Tag: Mainstream

Off on my travels

I’m taking off to San Francisco for a vacation. As is usual for my trips, good food and kinky fun is the plan of record. Like I did for LA earlier this year, I’m going to try playing with someone I know well and someone new. I figure that’s a good way to simultaneously broaden my experiences while also building on past relationships. Although, after getting beaten up multiple times in the space of a few days, my body might not be a fan of my plan.

Normally at this point I’d offer pre-apologies for a potential lack of blogging. But quite frankly, given my busy recent life and slack blogging, a vacation might actually give me chance to write more than usual. We’ll see how that works out.

I’ll leave you with an image that I like, but I have absolutely no context for. I originally assumed it was from a fashion shoot, but nothing like that showed up on an image search. I believe it’s the actress Gwendoline Christie, but exactly why she’s decided to grab this gentleman by the face, I’ve no idea.

The safeword is ‘lawyer’

Via the Detroit News comes this story of a domme called Temptress Nirvana facing prison time for blackmail. It’s hard to tell if this was a fin domme scene gone very badly wrong, a straight out extortion attempt or something in-between. The article seems to rely almost entirely on the police report, which is certainly damming, but hardly a trustworthy and unbiased source. The domme’s twitter feed looks like a lot of similar ones from other fin dommes. i.e. Lots of selfies, suggestions to send money and reports of cash gifts.

Whatever the details of this particular case, I can’t help thinking that this might be the kind of thing we see a lot more of in coming years. For one, it typically seems to involve horny older men with a humiliation and blackmail fetish talking to young and attractive but inexperienced women who want money. That seems like a combination primed for disaster. I’m sure there are some highly skilled and trustworth fin dommes out there but, like every area in life, the bad always outnumber the good.

The other things that makes me think this’ll be a repeating storyline is changing demographics. Fetishes are said to develop when people are children or adolescents. Most of today’s middle-aged men with money and blackmail fetishes will not have grown up with the internet. The generation that follows them will have. They’ll have experienced formative events involving social media, and I have to think that’ll play into what kinks are popular in the years to come. If doing online blackmail scenes becomes increasingly popular, then it’s inevitable there will be more spinning out control and ending up in court.

From a personal perspective, I don’t need help from someone like Temptress Nirvana to spend my money. Most of it has a very brief and passing relationship with my bank account at the best of times.

This is from the twitter feed of the domme in question.

Eve’s Glory

I hadn’t intended to continue the WWI theme beyond yesterday’s post. It’s not exactly a great femdom or feelgood topic. However, then I remembered an exhibition of photographs I’d stumbled across called Eve’s Glory. It was by the photographer A. Tamboly and featured women wearing classic military uniforms from the 19th and early 20th century. While at first it seems a bit gimmicky, I actually think it’s a really interesting way to look back at that era. They reminded me of cosplay, or a videogame, which speaks to the impossibility of the images. It’s inconceivable to imagine a woman in a senior military role of the time, and these images really make that resonate.

I believe this uniform is that of a German Field Marshall from pre-WWI.

Hurrah Germania!

It’s not often that femdom artwork intersects with momentous world events, but I believe this cartoon is one such case. I couldn’t find any background information for it but, given I’m an enormous history nerd, I can take an educated guess. Apologies if this ends up being a lot of history and very little femdom, but I think the cartoon has a fascinating connection to a historical turning point that shaped the entire 20th century.

The man being beaten by Lady Germania is Joseph Chamberlain, a key figure in the British government before the First World War and father of the infamous (to be) Neville. In Joseph’s era, Britain was the dominant world and naval power, and Germany was rapidly becoming the dominant European land power. Some elements of the two governments thought they should form an Anglo-German alliance, each concentrating on their respective strengths on land and at sea. Together with America, they believed this would allow them to divide up and dominate the world. This was opposed by those on the British side who thought it would just give Germany a chance consolidate their power in Europe before turning on Britain. In the German camp there was opposition from those who thought they could never be a world power without building a challenge to the Royal Navy, which Britain would never stand for.

Ironically, despite this cartoon, Joseph Chamberlain was actually one of the key British figures pushing for friendship and alliance with Germany in the late 1890’s. This cartoon was probably published around 1901 when his third attempt at negotiating an alliance had fallen through over a dispute on the conduct of British soldiers in the Boer war. Chamberlain in turn attacked the conduct of German troops, their press castigated him and Britain ultimately ended up allied with France and Russia against Germany.

It’s intriguing to think what would have happened if he’d succeeded. WWI clearly would have not happened or would have unfolded very differently. And WWI was the defining event of the 20th century. From it flowed the Russian revolution and communism, America’s transition to a world power, the collapse of European states in fascism and and ultimately WWII. From that flowed the Cold War, the collapse of the colonial empires, the rebuilding of Japan and the growth of China.

Of course it’s impossible to know what the world would have been like if Chamberlain hadn’t end up under the lash of progress by Lady Germania. I think it’s safe to say it would have been a very different place. I wonder what the artist would have thought if he’d known what was to come?

Google Translate doesn’t a good job of the top text, so if anyone can help with a translation there I’d be interested to know what it says. The bottom appears to be “A striking answer by the German people to the attacks of Chamberlain.”

