Gun – Femdom Resource

The Two Kinkster Problem Revisited

Last week I posed a kinky thought experiment to consider. For clarity, let me restate it here, with a minor modification. The added italic text really should have been in the original version, as it closes a potential area of ambiguity.

“Mistress Mary and Submissive Sam, both risk aware consensual adult kinksters, enter their own deserted, well equipped private playspace and close the door behind them. An hour later they emerge sweaty, breathless and happy. They both tell you that they had a great time, and then go on their way with no ill effects or further interaction. Later you ask them what they did. At this point, is there anything they can say that’ll make you think they did something ethically or morally wrong?”

I suspect most of my readers would answer that there’s nothing they can have done that was ethically or morally wrong. That was certainly the gist of the comments I received, which didn’t surprise me. If you believe that, then you also must be ‘OK’ with extreme roleplays focusing on race, childhood, incest, Nazis, genocide, etc. Because in their hour alone, Mary and Sam might have indulged in the most heinous fucked up roleplay you can possibly imagine.

Note that by ‘OK’ in this context I don’t mean necessarily enjoying the idea of the activity, or wanting to try it yourself. Just that you’d say that no kink that can be done privately between consenting adults can ever be morally or ethically wrong.

I posed the thought experiment as a response to my ‘Pick a Side‘ post and the online debate I’d see about controversial activities. It seemed that the debate about specific activities was often muddied by the bad behavior of those who did them. I felt this thought experiment crystallized the issues more clearly.

In my original post I said that there was no wrong answer to the question, and I do believe that. While I lean to the anything goes side, I think it’s entirely valid to say that there are things that Mary and Sam can do that would be wrong. However, if you believe that, then I also think it’s incumbent on you to consider why you draw a line between activities and why your own favorite activities are OK in this situation. Kinky people are always keen to emphasize the difference between fantasy and reality. If you deny that boundary for some kinks, why not all?

It’s tricky to pick an image for a post like this. What Mary and Sam get up to in private isn’t necessarily something I want to broadcast to my readers. Nazi’s are certainly a controversial topic, but I think shooting a pair of them should be relatively safe, particularly when it’s done by the Lace Panty Commandos.

Guns, Girls and Gauloises

I always find myself somewhat conflicted when I come to write about specialized femdom pornography that caters to certain fetish niches. On the one hand it’s undoubtedly true that there’s lack of good porn that captures the intimacy, sensuality and dynamics of femdom relationships. On the other hand, that doesn’t make the sites catering to the more classic fetish niches invalid. I might wish there were more good French restaurants in my town, but that doesn’t mean I should be mad at the Mexican restaurants. Particularly if they’re really good Mexican.

The latest site that prompted this thought process is Perfect Villainess. As its homepage makes clear, it has a very specific focus – the classic femme fatale. For members there are lots of image galleries (200+) of attractive ladies smoking, brandishing guns, flexing crops and offering the camera smoldering looks. If that’s your particular thing, then it’s worth checking out. It’s images only, and solo female only, but I think that works for these kind of classic shots.

In some ways this kind of site is the antithesis of what kinky porn used to be like 10+ years ago. I remember ‘kinky’ image photosets that would start with everyone in full fetish gear, and by image 7 of 100, everyone would be naked and screwing. That was very frustrating. Now it’s a lot easier to find quality sites to scratch specific fetish itches. I can only hope the complexity, depth and variety in those niches continues to grow.

This is Letizia from a gallery on Perfect Villainess. You can follow their tumblr here.

Note the owner of Perfect Villainess dropped me a note and asked if I’d be interested in taking a look at it. I didn’t get anything for writing about it, and I don’t get a cut of anyone who joins. I was just interested in featuring it.

Negotiation

A few weeks ago I wrote about scene negotiation and one particular way it could go wrong. I originally planned to follow that up with a post on the right way to do it, before realizing how incredibly egotistical that would be. I’m no expert to be telling others what to do. Instead let me simply describe what has worked for me in the context of negotiating professional sessions. That has been a learning experience for me over the years, and maybe there will be something relevant to others.

One of the primary things I’ve discovered is that familiarity breeds understanding. My best sessions have always featured people I’ve played with multiple times in the past. That’s not to say I haven’t had great first sessions, but it’s hard to have a really intense and moving scene when I’m still getting to know someone. I therefore play exclusively with Lydia in Seattle and I try to revisit dommes I already know when traveling. It’s so much easier to do scene negotiation when I’ve got past history to draw on and a shared understanding to work with.

