More Tumblr Thoughts

I spotted a few pro-dommes suggesting that tumblr blocking porn might be a good thing, as it’d remove a source of free porn and push more people to buy from content creators. That’s an interesting thought, and it’s hard to know how these kind of changes will play out, but it does seem to miss some aspects of the bigger picture. Firstly, tumblr was also used by sex workers to advertise and attract clients. With it gone, the only social media site still friendly to sex workers is twitter. That’s a precarious situation to be in. Secondly, I think the broader internet ecosystem for kinky content has helped dramatically increase the potential audience for kink.

It’s tempting to divide the world into kinky and vanilla people. In reality I think there are three groups. There’s obviously those who have zero interest in it and those who’ll always be active in it. In the middle, and possibly the largest group, are the potential kinksters. For these people the broad availability of kinky imagery and writing is a gateway. It draws them in with fantasies and ideas that they didn’t realize was their ‘thing’ until they saw it. Seeing someone act out their kinks normalizes the idea of trying your own.

I’d actually put myself in that middle category. I think I’ve always been kinky, even before I knew what sex or BDSM was, but I’m not sure I’d have ever truly discovered or explored my kinks without the internet. I couldn’t have imagined broaching the topic with a partner or calling an unknown pro-domme from a card in a phonebox. It was porn that expanded my imagination and kinky bloggers that made me realize that this was something I could try out for real.

Obviously tumblr removing  adult content is not the same as it being removed from the internet. However, it was the largest and most user friendly of the porn hosting platforms. The more porn is pushed into the unfriendly corners of the internet, and the more it’s suppressed by search tools, the fewer conversions I think we’ll see from potential kinksters to actual kinksters. Which means fewer potentially kinky partners and fewer clients for pro-dommes.

These photographs are a great example of the kind of thing we risk losing. This is from Misingui’s tumblr, which features a lot of equally wonderful images. These two are from this post. Rigging is by Misungui, the model is Stan Briche and the photographer is Ludovica Anzaldi.

Intermission (continued)

Real life continues to get in the way of my blogging. It’s now 4am local time, and I really need to get to bed, but I also don’t like to leave it this long between posts. So I’m continuing the intermission concept with some more eye candy. This time it’s a beautiful piece of suspension bondage, shot by the photographer Weronika Bachleda. The rigger is Gestalta.

I found this via a tweet by Ruby Marks.

Crime Flick

I’m not normally a fan of using big industrial spaces for kinky shoots. They often seem very artificial and impersonal. I’ll make an exception for this striking shot however. It puts me in mind of British crime and gangster movies from the 70’s and 80’s. Flicks like The Long Good Friday (which had a scene with men suspended upside down in a warehouse) and the original Get Carter (one of my favorite movies of any genre).

In a modern movie, this’d be the scene where the hero is captured and tortured by the crime bosses evil female lieutenant. In the downbeat 70’s, the anti-hero would be working with the lady with the whip, and this’d be the point where the plan starts going sideways and just before everyone ends up dead. Of course no matter what the era, the plot or the identify of the hero, I’m sure my readers would all be rooting for the lady with the whip.

This is Mistress Manouk, a Dutch pro-domme, as shot by Alex Charilaou. I found it via this tweet.

Update: You can also see a very short clip from this shoot here. Thanks to Daria for the pointer.

Fairytale

With these two images I’m continuing the themes of bondage, suspension and outdoor scenes from my last post. I find these shots have an almost ethereal sense to them. They put me in mind of a scene from a fairytale. Admittedly, Hans Christian Andersen didn’t write a story featuring a sexy naked woodcutter being captured and bound by a forest nymph. Although given some of the fucked up shit he did write about, that story would would seem almost wholesome in comparison.

You can see the full sequence of images from this scene in this tumblr post. The rigger here is Misungui, the model Faun Sencible and it was photographed by Ombilik.

Baptismal Breathplay

There’s a lot going on in this image. Rope bondage, suspension and breathplay just for starters. If there’s such a thing as a kink for being baptized, then one could add that to.  It just needs a confused hiker in an anorak to wander in from frame left and you’d have public humiliation as well.

Regardless of the kinks on display, it’s a beautiful image. I imagine that setting the shot up would be a huge challenge. I just hope for the models sake that it was warmer than it looks.

This is from BDSLR photography and you can see the full sized version in their original post here. The models are Tifereth and Diaemone.

Apologies and Shoutout

Apologies for the lack of regular posting recently. There’s a bunch of topics I want to write about, but my back has been screwed up, which precludes me sitting at a computer for lengthy periods. It’s kind of funny (although not in a ha-ha way) that I can actually trace my back issues to a specific play session back in 2011. At the time I though I’d just strained some muscles. It turns out that thanks to a couple of decades hunched over keyboards, I’d managed to screw a couple of my lower discs up, and that session was the one that pushed them over the edge. It really hasn’t been the same since that night. Who’d have though that having hot sauce smeared on your genitals would lead to chronic back issues? The human body is a truly wonderful thing.

If you’re in your 20’s or 30’s and spend a lot of time sitting at a desk, I’d strongly urge you to take regular breaks, exercise whenever possible and consider taking up yoga. Although if you’re anything like me at that age, you probably think it’ll never happen to you, so I’m  wasting my time giving advice here.

Changing the subject entirely – if you’re in LA from the 23rd to the 25th, let me point you in the direction of Lady Hinako. I’ve featured her work in the past (here and here) and she’s visiting LA from Japan on those particular dates. Lady Chiaki (previously featured here) will also be in LA at the same time. If I hadn’t been in LA just a couple of weeks ago, I’d be considering a trip down in order to play with these talented dommes. As I type this, they still have time slots available to play.

Both these images are from Lady Hinako’s twitter feed.

Travels

It’s wet in Seattle and it’s cold in Seattle. The holiday season is over and the year stretches before me. This can mean only one thing – time for paltego to take a vacation. Ideally somewhere warm, with a multitude of food and kinky possibilities. So watch out Los Angeles, here I come.

As usual I’ll try and keep blogging while I’m away. I have some kinky play lined up, so hopefully I’ll have some interesting experiences to share.

I’ll leave you with an image of someone having an interesting kinky experience of their own. It’s not often you see suspension bondage, face sitting and selfie taking all combined.

This is from natsumi @723StudioK.

Suspended Target

A few posts back I was musing on scenes where the level of pain is radically different from the visual the scene presents. This is the exact opposite of that. The scene looks awesome. I love the suspended bondage, the minimalism of the space and the dynamism of the whip. Yet I’m sure it also hurts like hell. The bondage alone looks challenging. Adding the sting of a single tail against taut flesh is particularly cruel.

This is from twitter feed of Mistress Iris. However, I believe that’s Mistress Rika on the other end of the whip.

Shibari with a Difference

The large majority of shoots featuring fancy Shibari suspension bondage also feature lithe young Asian women. I’m certainly not going to start complaining about those kind of shoots, but it is nice to see one with a different kind of model. The ropework is obviously impressive, but so is his ability to pull off this position. I think I’ll need several more years of yoga before I can take a shot at something similar.

The model is Michel, the rigging is by Misungui, and you can see more images from the same session in her tumblr post here.