Gag – Page 8 – Femdom Resource

The danger of labels

In yesterday’s post I wrote how much I disliked the alpha v’s beta personality categories. Apparently I’m not the only one, as this post by Stabbity is a fine rant on submissive guys who also describe themselves as alpha males. She makes some good points, and I agree with most of it. However, contrarian that I am, I feel I should offer a defensive of submissives that use that terminology. Or if not a defense, perhaps what I think is an explanation for some cases.

One frequent complaint from dominant women is the number of men who approach them whilst proclaiming their worthlessness. Typically these are men who have spent far too long watching bad femdom porn. “Mistress,” they’ll say. “I’ll do anything you want. I exist to serve you. I’m just a doormat. Something beneath your beautiful feet that I’m not worthy to lick – although it’d actually be really great if I could do that.”

Women in kinky spaces are understandably annoyed by this and respond that they want a strong confident submissive. Someone who can think for himself, show initiative and make a positive contribution to a relationship. I believe some submissive guys see that kind of description and think “Aha! That description looks a lot like the stereotypical alpha male. That’s an ideal label to quickly differentiate myself from those worthless worm idiots.”

I don’t disagree with Stabbity that it’s a vague term, possibly insulting and probably a sign of insecurity. As I wrote yesterday, I hate the alpha and beta labels. But I can understand the underlying dynamic that provokes some submissive men to use the term. Essentially both sides are reacting to a negative portrayal of submission. Unfortunately in trying to differentiate themselves with the word alpha, submissive men drag in a bunch of additional baggage they (possibly) don’t intend.

I’ve not seen a ball gag with formal wear before, but it makes for a nice combination. Glad to see they color coordinated it as well. This image is from Men in Pain.

Gift wrapped and nicely decorated

Here’s my third and final Christmas themed image. It’s also my favorite of those I published and spotted on other blogs. Normally the festive elements are simply costumes or props. Here they’ve managed to work them into an actually scene. There’s mummification and bondage done in a gift wrapping style. There are lights adding a decorative and a predicament element, and her costume is both seasonal and sexy. It’s a winning situation all round.

If you celebrate Christmas then I hope you have a very happy one. If you don’t, then I apologize for all the seasonal blather, and normally service will be resumed shortly!

I found this on the Domination on My terms tumblr. I don’t have an original attribution. It reminds me of the kind of thing published on the Dudes in Distress tumblr, but that sadly seems to have lost all its content, so I can’t validate that thought. If anyone knows who created it then please leave a comment.

Joining the medical establishment

Just hours after writing yesterday’s post on piercing I was intrigued to stumble across this article from Japan on a domme getting arrested for needle play. She’d posted images of it on her blog (link anyone?), and obviously the Osaka police have such low crime rates that they’ve time to waste hassling adults having consensual fun. Apparently it’s illegal in Japan to do anything that might draw blood without a medical license. That would seem to make a lot of BDSM play potentially risky, as even canes or single tails can draw blood if applied with sufficient force.

Obtaining a medical license seems like a tough requirement just for getting your kink on. I’m guessing it’s not the kind of thing you can obtain with a few evening classes at your local adult education establishment. In fact according to this article, even medical students in Japan can’t do minor procedures like give an injection. They have to graduate, which takes around 6 years. Yet despite that rule, the US somehow still manages to spend 2.5x times what Japan does on healthcare. Getting arrested for play piercing images clearly isn’t the only screwed up thing here.

I really wanted to find a sensual and visually attractive piercing shot to feature with this post (something like this). Unfortunately, despite a lot of hunting around, I’ve come up short. Ironically needles tends to feature in a lot of Japanese femdom movies, but there’s little good imagery out there. Most of what there is tends to be extreme and lack any D/s vibe to it.

Instead I’ll go with the medical theme and something from the pen of the great Sardax. I’m not sure what ailment this course of treatment is for, but I’m sure it’s a highly effective approach.

You can find more of Sardax’s fine work at his site. You can also pick up his illustrated and translated version of Venus in Furs at Amazon UK.

Just for me

I try and pick images for posts that will be generally interesting for a broad range of people, provided that people = kinky and interested in femdom. I didn’t start this blog for it simply to become my online porn collection. There are plenty of tumblrs out there if that’s all your after. However, now and again I feel the urge to post something that’s just for me. Something that pushes all my buttons and makes me silently sigh with a sense of wistful happiness. This is one of those times.

The two shots below are of Mistress Natsukiss. She’s featured in several of my posts in the past (for example here and here). I’ll be the first to admit that a tight leather outfit, black boots and a whip is a look that has featured in countless generic femdom images. But there’s something about Mistress Natsukiss that makes them work afresh for me.

I found these shots via the Phobos tumblr.

Wrapped in rope

Here’s a fun image to start the week. I have several longer posts lined up, but having spent the evening slicing, dicing and simmering in the kitchen, didn’t get chance to finish any of them off. This is by the artist Barry960 who has featured in a previous post. It captures a nice chemistry between the two of them. She looks happy with all her intricate rope work and he looks as though it has turned out to be a bit more involved and restricting than he was expecting.

Annoyingly complicated humans

One of the problems when writing about the origin of kinky preferences is the tendency to treat the personal as the universal. It’s human nature to assume individual experiences are widely shared, or even that they are the default experience. That’s particularly problematic with something as complex and multifaceted as kink is.

An interesting comment from Budman reminded me that not everyone traces their preferences back to early childhood. He feels that his triggers came from early adolescence. That’s something I’ve seen reported by others. I’ve also seen posts from people who came to kink even later, years into their adulthood. It was something that they grew into, not an itch that was always lurking under the surface of their sexuality. Humans are annoyingly complicated.

