Tag: Photograph

The Challenge of the New

Writing yesterday’s post on the new experiences I enjoyed with Mistress Cynthia got me thinking about the dynamics of doing new activities. More specifically, doing an old activity for the first time with a new play partner. There are a few different ways to approach this, and one of them niggles me every time it happens. I’m not sure it rises to the level of a pet peeve, but it’s something that I think is worth raising awareness of.

Some dominants don’t care what I’ve done in the past. They just pull out the toys they have in mind to use and get on with doing their thing. Others ask in order to gather information they can use. If it’s a new activity then maybe they’ll build intensity more slowly or check in more often. I’m perfectly happy with either approach. What I find odd is when a domme will be visibly disappointed if they discover the activity they’ve decided on isn’t a new one for me. Sometimes they’ll almost seem to be verging on frustration that they can’t ‘surprise’ me with a particular toy or new experience. I’ve had session where, after this kind of exchanged had repeated 3 or 4 times, I almost wanted to start lying and claiming ignorance, just so we could get out of that repeated negative interaction.

I’ve tried out a lot of different kinky activities over the last few years. That’s not down to any skill or achievement on my part. I’m just lucky to have had the time and opportunity to do a lot of different session with experienced dommes in well equipped spaces. So it’s pretty rare to find a fairly general activity that’s both inside my limits that I haven’t tried at some point. Yet, in all that time, I’ve never once thought to myself “Oh, we’re doing this shit again. Let’s get through this as fast as possible so we can get to something different.” I’ve had sessions ranging from just OK to awesome, and that difference has never been made by the uniqueness or novelty of the activity. The quality of the experience is always about the dynamic between myself and the domme and our interaction in the moment. The way every scene unfolds is unique, even if some of the building blocks repeat. Or to put it in cruder terms, I’ve jerked off a fair amount over the last decade or three, and I’ve never got bored with that activity, so let’s assume that novelty isn’t the deciding factor in how fun something is.

For any dommes out there, I’d suggest always treating past experience with an activity as a positive. It means the submissive will probably be able to give good feedback during it and will have greater capacity for handling it.

Given the post subject matter I thought it’d be worth trying to pick an image of an activity I’ve not really tried. So here we go – cross dressing. There was a domme 6 or 7 years ago who put me in stockings a few times, but apart from that I’ve been lingerie free. I’m not sure of the source of this vintage picture, but that young guy is carrying that outfit off pretty well.

Ending on a high

I survived my kinky odyssey to LA and I’m safely back in Seattle, albeit bruised and sore. I ended up doing four different sessions over five days with three different dommes. It was a lot of fun but also a lot for me to handle in a short period of time. Although, as problems go, ‘too much hot kinky fun’ is not a bad one to be stuck with.

My final session was with Cynthia Stone and was also the most intense. She’s a very creative and imaginative domme, and often  comes up with something new for me to experience. In this case, after some spanking and bondage, it was torturing the web of skin between my thumb and index finger. It’s not a part of the body that typically features in kinky play, but it turns out to be surprisingly sensitive. She used a scalpel to nick the skin on each hand – like two nasty paper cuts – and then clamped them closed with magnetic balls  on each side of the hand (like this). Normally clamps hurt when they go on, then fade over time, only to hurt again when they’re pulled off and the blood rushes back. In this case the pain just kept growing the longer they were on, almost like a cramping sensation, and then spiked horribly when they were pulled off. I’m not sure if that reaction was down to the cuts or simply the way the nerves in the hand responded over time.

Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of the story for that particularly body part. She also decided to suture my hand to my cock, punching the suture thread through that same piece of skin below the thumb. Surprisingly, the suture into the hand hurt way more than the multiple ones she used to attach the thread to the cock. A gag was even necessary for the hand one. To complete the arrangement, Cynthia held the free end of the thread taut while I slowly and very carefully slid my hand down it towards my cock. The sensation of the thread slowly slipping through the suture hole in my hand was strange and disquieting. Not something I’ll forget in a hurry.

One of the most amazing things to me about these intense sessions is how quickly everything returns to normal afterwards. Cynthia is great at getting into her play partners heads and ratcheting up the tension and drama. By the end I always think I’m going to be a shivering wreck, falling off the bondage table covered in blood and bruises. Yet, when the lights come up and the ropes come off, my reaction to seeing the damage is usually “Really? That’s it? I was expecting it to look way worse.” All that’s needed is a spritz of disinfectant and a quick shower and I’m ready to rejoin the civilized world.

