Vintage Japanese Femdom

I spend some of this weekend ambling around various Japanese femdom blogs. It’s pretty hard for me to understand the text, even with the help of online translation tools, but images are a universal communication medium.

The two shown below are part of a set that I found on homer’s blog. As far as I can tell from his text it was shot in 1963 and the mistress/model was Keiko Otsuka. I think it’s a beautiful set of images. For a posed set of of shots it has quite a naturalistic feel, with just the rope and their semi-naked bodies. There’s no excessive fetish elements or exaggerated posturing. Just some tight bondage and a nice D/s dynamic. The bondage is also strikingly rigorous and efficient compared to the ‘3 lengths of clothesline draped vaguely over a limb’ style that was common in US bondage porn of that era.

Two expressions

Two slices in time capturing two great expressions here. I’m not sure if she’s just teasing him, ruining the orgasm or simply enjoying the moment. Either way, it looks like a lot of fun.

I found this on the ‘sex is not the enemy‘ tumblr site. It’s originally from this Divine Bitches shoot (note not my promo code – I simply took the link from the tumblr posting).

Compare and Contrast

This post was triggered by a comment left by Dishevelled Domina (DD) on yesterday’s post. She wasn’t a fan of the image, either from a fashion or an erotic point of view. That wasn’t a surprising comment to me. I wasn’t a huge fan of it from those points of view either, although I did like heavy leather strop being brandished. I mainly posted it so I can rag on the fashion disasters that so often crop up in this kind of corporal punishment porn.

As way of contrast, DD also provided a pointer to an image she loved and thought was a turn on. I’ve posted it below and I have to agree that it’s a great image. I like her smile. I like his reaction, and the fact he’s properly restrained. They look like a couple having fun. If I could choose an image to show friends what femdom is about, to break the cliches of whips/chains/boots and show how real people play, this’d be a good candidate. If I could only post one of the two images on this blog, I’d pick this one over the previous one everytime.

But…..it doesn’t turn me on. It appeals on an intellectual level, but does nothing to my libido. I’d swap places with the guy in a heartbeat, but as a trigger for my imagination this doesn’t give me much. This is more documentary than fantasy, and if I want real life I can think back to my own scenes with wartenberg wheels.

There’s a lot wrong with the other image. It’s certainly not one I’d pick to get off to. The fashion choices are ugly. I don’t role play, so naught schoolboy fantasies do nothing for me. And the POV shot with the domme staring sternly into the camera has been done to death. Despite all that, there’s something about it that invites fantasy. It gives me a jumping off point that the other image lacks. Which I have to admit is weird, because in reality I’ve no doubt that my only response to a strict school mistress in this getup would be laughter.

There are plenty of ‘good’ cliched images out there. I’ll happily defend the beauty of this image or this image, despite the surfeit of femdom porn stereotypes. But I wonder how images are around that can combine the realism and energy of the shot below, with the kind of libido button pushing that makes submissive males reach for their credit cards?

Image was reblogged here by DD, originally posted on Fempower.

Good day at the office

I spend most of my day discussing (aka arguing), brainstorming (aka incoherently arguing) and pontificating (aka arguing when you know you’re wrong) about the right way to build really big computing systems. In this kind of group design work submissive tendencies don’t tend to do well, and anyone who knows me only via work will assume I’m a dominant personality type. However, when I’m feeling frazzled and tired after a particularly passionate discussion, I often long to sneak away to get the crap beaten out of me. Pain can be like a holiday from your brain, and sometimes that’s exactly what I need.

It looks like the gentleman below got just that kind of holiday, and with six very attractive tour guides. As it transpires in other photographs, they appear to have had a plumbing problem with the women’s bathroom. This has forced them to rig up some sort of makeshift contraption as an alternative, with him as an integral component. As this second photograph shows it looks a little intimidating, but I’d take it in preference to swearing at powerpoint for an hour.

The images are taken from the team rinryu blog. Warning – some of the other images on that site are pretty extreme, including some graphic toilet play shots. Don’t start browsing it unless you’re OK with that.

Ride ’em Cowgirl

What I know about rodeo you could write on the head of a pin, but I believe the general idea is to stay in the saddle as long as possible. That being the case, I think she’s onto a winner, as she appears to have her horse well and truly under control.

Artist is unknown, although based on the style I think he or she has done a number of femdom illustrations that I’ve spotted floating around. I found on the snail meilke site.

The joy of referrals

One of the things I’ve most enjoyed about creating this blog is all the interesting sites it has led me to. My original plan was simply to use it to share all the random links and images that I personally appreciated. But thanks to comments, emails and my referral logs, I’ve ended up gaining far more than a simple place to broadcast my opinions.

The latest interesting incoming link that I’ve spotted is from the “he stoops to worship” blog. It’s an unusual femdom blog, in that it contains a much broader selection of artwork than most, drawing from both mainstream and kinky sources. It’s written by slave c and he’s done an excellent job of both selecting the images and providing useful background to them. There’s everything from German pre-war art, through Hollywood Film Noir to erotic illustrations.

The following two images were taken from a post featuring the work of Craig Morey. I think the contrasting bodies together with the sense of balance and symmetry creates something really beautiful.

he stoops to worship

Humpty Dumpty

The comments on my earlier post entitled ‘Femdom doesn’t exist‘ got me thinking a little more about definitions and categories. This isn’t new ground for me, as I’ve pondered BDSM labels in the past. This time I thought I’d come at it from a different angle, and rather than start with the existing labels, I’d try and define new categories based on what I’ve observed. I can then see how (or if) my groupings map back into the well known labels people regularly throw around. The two dimensions I’m thinking about are masochism and submission, and it seems a lot of the complexity arises out of the latter.

