Belated SOSS

Once again, I kind of missed the boat on the Share Our Shit Saturday. Better late than never I figure, so here are some links to interesting stuff that caught my eye recently.

I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for this image. If you can help with that, please leave me a comment.

Duality

The Crave Portrait Project has recently been popping up on my social media feeds and news alerts. Its basic idea, of presenting dual images of people in their kinky gear and their regular clothes, is not a new one. I featured a similar set of images in a post back in 2014. However, it is a well executed version of the concept, with some fine black and white photography. I particularly like how happy everyone seems. I think it succeeds in projecting a very positive picture of kinky people and play.

The above shot is of Janny and you can read some of her thoughts on the project via this Bustle article. You can see all the photographs from the project via their gallery.

Slutting Around

My algorithm for picking people to play with when I’m travelling has a problem. Admittedly, it’s a problem in the sense that spilling champagne on your Ferrari’s leather upholstery is a problem, but I’m going to share it anyway. I will not be expecting a great deal of sympathy.

The original algorithm for travelling was simple: Find someone I had chemistry with and play with them exclusively. Partly that was because I wanted to build a deeper rapport and invest in a richer D/s dynamic. Partly it was because I didn’t want to have to explain my weird kinks and perversions to more unfamiliar women than I absolutely had to.

Unfortunately, no matter how careful the planning, schedules didn’t always co-operate. With only a few days in a town, there was always a chance the domme I usually played with would be travelling or busy. So I inevitably ended up occasionally playing with someone new – and I came to realize that this was a good thing. Playing with someone new was an opportunity to learn. Sometimes I learnt what I didn’t like, but more often my experiences made me a better submissive and a more self-aware masochist. Plus, once I started writing about my kinks here, explaining them to the nice ladies in the exciting outfits became considerably less stressful.

My updated algorithm therefore became: Do two sessions. One with someone I knew and liked and one with someone new. Push limits with the former and learn new things with the latter. It was a win-win.

Unfortunately, once I played with a new domme, they automatically moved into the category of ‘dommes I know’. And since so many of them were amazing and awesome to play with (like Damiana Chi from yesterday’s post), they became ‘dommes I know, like and will travel thousands of miles to play with again’.

This gave my latest iteration of the algorithm: Do three session. One with someone I’ve know for years, one with someone I’ve played with a few times and one with someone new. You don’t have to be a genius to see the pattern here, or the long term problem. It’s possible I can keep adding more sessions per trip until my body or bank account gives out, but I’m not sure it’s entirely the smartest solution.

The amusing side to this ‘problem’ is that I get called a slut by some of the dommes I play with (in the nicest possible way). Given my monastic years through my teens and twenties, that makes me smile. I’m a reserved, quiet, introverted, middle-aged British male slut. I’ll take that.

I’ve no idea what an appropriate image for this post is, so here’s a random one I like.

The Final LA Shivers

I’m back in Seattle and quite literally shivering. It’s cold here, at least compared to the balmy SoCal weather. When I’m old and decrepit, or least more so than I am now, I may have to move permanently to LA to warm my bones. I quite fancy retirement as an old submissive who potters around cleaning up dungeons in between sessions and spends the rest of his time sitting outside in the sun sipping tea.

Anyway, setting aside the ghosts of paltego’s future, my last day in LA was as good as any of those that had gone before. I was lucky enough to be able to schedule time with Mistress Damiana Chi. She’s has a stellar reputation, and she certainly lived up to it. Heavy bondage, nipple torture, CBT and electrical play were on the menu, and she quickly got me spacey and shivering with adrenaline. I think it’s the mark of a skilled dominant to be able to quickly zero in on the appropriate level of intensity even with new play partners. Enough to get the endorphins flowing, but not so much that it causes stress and nerves to spike unpleasantly. She had me right in that zone for a very happy two hours, and I got to bask in the afterwash of it for the rest of the day. Even dealing with TSA and LAX couldn’t knock that out of me.

This image is from Mistress Damiana’s site. It’s a beautiful picture and I think she’s actually even more striking in person.

The Customer is Always Ignored

I’ve posted before on what a mecca Beverly Hills is for high heel fans. I think it’s also a great destination for fans of being ignored or humiliated.