This photograph is from Cynthia’s gallery page. If you’re interested in experiencing her creativity for yourself, then her session information is here.

Strike a Pose

I took a vacation day off from my vacation today. After three days of being beaten and abused (in the best possible way) I relaxed and did touristy stuff. I did get to enjoy some instruction on wine from a very attractive sommelier wearing a short leather skirt and sporting a slash of dark red lipstick, but I’m going to consider that more a happy bonus than a part of my kinky trip.

The break also gave me chance to catch up on the world and write a post featuring the happy couple below. I generally steer clear of politics on this site. As much as I despise the current US administration, I don’t think readers comes here for my political opinions. However, the moment I saw the pictures below, I knew they’d end up as blog post. For anyone who missed the story, that’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin with his wife Louise Linton. She’d already made a lot of new friends via twitter spat earlier this year,  and this photograph was just her latest PR success story.

The reason I feature it here is because it reminds me of so many images I see on my twitter feed. There’s an attractive lady staring down into the camera, brandishing a stack of bills, and offering a look that mixes sexy, smug and condescension . It’s a fin-domme classic. Normally – on my twitter feed at least – it’s accompanied by comments about everyone being pathetic losers and the need to drain their wallets, but I think with these two that context goes without saying. Louise even accessorized correctly with the fetishistic black leather gloves and skirt. Given Mnuchin is worth a fortune, I doubt she’ll need to start a new career as an online financial domme. But if he’s the first up against the wall in a revolution, she’ll at least have career options to fall back on.

LA fun continued

My LA kinky extravaganza continued today with a second session with Isabella Sinclaire. More cock, ball and nipple torture was on the menu, along with some electrical and breath play. It’s always fun to play with two dommes in close succession, because they always spot the marks the other one left and take them as a challenge. My skin ends up as less a useful wrapping for body parts and more a scoreboard for who gets to make their mark in the most emphatic fashion.

On an unrelated note, allow me to point your attention to this fundraiser for NYC domme Mistress Adrienne.  She’s battling cancer and is currently undergoing a second round of chemo for it. I’ve never personally interacted with Mistress Adrienne (although I did feature her photograph once), but given the names of the people who have been contributing to her fundraiser and tweeting about it, she’s obviously a very highly regarded and much loved member of the community. I chipped in a small contribution yesterday. I’m sure she’d appreciate any others that people can spare.

This is Mistress Adrienne with her slave at Dragcon 2017. I found it via her instagram feed.

Somewhere New

Last time I was in LA I wrote about my portable GPS unit and how its stored addresses were a treasure trove of LA’s kinky hot spots. Well today I added a new one to it, as I played for the first time at Dungeon East. Like a lot of play spaces it’s in a industrial district, and contrasts a somewhat sketchy looking exterior with a beautiful interior. It’s very clean, crisp and modern. I particularly like the fact that all the furniture is coordinated with the space, rather than being a random mishmash of colors and materials. That’s not only pleasing aesthetically, but it shows attention to detail, which carries across into other aspects of the space.

My play partner was Mistress Lucy – someone I’ve played with many times before – and whipping, caning, CBT, electrical play and watersports were all on the menu. The caning took place on top of that bench and below that highly appropriate sign. It was a great session. I just hope my body can keep going through the remaining plans I have for it this week.

Dungeon East is available for rental from Mistress Justine Cross.

Fun in the Sun

Talking of stars of LA – as I just was – I got to play with a star of the kink world today, in the form of Isabella Sinclaire. Must fun was had, with flogging, piercing, smothering and electrical play all featuring heavily. I was shaking with an adrenaline rush by the end, which is always a good sign.

I was amused to get a number of comments about my manscaping or, more accurately, my lack of manscaping. No dommes in other cities ever comment about my pubic hair. In LA, almost everyone I play with consistently does. So top tip for anyone planning to visit and get kinky with the locals – make sure you’re neat and trimmed before you arrive. Nobody likes a 70’s style bush in SoCal.

This is Isabella Sinclaire, taken from her personal site.

Hanging with the stars

My Facebook feed is full of annoying people extolling the wonders of fall (autumn) in Seattle. They love the changing leaves, the misty mornings, the Thanksgiving holiday and the start of ski season. Call me Mr Grumpy, but I think they’re nuts. It’s damp, cold and the stupid slippery leaves make every hilly side street a twisted ankle waiting to happen.

