The beauty of dominant women
I love the fact that this very intricate bondage is both beautiful and functional. Shibari is frequently aesthetically pleasing, but can sometimes look impractical for serious play or simply be ornate without restraining. This pulls off all the elements. I particularly like the detailing around his feet and legs. Those heels look painful, but I don’t think he’s going to be getting away.
This is by Mistress Juri from Ginza Prezis, as featured previously in this post.
Last month I ranted on the topic of limits and avoiding them. I didn’t intend that rant to turn into a monthly occurrence but, as luck would have it, I do have a new topic to address – chilly dungeons. It’s not quite as serious an issue, but what use is a blog if you can’t have a good rant now and again?
Admittedly a cold dungeon is probably more realistic. I doubt that medieval castles had much in the way of underfloor heating or goose down duvets for their prisoners. Yet oddly enough, when I’m naked and being carefully tied to a spanking bench by an attractive lady dressed in leather and heels, historical accuracy isn’t high on my list of requirements.
You might also think that a masochist would enjoy the extra torment of a freezing space. Or that it might help distract from the actual pain being inflicted. Yet oddly enough, I find it makes it much harder to deal with intense play. Everything is more snappy and stingy when it’s cold. Skin is more sensitive, and it’s hard to get into the right head space when being distracted by shivering body parts. I want to relax and soak into the pain, not spend my time wondering how warm the straight jacket hanging in the corner would be.
In the handful of times I’ve encountered this problem, it has never been the fault of the domme I was playing with. They’ve always been renting a space that was badly set-up, too cold to start with, and they couldn’t fix it in the time we had available. So if you’re reading this and you own a play space, my ask to you is either…
I think the perfect set-up is to have one large traditional playroom and then several smaller spaces that can be used if necessary. That’s what Lydia has and what I’ve seen in several other commercial spaces. Or I guess you could live in a hot region and play outside like these two. He might now have to worry about ants and spiders, but at least he’s warm.
This is Isis Love and Rok from a Men in Pain shoot. I found it on the Femdom Experience tumblr.
It’s important that a masochist learns to scream correctly. Not to mention moan, whimper, flinch and wince. Volume or pitch isn’t important, but consistency and honesty is. Anytime I play I’m trying to give good feedback about the intensity of the experience and what headspace I’m in. It’s not like I get hit and then think “Hmmm, that feels like a level 7 moan. And maybe a level 5 flinch.” Instead I aim for a natural transparent reaction, and to resist the urge to occasionally exaggerate my response in order to control the scene. When the intensity is ratcheting up it can sometimes be tempting to do that and get ahead of what I know might be coming.
Of course, an expert domme can normally accurately assess just how painful her actions are and how genuine the reaction to them is. For the less experienced then help maybe at hand. It turns out that computers can be amazingly good at judging how genuine a reaction to pain is. According to this article, when shown video of people experiencing or faking pain, humans were essentially hopeless at guessing which was which, while computer software got it right 85% of the time. I find that an astonishing number. It would be interesting to put a selection of dominants through the same test and see if they were any better at spotting the fakers. I also wonder if adding sound to the test would have significantly improved the score for the humans.
Apparently one of the best indicators is the dynamics of the mouth opening. I’d guess this scene would provide some useful training data for the software. I don’t think he’s faking it.
This is from the Men in Pain site. I found it on the Alternative Femdom tumblr.
Here’s my BDSM tip of the day: If you’re looking for a particularly painful place to drip candle wax, then the taint is a great go to area. It’s even more painful than the balls or the cock. I acquired this information first hand courtesy of Lydia. I think I may be washing bits of wax out of odd crevices for days to come.
This image doesn’t feature that particular area of the body, but it does have rope, tender nipples and chest waxing, which also featured in my evenings entertainment. This is Bobbi Starr in a shoot for Divine Bitches.
I maintain a Google alert on the term ‘dominatrix’. I originally figured that if the term popped up in a news article it’d be a likely article for me to post about. In actuality what it means is that I get an endless stream of links to articles featuring celebrities wearing something that, if you squint and don’t concentrate too hard, could be vaguely considered to be fetish wear. It doesn’t seem to matter what it is, or what the context is, just so long as it’s slightly non-conventional.
Some of them I kind of understand (for example this) while others are completely ridiculous (for example this). The latest example, and one that falls firmly into the ridiculous camp, is Kylie Minogue, with this and then this. Kylie is undoubtedly a very attractive woman, but I’ve played with a lot of amazing dommes, and not one of them has worn anything like those outfits. If you’re going to call something a dominatrix outfit then may I suggest this outfit by Mistress Shae Flanigan as a reference point? Obviously you can be dominant in anything you damn well choose, including fuzzy slippers. But if you’re going to invoke cliches, at least make sure it’s an accurate one.
Women shopping for shoes in Walmart should watch out. If a gentleman claims to be a podiatry student or a producer of America’s funniest home videos then it’s possible he’s not being entirely truthful. If he starts sucking your toes, he’s almost certainly not who he claims to be.
Scott Adams once wrote that he assumed all shoe salesmen are secret foot fetishists, because they’d obviously agree to do the job for less money than a non-fetishist. Presumably the two geniuses in the above articles couldn’t pass the interview for that job, and had to resort to more underhand methods.
