Gulliver’s Travels

Last week I mentioned a piercing session I’d done with Lydia featuring a fair number of needles. This week I bring you a few photographs from the session. If you’re at all squeamish about piercings or naked gentleman bits, then I’d suggest not clicking on the image links. Both elements feature heavily. On the plus side, there is a sexy picture to finish.

The original plan A for the session was to do a butterfly boarding. We’d done this before, back in 2011, in one of the first sessions I documented. Unfortunately, Lydia couldn’t track down any foam board at short notice. Ever creative, she moved onto a plan B of using my body as the board. Specifically my thighs and stomach. The idea was to pierce through the genitals and then through the torso skin, stitching everything into place with needles. That sounded good in theory, but several painful minutes demonstrated it didn’t work well in practice. The needles tended to pull out too easily. Fortunately, it was a case of third time lucky, as plan C was a striking success. This stuck to using my body as the board, but combined pairs of needles acting as anchor points with cords to stretch everything into place.

This top shot and this side shot show the arrangement pretty clearly. It led to a fascinating headspace, as every small movement pulled at different needles and communicated sensation across my body. Piercing always makes me floaty and the bondage elements of this approach pushed me deeper into that subspace. It also created an interesting feedback loop. Arousal pulled at the needles and, masochist that I am, that made me more aroused, which pulled the needles even more painfully. Lydia always likes to layer sensation, so the nipples also got involved, with cord running from them down via a belly piercing to the top of the cock. You can see the nipple piercing here and a torso view here. That connection across the body brought my breathing into the picture, each breath pulling at the taut cord and signalling down to the needles in their sensitive homes. Very intense but equally stimulating.

I’m always happy and laughing at the end of a scene, but in this case I was particularly amused when it came time to take everything out and I could examine the arrangement more closely. It put me in mind of the famous scene in Gulliver’s travels when he visits Lilliput and gets tied down on the beach. Except instead of Gulliver and ropes there’s my cock and a lot of frayed cords. It’s not really how Swift first imagined it, but possibly my genitals might pull off the role better than Jack Black did.

Given all the naked me in the image links, it feels only fair to finish with someone who’s not only far more photogenic but also responsible for conceiving and executing the scene. This is the wonderful Lydia, taken from her new and excitingly revamped website.

Lady Lydia

A lack of forethought

Today I learned that drinking a lot of rum cocktails is not a wise way to prepare for a scene the next day, no matter how delicious said drinks are. Being hungover and feeling extra delicate really adds an edge to nipple piercing and ball spanking. On the plus side, the rush of endorphins those activities provoke do help ease the symptoms of over indulgence. I can’t sell them as a hangover cure, but they certainly helped take my mind off my aching head.

Fortunately I was playing with Mistress Ai-Li who, expert that she is, worked well around my planning failure. She managed to push me, without provoking any unpleasant reactions, which I’m sure was a result we both desired.

Domina Ai-Li

The image is from Mistress Ai-Li’s website. She’s based in the Bay area should you wish to experience her session skills for yourself.

Understated uniform

Apologies for the lack of posts this weekend. Once again I had plans for stuff to write and, once again, life got in the way. I hate it when that happens.

To start the new week, here’s a nicely composed example of a well worked theme – a dominant lady in a military uniform. This is Lady Stella of Studio Avalon. There are a million shots in this genre floating around, but I like this particular example because it’s quite understated. It’s not a crazy over the top uniform. The camera isn’t shooting from the worms eye viewpoint. And she’s standing on what appears to be a military parade ground. It looks like a great starting point for a serious and intense roleplay.

Lady Stella

So it has come to this…

Shameless attention whoring ahoy! I figure if Ferns can get away with it, why not me?

Rori is once again taking nominations for the best sex bloggers. Last year I was nominated and ended up on the list, as I blogged about at the time. Now obviously as a serious and dedicated sex blog blogger, I’m above such petty popularity contests. It matters to me not one whit should I be nominated or not. My only concern is to bring you, my dear readers, the best femdom based material I can. But it strikes me that getting nominated would encourage more readers to visit. And that would mean more readers to write witty and insightful comments. And that in turn would create a better quality blog for everyone. So I’m really doing it for all of you out there.

Anyone buying that unimpeachable logic, and wanting to help me help you, can do so by leaving a suitable nomination comment on Rori’s site. It’d make me, I mean you, as happy as a Deviant Kade being tied up by a Simone Kross.

Deviant Kade with Simone Kross

The image is originally from the CBT and Ballbusting site. I found it via the Happy BDSM tumblr.

Payment and power

It’s widely accepted that the power dynamics within a BDSM scene are separate to the dynamics outside of it. In some cases they may happen to align (e.g. couples in 24/7 D/s relationship), but often they will not. Outside a scene the players might simply be casual play partners, or in a standard egalitarian relationship, or even enjoy a reversed dynamic, where a dominant outside the bedroom bottoms within it. Pretty much every combination possible is working successfully somewhere. Yet, if you add money into this mix, attitudes tend to change. I’ve often heard it said that a pro-domme’s client always has the power because he or she supplies the money. That no matter what the intended power dynamics in a scene are, it can never be genuine when money is involved.