Cool Britannia

Despite the British theme, this is actually by an Italian artist, the great Milo Manara (featured previously here). At first and even second glance, I thought it was a watersports image, but she’s actually pouring from a bottle. From other images I’ve found – for example this one – it seems to have been used in a Strongbow Cider advertising campaign. Which I find quite extraordinary. If you’re selling a bright yellow liquid as a mass market beverage, why on earth would you want to make a urine connection? Or associate your product with toilet artwork like this?

I think it’s a great image, but even for those like me, who love femdom and watersports, it’s not the kind of thing I want in my head when I’m ordering a pint of something cool and refreshing at a bar. I guess if the bartender was hot and served it in this fashion, then maybe, but most British pubs don’t offer that kind of customer service. If they did, I might never have left the old country.

I found this on the Female Dominance in Mainstream Media tumblr.

Doctor Who?

The BBC has announced that the new Doctor Who will be Jodie Whittaker, the first woman to take the role. The reactions to this were entirely predictable: A lot of positive comments; a lot of whining about the PC police ruining the character; a lot of internet analysis of the significance of the decision and what the subsequent whining tells us about society and internet culture.

I used to watch the original series as a child, when Tom Baker and Peter Davidson took the role, but I’ve never really got into the recent revival of the series. As I’ve mentioned before, for someone with geeky tendencies, I’m not big on sci-fi and fantasy shows (with one exception). I’ll probably check out this new incarnation of the Doctor however. Jodie Whittaker was good in Broadchurch and, if the scripts are decent, I can see her creating an intriguing version of the character.

I was tempted to finish this post with some hot Doctor Who cosplay, but decided that the image below was more suited to this blog. It features the characters Amy Pond, Rory Williams and the eleventh Doctor. I’m afraid I don’t know the artist.

Learning from an expert

Last week I wrote in a post about BDSM and medical treatment that I figured medical professionals would have seen crazier things than any kink related injury I could turn up with. Apparently in Scotland they’re not leaving that kind of knowledge acquisition to chance. At Napier university in Edinburgh, healthcare professional on a graduate course are getting a lesson on sex work and kink from pro-domme Megara Furie.

It seems like an excellent idea. Sex workers and kinksters indulging in risky physical activity are exactly the kind of people who need to be able to talk openly to health professionals. As Megara says…

I’m definitely up for anything that helps to educate people and brings this out into the open. It takes away some stigma and makes everyone’s life easier.
Megara, 33, finds that her own forthright approach puts most nurses and doctors at ease.
She said: “I’m very open about what I do. I don’t explain my job and then look at my feet. I say, ‘Yeah, I’m a dominatrix, I love what I do.’ I’m very positive about it myself.

I’ve featured her in a previous post, and doing so again gives me the chance to use this image from Megara’s twitter feed. I’ve no idea what it’s about, but I do hope that teddy bear knows his safe word.

You can find Megara’s main site for arranging sessions here.

All the cool kids are doing it

Teen Vogue is not a publication that I thought would ever intersect with my areas of interest. As an actual teen (many, many years ago) I might have sneaked a look at Cosmopolitan sex articles now and again, but Vogue was always far too high fashion and culture to be interesting.

Fast forward a couple of decades and, weirdly, comments about Teen Vogue articles began popping up on my radar from political twitter feeds I follow. Apparently they were doing a better job than a lot of mainstream sources in covering the disaster zone that is American politics. Now I find myself linking to this recent piece on BDSM and consent. It doesn’t break new ground on the topic, but for a magazine with ‘Teen’ in the title, it’s a pretty solid article. Sex and teenagers is always going to be a combustible combination, particularly when you mix in the crazy complexity that is BDSM. Unfortunately banning behavior with teenagers never works, particularly when material is just a click away on the internet, so I’m happy to see this kind of well thought out mainstream coverage.

This looks like an image cut from Manga, but I don’t have an original attribution unfortunately.

Over promising

Here’s an article whose title writes a check that the contents can’t cash – 8 stunning dominatrix portraits that’ll change the way you think about BDSM. The Independent used to be a real newspaper, but it seems Buzzfeed is now the role model.

It’s based on a book called Dominas by the photographer Max Eicke. You can see the book in a video at his site. The book may stand up as a piece of art in itself, particularly with additional context from interviews, but you’re not going to overturn BDSM stereotypes with photographs of pro-dommes wearing their fetish gear and staring into camera. That’s a shot that’s in almost every pro-domme’s gallery, and about 50% of femdom tumblr content. Maybe start photographing and talking to non-professional dominant women if you want to overturn some stereotypes?

This is Fräulein Schmidt, one of the dominas featured in the book, and one of the few not in full on fetish gear. You can read more about the project in this article from huck magazine.

Dancers and Dommes

In a classic case of ‘why did nobody think of this before’, the artist Natalie Frank has done a series of painting featuring both professional dancers and professional dommes. I think that’s a very smart juxtaposition, given the physical, artistic and collaborative aspects that both professions share. That said, while I appreciate the paintings she’s created, it feels like a great idea that needs further development. There’s a sense of movement and rhythm inherent in both, and which comes through in her dancer paintings, but is less obvious in the domme ones. That set of pictures seem oddly static, which is strange given her underlying concept. I feel she captures the dynamic of the participants, without capturing the physical energy of a typical scene.

The exhibition is on display at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago.