Here’s a well beaten gentleman and an elegant lady for your viewing pleasure. I’ve complained about socks before in femdom imagery, but I think this guys gets a pass. Sock suspenders are a classy touch. The artwork is by Fyodor Pavlov.
Tag: Forniphilia
Under the feet of the beloved
I’ll finish my trio of vintage themed posts with something from the German artist Paul Kamm (also known as C. Soulier). As you can probably tell from the style of this piece, it predates the 50’s images I featured previously. I’ve no exact date, but it’s most likely from the 1920’s or even early 1930’s.
I can’t say it does much for me erotically, but I do love the history it represents. Here’s a German artist born in the nineteenth century, drawing between the World Wars, working in a distinctive style of his time, creating a scene that wouldn’t look out of place on the latest kink.com shoots.
If you’re interested in more of his art, the Femdom Artists site has a number of his images.
Not the brightest bulb
I’m not sure what’s the appeal of objectification as a lamp. I certainly get the hotness of objectification in general. It’s just the lamp part that puzzles me. Isn’t part of being objectified about being a useful object? Footstools, toilets, dildos and even shelves make sense to me, but no matter how sparkling their personality, it’s impossible for someone to literally light up a room.
This isn’t the first time I’ve run across this kink. You can see past examples here and here. I’ve never heard anyone declare themselves a lamp fetishist, or read erotic fiction on intertwined anglepoise, or spotted a saucy looking lampshade in a domme’s toy chest. Yet people are making images of it. Good for them and their kinks, but consider me puzzled.
I found both of these on the Domination on My terms tumblr. The second one is from LeBete on deviant art. I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for the first.
A stroll in the city (update)
A couple of days ago I blogged about a woman spotted in London taking a man for a walk at the end of a leash. There was a lot of social media speculation about who they were and what they were doing. Well apparently the ‘mystery’ has been solved. According to this article in the Independent it was an acting/art project designed to provoke and film the reaction of passersby. The guy was the ‘director’ who’d recruited the woman via an acting website.
Hmmm. It reminds me of an artistic project I’ve been trying to put together. It’s a very provocative, but very creative piece. Absolute nothing, and I want to make this very clear, absolutely nothing pervy about it. I’m looking for 2 or 3 talented actresses willing to challenge their ideas of what theater can be. Nobody with latex or leather allergies please. Past experience with knots would be a bonus, as would trapeze skills and small hands. I’ll provide the male talent, the location and a very detailed script. Obviously as a starving artist I can’t offer any monetary compensation, but I can promise an unforgettable experience.
While I wait for the applicants to come flooding in, this story does give me a chance to post another PDS scene. From the sign this looks like it was shot in Portland, but I’ve zero background on it. I wonder what artistic statement they’re making?
Heading South
I’m taking a few days vacation, so blogging might be a bit erratic until next week. This is my “Oh my God, the holidays are over, I’ve got months of work stretching before me, I need a vacation” vacation. I booked it Jan 2nd, just as soon as the New Years hangover wore off. I wish everyone could have one.
I’m heading down to San Fransisco. I’m not sure it’ll be as relaxing a time as this lady seems to be enjoying, but I will be following her example with books, cocktails and kinky fun. In between all that I’ll try and keep the blog updated.
I found this on the Femdom Style Counsel tumblr. I’m afraid I don’t have an original attribution.
Power & Control – Agency & Autonomy
This is a post about semantics and definitions rather than hot femdom action. That might sound a touch dry, but language shapes how we think, and writing about the language and labels of kink helps me understand my own kinky nature better.
The trigger for this was a post last week entitled Inadvisable advice and a followup comment by Grumpyoldswitch. I’m not going to repeat it all in detail here (feel free to follow the links), but the crux of it revolved around autonomy, free will, power and control. What do you give up in a BDSM scene and what makes a scene exciting? I originally stated that I never gave up autonomy in scene and the commenter suggested that I did or at least pretended to. He felt that doing so, and being dehumanized in some way, was attractive and what a lot of people looked for. So what does a submissive give up in a D/s interaction?
Power and control are two obvious things that are relinquished. It could be simple, like the power to talk and move around. Or it could be more complex, like the power to make certain decisions or behave in a certain way. So does autonomy and agency go hand in hand with this? After all, if I don’t have control over my body, and I can only make narrowly constrained choices, do I really have autonomy? I would say the answer is a very firm ‘Yes’.
