Photograph – Page 202 – Femdom Resource

Shifting focus

I found this image interesting for how it plays with the focus of interest for the three participants – him, her and me.

She’s holding the weighted handcuff, the key part of the image that creates the tension of the moment, but not looking at it. Instead she’s looking up at him, biding her time, watching for his reaction when she lets go. He’s staring out at the viewer, but I think his gaze is really turned inwards. He’s concentrating on his own physical sensations, that internal submissive focus that often builds as pain becomes imminent. I’m looking back at him, but my gaze is actually drawn down to her hand and those dangling weights. My enjoyment of the image is anticipating what she’s about to do and how she’ll take pleasure in that moment.

So I’m looking at her, she’s looking at him and he’s looking inwards. It’s an interesting shift of focus, while still keeping a sense of connection in the image.

The dominant is Nyomi Banxxx, the submissive Lance Hart and the shot is obviously one from the Divine Bitches site.

A dangerous image

Having mentioned Mitt Romney in a post last week, in the interests of being fair and balanced, I thought I should also devote a post to the other leading light of the GOP – Rick Santorum. Apologies to my readers from outside the US for whom this may not be all that interesting. I know the US primaries get a fair amount of coverage in the world press, so at least this shouldn’t be completely devoid of context for most people.

It turns out that Rick is not a big fan of pornography. That isn’t much of a shocker given his position on other social and sexual issues. He’s also not big on gay marriage, sodomy, contraception, pre-marital sex or abortion. His website contains the following:

America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography.
…
Pornography is toxic to marriages and relationships. It contributes to misogyny and violence against women. It is a contributing factor to prostitution and sex trafficking.
Rick Santorum

That first sentence is a sly one. At first I read it as ‘a pandemic of pornography’, which given porns prevalence on the Internet isn’t too extreme a position. But he’s actually saying a ‘pandemic of harm’, which is far less obvious and calls for a much greater burden of proof. Unsurprisingly that proof is not supplied. He believes in a far stricter enforcement of the US obscenity laws. This old interview with ex-federal prosecutor Bruce Taylor should give you some idea of what is meant by that approach (I’ve linked to this interview before). This blog and pretty much every tumblr site on my images page would be in the firing line as obscene.

I wonder how they feel about images like the one below? It definitely causes me to have prurient sexual thoughts, and I’m publishing it with the intent of creating the same effect on others. I’m also not sure I can make a case for it having redeeming social value. It’s beautiful, but I’m not sure simple aesthetics really count in these matters. Otherwise that’d be a obvious get-out-of-jail card to always play. So, from my perspective at least, this is pornography.

It would seem that this is therefore causing me harm. And possibly creating misogyny, violence to women and sex trafficking. After all it can’t simply be the sight of naked flesh that causes harm. Otherwise it’d be dangerous to look in the mirror when getting changed. Similarly sex itself can’t be toxic to relationships, otherwise the human race would be extinct by now. So it must be something special about the sexual thoughts created when looking at images or movies. This ladies elegant profile, her piercing gaze and her strict governess style outfit are destroying my brain and/or morals as I type. Damn.

If later tonight you find that your relationship has been destroyed and you’ve been forced into prostitution as a result of this image I do apologize. I promise not to post such filth again. At least until tomorrow anyway.

This is by the photographer Ilya Kokorev. I found it on the Continuous State of Desire tumblr.

Site Updates

I’ve added a number of new sites to the Femdom Images page. These are:

Boy’s Don’t Cum
Dominant Women
Femdom Empire (making a return appearance after a change of host)
Femdom Times
Girls Rule, Subs Drool
Mistress Candy
No Morepe
Spanked 2 Tears
StellaNova’s Realm
The Edgier Vanilla
Mistress Anastasia

I’ve also added a few new sites to the BDSM Equipment page. These are:

The Madame Pontellier site is fairly unique, in that it offers free videos and then ties them to examples of equipment used in the clips. Typically that’s not how I’d choose to shop, but it might be worth checking out if that concept appeals to you.