As regular readers might predict, I find this an odd attitude. Firstly, it suggests a leaking of the power dynamic across scene boundaries that doesn’t apply in any other situation. Nobody would maintain that a couple can’t have a ‘real’ D/s scene because they regard each other as equals in daily life. Secondly, it implies that somebody paying for any kind of service can never have a submissive experience. That’s self-evidently not true when you look outside the sexual realm.

My favorite counter-example of this would be high end dining experiences. Eating at places like Saison (in SF), é by José Andrés (Vegas) and Uraswawa (LA) is always a submissive experience. These are restaurants where you don’t get to choose the food, you don’t get to choose the preparation and you don’t get to choose the accompaniments. You eat what the chef decides to present that night. Some places have even specific rules about how to eat. For example at Urasawa, the chef insists you eat each sushi piece in less than 10 seconds from when he places it in front of you. The restaurant’s clientele may be paying the bills, but nobody expects that in doing so they’re buying ownership of the chef. Instead, much like a session with a pro-domme, they’re paying for access to an experience.

Nobody would claim that my decision to dine or not at Le Bernardin puts me in a position of power over its chef Eric Ripert. Yet that’s exactly the argument advanced when it comes to pro-dommes and their clients. I suspect this contradiction arises from prejudice against sex workers. Some people erroneously believe, possibly subconsciously, that nobody would voluntarily choose to do sex work. They wouldn’t do it, so they can’t imagine anyone else choosing to. And if they believe a pro-domme isn’t there by choice, then she clearly isn’t operating from a position of power.

Note that I’m not claiming that all sex workers love their jobs, or that all pro-domme/client interactions are models of D/s perfection, or that a professional interaction is the same as a lifestyle one. I just to want break the idea that money inevitably corrupts and negates any BDSM scene it comes into contact with.

Mistress Wynter

Given the nature of this post it seemed appropriate to finish with an interesting image from a pro-domme. This is from Mistress Wynter. I’ve sadly never had the pleasure of doing a session with her, but by all accounts she is one of the most talented dommes in NYC. Certainly someone who enjoys her chosen profession.

Journalism fail

See if you can spot the problem between the title of this article and the data presented. Apparently the author, Amanda Chatel, can’t tell the difference between an absolute value (as implied by the title) and a relative value (as measured by the survey). Based on this approach, a town than went from 1 to 2 kinky people would be kinkier than a town that went from 1000 to 1500 kinky people. I know most journalists find anything beyond grade school mathematics confusing (see any recent mainstream economics discussion for proof of that), but this is pretty poor even by their conventional low standards.

Personally if I had to pick the kinkiest town in the US, it would be between San Francisco and New York. Given that SF is considerably smaller, it would probably get the nod based on a percentage of population estimate. With that in mind, I’ll finish with a shot of San Francisco’s own Vinyl Queen. This image is from her tumblr and features tickle torture. That’s a love/hate activity for me. I often think about putting it on my hard limits list, but I do perversely enjoy the fact that many dommes seem to love tormenting me with it.

Tickle Torture with Vinyl Queen

Should you wish to be tickled or otherwise tormented by Vinyl Queen, her professional site is here

And that’s magic!

Can you trace the origin of your kinks or fetishes? Assuming that you have any. Although if you don’t, you’ve chosen a really odd site to browse.

The NY Magazine article discussed in yesterday’s post on the origins of people’s kinks, talked a lot about triggers and formative events. Things from childhood that could be directly linked to a later sexual preference. It would seem that some fraction of kinky people have very clear triggers, some can point to a range of influences but no single thing, and others have absolutely nothing in childhood to point at. In the comments to the post Miss Margo mentioned that a lot of her clients can identify triggers, while Vista represented the kinky person without that genesis moment.

Personally I’m in the same camp as Vista. I don’t have anything I can point to that twisted me kinky. However, I can very clearly identify the moment when I first showed interest in a kinky thing. Cue a wibbly wobbly screen and swirly special effects as I take you back thirty (ahem) or so years to a much younger paltego…

I grew up in a tiny village. It was basically two streets, one shop, a village hall and (since this is England we’re talking about) two pubs. This was a time when the internet was still the arpanet and British television consisted of 3 channels. Any kind of organized live entertainment was therefore a big deal. There was the occasional village fête, a Christmas carol concert, an agricultural show, etc.  Then one year, when I was around 5 or 6 years old, somebody organized a variety show in the village hall. I can’t remember most of it. It was probably the usual amateur song and dance acts with a bad comedian thrown in for good measure. But there was also a magic act. And that act has stayed with me to this day. It was very traditional. Card tricks. Linking rings. Endless streams of colorful handkerchiefs. And a woman in a sparkly costume getting sawn in half (actually the Zig Zag Girl trick). It was this final trick that particularly transfixed me. I can still remember my excitement as she climbed into the box and the magician tied things around her wrists and ankles. She was constrained, in peril, sacrificial and yet willing. He took away her control, yet she seemed to enjoy it.

