Tag: Mainstream

Losers are losers

I found this recent study on online social dynamics fascinating. Researchers looked at people playing an online videogame (Halo 3) and measured success against their behavior across the genders. It turned out the men were generally complimentary to other male players. Successful men were also complimentary to female players. However, unsuccessful men tended to be nasty and rude to female players. So they were losers in all sense of the word.

This researchers conclusion was that a change in existing social dynamics – in this case an influx of new female players into a previously male dominated area – was a bigger threat to those near the bottom than those near the top. The lower status players had more to lose and hence reacted in an angrier fashion to those they perceive as responsible. This is a conclusion that fits with a lot of my personal observations of life. In a work environment it’s always the confident and expert individuals who are most open to being challenged and debating alternatives. People who are less sure of themselves see each challenge as a direct threat and react accordingly. One could probably do a similar analysis about economics, social classes and the current politics of America.

In the wider world it’s hard to know what the answer to this problem is. Anger from losing out when it comes to economics or social influence can be understandable. But when it comes to online interaction, whether it’s gaming, discussion forums or social media, there’s no excuse for being a douche. If you can’t not be angry then walk away. And if you see someone behaving obnoxiously then call them on it.

gamingThis is by the artist Travis Estrella from his tumblr 1000 Pencils.

Doing it right

Excuse me while I indulge in another celebrity post. This time it’s Kendall Jenner in an outfit that makes for a nice contrast to Megyn’s one in yesterday’s post.

The fashion pages horribly overuse the term dominatrix when it comes to outfits. If any female celebrity steps out in any random black dress or sightly racy boots they call it dominatrix inspired (for example). However, I have to give Kendall Jenner credit here, this is a pretty good domme get-up. She would not look out of place in a dungeon attaching nipple clamps to horny sweaty men.

Of course that’s not say that you need to dress in leather or latex to have kinky fun or top someone. But I do think if newspapers are going to push the cliche of the dominatrix and her outfits, they should at least reserve it for people who have made some effort in that direction.

kendalljenner
Image is from this Daily Mail article.

Megyn

I’m generally not a fan of Megyn Kelly. She has had some good moments in the current election – like this highly entertaining one with Newt Gingrich – but in general she seems to only adopt a progressive viewpoint when it’s something that directly affects her. If it’s some other targeted group, then she hews to a far more right wing viewpoint.

That said, I really do like this shot of her. She has a very forceful look. I’m sure I shouldn’t be sexually fantasizing about a Fox News anchor, but I can’t help thinking of some great kinky fiction I could write about it.

I picture a naive liberal intern coming to work at Fox. He’s from a small town, nervous in the big city and awed by the people he meets. He can’t find a place to stay and so Megan takes pity on him and lends him a room in her palatial home. He’s a farm lad, useful with his hands, and offers to do a few chores around the place in return. It all starts out well enough, but Megan is becoming increasingly frustrated with the sexist and patronizing attitudes of her Fox co-workers. She starts to take it out on him, and the more she’s annoyed by Sean Hannity, the more she enjoys taking it out on our hero. As her career blooms, the cruelty increases and his life disintegrates. Ultimately she celebrates landing a new multi million dollar contract by imprisoning him in the basement and teaching him what trickle down economics is really about.

megyn-kelly

No on Prop 60

A few days ago I wrote that I tried to avoid politics popping up too often on this blog. It turns out I might have lied about that, as I’m about to do another political post. For a change it’s not presidential politics, but local politics. Specifically, Californian politics in the form of proposition 60.

This proposed measure might have achieved something unique in American politics. It mandates that all adult performers would have to wear condoms when filming scenes and, in a country divided on so many other issues, has succeeded in uniting people. Specifically, in uniting people against it. As Casey Calvert points out in this excellent article, both the Californian Republican and the Californian Democratic party are opposed to it. As are adult performers, most major state newspapers, the Libertarian party, Aids Project LA, Equality California, the Transgender Law Center and the San Francisco Aids Foundation. When something has that eclectic a collection of opponents, you know something must be up.