The image below comes from one of the new tumblr sites – Girls Rule, Subs Drool. I thought it was cute. I actually have friends who will not even temporarily hold their girlfriends purse or handbag when out in public. To which my usual response, when they start objecting is “Oh for Gods sake, stop complaining and give it here, I’ll hold it for her.” I can’t imagine how they’d react to a request to fix a shoe in situ. Submissive guys really should be more in demand.

Updated: Somehow I forgot to add Spanked 2 Tears in the original list of tumblr updates. Fixed now.

Making a good first impression

In the last few days I’ve been enjoying the autobiographical writing of Stephen Fry in his book The Fry Chronicles. He’s well known as a writer, actor and comedian in the UK, although in the US he’s probably best known for his role as Dietrich (the TV host character) in V for Vendetta. I believe he’s also going to be in the upcoming film of Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

He has a great collection of anecdotes, including this one from when he first met Miriam Margolyes. She’s another well known face in Britain, a celebrated character actress who has featured in many significant productions, and was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) for her work. They meet for the very first time at the read through for a play.

…Miriam Margolyes had burst in like a beaming pinball just in time for the start of the read. When is was over she approached me.
‘How do you do? I’m Mir…’ She stopped and plucked at her tongue with her thumb and forefinger, ‘…Miriam Margolyes. Sorry about that, I was licking my girlfriend out last night and I’ve still got some of her cunt hairs in my mouth.’
From ‘The Fry Chronicles’

That’s an introduction you are unlikely to forgot. Of course with the the modern mania for shaving this situation is now far less likely to present itself as an opening conversational gambit. I was going to feature this image originally, which I liked for her expression but not for inappropriate absence of hair. Then I stumbled across the shot below which struck me as very beautiful and very appropriate. Not strictly femdom but a view I’m sure most submissive men will appreciate.

I found this on the Gorean Kajirus tumblr.

Hotfooted

Most femdom blogs that feature feet tend to a worship and idolization viewpoint. Given I start from a more masochistic perspective, I prefer something a little more cringeworthy, and thought I’d follow yesterday’s beating with a little burning. This is Miss Chambers from Cruella exploring the thermal conductivity of her slave’s feet via careful observation of the involuntary motor response to the application of a heat source. Or she could just be stubbing her ciggy out. Either way, it probably smarts a little. If she really wanted to make him scream she should try applying the end of the cigarette to the flat of his toenail. That really is agony.

On a side note, I realize that her outfit is firmly in cliched dominatrix territory, but for Miss Chambers I think it really works. She has featured in posts in the past (for example here) and, for me at least, she always has the look and the attitude to really pull off a traditional domme getup. The black gloves in this shot are a nice touch as well.

Playing footsie

I’m feeling a little sore right now. I’m also buzzed, floating, happy. Lady Lydia gave me a good working over with a variety of slappy, swishy and swingy things. There was one particularly evil device, a short heavy plastic/rubber cane, that had the biggest delay from impact to pain that I’ve ever experienced. It was a case of WHAP…wait…wait…make a coffee…phone a friend…do your taxes….wait…OWWW – fuck me that hurts. Particularly evil when applied quickly in succession so the pain radiates and spreads in layers over time.

Two good learning points. One is that somebody digging their nails into my thighs and then dragging them hard across a very red and bruised posterior gets a spectacular yell out of me. Two is that being beaten on the feet and then tickled on the soles is a truly evil combination. In honor of that second point I thought I’d feature a little bastinado as the image.

This is Lady Jenny, a pro-domme based in Hungarian. I found the image on the Whipping Mistress blog.

