Flogger – Femdom Resource

A Cocktail and the Lash

Churchill famously described British naval tradition as rum, sodomy and the lash. I’m not sure if there’s any rum in the cocktail being poured below, but there’s definitely a lash and he’s posed perfectly for a bit of sodomy as well. Looks like a fun way to experience that particular historic trio. Judging by their clothing the image is set in Churchill’s era, although I’m not sure when it was actually created.

I found this via the madam is all tumblr. I’m afraid I don’t the source or original artist.

Spiky Submissive

Over the years I’ve poked fun at a fair number of domme outfits. This vintage photograph is one of the rare examples where the WTF factor is all about the submissive. I’d love to know what the thinking was behind the spikes. Shouldn’t it be the submissive in the predicament situation, not everyone around her? That rather striking domme is going to feel pretty silly if she stabs herself while trying to apply her flogger. Perhaps it’s designed as an all body chastity device? No matter how cute she might be, you can’t get close enough to enjoy any sort of intimate encounter.

According to this tweet, it’s from Studio Biederer around 1935.

Hurrah Germania!

It’s not often that femdom artwork intersects with momentous world events, but I believe this cartoon is one such case. I couldn’t find any background information for it but, given I’m an enormous history nerd, I can take an educated guess. Apologies if this ends up being a lot of history and very little femdom, but I think the cartoon has a fascinating connection to a historical turning point that shaped the entire 20^th century.

The man being beaten by Lady Germania is Joseph Chamberlain, a key figure in the British government before the First World War and father of the infamous (to be) Neville. In Joseph’s era, Britain was the dominant world and naval power, and Germany was rapidly becoming the dominant European land power. Some elements of the two governments thought they should form an Anglo-German alliance, each concentrating on their respective strengths on land and at sea. Together with America, they believed this would allow them to divide up and dominate the world. This was opposed by those on the British side who thought it would just give Germany a chance consolidate their power in Europe before turning on Britain. In the German camp there was opposition from those who thought they could never be a world power without building a challenge to the Royal Navy, which Britain would never stand for.

Ironically, despite this cartoon, Joseph Chamberlain was actually one of the key British figures pushing for friendship and alliance with Germany in the late 1890’s. This cartoon was probably published around 1901 when his third attempt at negotiating an alliance had fallen through over a dispute on the conduct of British soldiers in the Boer war. Chamberlain in turn attacked the conduct of German troops, their press castigated him and Britain ultimately ended up allied with France and Russia against Germany.

It’s intriguing to think what would have happened if he’d succeeded. WWI clearly would have not happened or would have unfolded very differently. And WWI was the defining event of the 20^th century. From it flowed the Russian revolution and communism, America’s transition to a world power, the collapse of European states in fascism and and ultimately WWII. From that flowed the Cold War, the collapse of the colonial empires, the rebuilding of Japan and the growth of China.

Of course it’s impossible to know what the world would have been like if Chamberlain hadn’t end up under the lash of progress by Lady Germania. I think it’s safe to say it would have been a very different place. I wonder what the artist would have thought if he’d known what was to come?

Google Translate doesn’t a good job of the top text, so if anyone can help with a translation there I’d be interested to know what it says. The bottom appears to be “A striking answer by the German people to the attacks of Chamberlain.”

Don’t Stop

I got to play today, which makes me a very happy bunny. Nothing too crazy. Just a nice blend of pain and pleasure. I think this image captures the mood of the session perfectly. I didn’t want it to ever stop. Even when it hurt. Especially when it hurt.

This is by the artist Magnta.

Kinky Pigment

The two drawings below are by the artist Kinky Pigment or Knky Pgmnt (as the signature has it). You can see more on their tumblr here.

I only discovered this work recently, but I’m glad I did. The style and focus is interesting. I hesitate to say realistic, because some of the other drawings are quite extreme or surreal, but it does capture some of the sense of real kinky play. There are quite a few images featuring clips and zippers. I personally love playing with these in scenes, but it’s relatively rare to see them in kinky artwork.

Not so super

The new Batman versus Superman movie is out and by most accounts, it’s fairly poor. I’m not surprised, given how weak the previous Zack Snyder Superman movie was. I’ll wait for the latest example to make it to cable before taking a look.

In the meantime, as a contrast to the crazy special effects and somber plots of today’s superheros, here’s a glimpse of a more lighthearted Superman from the Silver Age of comics (mid 50’s to 1970). The plot apparently involves alien possession which is cured (somehow) by a dummy and a beating. At least that’s the excuse the authors came up with for featuring Superman in bondage and a dominant Lois brandishing a flogger.

Superman's Girlfriend Lois Lane #73

The dividends of distraction

Scientists have found that being distracted helps people deal with pain. The only surprising thing to me is that they’re only just discovering this fact. Masochists could have told them this long ago.

The fact that pain is only experienced in the brain is the kind of thing movie super villains like to purr while they’re heating up the red hot coals for the hero. Yet it happens to be true. I’m frequently astonished how non-absolute pain can be. What seems horrible early in a play session can be easily tolerated later. Similarly a steady strong stimulus (say from an electro-stim device) can quickly become unnoticeable when overwhelmed by a suddenly intense sensation (like nipple clamps being ripped off). Lots of things can act as a distraction. In the original article they tried stress balls. I’ve also found that my screaming, ladies in tight outfits and sticking needles in delicate body parts (by aforementioned ladies) works equally well.

