The beauty of dominant women
I’m not sure where I found this image. A reverse image search tells me it’s a character called Fujiko Mine from the manga series Lupin III. I’ve never seen the series, but wikipedia says she’s a professional burglar who uses her attractiveness to fool her prospective targets. In this case it seems to have worked out well for her, although her captive appears to be having second thoughts.
Tomorrow I flee the freezing NYC region to return to the warmer and wetter state of Washington. It has been a fun trip, and it ended on a very high note. I spent a good portion of today with the brilliant Miss Troy Orleans. We had a great session and snapped a lot of photographs. Hopefully, when I’ve had chance to sort through them, there will be a detailed session post.
Given I enjoyed some heavy bondage and restraints today, it seems fitting to finish the post with a pointer to an interesting article I read on Harry Houdini. I’m not sure he could be described as a femdom aficionado, but he certainly seemed to have a strong interest in bondage, masochism, exhibitionism and edge play. Given his skill, I’ve no doubt he could have emerged from the ropes in the photograph below in a matter of seconds. For the rest of us submissive types, even if we had the skill, I’m not sure escape would be our first choice…
I found this on the darksehnsucht tumblr. I don’t know the original source, but I’d guess it’s from one of the kink.com sites.
I’m in NYC for the first time in several years, and I just got out of a very enjoyable session with the wonderful Miss Troy Orleans. There’s a lot I could write about, so the obvious topic to pick is an old children’s cartoon called The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop.
You can blame this strange selection on D from Dumb Domme and her post ‘damsel in distress‘. She’s clearly not a fan of the iconic ‘tied to the railroad tracks’ trope…
It angers me that she doesn’t fight the villain harder and that she doesn’t struggle more to escape her bonds. It disgusts me when I suspect she exerts more effort craning her neck to see if a hero is coming than she does in trying to free herself.
This particular post grabbed me, because that villain/heroine dynamic is one of my earliest recollections of being excited by restraint, control and dominance. Specifically in the aforementioned Perils of Penelope Pitstop. If you’ve never seen it then this clip should give you some idea of the plot. Based on a 1914 series called The Perils Of Pauline, the cartoon featured a dashing and attractive young lady who constantly finds herself tied up and threatened by deadly Rube Goldberg like devices. As a child I never knew why it excited me, or how I related to the roles, I just knew there was something very compelling about it.
I get where D is coming from with her dislike of the scene, but I think she misses the submissive’s perspective on it. It’s the victim’s job to be the object of the desire. With ‘object’ being a key word. The villain is charge and creates the danger. The hero is in charge and (hopefully) removes the danger. Both of them desire the victim, but in different ways. The victim gets to be desirable but, as an object, doesn’t get to have control. She looks for the hero because that’s his role and his choice, not hers. She fears her fate but doesn’t control it. And that’s hot. It turns me on just thinking about it.
Obviously as a child I didn’t want to see Penelope actually get bisected by a train. But the combination of danger and helplessness pushed some deep internal buttons. The powerless female and mustache twirling villain might not be great role models, but I’m not sure that matters. After all I grew up wanting to be the victim. Although I never did develop Penelope’s love of pink.
When it comes to pictures of peril, Augustine is always a reliable resource. His images always seem to be the missing the hero character however.
As part of writing this post on the Adult Video News (AVN) awards, I took a look at what had won this year. The general idea of giving awards to specific movies strikes me as an anachronism. Who buys porn DVDs these days? However, I figured the specific performers and genres recognized might be interesting. I was very surprised to discover how little attention BDSM and fetish got. There were just three awards that looked vaguely relevant – Best BDSM release, best femdom strap-on release and best foot/leg fetish release. This is out of a total of more than 100 other awards.
I’ve no idea if the titles that won were actually any good. Rubber Bordello looks like it might be fun, the other two (His Booty Is My Duty 2 and Asphyxia Heels The World) look like average porn movies with just passing nods to their supposed audience. But regardless of the selections, I was shocked there was so little recognition of BDSM. They didn’t even distinguish between maledom and femdom. There are no awards for top performing domme, or best submissive, or best rigger, or really anything interesting. What a missed opportunity.
I actually attended the awards ceremony back in 2003. I can’t say I recommend the experience. It’s fun to dress up and walk the red carpet, but the awards themselves are very dull. Amazingly, they’re not allowed to actually show explicit clips, so you end up with a lot of thank you speeches accompanied by Cinemax style edited soft porn. Getting to see Larry Flynt give the hall of fame speech and sitting next to Rocco Siffredi in the bar afterwards were the highlights. Of course if you do it with someone like Mistress T then you might be in for a slightly more exciting time (Updated: You can see Mistress T & friends in her latest AVN experiences here).
Kink is one of the biggest BDSM producers these days, but the only thing they won for was ‘Best Alternative Website’, whatever that means. I’ll leave you with a shot from their Divine Bitches site featuring Maitresse Madeline getting alternative on Robert Axel’s ass.
I’ve had some interesting sessions in the last couple of weeks playing with sensory deprivation. It’s not normally a hot-button topic for me, but I’ve grown to appreciate some of the intense experiences it can deliver. Five years ago I’d have described this type of play as weird and unappealing. All the strange leather and latex equipment seemed too fetishistic and specialized. Fast forward a couple of years and I finally figured out the appeal, but thought it was too intense for me to deal with. That’s still partly true, but I’ve improved my bottoming skills with practice. Mostly that’s due to building a rapport with Lydia and her ability to ease me gradually into difficult situations.
