Tag: Mainstream

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.

Madame Nhu

I’m currently halfway through reading Neil Sheehan’s ‘A Bright Shining Lie.‘ It’s a fascinating book on the many (many) stupid things America did in the 1960’s in Vietnam. The reason I mention here is the figure of Madame Nhu. She was the sister-in-law of President Diem, who ruled – with American support – from 1955 to his overthrow and assassination in 1963.

By most accounts she was a fairly terrible person and associated with an awful regime. She was also very forceful and dominated the men around her. She bullied her younger brother when they were children and dominated the men in the Diem government, yelling and shouting to get her way. She once stated that “Power is wonderful. Total power is totally wonderful.” Sheehan describes her household like so…

The servants were all men. They would shuffle in bent over in a low bow, bow lower, and acknowledge her commands with a long “Daaa…” (the D pronounced like a Z), a servile form of “yes” for servants in old, aristocratic households; then they would shuffle back out still bent over.

Of course, in reading it now, one also has to allow for the racism and sexism of the time. Women from Asia were stereotyped as either sexy and submissive or evil scheming seducers. The US media called her the ‘Dragon Lady’, which made no sense to the Vietnamese, and Defense Secretary McNamara described her “…as bright, forceful, and beautiful, but also diabolical and scheming—a true sorceress.”

She proved to be lucky as well. When her husband and brother-in-law’s regime was overthrown in a coup, she was is the US. While they were executed in ’63 with a shot to the back of the head, she lived to be 86, and passed away in 2011 in Europe.

Madame Nhu

Happy International Women’s Day

International Women’s Day has grown in coverage and importance in the US over recent years, which can only be a good thing. This years event gives me a chance to share a couple of quote that I’ve always liked. No doubt a lot of my readers will have heard them before, as they’re far from new, but they still put a smile on my face

The first was from Charlotte Whitton in ’63 – “Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily this is not difficult.”

The other is about the famous dancer Ginger Rogers and her partner Fred Astaire – “Sure he was great, but don’t forget that Ginger Rogers did everything he did, …backwards and in high heels.” This was originally from a cartoon in ’82 although widely misattributed.

This image is very much not Fred and Ginger. In fact it’s the professional latin dancers Nikolai Voronovich and Maria Nikolishina.

Tom of Finland

I’ll admit it’s a little unusual to feature Tom of Finland on a Femdom blog. He’s undoubtedly a famous figure in BDSM art, but women, dominant or otherwise, don’t really feature too heavily in his oeuvre.

He’s featured in today’s post because there’s a new biopic on him being released, and to promote it a bunch of Finnish celebrities dressed up in leather, much in the style of Tom’s artwork. The lady below is Jenni Vartiainen, a Finnish pop singer. What I really loved about this particular campaign was that they didn’t just get fashion designs, singers and actors to star. They also got an MP and former defense minister Stefan Wallin and, most amazingly of all, the former US ambassador to Finland Bruce Oreck. Both of them also looked pretty good. In a time when US political appointments are very much in the news, it’s nice to see a former one doing something like this. I can’t see too many of the current round of appointees being up for promoting an artist known for hyper masculine homoerotic fetish art.

Jenni Vartiainen

Fun with Feet

This’ll be a short post. I flew back to Seattle tonight after a very enjoyably but tiring weekend in Vegas. Unpacking awaits. In the meantime, I’ll keep the feet theme going from the last post. I don’t feature a lot of foot fetish stuff, as it’s not my kink, and it’s hard to find broadly appealing shots. Endless close-ups of high heels and men licking them get kind of dull. The shot below caught my eye for it’s playfulness.

I believe this is from a mainstream Brazilian series called A Regra do Jogo (English: Rules of The Game). From a Google translation: Giovanna Antonelli has invaded Alexander Nero’s party and demanded he be her sexual slave. Sounds fair to me.