High Heels – Page 10 – Femdom Resource

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

I’ve always had some degree of discomfort about the idea of financial domination, although I could never put my finger on exactly what it was. It doesn’t push any of my buttons to be described as a ‘pay-piggy’ or objectified as a human ATM, but I could say the same thing about plenty of other styles of play. I’m not into adult/baby roleplay or public humiliation, yet my lack of interest there doesn’t translate into an active discomfort with the activity.

It was only when I was reading this article on a financial domme in NYC that I managed to put my finger on at least part of my problem. I’ve no idea how much truth is in the article, but it certainly reflects an attitude and approach I’ve seen on a lot of fin-domme sites. What bothers me about it is the lack of a ‘duty of care’. All participants in a BDSM scene have a responsibility to ensure it’s safe and consensual, but due to the natural dynamic there’s obviously a particular emphasis on the dominant’s role. She has a duty of care to try and ensure the submissive eventually emerges healthy and undamaged.

This duty doesn’t absolve the submissive of responsibility, and it doesn’t make the dominant responsible for everything and anything that happens. Accidents can happen, both in a physical and emotional sense. But the intent should always be there, and it’s often an intent that seems to be lacking from what I observe of financial domination. It would seem like an area where the risk of harm is particularly high, and therefore greater care should be taken. Yet most of the fin-dommes I stumble across fit the mould of the one in the article. They’re inexperienced, not particularly into BDSM and express little interest in the overall health of their clients. There seems to be a lack of self-analysis and critical evaluation of what they’re doing and why.

In a physical BDSM session there’s also a very clear element of self-interest for the dominant to make sure everyone is safe. Nobody wants to end the scene in an emergency room. And anyone injuring submissives or pushing scenes beyond comfortable limits is going to have difficulty finding play partners (one would hope). I’m not sure what the equivalent feedback mechanism for a financial domme is. The goal would simply seem to be to extract as much as possible without losing the client.

I should be clear this is purely a personal opinion based purely on what I’ve seen on-line. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to be involved in or to enjoy. Doubtless there are ethical and talented financial dommes out there. I just found it interesting to finally identify what sometimes niggled me about this very specific dynamic.

The photograph is by Tyler Shields, and features the back of Tamara Ecclestone’s shoes (daughter of billionaire Bernie Ecclestone).

On the edge of my seat

This will be a short post. I’m sitting very gingerly in front of my computer trying not to fidget around too much. Lydia gave me a good working over with a series of paddles, canes and straps earlier this evening. As a result my ass is a little tender. Although during the event itself it was my upper back and shoulder blades that took the real punishment. That is a horrible place to be caned.

Anyway, before I retire to the couch with a cocktail to enjoy my endorphin buzz and general feelings of happiness, I’ll leave you with a shot of someone trying to avoid a similar fate. This is obviously based on Tintin, and is by the artist Claude Mirande (English translation). Personally I was always more of a fan of Asterix than Tintin as a child, but if Claude had been illustrating I would have been very temped to switch allegiances.

I found this on the Femdom Style Counsel tumblr.

The little things

It’s often small details that make a photograph come to life for me. Some little thing that I can connect with and use to spin my own private fantasy. I suspect in a lot of cases they’re accidental touches that the photographer never planned or was even aware of.

In the case of this image it’s not her attractive figure or the brandished crop that caught my eye, it’s his upturned feet on the bed. I can just picture him in a classic ‘chilling in hotel room’ pose. He’s flipping channels, scratching his stomach and debating raiding the mini-bar when this vision of kinky loveliness appears at the door. The scene from there pretty much writes itself. There’s a cliched jaw drop, a comically inappropriate family show on the tv, a slow deliberate saunter into the room, a howl as the crop smacks his feet and a scramble to get off the bed and into position.

I’ve completely failed to track down an original source for this image. I found it on the Kinky Games tumblr.

Ignorance is bliss?