From that moment on I always kept an eye out for magic acts and escapologists on television. There was something I found very enticing about the ropes, chains, padlocks and perilous situations that featured in their acts. But it wasn’t till I hit puberty, and discovered the idea of bondage (via my parents copy of The Joy Of Sex), that I had my ‘Aha!’ moment. I certainly don’t think the magic act I saw as a child was formative. The wiring was already in place, because it excited me in a strange way the instant I saw it. The discovery of kink just helped me to understand why I’d found that particular act in an otherwise long forgotten village show so compelling.

Femdom Magic Trick captioned by Servitor

It was surprisingly hard to find a magic themed femdom shot. A lot of the equipment for elaborate magic tricks looks awfully similar to the contents of most dungeons, yet there seems to be very little direct cross-over. In the end I turned to the prolific Servitor and this amusingly captioned picture. The ‘magician’ in question here is the lovely Lexi Sindel.

Nipple torment and good hair

I’m safely back in Seattle after an interesting few days in Vancouver. While I was there I was lucky enough to meet up with Mistress Eleise de Lacy. We had a few scheduling issues that cut into our time together, but the session time we did have was highly enjoyable. In a painful ass beating, cocking piercing, type of way. You know – all the good ways.

A close-up photograph of the piercing part of the session did feature on Mistress Eleise’s twitter feed. However, I’d rather not drive all my readers away with a cock piercing shot right on the front page, so I’ll reach back into her twitter archive and pull out an older and slightly less explicit image. Here’s something she entitled ‘Heavy nipple torment meets good hair day. Happy all round’. That seems to capture the moment pretty well.

Mistress Eleise de Lacy

Mistress Eleise has feature on this blog in previous posts (here, here and here). Her site Femme Fatale Films is a most excellent source of femdom erotica. Her professional site for arranging personal sessions is here.

Revisiting the pro/lifestyle discussion

O Miss Pearl is the latest blogger to venture into the debate around the intersection of pro and non-pro female dominants. She has two recent posts on the topic here and here. I’m going to try and avoid getting deep into the details of her posts. I’ve touched on similar issues in the past (e.g. a series of posts on kink and money here, here, here, a debate with DD here), and while I may quibble about parts of Miss Pearl’s posts, I do agree with the majority of her points. I’m a huge fan of pro-dommes in general, but I still think it’s a bad thing that they’re commonly seen as the primary representation of female domination.

I will say that I think it’s important in these discussions to avoid purely binary classifications. There’s not a single type of pro/client interaction, in the same way there’s not a single lifestyle interaction. These things exist on a continuum. There’s also not a single role that people are uniquely assigned. It’s often acknowledged that a pro-domme may also be a lifestyle dominant, but that same flexibility should also be attributed to her clients. It’s not wrong to occupy multiple categories. What’s wrong is to take a dynamic unique to one and apply it to another. Pro-dommes aren’t looking for a date and lifestyle dommes don’t exist to service male submissive fantasies.

Shortly after reading Miss Pearl’s thoughts I came across this post by Ms Maya Midnight. She’s talking about clients who ask for an ‘easy session’ and what a pain in the ass they usually are. Their definition of what an ‘easy session’ is rarely chimes with hers.

My definition of an easy session is one where I can wear and do more or less whatever I want — or at least have a very wide variety of enjoyable activities to choose from. It also means an easygoing, responsive sub with good communication skills who doesn’t top from the bottom. It does not require much if any prep.

I thought it made for an interesting statement in the context of the pro/lifestyle debate. Often the complaint from lifestyle dominants is that guys expect them to dress like a fetishists wet dream and focus with laser like intensity on the submissive’s very specific fantasy scenarios. i.e. The stereotypical pro/client scenario. Yet, for a pro, her best clients are those who care about the dynamic (rather than an activity or outfit), communicate well and actually submit. I suspect the above list of attributes would strike a cord with lifestyle dominants just as much as professional ones.

Ms Maya Midnight

The image is taken from Ms Maya Midnight’s website. She’s a NYC based pro-domme. Her interests and a link for booking a session is available here.

I don’t judge

Today’s post continues the amusing video theme. While yesterday’s was funny but a little silly, this one is funny with an edge. It’s called ‘Shit Girls Say to Dominatrices‘ and was created by Miss Ginger Millay. While ostensibly from the point of view of a pro-domme, there are plenty of comments in there that I’m sure lifestyle dommes will have also heard. The line and follow-up about accepting Jesus particularly made me smile.

The video’s creator is a NYC based pro-domme. I’m sure she’s fabulous at many aspect of her job, but I particularly like her librarian look as shown below. I never roleplay in scenes, but if there was ever a gateway scenario, it’d be Miss Millay in the library with an overdue book. Much more fun than Miss Scarlet in the study with the candlestick.

Miss Ginger Millay as a naughty librarian