Preparing Backstage

I love this transformation shot from Maitresse Nuit. They both look so focused and happy. The style makes me think of Weimar Germany in the 1920’s. Once the transformation is complete, I can just imagine the two of them strutting out into a smoky 1920’s nightclub. They’d sip a cocktail, take a turn with the cabaret and flirt with rich aristocrats. A hedonistic delight.

The photographer of this beautiful image is Lucina Nathanael.

Introduce Yourself

Contacting a professional domme I’ve not talked to before is always an interesting experience. There’s a surprising degree of variance in the process. Some dommes are immediately chatty and responsive, others assume I’m a time waster until proven otherwise. Sometimes there’s a lot of protocol, other times it’s a more relaxed and casual discussion. Deposits may or may not be required, as might a telephone chat. Some dommes want lots of detail on my interests, experiences and limits. Others save all that for when we meet in person.

There’s one phrase that occasional pops up in the initial emails that always makes me smile. The wording can vary, but it’s generally something like – “Describe how you want to serve me.” I totally get why this phrase is popular  – it emphasizes the power dynamic and makes it clear who is ultimately in charge of what happens in the session. At the same time it does wake up a couple of contrarian personalities that lurk within me.

My practical inner engineer wants to reply that I can only serve someone if I know what they need doing at this particular point in time and how my skill set might mesh with that set of requirements. So maybe if they send their list of problems and I send my list of skills, maybe we can figure something out? I’ve never succumbed to my inner engineer because I fear the problems will turn out to be a dirty car and being insufficiently rich, and I’ll end up paying $300 an hour to scrub brake dust off a dommes hubcaps.

My snotty inner brat wants to reply that I’d like to serve her by dragging my middle-aged out-of-shape ass to her  well equipped play space so the skilled and attractive domme in question can greet me in one of her exciting fetish outfits.  Then I’d like to continue serving her by exploring together some of the kinky activities that I most enjoy. Finally, I’ll complete my service by getting dressed and going home to collapse on the couch with a glass of wine while she clears up the play space. Needless to say, my snotty inner brat is never allowed anywhere near a session negotiation.

Like I said, and sarcasm aside, I do understand the motive behind that expression. I just find that in emphasizing the fantasy, it actually highlights how far a typical professional session can be from it. In the vast majority of cases it’s service topping, not service bottoming.

Here’s a man selflessly serving by allowing himself to be tied up and have his cock played with by a naked lady. It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Happy 2018!

There’s still a few hours to go in Seattle, but given I plan to spend most of them with a glass of champagne in my hand, I thought I’d put a post up ahead of schedule. Wherever you are, and however you plan to celebrate, I wish you a happy and kinky 2018.

The image is of course from the incomparable Sardax. If you’re in the doghouse after screwing up a special someone’s Christmas gift, maybe consider gifting them an illustrated copy of the classic Venus in Furs by way of apology?

Regrets, I had a few.

As we turn the final corner and make the run down the home straight towards the end of the year, it’s inevitable that thoughts turn to our omissions in 2017. What did we miss out on? Where should we have tried harder? What could we have achieved with just a little more effort? None of us are perfect, and I’m sure we all end the year with regrets.

For me, I think the answer would have to be face slapping. I really should have been hit harder and more frequently in the face. On the whole I did well on nipple piercing, got a passing grade in anal play, and certainly didn’t let the side down when it came to CBT and electrical play. But I can count on one hand the number of times I got a good solid slap to the face. Really must try harder in 2018. This face isn’t going to bruise itself.

I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for this image.

Tarantino-esque

This popped up on my twitter feed the other day, courtesy of Mistress Kinako. Oddly enough, it put me in mind of Quentin Tarantino. He’s the master of taking an old and slightly disreputable film genre and giving it a post-modern makeover. In this case it’d be a schlocky 70’s zombie horror movie. In the Tarantino remake the only thing between civilization and the ravenous zombies are a group of highly trained Japanese schoolgirls, capable of slicing and dicing zombies in many inventive ways whilst also looking cute and keeping their uniforms clean. In this particular shot they’ve captured a zombie for study and experimentation. I’m sure that there’s absolutely no chance he’ll break free of those ropes and go marauding through the underground research lab in act two.