I’m afraid I don’t know who photographed this happy lady and her foot admirer. I’m personally not particularly into feet, but I do like her smile. I found it on the Alternative Femdom tumblr.
Here’s a piece of art that I suspect will divide my readers into two distinct groups of ‘love it’ and ‘hate it’. I’m in the former, as I love the connection between her and the submissive. There’s his plaintive look, the eye contact, her hand on his head and his hand around her thigh. Pure man on man action doesn’t do much for me, but add a feminine element into the mix and somehow it works. I know for others the prospect of sweaty man sex is always a deal breaker.
The image puts me in mind of a story called Basement Suite by Orestes. If you like the image you might want to check that out. And if you like that story, I’d also suggest Equal Partners by the same author. That has similar themes with some cross dressing and forced feminization thrown into the mix.
The image is signed ‘Galuss’, but I’m afraid I’ve failed to track down any information at all on that artist. The only examples I’ve found with similar names look completely different in style. If you know anything about the artist then please leave me a comment. I found it originally on the Felm Cyber tumblr.
The latest site that has been catching my eye is entitled ‘Pro Dommes of NY‘. As the name suggests, it’s a collection of images of professional dommes from New York, stretching back over the last couple of decades. I can’t say I care for it’s sub-title – “…from the icons & super-stars to the mediocre and has-beens.” That last couple of categories seems rude and unnecessary. Despite that, I find the site itself fascinating, although I’m not sure I can clearly say why.
I don’t visit New York that often, and I’ve only played there a handful of times, so this certainly isn’t a trip down memory lane for me. Some of the image and dommes are undoubtedly beautiful (see below), but the same could be said for the images on hundreds of current pro-domme sites spread across the web. I think it’s the element of time that makes it interesting for me. It makes me wonder about the person behind each shot: Where are they now? What do they think about it in hindsight? How did their career and life evolve? The images are public, deliberately revealing, and designed to advertise. Yet, what they advertised was a very private experience, and in many cases the character they’re advertising no longer exists, it has been retired by its creator.
We’re used to cleanly dividing the world into real and pretend parts. A bank manager is always real. Romeo and Juliet are pretend characters. An actor is sometimes real (accepting an award) and sometimes pretend (on the stage). I think pro-dommes blurs these boundaries in unusual ways, and each to different degrees. A session with one is both real (I have the welts to prove it) and pretend. Looking at this tumblr, and in particular the older images of ex-dommes, really brings that home to me.
This image is of Mistress Tess, a NYC pro-domme who is still very much active. Anytime I see a mainstream magazine article featuring a pro-domme they inevitably describe themselves a leading or top domme from wherever they hail from. While I’ve yet to have the pleasure of playing with Mistress Tess, from everything I’ve read about her, I think she’s one of the handful of New York dommes who could make that boast and be entirely truthful. If you’re New York based and would like to see her then check out her website.
Plan A for today’s post was to write up my experiences with Mistresses Yuki and Ai-Li from last weekend. Unfortunately I invested too much time in the creation of competitive interactive multimedia experiences (i.e. playing videogames on my couch) and it’s now too late for that. So Plan B became find something interesting on tumblr and post that.
I picked a few tumblrs completely at random, and followed a few links at random, and within a few minutes I spotted a post with the beautiful shots below. I loved the severity of the cage and the hood combined with the tenderness of the pinch and hand on the head. Something about the space seemed familiar however, as did the dominant. Could that actually be Yuki? Sure enough, a quick check on her tumblr showed that it was. Millions of erotic tumblr images floating around and that’s the one I stumble across to post. I’ve actually played in that space, and I think it’s the same cage that’s behind me in this shot. Small, small world.
Sheryl Sandberg (the Facebook COO) has launched a campaign to ban the use of the word ‘bossy’. There’s a website and a video that features famous women such as Beyoncé and Condoleezza Rice. The reaction from the press has been varied, with a few positive articles (like this one), but a much larger number of negative ones. Some of those have been reasonable, and instead wanted to reclaim the word, others have been so stupid I think I killed braincells just reading them.
Personally I like the campaign. Although I don’t think it matters if the word gets shunned or reclaimed. History has shown plenty of successful examples of both cases. I just like the fact that it’s being discussed and people may become more thoughtful of how language can shape expectations or behavior. In my part of the business world, even ‘boss’ doesn’t really get used these days, except perhaps occasionally in an ironic context. People are described as managers or leaders, all words with positive associations. The word ‘boss’ has a negative edge, and the word ‘bossy’ is both negative and highly gendered.
Of course, wearing my kinky hat (handkerchief? handcuffs?), I’m a big fan of the type of woman that might occasionally get labeled today as bossy. Anytime I hear someone describe a female friend as bossy my ears perk up and I start making subtle inquiries into her dating and relationship status. It’s up there with feisty, aggressive and intelligent as great trigger words to pitch to me on any attempted blind date set-up.
This forceful and articulate woman, shown here demonstrating a strong leadership role in her relationship, is from the Subby Hubby site. I originally found the image on the CFNM classics tumblr.
