Tag: Mainstream

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.

False bill of goods

I finally got around to watching the Bond movie Spectre. The film itself was entertaining enough (although not a patch on Daniel Craig’s first crack at Bond), but I was very disappointed in the role give to the fabulous Monica Bellucci. A lot of the hype on the release had been around Bond finally sparring with a woman his own age and Bellucci playing a Bond woman rather than a Bond girl. Sadly in the movie she’s a throwaway character with zero agency. In traditional Bond style he saves her life, seduces her, gets the information he needs and moves onto the next thrilling action sequence. Exit Monica for parts unknown.

Bond, as I should have guessed,ends up with the attractive blonde (played by Léa Seydoux) who is 17 years his junior. What a wasted opportunity. Ms Seydoux does a fine job, but it’d be great to see a Bond movie where the leading lady can match him for style, experience and character.

This is Monica Bellucci in a shot taken from her role in the Matrix Reloaded.

Putin Propaganda

If I had to make a list of unlikely source for blogging material then propaganda from Russian president Vladimir Putin, frankly, wouldn’t have been on there. That’s because it would never have even crossed my mind to consider it. But if someone had then suggested it to me, I’d have been happy to add it to the top of the list. Yet this article is here to prove me wrong.

The material in question is a pop video by Alisa Vox. I’ve no idea what she’s saying – apparently it’s an anti-protest song – but I have to admire government propaganda featuring an attractive lady in a cliched ‘hot teacher’ outfit brandishing a stick and slapping it menacingly. Putin’s government may be authoritarian, repressive and corupt, but their music video department is at least delivering pop tunes and stern yet sexy teachers.

Wonder Women

After an endless stream of male superhero movies (Batman, Superman, Ironman, Spiderman, Ant-Man, Captain America, Thor, Deadpool, etc.) we’re finally getting a female superhero flick in the form of Wonder Woman. It’s due out on June 2nd in the US and, to celebrate, the Alamo Drafthouse chain decided they’d host a small number of women only screenings with proceeds going to Planned Parenthood. This fine idea was of course instantly attacked by a bunch of whiny male assholes whose sense of entitlement is inversely proportional to their IQ. Happily the theater chain’s response to all this whining was to add more women only shows at their other locations.

I’m looking forward to the movie. I’m sure I’ll manage to somehow squeeze into one of the eleventeen-billion showings that are open to all genders. In the meantime, I enjoyed the picture below from this article. From left to right that’s Patty Jenkins (director), Sue Kroll (president of marketing and distribution), Gal Gadot (star of the new film) and Lynda Carter (star of the old TV show). Nice to see women in key positions behind the screen as well as in front of it.

Trying too hard

It’s time for another post where I rag on celebrities for getting BDSM outfits wrong. Normally I’m complaining that wearing a leather jacket or a pair of boots does not constitute a BDSM outfit. In this case the problem is the opposite one.

Nobody could accuse Nicki Minaj of being subtle at the recent Billboard Music Awards. She’s got latex, chains and leather everywhere. There’s even backing dancers in pink gas masks. I’m just not sure what the hell’s going on with this outfit. It’s like she went drunk shopping at a fetish store closing down sale, and then decided to wear everything at once. Although I guess it does succeed in one respect. If I saw a domme coming at me in this outfit, I might not think it was sexy, but I’d definitely be scared.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

The ratio of dominant women to submissive men is a topic of conversation that pops up fairly regularly across femdom blogs and forums. Most submissive men will maintain their are lots more of them than dominant women. In contrast, I’ve observed some dominant women claim that lots of the play events they attend have a ratio close to parity or even skewed to a majority of dominants.

I’ve done my own highly unscientific research in the past, and now OKCupid  have done something a bit more scientific, sampling their userbase. They have a chart showing ‘Turn-ons by gender’, which has good news in general for kinky people, but bad news for people searching for a Femdom relationship.

The good news part is a lot of people seemed to be into general kinkiness. Over 60% of both genders liked of the idea of ‘rough sex’ and over 50% ‘being bitten’. Even enjoying ‘some pain’ was over 30% of both genders. Those numbers are higher than I’d have guessed, although I’m sure the general populace would skew lower than OKCupid users.

The bad news is that the survey terms that tend to be high for both genders don’t differentiate top from bottom. Once you start doing that, then a more stereotypical view of kink emerges. Over 40% of men in this survey like tying people up but less than 20% enjoy being tied up. A majority of them like taking control (~60%) but only around 20% are happy for their partner to take control. Women are pretty much the reverse of that Less than 10% of survey women like taking control or doing the tying. In contrast over 40% like being tied up and over 60% like their partner taking control.

That means, purely from a population size perspective, anyone hunting on OKCupid for an M/f relationship is likely to have a much easier time of it than an F/m one. In terms of the ratios, then it looks roughly like a 2:1 between dominant women to submissive guys. Almost 20% of guys like being tied or giving up control, where a little less than 10% of women enjoy being in charge of the ropes.

This is by the photographer Martin Duerr from a series called The Hotel.

The Kingdom of Women

If you’ve hung around femdom blogs long enough, there’s a good chance you’ll have heard the Mosuo mentioned. They’re an old Chinese community who, as far as I know, are the only example of a matriarchal society in the world. Women sit at the center of their world, with the Grandmother the focus of the family unit, and the traditional idea of marriage doesn’t exist. Relationships are female driven, with men taken as temporary lovers in order to provide sperm or sometimes as longer term partners if their company is deemed enjoyable.

I mention them now because this Guardian article popped up today with a detailed description of their culture, in both its positive and negative aspects. Although it seems a very feminist culture, the focus on motherhood and children undercuts that initial impression. Women are in control, but that control stems from their role as mothers. The idea of not having children isn’t considered one of their choices.

Of course, as so often happens, unique and unusual cultures tend to get distorted and then ultimately destroyed when they come into contact with the modern Westernized world. The Mosuo are no exception. If you’re interested in learning more about them before that happens, the article is based on a book by Choo Waihong.

I believe this image of a non-traditional twist on a traditional Western marriage look features Jake and Pum Lefebure and was photographed by Dean Alexander.