Tag: Photograph

What do we owe each other?

I pose the question in the post’s title based on this thread by Dia Dynasty. She writes about a long term slave who abruptly ended their relationship via email. A fact which hurt and deeply disappointed her. It’s a sad situation, but one which I think raises the general question: What do we owe each other in that kind of relationship?

I’m specifically referring to a professional relationship which – thanks to its length and close nature – has developed beyond just a simple transaction. Obviously, in a non-professional context a kinky relationship is no different to breaking-up in any relationship. At least in terms of the need for compassion, understanding and respect. But how does the presence of a transactional element change things?

I don’t have a glib or easy answer. I just thought it was an interesting question to ponder. Maybe, for the little they’ll be worth, I’ll share some musings in a follow-up post.

This is Dia Dynasty, a wholistic femdom practitioner, based out of NYC. You can find her professional site here and her twitter feed here. She’s also the Matriarch of the Femdom Farm.

Eva’s Peasants

My subby fantasies were tickled by this news story on Eva Green. Apparently she had a falling out with the producers of a project she was working on and told them exactly what she thought. This included insults such as ‘peasants’, ‘arseholes’ and ‘fucking morons’. I’ve no idea if these barbs were justified or not, but I do have to agree with the article writer when he says…

She’s haughty and imperious. She knows exactly where she stands in the world, and she would rather die than hang around with the likes of us. Her contempt is tangible and, really, isn’t that exactly what we want in a movie star?

His conclusion is that we’d all like to aspire to this level of free expression. That might be true for the majority, but some of us would rather be on the receiving end of Ms Green’s acid tongue. Haughty and imperious are sexy attributes whatever someone’s profession. It also struck me that if she ever puts her face to a perfume then ‘Tangible Contempt’ would be an excellent name for it.

This is a shot of Eva from ‘A Dame To Die For‘, the follow-up to Sin City.

Why not both?

One final comment on the recent ‘Fetish or Fashion’ pop-quiz I’ve been running. Servitor posed the very reasonable question: Why not both?

That’s a fair point. As far as the resulting images go, they contain significant elements of both fetish and fashion. I guess I should frame the question around the image creators and their primary industry. Is it a pro-domme / fetish producer or a model being paid for a shoot with a (relatively) mainstream publication. Is it someone who spends more time in dungeons and playspaces than they do strutting a catwalk? What kind of animal do they usually have at the end of a leash? Petite Pomeranian or a perky puppy boy?

There’s clearly a healthy interchange between the fashion and fetish worlds. However, I’m not sure it’s always a equally balanced exchange. A lot of pro-dommes are extremely fashion aware. Unfortunately, on the flipside, fashion editors and photographers often seem confused about kink. A charitable take would be that they’re deliberately re-interpreting and re-contextualizing kink to tell their own stories. After all, their ultimate goal is different to someone creating material for a kink or fetish market. A less charitable interpretation would be they’re raiding kink for easy shock value and then haphazardly mashing its elements together without any really understanding.

I think the distinction between fashion or fetish often doesn’t come down to the clothes, styling, make-up or beauty of the subjects. It’s down to their understanding and intelligent use of the kinky elements. Or not.

This mainstream fashion shot is from Vice Serbia, features rapper Sajsi Mc and was photographed by Alek Živković.

Fashion or Fetish? Part III

Here’s the third and final part of my fetish or fashion game. This time it’s a two-for-one deal, with an image from each category. But which one is from the world of fashion and which from the world of fetish? I suspect regular readers may find it a little easy given who is featured, but it’s an image I couldn’t resist.

If you guessed the first was fashion and the second was fetish then congratulations. Have a gold star. Or maybe, more appropriately, a shiny leather one. The first image is Carmen Electra, shot by  Josef Jasso for Nylon magazine. You can see more images from the shoot here. The second one is, as I’m sure many readers might have recognized, the incomparable Mistress Iris. This was from her twitter feed.

Fashion or Fetish? Part II

Here’s a follow-up entry in the fashion or fetish guessing game. Was this snaffled from a recent Vogue shoot? Or is someone who can expertly crack a single tail? Couture or consensual cruelty?

