Pro-domme – Page 40 – Femdom Resource

Safewords

Salon has an interesting and disturbing article about people ignoring the abuse of safewords within the BDSM scene. I’ve heard similar stories before and while it’s depressing, I’m not particularly surprised. Closing ranks and suppressing internal dissent is a common trait in groups that are, or perceive themselves as, persecuted minorities. I don’t play in ‘the scene’ or attend community events, so other than pointing people at the article, I really can’t add anything to that specific discussion. However, it did get me thinking about safewords in general, and my personal experiences with pro-dommes.

The usage of safewords was a shock to me when I first started playing for real. Not that people used them, but the fact that some people didn’t. The BDSM community has done such a good job of promoting the idea of safewords that they’ve entered into mainstream discourse. If you surveyed a random sample of non-kinky people I suspect you’d find that the majority would know about the idea of a safeword, despite never needing one themselves. It’s an idea that appeals on a intellectual level as a clever solution to a problem and on an emotional level as magical secret word. After all the idea of transforming a situation with a nonsensical but powerful word, like Abracadabra or ‘Open Sesame’, crops up again and again in stories. There’s something innately appealing about that concept.

Among the different pro-dommes I’ve played with, I’ve noticed three distinct approaches.

Pro-dommes that use a safeword.
Pro-dommes that don’t use a safeword and genuinely don’t need one.
Pro-dommes that don’t use a safeword and really should.

The first category is the most obvious one and, in my limited sample set, the commonest. You agree a word (red, pineapple, ouch, etc. ), and head off for kinky fun.

The second category is rarer but satisfying when you encounter it. I’ve never had a safeword when playing with Lydia and it has never been an issue. That doesn’t mean I’ve never stopped a scene because of cramping or some other significant problem, but it has always been easy to step away from the action and communicate normally. Lydia is also an expert at reading body language and subtle physical tells. I’m always amazed when we deconstruct a scene after the fact and she describes the little touches and glances she used to figure out where I was at mentally and physically. She’d make a hell of a poker player.

The final category is of course the problematic one. It actually manifests itself in two different ways. The obvious issue is of pushing something too far and putting the submissive in a situation where he’s withdrawn consent but can’t communicate that. The other more subtle problem is of going to the other extreme and constantly checking in with the submissive. It becomes impossible to relax into the moment if every action triggers a “Is that OK?”. Repeatedly being asked to regulate the scene intensity is not conducive to a submissive mindset. It feels like being forced into topping from the bottom.

In a strange way the dommes in this final category remind me of a problem I occasionally face when writing staff appraisals at work. Expressed coarsely it’s that idiots don’t know they’re idiots. Smart competent people have well developed critical analysis skills. Idiots, almost by definition, don’t. A good domme will choose either category 1 or 2 based on an honest self-assessment. A bad domme may confidently assume she’s category 2 when in fact she’s category 3.

As a result of this, despite my numerous good experiences playing without a safeword, I tend to think it’s wise to always insist on one when playing with someone new. If you’ve got domme who can genuinely run a scene without one, then you’ll not need to use it anyway. In time, as you get to know each other, it can be consigned to history. Alternatively, if you’re unlucky enough to find a domme whose critical self-assessment doesn’t align with reality, then you’ll probably end up very grateful you insisted on selecting one. I should also add that none of the pro-dommes I’ve ever named and written about here fall into this unfortunate third category.

If all else fails, and you find yourself needing out of a scene, then “lawsuit” is always a good backup option. Or, more boringly, simply “safeword” itself.

Original image is courtesy of Strict Miss and was captioned by Servitor. I like the caption and the brandished cane. Less keen on her outfit.

Zippering with Lady Lydia

Last week I was lucky enough to spend a couple of hours doing some zippering with Lady Lydia. As I mentioned in this post from the night itself, I had a wonderful time and it has jumped high on my list of interesting activities to do. For the uninitiated zippering uses clothespins (or somethings similar) in combination with some thin cord. As the clips are attached the cord is passed through them, connecting them as a single continuous line. Then a swift pull of the end of the cord rips them painfully away from the skin.

