Photograph – Page 182 – Femdom Resource

Curing my hysteria

Buying Christmas gifts for friends is always tricky. You don’t want to create a problem for them by sticking them with something they don’t like or can’t use. My circle of friends often defaults to wine, which leads to a lot of pointless circulating of bottles between us. Fortunately I have one friend with imagination, and she got me one of my best presents ever – a vintage vibrator.

The device in question can be seen below, with a couple of alternate angles here and here. She actually inherited it from a relative who collected antiques and vintage mechanical/electrical devices. Apparently her partner commented that it looked like it’d be very painful and you’d have to be crazy to allow it anywhere near your private parts. For some odd reason that immediately brought me to her mind, and I therefore had the pleasure of unwrapping it in a busy Seattle restaurant. I’m sure our server at least got a smile out of it.

Anyone surprised that vintage vibrators even exist should check out this article on their history. They were originally developed to ‘cure hysteria’ in women around the end of the nineteenth century. In a nice bit of Victorian double-think, since women weren’t sexual then using a device to induce a ‘hysterical paroxysm’ wasn’t sexual either. It was just a useful medical technique. They were even openly advertised in housekeeping magazines of the time. Here’s an advert I managed to track down for my very own device. Apparently I can look forward to a clear beautiful complexion and wonderfully attractive hair.

From a kinky perspective, the most dangerous bit looks to be the old frayed power cord. Nobody wants to get involved in some inadvertent electrical play at 120V.

Although vibrators are traditionally associated with inducing pleasure they can also be used for some interesting orgasm torture. Forced, ruined and denied orgasms are all fun kinky options. The shot below features Lexi Sindel forcing an orgasm for a man in chastity, which must be particularly uncomfortable. You can click through on the image to see the animated gif at the Femdom Empire blog.

Purple nurple

I’ve never been a fan of schoolyard pranks. Most of them would see you facing assault charges if you did them as an adult, yet somehow you take a few years off, and it’s just kids messing around. I guess that’s not too surprising a view coming from a boy who was bright, wore glasses and grew up like a strip of willow.

Their one redeeming factor is that they do have interesting names – nipple cripple, wedgie, swirlie, noogie and button face. I sometimes think that the standard BDSM terms could use a touch of similar naming creativity. After all, what sounds more fun? A play session featuring ball torture, caning and forced-bi, or one featuring pounding plums, red stripe delight and blowing the beef bugle? It’d certainly make listing interests and limits a lot more entertaining. Although given the endless arguments about terminology in the kinky community, perhaps greater naming precision rather than creativity is a better goal.

I’ll leave you with the image that started this whole train of thought. I found this in a gallery on the Femdom Times site. It features Goddess Ira inflicting a rather painful looking purple nurple.

Nothing ventured, nothing lost

Ferns has published an insightful new post entitled ‘Being submissive can be scary.’ It addresses the risks and emotional challenges of setting a foot onto the path of submission. Accepting that role, particularly after suppressing it for a long time, can be a scary decision.

The post does a good job of highlighting the specific worries a submissive may have. However, from a personal perspective, I’d refine the list Ferns uses a little. It’s not that I disagree with it; I’d just categorize it a little further. The first few issues she raises were definitely worries I had before I ever took a single slap from a paddle.

Scared that this D/s thing wouldn’t be what he expected.
Scared that the reality wouldn’t live up to what was in his head, in his imagination.
Scared that he wasn’t really submissive, that he was ‘faking it’ somehow, fooling himself.
Scared that he wasn’t really a masochist, that his fantasies over all those years were false.

Those concerns were very real to me. I worried that it would all seem ridiculous and that I’d simply start laughing. I worried that I’d safeword immediately and that nobody would take me seriously. It seemed like doing what you were told should be simple, but I was sure I could find a way to screw it up.

Ferns goes on to list some fears that she describes as tenfold of any of the above, all related to how the submissives self-perception might change.

Scared of leaving behind nearly 40 years of thinking that he knew who he was.
Scared of losing his comfortable place in the world, as part of the ‘normal’ set.
Scared of admitting that he was not the person he had been pretending to be all of his life.
Scared of the idea of never again finding a ‘vanilla’ relationship enough.

