Tag: Photograph

TV Guide

I’m going to interpret my blog tagline – the beauty of dominant women – fairly liberally for this post. It’s not femdom related in the sexual sense, but it does relate very much to a strong dominant women. I’ve just spent an enjoyable evening re-watching the first few episodes of Prime Suspect starring Helen Mirren. It comes from a rich tradition of British crime series, which also includes such gems as Cracker and Wire in the Blood.

I have a love hate relationship with these kind of shows. I enjoy the genre and plot structure, but hate the sexual stereotypes they almost always portray. Sex workers are normally damaged powerless victims. The criminals are often sexually warped sadists whose only outlet is violent attacks. It’s certainly not a genre to look at for positive portrayals of BDSM. Despite that, the Prime Suspect series is redeemed by having the wonderful Helen Mirren in the leading role. She plays a strong no-nonsense female character who puts up with a lot of sexist bullshit from her colleagues while still figuring out the cases. It’s a real pleasure to watch such a talented actress sink her teeth into the role.

US TV has a tendency to remake and horribly screw-up British series. I’ve not seen the US version, but looking at some of the online video’s they seem to have repeated the trick here. What was a reserved and complex older female character, with a flinty inner core, has become a skirt-the-rules cop played by a conventionally attractive blonde with a classic in your face New York attitude. In other words, the same thing we’ve seen a million times before. The good news is that netflix has the original UK series available for streaming. I definitely recommend checking it out.

Helen Mirren from Prime SuspectPhotograph is of Helen Mirren from a Prime Suspect publicity shot. If you’re a fan of hers, then I also recommend watching Excalibur. It’s a brilliant version of the Arthurian legend featuring her in the role of Morgana.

Origins of a fetish

Yesterday’s post on the reality of medical facilities got me thinking about the origins of fetishes. Scott left a comment about his recent medical procedures and how unerotic they were, which aligns with my personal experiences of hospitals. Yet, the medical fetish seems to be a very popular one. I think that offers a great illustration of just how complex fetish origins can be.

Looking at ‘simple’ fetishes like feet, latex or stockings it’s tempting to come up with a very reductive explanation, involving just the right mixture of the item in question, a female figure of desire and an impressionable child. A suitable blend of positive elements and poof, fetish wiring imprinted into the brain. But how does a child subvert something as unpleasant as a hospital stay into an erotic charge later in life? That’s not an obvious ‘positive’ origin at all. One might guess that fear, female authority figures, clinical intimacy and a focus on the body all play a role. But it would seem impossible to boil it down to some sort of Pavlovian response to basic stimulus.

I’m not really a fetish person, but like a lot of areas of human sexuality, I do find them fascinating to ponder. They may manifest themselves in a similar fashion (fetishized+fetishist=fun), but their origins must be highly variable and complex.

Nurse about to examine patientThis seems to be a suitable image to continue the medical femdom theme. I found it on the iHonorHer blog. I believe this is Stephanie Seymour from Vogue France in 1995.

Reality 1 Fantasy 0

I’m back in Seattle after a vacation packed with a little more incident than I was hoping for. My mother is in town from England for a few weeks and I thought I’d show her the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. Unfortunately she got a little too up close and personal with some of the beauty, after slipping and falling on the beach. Two days, two hospitals and many hours later, she was sporting a cast and couple of metal pins to hold a broken wrist bone in place. Not a great souvenir to bring back from vacation.

I have to say that if you ever want to cure somebody of a medical or nurse fetish, just make them spend time in some real medical establishments. I wasn’t the one being treated, but I did get to kill a lot of time just hanging around different bits of the hospitals. They’re horrible places. Beige and grey throughout, with drab utilitarian furniture, scuffed surfaces and condescending public service posters plastered everywhere. The only gleaming white and visually interesting places – like the ICU or operating theater – are the spots you’ll only experience in really bad situations when sexy fun time is definitely not in your thoughts.

The nurses varied from brusque and surly through to efficient and helpful. But none had me rushing out to fake up a minor injury to get treated. I saw more eye catching women in 10 minutes in downtown Vancouver than I did in 10 hours at nurse central. My favorite was the highly officious one who insisted on getting my agreement on the $600 initial fee before starting treatment. This while mom was moaning in pain and going into shock. I’m not sure what poor foreigners are supposed to do if they injure themselves in Canada. Just moan quietly and try not to bleed too much before they can get home?

Anyway, just because reality sucks, doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the fantasy. Here’s an image from Peter Coulson featuring a nurse and patient depicted as many of us would wish them to be.