I have to admit to going into the session with a little bit of blasé attitude. I’ve had clothespins attached in the past and haven’t found them all that painful. I normally need something with a sharper narrower jaw to get my attention. However, it turns out that having lots of them attached very close together does hurt. And having them quickly ripped away really hurts. It almost reminded me a little of a caning. There’s the moment of shock, where you feel the sensation but not the pain. Just the briefest of pauses. Then the pain strikes like a sharp hot line across the body. A line that in my case was then made worse by Lydia squeezing and pinching the vivid red marks left behind.

Another surprisingly enjoyable aspect was the rhythm of the session. There’s a slow-build up as each clip is put into place. It’s like being decorated, with an associated sense of objectification. Then comes the moment of tension. The little tugs on the cord. The smile as she teases, watching me shift nervously as the anticipation builds. Finally, the sudden jerk and the snapping jaws as they pop free of flesh. The pain hits and there’s that moment where everything in the world is about that sensation. The brain can’t process anything other than the nerves that are screaming at it. The whole sequence is a wonderful combination of slowly building tension and sharp punctuating pain.

The first shot on the left (click to enlarge) was taken at the end of the first half of the session. We were using Lydia’s St. Georges chair and she’d already done a number of zipper lines across different parts of the body. The one shown was probably the biggest and the most painful, running all the way from under the arm to the outer hip. Although there are a number of clips on the cock Lydia (thankfully) didn’t zipper those. Too much danger of ripping the skin there.

The other two shots show a little bit of zippering bondage we did towards the end of the session. I was on a tilted padded leather table, and Lydia arranged the clips and cord across both my arms, chest and belly. The end result was that any movement of my arms tugged painfully against my torso, leaving Lydia free to tickle, tease and generally torment me.

A couple of hours after the session I shot some pictures of the resulting bruises. In these you can see my chest area, my left side and my right side.

For anyone tempted to try this stye of play, I’d offer the following tips.

If the submissive is skinny like me then adopt a position that’ll give some slack in the skin. Seated worked well for us. Being stretched taut, either horizontally or vertically, can make it too easy for the clips to pop free ahead of time.
The placement of the clips really makes a difference to the pain level. Down the sides of the torso isn’t too bad. Across chest where the skin is thinner hurts a little more. Across the belly is surprisingly painful, and almost a little nausea inducing (although that soon passed for me). Down the inside of the thigh is the most painful spot of all (at least of what we tried).
Once the clips are in place don’t be in too much of a hurry to pull them off. The top can create some really interesting sensations by pushing and stretching the skin with their hands. That also has a very strong psychological effect, as the close contact is both simultaneously comforting and painful.
Tickling when the clips are in place is a particularly sadistic thing to do. It creates a bunch of involuntary movement that stretches the skin and makes the clips wriggle in place.
Ripping only part of the clips away is another very sadistic trick. This happened with the diagonal zipper shown on the left. The submissive gets a big blast of pain, and then just as they recover from that, there’s the rapidly dawning realization that isn’t over yet and more is about to come.

Kink, sex and money (concluded)

So here’s what I promise is my third and final post in this mini-series. Having talked about different types of sex work and the way I believe the law has shaped them into their current forms, I though it’d be interesting to mull over what would happen if the laws were liberalized. Would that be a good thing?

On the face of it this seems like a dumb question. Removing the legal risk for both sex-workers and clients would seem to benefit them both. I think that’s certainly true for escorts and their clients, but the picture is potentially a little more complex in the kinky domain.

Lets assume that I was right about the impact the law has had on the shape of the commercial BDSM industry. Lets also assume if the laws were liberalized that we’d see a similar evolution to what happened in the pornography industry. The two current distinct markets of sex and BDSM would intermingle and the intersection between them become a far more significant factor. That not only mirrors what happened in porn, it would also more closely reflect how a lot of kinky people play in non-commercial settings. What might the effects of this be?