Answer: In this case it’s the latter option – fetish. This is Lady Mephista from a recent tweet. You can see more on her OnlyFans site and arrange in person sessions via her professional site.

Fashion or Fetish?

Somebody should really do a site where you have to guess if a shot is from a pro-domme gallery page or an arty fashion magazine. For example, take this image. Is it from a tweet by a rising star in the LA pro-domme scene? Or NYC’s latest supermodel shooting a cover story? Is she involved in a sordid world of drugs, money and older men taking advantage of younger women? Or is she beating men up for a living?

Answer: In this case it’s fashion, not fetish. Specifically, it’s Lindsey Wilson shooting for ODDA Magazine. I believe the latex was supplied by Vex Clothing.

Hot Advice

I’m always a fan of mainstream magazines running positive articles on BDSM and ideas for kinky play. Getting more people to explore their sexual interests is great. However, the media have a tendency to lead with the high risk stuff, which is pretty much the last thing new kinksters should be trying in their bedroom.

Take for example this Vice article on temperature play. It’s titled a beginners guide, but in the first half dives into topics like making fire torches with alcohol and dropping flammable propane bubbles on people’s skin. Admittedly they add a bunch of caveats about not trying it without training, but why start there in a beginners guide? There’s a ton of fun temperature stuff you can do with hot wax and ice cubes that isn’t likely to land you in the ER. Pretty much by definition, if you’re learning about temperature play for the first time from a Vice article, there’s nothing you should be doing in the nude with flammable gases or liquids. Leave it to the professionals.

This is the striking Lady Lola, someone who is very much a professional. She is a London based pro-domme who lists fire play as one of her specialties. You can find her professional site here and her twitter feed here.

Cocking a Leg

I’m all for finding creative angles to shoot femdom imagery, but I’m not sure they thought this image through properly. Her look is a very attractive one, but it doesn’t seem entirely appropriate to the high street shopping she’s clearly partaking in. A leashed man in a suit is a fine thing, but how is he going to pee against that flower pot with his pants still on? He’ll just get a wet leg and damp pants. Which is a kink in itself, but probably not the one they’re shooting for here. Basically she’s got too few clothes for the setting and he’s got way too many.

I’m afraid I don’t know the source for this. It’s from an old tumblr and all my reverse image searches show up empty. If you’ve any idea of who originally shot it then please help me attribute via a comment.

Update: Thanks to a helpful comment, I now know this is from the site of Lady Asmodina. Sadly she doesn’t appear to have a web presence anymore, so I’m assuming she has retired.

Pleasing Aubrey

One of my longstanding celebrity crushes has been Aubrey Plaza. She has – at least in her public persona – a fun mix of intensity and playfulness. Not to mention the obvious hotness. I’m crushing all the more having seen this video comparing Jessica Chastain and Aubrey’s reactions to ‘thirst tweets.‘ Ms Chastain seems somewhat horrified, while Ms Plaza leans into it hard. Totally worth a watch or ten.

If you’d like to see more of her then I’d recommend the show Legion (currently on Hulu). The first season is excellent and, while the next two seasons aren’t as strong, I never grow bored of watching Ms Plaza tear up a scene. You can see the kind of thing I mean in this Season 3 trailer.

This shot of Aubrey Plaza as Lenny is from Season 1 of Legion.

You’re Late

This interview with Margaret Cho contains a lovely anecdote that gave my heart a momentary pitter pat.

Once I was with my friend, the late director John Schlesinger, when suddenly he panicked. Without explaining, we sprinted to a gay bar. A tall woman slowly spun around on a stool, as John grovelled. “You are late,” she drawled. It was Lauren Bacall. She was mad, and I was starstruck.

I’m not sure if this counts as found femdom, but it’s certainly an image to treasure. John Schlesinger – an Oscar winner for Midnight Cowboy – certainly knew who was calling the shots.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Lauren Bacall. She was obviously beautiful and glamorous, like a lot of her contemporary stars, but she had a style and attitude that I think few matched. If you image search for her, almost any of the shots wouldn’t look at of place on a femdom blog, but I’m a particular fond of this one. Oh, and this one.

If you’d like to see more of her amazing style, then this Cut article has a good collection of images.