There are a lot of messed up things about the proposed law, but one of the worst seems to be that anyone can sue a producer for a violation. And, given that many performers are also producers (particularly in the femdom genre), that casts a very wide net. Essentially any random weirdo could demand the personal information of anyone they can claim is violating the law. On top of that, if they can win their case, they get 25% of the penalty. Given all the movies already floating around that don’t use condoms, the frequent cross-over between producer/performer, the number of lawyers and weirdo’s in California, and the financial incentives involved, it seems like a recipe for disaster. And that’s not even getting into the issues of practicality and personal rights that Tasha Reign covers in this article.

As a Washington resident I don’t get to vote on this, but I’d urge all my Californian readers to vote no. In the meantime, I’ll use the excuse of mentioning Casey Calvert, to feature this rather lovely shot of her and Ariel X.

caseycalvertThis is from the Foot Worship site.

So right, and yet so so wrong

I’ve been trying to avoid writing lots of posts on politics and the election. I have featured the occasional one or two, but I figure that people see enough elsewhere without it showing up here.

However, these comments today by Rush Limbaugh are too perfect and too applicable to this blog to ignore. In talking about Trump’s groping scandals and penchant for sexual assault, he said the following.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: You know what the magic word, the only thing that matters in American sexual mores today is? One thing. You can do anything, the left will promote and understand and tolerate anything, as long as there is one element. Do you know what it is? Consent. If there is consent on both or all three or all four, however many are involved in the sex act, it’s perfectly fine. Whatever it is. But if the left ever senses and smells that there’s no consent in part of the equation then here come the rape police. But consent is the magic key to the left.

This is so simultaneously correct and incorrect it seems to defy fundamental laws of physics. It’s a bit like the double slit experiment. Much as a photon can be both a wave and a particle, Rush can simultaneously highlight the importance of consent in sexual interaction while arguing against it. Although given a photon has zero resting mass, that’s an analogy that doesn’t stretch much further.

Presumably in his mind it’s better for a man to rape a woman in a good, healthy, as God intended, missionary position kind of way than for two (or three) dudes (or ladies) to fool around together consensually. I’ve no idea what kind of life experiences it takes to lead you to that kind of opinion, but I would be fascinated to know. It can’t be anything remotely normal or healthy. Somebody should also tell him that the ‘rape police’ are actually just the ‘police’.

I’ll leave you with an image I’m sure Rush would not approve of. Admittedly it does contain the morally approved count of 2 people of differing genders, but that doesn’t look like a conventional sex act. God created woman as a helper, not to ride man around like a beast. No matter how much fun it looks.

rideBased on this Italian Marie Claire article, I believe this image is from the site c.a.p. 74024.

Oh, and that double meaning in the post title? Totally intended.

The Lioness

I hadn’t intended to turn yesterday’s post on ‘woman staring into middle distance with man at her feet’ into a series, but then I spotted this image in my queue and couldn’t resist. The lady encouraging the man back into the pool is the great Catherine Deneuve, famous for her roles as (to quote wikipedia) aloof, mysterious beauties. This looks like a fashion magazine shot, but I’m not exactly sure for what. From zooming into the text it looks like it was photographed by Ellen Von Unwerth in NYC in 1999.

lioness

Shoe shopping

I don’t normally go for the ‘woman stares off into middle distance with supercilious air while man grovels around near her feet doing something to her shoes / feet’ type of porn. That may sound like a weirdly specific fetish, but it actually seems to be a pretty common femdom image.

