Tag: Humor

The cutting edge of gender issues (beware of icebergs)

I was amused to read this gawker article on an ironic Fox News snafu. The original Fox article was all about the benefits of traditional marriage and traditional gender models. Unfortunately for them the picture they picked to illustrate it was of the first same-sex couple to get married at the Empire State Building. Sadly they eventually spotted their faux-pas and changed the picture.

Although the picture problem was funny, the article itself is also pretty amusing. My favorite section is …

Prior to the 1970s, people viewed gender roles as as equally valuable. Many would argue women had the better end of the deal! It’s hard to claim women were oppressed in a nation in which men were expected to stand up when a lady enters the room or to lay down their lives to spare women life. When the Titanic went down in 1912, its sinking took 1,450 lives. Only 103 were women. One-hundred three.

Now I’m a man. Far be it from me to dictate when life was best for 50% of the world’s population. But I have to say that as general measure of happiness and liberty, the “chances of dying in a cruise ship disaster” test doesn’t strike me as the most representative one. If I had to pick between early access to lifeboats and say the right to vote (8 years after the Titanic sank), equal pay (<50% in 1912, and still only around 75%) and protection from workplace discrimination (not introduced till the 60’s), then I’m taking my chances in the icy waters. Although if I have to also listen to that God awful Celine Dione song then it might be a trickier decision.

While it’s idiotic to use simple gender based social conventions as markers for oppression, that doesn’t mean the social niceties themselves aren’t worth preserving. I enjoy the opportunity to display some old fashioned manners. Sadly, while standing for a lady is common enough, someone asking me to adjust their garter is a touch rarer. While this shot has an older feel to it, but is actually from 1981. It’s by Helmut Newton for Vogue.

Helmut Newton

The good old days

After mentioning the bad femdom porn of yesteryear in my previous post, it seemed a shame not to share some. This struck me as a particularly brilliant example. It’s so bad I think it actually becomes good again, by virtue of making me laugh.

The lady on the left is brandishing her flogger like it’s a long dead skunk that she wants to keep as far from her as possible. The lady on the right is falling out of her strange outfit, while expressing a strong revulsion to the idea of actually hitting the gentleman’s bottom. And for a man about to be trained by two wicked bitches in leather, he looks remarkably cheerful. He’s no doubt justifiably confident that he’s unlikely to need his safeword in the scene. What I find particularly amazing is that judging by the titling, this was the lead image for the magazine or the photo-spread. They must have looked at all the other shots and gone – “That’s it! That’s the one to lead with! This really sets the scene for the air of powerful dominance and complex sensuality that we’re trying to put across here.”

There’s a lot of justifiable complaining about bad femdom porn. I can’t deny that there’s a lot of it out there. But in an hour on tumblr you can find more good BDSM porn today than you could have found in a month of hunting in the 90’s. And I dread to think what it must have been like for kinksters prior to the spread of the internet.

Booted Discipline

I found this in a collection of vintage shots at Femdom Times.

Minion required

I’ve spent the evening packing for my upcoming New York trip. Not a fun time. Traveling to LA or Vegas is easy. Neither the climate nor the restaurants demand any sort of significant planning in the wardrobe department. Throw a few short sleeved shirts and a sports coat in a carry-on and you’re good to go. Manhattan in January is quite a different packing proposition.

What I really need is a minion to take care of it. I think I’d suck as a dominant, but having a minion seems like it should be easier to deal with. You never see evil masterminds worrying if their minions are having their needs met. Or doing any aftercare post massacre. Or blackmailing world leaders just because their minions always had a thing for financial domination. They just stick them in a colored jumpsuit and tell them to guard the hollowed out volcano. Can we not create a D/s/m hierarchy for lazy submissives like myself?

While I return to jumping up and down on my case, I’ll leave you with a shot of someone being looked after appropriately. I’ll bet she doesn’t have to worry about shlepping her overstuffed carry-on bag around icy streets.