There was only one thing for a chilly paltego to do – head south to somewhere warmer. Preferably a location that combines the sun with good food and much potential for kinky fun. Somewhere like Los Angeles. So that’s where I am for the rest of the week. I might have slightly overdone my scheduling of play sessions, so we’ll see if I can survive to the weekend. If I don’t make it, there are definitely worse ways to go out.

While I’m here I’ll keep an eye out for celebs. Although probably the only way I’ll know there’s one around is by other people pointing them out. These two would be the rare exception to that – Victoria and David Beckham.

This was shot by the photographer Steve Klein.

The Worm that Turned

The image below popped up via a retweet on my twitter feed the other day. It’s not the kind of thing I’d usually feature here. It’s more than a little silly. If there is a female led revolution, I doubt it’ll be done in uncomfortable and impractical fetish gear designed to appeal to men. However, there was something about that middle segment of the image that caught my eye and stirred some long dormant brain cells.

Many, many years ago there was a British comedy duo called The Two Ronnies. In the 70’s and 80’s they fronted a sketch show and at the time were probably the most famous comedy pairing in England. They often did short serial stories as part of their show, and the one they did in 1980 was called ‘The Worm that Turned‘. Obviously riffing on 70’s feminism and the first female Prime Minister, it was spoof sci-fi, set in 2012, that had women running the world and men in frocks staying home to do the housework. The secret police, enforcing this new world order, were the fetish clad women shown in this clip (@ 1:52) and in the image below.

I should make clear that all the detail above is not from memory, but from me researching it tonight. I was probably around 7 years old when I watched it, and I’m pretty certain I haven’t watched it again in the last 35 or so years. Some comedy from that era has aged well (e.g. Monty Python or The Young Ones), but this now looks terribly dated and sexist. That said, while I remembered almost nothing else about it, those black clad marching women obviously made a strong impression on the young paltego. Enough at least that I could jump back almost four decades from a fuzzy third of an image to the relevant youtube clip in just a few searches. I had zero idea about sex or kink as a kid, but clearly the wiring was already in place.

I wonder if the image creator was aware of the kind of source material he was drawing from? I’m guessing most of the twitter commentators on the image aren’t.

Making the internet a tiny bit smarter

I got my first really stupid comment the other day. Given this blog is now over 7 years, that’s surprising. Getting it also made me happy. That’s probably even more surprising.

When I say it was my first, that’s not to say I haven’t had other types of bad comments. My comment spam filter is called into action many times a day. I’ve also had a fair number of silly comments, with guys wanting me to dominate them, or set them up with women in the post photographs, or sell some random bit of equipment they no longer wanted. However, this was my first stupid troll like comment arguing that all kinksters were sick, abused as children, mentally damaged and should all be in therapy.

What made me happy was that it was the work of but a second to delete it from my moderation queue. Some guy had taken a bunch of time to write a lengthy screed, and with the flick of finger it was gone. He could have spent that same time polluting youtube comments, cluttering up a forum site with idiotic posts or sending nasty emails to sex workers. So in some very small way, my swift redirection of his time and effort into the void, made the internet just a little bit smarter.

Of course, we all take happiness where we can find it. In this ladies case, it seems to feature combining her first with his bottom. Quite literally two thumbs up.

I found this somewhere on tumblr. I’m afraid I don’t have an original source. If anyone can help me attribute it, please leave a comment. And if anyone knows the guy involved, please suggest that he should remove his socks before posing for a fisting photograph.

It’s all about the dick

Custom fit condoms are now a thing according to this article in the Old Gray Lady. Rather than the standard length range of 6.7 to 8.3 inches, you can get myONE Perfect Fit condoms in sizes of 4.9 to 9.4 inches, with a similar degree of variation available on width. They’ve obviously thought through the psychological aspects of getting men to report a penis measurement accurately…

The template that men are given to measure themselves does not include inches or centimeters, instead using randomly ordered letters and numbers. One man might be E99, another Z22.

Of course, given the fact that people can fetishize absolutely anything, if these take off, I’m sure that in 10 years time there will be SPH guys requesting roleplay dialog along the lines of…

You’re a dirty little C11, aren’t you? You’re barely filling that thing. More like a E77 as far as I can see, you nasty worm.

The image below doesn’t have any explicit reference to small penis humiliation. Or any humiliation at all, for that matter. Yet I challenge any male reader to look at those smirks and not feel that somewhere somebody is failing to measure up, and just maybe, it’s them. Hell, I’m not into humiliation at all, and I still get a slight frisson from this image.

This is from the Quality Control site.