That said, there are always exceptions, and this is one of them. Not entirely sure why it’s an exception, but it does work for me. Possibly because it’s actually a mainstream shot for Sara Navarro shoes, rather than being a posed femdom porn shot. This was part of a show in Madrid presenting the new Sara Navarro collection for 2015. Apparently she’s the only design who “makes scented shoes for women, a sensorial experience unique in the world.” Shoes and scent is certainly a popular combination for some kinky people, although I’d guess most submissives prefer a more au naturel aroma.

saranavarro

Little Moments

When I first encountered this I wasn’t sure if I was looking at femdom, a peice of performance art or acrobats practicing for an all new all nude Cirque du Soleil show. It turns out to be one photographs from a series called Little Moments by photographer AdeY. The images in the series are designed to…

…depict imbalances evident in contemporary society today by directly addressing issues of gender, normative behaviour and how society forces us to choose one direction or path. The subjects show our venerability, loneliness, strengths and expectations whilst highlighting the correlation between body and space.

You can see other images from the series here. Not the typical kind of shots I feature here, but I do think they’re interesting.

alittlemoment

Dark Circus

This interview with film director Julia Ostertag caught my eye today. She has a new movie coming out called Dark Circus, which features a lot of fetishistic and kinky themes. Judging from the trailer it looks to be the kind of twisted surreal art movie that I used to love as a student, but don’t seem to have the patience for these days. I mention it here for what the director said in the interview about filming one of the group scenes.

I really liked how there was one girl, a real poster beauty who I’d never seen before, and she said, “I’d really like to beat up a man, but not with a whip, with my bare fists. Would that be possible?” and I said, “Well, I’m sure we can find someone” And we did! There was someone, a sub, already tied to a chair wanting to be punished by his mistress and she joined them and hit him with her bare fists. You can see it in the ritual scene towards the end! I liked that energy!

My first thought was ‘What a lucky submissive’. My second thought was ‘I really hope the mistress supervised that.’ Punching someone correctly can be tricky. Get it wrong and it can be bad for both the puncher and the punchee. Although if I was the sub, I’d probably have taken the chance. Hopefully the poster beauty in question discovered her inner domme in the process.

punchedIn the context I discovered this image – a femdom blog surrounded by femdom porn – I original assumed it was particularly artistic shot of aftercare from a scene. In fact I now think it’s a shot from a TV series about boxing called Lights Out that originally aired on FX back in 2011.

Better than yoga?

Articles on BDSM and mindfulness have been popping up across the web in recent days. The first I spotted was at Time magazine, and since then I’ve seen similar articles at sites like Bustle, Instinct Magazine and Medical Daily. They were triggered by research published in the journal Psychology of Consciousness that claimed that BDSM could put people in a state of ‘flow’, where the rest of the world falls away and their concentration is heightened on the present moment.

It’s good to see positive BDSM stories on mainstream sites, and I doubt many people in the kinky world would dispute the idea of BDSM leading to altered mental states. Getting into subspace might not be the only reason people play, but it’s often an important one. That said, I do have problems with the study (as it’s described in the mainstream press)…

  1. They only picked 7 couples, which is a tiny number to study. On top of that, the couples had a variety of relationship states (from long term to just met), introducing more variables into the tiny sample.
  2. They randomly assigned top/bottom status. If everyone involved was a switch that might be OK, but if not, then it would seem very problematic. Ask me to top someone and you will not get mindfulness. You’ll get anxiety, stress and a partner stuck in a tangled web of granny knotted ropes. Switching for non-switches is not a good measure of normal BDSM play.
  3. It doesn’t appear that they distinguished between top and bottom space. I’m not an expert on top space, but from what I’ve read it seems quite different to bottom space. Both have elements of being in the moment and the rest of the world falling away. However, top space seems to be about concentration and focus, a sense of mastery that aligns with the more traditional ideas of mindfulness and flow. Bottom space, for me at least, is not like that at all. It’s about not thinking clearly, surrendering to the moment and disassociating. I hear tops describe their state as having heightened intuition and understanding, where I can barely form words when deep in bottom space.

Hopefully the study will at least be a good starting point for further research. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with an image of a couple in their own particular state of flow. From the watermark I assume it was something to do with this event (I found it here).

flow