The beauty of dominant women
Here’s the final entry into my trio of bondage themed posts. This beautiful rope work is from Mistress Hinako. There’s some lovely details in here, like the rope across the palms that is taken up into a tie across the foot. It doesn’t look like much when you first glance at the photograph, but I’m sure the person experiencing it first hand is very aware of it.
If you’d like to see more from Mistress Hinako, she has a lot of high quality content available here.
This is a continuation of yesterday’s post on the challenge for submissives to speak up while playing. I’m certainly no expert, but I thought I’d share a couple of pieces of advice I’ve found useful.
Firstly, don’t assume that just because you’re doing a familiar activity, with someone you’ve played with before, you won’t need to speak up. Mental and physical states are always changing. I was caught out in this way one time while being single tailed by Mistress Mara Mayhem in Chicago. We’d played together several before and this certainly wasn’t a new activity for me. Unfortunately on the way to her space, my uber driver’s radio had been describing the gruesome details of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi by the Saudi government. It was a disturbing story and for some reason, as we were playing, I couldn’t get it out of my head. My thoughts were racing and I began to feel faint. It seemed stupid. The physical sensations weren’t that intense and my position wasn’t uncomfortable. Yet somehow the combination of the session stress and my messed up thoughts almost pushed me into passing out. Luckily Mistress Mara is an expert and picked up something was going on, giving me a cue to communicate and temporarily stop the scene. I was relying on my history of play to guide me, rather than listening to what my body was telling me at that moment.
The other piece of advice I’d give to submissives is to try and be transparent and informational with your communication, rather than directive. The submissive’s role isn’t to control scene, but to give the domme the information she needs to make the scene work. For example, consider the situation of being put into an uncomfortable bondage position that you’re not sure about. Can you tolerate it? You might not want to immediately say you can’t handle it, but you also don’t want to wait until all the ropes in place and then have to stop everything. Giving informative but neutral feedback like “I can handle this, but probably not for a long period” can help the domme adjust if necessary. Maybe a short period is all she was aiming for. Maybe she’ll dig for more details so she can tweak the position.
Being transparent in feedback doesn’t have to involve words. I always try and make the volume of my cries and moans reflect the intensity of the sensation I feel. If you grit your teeth right up until you’re forced to yell ‘Red!’ then you’ve given the domme nothing to work with and then a command to stop. Giving honest feedback via my yelps helps her fine tune the scene while keeping a natural D/s flow.
Here’s an example of clear communication in the other direction from Yumine Guo. I don’t think the domme has left much doubt about her opinions.
I think this is a very cute way to combine a zentai kink with a service and submission one. There’s also a touch of objectification to it, creating a resemblance to a futuristic domestic android. It’d be fun to do a formal femdom tea party staffed purely by submissives dressed this way.
This was posted by Lady Grace, a San Francisco based domme.
This is (in an obscure way) a follow-up to my previous post on the interaction between fantasy and reality. I like the image below because it stimulates both sides of my brain. The fantasy side loves the bondage and the sense of isolation this pose has. A few years ago, that would have been my only thoughts on this image. Now I simultaneously admire the clever hatch based bondage (hiding the tie points from guests) while also worrying about his knees. Strappado is bad, but knee pain from being on a hard uneven surface is really tough. That’s not the kind of thing you pick up on until you’ve tried it. It’s a very masochistic experience.
This image by Mistress Hinako makes for a nice complement to yesterday’s post. I think if you simply described the setup of the two images to someone they’d assume the wall bondage with straps was the realistic one and the man mummified entirely in rope was the fantasy artwork. Yet with this Mistress Hinako has managed to pull off one of the more spectacular rope bondage scenes I’ve seen in a long while.
Much as I love the aesthetics of this, I’m not sure I’d want to be the submissive. According to the blog post it took about 2 hours to create this set-up. Plastic wrap or bondage tape might not look as cool, but they’re definitely a faster way to mummify someone. I’d rather save my play time for the post bondage torture. But for all the rope sluts out there, this would definitely be an unforgettable scene.
You can see more shots of the rope mummy from Mistress Hinako’s blog post. If you’d like to see movies of her in action, then her clips store is here.
There’s a common theory from the anti-porn crowd that the more porn you look at the more extreme your tastes will be. It’s a typical slippery slope argument. One day you’re getting off to 60’s playboy covers, and a few months later you’re tracking down pictures of oiled up Roman gladiators doing unspeakable things to each other with a rubber trident and a well trained octopus.
It’s obviously bullshit, as my 20+ years of looking at naughty pictures demonstrates. My tastes may have broadened, but they haven’t got significantly more depraved. In fact, in many ways I’ve got more critical of unrealistic or extreme imagery. I’m now drawn to scenes that have a stronger connection with reality and ones that I can almost imagine doing myself.
For example, what caught my eye in this image was the carefully placed padded bolster in his back and the tight but not too tight straps. It’s very hot bondage, that’s certainly difficult to pull off this neatly in reality, but it’s not crazy or an impossible physical position. Even his verbalization, with the moans and coughs through the bit gag is relatable.
I’m afraid I don’t know the original artist for this work. As usual, if you can help me attribute it, then please leave a comment.
After my strangely sexy post of last week, today I have something that’s weirdly hot. I’m not particularly into foot torture and yet this shot, by Mistress Hinako, really grabs me. I think it’s the contrast between the heavy restrictive rope bondage and the artfully placed clothespins. It’s a beautifully balanced pose and picture. Severity around the torso and delicacy around the toes.
This is from this tweet by Mistress Hinako and also her new blog post, which features more images from the same session. If you’d like to see more of her work, she has a members site here.
Vice has an interesting article on someone discovering and using rope bondage as an aid to coping with the anxiety. I can’t say it has that effect on me, but I do understand where he’s coming from, particularly with more complex and ornamental bondage. Concentrating on a difficult physical activity can often bring focus and a meditative state, and bondage enhances that with a sense of control and being held.
I also like the comparison he draws with yoga. This bondage scene looks a bit like a variation on locust pose, although I can’t imagine it’s a great position for reducing anxiety or relaxing.
This ropework is by the famous Julie Simone (from her bondage gallery), who was the first woman to win the ‘Best Rigger’ award in 2004. She’s currently based in SE Missouri and available for personal sessions.
Real life continues to get in the way of my blogging. It’s now 4am local time, and I really need to get to bed, but I also don’t like to leave it this long between posts. So I’m continuing the intermission concept with some more eye candy. This time it’s a beautiful piece of suspension bondage, shot by the photographer Weronika Bachleda. The rigger is Gestalta.
I found this via a tweet by Ruby Marks.
This is a pretty clever design for a restraint system. It reminds me of a bondage chair, which is always one of my favorite things to be strapped to in a dungeon. They create a great sense of vulnerability, while also allowing the submissive to see the dominant and know exactly what she’s about to do to him.
In this case hanging the submissive on the walls not only removes the need for an extra piece of furniture, but also adds a touch of objectification. It’s not very clear, but I assume there’s some sort of shelf that he’s perched on, so all the weight doesn’t fall on the limbs. Just perfect for some CBT and nipple torture.
This particular piece of dungeon apparatus is located at the Sub Rosa space in Portland Oregon. This image came courtesy of Mistress Viola’s twitter feed.