Submissive caring for shoes of dominant

I found this on the Domina Desires tumblr. It’s originally by Kajali on deviant art, and is entitled Venus In Furs I.

What would your mother say

Via Spanking Blog comes an entertaining story of how an indiscreet spanking led to an awkward parental conversation. Followed by an even more awkward awakening of long dormant parental kink. I’m not sure what would embarrass me more. My parents finding out about my kinks, or me discovering theirs.

It actually puts me in mind of a conversation I’ve had about this topic with a close friend of mine. She knows about my kinky preferences and has raised the question of what I share with my family. She has a young daughter and hates the thought the she might grow up concealing a huge part of her identity. I understand that. If something’s important to their child it’s important to the parent. At the same time I can’t begin to imagine having that kind of conversation with my parents. The endless analysis of my childhood and exactly where they went wrong would drive me insane. Nobody needs to hear how their toilet training simply must be related to their interest in S&M. Amateur psychology, parental guilt and embarrassing sexual details might make great subjects for a Woody Allen film, but I don’t need it whenever my family are in town.

At least the original story gives me a chance to feature an entertaining spanking themed shot. I’m not sure if this is a plea for mercy or a prayer for punishment. Either way I suspect this ends with that hairbrush getting deployed at speed.

Spanking Prayer

I found this on the Led Marriage and Chastity (aka Carolus666) tumblr. It’s originally from Lina’s House of Discipline.

Cross-dressing meth priest liked sex in rectory

This is another post that isn’t particularly femdom themed. It also features the third kinky priest I’ve blogged about in the last week or so. But when I saw the title of the article, as replicated above, I couldn’t resist posting it. The San Francisco Chronicle carried the story in question, and pretty much nailed it in the heading.

The chronology of events isn’t exactly clear from the write-up. Becoming a Catholic priest was obviously step one. Not a great career choice in my view, but fair enough. From that I think he moved onto the cross dressing and having sex with men in the rectory (make your own pun up there). Good for him on that progression. Then he opened an adult video store, possibly the one fact they didn’t manage to cram into the title. Again, I think that’s a perfectly fine and respectable thing to do. Finally, he concluded his richly decorated resume by manufacturing and dealing meth. That’s the point I have to part company with him. It’s a disappointing move for a man of God.

My favorite line in the whole crazy article is…

rectory personnel became concerned and notified diocese officials when Wallin, sometimes dressed as a woman, would entertain odd-looking men, some who were also dressed in women’s clothing and engaging in sex acts.

It makes me wonder – did they need all those things in place before they became concerned? Would the cross-dressing have been OK, but the sex acts really put it over the edge?

I’ll leave you with a cross-dressing image, courtesy of Kimberly Wilder, that’s at little more aligned with a femdom theme. I think she’s being teased with the key to her chastity belt.

Kimberly Wilder drawing

Dear Abby

Pauline Phillips, more commonly known as the columnist Dear Abby, died on Wednesday. You can read her NY Times obituary here. Not having grown up in the US, she wasn’t a big part of my cultural background, but I’d certainly seen and enjoyed her writing.

Reading advice columns is always a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. It’s fun to either feel smug at coming to the same conclusion as the columnist or indignant at how foolish their advice is. Not to mention the ‘sightseeing at the asylum’ element of occasionally encountering a nutty letter from a bewildered person in a strange situation. Dan Savage, writing in his tribute to Dear Abby, quoted what is by far the best and most concise response I’ve ever seen in an advice column.

Dear Abby: Two men who claim to be father and adopted son just bought an old mansion across the street and fixed it up. We notice a very suspicious mixture of company coming and going at all hours—blacks, whites, Orientals, women who look like men and men who look like women. This has always been considered one of the finest sections of San Francisco, and these weirdos are giving it a bad name. How can we improve the neighborhood? — Nob Hill Residents

Dear Residents: You could move.

In tribute to those women who dress like men and vice-versa, here’s an entertaining image I found on the sex is not the enemy tumblr. Personally I always appreciate a woman in a sharp suit.

