Predicament – Femdom Resource

Keep it simple

Predicament bondage is often shown in very complex set ups – like those in my last two posts. The kind of thing that looks like you need to be a cross between a structural engineer and a mad scientist to pull off. But it need not be like that. I remember doing a scene with my hands bound behind me while I was trying to hold a coin against a wall with my nose. That was an interesting predicament to hold, particularly when the caning started.

The shot below shows another simple technique, using something sharp under the heels. In this case its a pair of spiked wallpaper strippers placed there by Miss Deelight. The rest of the set-up (as shown in this post) is more complex, but this element of the predicament would be easy set-up in the comfort of your own home.

Miss Deelight is a pro-domme based in South Whales and the South West of the UK.

The Houseguest

After publishing yesterday’s post it struck me that I couldn’t possibly feature predicament bondage and not also feature Augustine’s artwork. He’s the master of complex predicaments, often involving heavy medical elements.

On seeing this image, I was immediately reminded of Tyjord’s story ‘The Houseguest’. According to the stories page on Gaggedutopia, it was originally inspired by an Augustine drawing, so I’m guessing this is that drawing. I’m not sure if I should be proud that I made that connection or slightly ashamed at what strange things I have lurking in my brain. If I’d only used the brain cells I’ve dedicated to femdom data for financial planning, I could probably have retired by now.

Brain versus no brain

I was thinking today about two different styles of play that rarely get talked about. I say styles of play, but really they’re more categories that specific play styles can be grouped into. I’m not sure they have a well defined and widely understood name, so I’m just going to call them brain and no brain.

No brain is play where the submissive only has to exist and react to the domme in instinctual ways. Simply to be there, in the moment, and twitch, moan or scream is enough. The domme is still gathering feedback to guide the scene, but the submissive can be floating away in subspace, zoning out or trying to push through a pain threshold. There’s no higher level though process needed.

In contrast, play in the brain category involves the domme engaging with the submissive at a more conscious level. She wants to pull him back into the present, catch him off guard and generally stop him relaxing into the scene. This often involves asking questions, or have him verbalize what’s happening, or define some protocol to be followed. There’s an element of right and wrong for the submissive, with the heightened anxiety that brings.

Some styles of play naturally align with one or other of these categories. Mummification and sensory deprivation clearly align well with no brain. Predicament bondage is very much a brain thing. Other styles can work well in either. A domme could cane a submissive and let them focus on processing the sensations while draped comfortably over a padded bench. That would be a no brain approach. Alternatively, she could make him hold a particular pose and count the strokes, while trying to make him slip-up on the count. That’d clearly be in the brain category.

I mention all this because it struck me that these two categories rarely get talked about directly, but actually make a big difference to how play unfolds. In negotiating scenes I’ve seen lots of lists for activities to try and lots of suggestions for different roleplay scenarios, but nobody has ever asked me if I like to use my brain in a scene or not. In my experience, while no domme plays exclusively in one category, a dommes natural style does tend to align more towards one than the other. Some like a lot of verbal interaction and to create a D/s dynamic by keeping the submissive off balance, either literally or figuratively. Others are happy to work more instinctually, and let the submissive drift off into subspace as they build layers of sensation.

I personally prefer a no brain approach to sessions. I like to unplug my conscious mind and relax into whatever is about to happen. I think I might start calling that preference out in scene negotiation. Maybe it’s something for others to think about in their scene planning?

This rather elaborate predicament bondage set-up by Mistress Sidonia is definitely in the brain category. Hard to relax when you’re rigged up like that. You can see more of Mistress Sidonia’s devilish predicaments in this post at the English Mansion blog.

Elaborate arrangement

The bondage here isn’t elaborate, but the arrangement she has come up with certainly is. It looks like his head is held under the chair, and then there’s a pulley apparatus to connect her footrest to his testicles. I can’t say I’d want to give it a try myself, but I do admire the ingenuity. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this exact set-up before.

Elaborate Arrangement This image was sent to me by a reader – thanks Marga! It’s on a bunch of tumblr’s (for example) but I’m afraid I couldn’t find an original attribution.

Roped predicament

Continuing the theme of awkward predicament male bondage, here’s a lovely rope based example. I always think that any position that ties something to the cock and balls while putting the man off balance is a real head trip. The heavy shifting bodyweight and a delicate attachment point creates a really unusual contrast. It takes away something we’re very familiar with (balancing on two legs) and adds in something that’s normally tucked safely away. Of course it’s also critical that the domme involved can set it up safely and not risk anything actually being yanked too hard!

Predicament bondage This is from the Fetish Models tumblr. It features GiannaMonticello with DetroitDouglas. Rope is by -Malak- and the CBT device created by Tampaman1.

Let me have just a little bit of peril?

I’m in NYC for the first time in several years, and I just got out of a very enjoyable session with the wonderful Miss Troy Orleans. There’s a lot I could write about, so the obvious topic to pick is an old children’s cartoon called The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop.

You can blame this strange selection on D from Dumb Domme and her post ‘damsel in distress‘. She’s clearly not a fan of the iconic ‘tied to the railroad tracks’ trope…

It angers me that she doesn’t fight the villain harder and that she doesn’t struggle more to escape her bonds. It disgusts me when I suspect she exerts more effort craning her neck to see if a hero is coming than she does in trying to free herself.

This particular post grabbed me, because that villain/heroine dynamic is one of my earliest recollections of being excited by restraint, control and dominance. Specifically in the aforementioned Perils of Penelope Pitstop. If you’ve never seen it then this clip should give you some idea of the plot. Based on a 1914 series called The Perils Of Pauline, the cartoon featured a dashing and attractive young lady who constantly finds herself tied up and threatened by deadly Rube Goldberg like devices. As a child I never knew why it excited me, or how I related to the roles, I just knew there was something very compelling about it.

