F – Page 24 – Femdom Resource

FOSTA-SESTA

The post title isn’t a result of me falling asleep on top of my keyboard. It’s actually the name of terrible bill that’s going before the US Senate in a few days. I first wrote about Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) back in November of last year. Since then the bill has jammed together with another bad bill (FOSTA) and was passed by the House. Now if it clears the hurdle of the Senate, it’ll certainly go into law.

As I wrote last time, it’s a troubling bill for anyone supporting free speech online, and a dangerous bill for sex workers. It conflates sex work with sex trafficking and then makes websites liable if they’re seen to facilitate it. This will push media platforms and sites to banish sex workers (or anyone vaguely connected to them), in turn making it harder for them to find and screen clients, or share information about dangerous ones. Given the imprecision of the law and the skittishness of tech companies on the subject of sex, it’s liable to have a huge chilling effect on discussing sex and kink online.

If you want to know more there are some good articles here and here. The bill’s so bad it has brought together such disparate groups as the Wall Street Journal, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, pretty much every sex worker online and even the Department of Justice. If you follow any sex workers on twitter, you’ll have doubtless observed their concern. For example, Conner Habib put up a good thread on it.

If you’re an American citizen, the absolutely best thing you can do is call your Senators and register your disapproval of the bill. If you’re unsure what to say then there’s a handy guide here and contact information here. You can do it from the comfort of your own armchair. While calling is the best way, if you absolutely can’t do that, then there’s an online form you can fill in here.

If you’re in any doubt about speaking out, then Mistress Blunt below, would like to make it clear that it’s an order. She doesn’t look like someone you really want to disobey.

The Goddess is Out

Top tip for the day: When emailing a ‘Goddess’ to ask her to arrange a ‘private’ (?) domme for you in your completely random bit of America, maybe check the relevant about page first. Or even just read a few posts on their site. It might turn out that your Goddess is a middle aged male submissive who knows fuck all about your part of the world. And even if they were a dominant female, and just happened to have a network of equally dominant friends spread across the US, why the hell would they send them in your direction?

I wonder if this kind of random bullshit happens in every aspect of life. Do German Porsche dealers get emails saying “Dear Mr Ferrari – How can this humble driver from rural Mississippi get one of your sexy but highly unreliable Lamborghinis for free?” Or does Google get job applicants saying “Dear Microsoft – I’d love to work on your clever Facebook web site. PS. I have no software skills whatsoever.” I’m guessing not. Something about sex seems to short-circuit some peoples brains.

This is the Greek Goddess Artemis, known as Diana in the Roman pantheon. The artwork is by Michael C Hayes.

Legal Matters

I had to employ the services of a lawyer recently. It wasn’t a major legal entanglement. Just papers I wanted reviewed before I filed them. Her fee for the work was $250 per hour. Oddly enough, that’s around the average fee per hour for a pro-domme in Seattle. That fact got me thinking about the contrast between the work. Actually, if I’m honest, the fact she was attractive, forceful and wearing knee high brown leather boots got my mind initially moving in a certain direction. The hourly rate just sealed the deal.

My legal session was conducted in a standard office. No fancy equipment, sound proofing or leather wrapped furniture required. After I left, I’m pretty certain she didn’t have to spend time rubbing everything with alcohol wipes and autoclaving the pen I used. Nor did she have to invest a highly specialized wardrobe that she can only wear to work or to secret lawyer parties. Touching was limited to a couple of handshakes and, despite a very warm office, I kept all my clothes on. At no point did she have to deal with a naked me in her personal space. Her only risk was paper cuts and possibly boredom from answering my dumb questions. Safewords weren’t required, and there was no chance of me asking her to undertake a dangerous legal maneuver that could have landed me in hospital and her in jail. I don’t know what her inbox looks like but I doubt it’s full of dick pics, badly written kinky fantasies or guys suggesting if she was a real lifestyle lawyer she’d work for free. Scheduling didn’t involve intricate planning to avoid clients bumping into each other and her firms web site didn’t require dozens of up to date professional photographs of her brandishing a pen and looking stern. Oh, and I could pay with a credit card, because banks don’t mind taking money from lawyers.

I could keep going, but I think my point is made. I’m not going to claim that visiting a professional domme is cheap, but it is good value. You get a hell of a lot for your money. Rates may be charged by the hour, but there’s an awful lot that happens both before and after to make those great moments in a session possible.

This is the actress Julianna Margulies who plays a lawyer in the series Canterbury Law.

Duality

The Crave Portrait Project has recently been popping up on my social media feeds and news alerts. Its basic idea, of presenting dual images of people in their kinky gear and their regular clothes, is not a new one. I featured a similar set of images in a post back in 2014. However, it is a well executed version of the concept, with some fine black and white photography. I particularly like how happy everyone seems. I think it succeeds in projecting a very positive picture of kinky people and play.