The definition of autonomy is the freedom to choose one’s own actions. As Wikipedia puts it – it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision. That means that any relationship where someone loses autonomy is automatically an abusive one. That is an important line to draw. I might only have one decision available to me – the option to shout ‘STOP’ – but with that decision all my power must come flooding back to me. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 1 hour scene in a dungeon or a 24×7 D/s relationship. The ability to step back and renegotiate is an essential one that should never be lost.
So what about pretending to lose autonomy? That’s where it gets interesting to me, as I think that’s what BDSM play is often about. Some people fetishize the activites themselves. They love bondage, or spanking, or whatever. But for a lot of others, including myself, the activities are a means to an end. They’re a way of creating a D/s dynamic. By emphasizing all the decisions I can no longer take the illusion is created of a loss of autonomy, where in fact it has just being temporarily stripped back to its bare minimum. When I’m busy being the best damn coffee table I can be, then I don’t have to worry about anything else, and it’s easy to pretend that the option to just not be a table doesn’t exist.
This image has been cropped but I believe it’s originally from My Slave Life. I found it on the Consensual Spanking blog.
Real Sex
The Vulture site is carrying an interesting article on the old HBO show Real Sex. I was amazed to discover it first aired back in 1990 and ran for almost 20 years. I didn’t encounter it until I moved to the States in 2001 and, based on the frank manner it addressed sex, had always assumed it was of a fairly recent vintage.
It was by no means a great show. Although the article claims they aimed to be sincere and to laugh ‘with’ and not ‘at’ the people involved, I always detected an undercurrent of cynicism. Beneath the veneer of education and illumination there were clearly elements of titillation (ok with me) and mockery (not so good). However, all that said, I think it still was a net positive in helping people talk more frankly about their sexual interests. For example, this post from D. Hubby directly references the effect an episode on spanking had on his life.
One particular part of the interview that caught me eye was this quote…
It was always a challenge for us to find good-looking people. It’s certainly true of nudists, but a lot of people doing weird sex stuff are not necessarily young and attractive.
Katie Smalheer, associate/coordinating/supervising producer, 1996–2005
I think that’s a very telling comment. It could be taken to mean that people doing ‘weird sex stuff’ are unusually unattractive.The reality is that this media filtered view of the world is incredibly biased. Visual attractiveness is a valued commodity, particularly when nakedness is involved. Almost all commercial visual media picks from a tiny pool of conventionally attractive people. People into ‘weird sex stuff’ are simply a normal cross-section of the populace, and that clashes with the narrow selection criteria we normally expect for naked people on film. Our perception of what is acceptable or normal is horribly skewed.
I don’t have a particularly great image to use for this post, so I’ll finish with the kind of scene that I’m sure Real Sex would have loved to feature. That Miss Eve from the Young Dommes site.
Picking your orientation
After yesterday’s post, which talked about sexual orientation and BDSM, I did what I should have done right from the start and searched for other posts on the topic. That led me to this excellent one by Clarisse Thorn. I think she covered the complexity of the discussion rather well.
To this point I’ve tended to think of sexual orientation as being specifically about what gender someone is attracted to. Not because I believe that BDSM isn’t an intrinsic part of some peoples identity. Just that the common and accepted usage of sexual orientation is around gender, and I don’t like overloading terms unnecessarily. However, I did find one of the comments in Clarisse’s post particularly interesting. It quotes Charles Moser and lists the factors he believes makes up an orientation…
Lifelong – Difficult to Suppress
Prepubertal Recognition
Interest Despite Aging
Immutable, but Fluid
Emotional Price to Do or Not Do “It”
Lust – Specifically and Especially Sexually Arousing
Effect of Testosterone/Anti-AndrogensOne does not have to satisfy all 7, but they distinguish a “lesser” sexual interest from an orientation. It also means that not everyone who does a behavior (even repetitively) has an orientation. Also, an orientation can satisfy less than 7, but it is hard for me to imagine someone who satisfies all 7 not having an orientation.
I’m not quite sure what he means by the one on Testosterone, but when it comes to my BDSM interests, I’m batting 100% on all the rest. I think they make for an interesting checklist to consider.
