptions it can be.

Simple caresses can play a huge part in a scene. Not everything has to be about extremes of pain or pleasure. Fingers skating across the skin, tracing the lines of muscle or caressing a limb. Each little contact plays a part in building the dynamic. When I can see them, touches to me are predominantly sensual. They’re about the pleasure in the contact of another body. They might be soothing after an intense pain, or promising of what’s to come, but the underlying message is a hedonistic one.

Yet take my sight away and a touch becomes quite different. Partially they’re reassuring. Little grounding moments that tell me I’m OK, she’s right here with me. Like an animal being petted, I relax into her hand. But this reassurance is a double edged sword. It can be taken away. Giving it subtly emphasizes its importance to me. So there’s now an element of fear. What if she takes it away? What if I need that emotional contact? Losing a sensual touch is disappointing, but losing a reassuring one can be scary. It moves the balance from pleasure to control, a shift of perception unrelated to the physical contact itself.

I’ll leave you with an image of what appears to be some very pleasurable touching, with a nice undercurrent of control. It was shot by Michele Block-Stuckens and is called Toy Boy.

Toy Boy by Michele Bloch-Stuckens

 

Site Updates

I’ve made a variety of additions to a number of pages.

To the blogroll on the right and the blog page I’ve added links to Veronica Volt (an LA based pro-domme) and to The Pervocracy (featured in yesterday’s post). I was also happy to move he stoops to worship out of the dead blogs section, after slave domnei left a comment indicating it had returned to life.

To the equipment page I’ve added links to Jack’s Floggers, Wild Gasmasks and Slaughter House Couture.

To the femdom fiction page I’ve added a link to Miss Irene Clearmont, who has a selection of well written femdom stories freely available.

Finally, on the femdom image page I’ve cleaned up a few dead links and added the following tumblr’s…

I’ll leave you with a shot I found on one of those added tumblrs, specifically Blue Keys.

Hush

Checking fluid levels

This post from Spanking Blog made me laugh. It features a tweet from Cassandra Park

over new guy’s knee getting spanked at party. out of nowhere he says, “can i check your oil?” um… you did NOT say that…no… seriously?
Tweet from Cassandra Park

The original tweet was from July, but I immediately flashed back to it when I saw the image below. It does look like she’s checking for a fluid level while her friend watches on with a concerned expression. Or maybe she’s searching for a reset button, the kind you get on a mobile phone, where you need to insert a bent paperclip into a tiny hole. Perhaps her slave has crashed? He has got an odd expression on his face. Let’s hope she’s not about to void his warranty.

Checking the oil levelI found this on the Domme and Pet in Love tumblr. I’m afraid I don’t have an original attribution.