Nurse and patient in a photograph by Peter Coulson

The ‘dominatrix’ in fashion

It seems that every week I see some fashion article extolling the ‘dominatrix’ look. It’s a regular part of the current fall fashion collections. The latest was this on the DSquared2 fashion show. Typically I steer away from cliched dominatrix shots. But if you’re going to shoot for that, at least do it properly. Every single ‘dominatrix’ fashion look so far has come across as very weak sauce. A pair of leather boots or a tight leather top does not equal dominatrix. If you’re going to do it, do it properly. The image below (courtesy of Fetish World tumblr) is a good example of the look done right. Boots. Corset. Jodhpurs. Crop. Stare. All check.

Domme

Nom Nom Nom

The next few posts might be a little random. I’m spending a few days on Vancouver Island with some friends in a shared house. So I’m posting at odd moments when I get a little alone time with my laptop. I don’t have much time to craft anything clever. Some might argue that’ll make no difference anyway.

Fortunately this image pretty much speaks for itself. Bondage, biting, cute girls and cocks. What’s not to like?

Biting

I found this on the My Miss in Control tumblr.

Her ladyship

I discovered today that my blog was inaccessible on the British Columbia ferries WiFi. I’m not sure whether to be annoyed by the censorship or amused by the fact they’ve at least heard of me. I’m leaning generally to the annoyed. And I’m sorry for any of my Canadian readers that have had their open water browsing spoiled by big ferry brother.

Today’s post features a rather cultured image, courtesy of the cyberian1111 tumblr. I have to admit to a sneaking fetish to upper-class women. I’ve no idea why. I enjoy reading about the aristocracy but generally wouldn’t want to interact with them. Except sexually. Somehow they push some deeply hidden buttons. Not sure if it’s the pearls, elegance, aristocratic arrogance or their reputation for perverse sexual practices. I guess being brought up with an assumed superiority and the natural ability to wield a riding crop also helps.

Man painting woman's toenails

More art

This is in many ways a continuation of yesterday’s post. In that one I was talking about writing from a personal perspective and avoiding unnecessary judgement. As I wrote it I was put in mind of one of my favorite posts from Tycho on Penny Arcade. In writing about a deeply stupid videogame trailor he came up with this…

The answer is always more art; the corollary to that is the answer is never less art. If you start to think that less art is the answer, start over. That’s not the side you want to be on.

I love that quote. It’s very much how I feel. I often run across blogs decrying the quality or content of BDSM and femdom pornography. I normally don’t disagree with their underlying sentiment, but I do wonder about the value of their posts. A good angry rant can be highly cathartic, but it’s rarely productive. I doubt any pornographer ever ran across a blog angrily slamming his or her work and was struck by the inherent truthiness of the posts. However, create or curate an interesting body of work that reflects your interests, and there’s always a chance you’ll inspire others to create work in a similar vein.

I realize this post isn’t exactly strong on the femdom theme, so in an effort to correct that and to continue curating my own collection of art, here’s a little something from Divine Bitches via Blue Keys tumblr.

Domme holds man by neck

Winning hearts and minds

A few days ago I wrote about a Mormon who supported the idea of abstinence until marriage. It’s not an approach I’d subscribe to, but his comments did raise some interesting questions for me. Today’s post brings you a similar viewpoint, this time from a Christian, but written in a very different way. A little quote should give the flavor. This is him on his critics who said it’d never work…

Turns out that people couldn’t have been more wrong. Looking back, I think that the women saying those things felt like the floozies they ultimately were, and the men, with their fickle manhood tied to their pathetic sexual conquests, felt threatened.

I’m not linking to this article because I think the writer has anything interesting to say. He comes across as a judgmental ass who’s opinion isn’t worth the 0.000001 cents it cost to download it. I’m linking because I thought the contrast between the two original sources was interesting. The first got me thinking, the second pissed me off. The difference was writing about yourself versus writing about others.

I think it’s really hard to go wrong when writing about what is important or meaningful to yourself. In contrast, it’s really hard to get it right when doing it about others. This isn’t to say you can’t make general points about life, the universe and everything. It’s just that they work so much better when the general is revealed via the personal. The good sex blogs write about themselves. The great ones write about others by writing about themselves. The rest of us just scour tumblr for hot pictures to repost.

Blindfolded man being kissedToday’s hot picture from tumblr comes courtesy of Girls Rule, Subs Drool.

Bad girls have all the fun

Britain and Japan are undoubtedly the two countries that produce the most porn featuring school uniforms. That’s not really surprising given they both have a strong mainstream culture of school uniforms, and childhood through to adolescence is doubtless a great time to work on building your personal fetishes. Most examples of the genre are of the schoolgirl in peril type, but there’s a fun niche featuring ‘bad girls’ doing mean things.

Here’s a nice entry into that particular niche. She’s got the requisite cigarette (always a sign of a troublemaker), the devil-may-care attitude, and the sloppily worn tie and blazer combination. I suspect the leather pants and realistic strap-on are sadly not part of the uniform guidelines.

Domme with strap-onI found this on the 24-7 Sub tumblr.