When you spend as long as I do hanging out on sex positive blogs, it’s easy to forget just how much attitudes can vary outside that bubble. I was intrigued to stumble across this post quoting a Mormon on the subject of sexual compatibility. He was a virgin when he married, as was his wife, and he looks on that fact as a plus…

If we had “shopped around” or experienced sex with many different people, it would have ruined the beauty and simplicity of what we have.

I’m going to guess most of my readers will react as I initially did to this, which was to laugh and wonder how ignorance can possibly be a good thing. How can he make any kind of informed judgement? Maybe they’re having really bad sex and have no idea it should be any different.

But then it got me thinking about the relative nature of happiness. There are few absolutes when it comes to assessing satisfaction and quality of life. For example, studies have shown that when it comes to wealth, happiness isn’t related to the amount you earn, but how much you earn relative to your social circle. Being the ‘poor’ person in your group makes you unhappy, even if your absolute income is high. Knowledge in that case makes you unhappier. So if a couple are happy having mediocre sex, is that a bad thing? Are you better off not knowing what you’re missing out on?

Obviously the ideal state is to know for sure you’re having great sex! And as an information junkie, I think I’d always rather be informed, even if it made me more aware of problems. But it’s an interesting angle to ponder, particularly when I reflect back on life and the ‘might have been’ situations. I often feel regretful that I waited until my 30’s to act on my kinky inclinations. I feel I lost a decade or more where I could have been enjoying all BDSM has to offer. Yet, the knowledge of the pleasure it brings me has undoubtedly complicated my life. It makes dating and finding a suitable partner a lot harder for a start. Would I have been better off not knowing? Leaving that side of myself alone? Most of my friends have married over the last few years and started families. Could I have been happy in a vanilla relationship? Will I ultimately look back on my exploration of kink as a curse rather than a blessing? I hope not, but as Einstein observed, knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

The image is by the Scottish painter Jack Vettriano. A lot of his work has a sexual and kinky vibe to it, and he’s obviously got a fetish for 50’s costumes and high heels, although not typically with a femdom slant. There’s more background on him available in this article.

Cultural Anomaly

There’s an ongoing and tedious debate about the cultural meaning of facials. According to the ever moderate Gail Dines it’s one of the most degrading acts in porn. That’s a statement which makes me wonder what she’d make of some of my porn movies and images.

Unfortunately I’ve yet to find any really well reasoned philosophical analysis of shots involving men hanging upside down having self-facials administered by elegantly dressed ladies. If I stumble across such a thing I’ll be sure to let you all know. In the meantime I’ll leave you with this image from Femdom Chronicles. Hopefully nobody will feel too degraded after viewing it.

Stereotypes of submission

A post by Ms Justine Cross pointed me at this interesting article on Salon by Tracy Clark-Flory. The article was written in response to one by Katie Roiphe in Newsweek suggesting that women are newly interested in submission because of the greater power and equality they’re experiencing in the workplace. The original Newsweek article stuck me as particularly muddleheaded and I’m glad to see someone pointing that out. However, in the process it does recycle an old stereotype that always annoys me. Namely that male submissives and masochists are typically powerful and successful career people who need to submit in order to take a break from all the high pressure decisions they normally have to take. It’s the cliche of the aggressive lawyer who spends all morning shouting at staff and his lunchtime wearing pink panties and getting caned.

It’s a point of view often heard from pro-dommes (as Ms Cross also mentions in her post), typically meant to describe their clients, but often applied generally to describe male submissives. And I get why pro-dommes say this. It’s a pre-emptive strike against the assumption that their clients (and by association themselves) are weird or misfits in society. Their clients aren’t just average they’re saying, they’re better than average, taken from the winners in society. But understanding it doesn’t stop it annoying me on several different levels.

Firstly, pro-domme clients are a self-selecting group, not a random sample. Seeing a pro-domme regularly costs thousands of dollars. Men who can afford this are certainly not a representative cross-section of society. Secondly, it’s not something I see discussed in non-professional circles. I’ve never seen someone write “My husband used to just want regular sex, but since he got that promotion suddenly he’s insisting I chain him up and pee on him. I like the extra income but I’ve had to spend half of it on leather outfits and a snorkel set”. Thirdly, a lot of kinky people can trace their preferences back to childhood or adolescence. Which means it’s completely unrelated to profession or success, unless you happen to have been a 13 year old investment banker.