Firstly, it means pro-dommes could set boundaries based on their personal limits rather than legal constraints. For some, probably a majority, this wouldn’t change anything. But undoubtedly a non-trivial fraction would be open to incorporating more sexual play (which is not necessarily the same thing as conventional intercourse). At the same time the way would be open for escorts to more easily contact and market to current pro-domme clients. The forums and boards that only allow discussion of legal kinky activities would be able to host a much wider range of topics and sex worker views. The end result of all that would be a more complex and varied market place. The (almost) universal rules about not requesting any sexual activity would be out the window.

You could argue that this wouldn’t matter. A session setup is always a negotiation between two individuals anyway. Not all dommes do the same set of activities today, so what would be different? I suspect that one difference might be the hassle factor. With a fuzzier definition of what’s acceptable, clients would have much more varied expectations, and more to negotiate about. The “…but mistress x let me do this…” factor would rise significantly. Another difference might be pressure to compete in the marketplace against more sexual providers. Would we lose experienced and expert mistresses who couldn’t remain commercially viable at limits they were comfortable with?

It might also affect the intake of new pro-dommes. I think the current barrier to entry to the profession is lowered by the fact a domme remains clothed and sexual activity is not an option. Arguably this attracts too many women without a kinky bone in their body who see it as an easy way to make good money (see this article for example). I think that’s a very misguided approach, as being a good pro-domme requires immense skills and talent (as I’ve said in the past). However, I wonder how many pro-dommes got involved because traditional sexual activity wasn’t required, and then discovered a kinky dominant side that they enjoyed exploring. How many potentially great dommes would be lost in a more sexual market space?

My final point is a kind of obscure one, and a little bit of a personal one. At present I suspect that there is a hidden subsidy that flows from one group of pro-domme clients to another. Today a guy into body worship, verbal humiliation and tease and denial may well visit the same pro-domme as a guy into heavy leather bondage and electrical play. The latter requires expensive equipment while the former requires very little. So those clients into the lighter side of kink are helping to subsidize the guys who enjoy all the custom furniture and expensive toys many pro-dommes own. If the market was more finely segmented that subsidy might vanish. Maybe a kink savvy escort would be a better fit for the body worshiping verbal humiliation guy? As someone who indulges in a pretty broad spectrum of play, but definitely enjoys all the toys and tools of a well equipped pro-domme, that change wouldn’t be a welcome one. It’d potentially reduce the number of pro-dommes with well equipped playrooms.

Of course at the end of the day, all this is idle speculation. As far as the US is concerned, there’s little chance of having a sensible political conversation about legalizing sex work. The political system is far too screwed up for that to happen. As someone who tends to the socially liberal point of view, I think that’s a shame. Despite my speculation on possible downsides in some areas, I think when considering the bigger picture then legalization would be without doubt the right thing to do.

Picking a picture for this post was hard. The future repercussions of sex work legislation doesn’t lend itself to kinky photo fun. In my last post I mentioned Mistress Matisse, and given her varied career in sex work I thought she might be a good candidate for an image. She’s worked as a dominatrix (obviously), as a stripper (described here), as a peep show dancer (at Seattle’s now defunct Lusty Lady) and as an escort (memorably captured in her essay ‘The Whore on Christmas‘). Here’s a nice shot of her about to paddle the hell out of some lucky guy’s ass.

Kink, sex and money (continued)

In yesterday’s post I was pondering the intersection of sex and commercial domination, and suggesting that the laws around sex work had led to the well defined modern pro-domme industry. I thought in this continuation post it’d be worth thinking about the other side of the sex work coin, the escort business.

Now I have to admit that I don’t have as much experience in this area as I do with pro-dommes. However, I have hung out on a wide variety of sex forums and sites, and I’ve always been puzzled by one question. Why aren’t there more kinky escorts? While legal issues may have helped shape the pro-domme industry, why should that have any impact on escorts? In the vast majority of the US (outside a few bits of Nevada) paying for sex is illegal. So given escorts are already operating without the same legal and conventional boundaries pro-dommes typically have, why do so few not try to broaden their appeal to capture both the sexual and the kinky market?

I should probably briefly pause at this point to make clear that I’m not suggesting that the skill-sets between the two professions are the same. Or that all an escort needs to do to steal some pro-domme customers is to buy herself a whip and a pair of leather boots. But at the same time, you don’t necessarily need a MA in rope suspension and a PhD in medical play to mix some light kink with a little sex. Why isn’t that category better represented by sex workers?