For me these were (and still are) real issues, but they played no part in my early submissive experiences. They were, in the words of Donald Rumsfeld, my unknown unknowns. I was worried about failing, the immediate risks, not the potential costs of succeeding. I saw BDSM as a potential addition to my life. Something that would enhance my options, not diminish them. It was only in hindsight that I saw the risks of not being able to go back and no longer finding vanilla relationships satisfying. There’s absolutely no part of me that regrets what I did, but I can’t honestly say I entered into it with foresight that Fern’s submissive did.

I think the image is from the charmingly named Bitches-Femdom site. I found it on Equally Deep In Your Eyes tumblr, which has absolutely the worst UI of any tumblr I’ve ever encountered. There are some good images there, but I suggest browsing via the archive. If the owner of this tumblr happens to read this: Please change your theme. You’ve chosen some great images but the navigation mechanism currently sucks ass.

A vulnerable point

I’m not a fan of breathplay via throttling. It seems way too dangerous. There are all sorts of delicate tubes in the neck and it seems impossible to judge precisely what is being squeezed and by how much. I love breathplay in general, just not via this route. However, simply gripping the throat is very hot. The potential threat and danger is a great way to spike your adrenalin. It’s not surprising there are so many aphorisms based on going for, grabbing, or offering the throat. The ribs and the skull protect a lot of the critical organs, but the throat is uniquely vulnerable and therefore exciting.

I found this on the Geek Domme tumblr. It’s originally from the Divine Bitches site.

Happy something

If you celebrate Christmas then I hope you have a happy one. And if you don’t, then I hope all the festive bullshit spreading across the web at this time of year hasn’t been too annoying.

I’m mindful that this can be a miserable time of year for some people. Family situations can make life difficult. If you find yourself dealing with those kind of issues, or dealing with an absence of friends and family, you have my sympathies. I can actually trace my involvement in BDSM to a depressing Christmas period. All my friends were out of town. I had no family in the US. I was single and I was lonely. With nothing to do but watch bad Christmas movies and browse the web I decided that I needed to make a change. I needed to figure out if these fantasies I had for years were meaningful or important to me. After a lot of web browsing and dithering, I scheduled a 1 hour session with a local pro-domme, and the rest is history. There aren’t too many single moments in time I can point to as life changing, but that’s certainly one of them.

Obviously seeing a pro-domme is not for everyone. But if you’re reading this and in the same situation I was in, then I’d urge you to try and realize your fantasies the best way you can. Go to a munch. Talk to your partner. Create a fetlife profile. Research the local pro-dommes. Use whatever approach works best for your situation. You don’t want to spend your life regretting what might have been.

It’s traditional at this time for blogs like this one to feature a festive themed BDSM image and wish everyone a happy holiday. Unfortunately I find mixing Santa and kink is weird and unappealing. There are a few good images out there (e.g. the first one in this post from hmp and what Mistress Sidonia came up with) but mostly it’s a weird mishmash of mismatched elements. So I’ll simply feature an image I like and wish everyone the very best for the season.

A useless shower of bastards

I noticed today that the US Senate has been doing its usual fine job of legislating. With the nations finances in a mess, and a lot of spending cuts and tax rises that nobody wants about to take effect, they took the time to pass a resolution condemning the Village Voice for its adults classified service backpage.com. Apparently it has become “frighteningly simple to order a child prostitute” according to ~~idiot~~ Senator Mark Kirk. The more logical thinkers amongst us might therefore question why, if that incredibly unlikely statement were true, it isn’t equally frighteningly simple to find and arrest the people involved. Unfortunately I suspect logical thinking never entered into this debate.

It has been a bad year for sex work legislation, with California’s proposition 35 being the standout example. The New Statesman recently published a good article on it and similar legislation, attacking the drafting of laws without proper consultation with the ‘victims’ they’re allegedly trying to help. In theory pro-dommes shouldn’t be affected, given that BDSM is legal. However, there’s always a lot of grey area involved in this kind of work. You might be technically completely legal, but do you trust the cops, DA and judge to all agree? Now it only needs one asshole with a loose interpretation of the truth or the law to get a CA sex worker branded as a sex offender for life. And since prop 35 also targets people supported by the proceeds of sex work, her family could also be in the firing line. What a truly terrible piece of legislation.