I was browsing in one of the high end department stores here today. All the male sales assistants had been their useful effusive helpful selves. Any section I wandered into would generate a greeting and an offer of assistance. Then I crossed into an area run by a rather striking lady. She was a tall attractive brunette, sporting tight leather pants with knee high boots. That’s the kind of look that’ll catch my eye in any situation. I swear to God, she took one look and then visibly sneered at me. Some pro-dommes would have killed to capture her expression at that particular moment in their gallery pages. There was a slight disdainful wave away with her hand, and then she went back to chatting to her friend. Who, I might add, was sporting some outrageously high heels of her own.

For some submissives this might have been a major thrill. For me, I took my business elsewhere. If she’d come across and started bossing me around, she probably could have sold me any number of ridiculously over-priced Italian jackets.

This is Karen Elson in a shoot for Vogue magazine by Steven Klein. I found it here.

More Shivers in LA

My kinky LA trip continued today with a lengthy session with Mistress Cynthia Stone. More adrenaline derived shivering was involved, although from a very different session dynamic to Friday’s session. Where Mistress Iris might utilize a playful pinch or a light scratch, my play with Mistress Cynthia is more like a hand to the throat swiftly followed by a kick in the balls. In the best possible way of course.

I’m not going to do a detailed write-up now because we shot some video and images, so hopefully I can put a proper post together on it when I’m back in Seattle. I’ll just finish by saying that at some points I was shaking enough to become audible. I was bound to a floated bed, suspended via chains at the corners, and in quiet moments we could hear the metalwork clink and rattle as my body oscillated back and forth. Of course that faint sound was only audible when somebody wasn’t moaning or screaming, and there weren’t too many moments like that.

If you’re interested in playing with Cynthia yourself, her professional site is available here.

Sexy Japanese Schoolgirl

I ate too much food tonight to do any serious blogging. All I can do is string a few slightly incoherent sentences together before collapsing into a prone position. So here’s a sexy Japanese schoolgirl, sporting a fetching grey beard and rigged in a web of pink rope. What’s not to like?

This is from the twitter feed of Hajime Kinoko. There are some other equally entertaining images in the original tweet.

Shivers in LA

My kinky odyssey in LA started today with a fabulous session with Mistress Iris. As I mentioned the last time we played, she’s one of the few (only?) dommes who can push me into subspace without pain being involved. Normally my masochistic side has to get involved to get me spacey, but today I got little adrenaline body shivers just from teasing, pinching, slapping and light bondage. She has a real knack for managing to be both sensual and reserved, intimate but also unobtainable. It’s a style that works wonderfully well for tease and denial. Plus, we also laughed a lot. There’s nothing sexier than a happy, laughing domme.

This is from Mistress Iris’s gallery page. If you’re interested in setting up a session yourself she has a number of tour dates listed.

Travels

It’s wet in Seattle and it’s cold in Seattle. The holiday season is over and the year stretches before me. This can mean only one thing – time for paltego to take a vacation. Ideally somewhere warm, with a multitude of food and kinky possibilities. So watch out Los Angeles, here I come.

As usual I’ll try and keep blogging while I’m away. I have some kinky play lined up, so hopefully I’ll have some interesting experiences to share.

I’ll leave you with an image of someone having an interesting kinky experience of their own. It’s not often you see suspension bondage, face sitting and selfie taking all combined.

This is from natsumi @723StudioK.

How to Deal with Men

This NYTimes article is pretty much perfect link fodder for this blog. It features an ex-dominatrix teaching a class for women on how to tackle power imbalance when dealing with men in conversation and negotiation. I particularly like the fact that the course apparently draws on BDSM, Taoist martial arts and Cesar Millan’s book on dog training. I love the idea of a woman in a business meeting sternly telling a loud man to sit down and be quiet, and then tossing him a biscuit from her handbag.

One quote that I did find slightly surprising was this…

“If I’m in control of you, my attention is outward, so precisely fixed on the other person that I almost forget I exist,” Ms. Urbaniak told the audience. If you’re submissive, “your attention is focused inward, on yourself and your feelings.”

I found that curious, because that’s pretty much the opposite of how I function. When I’m deep in a submissive mind set my focus is intensely on the domme. Everything else floats away, my body is no longer mine and she’s the center of my universe. Conversely, when I’m being forceful in a work situation, my focus originates from a sense of self and confidence in my knowledge and expertise.

If you’re interested in the classes, they’re run by Kasia Urbaniak from something she calls The Academy. I’ve obviously no idea of their efficacy, but I do appreciate the goals and sentiment behind them.

I found this image via some random tumblr, but I believe that’s London based Mistress Evilyne with one of the ‘Boss’ mugs.