That said, there are definitely learning opportunities that come with playing with new people, and all relationships have to start somewhere. So here’s my approach when I’m getting to know someone…

Keep it simple.
There’s a lot of figure out when playing with someone new – chemistry, communication, physical response, etc. I therefore like to keep the activities list short to try and minimize the variables. Picking just a couple of general areas, for example bondage and CBT, gives enough scope to play while keeping the negotiation easy.
Focus on areas of expertise.
A lot of pro-dommes will list particular activities they enjoy or areas they specialize in. I always like to suggest these in our initial negotiations. Seeing someone at their best is highly informative. If there’s not good chemistry doing something they profess to particularly enjoy, then that’s a red flag.
Trust my instincts.
I’ve had very few bad experiences. Any domme that I’ve played with and named on this site has been someone I’ve had a great experience with. For the unnamed dommes I’ve had problems with, there were almost always signs early in our communication that I ignored. This has included things like obviously not fully reading my (short) emails, introducing D/s dynamics at the negotiation stage, chopping/changing session times frequently, and introducing activities I’d clearly identified as problematic in initial sessions. I’ve learned that any early problems in negotiating (and sticking to it) is a sign of more problems to come down the road.
Do paired sessions.
I think it’s really hard to negotiate or give non-trivial feedback in the middle of a session. I’m typically in a submissive mindset and it takes time to switch gears, step back and get perspective on a session. With someone new I therefore always try and do two sessions a couple of days apart. That gives us both time to evaluate and re-negotiate when there’s not rope, whips and sweaty bodies involved.
Review before clothes come off.
I do most of my negotiation in email, and normally a week or so before a session. I’ve no doubt all good dommes will reread that communication before playing, but I always find it useful just to review it verbally, even if there’s nothing to add. There’s often detail and emphasis that can get lost when emailing someone, particularly when you’ve not met before.
Distinguish suggestions from asks.
This is a minor thing, but it’s something that’s bitten in the past. I’ll say something like “Doing A and B might be fun, I particularly like C”. To me that means “Definitely do C, pick as you like from A,B”. To someone else that can simply mean “Pick as you like from A,B,C”. I then spend a session expecting C at some point, and I’m slightly surprised and disappointed when it doesn’t happen. I’ve therefore learned to be very clear to distinguish between when I’m asking for something specific and when I’m merely suggesting some possible options.

Hopefully that short list might be useful for a few readers. I’ll save some follow-up thoughts for another post. Picking an image for this post was kind of tricky. Nobody photographs pre-scene negotiation. So going in completely the opposite direction, here’s an image of the kind of session you’d really want to negotiate carefully upfront. Guns don’t do much for me, but I do appreciate their iconic nature. It’s just not the kind of activity I’d want to be surprised with!

The image features Mistress Eve, a pro-domme based out of London. She has a very extensive list of interests, so if you’re in the area I’m sure you’ll be able to negotiate something interesting.

When no news is good news

The extended trailer for the movie Cloud Atlas was recently released. It’s a movie I’m really looking forward to, and it marks the return of the Wachowskis, who shot to fame with the original Matrix movie. They also released a short introductory video which is notable for featuring the first official public appearance by Lana Wachowski. She was formerly known as Larry until going through gender reassignment. As this Salon articles discusses, the real big story here seems to be what a non-event this was. There was no big media kerfuffle, just a lot of general positive articles that covered the facts in a non-judgmental way. What a pleasant surprise.

As far as femdom links go, there is a connection, as Lana was (and presumably still is) reported to be a fairly kinky person. She attended BDSM clubs and had a well publicized relationship with Ilsa Strix, a highly regarded pro-domme from LA, as described in an infamous Rolling Stone article. It’s an unwritten law of human nature that people tend to believe what they read, unless they happen to know something about the subject in question. In those cases the writing is invariably found to be horribly wrong and misinformed. Oddly enough, this doesn’t cause people to stop believing everything else they read. I have zero personal knowledge of any of the people in the Rolling Stone article, but it does seem like a lot of sensationalized gossip cooked up by people only peripherally involved. The BDSM comments and discussion of pro-domme behavior are also fairly ludicrous. My favorite was this one, describing how Ilsa Strix played…

If her submissive said, ‘I don’t really think I’m interested in needles,’ she might just come up and, boom, put a couple of needles under their fingernails

Any pro-domme who thinks that a good way to introduce piercing to a submissive is needles under fingernails is going to go broke in short order. By all accounts Ilsa was a smart and excellent domme, and so it’s quotes like that which make me doubt the veracity of the article beyond the very basic facts.