Healthcare, British style with Lady Anna

A few weeks ago Lady Anna emailed me to ask if I’d be interested in reviewing her site – The Anna List Medical Fetish Clinic. She’d give me free access for a month and in return I’d write an honest review on what I found there. Obviously my first thoughts were around the ethical dilemma this posed. The best reviewers – the Michelin inspectors, the New York Times correspondents – never accept any kind of gratis service. They pay as they go. Don’t my readers deserve the same kind of journalistic integrity? My second, third and fourth thoughts were “Woohoo! Free kinky porn!”. After wrestling with these complex issues for at least 7 or 8 seconds, I rationalized that my readers deserve an honest appraisal of the kinky content that’s out there, whatever the risk to myself. I shouldn’t be worrying about the cost to my public image when I have a higher duty to look at all this porn for my readers. And if you don’t like that rationalization, I have others.

Immediately after emailing her to accept I was struck by another troubling thought. What if the material sucks? It’s one thing to comment on random images I stumble across on the web, but quite another to write my typical nonsense when the creative person in question is staring over my shoulder. Fortunately for me, and other kinky porn connoisseurs out there, it definitely doesn’t suck. I think she’s managed to capture on video a really good sense of some very compelling D/s sessions.

I guess I should start with the technical stuff first. She has four main video sections – dental, medical, rubber and operating. There’s also a collection of audio only files and an archive with older footage that’s less overtly medical. Most films are 10 to 20 minutes in length, and are shot in high def with solid camerawork. It’s not simply a static camera that captures everything from a single wide angle viewpoint as I’ve seen elsewhere. There are around 60 films, so far mostly in the medical and rubber clinic sections, and a new film is added each week. As should be obvious from her facilities page, she has a very well equipped set-up, with one of the best collections of medical equipment that I’ve seen. It gets used to for a lot of breathplay, anaesthetic roleplay and immobilizing bondage.

When it comes to the actual sessions themselves, her style is very cool, calm and collected. There’s no ice queen or snarling mistress here, just a matter of fact, it’s for your own good style of domination. There’s a genuine feel to it, which seems a weird thing to say given the heavy medical trappings. After all, you’re clearly not watching genuine medical procedures. Yet there’s a real sense of connection and trust between Lady Anna and her patients. This isn’t a couple of fetish models who just met an hour or so before a scripted scene. She also has a nice style of communication, chatting to the patient, but adding commentary for the viewer in the process.

Sometimes in professional porn it feels like you’re watching a circus act, a kinky cirque du soleil. The submissives are super-subs, pushed through a rapid sequence of extreme and amazing acts. They might express pain, but it’s rare to get a genuine sense of fear or a difficult limit being flirted with. In contrast both Lady Anna and her patients come across as a lot more human. There’s a feeling that the submissive is being challenged and the D/s dynamic between them explored. It’s not fast cutting, high paced material, but it does capture more of the feel of a real session.

Downsides? There’s really nothing that shouldn’t be obvious from the site itself. Obviously it’s just Lady Anna playing with her submissives in a medical fetish context. So if you’re looking for a wide variety of skinny models wearing traditional pro-domme gear then you’re liable to be disappointed. And while there’s less pure medical roleplay than you might expect, the setting is clearly a clinical one. If medical type activities doesn’t appeal, or you’re looking for lots of non-medical style play (e.g. corporal, cuckolding, strap-on, etc.), then I’d look elsewhere. But if the preview material is appealing to you, then I can’t think of any reason not to give it a shot.

A tender peg

I’m going to to continue the pegging theme, but defer the text to the tumblr stream where I found this image.

This one shot is instantly better than 98.43% of the pegging porn out there. Why? Because it shows intimacy. It shows both partners getting into it. It shows that it’s not about the man enduring something awful, or about some sort of grudge-fuck by her (although, in my world, if that’s what she wants sometimes, that’s certainly her prerogative).

Obviously as a femdom blogger, I’m not against a forceful pegging as an instrument of D/s. But I have to admit I really enjoy it more as an intimate and pleasurable act, rather than a method of torment. I’m not sure about the percentage figures above, and I’m not entirely this shot is any more intimate that a lot of porn out there, but I do like the general idea of it.