For me however, my kinky nature was in place long before adolescence. How else can I explain me and Penelope Pitstop? As I’ve posted in the past, I loved watching this show as a child. There was something especially tingly about watching Penelope be tied up and placed in peril. Like the magic act I talked about yesterday, it wasn’t a formative experience. There was no traumatic or exciting event that got associated with cartoon bondage. I just loved the idea of control and how it could be taken away. Reaching adolescence just slotted the next piece of the jigsaw in place for me.

I think the fact that people come to different kinks, in so many different ways, and at so many different times, emphasizes the problem in trying to associate particular interests with only single formative events. After all, how many people experienced similar events, and didn’t become kinky? We never hear from the guy who was dressed up as a girl by his sisters, and didn’t become a cross-dresser. Perhaps there’s an underlying predisposition in just a fraction of the population to having a flexible sexuality. One that casts a wider net for stimulus. Some people are always aware of it, some access it via childhood events, some as their sexuality emerges in adolescence, and some discover it via experimentation in later life.

Having mentioned Penelope Pitstop, it seems fitting to close with this image. It has similar feel, with an extravagantly costumed villain, and a helpless well bound victim. Fortunately for the purposes of this blog, it’s a rare reversal of the damsel in distress trope. It’s entitled Fred Stolen by a Villainess and is by the artist Barry960.

Post M

This is my 1000^th post. I knew it was coming, but I’m still kind of amazed to type that. It has taken exactly 1010 days to get to it. Given that I do actually have a reasonably full non-kinky life featuring work, friends and family (against all the available evidence to the contrary here), I think that’s pretty good going.

I was initially going to make it a retrospective post on the blog itself. I still might write something like that in the next few days, but for today I’ll make it a post that best characterizes my goal here. I’ve always aimed to provide useful links to interesting people, mixed in with some fun and erotic visuals. So here’s an image that I love from the artist and writer Yumine. I only discovered her work in the last day or so, and hopefully it’ll be new to a lot of my readers. She has both a tumblr and a blog called Storyland. Both feature some excellent artwork and writing and are well worth checking out. As her blog introduction says…

If the promise of men bound, abused, and enslaved stirs your senses and whets your appetite, then you have come to the right place.

Attaboy!

This is a fairly ambiguous shot. You could read all sorts of dynamics into it. But for me, it comes across as puppy play (in the most abstract sense). He’s poised, eager, focused, ready to go. She’s having fun teasing him and setting him simply tasks. It’s not necessarily an animal roleplay, but that kind of underlying vibe comes through the image. They’re both in a crouched posture, but where hers is playful and relaxed, his is attentive and just slightly nervous.

I believe this comes from the Club Stiletto site.

Estrogen and subspace

While I was writing yesterday’s post on the brain’s response to pain I stumbled across another related article. It addresses the hoary old argument of pain tolerance in men versus women. It’s commonly said that women have a higher tolerance and this article claimed to have found a reason for that – estrogen.

One way estrogen helps women to cope with pain, he says, is by increasing the availability of endorphins — brain chemicals that help dampen the pain response.
When estrogen levels are high, there’s an increased number of areas in the brain where endorphins can “park.” The more “parking places” available, Zubieta says, the more endorphins there are on call, waiting to flood the body with “feel good” chemicals capable of overriding pain signals.

According to the article in yesterday’s post, brains all react to pain in a similar way. How individuals respond is down to social conditioning and secondary factors like the production of endorphins. And based on this article, women have a natural advantage on the endorphin front. When it comes to bragging rights, I’m not sure this really helps. It implies that it’s not down to simple mental toughness or fortitude. Women (in general) just have more natural opiates floating around their brain.

More pertinently, for the purposes of this blog, it makes more wonder if women tend to experience a more intense subspace. The rush associated with endorphins is a big part of subspace, and having more on tap would suggest a potential for a deeper experience. The fight or flight reaction is also part of getting into subspace, and that’s another thing men and women experience differently. Both sexes produce cortisol from the adrenal gland under stress, but women produce more oxytocin which counters the effect of cortisol and creates more relaxing and nurturing feelings. I know from personal experience that my subspace contains elements of all these things, from the rush of endorphins through the edginess of adrenaline to the calmness of oxytocin. But if men and women typically produce different proportions of these it would suggest the subspace they experience might typically be different as well.

Whatever the science of all it – and I’m most definitely not an expert – it does give me an excuse to feature some hot F/f artwork.

This artwork is by Shiniez and you can find a lot more on his Deviant Art pages.

Tumblr hunting

This is a follow-on thought from yesterday’s housekeeping on the Femdom Image page. It’s also a request for help.

My image page is surprisingly popular. It actually attracts more views than even my front page. I’m glad people like it but, to be frank, finding conventional femdom tumblrs isn’t exactly hard. There are hundreds of them out there. Hopefully my page is good starting point for some of the better ones (e.g. Alternative Femdom, Femdom Style Counsel, Girls Rule, Subs Drool, Undiscovered Limits, etc. etc.) but it’s still a pretty basic resource.

However, I do think there is one particular area where I could add significant value, and that’s around finding femdom tumblrs that focus on male submission. These are always hard to locate. So far I’ve only come up with twelve and two of them are pretty dormant. I regularly see female dominants bemoaning the lack of good femdom imagery and I’d like to help with that. So if you stumble across or own a tumblr (or blog) that features femdom with a submissive slant then please send it in my direction. Either add a comment or email me.

I’ll leave you with an image that so far has popped up on 3 of my 12 so-called (by me) submissive focused tumblrs (Geek Domme, Work Is Never Over and Beyond the Valley of the Femdoms). It was originally shot by Barbara Nitke and is titled ‘Madame and mine’.