Once more into the hornet’s nest

My previous post on male lingerie got me thinking about the topic of forced feminization. Specifically the always controversial variant that targets humiliation and embarrassment. It’s not my kink. I actually like the idea of transformation, but humiliation is never an interest of mine in any kind of play. However, I am confused by some of the opinions I see on it. As often happens, I find myself approaching it from a slightly different perspective.

A widely held view is that it’s misogynist. Why should someone be humiliated by wearing clothes than women commonly wear? If the clothes demean the wearer in the submissives eyes, and he expects women to wear them as a matter of course, therefore women must be always be demeaned in his eyes. There are lots of blog posts along these lines floating around. For example, two minutes archive hunting took me to this one by Stabbity and this one by Peroxide.

I think it’s certainly true that this type of play can be misogynistic, but is it always? That seems to make a very crude assumption about the transitive properties of clothing and context. Circumstances and social norms would seem to matter. For example, make me do a presentation at work tomorrow in Lederhosen and I’m going to be pretty embarrassed. Not so much if I was at Oktoberfest. Or stick me in a sparkly skintight leotard in the middle of some ice, and I will undoubtedly be humiliated. That doesn’t mean I look down on female figure skaters. Their abilities amaze me.

Being ashamed of very conventional everyday clothing would be a red flag. But typically it seems the people adopting that look are not into the humiliation kink at all. They’re trying to be as convincing and as feminine as possible (for example). The typical forced feminization outfit is the kind of over the top provocative clothing that’s hard for anyone to pull off with flair, let alone a hairy, overweight middle aged guy. Are they getting off on the humiliation of women’s clothes? Or are they getting off on wearing a highly sexualized outfit that makes them look silly (and happens to be women’s clothes)? If I think a french maid outfit on some guys looks ridiculous, does that make me a misandrist?

I’m not trying to argue this kind of play is always non-problematic. It definitely raises some complex questions. But I do think the logic of the view that ‘positive crossdressing=good’ and ‘forced feminization=bad’ is a bit simplistic.

Anonymous slave

The original source for this image appears to have vanished. I’m assuming it’s an Fm shot, but thanks to the hood it’s actually hard to tell. I think the anonymity of it makes it kind of hot. Is this the good or the bad sort of forced feminization?

Aahh, puppy!

This struck me as a nice follow-up to yesterday’s post. That had the sense of an eager puppy. This one seems more like a naughty puppy vibe. They make for a cute couple, but I get the sense she’s not entirely happy with him at this moment.

Me and my mistress

The title of the image is ‘Me and my mistress‘. It’s by the artist zephyrian Boom. You can see more of his work at Deviant Art (free login required). I originally came across the image at the Adore Femdom tumblr.

Tidying up the art gallery

After adding Jay Em to my Femdom Art pages I took the opportunity to browse through the other artists and do some clean-up. I was astonished how many dead links there were. It’s kind of depressing to see how ephemeral the internet can be. The anal retentive geek in me expects everyone to keep everything exactly as I found it.

On the plus side, as part of the updating process, I did discover a few interesting new links. In particular I found new sites for Gene Bilbrew, Bernard Montorguiel, Rubex and Eric Stanton. I also stumbled across the interesting Retroyguy site and a fine obituary for Eric Stanton. Hopefully every link on the three artist pages should now be live and useful. Feel free to leave me a comment should that prove not to be true.

I’ll leave you with a couple of images from Bernard Montorguiel. I particularly enjoyed the first one. There’s quite a lot going on in it. There’s a picture of a mistress with some strange floppy gloves, a bunch of animal faced slaves, a forceful maid and an excited slave. I can’t say it does much for me erotically, but I am intrigued by what buttons it was pushing for the artist. The second image is a little more conventional, apart from the odd burglar mask being worn. That looks about as useful a disguise as Clark Kent’s glasses.

Bernard Montorguiel Artwork

 Bernard Montorguiel Artwork

PDS

I was going to follow-up my previous post with some comments on my personal feelings about PDS (Public Displays of Dominance and Submission). However, as I started to write it, I realized I really wasn’t adding much to the debate. The rules on how a shared public space should be used are endlessly debatable and mutable.