The first session was built around a leather sleep sack. You can see a couple of shots of me in it here and here. Firstly, Lydia wrapped my limbs and torso in plastic wrap to try and minimize contact between my body parts. She even wrapped each finger individually so I couldn’t touch my fingers together. Then I was zipped into the sleep sack and the straps around it tightened. My head got treated to a form fitting hood, a towel packed around my ears, the sleep sack hood and a layer of plastic wrap. Finally, some rope applied across the body and electrics applied to the cock finished the whole thing off.
The second session I did featured a latex vacuum bed. We didn’t snap any shots off this, but if you’ve ever seen one of those in action, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how the session unfolded. Lots of latex, tight restraint and breathplay.
One thing I found particularly interesting in both sessions was the interplay between stress and subspace. Being bound pushes me into subspace. I go quiet and a little spacey as my body gets locked down. But putting things around and over my head raises my anxiety levels and pulls me back out of subspace. My mind and my breath start racing and I have to consciously focus on not panicking. That mental effort of dealing with my instinctive stress reaction makes it hard for me to let go. What helps reverse this response is mild pain. Anything too intense just kicks up the flight or fight response, but mild pain gives me a focus. It also plays into my natural masochism and helps release the endorphins I need to zone out. A caress and a pinch in just the right place is the ultimate stress reliever for me.
Normally when I pick an image to post it’s because there are one or two interesting details that call out to me. There’s an expression I like, or a cool bit of equipment or a nicely captured emotion. It’s rare that I love everything about an image. This shot is one of those exceptions.
I love the cool inverted suspension with the colored ropes. I love the fact the women is a light sundress rather than dommey leather. The fact she’s a cutey in glasses is an added bonus. I love the books and shelves in the background. It’s not a bleak industrial space or a faux-stone clad dungeon. Most of all I love the mixture of emotions and sense of connection between them. There’s both playfulness and seriousness to it. She looks like she’s caressing his head in one hand, but ready to squeeze him with the other hand.
I found this on Thumper’s Portfolio. Despite hunting with a reverse image search, I couldn’t track down a source for the image. If anyone know’s who shot, published or starred in this, then please let me know via a comment.
I often like to have continuation between blog posts. Some theme or idea in one goes onto inform what I put up next. As soon as I saw this today I realized I could pull off a 2 into 1 continuation. There’s the superhero theme from yesterday’s post and the inverted suspension from the day before. I think that’s a first for me. Never let it be said I’m not pushing the creative boundaries of blogging.
The trapped hero here is the Spirit and I believe the femme fatale, with the nice line in evening wear and shackles, is Madame P’Gell. The original Spirit series was done by the famous Will Eisner, but this beautiful update was created by Darwyn Cooke. I’m afraid I’ve not read his version (or the original for that matter), but by all accounts Darwyn did a great job with it and I think I’ll be adding it to my shopping list.
After writing yesterday’s post on new year traditions, it struck me that I’d forgotten about the ball drop in New York. It’s a pretty ridiculous ceremony, but it is at least adaptable to a kinky context. Suspension is always fun and gently lowering a bound submissive to mark the dawn of a new year would be a nice twist on the tradition.
Note that you should never do suspension play unless you’ve had suitable training and know exactly what you’re doing. It’s a potentially dangerous form of play. Particularly if you’ve drunk several glasses of champagne to celebrate the new year!
This image comes via Club Dom and was found on the 24-7-Sub tumblr.
Lydia has been pretty busy with her Land of the Sweets show leading up to Christmas. Fortunately I managed to grab some time with her on a rare night off, and we indulged in a suitably festive get together.
My only suggestion prior to the session was that we might use her bondage chair. Other than that I had no idea what she’d planned. As soon as I saw the disposable blue medical cloth on the chair I guessed piercing might be involved, but I was a little puzzled by the lengths of festive ribbon piled close by. It quickly became apparent that she was feeling in a decorative mood, and intended to pin the ribbons to me like an old fashioned Christmas tree.
The end result can be seen in the shot below. A more colorful version (taken with flash on) can be seen here. I lost track of how many needles were used, but I’d guess it was at least 50. As is often the way with these kind of sessions there was a nice rhythm to it as each ribbon was positioned and pinned. There was also a pleasant feeling of objectification, a focus on my body but not me. It’s both intimate, as she’s working very closely on me, and yet distancing, as she concentrates on getting the ribbon just how she wanted it. You can see a couple more close-up shots of the needles with ribbons here and here.
She capped everything off with a ribbon that ran from ear to ear and sported a big bow on top of my head. This was held with ear piercings and a needle through the scalp at around the hairline. The skin is really thin at that point, so it hurt going in and bled a lot coming out. Unfortunately I can’t really show you the best shot we got, which was me giggling like an idiot while the blood dripped down my face. However, I can share this after shot, which shows some of the body marks left and the dripping blood on the side of my nose.
All in all it was a great way to celebrate the festive season and I’m endlessly grateful to Lydia for taking the time to put together such an imaginative session. Not to mention that I’ve now got a great image to put on all my Christmas cards! I’m sure everyone will be happy to have this on their mantlepiece over the holidays.
I’m not sure this is a great set-up for actual kinky play. But as as a piece of craftsmanship and artwork, it’s pretty special. If you were hosting a kinky party, he would certainly make an excellent display and conversation piece to hang in the entrance way!
I found it originally on the Work Is Never Over tumblr. The photographer is Heiner Welchert, the model is Mode-Yo and the ropework is by Reraizure.
