Tag: Fm

Empathy

In the past I’ve published posts on scientific studies when they had positive things to say about BDSM. For example, this one on flow and this one on psychological health. It seems only fair therefore to feature one that has a more troubling message.

The study in question looked at empathy in female submissives, and came to the conclusion that they have reduced empathy to other peoples suffering. As described in this article, the experiment was done by showing them photographs of people with neutral and ‘in pain’ expressions and watching what parts of the brain lit up. Apparently female submissives had unusually low responses to the ‘in pain’ photos in the parts of the brain normally associated with empathy.

I understand the methodology behind this approach. It reminds me of an anecdote from a doctor studying psychopaths who’d been jailed for violent crimes. He described showing an expression of a frighted man to one of his subjects and asked what he thought the man in the photograph was feeling. The prisoner laughed and said he didn’t know, but it reminded him of the looks on peoples faces just before he stabbed them. Clearly being able to relate expressions to internal emotions is a key part of empathizing with someone.

However, that said, while I understand the general approach here, it does seem flawed in this case. They’re starting from the premise that pain is a bad thing, and therefore seeing someone in pain should trigger empathy and concern. That’s true for most people but not for masochists. We have a much more complex relationship to pain. It’s an ambiguous sensation and therefore context is important. If I see someone stub their toe then I wince and feel bad for them. If I see someone tied up and caned in a BDSM movie I get excited and wish it was me. If I just see a pained expression alone, it’ll probably depend on my mood and what’s on my mind. Lacking context for the pain I’ll add my own, and that could generate all sorts of different emotional responses.

I think if you’re going to study empathy in kinky people, you really need to take into account their sexual wiring. For example, study their responses to happy or surprised faces rather than people in pain. Or put the pain into a suitable context. I’m sure non-kinky people would be disturbed by and empathize with the apparent pain of the man in the image below. As a masochist my reaction to the image is quite different, because I understand in this context the pain for him might be a sort of pleasure.

I’m afraid I’ve no idea who created this image. If you can help attribute it then please leave me a comment.

Top Dog

Here’s a final post (for the moment) on a pet theme. Just after I published yesterday’s post on pro-dommes and animals, I noticed this tweet from Mistress Baton. For those not wishing to click through it features an image with the text “You don’t get to tell me what to do, you’re not my dog.” Her accompanying comment is that “The only creatures who can boss Dominatrice around are our pets.”

So I guess the lesson here is that if you’re going to top from the bottom, make sure you’re as cute as a puppy. Otherwise best do what you’re told.

This image is Mistress Adreena Angela with her personal puppy.

You Do You

Mistress Evilyne has put up an excellent and very personal post on Whorearchy, the shaming of female desire and what sexual acts are appropriate for a dominant. Hint: It’s whatever they damn well decide. As she concludes the post with…

As long as you are not hurting anybody either physically or mentally, then go ahead and do what you want to do! Be you and rock it! And don’t let anyone shame you or tell you that they are better than you.

It’s a topic I’ve touched on before. The last time, in a post entitled Demarcation, I linked to writing from Domina Victoria Rage and Mistress T that made similar arguments. As I said then, I think the legal issues of sex work to tend to distort not only the topic, but even our ability to discuss it openly. For example, I wouldn’t discuss a pegging session here unless the pro-domme in question was publicly open about offering it on her site. Just penetration alone can be problematic legally, let alone if you throw an orgasm or two into the mix.

Theoretically this is only a problem in the professional realm, but in reality I think it tends to spill across all of femdom. Lacking other strong cultural models, people take cues from porn and pros. So we end up in this fucked up situation where patriarchal laws distort professional femdom, and patriarchal norms suppress other representations of femdom, and ultimately the distorted former being an outsized influence on the latter.

This is Mistress Evilyne enjoying some public humiliation play. She’s a London based pro-domme.

Reclamation

This Paper Magazine article presents some interesting discussions with several different sex workers in various  fields.  The one that really caught my eye was from Karmenife, who is currently working as a pro-domme. To quote her from the article…

I actually found sex work through an art project that I did. When I was on campus, I was raped my freshman year and I thought it pretty much ruined me. One way that I reclaimed my space for myself is I did an art project where I dress up like a dominatrix and I dommed frat guys in front of the frat house where I was raped. I had never felt so powerful and beautiful, and to feel that in a space where I had been ripped apart was beyond empowering.

I hunted around online and found this article from 2016 describing the art project she mentions.I can’t believe I missed this when it was originally published. It’s kind of an incredibly story, both to reclaim her power via that project and then to channel it into a career. There’s a site for the project itself here, which is where the following image is from.

Karmenife is currently based in NYC and the twitter feed for her professional persona is here.

Top Tips

If you’re looking for some interesting tips on training a submissive, then you might want to browse this twitter thread started by Mistress Eva. I have to admit that most of the suggestions don’t appeal to me personally. Spanking and naps are childhood things I’ll gladly revisit, but I’m eternally happy to be permanently done with punishment, chores and homework. However, if that’s the kind of thing you like mixed into your kinky play, then you should probably check out the thread.

