Screen Icon

Raquel Welch sadly passed away last week. She was a screen icon, whose face and fame almost everyone knew, even if they’d not seen her movies.

Her most famous image was of a cavewoman whose haircare and bikini technology was far in advance of its time. However, for the purposes of this blog, I thought the images below were more fitting. These are from the 1969 movie ‘The Magic Christian‘, taken with one of the leads – Ringo Starr. As far as I can tell it’s a truly terrible movie, which is kind of amazing given the talent involved. As well as Raquel, the cast includes Peter Sellers, Christopher Lee, Richard Attenborough, John Cleese and Graham Chapman. You can see a trailer here in all its 60s strangeness.

I’d say Ringo was either very brave or very foolish to let her try and whip a cigarette from his mouth. It doesn’t look like a fake movie whip. You can see a shot from the movie feature Raquel and the whip in action here.

Elegantly Poised in Blue

Here’s some lovely artwork to celebrate the weekend. I’m afraid I’ve no idea who the artist is, but they’ve done a beautiful job with the colors and composition of the scene. It’s both an intense and serene moment.

If anyone can help me attribute this to the artist then please leave a comment. The post title is a nod to an obscure cult movie, but I’d be surprised if anyone guesses which.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Here’s a follow-up thought to my previous post on pro-domme names and some client’s desire to discover their ‘real’ one: Be careful what you wish for, because there’s really only downside to this knowledge.

The first downside is you could now accidentally let it slip in front of another pro-domme. Or, even more stupidly, name drop it deliberately. Only badness can come from this. Best case scenario is you’ll be considered untrustworthy and that anything done with you in private will inevitably become public knowledge. Worst case is the domme will assume you’re a creepy boundary pusher on a power trip. Good luck getting a great session in either case.

The other major downside is that the name might not be one you associate with hot sexy fun times. What if the leather clad mistress of your dreams happens to share a name with your least favorite elderly Aunt? One minute your quivering before Mistress Cruella. The next you’re trying desperately not to picture Aunt Cheryl, your chain-smoking relative with the annoying laugh, hairy mole and slightly racist views. No matter how kinky you are, that erection isn’t coming back anytime soon.

Pictured is an actual shot of a client shortly after nagging a sex worker for her non-professional names.

Splash of Color

Surveys tell us that January and February are considered people’s least favorite month. That means we’re currently deep in the heart of gloom town. As a minor pick-me-up I therefore bring you this splash of color. It’s a nice reminder of happier, warmer and kinkier days to come.

There’s a subtle twitter handler woven into the image, but unfortunately it’s a suspended account. Poking around makes me think the image creator is Princess Honey now operating from this twitter feed.

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.

Taking It Literally

I was planning to post some follow-up thoughts to my last post, but the night is late and time has run short. Instead, consider this post as a humorous intermission between serious musing. It features a couple who really decided to run with the golden shower concept. I suspect that – as is always the way with makeshift outdoor showers – the warm ‘water’ will run out before he can soap off properly.

I’ve no idea where this is from. Reverse image search doesn’t link to anything useful sadly.

Why not both?

One final comment on the recent ‘Fetish or Fashion’ pop-quiz I’ve been running. Servitor posed the very reasonable question: Why not both?

That’s a fair point. As far as the resulting images go, they contain significant elements of both fetish and fashion. I guess I should frame the question around the image creators and their primary industry. Is it a pro-domme / fetish producer or a model being paid for a shoot with a (relatively) mainstream publication. Is it someone who spends more time in dungeons and playspaces than they do strutting a catwalk? What kind of animal do they usually have at the end of a leash? Petite Pomeranian or a perky puppy boy?

There’s clearly a healthy interchange between the fashion and fetish worlds. However, I’m not sure it’s always a equally balanced exchange. A lot of pro-dommes are extremely fashion aware. Unfortunately, on the flipside, fashion editors and photographers often seem confused about kink. A charitable take would be that they’re deliberately re-interpreting and re-contextualizing kink to tell their own stories. After all, their ultimate goal is different to someone creating material for a kink or fetish market. A less charitable interpretation would be they’re raiding kink for easy shock value and then haphazardly mashing its elements together without any really understanding.

I think the distinction between fashion or fetish often doesn’t come down to the clothes, styling, make-up or beauty of the subjects. It’s down to their understanding and intelligent use of the kinky elements. Or not.

This mainstream fashion shot is from Vice Serbia, features rapper Sajsi Mc and was photographed by Alek Živković.

Fashion or Fetish?

Somebody should really do a site where you have to guess if a shot is from a pro-domme gallery page or an arty fashion magazine. For example, take this image. Is it from a tweet by a rising star in the LA pro-domme scene? Or NYC’s latest supermodel shooting a cover story? Is she involved in a sordid world of drugs, money and older men taking advantage of younger women? Or is she beating men up for a living?

Answer: In this case it’s fashion, not fetish. Specifically, it’s Lindsey Wilson shooting for ODDA Magazine. I believe the latex was supplied by Vex Clothing.

Cocking a Leg

I’m all for finding creative angles to shoot femdom imagery, but I’m not sure they thought this image through properly. Her look is a very attractive one, but it doesn’t seem entirely appropriate to the high street shopping she’s clearly partaking in. A leashed man in a suit is a fine thing, but how is he going to pee against that flower pot with his pants still on? He’ll just get a wet leg and damp pants. Which is a kink in itself, but probably not the one they’re shooting for here. Basically she’s got too few clothes for the setting and he’s got way too many.

I’m afraid I don’t know the source for this. It’s from an old tumblr and all my reverse image searches show up empty. If you’ve any idea of who originally shot it then please help me attribute via a comment.

Update: Thanks to a helpful comment, I now know this is from the site of Lady Asmodina. Sadly she doesn’t appear to have a web presence anymore, so I’m assuming she has retired.

The Agony of Choice

Choosing images for this site can be an erratic process. Sometimes I can scroll through endless pages of tumblr’s, tweets and my personal image trove and not find anything that catches my eye. On the other hand, there are some content creators where why challenge is not simply reposting everything they do. I could happily re-post all of Sardax’s work or every image that Mistress Iris shares.

Elise Graves is another of those kinky content creators whose work I could happily feature on any or every day of the week. This shot for her Bondage Liberation site is a great example of why. It’s got a beautiful blend of heavy bondage and emotional tenderness. Just the kind of mix that pushes my buttons.

This was sourced from a tweet that has some more great shots from the same scene. It features Elise with Heavy, photographed by Kino Payne. You can get this film and more like on the Bondage Liberation site.