So instead let me make a meta-point: Everyone stands on a slope. By which I mean there is no fixed point and stable surface from which to cast other opinions down. If you read the comments on the two articles I previously linked to (here and here) you’ll see a lot of de facto assumptions about what is appropriate behavior in public and what should be reserved for private spaces. The comment writers don’t seem aware that their universal truths are not universal at all. Unfortunately, if you hang out on BDSM forums and blogs, you’ll often see much the same attitude coming from the opposite direction.

This isn’t to say that there’s no right or wrong. Just that whatever position you adopt on any subject, be aware that you’re on a continuum. It’s still possible to draw lines and acceptable limits. Just don’t try and pretend that what you’ve chosen is somehow God given or universally accepted. Anyone arguing from that perspective instantly loses credibility.

After all that pontificating, let me make amends to my readers with some more leash shots. In this case they’re from The Properly Leashed Male tumblr and feature gentlemen being pulled by something a little more sensitive than a neck.

Leashed male by Waldo
Leashed male

Loving submissive men

I was browsing the blog ‘Tits and Sass‘ over the weekend when I came across this article. If you’ve not encountered it before, the blog itself is run by sex workers and provides all sorts of commentary and links relevant to their industry. The article in question is by Paris Lee, a former dancer and cam girl, and describes her decision first to get and then to get rid of breast implants. It’s not at all femdom related and, although I found it interesting to read her perspective, I had no plans to blog about it. Until I read her short sign-off section…

Paris lives in Ohio and loves ferrets, dogs, and submissive men…

When I saw that it struck me just how unusual it was. Outside of dedicated D/s and BDSM blogs, I don’t think I’ve ever see that before. The article in question may have been related to sex work, but it had nothing to do with kink or submission. Paris just decided that loving submissive men was a fact about herself worth sticking in that brief biographical sign-off paragraph. I’m glad she did (and does), but it’s kind of depressing to realize just how surprising it was to see that sentence. I probably shouldn’t hold my breath to spot it in a match profile anytime soon.

I’ll leave you with a shot that might encourage more women to adopt a similar sentiment. He looks just so damn cute and perky. I hope she has a treat available if he behaves himself.

Perky submissive at the end of leashThis image is originally from the CBT and Ballbusting site. I found it on the Femdom Archive tumblr.

Dressed for the occasion

I’m typically not a fan of outdoor femdom shots. Partly this is because I have some hard limits around public humiliation and creepy crawlies. So anything that risks combining the two is difficult for me to fantasize about. But it’s mostly because the domme’s clothing is so frequently hilariously inappropriate. Take the shot at the end of this link for example. Huge stripper heels and a skimpy leopard skin dress are really not ideal for a stroll through a field. It looks like she’d end up more uncomfortable than he would.

In contrast the shot below caught my eye as an example of how it should be done. It’s a nice autumnal parkland setting, and she dressed elegantly but appropriately. The boots are perhaps a little shiny and impractical, but keeping them polished and clean will give him something to do when they get back from their morning constitutional.

Mistress leading slave on a leash for a walk in the parkYou can see a second image from the scene in this post on the public humiliation tumblr.

Puppy chow

After the last couple of posts I thought I was done with the dog theme. Then I came across this Max Fisch posting that I felt I had to share.

My partner had a puppy play session and we were buying the proper food. She didn’t want to use real puppy chow due to health concerns while I’ve never had a huge issue with it as the sub’s love it. I have used jerky as a substitute for dog treats, but the dog food itself I never had an issue with. Maybe I have just watched Showgirls too many times and the puppy chow line has become stuck in my head so it seems normal for humans to eat dog food.
….
We ended up compromising on Cocoa Puffs. They did the job, although that seems like quite the condemnation of Cocoa Puffs!
Queen Titania

I’ve always felt that following a busy pro-domme would make a great reality television show. They always have such unusual and yet interesting problems to solve. How do you work out what’s a good food for puppy play? Where do you research the health risks of dog food for humans? Of course I’m sure any TV show would screw it up horribly. They’d turn into a laugh at the freaks special, rather than an empathetic look at interesting people doing unusual things.

