International Sex Worker Day

June 2nd is International Sex Worker Day. In the light of the FOSTA/SESTA bill passed in the US, it takes on even more significance this year. I’m a bit late with this post to encourage people to attend the various marches that have been happening in major cities, but it’s never too late to show your support.

Some of you may be thinking that you’ve never hired a sex worker, so this isn’t your issue. You’d be wrong. Almost all the sexy images and movies on the internet feature sex workers of some sort. All those images that tumblr is packed with and the movies on the various tube sites is created and taken (usually without consent) from sex workers. This blog wouldn’t exist without sex workers. They feature in the majority of the images I post, they’re the sources for a lot of the links I feature and my interactions with them trigger the thoughts I share. They give society so much and in return, they get marginalized, persecuted and prosecuted.

The simplest thing you can do to support sex workers is to purchase their services. If you like porn, then buy it. There’s a ton of independently produced femdom material for sale at places like this or this. If you want something a little more personal, then maybe order a custom clip? A lot of dommes will make them (for example here, herehere and many more). If you’ve ever considered hiring a pro-domme or escort then go for it. Be polite, clean and pay what’s asked and I predict you’ll have a great time. If you can’t meet in person, then consider using something like niteflirt or OnlyFans. Many of the dommes I talk about here use those services (e.g. Domina Yuki, Mistress Tess, Mistress Evilyne, etc.)

Alternatively, if you want to contribute more directly to the broader sex worker community, then you could donate to organizations like SWOP, Lysistrata, Soar Institute and St James. Or, if you want a more general organization to donate to, try the Electronic Frontier Foundation. They seem to have been one of the few privacy and free speech organizations to consistently stand up against SESTA/FOSTA.

The image below is from Mistress Iris. She also put up a couple of very thoughtful and well written instagram posts here and here. Worth checking out and reading. Not to mention its a chance to enjoy how fabulous she looks.

Foot Binding

I find this style of rope sexy as hell when used in bondage. Something about the more natural color gives it a rawer edge. I was initially so caught up by the binding, that I didn’t even notice the domme’s leg jammed into his crotch. There are no fancy outfits or tortuous looking toys involved, but this is a lovely and sexy scene.

This is from a tweet by Elise Graves, who also provided the bondage and the foot to the crotch. The man on the receiving end is Kino Payne and the shot was captured by steelwerks.

Bondage Fun in NYC – Part II

My kinky shenanigans on the East Coast continued today with a session with Mistress Tess. She’s someone I’ve admired from afar for a while now, and I consider myself very lucky to get the opportunity to session with her.

Much like my session earlier in the week with Troy Orleans, we featured a lot of heavy bondage, needles, CBT and electricity. However, that’s where the session similarity ended. With Troy I developed a relaxed and more meditative bondage headspace. With Mistress Tess there was no relaxing or meditating on the agenda. It was full of intense sensations and a constant shift between pain and pleasure. In hindsight the two sessions made a wonderful yin and yang. Similar on the surface, equally valid experiences, but so different in the dynamic.

This was also the closest I’ve ever come to role-playing in a session. I can’t say that I actually did any role playing personally, because my input – when I wasn’t screaming or moaning – was basically ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry mistress’. So zero marks for me on the creative front. Fortunately, Mistress Tess more than made up for my incoherence by spinning some wonderful fantasies that pushed all sorts of buttons for me. It was so much fun it might almost inspire me to relax my previous aversion to roleplay. Most dommes are either quiet during sessions, interrogative or simply comment on what’s happening. I’ve never known anyone who could combine the kind of verbal and physical creativity that Mistress Tess demonstrated.

This is from the website of Mistress Tess. She also has a social media presence on twitter. If you can’t get to NYC to see her in person, then she has a OnlyFans site that you can join.

Bondage Fun in NYC

My East Coast vacation has moved onto New York, and today I was lucky enough to spend some time with Troy Orleans. Much bondage fun was on the menu, featuring chains, open mouth gags, leather straps and plastic wrap mummification. There were also some needles and electricity mixed in there for good measure.

Bondage for me is often the starting point of a session, not the ultimate goal. It’s the thing you have to do before starting the actual kinky activity you’re targeting. But when you’ve got someone with the mad skills of Troy Orleans, not to mention her amazing studio space, it’s nice to turn it around and make bondage itself the focus. It can lead to quite unique headspaces that are somehow stressful and relaxing all at the same time.

This image is Troy in her space, but not with me. This is from her Instagram feed (shot in March) and the domme at the back is Elise Graves. Those metal wires can actually be used to suspend the submissive in space, with that lower bench pulled entirely clear.

Pain and Pleasure in the Windy City

My vacation got off to a fantastic start playing with Mistress Mara Mayhem. Whimpering, grunting, growling and snarling were all featured at some point. Possibly I also moaned, but only in a satisfied ‘hit me again’ type way.

I find there’s a really interesting tipping point in corporal play,  and reaching it is very dependent on the skill of the domme. If the escalation is too rapid or the intensity changes too erratic then the stress of the situation overwhelms the other emotions. It becomes very hard to zone out and relax into more intense sensations when you’re constantly on edge about what’s about to happen. On the other hand is the escalation is smooth and well judged it’s much easier to let the endorphins take over. It’s the difference between pain alone and pain as part of the dynamic between me and the domme. Too much too early is actually counter-productive in terms of building to a satisfying level of shared intensity. Needless to say Mistress Mara judged it perfectly in this session.