This is originally from an Evil Angel shoot.

Living in a state of sin

Time for a pop quiz. What do Idaho, Utah, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana all have in common. Any ideas? Well apparently they all still have anti-sodomy laws on the statute books. I’m not just talking about sweaty hard bodied man on man depravity. These states also outlaw it for good clean living Christian married couples indulging in a little ass play (as God may or may not have intended, he’s not the best when it comes to clear communication). Of course since the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v’s Texas the laws are all unconstitutional and unenforceable, but that doesn’t stop the legislators keeping them on the books to send a message. That message presumably being ‘We’re the only ones that should be allowed to ass fuck the people who voted for us’.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. I was recently amazed to discover that the US had anti-miscegenation laws in 16 states right up until a Supreme Court decision in 1967. And Alabama didn’t get around to actually removing its version of them from their constitution until 2000. Both of those facts both astonished and depressed me. At that rate the anti-sodomy laws should finally be disappearing around 2036.

On a tangential note, I often find the stories behind these very significant Supreme Court decisions to be fascinating. The 1967 case, appropriately named Loving v’s Virginia, is an uplifting tale of a couple’s fight for their right to live together. The New York Times gave a good overview of it in the obituary of the wife in question. The background to the Lawrence v’s Texas case was very much less positive and uplifting, as described in this New Yorker book review. The only common theme was the police behaving like assholes (pardon the appropriate expression) in both of them.

I’ve no idea where the image below was shot, but they look like a couple having fun, and possibly violating a few local laws at the same time. Let us all hope that any handcuffs that appear will belong to her.

I found this on the Sensual Pegging Tumblr. You can see a larger version of it in the post there. Originally it’s from the Strapon Dreamer site.

A congress of dildos

I’m not really sure what the collective noun for a group of dildos is. Searching on the web didn’t result in a definitive answer, although I did like the suggestions I saw for ‘A quiver of dildos’ and ‘A battery of dildos’. Personally after the last few years in the US, I’m thinking that ‘A congress of dildos’ might be a good collective form. Plus, it opens up all sorts of japing potential around the misfortune of spoiling your congress with some Santorum.

My dildo train of thought (an expression which according to google has unsurprisingly never been uttered before) was triggered by some of my friends who work at the giant Internet retailer Amazon. They’re in the software and management part of the company but, as per company policy, had to spend a week running around a giant shipping warehouse preparing orders for customers. Apparently it’s mandatory for all employees to do it, whatever their level. It’s so they have some idea what it’s like at the retail cutting edge, where the virtual turns into the material. One thing that surprised them, and in turn me, was the sheer number of sex toys that they had to deal with. I’d always assumed that people tended to shop at specialist retailers for that kind of item, rather than a large general purpose site. Their comments were confirmed by this (long) Mother Jone’s article on what its like working for an online shipping company.

Really, a staggering number of dildos. At breaks, some of my coworkers complain that they have to handle so many dildos. But it’s one of the few joys of my day.
…it’s a welcome distraction, really, to imagine all these sex toys being taken out from under a tree and unwrapped. Merry Christmas. I got you this giant black cock you wanted.
Mac Mcclelland

With a little reflection it became less surprising why people would turn to Amazon or other large retailers for these kind of purchases. I assume it’s for safety. The boxes are commonplace, the credit card entry unspecific and the chance of being scammed zero. There’s no fear that a package is going to turn up in your condo lobby labelled “Freaky Sex Toys Inc. Please treat this giant vibrating penis as fragile. This way up.”

For an illustrative image or two I turned to the site of Mistress Nina. She has a very fine congress of dildos in some unusual shapes (additional shot of a few more here). It also seemed a shame not to also show the lady herself, so here she is looking rather fearsome is in the woods with a pair of whips.

Mistress Nina is a pro-domme based out of Belgium. Her session information is here and information on her private members site is here.