I have to admit, whenever I think of eating dog food, I think of Red Dwarf and Lister stuck on a particularly icy moon. Anyone not in tune with early 90’s British comedy has probably got no idea what I’m talking about, so here’s a little taste (with the relevant moment about 2 minutes in).

I’m afraid I couldn’t find a shot of a submissive eating puppy chow, or cocoa puffs for that matter. However, I did have this shot of Mistress Madeline and her doggy slave. It’s not a conventional place to attach a leash, but I’m sure it’s an effective one.

Mistress Madeline with doggy slave

Obedience training

Continuing the theme from yesterday’s post, here’s a nice tableau of owner and pet. He seems to be keeping quite obediently to heel, while she stands proudly and possessively over him. I always thought it was the dog that was supposed to be aggressive and protective, but he looks like an old softy in contrast to her fierce expression.

Dogs often have a habit of licking themselves in embarrassing ways at inopportune moments, normally when guests are staying. It seems from the second photograph that she’s managed to redirect that impulse into a slightly more useful cleaning function. He’s really putting his tongue to good use there. Lets hope he doesn’t start trying it when her parents next come over.

Mistress with slave as dogMistress with slave licking assThese are taken from an old series of images that circulated on usenet. I think they were all scanned from Japanese femdom magazines, so I don’t have an online attribution to give.

The doministrix in action

Mistress T recently published a post containing an entertaining description of a trip home to see her family. They have some idea of what she does, which I think is great, but she does have deal with a few awkward conversations. The most cringeworthy one that she describes was with a friend of her father…

….an older man with no teeth who started the conversation with: “So you do that dancing up and down the pole, eh?”. I carefully explained that I spent about a year dancing 5-6 years ago but I haven’t done that for awhile…hoping we could move the conversation to something else but no. He then said leeringly: “So you’re into the pictures now?” Fuck.
Mistress T

Personally, while I’d like to certainly avoid anything as painful as that sounds, I would enjoy being more open with my family. Or even being open at all. Keeping a big important chunk of my life separate from them isn’t pleasant. Unfortunately, while I have very caring supportive parents, I just can’t see how the conversation would work out well. Gay would be no problem. That’s genetic and there wouldn’t be an issue. But BDSM? And a submissive masochist? They’d blame themselves, and then I’d have to deal with hours of how they should have punished me differently, or potty trained me differently, or just done everything differently. Nobody wins in that scenario.

The ‘doministrix’ title comes courtesy of Mistress T’s mother conflating mistress with dominatrix. I like it a lot. Although it does sound a little like a monster that Perseus would have fought in Greek mythology. I can imagine it as a Ray Harryhausen movie – ‘Perseus versus the deadly doministrix’.

There’s always endless blogsphere debate about labels. Dom vs Domme vs Dominant is a perennial favorite. Or how to distinguish between pro-domme and non-pro-domme. Lifestyle domme is common but doesn’t find favor everywhere. Perhaps we should just start mashing a few words together and come up with some new ones. Lets say Dominatrix can be exclusively a pro-domme thing, and doministrix can be lifestyle. Problem solved (for about 30 seconds).

Anyway, here’s the doministrix herself in action, getting a polished posterior from a lucky slave. You can find similar material, along with all her excellent videos, at her commercial site.

Mistress T

Straddling the toilet

Yesterdays post on gags and forced consumption put me on the hunt for similar material. Here’s a nice shot featuring a whitehead gag, along with a leash and some painful looking nipple clamps. While he’s no doubt aware of what’s about to happen, the blindfold adds that little element of suspense.

I have to admit that while this looks kind of fun, I personally prefer a more controlled and close-up approach. I think some submissives get off on the idea of being pissed on, where some consumption may also happen. It’s more of a humiliation vibe for them. For others the consumption is the key act, and being liberally sprayed from a distance almost feels like a waste. That’s more a worship approach. I’m definitely in the latter camp. I don’t find being pissed on particularly humiliating, it’s just wet messy fun. Where controlled consumption has a strong D/s dynamic for me.

Of course I could be doing the mistress in this shot a huge disservice. Maybe she has really excellent aim from a standing position.

Mistress straddling gagged manI found this on the Femdom Marriage tumblr site. It’s originally from the Femme Fatale Films site.