I’ll leave you with a couple of shots of Trinity, from the first Matrix movie. It’s one of my favorite movies, and the appeal of watching Carrie Anne Moss kick ass in slow motion never really fades.

With apologies to my readers

I’m sorry about posting this image, I really am. It’s pretty fucked up.

It has been lurking on my hard drive for months now. I could never decide what to do with it. It’s a little like that bottle of viciously strong but heinous tasting liquor that gets left after a party. You can’t image any situation where you’d want to drink it, but also can’t quite bring yourself to throw it away. In this case, having just put up a post about guns and girls, I figured it was now or never. So here it is.

The reason I considered posting it at all was my odd reaction to it. It’s an image where my mental backstory makes a significant difference to how I perceive it. If I imagine that the gun is empty, and it’s all just a massive headtrip they’re running on the slave, then I think it’s a very hot image. The two women engrossed in each other, together with their extreme mental cruelty to the bound man, is arousing. Albeit in a twisted fucked up way (my favorite kind). On the other hand, if I imagine the gun is loaded, and he’s about to be shot in the head, then I hate it with a passion. That’s twisted at a level I just can’t get my head around. I can’t think of any other images that I’ve had such an extreme reaction to, based on how I project into them.

I believe the artist for this goes under the handle of Tink. His (or her) work has featured here in the past (this for example), but I’ve never tracked down any biographical information or a good hosting site for his/her images.

Guns, girls and sex

Jean-Luc Godard famously said that all you need for a movie is a gun and a girl. Of course he was making a broader point about the motive force of sex and violence (or potential violence), but in some sense the expression also used to have some literal truth. When I watch something from the 40’s or the 50’s, particularly film noir, there’s always a frisson of excitement and danger when those two things are combined. A woman pulling out a gun was often the pivotal moment in a film, even when it happened off camera. In modern movies that has been lost. Under the influence of video games, comic books and CGI, there’s an endless succession of big breasted girls wielding enormous firearms at the slightest provocation. It still can be fun, Trinity helping to trash the building lobby springs to mind, but the edge has gone.

Arguably that loss might be a good thing. A lot of the tension in those old movies comes from the fact that a woman wasn’t expected to wield a gun. So when she did it was a deviation from the norm, and always came at a moment of great tension. Movies allow equal opportunity murder and mayhem these days. On a personal level however, I do mourn the decline of the deadly femme fatale.

The first image below is one of the greatest femme fatale roles every committed to celluloid, Jane Greer as Kathie in Out of the Past. It’s a brilliant movie and she’s mesmerizing in it. I came across this image on this film noir tumblr. Slave domnei also blogged about it earlier this year.

The second image has a more vague provenience. I think it’s an actress called Naike Rivelli, but I’m not sure where I found it or what the context for the shot is. I just liked it for her expression and body language (and body). There’s definitely a suggestion of something nefarious going on. She’s just been caught doing something, or about to do something, and isn’t sure how you might react.

Oddly I find the first image actually pushes more of my internal buttons than the second. I’m not really sure why, but there’s something about that buttoned up sexuality that seems more dangerous, and hence more appealing.

Bang. Bang. You’re dead.

Gun play is (fortunately) not one of my many kinks. I was never exposed to guns as I was growing up, and never developed any kind of connection to them. They’re just not part of the culture in England in the same way as they are in the US.

As a kinky activity gun play seems to lack any kind of graduated scale. At least with something like breath play, which can also have a strong sense of drama and mortal danger, there’s varying degrees of intensity. Guns aren’t that scary, right up to the moment you’re dead. At which point it’s a little late for a safeword.

Despite all that, I kind of like this image, although I’m not completely sure why. The beautiful skin tone and sheen of sweat certainly helps. Not to mention her striking lips. But there’s also something iconic about that stance that appeals.

I found this on the gorean kajirus tumblr site.