Openly Submissive?

I stumbled across this post over at the Masculine Submission blog recently. It’s on the ever thorny topic of the perception of male submission in society. This is a reoccurring theme on many D/s blogs, and I’ve written about it in the past (which resulted in my most heavily commented post ever). I’ve played devils advocate before, and I’m about to do so again, although puzzlement would be a better way to summarize my attitude. I don’t want to be critical or diminish someone’s views, I just have difficulty relating.

Tomio’s whole post is worth reading, but the thrust of it is about the difficulty of being an openly submissive man in common environments that are hostile to that characteristic.

Why don’t submissive men hang out in the gym? That’s like asking why fish don’t hang out in the middle of the Sahara. It isn’t a friendly place for submissive men (let me be clear – I’m talking about guys who are openly submisisve…there are TONS of guys who pass as macho but are submissive when no one is watching)

If a man feels insecure about expressing who he is (security is the second level of needs); then he is incapable of achieving higher levels of existence.
Tomio Black

The part that puzzles me here is the idea of being ‘openly submissive’ in this kind of context? What does that really mean?

I don’t go to the gym regularly, a fact that’ll surprise no one who has seen any of my session shots. But the reason isn’t because of hostility, but because I find working out to be incredibly, brain numbingly, shoot-me now, tedious. I’m not really sure how open submission would manifest itself in a gym scenario. Actually, that’s not true, thanks to these kind of posts from Olivia Fitzgerald I do have some pretty good fantasies. But in reality, the daily interactions I have with people and places don’t normally touch on my innate submissive nature.

I find submission, like masochism, is entirely contextual. At work I tend to the forceful and aggressive. That’s not something forced on me by society, but just a natural function of working in a very competitive intellectually demanding area. In social groups I’m normally easy going and a facilitator of conversation, but not at all submissive. Only with the right person to accept my submission does that side of me come out.

I totally understand the potential difficulties in being a D/s couple in society, but that doesn’t seem to be what Tomio is talking about here. So am I just missing something here? Do other male submissives feel the need to openly express their submission in daily life, outside the specific context of a D/s relationship? Is the pressure to act like a ‘real man’ in conflict with how they intrinsically feel?

'leave me the way i was before' by BenegesserittA black and white version of this image has been floating around a lot of tumblrs (I found it on Red Snapper). I believe it is by the artist Benegesseritt from deviantART, and entitled leave me the way i was before.

A moment in time

Most of the images that I feature are dynamic, with a sense of movement or energy. They capture a moment that the viewer can extrapolate from, either forwards or backwards. This image is different. I don’t know how they got to this position, or what’s about to happen. There’s a sense of stillness to it. She’s beautifully dressed in an eye catching red and he’s naked, vulnerable, collared. There’s just this moment, and nothing more.

Moment in timeI found this image on the Heidi Silicium tumblr.

Do you buy that by the pound or the inch?

Here’s a rather well muscled chap being measured in all the relevant areas. The careful shopper should always assess the goods carefully before making a purchasing decision.

Personally I find this kind of objectification of the male form rather offensive. The poor guy is being treated like a piece of meat. Not to mention making me feel insecure about my own slightly less studly physique. But don’t worry, our normal service of hot babes in skin tight leather will be resuming shortly.

Male slave on the scalesIt’s originally from a photo-shoot entitled ‘Only the handsome will survive‘ in the Russian edition of GQ style. The photographer is Alex Bego and I found it via the Vrouwelijke Dominantie tumblr.

Obedience training

Continuing the theme from yesterday’s post, here’s a nice tableau of owner and pet. He seems to be keeping quite obediently to heel, while she stands proudly and possessively over him. I always thought it was the dog that was supposed to be aggressive and protective, but he looks like an old softy in contrast to her fierce expression.

Dogs often have a habit of licking themselves in embarrassing ways at inopportune moments, normally when guests are staying. It seems from the second photograph that she’s managed to redirect that impulse into a slightly more useful cleaning function. He’s really putting his tongue to good use there. Lets hope he doesn’t start trying it when her parents next come over.

Mistress with slave as dogMistress with slave licking assThese are taken from an old series of images that circulated on usenet. I think they were all scanned from Japanese femdom magazines, so I don’t have an online attribution to give.