Woman And Man

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

Do to yourself as you’d have others do to you

I was recently entertained by the story of a Catholic priest who locked himself in handcuffs and had to call 911 to escape them. The linked article even has the audio of the call, complete with the dispatcher asking where he was (the rectory) and did he work there (he admitted he did). The thing I found surprising wasn’t the restraint loving priest, but the slightly incredulous tone of the dispatcher. In a previous life I spent some months working with operators answering emergency calls and, like ER doctors, nothing seemed to really faze them. They’d heard it all before.

Part of me feels a little sorry for the good Father. I’m sure a lot of kinky people experimented with self-bondage when they were young. I know I did, and it was more good luck than judgement that saved me from any similarly embarrassing public situations. On the other hand the priest in question works for Bishop Thomas Paprocki. His various claims to fame include blaming the lawsuits resulting from the Catholic child abuse scandal on the devil, attacking gay marriage as discrimination against Christians and preaching that voting Democrat will send you to hell. Anyone keeping company with a fine ‘Christian’ like that doesn’t get a lot of sympathy from me.

Next time the kinky clergyman feels the urge to restrain himself from sin, he should find himself a Nun to help out. She can take care of the handcuff keys and also any flagellation that might be necessary for such a naughty priest. Perhaps the young lady below would be willing to ensure he repents properly?

Red Nun

You might be surprised to learn that this very authentically costumed ‘nun’ has not actually taken her holy vows. It’s the model Miranda Kerr, as photographed by Greg Kadel for Numéro magazine. I originally stumbled across it on the Kinky Games tumblr.

Domestic bliss at Wayne Manor

Catwoman with a whip is not an unusual sight. At least not for anyone hanging out in the kind of tumblr’s I frequent. But Batman knitting? That was a new one to me. He looks pretty happy about it as well.

A little research led me to this post, which says this is from Bemused Magazine (BEM) a comic fanzine from the 70’s and 80’s. It was drawn by Brian Bolland, a very well known and talented British comic book artist.

Catwoman with a whip, Batman with knitting

I found this on the Submissive Geek tumblr. Fans of the great Julie Newmar as catwoman may also enjoy this post on that same site. It features her in a selection of animated gifs.

Curing my hysteria

Buying Christmas gifts for friends is always tricky. You don’t want to create a problem for them by sticking them with something they don’t like or can’t use. My circle of friends often defaults to wine, which leads to a lot of pointless circulating of bottles between us. Fortunately I have one friend with imagination, and she got me one of my best presents ever – a vintage vibrator.

The device in question can be seen below, with a couple of alternate angles here and here. She actually inherited it from a relative who collected antiques and vintage mechanical/electrical devices. Apparently her partner commented that it looked like it’d be very painful and you’d have to be crazy to allow it anywhere near your private parts. For some odd reason that immediately brought me to her mind, and I therefore had the pleasure of unwrapping it in a busy Seattle restaurant. I’m sure our server at least got a smile out of it.

Anyone surprised that vintage vibrators even exist should check out this article on their history. They were originally developed to ‘cure hysteria’ in women around the end of the nineteenth century. In a nice bit of Victorian double-think, since women weren’t sexual then using a device to induce a ‘hysterical paroxysm’ wasn’t sexual either. It was just a useful medical technique. They were even openly advertised in housekeeping magazines of the time. Here’s an advert I managed to track down for my very own device. Apparently I can look forward to a clear beautiful complexion and wonderfully attractive hair.

The Star Vibrator

From a kinky perspective, the most dangerous bit looks to be the old frayed power cord. Nobody wants to get involved in some inadvertent electrical play at 120V.

Although vibrators are traditionally associated with inducing pleasure they can also be used for some interesting orgasm torture. Forced, ruined and denied orgasms are all fun kinky options. The shot below features Lexi Sindel forcing an orgasm for a man in chastity, which must be particularly uncomfortable. You can click through on the image to see the animated gif at the Femdom Empire blog.

Lexi Sindel milking slave in chastity