Femdom Resource – Page 266 – The beauty of dominant women

Post D

This is my 500th post. I find that kind of amazing. Sixteen months of blogging doesn’t seem that long, while creating 500 posts seems like a major achievement.

I thought I’d use the opportunity to reflect a little on the blog and make a request for some feedback. I’m mostly happy with what I’ve collected here so far. The artwork pages, the image link page and the fiction page seem useful and, according to my server statistics, are all very popular. The BDSM articles page needs work and a more frequent update policy, but I think it has potential if I just put some time into it. The weak link is really the page on commercial sites, which has been left to rot. Maintaining and updating links to interesting commercial sites is a lot trickier, as so much of their content is hidden behind their pay wall. Without taking memberships of dozens of sites, it’s hard to know what’s good and what isn’t.

So the question is, what else would you like to see here? What would be useful? Are their particular resources I should be tracking and linking to? Or should I be doing a better job of what I have already? What about the front page and my regular posts? Do I have too much of certain types of material? Am I missing certain themes that you’d like to see? Particular things you’d like me to write about? Any comments or ideas are welcome.

I’ve been kicking around some ideas of things to add or change. I’m not sure about any of them however.

Add a links page for BDSM equipment. As well as the major players (like Stockroom and Extreme Restraints) there are lots of small custom manufactures (like these guys or these guys) that might be interesting to track.
Turn the commercial sites page into something more like the image link page. I’d maintain a bunch of links to all sorts of commercial content producers, including major players, independent producers and pro-dommes.
Create a limited pro-domme directory. I don’t see much point trying to replicate something like the Max Fisch domina guide, but possibly a smaller list of high quality links might be interesting. Of course the problem is defining what I mean by ‘high quality’. I don’t play with enough different pro-dommes to make it a personal selection, and I’m not sure how else I can filter without creating a maintenance nightmare.

As I said any feedback is welcome, either on these ideas or anything else you think I should add. Just leave me a comment or drop me an email.

Picking an image for this post seemed difficult. I’m not sure what’s appropriate for a 500th post celebration. So I’ll just go with one from my queue of images. I don’t post a lot of F/f, but I thought this one was kind of sweet. I also noticed that Suzanne just posted about finding a possible femme sub, so this is appropriate for at least somebodies blog post, even if it’s not mine.

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.

Rectum? Damn near killed him!

An attractive Asian mistress standing over a wax splattered slave isn’t a particularly unusual femdom shot. Having the slave bound with heavy ropes to a couple of ornate side tables is a little rarer. Sticking what looks like a lit firework in a delicate part of the slaves anatomy is pretty much unique in my extensive porn surfing experience. Of course I now standby for people to bombard me links to the numerous firework BDSM tumblrs that are no doubt out there. FemdomFireworkFetish.tumblr.com perhaps? Or maybe CherryBombCherryPoppers.tumblr.com?

Despite the post title I think it might actually be stuck in his urethra, although it’s kind of hard to see. I’m also a little puzzled what she’s doing with the string she’s holding. Is that a ‘pull in case of emergency’ cord? Or is she simply using it to steer the spray of fire?

I’ve never experienced anything quite as dramatic as this, although I did enjoy sparklers in the cell popping session I did last year. In that case Lady Lydia passed them over my torso from an inch or two away. They were very pretty and gave a nice prickling pain effect as the sparks splashed against the skin.

I found this on the SweetNote femdom image board.

Short and sweet

After all the verbiage in the last three posts I thought something simple and to the point was called for today. I don’t know the original artist for this image or anything about it. I just like it. She manages to look both a little tentative and yet still commanding all at the same time.

I found this on the lifes beauty (aka django mango) tumblr. If anyone does have any background on the image or can attribute it for me then please leave a comment and I’ll update the post.

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.

Candles and corset

This pair of performers have featured in a past post on this blog. Last time they were demonstrating a serious side along with a fun side, and these two images follow a similar pattern.

The first image is just beautiful. That’s a fabulous corset, and it matches up very well with her intricate tattoos. He’s been bound in an interesting way, almost as if in prayer. I’m also a fan of those candles. They look very theatrical and fierce. They seem to be quite common in Japanese BDSM, but I rarely see them used elsewhere.

When it comes to the second image, I have no idea what’s going on. Is she about to roll it over him? Or pull him up over it? Regardless of the plan of action, it comes as a very fun playful shot. She’s flying, with a big smile on her face. I always enjoy watching or playing with a happy sadist.

I believe this is Mistress Aska from the SM Play Live site (English version here).

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.

Flying high

Here’s an unusual suspension shot. Often rope work like this is all about restraining and exposing the submissive. This looks a lot more fun and lighthearted. He almost looks like he’s flying, Superman style. From his rather tumescent silhouette he’s certainly enjoying the experience, and from her happy expression it looks like his mistress feels the same way.

I found this on the Treats for the Strange blog. It hosts a wide variety of interesting images. I particularly liked this one, which almost made me run my finger down my screen to feel the rope.