The above shot is of Janny and you can read some of her thoughts on the project via this Bustle article. You can see all the photographs from the project via their gallery.

The Final LA Shivers

I’m back in Seattle and quite literally shivering. It’s cold here, at least compared to the balmy SoCal weather. When I’m old and decrepit, or least more so than I am now, I may have to move permanently to LA to warm my bones. I quite fancy retirement as an old submissive who potters around cleaning up dungeons in between sessions and spends the rest of his time sitting outside in the sun sipping tea.

Anyway, setting aside the ghosts of paltego’s future, my last day in LA was as good as any of those that had gone before. I was lucky enough to be able to schedule time with Mistress Damiana Chi. She’s has a stellar reputation, and she certainly lived up to it. Heavy bondage, nipple torture, CBT and electrical play were on the menu, and she quickly got me spacey and shivering with adrenaline. I think it’s the mark of a skilled dominant to be able to quickly zero in on the appropriate level of intensity even with new play partners. Enough to get the endorphins flowing, but not so much that it causes stress and nerves to spike unpleasantly. She had me right in that zone for a very happy two hours, and I got to bask in the afterwash of it for the rest of the day. Even dealing with TSA and LAX couldn’t knock that out of me.

This image is from Mistress Damiana’s site. It’s a beautiful picture and I think she’s actually even more striking in person.

More Shivers in LA

My kinky LA trip continued today with a lengthy session with Mistress Cynthia Stone. More adrenaline derived shivering was involved, although from a very different session dynamic to Friday’s session. Where Mistress Iris might utilize a playful pinch or a light scratch, my play with Mistress Cynthia is more like a hand to the throat swiftly followed by a kick in the balls. In the best possible way of course.

I’m not going to do a detailed write-up now because we shot some video and images, so hopefully I can put a proper post together on it when I’m back in Seattle. I’ll just finish by saying that at some points I was shaking enough to become audible. I was bound to a floated bed, suspended via chains at the corners, and in quiet moments we could hear the metalwork clink and rattle as my body oscillated back and forth. Of course that faint sound was only audible when somebody wasn’t moaning or screaming, and there weren’t too many moments like that.

If you’re interested in playing with Cynthia yourself, her professional site is available here.

Show some link love

One unfortunate trend I spotted when refreshing my blogroll was the number of sites that don’t have a blogroll at all. I’m not sure if that’s a new trend, or an ongoing thing that I’ve just not noticed before. Either way, I’m not a fan.

A blogroll (or a links page) is the original version of Share Our Shit. In many ways, it’s a human version (in a very hand wavy way) of the classic Google PageRank alogrithm. If I like the writing of this blogger, there’s a good chance I’ll also like the stuff they read. Ironically, search engines themselves tend to suck at queries like “Femdom Blog”. I’d say 80% of the blogs I find come via links on other people’s blogs, with the other 20% from social media, comments or email.

So if you’ve got a blog, please put up links to other blogs you like and read. It can be a traditional blogroll or a separate page or whatever. Just show a little love to your fellow bloggers and gives your readers some interesting people to explore.

I’ve no idea what image goes with this kind of post, so here’s a sexy as hell shot of Sophia Loren, taken at her home in Rome in 1955. You’re welcome.

Should have used more lube

I had all sorts of serious posts to write today. Yet here I am, featuring this image from CNN. I just couldn’t resist it. Great headline? Or the greatest headline?

I can only assume that Senator Collins was wielding something like the weapon below and was sparing on the lube. Poor Donald. It does of course beg the question – what would his safeword be? Typically you’d pick something you’d never say accidentally. So I guess “Sorry” would work pretty well.

Boys and Men

While I appreciate the sentiment, I’m not sure it’s entirely accurate. If memory serves, I’m fairly sure strong women excited me as a boy as well as a man. I guess the slogan ‘Strong women intimidate adult males who are figuratively boys, while exciting adult males who are figuratively men as well as some literal boys’ might not have fitted.

Cate Blanchett in Leather

This photoshoot from Sean & Seng for 032c magazine isn’t exactly femdom. In fact there’s a couple of images in there of Cate in Shibari style bondage. But I did like this particular shot of her sporting a leather jacket and just a glimpse of her boot tops showing. It’s considerably better than the outfit she was stuck with for the recent Thor movie. It’s quite an achievement to cast Cate Blanchett as the Goddess of Death, dress her in a tight leather catsuit, and have her look as silly as this. Admittedly, it works better in action, but it still seems a missed opportunity. The Dark Knight Rises might have been a ridiculous movie, but at least they knew how to get a tight leather costume right.