My personal theory is that the reason can be indirectly traced back to those same laws that helped define conventional pro-domme activities. As I suggested yesterday those laws created a fairly well defined idea of what a pro-domme is and does. It’s a role that’s externally perceived to be about pain, punishment and humiliation. It’s about naked guys on all fours while a woman struts about dressed like a leather clad Nazi stormtrooper. There’s no fun and there’s no pleasure (as it’s conventionally defined). I think that’s an incorrect perception, I’ve had all sorts of fun, playful and pleasurable sessions, but it’s a common one.

This dichotomy of sex and kink creates a marketing problem for anyone trying to bridge it. The kind of forums where you can advertise and reach out to pro-domme clients frown on any kind of sexual service. There’s the ‘circling the wagons’ syndrome I discussed yesterday from the dommes (‘escort with a whip’ is a common disparaging description), and there’s the site moderators worried about any legal ramifications. Well know places like Max Fisch will rapidly delete any discussion that touches on potentially illegal behavior. On the flip-side, trying to market to the escort customers who might be kinky, runs the risk of scaring them off with all that weird BDSM stuff. Mistress Matisse wrote a blog post several years ago that touched on this. She had a friend who worked as an escort and would call up Matisse if one of her regulars suggested anything a little kinky…

…she always introduced me by another name, because a lot of her guys displayed nervousness when she floated the idea of bringing in “a pro domme”. Oh, no thank you, that would be too much, they’d say. They weren’t that kinky. But when Miss K said something like “I have a girlfriend who has a flogger and a strap-on” – or whatever the appropriate thing was – the answer was: “Sure, love to meet her!”
Mistress Matisse

The ironic thing about the very limited intersection between these two commercial areas is that in the non-commercial domain that’s where most kinky people find themselves. A couple exploring BDSM doesn’t rush out to fit a hard point in the bedroom, buy a 6 foot bullwhip and enroll in advanced classes in piercing and cutting. Instead they do a little bondage, maybe some spanking or CBT and buy a few fun toys to try. Even among couples who get seriously interested in it, there seem to be very few who take it to the level of putting together the kind of set-up you’d find a pro-domme using.

Personally this gap in the market doesn’t bother me too much. I like the kind of intense and heavy pure BDSM sessions a skilled pro-domme can put together. Sex is pretty much the last thing on my hand after I’ve been bound and tortured for two hours. But I do think the distortion to the market caused by the law in this area probably leaves a lot of potential clients out in the cold. They don’t think they’re kinky enough to see a pro-domme, but they’d like a little more than meaningless vanilla sex.

At this point I’m going to once again stop with things still left to say. Looks like this’ll have to stretch to an unprecedented third post. Tune in tomorrow for more of my meandering thoughts.

Finding an image for this post wasn’t easy. I really wanted a shot of that rare breed – a kinky escort. Luckily my hard drive is replete with images from odd sources, and I managed to locate this one. The woman here is Tigerr Juggs, a London and Tokyo based escort who offers a very complete set of kinky services.

Kink, sex and money

There’s a post title with three simple and uncontroversial topics in it. I should have no problem dusting them all off in the space of this one blog entry.

More seriously, I’ve been idly musing over the intersection of these three areas for sometime, but this particular post was prompted by this blog entry by January Seraph. You can go read it for yourself, but the short version is that having been invited to participate in a pro-domme calendar project she was then uninvited for combing sexual acts with BDSM in the videos she’d shot. In the words of the unidentified calendar creator:

On a professional level this concerns me greatly. I require that all of the Pro Dommes in my production are not filming any sexual acts to protect my name, and themselves as well.

I found that extraordinary, particularly given that January had also offered to donate a full day of her studio’s time to shoot for the calendar, and it got me thinking more about sex and kink in the professional domain. I should add that what follows are my general thoughts, entirely unrelated to how January conducts herself in the different facets of her professional life. Her original post was just an interesting catalyst.