Of course, if the complexity of the human condition is all too much for you, becoming a coffee table is always an option. I’m pretty certain they don’t have a sexual orientation.
I found this on the Undiscovered Limits tumblr.
Pro versus Lifestyle
Stabbity over at Not Just Bitchy has me reaching for my keyboard again. A couple of weeks ago her comments on force in a scene triggered two different posts (here and here). This time it’s her provocatively titled Pro-doms V’s Lifestyle doms post. In this particular case I find myself violently agreeing with part of that post and incredibly puzzled by the rest of it.
The part I violently agree with is that pro-doms and lifestyle doms offer different things. That’s clearly true. A few scheduled hours of very focused intense play is nothing like a natural evolving organic relationship. Even if you play with the same domme very regularly (as I do), it’s not an approximation for a lifestyle interaction. The relationship you create may be a very positive and real one, but it’s established on an entirely different basis from a lifestyle D/s one and grows differently because of that. I also agree that the guy who expects a lifestyle relationship to play out like a 24×7 fantasy fulfilling professional session is an idiot.
Where I find myself confused by Stabbity is when she then goes on to divide men up into two very different groups…
If what a guy really wants is a dominant girlfriend, he’s not likely to have a lot of interest in seeing pro doms. Not getting to build a relationship with them would be a deal breaker, not a selling point. On the other hand, someone with an extremely demanding job who just doesn’t have time for a relationship but wants to get his kink on isn’t likely to get what he wants from a lifestyle dom.
Stabbity in Pro-doms V’s Lifestyle doms
I can’t speak for all submissive guys, but that perspective does not reflect either my own or the one I see most guys describing. It suggests that the two experiences are so different that it divides submissives into two distinct and non-overlapping types. I think it’s much more of a continuum than that, and that the differences between pro and lifestyle play do not manifest themselves in that way.
To draw a rough analogy: Some men only want sex in a committed relationship. Some men only want casual sex and wish to avoid relationships. But some men (a lot in my view) would be happy to have casual sex while they search for the right relationship. If they haven’t found Miss Perfect they’ll happily fool around with Miss Fun and her attractive sister Miss Available. Particularly if that fooling around doesn’t stand in the way of searching for Miss Perfect.
It’s certainly possible to build a relationship with a pro-domme. It’s also certainly not the same as a lifestyle relationship. And that is not a deal breaker for a lot of guys who’d like a lifestyle relationship because playing with a pro-domme is goddamn fun. I’ve had some of the best and most intense experiences of my life with them. I’m kind of hoping that doesn’t cross me off the dating list for any dominant women out there.
Given the topic of discussion it seems only appropriate to feature a photograph of a pro-domme. This is Mistress Ella Kros. If you’re anywhere near Tel-Aviv her session information is here.
Wanted: Mänskliga Fotpall
Yesterday I received one of the more unusual comments I’ve ever had. It was from a Sandra Lindqvist, a researcher for a Swedish TV company, looking to find people to help them with a documentary.
We are currently working on a documentary series called “Fråga Olle-dokumentären” (“Ask Olle about sex – documentary”) about sex, love and relationships for Swedish Channel 5
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One topic we would like to cover in our documentary is ”Human Furniture” – Forniphilia
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I was wondering if you know any Mistresses or just some people that are practicing this? We are going to UK next Wednesday for a couple of days and we really want to meet and do a segment with someone about this when we are there.
Given I haven’t visited Sweden in years, and don’t speak the language, I’ve unsurprisingly never heard of the series. I’m guessing that this is the homepage for it. And while I have featured forniphilia a few times in the past, I wouldn’t describe it as a major kink of mine. The fantasy is kind of fun, but I suspect I’d quickly get bored of the reality.
Anyway, if you’re in the UK (or I assume Sweden), into forniphilia at all and feel you could help out, then I suggest giving Sandra an email. The only forniphilia experts I know of offhand are House of Gord, and they’re US based and maledom.
While I can’t help out directly, the comment does at least give me an excuse to feature a couple of interesting images on the theme. The first features Mistress Alex combining public humiliation, objectification and the morning paper. The second is by David Blázquezz, one of a series of similar images he shot for an exhibition. The shelving construction in the series is particularly impressive.
