Oxygen. An overrated luxury.

I’m not a big fan of social media. I’ve got accounts on things like facebook and twitter, but I never really use them. Mostly I don’t see the point. However, recently Lydia has started using the Vine application and for once I kind of get it. Having a friend tweet what they’re doing 160 characters or less seems pointless, but seeing a little video clip suddenly brings the whole thing to life. It’s information rich enough to be interesting while being short enough (6 seconds or less) to not require significant time investment.

I got to enjoy a great breathplay session with Lydia tonight and she tweeted two short Vine clips from it. One showing me in ropes and with a pillow over my head and one showing her and the plastic bag she was suffocating me with. I wouldn’t say they capture the session mood at all. That was a very positive, sensuous, shared experience that had me deep in subspace. In contrast these remind me of something from a horror movie. They’re the kind of clips the crazy serial killer sends the police to taunt them while torturing his latest victim. But for all that I do think they’re kind of fun. They’re easy to create and give a little taste of what’s going on in somebodies life.

For an accompanying image I wanted some sort of breathplay shot, but they’re surprisingly hard to find. In the end I had to raid some old femdom folders on my hard drive for the images below. I don’t have a source for them. I do know the young lady appears to be enjoying give her bound slave a good dunking.

Bondage and breathplay in bath
Bondage and breathplay in bath

That’s just not cricket

This series of images makes me smile for it’s cartoon like progression. The four shot sequence reminds me of an old photo booth filmstrip. However, I certainly wouldn’t recommend trying to reproduce it. Falling backwards like that onto your hands and arms like that would not be good. I think this is also the first time I’ve ever seen a cricket bat used in a BDSM shot. As implements go it’s probably a little heavy to use effectively, but it’s certainly fearsome.

The female model is Lorelei and the photographer is Titus Powell. As you’d expect given the sporting equipment, they’re both UK based.

An article for masochists (in the wrong way)

I try and bring my readers a range of links. Some smart, some funny and some annoying. Sadly, this article on Slate by William Saletan is from that final category. His basic point seems to be that S&M will never go mainstream. That may or may not be true, or even desirable, but his backing reasoning is idiotic. It takes the form of slippery slope arguments, a sure sign of a poorly thought out point of view. For example…

BDSM can be quite dangerous. Responsible practitioners insist it must be “safe, sane, and consensual.” But it attracts people who like to push boundaries. Some submissives are adrenaline junkies: They don’t believe in safety. Recently, several men have admitted to or have been charged with or convicted of crimes including sexual abuse, kidnapping, and murder, all under the cover of BDSM. These men don’t represent BDSM, but they do represent the far end of sadism.

The first part of this is just dumb. Some people like motorsport, rock climbing or parachuting out of planes. They’re adrenaline junkies. Do they also not believe in safety? And if some people go motor racing without a crash helmet does that mean it’s inherently unsafe for all? The second part is offensive. If they don’t represent BDSM then why bring it up? It’s like talking about dating and then bringing up the fact that some men are rapists.

He then goes onto claim that consent cannot be maintained, safewords don’t work and that non-consensual slavery is alive and well. It’s tempting to go through his reasoning line by line and pull it apart, but life’s too short to spend on this kind of drivel. However, I do want to comment on some of the posts and comments I’ve seen around the internet that followed the article. As you’d expect a lot of people were annoyed by it (including Dan Savage) but a few tended to make the argument “Yes, there are crazy people doing X but there’s nothing wrong with Y.” Inevitably X was something they thought weird (piercing, electricity, breathplay, etc.) and Y was something they liked (bondage, pegging, D/s roleplay, etc.). In doing this there making exactly the same mistake Saletan does.

There isn’t a hierarchy of kinky activity or gateway activities to the world of the Cenobites. People doing edge play don’t have more issues with consent or safewords than people doing light bondage. Dangerous activity isn’t limited to BDSM and the capacity to abuse isn’t correlated with your sexual tastes. Sadly assholes who put others at risk and have issues with consent are a worldwide problem in all parts of life.

I’ll finish with an activity that Mr. Saletan considers particularly harrowing – breathplay. I just hope the Sado Girls site didn’t need to pay for psychological counseling for these two after the photoshoot.

Breathplay

Office bully

The first image from yesterday’s post put me in mind of this shot. I like the fact it works whoever you prefer to imagine to be the titular boss. She can either be a controlling subordinate or a bullying manager and it’s still hot.

I first stumbled across it on the Thoughts of a Dork tumblr. It’s originally from a fashion shoot for Harper’s Bazaar in Spain. It was shot by Benjamin Kanarek and features Yulia Kharlapanova.

Office Bully

Celebrity or parent?

