Tag: Photograph

Folsom 2019

Talking of kinky events I’m sad I missed – as I just was  – it was the Folsom Fair in San Francisco this last weekend. I’m not sure if it’s the biggest kink festival in the world, but it has to be a good candidate. If you didn’t attend and are interested in getting a flavor of the event, there are articles with photographs here, here and here.

There’s a good mix of hot and fun costumes, although some made my scratch my head. This one for example is an interesting choice. He’s just pulled a t-shirt and baseball cap on, she’s made the effort to get a good military uniform look going, yet he’s the one holding her leash? Do whatever floats your boat, but that dynamic does seem somewhat back-to-front.

Falling very much into the hot category, I did love this shot posted by Domina Yuki of her and Lucy Sweetkill. Also this posed shot, featuring Mistress Blunt with Domina Yuki, is equally appealing. Finally, something both fun and hot, the featured image below comes from the threewitchesdesigns instagram.

Spanking Tips

For anyone with an inclination towards spanking, I’d direct your attention to this post by Eris Martinet. It’s described as tips for beginners, but frankly I think it’s a useful refresher for anyone who likes administering a spanking. I’ve had a few sessions where a quick review of this beforehand would have brought benefits.

In particular I’d highlight the need for a good warm up. That often gets cut short. In corporal sessions I frequently find that spanking is generally treated as a warm up in itself. As Ms Martinet makes clear, even a straightforward hand spanking requires a proper warm up period to get the submissive into the right mental and physical space.

This image is from Eris Martinet’s twitter feed. It’s not a spanking specific one, but I love it for her stance, attitude and overall fabulous look. If you’d like to experience a spanking delivered by a real expert then her professional site is here.

Another Way to Slice the Data

I had a couple of insightful comments on my last post that attributed my small number of unsatisfying session experiences to the type of dommes I play with. I think there’s a lot of truth in that. I almost exclusively play with experienced independent dommes who have taken the time to build their business and the skills that go along with that. It’s not a selection approach that guarantees session success, but it certainly helps skew the odds in the right direction.

It also struck me after writing yesterday’s post that there was another way to analyze the data: What’s my success rate when meeting a new domme? As I’ve written about before, I typically try and play with a mix of people I know and people I don’t. It’s a good way to build ongoing and deeper relationships while also learning and experiencing new dynamics. So how has that worked out for me?

I went back and dug through my emails to remind myself who I’d played with over the years. In a very rough hand wavy analysis, I’d say my meetings with dommes for the first time broke down roughly as…

  • One third being fun sessions, but a general mismatch in our styles and chemistry. I didn’t regret the session, but we probably wouldn’t meet again.
  • One third being really enjoyable sessions with a dynamic that I felt was worth exploring further. Not everything aligned perfectly, but there was enough overlap to make me want to meet again.
  • One third being amazing sessions. There was great chemistry and either our respective play styles meshed well, or my eyes were opened to a whole new approach that I loved. These are the dommes who I’ll always want to see when our paths intersect.

I should make clear that this is a very personal assessment, based around my preferences, kinks and play style. Much like in regular dating, one persons McDreamy can be someone else’s Mr. Dreary. I’m sure all the dommes in my first category have many amazing sessions with other submissives they have great chemistry with.

If you look at this data in conjunction with my previous post I think the key take away would run as follows: If you play with experienced independent pro-dommes, you’re very unlikely to have a genuinely bad session. However, you might have to try a few different sessions with a few different people before you find the right match for you. Hardly a groundbreaking insight I know, but I thought it was interesting to put some actual data behind it.

This is Domina Yuki, someone I’ve played with for years and who is very much in my third category of dommes I always want to return to. If you’re in the San Francisco area her professional site is here. For anyone further afield, you can see her OnlyFans here.

What are the Odds?

Whenever I put up a post that casts a negative light on femdom and playing with professional dommes – as I just did – I worry I’ll put off someone who is tempted to explore kink or hire a pro-domme.  So to assuage my fears and encourage anyone out there to take the plunge, I thought I’d share some personal statistics.

At this point I’ve done well over 200 professional sessions with a wide variety of different dommes. Out of all those sessions, I had…

  • One that went bad that I covered previously.
  • One that felt like a rip-off. It was in a Las Vegas hotel room and was a halfhearted unimaginative effort. I found myself in a cab on the Vegas strip – with piss still in my hair – 15 minutes before the session was even supposed to finish. The domme was relatively unknown and I wasn’t surprised to see her shutdown her site shortly afterwards.
  • One two hour session that the domme was three hours later for. The volume of coffee I drank while waiting turned out to be more tortuous than the session itself.
  • One session that was cancelled with me standing on the doorstep. The domme had forgotten she was moving house that day.

Those four events represent the total number of times I walked away significantly dissatisfied. For the other 200 or so sessions, I’ve had experiences that ranged from a fun time to the mind meltingly brilliant. That’s a way better success rate than my experiences with restaurants, movies, plays, spas, etc. I can’t guarantee you’ll always have a great kinky time if you hire a professional, but if my experiences are anything to go by, the odds are significantly in your favor.

This is a Club Pedestal event rather than a professional session, but it’s such a fun shot that I wanted to feature it. Found via this tweet and I believe that’s Ms Eva.

Tease as the Core

The Porte-à-Vie site has published an insightful interview with Mistress Iris. It covers topics such as the definition of a dominatrix, the relationship between kink and daily life, the attraction of BDSM, etc. What really caught my eye was when Mistress Iris addressed the subject of her specialty…

Tease is at the core of my sexuality. What electrifies me is the exquisite expression of pure desperation. The moment a person can no longer compose their facade any longer– when their dignity, their sense of self goes out of the window and they begin to beg and plead– that’s when I have the most power over them. It’s orgasmic.

