Tag: Leather

It’s all in the Mind

The NYT has a short but informative article  on the complex relationship between brain and body when it comes to pain. It’s tempting to think of the body as the source of all physical pain and the brain simply reporting on the signals it receives but, as the article explains, it’s a lot more complicated than that. As every masochist already knows, and doctors are learning, pain is contextual, and the reprocessing that happens in the brain can make a big difference to the perception of the sensation.

I also found it interesting that the article draws a connection with itching. Ever since I got involved in kink, I’ve been fascinated by how that phenomena can be modified by my situation. In normal circumstances I find it almost impossible to not scratch a bad itch. The more I resist doing so, the greater the intensity and the compulsion to resolve it. I can’t think of anything else. Yet once in bondage, itches fade away. It’s almost like my brain has a switch it can flip – if I physically can’t fix the itch then no point bugging me about it. I’ve never had to stop play to get an itch scratched. But when the ropes or straps come off, any irritation immediately returns.

This lady is about to administer a two for one deal – pain and itching combined, thanks to a big bundle of stinging nettles. This is obviously originally from Femme Fatale Films.

Side effects

Weird question of the week for my readers: Has anyone done a flogging or whipping scene that left their skin incredibly itchy?

Playing in LA last week, I did a scene featuring a fairly heavy flogging and a moderate whipping. It left me with some beautiful marks on my upper back, but it also left that whole area very rough and itchy. Given its inaccessible location for scratching, that makes it particularly frustrating. I’m guessing the skin was dry from the LA heat, and then damaged enough by the heavy flogger to trigger the wound healing itch reaction. It’s kind of odd however, as I’ve never had this kind of reaction before, and certainly nothing that lasts this long. Really hoping I’m not suddenly developing an allergy to leather. That would really cramp my play options.

Given the topic of leather and whips, this striking photograph of Mistress Adrienne of NYC seems an appropriate one to feature. Whatever I was hit with, it was nothing as fearsome as that particular single tail.

Floating and Floaty

I couldn’t finish a trio of posts on bondage and its related equipment without featuring two renowned experts of both the tools and the art – Elise Graves and Troy Orleans. These two shots feature some beautiful leather bondage and a very cool suspended table. I also like the very simple clean space that they’re playing in. For me it always feels a lot more intense and serious to play in a ‘normal’ looking studio space than it does to play in all black dungeon with chains and whips hanging off the walls.

I know from experience that heavy bondage can create a floaty headspace. In this case it also looks like he’s floating in space.

I found this via a tweet on Elise Graves’ twitter feed. It’s obviously from her Bondage Liberation site, which contains all sorts of interesting intense bondage shots.

Memorial Parade

The New Orleans Dominatrix Convention is coming up in October. Specifically it runs from the 4th to the 8th. I’m sadly not going to be there, but if you can attend, you might want to look out for a Second Line Parade that’s being organized. It has been put together by Simone Justice to remember and celebrate the lives of people the BDSM community has lost in recent years. As their press release says…

More than 100 dominatrixes will strut The French Quarter dressed in full fetish regalia comprised of leather, latex and thigh high boots while dancing to a brass jazz band, waving parasols and handkerchiefs.

The second line parade is a uniquely New Orleans tradition, held for many kinds of occasions, and anyone on the street is welcome to join in the revelry.

You can read more about this New Orleans tradition here. It sounds like this one should be quite the event. If you know of anyone you think should be specifically called out for this memorial, then Simone Justice has been collecting suggestions.

I’ve no idea what fetish outfit Simone Justice plans to wear for the parade, but based on this image, I’m sure any attendees will be in for a visual treat. If you’re interested in seeing her in her professional capacity, her main site is here.

Naughty Nicki

I’ve mostly stopped clicking on links that purport to show me celebrities in dominatrix gear. Normally these links just lead me to someone wearing knee high boots or a leather jacket with a couple of extra buckles. Happily Nicki Minaj didn’t get that particular fashion memo, as she went for a full on dominatrix cliche. The only thing that’s missing here is a haughty stare down at a camera shooting from a lower angle.

Frankly, if I booked a session at a dungeon and the mistress turned up wearing this outfit, I’d think she was compensating for something. It’d look OTT even surrounded by chains, whips and a sex swing. It’s kind of surreal court side at a basketball game at the Staples center. I just hope she got to beat someone after the game.

LA fun continued

My LA kinky extravaganza continued today with a second session with Isabella Sinclaire. More cock, ball and nipple torture was on the menu, along with some electrical and breath play. It’s always fun to play with two dommes in close succession, because they always spot the marks the other one left and take them as a challenge. My skin ends up as less a useful wrapping for body parts and more a scoreboard for who gets to make their mark in the most emphatic fashion.