Femdom in the Twitterverse

Domina Victoria Rage has an interesting and thoughtful post up on the culture of twitter around kink and femdom. I’m somewhat of a twitter newbie – only having joined a couple of months back – but I’ve definitely observed the phenomena she comments on. Like her I follow a mix of kinksters of various persuasions and orientations and, as regular blog readers might guess, a fair number of pro-dommes. Most tweets from that group seem to fall into the following categories…

  1. Fun sexy stuff from playing or the planning that goes along with it.
  2. Issues and complaints related to sex work in general or specific client behavior.
  3. Comments and jokes about politics, life, food, etc.
  4. Plugging new photos, site updates, travel plans, etc.
  5. Aggressive marketing leaning on the specific D/s dynamic where submissives are all pathetic losers and worms not fit to be in the presence of the angelic domme. Oh, and send money you beta cuck.

The problems obviously comes from dommes who frequently or exclusively tweet in that final category. It’s also not a new problem. For more years than I’ve been writing this blog people have been complaining about that dynamic (often from femdom porn) polluting the more general femdom environment. However, it seems so much more front and center in twitter than anywhere else I’ve seen. Rather than negotiating and opting into a consensual dynamic, it’s like there’s a constant background hum of humiliation, abuse and fin-domme.

Obviously careful curation of who you follow can help limit it, but that’s not really the problem here. I might by mildly annoyed by marketing in the form of abuse, but it’s not going to warp my views on D/s or kink. I worry more about people new to it  and using twitter as a means of exploration. At least with a porn video it’s pretty clear exactly what is. A tweet from a domme seems so much more personal. I think it’d be very easy to form the opinion that humiliation and abuse are a standard way for dommes to interact with submissives, rather than a specific kink to be negotiated and explored within a defined scene. As Domina Victoria eloquently puts it.

…if you’ve encountered some of that negativity online and it’s left a bitter taste in your mouth or put you off of exploring kink – just know, those individuals do not represent the majority. I, and every other reputable Top I’m aware of, share the sentiment that it’s vital to love, cherish and adore your submissive partners and admirers. Domination doesn’t come from a place of indifference, anger or blatant disregard.

This image is of the lovely Victoria Rage herself. If you’re in the Seattle area and wish to schedule a session, her professional page is here.

A National Treasure

I’m always fascinated by stories that capture a unique aspect of a particular culture. For example, in the US articles arising from the gun control debate are both common and unique to its culture. Nowhere else is that kind of discussion happening. This story from Japan last year was another example of a story that could seemingly only be written in that country. Nowhere else allows hardcore pornography while simultaneously prosecuting someone distributing an abstract mathematical model of the female genitalia.

The latest example I have is from France – who just declared the Marquis de Sade’s manuscript of 120 Days of Sodom a National Treasure. I can’t think of many countries whose politicians would he happy to declare a snuff pornography book – featuring teenage girls being tortured to death and children raped – as a national treasure. I don’t state it in that way to necessarily say there were wrong to do it, just to emphasize the cultural dissonance. Even by modern standards, Sade’s work remains shocking and unpleasant. While I can imagine a lot of politicians owning and jerking off to a copy, I can’t imaging many outside of France speaking up to defend its cultural value.

Sade of course gave us the word sadism, which gives me an excuse to feature a nice sadistic image. I’m not exactly sure what’s just happened in the scene below to make him dance like that – I’m guessing that riding crop she’s holding was involved somehow – but it certainly looks like it hurts.

I believe this is originally from the Sado Ladies site.

The Big Boot

This is one for fans of boots and bondage – two things that aren’t normally combined in this way. I’ve heard of thigh highs, but never armpit highs. Now I come to think of it, I’m surprised no enterprising fetish manufacturer has produced a leather bondage sack that’s shaped like a boot. I can’t think it’d be to hard to modify a standard sleep sack to look like one. The intersection between bondage lover and boot lover is probably a decent size market.

I found this via Pitt Prickel’s twitter feed, where it’s attributed to Rudolf Schlichter.

Just a little off the sides

I’m endlessly fascinating by why unexpected things can  elicit strong emotional reactions in people – both in the good and bad sense. I very much include myself in the target category, as even in my 40’s I’m still discovering stuff that can push my buttons in ways I didn’t expect. Normally that’s a good thing – it means there’s a fun new experience to explore – but not always.

One thing I only just discovered I had a strong negative reaction to was head shaving as part of a kinky dynamic. Isabella Sinclaire recently did a sequence of posts with the female submissive Greyh0und who’d been shaved just a few days before. From the comments a lot of people liked the look, but I personally found it very disquieting. I think because it puts me in  mind of concentration camp prisoners, and once that thought enters my head there’s no getting rid of it. I don’t make that connection with shaved heads in daily life, but there’s something about the combination with a power dynamic that pushes my internal ‘nuh huh’ button.

For those that do enjoy it, the image below is from a fun video for Charly Calderon photography. Check it out if a woman on a mission with a razor is your kind of thing.