Anyone who has browsed pro-domme websites or scheduled a session will know that sexual activity between the domme and the client is very much verboten. Almost universally they’ll state that even suggesting it will get you hung-up on or booted out of the dungeon. Of course, there does tend to be some variance on where the line actually gets drawn. Some pro-dommes will do penetration with a strap-on, some will not. Some will limit body worship to below the knees, where others will do face sitting provided they remain fully clothed. But in general nothing happens that would typically be classified as ‘sex’.

I’ve also noticed a tendency for pro-dommes to ‘circle the wagons’ when it comes to defining what should and should not be allowed. I think this comes from an understandable desire to try and have a reasonably consistent boundary line across all pro-dommes, and not have clients confused about what they can expect. For example, masturbating a submissive (aka a handjob) is a fairly controversial area. That can clearly be a sexual service outside of a D/s interaction, and that can also be a very integral part of intense D/s play. Yet I’ve had lengthy on-line arguments with a few pro-dommes who tied themselves in logical knots trying to prove that it was impossible for a handjob to be a dominant act. It seemed that they felt a need to extend the entirely unarguable “I don’t do this” into the unreasonable “…and no other domme should.” I suspect that’s partly where the calendar project owner was coming from. She wants a consistent view of what a pro-domme does, and more specifically she wants it to be her view. Anyone outside of that is not just making a personal decision about boundaries, but in her mind is also bring her chosen profession into disrepute.

I think a lot of the lines drawn around professional domination have arisen from the current laws around sex work. For the most part it’s possible to operate as a pro-domme entirely legally. Some activities are legally risky (anal penetration, force-bi), but with care a pro-domme can be successful without breaking a single US law. I think this legal boundary line has helped create a more universal definition of what a pro-domme actually does. That’s not to say that if all the laws were repealed tomorrow that all pro-dommes would then suddenly expand their range of activities to cover more sexual acts. But I do think the laws have helped shape the well defined form the industry currently takes.

In this context, it’s interesting to observe the evolution in BDSM pornography in recent years. Ten or more years ago it was very much segregated from traditional pornography. Movies either showed penetrative sex or they showed traditional BDSM activities (bondage, fetish gear, mild pain, etc.), but never both together. There was a general assumption that to combine these two things together would land the producer in court under an obscenity charge (mostly thanks to assholes like this guy). The Cambria list provides a pretty good representation of what was then thought to be unacceptable. But a combination of the internet, a big reduction in prosecutions and producers willing to push the envelope changed the perception of the legal risks. Now there are sites like Sex and Submission dedicated to showing explicit sex combined with heavy BDSM. I actually know of pro-dommes who will not shoot for kink.com anymore, as sexual acts have rapidly become an expected part of a scene. So while individuals have kept their own personal boundaries intact, from an industry perspective the legal change (or perceived one) has acted to dissolve the strict BDSM/non-BDSM pornography divide. Now the material distributes itself across the entire possible continuum of activities.

At this point I’ll stop writing further. Clearly my original goal of nailing all the issues around kink, sex and money in a single post was a little ambitious. It turns out I’m going to need two posts for that, so check-back tomorrow for my continued thoughts on where escorts and kink fit in. Until then it seems appropriate to finish with a shot of Mistress Seraph, given that she was the original prompt for my post. Here she is doing a little CBT for the Divine Bitches site.

The new best thing ever

This image is me from a few hours ago. Bound, tormented and zippered.

Well, if I’m honest, it’s not strictly and literally me. I don’t have very thin sideburns for one thing. And, despite my intensive exercise routine of typing, thinking and arguing, I sadly don’t have this guys physique. However, I was having a fabulous time with a dominant woman and a large collection of clothes pegs. It was the first time I’d done zippering, and I now can’t believe it never occurred to me to do it earlier. It’s a whole heap of painful fun. Not sure it’s absolutely the best thing ever, but it’s certainly up there when it comes to interesting ways to be hurt.

I have images snapped of my scene that I’ll post later this week. However, for the moment you’ll have to do without my scrawny ass and instead put up with this men in pain shot. I’m not sure who the submissive is, but I believe that’s the back of Maitresse Madeline.