On an unrelated note, allow me to point your attention to this fundraiser for NYC domme Mistress Adrienne.  She’s battling cancer and is currently undergoing a second round of chemo for it. I’ve never personally interacted with Mistress Adrienne (although I did feature her photograph once), but given the names of the people who have been contributing to her fundraiser and tweeting about it, she’s obviously a very highly regarded and much loved member of the community. I chipped in a small contribution yesterday. I’m sure she’d appreciate any others that people can spare.

This is Mistress Adrienne with her slave at Dragcon 2017. I found it via her instagram feed.

Old School Tenderness

This image has a very old school vibe to it. There’s the all black outfits, the leather studded collar, the peaked cap and the grainy black and white photograph. Yet there’s a tenderness and playfulness to it that’s rare in vintage BDSM shots.

I’ve no idea where it’s from. Google tells me that its best guess for the image is ‘February’, which isn’t exactly helpful. If AI ever does take over the world, I think it’s unlikely to get its start as Google’s image search algorithms. They may be ‘A’ but they’re rarely ‘I’. My best guess for it would be a shot from an old pro-domme advertisement in something like DDI, but that’s based on nothing other than my instinct. If anyone does recognize it, I’d love to the who the domme is.

Order of Indomitus

While I might not be into organized matriarchal societies crossed with femdom kinky fun (as discussed in yesterday’s post), I do recognize it as a button pushing fantasy for some. Probably the most well known example of it was the Other World Kingdom, more commonly known as OWK. Although it eventually closed down in 2008, it did run successfully for over a decade, attracting a wide variety of dommes and slaves over that period. This old post of mine has some interesting links on it for those curious about the background story. Mistress Troy of NYC has also posted some thoughts and articles on it.

Sadly for OWK fans there has never been an obvious successor with the same kind of scope and vision. However, some femdom organizations have tried to capture the spirit of OWK, with one of the most recent being The Order of Indomitus. Based on their FAQ and this article it seems like they’ve captured the outdoor play, multi-mistress and immersive femdom fantasy environment that OWK targeted.

Every woman brings something different to the event. 100% of your time is being spent in a non-stop femdom environment with a small undertone of fear, a bit of laughs, a certain amount of comfort, a certain amount of unknown, and depending on what turns you on, a dash to an over-dose of eroticism.

It’s not really my thing, but for anyone out there who really regrets never visiting OWK, it might well be worth checking out.

These images are from the Order of Indomitus web site.

Whips, boots and marks

I normally dislike shots featuring a domme reduced to just her boots or a torso. Faces and a sense of connection between participants is normally important to me. Yet there are always exceptions, and this is one of them. The composition fits both his perspective and the psychology of the scene.

I love the marks on his back, the simplicity of the room and the arrayed selection of implements.  I like to imagine he has been told to maintain that position no matter what, and she has been prowling around him, picking and choosing whips as her whims take her. For almost an hour now the only sound has been her heels, his stifled cries and the occasional self satisfied sigh from her as she inspects the whip marks.

I’m afraid I don’t know the original source for this. You see a larger version on the tumblr that originally posted it.

The places you’ll go

Writing about Kink’s Armory space last week got me thinking about all the different play spaces I’ve experienced over the years. If you’ve never visited a professional BDSM space, you might be surprised where they pop up. Old industrial buildings in the cheaper parts of town are certainly common, but they’re not the only option. For example, over the years I’ve experienced:

  • A big McMansion in a rich suburb. A large chunk of the second floor had been converted to the play space. It was odd to experience being bound and beaten while chinks in the window blinds gave me glimpses of people watering their lawns or kids playing in the street.
  • An ultra-modern loft style condo. I was late to arrive, as I spent the first 10 minutes convinced that the play space must be in the old brick warehouse across the street. That seemed so much more likely than the trendy and expensive condos.
  • The top floor of a downtown office block. It was an incredibly well equipped space, and it must have been a nightmare to get all the big heavy dungeon furniture up the lifts and stairs without arousing suspicion.
  • A townhouse in the heart of San Francisco. I was banned from visiting during the day, as it was thought my screams would disturb the dot com company next door.

Most spaces adopt the functional but cliched black / red color schemes for the walls and equipment, but there are a few happy exceptions. Troy Orleans in NYC has a beautiful establishment with natural light, clean white walls and a very well thought out use of space (see a shot here). Similarly, Lucy Khan in LA has a luxurious and well composed space that actually looks like an interior designer was involved (see a shot here). Personally, I always prefer to play somewhere that feels like a beautiful space to be in, rather than in a dungeon cliche.

This image is by Natasha Gornik and was featured on her tumblr. It doesn’t say so on the post, but I believe that’s Miss Troy Orleans again. I think it’s a nice example of an intense scene but with still a clean and beautiful aesthetic.