Not exactly a hardcore kinky image, but I like this one for its dark decadent feel. It’s a great set-up for some tease and denial. The look suggests a fashion shot, but I’m not exactly sure where it’s originally from.
Tag: Bondage
Happy Halloween
Las Vegas at Halloween is less crazy than you might imagine. A friend of mine joked that you could start a tumblr called Halloween versus Las Vegas. The game would be to spot the difference between standard Las Vegas wackiness and unusual Halloween outfits. When you’re a place the specializes in nightlife and parties, there’s less room for extravagance when it comes to special events.
This image seems like a good one to finish my Halloween themed posts on. It’s from the Kinky Mistresses site. Personally I’m not a fan of hoods at the best of times. I think a pumpkin hood would be particularly traumatic.
Zippering and Whipping
My San Francisco trip is coming to a close. Courtesy of Mistress Yuki I got to enjoy an intense clothespin zipper. Courtesy of Mistress Ai-Li I gained some vivid red whip marks across my torso. This image – featuring both those things – therefore seems like a good one to feature. I believe the lady is Aiden Starr and it was obviously shot for the Divine Bitches site.
Weirdly wired on wood
Axe over at UnspeakableAxe has an amusing post on subliminal signals and manufactured triggers. Given his partner is Mistress Sade and the triggers are all about having sex, then I don’t feel to bad for him. At least he’s not trying to kill the president when flashed the queen of diamonds.
I had my own odd encounter with subliminal signals and rewritten kinky wiring the other day. I walked into a sake store in one of the old buildings in downtown Seattle and after a few minutes browsing bottles realized I was strangely aroused. As much as I love great food and drink, I’ve never been excited by it in quite such a direct way. I don’t browse the Robert Parker site with my pants around my ankles, or feel the need to leave restaurants in an awkward doubled over posture. I love sake, but I don’t love it.
I had a few puzzled minutes before inspiration struck – it was the smell of the building. The shop was in an old warehouse type space with lots of old exposed wood. It’s exactly the kind of space that a lot of West coast play spaces occupy. They typically need large open spaces at a reasonable cost in an area without a lot of neighbors. That means industrial districts, old converted buildings and a rich aroma of aged wood. After years of hot kinky fun surrounded by the smell of old wooden industrial buildings I now have a mild sexual response to it. That wasn’t something I ever anticipated when I started playing.
The space in the image below looks like it might have a similar scent. Lots of wooden flooring and framing. This is from the Dudes in Distress tumblr.
A hanger on
The image you see below was my alternative shot for the previous ‘ouch’ post. In many ways it is scarier than the one I ended up going with. Anyone who has tried to do rope suspension will know how surprisingly difficult it is. The average human body is pretty heavy and isn’t fitted with well designed attachment points. Just getting it safely into the air and balanced is tough, let alone ensuring it’s not twisted the wrong way or being painfully compressed by the rope. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to be suspended and then have someone hanging off you like this. He doesn’t even have that many support points, so he’s either very well balanced or that must be fairly painful.
The lady is sporting a strapon, but it’s tough to see how she could use it in this position. Maybe a crazy inverted suspended 69?
The image is of course from the Captive Male site.
Negotiation in the moment
Miss Margo recently put up a post that got me thinking about scene negotiation. The original post was about a complete absence of negotiation and a bad domme acting non-consensually. I’m not going to talk about that particular angle, as I’ve nothing really to add. If you’re destroying trust and traumatizing your play partners, as seemed to be the case Miss Margo describes, then clearly things are pretty fucked up. Instead I want to look at it from a more positive point of view: How do people negotiate consent effectively within a scene?
Obviously it’s always good to establish limits and boundaries before clothes come off and the whips come out. But it’s not always possible to cover every possible option. A scene is a fluid thing, with an energy of its own. Most people don’t want to script out exactly what will happen. So how do deal with the unknowns and getting consent when rope is flying? I’ve personally experienced 3 general approaches from dommes…
- Assume consent, but go slowly with check-ins, and give the submissive plenty of time to stop the action if they’re uncomfortable.