The doministrix in action

Mistress T recently published a post containing an entertaining description of a trip home to see her family. They have some idea of what she does, which I think is great, but she does have deal with a few awkward conversations. The most cringeworthy one that she describes was with a friend of her father…

….an older man with no teeth who started the conversation with: “So you do that dancing up and down the pole, eh?”. I carefully explained that I spent about a year dancing 5-6 years ago but I haven’t done that for awhile…hoping we could move the conversation to something else but no. He then said leeringly: “So you’re into the pictures now?” Fuck.
Mistress T

Personally, while I’d like to certainly avoid anything as painful as that sounds, I would enjoy being more open with my family. Or even being open at all. Keeping a big important chunk of my life separate from them isn’t pleasant. Unfortunately, while I have very caring supportive parents, I just can’t see how the conversation would work out well. Gay would be no problem. That’s genetic and there wouldn’t be an issue. But BDSM? And a submissive masochist? They’d blame themselves, and then I’d have to deal with hours of how they should have punished me differently, or potty trained me differently, or just done everything differently. Nobody wins in that scenario.

The ‘doministrix’ title comes courtesy of Mistress T’s mother conflating mistress with dominatrix. I like it a lot. Although it does sound a little like a monster that Perseus would have fought in Greek mythology. I can imagine it as a Ray Harryhausen movie – ‘Perseus versus the deadly doministrix’.

There’s always endless blogsphere debate about labels. Dom vs Domme vs Dominant is a perennial favorite. Or how to distinguish between pro-domme and non-pro-domme. Lifestyle domme is common but doesn’t find favor everywhere. Perhaps we should just start mashing a few words together and come up with some new ones. Lets say Dominatrix can be exclusively a pro-domme thing, and doministrix can be lifestyle. Problem solved (for about 30 seconds).

Anyway, here’s the doministrix herself in action, getting a polished posterior from a lucky slave. You can find similar material, along with all her excellent videos, at her commercial site.

Mistress T

80’s Flashback

Coming across this image sent me flashing back down memory lane. For most of my US readers this won’t mean much, but the ZX Spectrum (along with the Commodore 64) was a pretty huge part of my childhood. I don’t remember this particular magazine issue, but I do remember a lot of similar editions that were equally enticing, featuring many large breasted warrior queens. Whoever crafted this one (and I’m willing to bet significant money it was a man) clearly had a good appreciation for dominant women.

It’s funny to look back at these old games. This page has the original Crash review of the game featured in this cover, with actual screenshots. As a child I was never bothered by the promise of the artwork and the sharply diverging reality of the game itself. I’m not sure I even saw a difference. In my mind it all looked equally exciting. Now I look back and think “Wow, my parent were right. Those games were just a bunch of blobs and squiggles.”

Femdom scene from Crash magazine

Nipple Nibbles

I have three excellent reasons for this particular image post. Firstly, it features biting and nipple torture, which rank high in my list of favourite activities. Secondly, the lady doing the biting is Mistress Natsukiss. As I’ve commented here in the past, I find her a very captivating domme. There’s certainly no shortage of beautiful dominant women on this blog (and others), but there’s something about her attitude that gives me, in the best possible way, a shiver up the spine. Finally, I noticed that HMP had posted that it was his birthday, and I know he’s a man who appreciates some good nipple torment. So here you go, a beautiful birthday bite.

Nipple BitingI found this image on the Gorean Kajirus tumblr site.

Pseuds Kinky Corner

The satirical British magazine Private Eye runs a regular column called Pseuds Corner, containing reader submitted quotes of journalists being particularly pretentious or pompous. It’s normally dominated by art critics, who typically suffer from the biggest gap between their perception of the world (and themselves) and how the rest of us experience it. I couldn’t help thinking that this recent review of a modern dance piece in the Guardian would make a good submission to the column.

In Diaghilev on the Beach, former Boston Ballet dancer Joseph Mercier presents a reworking of Nijinsky’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, set to Debussy’s score. Mercier locates the piece at a balmy poolside, where two cocktail-sipping, harem-panted Nefertitis (Sarah Cattrall and Natalie Clarke) indulge their slave (Mercier), who is costumed in golden briefs and a jewelled dog collar. As Clarke languidly oils her breasts, Cattrall leads Mercier around, occasionally permitting him to lick her feet, and alternately stroking and slapping him. Nijinsky’s 1912 work ends with the faun shuddering in orgasm over a scarf stolen from a nymph, and a century later Mercier references the critical reaction (“filthy and bestial”, according to Le Figaro) by having Cattrall lubricate a butt plug attached to a jewelled animal tail, and insert it in her slave’s proffered rectum. It’s a startling moment, and even among the too-cool-for-school Chisenhale crowd occasions a quiet intake of breath. But the piece works. It perfectly reproduces the timeless languor of the original, it matches it in provocation, and in Mercier’s assumption of the most abject characteristics of the Faun and the Golden Slave from Schéhérazade (another Diaghilev sex-ballet), pitches reverberant questions about the dominant-submissive relationship of performer and audience.