I get where D is coming from with her dislike of the scene, but I think she misses the submissive’s perspective on it. It’s the victim’s job to be the object of the desire. With ‘object’ being a key word. The villain is charge and creates the danger. The hero is in charge and (hopefully) removes the danger. Both of them desire the victim, but in different ways. The victim gets to be desirable but, as an object, doesn’t get to have control. She looks for the hero because that’s his role and his choice, not hers. She fears her fate but doesn’t control it. And that’s hot. It turns me on just thinking about it.

Obviously as a child I didn’t want to see Penelope actually get bisected by a train. But the combination of danger and helplessness pushed some deep internal buttons. The powerless female and mustache twirling villain might not be great role models, but I’m not sure that matters. After all I grew up wanting to be the victim. Although I never did develop Penelope’s love of pink.

When it comes to pictures of peril, Augustine is always a reliable resource. His images always seem to be the missing the hero character however.

Inching to the edge

Mistress Rex isn’t the most prolific of writers on my blogroll, but when she does post it’s always interesting, thought provoking and highly literate. Her most recent post helped crystallize a number of thoughts I’d been mulling over recently. I suggest reading the whole thing, but I’ll just quote the section I particularly want to talk about.

I’d be bored out of my mind if I stayed within the parameters of what clients (or lovers) told me they think they want. It’s domination. It’s the thrill of control and power. It requires a degree of force and discomfort, a shifting of will. How do you know how much you can take if you’re not challenged? How do you know how much you can give if you’re unwilling to offer it?

Brock Lesner is an idiot, but he happened to deliver a beautiful concept (wherever he got it from) on national TV when he said that, “fights are won by inches.” Technique and skill can take you a long way, but it’s intensity that fills those inches – it’s knowing to keep going when you have your opponent hurt. It’s holding someone’s head under water despite their thrashing, because you know that panic is a moment too soon.

Mistress Rex from her post titled ‘Give Her an Inch and She’ll Walk All Over You‘

I’ve observed that being stressed and forced close to their thresholds of tolerance is a common desire amongst submissives. It’s certainly a desire I have in any session I do. No matter what the activity, I like to feel I’m being pushed and stretched in new ways. That I’m going to go further than I have in the past. I hate to stop an activity because it’s too intense for me (and I almost never do), but at the same time it’s never a completely satisfying session if we don’t briefly flirt with that possibility. It’s a very tricky line to walk.

The need to push for this intensity, to inch forward towards that threshold, is one that has bothered me a little. Am I just doing it for stupid macho-sub reasons? To prove that I can do it? And am I going to run out of inches one day? Find out that there is nowhere left to go and I’ve burnt out. Most other activities in life don’t require this kind of dynamic. I love fine dining and nice wine, but I don’t have a constant need to push my boundaries every time I eat in a restaurant. Why is my masochism and submission different?

I think Mistress Rex has helped me answer these questions. It’s about the shifting of will, the relinquishing of power. It’s only in those last few inches that dominance and control is absolutely demonstrated. What happens up to that point is just sensation. It might be interesting or pleasurable (in the masochistic sense) sensation, but it doesn’t cost the submissive anything until it approaches the edge. It’s the extraction of that payment where both the dominant and the submissive find the real satisfaction.

Mistress Rex’s comment about holding someone’s head under water made me initially think of this image, but I posted it because it represents a type of play that quickly pushes me close to some of my personal edges. I struggle with anything that closely covers my face, whether it’s a leather hood or a tub of water, so using this apparatus would be to extract a very high price from me.

The dominant is Isis Love in a Divine Bitches shoot.

Riding the wooden horse

Orlando on his 333 images tumblr site has recently done a whole sequence of posts on the wooden horse torture and its numerous variations. Historically this was a punishment used on men, but he was frustrated to find very little male submissive imagery that he could post. Instead, in modern BDSM porn, it’s almost always female submissives who are portrayed taking the ride.

I think it’s possible to say the same thing about almost any form of BDSM play – there’s always a lot more female submissive imagery than male. But he’s right, the horse does seem particularly sparse in this respect. However, two artists did spring immediately to my mind who I was sure would have something suitable: Augustine and EmmaS. Both specialize in depicting all sorts of tortuous apparatus for the male body. Sure enough, a trawl through my collection popped up a couple of relevant images.

The Augustine one is below. As you’d expect from him, a simple horse torture isn’t good enough, so there’s all sorts of extra tubes and gags and pumps involved. But the metal horse is clearly a key component. The EmmaS one is more disturbingly graphic and brutal, as is typical with her work, but if that doesn’t bother you then it’s available here.

Rice Torture

Rohosub posted about an interesting form of punishment that I’ve never heard of before. I’ll let him tell it in his own words:

Here is a photo visualizing one of my wife’s favourite forms of discipline……I usually receive this form of discipline when I’ve failed to do my household chores to her satisfaction. Usually the kitchen chores and the disciplining then typically happens in the kitchen.
She just lays out a decent amount of rice on the floor, tells me to undress and sit or kneel in the rice. It’s ok for a short while but it’s pure torture after a while.

This strikes me as a particularly effective and nasty punishment, as it would seem hard to either sexualize it or get any endorphins flowing. It’d just be boring, then uncomfortable and finally painful. I often read about “punishments” that in other circumstances people pay good money to have inflicted. I can’t see anyone paying a pro-domme to spend an hour kneeling on some of her rice.

Taken from this post by Rohosub.