- Get consent by asking the question, but do so very much in the context and mood of the scene. I remember one time being asked in a very sultry voice – “Are all these holes mine to fuck?” An affirmative response in that case led to a set of urethral sounds appearing.
- Mentally step away from the scene and pose the question in a very straightforward way. This is a big gear change, pulling everyone back into the pre-scene negotiation mood, before switching back into the scene dynamic. In this case the domme might pose the question as “Hey. Quick timeout. It just occurred to me we could incorporate X. Would that be OK, or would you rather not do that?”
I’m sure a lot of people would frown on (1), but I do understand the thinking behind it. In fact it’s the same thinking as (2). It’s trying to maintain the dynamic of the scene. Dommes want to walk the line between negotiation and maintaining the submissive headspace they’ve spent time creating. Sadly, while I understand the desire to do this, I think it’s a big mistake. The right way to go for me is always (3).
In a scene the submissive is typically predisposed to try and obey instructions and help the dominant. That makes it hard to respond to genuine questions that may require a negative response. Whatever happens somebody has to change their mental headspace to deal with the question. It might seem that options (1) and (2) maintain the scene dynamic, but actually they force the submissive to mentally change gears without any help. And that’s hard. At least for me it is.
With approach (3) the domme takes the responsibility to temporarily change the dynamic, as befits her role. It’s easy for her to pull the dynamic back to a discussion of equals before plunging back into the play. I’ve never had a problem getting my headspace back in those situations. I’ve had real problems with negotiations that caught me unawares and left me second guessing my responses.
Since I mentioned using sounds as a situation where I’ve encountered this kind of on the fly negotiation, it seems appropriate to finish with this image. Given he can’t see what’s coming, I’m hope they discussed it ahead of time. I’m afraid I don’t have a source for this image.
A holiday from yourself
Yesterday’s post about ‘play acting’ got me thinking more about personas and how we constantly project partial elements of our personalities into the world. It struck me that intense BDSM play represents an almost unique situation in that regard.
I’m someone whose is constantly debating and editing myself. That’s not to say I’m insincere or fake. It’s just that my brain is constantly running and adjusting to the world around me. I like to analyze, pick out subtext and fine tune how I present to the world. I think most people do the same thing, either consciously or subconsciously. Unless someone is a totally self-centered jerk, there’s always a desire to understand how we’re being perceived by others.
The one and only time I think that’s not true is during intense BDSM play. When I’m tied down and being beaten there’s no room in my brain for analysis or reflection. When a needle starts to slip into my skin my only thought is to that sharp slippery sensation of pain. When nipple clamps are ripped away all that matters is the rush of blood and the tingling nerves. The combination of mental submission (which removes choice) and physical pain (which removes thinking) makes for a holiday from the self.
I wouldn’t say that my persona in those intense moments is somehow more true or real than my day to day one. Nobody beating my naked ass is getting to somehow learn the secrets of the inner me. But those are the times when I can forget about my persona and how I’m perceived, and just be in that very physical pure moment.
I’ll finish with an image of someone very much in an intense physical moment. I’d guess the only thing on his mind right now involves those nipple clamps and exactly when she’s going to tug them free.
This is from the Divine Bitches site.
Lace and Rope
Somebody is clearly enjoying themselves, perhaps a little too much. Hopefully he will not tear his rather fancy lacy briefs in all the excitement.
I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for this. It looks to me like it has been cropped from a larger image, but if that’s the case, I couldn’t track down an original. I found it via the Femdom Fairytale tumblr.
Beauty of bondage
These images come courtesy of the Sexography (aka Celia Photo) tumblr. The rigger is Vlada and the model is Falco. I was looking for something striking to start the week off with, and these two images certainly fit the bill. There’s both great ropework and a real sense of emotion and connection in them. Plus it’s nice to see a domme in a regular non-fetishistic dress.
Flying ropes
Some beautiful ropework in this post to celebrate the weekend. I particularly the contrast between her elegant dress and his naked bound body.
This was taken by the photographer René de Sans, with ropework by Kitty Mooschief and modeled by Bishop. You can see a large version of it here,