The secret ingredient

I’ve been entertaining myself recently by browsing various Japanese BDSM blogs. Since I don’t speak Japanese and online translation tools mostly suck, there’s a fairly large lottery element to the process. I randomly click anything that looks like a link and occasionally I end up somewhere interesting. On the plus side, I think I am slowly learning the Japanese term for ‘Next Page’ ( 次ページ).

One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of Japanese bloggers are far more interested in food than US bloggers. Or at least as far as I can tell just from the images they post. There will be a few posts on bondage and whipping, and then suddenly a picture of what looks like the ingredients for tomorrows dinner. It makes for a diverting if slightly incongruous image sequence.

This photograph manages to neatly combine both topics together. I’m not sure if he’s being punished for a mistake in the kitchen, or if it’s simply a way for her to enjoy herself while dinner cooks. I kind of hope the latter. Maybe he’s being caned until the water comes to a boil. That’d be a fun way to time the various periods in preparing a meal.

I found this on the 9ruikou blog. I believe it’s written by a Domina Ruiko, a pro-domme based in Tokyo (but I could well be wrong).

Crown of thorns

This post brings you details of another one of my sessions with Lady Lydia. As the title might suggest to those who recognize the term, the session in question features piercings, so I’ve put the description and images on a separate page. Consensual activity is always important, so I don’t want to surprise anyone over their morning coffee or late night cocktail with a sudden close-up of a naked me on my frontpage.

The session also throws some electricity and rubber bands into the mix as well. If you’re interested to see what a highly skilled domme can do with all these ingredients, then follow the jump to “Crown of thorns with Lady Lydia“.

Snippets of interest

A few different interesting posts have caught my eye recently. Apologies for those who read my blogroll religiously and have seen all this before, but I thought I’d use just this post to point them all out at once.

Firstly, thanks to hmp’s recent post for the pointer to the Masocast with Irene Boss. For those that don’t know her, she’s a very well known pro-domme and BDSM film producer. It’s a really interesting masocast episode and well worth a listen. I particularly enjoyed her memories of OWK, which sounded like a really unique femdom experiment.

Anyone interested in a fairly unusual and entertaining way to torture their slave might enjoy Mistress160’s description of the Xmas Orgasm torture she invented. I read a lot about chastity and denial, it’s a little more unusual having a series of forced and timed orgasms over a relatively short period.

Ferns has just the cutest post describing her recent trip to a fetish shop. Reading it made me feel happy inside. It’s great that the woman she met was confident enough to explore and ask questions, and lucky that she bumped into Ferns. I have difficulty picturing the same scene in the average US sex shop.

Finally this image from Contemplating the Divine made me laugh. Bizarrely it reminded me of me. Sadly not because I look good in jodhpurs and tight black leather, but because she’s exhibiting exactly the same attitude I do at work. Anytime someone suggests we should agree to differ I tend to take the line: “No. You can choose to stop arguing, but that’s not really the same thing. You’ll still be wrong.” I’m most definitely a top when it comes to work.

(There’s actually another way this captioned image reminds me of me, but I’ll keep that particular reference to myself).

Love hurts good on a bed of nails

Here’s a very usual item of BDSM furniture – a bed of nails. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these in a dungeon or studio space before. This particularly one is the property of Domina Liza, an English pro-domme. She’s shown in the third photograph below, looking particularly elegant and striking in her black latex catsuit. She also featured in an earlier post, back in 2010.

I’m kind of intrigued to know exactly how this would be used in a scene. I know the theory of a bed of nails is all about spreading the load across many points, ensuring no single one creates enough pressure to break the skin. So I guess it could be used in a type of predicament play. Once the submissive is resting on it start some tease & denial, CBT or NT and watch them try not to squirm. Any excessive movement would presumably create an unbalanced load and increase the pain from the nails. I also image it’s quite psychologically powerful, given how fearsome it looks. Not sure if careful trampling would be possible, but what a headtrip if it was!

$Domina Liza in latex$

If you’d like the chance to try it out for yourself then Domina Liza is based in Derby, England and her contact information is here. It looks like she has a beautiful studio space, and if I still lived in the UK I’d have loved to have the chance to session there with her.