I’m normally all for exploring questions about dominant-submissive relationships. And some languid breast oiling combined with a little foot worship, slapping and anal play sounds like a pretty good way to spend a Tuesday night. I may even add it to my ‘ideas for sessions’ list. But the idea of sitting in an audience and watching a modern dance interpretation of it? That sounds like the bad kind of humiliation and psychological torture.

Dog boy with mistress in gardenAdmittedly this image is more a garden scene than a  balmy poolside, but there is a collar, leash and tail butt plug involved. It’s an image I like for the stillness and thoughtfulness of it. They’re not heavily involved or interacting. Just sitting for a private moment with their thoughts.

I’ve seen work by this artist before, but I can’t recall his or her name. As usual, I’m sure one of my highly knowledgeable readers will know the answer, so please leave a comment if you can help me attribute it.

The most controversial activity?

If I had to choose the most controversial and debate provoking femdom activity, I think it would come down to a run-off between scat play and forced bisexuality. I’ve posted about the former in the past and, after stumbling across the picture below, I thought it might now be time for a post on the latter.

I should be clear that the majority of my comments here relate to forced-bi in the context of pro-dommes, or casual play, rather than lifestyle relationships. I think the lifestyle dynamics are so complex and unique to each circumstance that it’s impossible to make the kind of sweeping generalities that I’m about to.

The first issue that arises for pro-dommes in this context is a legal one. If money is being exchanged for a man to be part of a scene and perform a sexual act then the domme opens herself up to prosecution under pimping and pandering laws. Those are charges that can carry very significant penalties.

Outside of the practical legal issues, I’ve also observed that some dommes have a more philosophical problem with this activity. The idea behind a forced-bi scene is that the submissive shouldn’t really enjoy it at the primary sexual level. He might get off on the idea pleasing his mistress, or with the power exchange involved, or the humiliation, but sexy fun isn’t supposed to be part of the plan. However, I’ve heard numerous dommes report that men use these kind of scenes as an excuse for doing something they secretly really want to do anyway. Five minutes into the scene and the domme is suddenly taking a backseat to the two guys getting it on. This not only undercuts the femdom ethos, it’s also manipulative and hypocritical, forcing a woman into a fake role because a man can’t admit his real desires. In fact it puts the domme firmly into the role of the pimp that the law would allege she is.

On the submissive side of the coin, forced-bi is one of the most polarizing activities in terms of the reaction it provokes. Typically when confronted with the idea of an undesirable activity, the standard male submissive response seems to be “Not really my thing, but whatever….” However, suggest forced-bi as the activity, and you’re likely to get a much more visceral and violent reaction from those not into it. For many men it is a fundamental hard limit that they dislike even talking about, let alone one that they are open to negotiating.

Personally, the idea forced-bi as it’s commonly portrayed (like the image below) doesn’t do a lot for me. This is not because I’m fundamentally opposed to the idea of another man in a scene with me. I think cuckolding scenarios can be hot, as can sissy play and gender switching. Even being topped by a dominant couple might be an interesting thing to try. But forced-bi as a kind of humiliation or punishment activity with another submissive somehow doesn’t really click with me as a femdom dynamic.

Forced-BiI’m afraid I don’t have an original source for this image. I found it on domme pics.

Cute Couple

Much as I enjoyed the scene portrayed in my last post, I’d be the first to admit that forced consumption of urine and cigarettes is not going to be to everyone’s taste. So for a change of pace here’s a fun little drawing I stumbled across.

They make a cute couple. Personally I like to imagine that it’s drawn from the perspective of a male slave shackled and caged in a corner of the dungeon. While the mistress plays with her sexy new toy, he’s going to be spending the next few hours in a horrible cramped and uncomfortable position. If he’s lucky he may get to watch, but probably not.

I know Ms Marie has been on the hunt for a female sub to play with. I wish her luck with that. Perhaps one day she’ll be able to post the equivalent image in photographic form from her Sissy’s point of view.

Cute CoupleI found this on the snail meilk site, but it’s originally from sal0’s deviant art page. Sadly the rest of his images don’t share this theme.