The image below shows a great set-up for the converse situation. It’s really hard to tolerate pain when you’re very focused on it, and this bondage set-up will enforce that. He can’t relax, zone out or shift focus. He has to try and maintain his balance will anticipating the blows. That creates an interesting but really intense head space.

This is from the Divine Bitches site.

The serious end of the flogger

Mentioning Dan Savage in yesterday’s post prompted me to go and catch up with the latest entries in his advice column – ‘Savage Love’. It’s an entertaining column and his answers are frequently funny and insightful. Even the comments, normally garbage on any popular mainstream public forum, can be thoughtful.

For kink lovers his column from a couple of weeks back, entitled Working the Kinks Out, was particular relevant. Of the three kinky folk featured, the letter that caught me eye was the third one on the page, sent by a woman married to a submissive man. She didn’t fancy ‘squeezing into an uncomfortable corset and using a flogger on him’ so allowed him to see a pro-domme. Now she’s upset that he’s going too often and spending too much money. Dan’s answer is a fair one, but I think it’s impossible to judge the situation without a hell of a lot more context than the letter gives. What really piqued my interest was the comments that followed the column.

As you’d expect the comments covered a lot of viewpoints, but a common one was that she should stop complaining and start hitting him. The reasons given ranged from being GGG, being financially smart, learning to like it, not being selfish and it’s easy once you try it. I’m all for more women topping and playing the dominant role, but I can’t help feeling that these comments overlook the complexity of D/s play. I wonder if they’d say the same kind of thing if the husband were dominant and wanted to tie her up and beat her? Would they suggest a non-submissive should just suck it up, stop being selfish and take the punishment? I doubt it.

Submission is often treated as something fixed, an in-built need that must be satisfied. Conversely dominance is treated as an act or activity, an option that can be turned on or off. I understand that coming from a vanilla perspective (nobody wants pain, but anyone can choose to inflict it), but it doesn’t make sense from a kinky background. Dominating someone is a very complex dynamic, and scenes can create a lot of powerful emotions. Nobody should feel they have to tap into that kind of energy if they don’t want to. I don’t know where the wife in question chose to draw the kinky line in the sand, but I do think she can’t choose to be dominant anymore than he can choose to not be submissive.

Given the letter writer seemed unhappy about using a flogger, this seemed a particularly apt picture to use. This lady certainly doesn’t seem unhappy about her flogging options. This is from a 2012 Divine Bitches shoot with Phoenix Marie and Parker London.

Unicorns

I’m going to use this post as a shout out to Peroxide and his quest for information on male submissives. He’s planning to write a how-to guide on finding and dating male-subs. He’s working off of the assumption that good ones are as rare as unicorns *.

I’m not sure about the unicorn bit. I’m pretty certain I’d have remembered frolicking with fairies in mythical forests. Or the acquisition of an enormous horn. That would have come in handy. I’ve also blogged and commented in the past on that 20:1 ratio thing. Personally I suspect the issue isn’t one of rarity, it’s one of filtering. There’s no lack of signal, but there is a hell of a lot of noise. I’ve no idea what the overall female dominant to submissive male ratio is, but I do know the noise produced by badly socialized and self-serving male ‘submissives’ is high.

Anyway, regardless of the mythical and technical analogies, I do applaud the idea. So if you’ve got any interesting thoughts or information for Peroxide then send it his way. In the meantime I’ll leave you with an image of a particularly feisty unicorn. I can’t say I recommend this attitude when someone is swinging a flogger in your direction, but the image did make me smile. It’s by the photographer Vlad Gansovsky, and I found it on Mistress Lilyana’s tumblr.

* Interesting aside: Unicorn is also slang in poly circles for hot-bi-babes willing to date couples. They are apparently highly sought after and equally rare. Being a unicorn hunter is not necessarily seen as a good thing.

The good old days

After mentioning the bad femdom porn of yesteryear in my previous post, it seemed a shame not to share some. This struck me as a particularly brilliant example. It’s so bad I think it actually becomes good again, by virtue of making me laugh.

The lady on the left is brandishing her flogger like it’s a long dead skunk that she wants to keep as far from her as possible. The lady on the right is falling out of her strange outfit, while expressing a strong revulsion to the idea of actually hitting the gentleman’s bottom. And for a man about to be trained by two wicked bitches in leather, he looks remarkably cheerful. He’s no doubt justifiably confident that he’s unlikely to need his safeword in the scene. What I find particularly amazing is that judging by the titling, this was the lead image for the magazine or the photo-spread. They must have looked at all the other shots and gone – “That’s it! That’s the one to lead with! This really sets the scene for the air of powerful dominance and complex sensuality that we’re trying to put across here.”

There’s a lot of justifiable complaining about bad femdom porn. I can’t deny that there’s a lot of it out there. But in an hour on tumblr you can find more good BDSM porn today than you could have found in a month of hunting in the 90’s. And I dread to think what it must have been like for kinksters prior to the spread of the internet.

I found this in a collection of vintage shots at Femdom Times.