Advochasty recently put up in an interesting post describing his enjoyment in being assigned tasks, and it reminded me of an older post by Lily that I’ve been meaning to link to for ages. Lily’s post draws on a book called Real Service that describes a categorization scheme for dominants and submissives. What stuck in my mind was the spectrum of domination styles it defined, ranging from parental to celebrity.

The “celebrity dominant” stays outside on the cell phone while their s-type goes into the restaurant, arranges for a table they know the dominant will like, begins ordering the food, and orders the dominant’s favorite cocktail. The dominant snaps their phone shut, sweeps into the restaurant, sits down, and begins enjoying the meal.
…
The parental dominant, by contrast, chooses and drives to the restaurant, orders for both of them, and is definitely carrying the wallet.

I’ve never really explored a service D/s dynamic. Mostly that has been an opportunity problem, but for a long time I also wondered if it was something I’d even be interested in. I’d read blogs that featured a service dynamic and find the idea very unappealing. I hate micro-managing and I hate inefficient decision making. So when I read Lily’s post it was a light bulb moment. The idea of simply taking care of things and smoothing the way for the domme was highly appealing. Clearly I’d be reading about parental types where I needed a celebrity dominant! And there’s no shortage of celebrities playing with a domme look. Maybe Miranda Kerr or Katie Holmes would be up for a coffee sometime?

For a post illustration I thought I’d go with a couple of different styles of service. The first makes me think of the celebrity PA style. Although in this case, whatever he’s done, she doesn’t look too pleased about it. The second is obviously a fair more personal and hands on type of service. I found both on the Miss tumblr.

Bullied Personal Assistant

Washing her hair

Silence is golden

I am by no means a stoic and quiet masochist. I make noise. Lots of noise. Screams. Moans. Grunts. Growls. I like to claim it’s a sign of good communication from the bottom. I’m letting the top know where I’m at. That’s true, but realistically it’s also about me dealing with pain and letting myself simply go with the sensation. It’s energizing to not think and simply react.

I’ve never had a domme try to make me stay quiet, although a few have shoved a gag in when necessary. I therefore think the young lady in the drawing below is being particularly cruel. She’s positioned him teasingly across her legs, spanked him and shoved a vibrator into him. And now he has to stay quiet while she reads her book? That’s harsh. Particularly if she’s adding the odd spank or two between pages.

Spanked, plugged and now sshhh'd

I found this on the Geek Domme tumblr. I think it’s fan art of two characters from a web comic called homestuck, but I’m not entirely sure.

A new type of zipper

What can a talented domme do with duct tape, cord and surgical staples? The answer, if you’re Lady Lydia, is an alternative style of zippering.

Standard BDSM zippers features clothespins. I’ve enjoyed being on the receiving end of them several times in the past, including documenting it in this older post. Using surgical staples instead of clothespins was a new idea to me, and turned out to be a particularly interesting and intense one. Thanks to Lydia’s multitasking skills we captured a whole sequence of images, so I’ve documented the session on a new page: Staple Zippering with Lady Lydia.

Note that this is a style of play that some people would describe as edge play. There are a few small specks of blood in a few shots. Don’t click through if that would be a problem for you.

Any publicity is good publicity?

The kink company has been in the news recently. They’re a very high profile producer of BDSM porn, so anything that happens to them tends to reflect on the wider community.

On the plus side there’s a James Franco documentary coming out about the company that apparently paints them and BDSM in a very positive light. It’s getting some good mainstream coverage, although the Hollywood Reporter writer appears to be unable to review it on its merits without lapsing into offensive speculation about who might watch such material. I haven’t noticed similar speculation being attached to reviews of thrillers or horror movies where people are shot, knifed and strangled for the enjoyment of the audience.

On the negative side there has been a lot of coverage of founder Peter Acworth’s recent arrest for possession of cocaine. The drugs issue isn’t one that bothers me, but some of the follow-up stories have presented a more complex and troubling picture of the company. The SF Weekly had a lengthy article on the company that was less than positive, and Maggie Mayhem put up a long post that detailed some significant issues she has with the kink workplace culture.

I’ve zero personal experience of the company, so I can only provide links to others with better information. I think it’s undoubtedly true that the company has improved the overall quality of BDSM porn. However, I think as an ethical porn consumer it’s always important to know more about exactly who is producing the images and videos we’re watching.

Two Smiles

This image is from the kink site Divine Bitches. I found it on the Girls Rule, Subs Drool tumblr.

Book porn

Strictly speaking this isn’t femdom. I just thought/hoped that there would be a pretty good overlap between my usual readers and fans of this image. That’s the extremely attractive Felicia Day (who featured in Buffy and Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) standing in front of a whole bunch of books. As combinations go, that’s a pretty good one. Feel free to imagine she’s reading a guide to testicle trampling if you need a little added BDSM in your daily post. Alternatively, for a larger version of the image, check out the original post on the he stoops to worship tumblr.

Felicia Day