Non-masochistic / Non-submissive
We all know about these people, as they make up the majority of the population. Vanilla. Boring. Let us speak of them no more.

Masochistic / Non-submissive
These people enjoy pain purely for the sake of the sensation. They want to be hurt and enjoy the associated adrenalin rush without necessarily giving up power. A well known subset of this is the Smart Ass Masochist (SAM), someone who likes deliberately teasing and provoking a domme in order to create a reason for punishment.

Masochistic / Sexual submissive
This defines someone who enjoys both pain and power exchange, but only in the context of ‘sexual’ play. This play might be a session in a dungeon, an event at a party or simply a couple having fun in the bedroom. But it’s essentially a bounded experience in time, where control is only temporarily relinquished. The stereotypical example of this would be the high powered CEO or hot shot lawyer who skips out of the office for a couple of hours so he can be tied-up and beaten by a pro-domme.

Masochistic / Lifestyle submissive
I suspect for a lot of readers of this blog, both male and female, this represents the most desirable category. It integrates a kinky sexuality within a female led relationship. This doesn’t necessarily imply a specific division of responsibility or a predefined assignment of roles in daily life. It simply means the D/s dynamics and power exchange shades daily interactions as well as specifically sexual ones.

Non-Masochistic / Service submissive
These people find satisfaction in performing tasks and being useful for the dominant. This might be something as simple as cleaning or cooking, or as elaborate as being turned into a human-pony and used to pull a buggy. Pain, if it’s employed at all, is a mechanism for punishment not pleasure.

Now having defined these anecdotally observed groupings, how do the common labels of bottom, slave, masochist and submissive map to them? I think the answer to that is ‘with difficulty’. Three of the five feature some type of submission, and three of the five feature masochism. Slave certainly maps to the last group, but arguably also applies to the lifestyle category. And I think the term bottom could be equally applied to both non-submissive and sexually submissive masochists. It’s therefore not really surprising that confusion and misunderstandings frequently occur when writing about femdom. The basic vocabulary we’re using is woeful inadequate and imprecise. And to make it worse, people frequently use the terms as if they were well defined and universally agreed.

I guess at this point I should really propose a solution to the problem. Perhaps the paltego labeling system of Mas/NonSub, Mas/SexSub, Mas/LifeSub and NonMas/ServSub? Or maybe some kinky equivalent to the geek code (if that doesn’t already exist)? There’s already the hanky code of course, but that’s mainly concerned with specific activities rather than models of interaction. It’s also hard to take a code seriously where a few wash cycles can change your sexual preferences from anal sex, into uniforms, into oral sex, into aquaphilia (dark blue, medium blue, light blue and aqua respectively). Lets at least shoot for something that’s machine washable in future.

One additional point of interest is the categories I decided to omit from this list, namely the non-masochistic versions of sexually submissive and lifestyle submissive. This isn’t to say people in those groups don’t exist. It’s just that I wonder if they would actually define themselves as kinky. A non-masochistic sexual submissive would be someone who enjoys receiving pleasure and letting their partner take control during sex. In many ways that seems more a sexual preference or style, rather than a kinky activity.

Finally, after all that random musing from me, I think a little eye candy is in order. The picture has no real relationship to the text, I just found it (on Domenique von Sternenberg’s tumblr site) and enjoyed it.

Oh, and for anyone that has made it this far, and is still wondering about the title of the post, it’s a reference to one of my favorite parts in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

`The question is,’ said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

`The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master – – that’s all.’

A lost fashion accessory

I’ve posted multiple times in the past about the sexiness of dominant women in glasses (for example here and here). But this image represents the first time I’ve posted what looks like a dominant women in a monocle. I’m not about to forsake my love of the bi-lense design, but there is something appealing about this drawing. It makes me think of aristocratic accents, decadent countesses and perverse sexual practices in secluded chateaus. You know, all the good stuff.

The text is in Italian, and as best I can make out (from a combination of google translate and bing translate), says something like – “I have nothing against play spanking as an erotic game, even as mild aphrodisiac I don’t mind”.

I’m afraid I don’t know the artist. I found it on “Yes, Mistress” tumblr site.

Updated: Once again my excellent blog browsers come through for me with an attribution via the comments. This is by Leone Frollo. You can read a little about him and see more of his work here.

Translating psi into decibels : Sadism 101

Looking back over the last few weeks there have been a lot of images featuring submission and bondage, but not a huge amount of material for the sadists and masochists amongst us. As I count myself amongst that happy band it seemed time to remedy that situation, so here’s a nice shot that put a smile on my face.

My favorite part of this is actually imagining the off camera aspect. I picture the mistress staring down at him, ever so slowly rocking her foot back and forth, smiling at the screams as they modulate in time with the applied pressure.

I found this on the domme and pet in love tumblr site. It’s obviously originally from Divine Bitches.

So I’m a lamp. Want to fight about it?

While I’m on the forniphilia theme, here’s an image in that genre that made me laugh. The foot stool and picture look suitably cowed and submissive, but the lamp has a far more belligerent stance. It looks like at any moment he’s expecting aspersions to be cast on the quality of his lampshade, or his light throwing ability, and he’s ready to punch the person concerned. I can picture him standing guard outside a nightclub doorway, the lampshade still on his head, just daring a drunk idiot to make a comment about it.

The image comes from InerMiss on deviantART (free deviantART account required to view). The domme is Goddess Magdalena and the photograph was from the Secret Boudoir photography studio (and not the mature escort site with a similar name in the UK that turned up at the top of the search results!)