The beauty of dominant women
It’s not often a photographer can turn getting dressed into a dynamic action shot. This is a rare and rather lovely example. Her poise and expression are the finishing touches to a great image.
I’m afraid I don’t have a source for this. I located it via She Wears the Pants.
Fans of kink and comedy may want to look out for writer, comedian and findom Lane Kwederis. She’s just put on a sold out Edinburgh Fringe show entitled ‘Sex Job’ based on her findom sex work. The reviews I’ve found (for example here, here and here ) all seem very positive.
Sadly the Edinburgh run has just come to an end but, given its success, I’m sure she’ll be staging it again. Check out her Twitter feed for future information. That’s where I found this shot of her handing out flyers for the show with the help of a handy submissive.
Find of the week has been Nashville garage punk band Be Your Own Pet. Their new album is ‘Mommy‘ and a glance at the associated cover image (below) will make it clear why they first caught my eye. Their promo video for it is a lot of fun – full of fetish, kitsch and old school horror movie shots. Fortunately there’s some great music to go with all the cheese – their new track Worship The Whip being a particularly catchy (and kinky) example. Well worth checking out if you’re also a fan of the punk genre.
I thought I was done with this theme. Then Keri commented that I couldn’t really conclude it without a reference to the show Creamerie. I’d never heard of the series, but having checked it out, I can only conclude that Keri is right. It does seem highly appropriate.
It’s a black comedy from New Zealand, set in a world where (almost) all men have been wiped out and semen has become the most precious commodity. Y: The Last Man had a similar premise, told from the point of view of the eponymous last man. This series is told from the perspective of three women running a conventional dairy farm. For the handful of men leftover, things don’t go well, as the shot below indicates. You can see an animated version of this here. Somehow the milking doesn’t look a fun as in Sardax’s version.
If you’re interested in watching then, in the US at least, it’s available on Hulu. I’ve not seen it yet, but the reviews are pretty good and the premise intriguing, so it’s definitely going on my watch list.
This image might not be quite what you’d expect for that title on this blog. It’s by Chinese photographer Yushi Li and is from a series she’s entitled “Paintings, Dreams and Love”. It was created in reference to a Dutch painting from 1888 entitled The Roses of Heliogabalus.
While the smothering might not be the type normally featured here, I do love the image. It has a particularly dream like quality to it. Yushi Li created the series in response to the eroticism of classical paintings, typically created by men and objectifying women. She places herself in the image for a good reason…
After some mistook her work as being shot by a male photographer, she began inserting herself into the photos — fully clothed alongside naked counterparts, and often the only person looking directly at the camera.
“Instead of being a passive, ‘looked-at’ thing, I want to be the one who is in control, who is creating the story, who is expressing my fantasy,” said Li.
You can see more images from the artist at her main site.
The Guardian has a short but fun article on the sex life of a married pro-domme and her not particularly kinky husband. As you might expect the gap between internet fantasy and reality is a large one. They come across as a sweet couple.
While it’s nice to see a positive story about a sex worker and her happy home life, it does highlight an ongoing problem for the femdom community. Pro-dommes are the very public face of femdom, but many of them may choose to not make it part of their personal lives. That reinforces the idea that femdom is really all about male desires and for women it’s purely a performative act. That’s not the fault of pro-dommes, but it does lead to a skewed perception. I’ve enjoyed the Guardian’s series on couple’s sex lives, but it’s a shame the first femdom mentioned plays yet further into that perception. Fingers crossed there’ll be a regular non-professional domme featured at some point.
This very sexy artwork is by artist Soushiyo. Can find more of their work via their Twitter feed and their comic series Familiar.
Anyone interested in the history of BDSM and located near Barcelona may want to check out a new exhibition at the CCCB – Sade: Freedom or Evil. As the name suggests it’s about the Marquis De Sade, the eponymous root of sadism. For those not in the area there’s a good review of it in the Guardian.
The exhibition features not just his work but also modern artists, including Maplethorpe, Dali and Susan Meiselas photographs of Pandora’s Box. It all sounds very interesting, which is more than I can say for Sade’s actual writing. That always struck me as repetitive and frequently nauseating. I can appreciate extreme kinky fiction, but there’s a level or brutality in his writing that verges more on serial killer fiction than erotica.
I’ll finish with a photograph of a very different type of Sade. This is Ms Sade, who used to work as a pro-domme in NYC. It’s one of my lasting regrets that I never got to play with her before she retired. She was quite the artist herself.
As a fan of CBT I thought I knew most of the crazy things men can do, or have done, to their C’s and B’s. Turns out I was wrong. This ProPublica article is a an eye opening and wince inducing look at surgical penile enlargement. Some of the procedures it describes would have even hardcore CBT fans screaming ‘Red! Red!’ It’s really interesting, and very well written, but I can’t imagine any of the doctors featured will be too happy with it.
Personally I’ll stick to penis enlargement via painful procedures the old fashion way, no scalpel required. Just pinching, biting, slapping, whipping and flicking.
This is another old image I dug from a tumblr archive. It’s original from the Mean Dungeon site.
This 1897 portrait, by the famous American artist John Sargent, is of a Mr. and Mrs. Stokes. It’s unusual for the era, with Edith Stokes front and center in casual street clothes, while her husband Newton takes a more passive background position.
I love the dynamic, with the wife full of life and confidence in the center, while he adopts a neutral, almost servant like position. The same dynamic and energy captured in a modern photograph wouldn’t look out of place on my femdom social media feed.
According to this article it was originally supposed to be a more traditional painting, featuring her in an evening gown standing alone near a small table. It was Sargent’s idea to switch to street clothes and pose her petting a Great Dane.
But when the dog became unavailable the day Sargent went to fetch it, it was Newton himself who, as he writes, “had a sudden inspiration, and offered to assume the role of the Great Dane in the picture”
Given the dynamic of the picture, and the fact the husband was inspired to take the role of a dog / supporting accessory in the picture, one can’t help but wonder if there was a hint of femdom in their relationship. This article on the pictures expresses the view…
Newton was ahead of his time, confident and secure enough to be relegated to the literal shadow of his wife.
Which may well be true, but it might also be true that he actively enjoyed that role.
You’ll have to excuse this post. I’m going to be e a little self-indulgent and feature a celebrity crush. Specifically, Padma Lakshmi, who just announced she was leaving Top Chef. I’m a fan of the show and a fan of Padma. She’s smart, empathetic, loves food and looks amazing while sporting some killer outfits. What’s not to love?
If you like food shows, then I’d suggest checking out her Taste the Nation series. I’ll miss her telling chefs to pack their knives and go, but it’s a fine show in its own right.
This is Top Chef shot of Padma sourced from a Bravo TV Slideshow.