As someone lucky enough to have played with Mistress Iris in the past (for example here and here), I can attest to her skill at teasing. I think a lot of dommes treat tease as a path to intense physical activities. It’s a way to get the blood pumping and the endorphins flowing before the nipple clamps and needles come out. Mistress Iris makes tease an end in itself and, as I wrote recently, I think tease and denial can be just as psychologically intense as any masochistic session.

When done expertly, teasing and edging can feel more out of control than simple pain. After all, one can always safeword out of pain. There’s no shame in stopping a heavy beating when you reach a limit. But how can you safeword out of not getting something? The whole point is that maybe, just maybe, if you stick with it, you’ll be rewarded (but probably not). Stopping doesn’t help you. Continuing makes it worse. It’s a truly beautiful dilemma.

This is from the twitter feed of Mistress Iris. You can find her professional site here.

Workplace Peril

This story of an injury claim for workplace compensation caught my eye recently. It features a French man who unfortunately died of a heart attack after having sex. What made it news was that he was travelling on business at the time, and a French court held that it was a workplace related injury and his employer was liable for it. Their logic was that sex is a normal part of life and companies are liable for things that go wrong when they’re compelling you to travel on their behalf. It’s not a ruling you can imagine many US courts making.

It did get me wondering what would have happened if he’d died as a result of a kinky activity. Would that have also been classed as a normal part of life? My company sadly doesn’t send me anywhere, so all my travel is on my own dime and at my own risk. But I know a lot of men use business trips as an opportunity to get their kink on and visit a pro-domme. Could a domme find herself in court testifying about a ‘work related’ buttplug injury for a travelling businessman? Would an insurance company payout for bruised testicles sustained in a hotel room during lunch break from the annual conference for certified public accountants? I await the next European test case in this area eagerly.

I’m not sure what injury this gentleman has sustained, but judging by all the equipment, it must have have been a severe one. Fortunately for him, Mistress Inka is on the case. I’m sure she’ll have him on his feet in no time. You can see more of her at work via her twitter feed.

Needles and Threads

I’ve done a lot of scenes with needles that I’d classify as art. This scene as a tailors dummy and this scene that left me with a series of beads stitched across my chest spring to mind. However, I don’t think I’ve ever done anything quite as visually striking as this beautiful shot from Pitt Prickel and Mistress Madita. I’m not sure if it’s best described as sexy art, or sex as art, or arts and crafts (with a good dose of sex).

Image is from this tweet.

Not like it said on the Package

Last night, with Ms Savannah Sly, I had the pleasure of experiencing the cinnamon challenge. This is not, I hasten to add, the silly idea of eating a spoonful of ground cinnamon. That’s a crazy thing to do. This was instead the new and updated cinnamon challenge, where you shove a cinnamon flavored Listerine breathstrip down the urethra. That’s obviously far more sensible.

If you’d like to try this at home then I’d suggest you start by tying your submissive down. He will want to jump around a lot. Then take a sterilized metal sound and, using a touch of lube, wrap the breathstrip around the shaft. This is best done while wearing sterile disposable gloves. Then gently slide the sound into the urethra and wiggle it slightly. You will not need to ask if he can feel it. He will let you know that very clearly and loudly. For the sake of your neighbors, some sort of sound muffling device may be required if you wish to slide the sound further into the penis. Be sure to allow the submissive a few minutes to really enjoy the experience before you deploy the next strip.

I should add, before everyone rushes off to raid their bathroom cabinet, this it not an experience you can safeword out of. Once the breathstrip is in, there’s nothing to do but lie back and enjoy the ride. That means a deep and intense burning sensation for a few minutes, with various spikes and prickles coming and going as the metal sound moves. It eventually subsides to a steady background tingle, which lasts for several hours.

I’ve experienced this before with the mint strips, but they were considerably milder. If you’re at all curious, then I’d suggest starting there before upgrading to the cinnamon variety.

Here’s the lovely Ms Savannah with the actual metal sound we used. This is from this tweet posted to her twitter feed just after our session. If you’d like to see more content from her then you can follow her OnlyFans here.

Breaking the Taboo

This post risks making a lot of pro-dommes very mad. I’m going to go out on a limb for my readers here and talk about a very taboo session activity. Something that almost all professionals will say absolutely never happens with any of their clients. Yet I’m here to tell you that just sometimes, if the mood and dynamic is right, if the right level of trust is established, it can happen. The submissive might actually be allowed to pick the playlist for the session music.

I know this to be true because – in the immortal words of the Penthouse readers letters page – I never thought it would happen to me, until a mysterious but very attractive lady propositioned me with it sometime last year. I say mysterious because I’m definitely not going to say who it was. I may be crazy enough to risk the general wrath of pro-dommes with this post, but I’m not going to risk the very specific wrath of someone who I may session with in the future. I’d hate for this to come back and haunt me when I’m naked, bound and she has me quite literally by the balls.

For those readers who have never done a session with a pro-domme, I should make clear that background music is the one true constant of sessions. More so than black dungeon walls, leather cuffs and incomprehensible controls on janky showers. I don’t think I’ve ever done a session without some sort of music. And given that pro-dommes are inevitably younger and hipper than I am, rarely have I any idea what’s being played. Typically it’s a grab bag of electronic, ambient, dance, industrial and obscure indie. Good for drowning out screams, but not exactly my kind of jams.

With the domme in question – who I should make clear is still very much younger and hipper than me – we actually share some  musical interests. Which is how I came to get my ass beaten to some choice selections from the early oeuvre of Iron Maiden. Personally I think the energy and tempo changes in Phantom of the Opera make for great session music, but I’m not going to hold my breath for it to catch on more widely.

This image of a puppet pianist comes from the photographer Konrad Bak.