Of course this also gives me the a great opportunity to feature a photograph of the lovely Mistress Eva herself.  From her site she offers online training as well as in person sessions.

I found this image on Mistress Eva’s twitter feed.

A little something for everyone

Much as I appreciate Wikipedia, I’ve always been a bit disappointed with its list of paraphilias (fetishes). It only has around 100, which seems low. You can probably find more than that in an afternoon of browsing tumblr porn.

For anyone else who feels a more comprehensive list is required, then may I suggest this collection of scanned pages that gives 547 different paraphilias. It includes things like Melissophilia (arousal from bees), Pecattiphilia (arousal from sinning) and Soceraphilia (arousal from one’s parents in law). I have to say, when it comes to that last one, I’ve seen plenty of stepmom porn out there (technically Novercamania), but not a lot of mother-in-law porn. A potential market being missed perhaps?

While it general seems like a good list, there are a couple of inclusions that make me question its scientific veracity. For example, right between Placophilia (arousal from tombstones) and Plushophilia (arousal from stuffed toys) it lists ‘Playing the Bagpipes’ (intercourse under the armpits). That sounds more like a joke punchline than a scientific category. They could at least have gone with Bagpipeaphilia.

Despite have 547 entries, I couldn’t find anything about a fetish for sitting on people or being sat upon. It doesn’t even list Forniphilia. So I guess the world is still waiting for the truly definitive list of fetishes.

I think this is from the infamous Kitan Club magazine of Japan. You can read more about the history of Kitan Club here.

Magic Buttons

I enjoyed this article on nipples and the pleasures that come along with them. There’s always a lot of attention paid to women’s nipples in porn and sex guides, but I think they’re a much underrated erogenous zone for men.

I have to admit, when I was younger, my nipples did nothing for me. They were like that one useless wall switch that most households have somewhere. Clearly at some point it did something, and maybe it still does, but no matter how often you flick it, you really can’t figure out what its actually for. BDSM changed all that and reworked my internal wiring. I’ve no idea if that change was a result of lots of nipple torture in sessions, a pavlovian link between pleasurable sensations and nipple play, or just being more aware of the sensations in my body, but the end result is a pair of magic buttons that are instant ‘on’ switches for me.

I’ve never managed the pure nipplegasm as described in the article. However, I can edge and then use nipple stimulation alone to push me over the line. The result is a weird orgasm, not quite a full one but not quite a ruined one. It’s a bit like an anal based orgasm – you know some crazy shit just went down, but you’re not exactly sure what. Did I just enjoy an amazing new sensation? Or did I just get cheated out of the real deal?

This image is obviously from the Men in Pain site.

Dealing with Drop

Gay Star News has published a pretty basic but good article on post play drop here. Worth reading if you’ve experienced it and are trying to understand more about what happened. I found it interesting to see all the potential causes that they list – endorphins, adrenaline, internalized shame, loss of sense of self, lactic acid, feelings of guilt, etc. In the same ways that BDSM highs are complex and multi-dimensional phenomena, the lows are clearly equally faceted.

The image is one used in the article and taken by istolethetv. Specially this is from the Folsom Street Fair in 2015.

Breaking out the heavy equipment

A few months ago I blogged about the fact that German firefighters receive training in removing cock rings that have become too tightly attached. Apparently, as I wrote at the time, they can use an angle grinder in combination with bandages and heat resistant paste. Well now, thanks to the magic that is the internet, I can even share a video of that procedure. Check it out in this tweet. As I wrote in the re-tweet, I think it has to be the single scariest BDSM related thing I’ve ever seen.

It looks like he used some sort of heavy metal nut as a cock ring and then the trapped blood prevented it being removed. Either that, or he has a castration fetish, and this is his idea of a good time. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say if your scene ends up featuring an emergency room and an angle grinder, you might want to reassess your interpretation of the Risk-aware bit in RACK.

Personally, I think its the kind of video they should be showing in schools as part of sex education class. I don’t think any teenage boy who saw it would ever forget it, or be tempted to experiment with his cock and whatever he can lay his hands on in the school metal shop.

This slightly more playful castration shot comes courtesy of the CBT and Ballbusting site.

The original video I re-tweeted was posted by Lady Ashley, who makes it clear that it was absolutely nothing to do with her. Professional dommes know what they’re doing and use the proper equipment.

Play Safe

Here is a cautionary tale from Germany of a man who overdid his corporal scene just a smidgen. After being tightly bound to a wooden spanking bench and beaten on the buttocks and thighs, his kidneys stopped working. Luckily for him they sparked back into life after 3 days, although he was still kept in hospital for another 5 days beyond that. The article describes the scene as a 1000 spanks, but it actually featured a cane and a whip, which are significantly more severe than a spanking.

Of course there’s always risk involved in almost any scene. But if you’ve seen your urine turn dark red after play, as this man apparently had during similar past scenes, maybe its time to dial it down a notch or three.

This is obviously by Red Rump. Sadly, after creating some great femdom spanking artwork, his blog has been dormant for the last few years.