I’ll leave you with an image of Natassia Dream doing to CJ what the average politician does to the electorate. The shot is from this scene on TS Seduction. You can see here really working her sizable majority in another shot here.

Nice outfit. Shame about the set.

There’s an old quote that runs along the lines of – “The problem with pornographic movies is that they objectify women, they degrade the viewer and they’re so terribly badly lit.” For BDSM porn I often think you could update that quote by talking about the sets rather than the lights.

The faux-medieval dungeon look that crops up in a lot of professional scenes is one annoyance. They’ll have a model dressed like a latex fetishist’s wet dream, in a space modeled on a medieval castle (this for example). These two things do not go together. Or you’ll have shots like below, where it looks like they’ve paid no attention at all to the set. I actually like her outfit. It doesn’t do much for me erotically, but I appreciate the details and effort that has gone into it. But what’s with the TV unit, bedroom furniture and sloppily undressed guy? The outfit screams fancy equestrian fantasy scene and the set suggests we couldn’t be bothered to leave the house on a wet Wednesday afternoon. It’s hard to fantasize about the haughty Miss Tippington-Cambell disciplining the insolent stable boy when it looks like they’re in a suburban semi in Croydon (read that as townhouse in Des Moines for my US readers).

There’s not watermark but I think this is from the Strict Women site. They typically feature more conventional domestic scenes with (usually) conventional dress. I found it on the Hoejhael tumblr.

Smile for the camera

The domme staring down into the camera lens is a long standing femdom porn tradition. This image adds a nice twist to it by her forcing the submissive male to stare back with her. You could read it as her indicating “They’re going to watch while I fuck you.” Or you could read it as “You’re mine so sit up and pose properly for the nice photographer.” Either way I kind of like it.

The image comes originally from the Strapon Dreamer site. I found it on The Heart’s Dark Desire (aka Women With Whips) tumblr.

The Victorian Christmas Tree

Lydia has been pretty busy with her Land of the Sweets show leading up to Christmas. Fortunately I managed to grab some time with her on a rare night off, and we indulged in a suitably festive get together.

My only suggestion prior to the session was that we might use her bondage chair. Other than that I had no idea what she’d planned. As soon as I saw the disposable blue medical cloth on the chair I guessed piercing might be involved, but I was a little puzzled by the lengths of festive ribbon piled close by. It quickly became apparent that she was feeling in a decorative mood, and intended to pin the ribbons to me like an old fashioned Christmas tree.

The end result can be seen in the shot below. A more colorful version (taken with flash on) can be seen here. I lost track of how many needles were used, but I’d guess it was at least 50. As is often the way with these kind of sessions there was a nice rhythm to it as each ribbon was positioned and pinned. There was also a pleasant feeling of objectification, a focus on my body but not me. It’s both intimate, as she’s working very closely on me, and yet distancing, as she concentrates on getting the ribbon just how she wanted it. You can see a couple more close-up shots of the needles with ribbons here and here.

She capped everything off with a ribbon that ran from ear to ear and sported a big bow on top of my head. This was held with ear piercings and a needle through the scalp at around the hairline. The skin is really thin at that point, so it hurt going in and bled a lot coming out. Unfortunately I can’t really show you the best shot we got, which was me giggling like an idiot while the blood dripped down my face. However, I can share this after shot, which shows some of the body marks left and the dripping blood on the side of my nose.

All in all it was a great way to celebrate the festive season and I’m endlessly grateful to Lydia for taking the time to put together such an imaginative session. Not to mention that I’ve now got a great image to put on all my Christmas cards! I’m sure everyone will be happy to have this on their mantlepiece over the holidays.

The Dark Knight Confuses

I finally got around to watching the The Dark Knight Rises last week. On the plus side, Anne Hathaway made a fantastic catwoman. The character was well crafted and she was very stylish in the role. On the minus side, the plot of the movie made almost no sense. It was fun to watch, with some great set pieces, but logic clearly took a holiday when it came to writing the script. Bond villains are notorious for giving James a chance to escape and foil their plot rather than simply shooting him in the head. Bane spending 5 months hanging out in Gotham while Bruce goes through a training montage takes that approach to a whole new level of ridiculousness.

Anyway, after yesterdays long post, a little visual loveliness seemed in order. So here’s the delightful Ms Hathaway as catwoman, as found on the Badkitty Kat tumblr.