Tag: F

Happiness

This Swaddle article makes the case that BDSM can make you more successful at work. As one dominant woman in the article says…

I began to notice that especially on days after we had engaged in a play scene, I would feel more focussed, composed and clear-headed. It was almost as if the satisfied feeling I felt in bed, in that position of power, flowed over the next day. I feel like I know more about myself — my mind and my body.

I’ve blogged on the concept of flow in the past (for example here), but reading the Swaddle article made me wonder if something more basic could be at play. Is it simply that being happy makes people more effective?

I know when I’m feeling happy at work (from kinky play or any other reason) I’m more likely to engage effectively in discussions and do a better job of selling my ideas. On the flipside, if I’m feeling unfulfilled or down, I’m more likely to get hung up on pointless arguments and trying to win the debate at all costs. Being effective in my work is often as much about knowing when to let something I disagree with slide as it is about doing the right thing. If I’m buzzed and flying on endorphins from a great play session, then I think I’m smarter about picking my battles. Not looking to work for emotional fulfillment actually leads to smart decision making and hence a more productive work life.

In summary: I should be able to claim on expenses for my kinky play with pro-dommes. It’d be a net gain for my company. I look forward to trying that argument out with my boss. I’m guessing it’ll have to go under the “Miscellaneous” section on the expense form.

Talking of happiness – here’s a very cheerful looking lady. Hopefully the man destined to wear that interesting funnel gag she’s holding is equally happy with the idea.

Governess Inka

I’m continuing the corporal theme for just one more post. I love this image for the contrast it presents with most online erotica. Mistress Inka is sitting in a comfortable chair, in a regular room, in a dress that not only covers every inch of her body but obscures even her shape. Yet it’s still wonderfully sexy.

I also think it’s also another example of how loose the link between kink, culture and personal experience can be. This has a real Victorian governess feel to it. I’m guessing nobody reading this had a governess, and certainly nobody had a Victorian one. Yet the image and dynamic still works. Certain archetypes persist, drawing on underlying desires that we may not even be aware of. The image uses an idea from the past, but that’s really just camouflage to sneak in its kinky themes of punishment, control and desire.

Image is from this tweet. For the watermark, I assume it’s associated with Sissy Manor (main site here). Mistress Inka’s professional site is available here.

Nobody Cares (extended edition)

I had some great comments on my last post about approaching a professional playspace. Thanks to Simon, Hank and Chris for those. The encounter Simon described made me laugh…

I once visited a Mistress in her premises in London and as they were on the 3rd floor I got in the lift. With me in the lift was an older lady probably in her eighties. When I pressed for the 3rd floor she smiled at me and said “here to get your bottom smacked are we?” to which I could only reply with a wry grin.

I’m pretty certain all I’d be able to manage in those circumstances would be a wry grin as well. Little old ladies with a sense of humor and unencumbered by the need to stick to social conventions are scarier than any leather clad domme.

I still maintain my claim from my previous post that 99.9% of passersby neither know nor care about people entering a playspace. However, that does leave 0.1%, who are probably local to the area and might realize what’s going on. However, it’s unlikely you’ll bump into them and even if you do, the most you’ll probably get is a knowing smile.

Although I’ve never had a problem getting into a space, taxi drivers can be annoyingly curious. Particularly when they’re picking up a solo guy from a downtown hotel and taking him to some random suburban or industrial location. My standard cover story is that I’ve a friend whose an artist and I’m visiting her at her new studio space. After all, talented dommes are artists in their own domain, and their spaces are often located in the kind of buildings artists use. Maybe when I’m old and have ceased to care, I’ll just tell them I’m visiting someone to get my bottom smacked.

This is one of the more unique looking industrial style playspaces I’ve seen, as featured in this tweet from Mistress Adreena. Lot’s of exposed brickwork, some ironwork on the right and a big a bondage frame on the left. Not to mention of course the beautiful Mistress Adreena in the center! I believe this is located in Amsterdam.

Speaking Up

I like twitter, but I’m not very good at it. I struggle to condense my thoughts to tweet sized chunks. Take for example this thread started by Lady Pim on submissives speaking up mid-scene. I think it’s an interesting topic, but I got fed up trying to write a response in short snippets. I figured I’d just write a post, and so here we are.

The first thing to acknowledge is that it’s genuinely difficult for submissives to know how and when to speak up. Most don’t want to be accused of topping from the bottom or second guessing their domme. Part of the joy of D/s is relaxing into the moment and telling your inner monologue to take a break. So making judgement calls about how and when to communicate an issue can be a hard mental gear change to make. Submissives shouldn’t beat themselves up for finding that difficult. As the old joke goes, that’s her job.

The other thing to internalize is that doing a scene always involves a degree of risk on both sides. If you stop and talk about every potential issue, no matter how minor, you’ll never get anywhere. If you let things play out, then there’s always a chance of going past a point of comfort before you can do anything. Both domme and submissive have to accept and deal with that risk. Obviously nobody should deliberately violate boundaries, but if you’re exploring new territory then occasionally you’re going to inadvertently wander across one or two.

Experience and practice are obviously one answer here. Playing with the same person repeatedly is another. I’d also say that chemistry is a big factor. When your respective styles and approach to kink aligns, then it makes it a lot easier to communicate. The better you understand each other the more communication becomes about the shared task (of her beating your ass) and less about presentation and parsing motives. I’ve played with super talented world class dommes who I just didn’t click with, and it made in scene communication so much harder, as I just couldn’t read their intentions easily.