Finally, and perhaps most annoying of all, is the implication that only powerful successful people (lawyers doctors, brokers, etc.) have stressful and high pressure decisions to take. Everyone has to deal with those kind of issues in their lives. In fact I’d say trying to bring up a family while working an underpaid job is going to involve a whole lot more stress and pressure than a rich, pro-domme visiting executive has to deal with.

The truth is that kinky people come from all walks of life. There’s nothing particularly special about having an interest in BDSM. Or at least no more so than all the interesting and quirky factors that go into making us who we are.

Given my original prompt for this post was Ms Justine Cross, that seems like a perfect excuse to feature a picture of the lovely lady in question.

So near and yet so far

Just from an artistic perspective alone I like this image a lot. There’s a nice sense of balance to it, with their contrasting head and hand positions, and that one delicate point of contact between them. It’s also very sexy. Assuming he’s been told to remain still, she just has to sway slightly to tease and torment him. Sliding backwards equals pleasure, leaning forwards equals denial.

I found in on the Fetish Locker tumblr. I’m afraid I don’t have an original attribution.

Some foot on foot action

The sole of the foot is a wonderful body part to torture. It’s very sensitive, which is surprising given how much daily wear and tear it undergoes. Everything from tickling through to caning works well. Even the threat of punishment to it can be a powerful head-trip. I remember a scene where Lydia was scrubbing parts of my body down with antiseptic prior to doing some piercing. I was relaxing in the bondage she’d already put in place, thinking as she cleaned each spot – “Nipples, kind of expected that. Cock, OK. Upper leg, that’s unusual. Bottom of my feet! Oh shit….” Fortunately she never did get around to sticking needles into the soles, and she later confessed she was just doing it to scare me a little!

This photograph strikes me a quite a clever one. It works both from the fetishistic point of view and from the masochistic one. It also creates a nice contrast between the vulnerability of their respective feet. His are upturned, naked, defenseless. Hers are spiky, hard, wrapped in leather, forcing down. The more normally she stands the more it hurts him.

I found in on the 24-7-Sub tumblr. I believe it’s originally by the French photographer Jean Fabien. You can see it in this gallery on his site.

Do you buy that by the pound or the inch?

Here’s a rather well muscled chap being measured in all the relevant areas. The careful shopper should always assess the goods carefully before making a purchasing decision.

Personally I find this kind of objectification of the male form rather offensive. The poor guy is being treated like a piece of meat. Not to mention making me feel insecure about my own slightly less studly physique. But don’t worry, our normal service of hot babes in skin tight leather will be resuming shortly.

It’s originally from a photo-shoot entitled ‘Only the handsome will survive‘ in the Russian edition of GQ style. The photographer is Alex Bego and I found it via the Vrouwelijke Dominantie tumblr.

A day of much torture

I was seriously tortured twice today. The first time involved clips, whips, needles and Domina Yuki. That was a lot of fun. The second time was an extended tease and denial session, culminating in a ruined climax, courtesy of United Airlines. I’m sure some pro-dommes think they’re experts at frustrating and denying clients, but they’ve got nothing on the major US airlines. Having a flight repeatedly postponed for 5 hours, only to be cancelled because the pilots have run out of flying hours, creates a level of suffering to daunt even the toughest masochist. It made the handful of needles I got shoved in my scrotum earlier that day seem like a pleasant diversion.

The single upside to the entire fiasco was watching an attractive and mature flight attendant in a natty blue suit boss people around in an officious manner. It wasn’t quite the image below (I can’t imagine those heels are good for traveling in), but in the cultural and visual wasteland that is the average airport, I’ll take what I can get.

I found this on the femdom-sm tumblr.