Of course we didn’t just indulge in corporal. There was also a fair amount of CBT involved as shown in this dick pic snap. As is usual, the removal of the various clips and clamps hurt a lot more than the initial application. Fortunately Mistress Mara ensured I was well hydrated for the session – in all sorts of different ways.

This was shot by Mistress Mara either just before or just after our session and featured on her twitter feed.

Mistress Stephanie Locke

I have to admit to being very conflicted on social media. It’s ability to spread lies and poison is undoubtedly high, but at the same time, it does enable me to discover amazing people. As an example, I give you Mistress Stephanie Locke.

I first encountered Mistress Locke via a series of black and white images posted on usenet back in the 90’s. I had absolutely no idea who was in the images, but I remember being transfixed by them. I thought they were the hottest thing I’d ever seen, but I couldn’t understand why I reacted as strongly as I did. It was only later that I realized I was reacting to the realism in the shots. Most femdom and kink shots at the time looked horribly staged and featured bored models.  There were lots of floggers being waved towards the camera by people who looked desperate to escape their boots and corsets. In contrast, the shots with Stephanie Locke seemed to feature people who were genuinely interested in who they were beating and why.* It amazes me that today I can read the thoughts and tweets of a domme who seemed like a mythical figure to the young paltego.

Sadly I don’t have a copy of the original usenet series of images that first caught my eye. The image below looks like it’s from a few years later on. I just wish I was at DomCon in LA to pay my respects in person. I love this selfie she posted with a crop on the bathroom counter.

* It’s also possible that the fact that I have a thing for dommes in glasses also played a role here.

Playing with Domina Akira

I’m safely back in Seattle, my short San Francisco trip at an end. Before I left I was lucky enough to be able to sneak in one final session. Following my usual algorithm, having played with someone I know well, I wanted to play with someone new to me. Via the Domme Sisterhood site I found Domina Akira and I was fortunate enough to find a suitable time before my flight left for us to meet.

Her style was definitely different to Yuki’s – more formal and interrogative – while still mixed in playful and teasing elements.  There was some interesting arm rope bondage in a style I’d not experienced before and, while I’d never describe myself as a foot fetishist, I did discover a liking for having a domme’s bare foot smooshed into my face. I suspect that’s more a scent and objectification thing than a foot thing per se. Despite the fact that I’m not a fan of more formally structured scenes, I think the session actually worked out really well. The fact she laughed a lot as she hit me was certainly a big plus!

Domina Akira also demonstrated the instinctive reactions I’ve come to recognize in all great dommes. Namely, immediately poking and slapping all the tender places I’d acquired in earlier sessions and beating my ass prior to getting on a plane (point 4 from here). I think she might have been disappointed that I only had a 2 hour flight back to Seattle rather than a 10 hour one back to England.

This image is taken from Domina Akira’s image gallery. If you’re in the Bay area and want to schedule a session, her contact page is here. She also has tour dates posted for the next few months via twitter.

A Double Dose

I’m fortunate that most of the feedback I receive for this blog is positive and appreciative. That said, there is one singular and common complaint that I find regularly jamming up my inbox. It generally follows the form of – ‘I love your witty writing and insight into kink. But why can’t we have more of it? One blog just isn’t enough! Can you please give us more of paltego?’

I find these kind of complaints somewhat annoying, but I also hate to disappoint anyone. So for this group of totally genuine and not at all imaginary people,  I give you a lengthy interview with me on the blog of the fabulous Miss Ava Zhang.

In all seriousness, it was an interesting and enjoyable process to think through the questions Miss Zhang posed, as well as pleasure to hear her feedback. While I have this site as my personal soapbox, I try and keep posts here short and to the point. Writing in more detail forced me to clarify my thoughts and do a degree of self-analysis. That’s probably an exercise I could do with repeating more often.

Miss Zhang is based in NYC, but also tours regularly. I’ve not been lucky enough to session with her (yet!), but based on my interactions for this interview, I think she’d be an amazing person to know and submit to.

I love the blend of elegance, composure and just a touch of fetish in this shot. It’s from Miss Zhang’s gallery page.

Saying ‘No’ to men

LA’s Natalie West has a written an interesting article entitled ‘I tell men “no” for a living: What a dominatrix knows about #MeToo‘. As the title suggests, it touches on issues of consent, boundaries and the men who potentially violate them, from her perspective as a domme. I normally like to pull out a representative post quote from these kind of articles, but this is a dense piece that doesn’t lend itself to excerpting. If you’ve come to this blog for hot sexy stuff, then stick to this picture from her professional site, but for anyone looking for a more thought provoking read, it’s worth checking out.

This is from her gallery page. If you’re in the LA area and want to a session, then booking info is here.

Funny Mummy

After some seriously depressing politics, I felt a touch of humor might be required. And I can’t think of anyone who can combine humor, playfulness and some seriously intense bondage quite like Lady Hinako. The mummification image below is from her twitter feed. It makes me smile each time I look at it. The second image, of Mistress Hinako herself, is from a different scene and taken from her blog post entitled Hinako Hospital. Even in medical play, she manages to inject (ahem) some fun decoration of her submissive.