I’ve some further thoughts, but I’ll save them for a follow-up post. Apparently I can’t shrink my verbiage to a single post, let alone a single tweet. I’ll finish this post with a picture I particularly like from Lady Pim’s twitter feed. Once the gag goes in you better practice your grunting and hand signals if you want to speak up.

Lady Pim is a pro-domme based at the Ritual Chamber in Toronto. You can see her professional page here.

Revisiting an Old Friend

Last night I was lucky enough to revisit an enjoyable but somewhat neglected activity – butterfly boarding. Looking back over my past posts I think the last time I did this was almost eight years ago. I’ve done a lot of play piercing since then, but never in that particular way. I know Ms Savannah Sly is always a fan of sharp pointy things, particularly when they’re going into my delicate bits, so it felt like a perfect opportunity to revisit it with her. Much fun was had by all.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, butterfly boarding is a type of CBT where the cock and balls get pinned around their edge to a board. It’s psychologically pretty intense and can create a lot of interesting physical sensations. As the cock expands or contracts then it pulls again the needles, setting up one of those awful/wonderful masochistic feedback loops of pain -> arousal -> more pain. Of course Savannah was also happy to add her own variation on that loop by gently pulling the boards or rocking the needles. Add in electrical stimulus via conducting loops at the base of the cock and I was pretty quickly deep into subspace and flying high. I was a good boy, Savannah was all around me and the rest of the world simply didn’t exist.

For anyone interested in the technique then we did snap some photographs. Obviously, these are close-up shots of pierced genitals, so don’t click the links if you’d rather not see that. Here’s a top shot, front shot, back shot and head shot. In hindsight, I should have shaved beforehand. The random stray pubes don’t really add much to the visual composition. The black cords visible around the base of the cock are for the electrostim device.

I really don’t want to see my viewing numbers plummet to zero, so I’ll not finish the post with a full on shot of my dick. Instead let me share something a lot more visually appealing – this is a shot from Savannah’s twitter feed. You can see more shots like this at her Only Fans Site.

Dogs Don’t Wear Pants

Fans of mainstream movies that explore BDSM and take kink seriously might want to look out for the Finnish movie ‘Dogs Don’t Wear Pants‘.  You can read a variety review here, a cineuropa one here, and an interview with the director here. I described it as mainstream, in the sense its not porn, but I wouldn’t hold out much hope of catching it at your local multiplex. Web or streaming is probably your best bet to catch it when it has a wider release.

The storyline features a man who loses his wife to a drowning accident, and then is drawn to breathplay with a dominatrix to work through his emotions. Part of me dislikes the fact that it makes a connection between trauma and kinks. I love breathplay and yet have zero wet dead relatives. At the same time I understand that ‘normal man and normal woman have kinky fun because they enjoy it’ does lack something in dramatic tension and narrative drive. I’ll take interesting explorations of BDSM over the usual kink and sex work cliches.

A vicious streak a mile wide

I’m not totally sure what’s going on in this image, but I’m definitely a fan. It’s a look that seems to be a gothic lolita fetish femdom bunny. I know some pro-dommes have very extensive fetish wardrobes, but this seems like it’d be a difficult kink to pull off. How many have a pair of bunny ears color coordinated to their latex and corsets?

This is one of a series of images featured in this tweet. The photographer is @ymagiyoiriugiyo and the model ⁦‪@naruhodo_chan⁩.

Bonus points for any reader who can identify the connection between the post title and the image.

Incompetent or Evil?

Some rare good news for my old country – the UK has indefinitely suspended introducing their porn blocking system. I’d like to say this was because they realized the danger to free speech and had a sudden burst of sanity, but it was really just down to incompetence. I guess if someone comes up with a stupid idea, the best you can hope for is that they’re too stupid to carry it out properly.

In less good news over this side of the pond, US politicians are once again having a go a free speech online and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. As always, sex workers are the canary in the coalmine. Having used bogus sex trafficking fears to weaken the law with SESTA/FOSTA, they’re now trying to expand the wedge and jam more free speech constraints in place. The online tech companies originally lobbied against SESTA/FOSTA, but eventually caved to the politicians. Presumably they thought it was a safe compromise on a topic they didn’t want to defend. Maybe now they’ll learn their lesson. Politicians have an endless appetite for limiting what people can discuss and share, and compromising in one area will only increase that appetite in other areas.

Here’s an image that seems suitable for a politician trying to limit free expression. Although if all the members of the Soviet’s security forces had looked like this, America might actually have lost the cold war.

This is Mistress Nikita. She no longer takes professional sessions but you can access images and video from her main site here.

A Classic 1950’s Look

Here’s a final post in my fashion themed sequence. This is from a 1952 edition of French Vogue.

I find that many of the European fashion shots from that era (for example) seem to have a more authentic fetishistic and femdom vibe than the far more explicit fashion shots from the 90’s and beyond. Possibly that’s just my particular kinky preferences, but I think the tight severe cuts, long dresses and dark colors tend to suggest restraint, control and authority. They also tend to shoot models alone and staring down into the camera, which is obviously a style a lot of femdom photographers use.