Creatively Destructive

Kaya over on her Under His Hand blog has a very interesting new post up. She writes from the perspective of the submissive in a M/f relationship, but I have her on my blogroll as she often has pertinent things to say about the dynamics of a lifestyle D/s relationship. In that context the exact gender of the top and bottom can often be irrelevant to the point being made.

The actual post is too long to quote in full, so I’d suggest reading it to get the full context. The heart of the issue is the idea of activities that will diminish the status of the submissive in the eyes of the dominant. Activities that both would ‘enjoy’ in their very different ways, but risk permanently altering the balance of their daily relationship due to their extreme nature. I’ll quote what I think is the key section.

So, we were talking the other day, talking about something mostly unrelated but in the vicinity of one of those “activities”, when pretty much out of the blue, he turned to me and asked me about it.

There was an immediate flush of shame and embarrassment, and a reluctance to admit to anything. Rather than admitting shit, I deflected and answered his question with a question.

Or rather.. I answered his question with a statement that really really was a desperate question in disguise.

“I can’t because you’d think less of me and not like me anymore.”

He was quiet a minute, and then nodded. “You’re right.”

And everything inside just sort of… collapsed. I showed nothing on the outside though.

Kaya from a post titled ‘Love in an Elevator

She doesn’t list what the activities might be and I don’t think it really matters to the discussion. I just found it fascinating to think about the broad concept of such an act.

I’d suggest you can classify creative acts into two broad categories: Constructive and destructive. Constructive acts are things like writing software or designing a building. The creative act leaves you with more than you started with. It might even be repeated to enhance and build on the initial creation. Destructive acts are things like cooking or staging a play. They suck up time and resources and at the end you’re left with nothing but the memory of the act for those who participated.

I think as humans we’re hardwired to treat relationships as creatively constructive. The daily creative decisions we make are meant to improve and increase the strength of our relationships. Given the normal cost function we’re trying to optimize that makes sense. We have limited time on the earth and relationships require significant time and resource investment. We want to maximize the return on that investment given our limited opportunities.

Yet here is an example of creatively destructive act that could be applied to a relationship. It’s possible that both parties would gain more from consciously destroying aspects of the relationship (or even the entire thing) in order to appreciate the experiences they desire. Now that is not to say in this specific case that’s the right thing to do. In fact Kaya is clear she very clearly doesn’t want to lose her masters love and respect. But in the general case, perverse as it seems, there could be an argument for trading away a good relationship just to experience the act of destruction. Looking at it very coldly, it’s an opportunity cost problem.

In the past I’ve seen submissives talk about similar acts in relationship to pro-domme sessions. Often they focus on thing like toilet service, with the suggestion that the submissive becomes more and more worthless with each degrading act, until finally they’re good for nothing but being toilets. I’ve always treated this as a fantasy projection from the submissive. Pro-dommes are only going to do things they’re comfortable with, and I’ve never seen a suggestion from any of them that there’s some slippery slope of degradation. There’s also very low opportunity cost in this case. Once the fantasy is played through the submissive can simply find another pro-domme to play with.

In the lifestyle scenario it’s a far more genuine and riskier proposition. How close to that invisible unmeasurable line do you want to tread? Or should you consciously cross it and destroy what you have for the sake of an ephemeral experience? How do you make any kind of sensible judgement about what you’re risking and what you’re gaining?

One could of course suggest that it’s simply the responsibility of the dominant to sort his or her head out. If they want to subject their submissive to it, they need to be sure they can deal with their own resultant feelings and still offer the necessary love and support. But of course when the attractiveness of the activity is proportional to the disgust it generates, that is easier said than done.

I should repeat that I have no idea of the kind of the specific activities Kaya is referencing. But when it comes to finding suitable images to illustrate extreme femdom activity I always have one reliable site to use – Team Rinryu (warning extreme content). In this case we have a cute girl, a nice smile and a man with an open mouth.

Femdom toilet

Emotional Masochism

HMP over at Her Majesty’s Plaything pointed me at an interesting thread over on Max Fisch’s forum. The initial posting by Miss Darcy was mainly about submissives over-committing and going too far in trying to please. But it then evolved into a discussion about drama, emotional involvement and boundary management with Miss Darcy, Irene Boss and alx. The relevant posts are here, then here, then here, and…well you can probably figure the rest out.

HMP’s original post quoted at length from the thread, and I don’t want to simply repeat his post. Instead I want to pick out a particular aspect of the play they’re talking about.

Moths to the flame, they will be attracted to the scenes that upset them the most. It’s just the nature of things when emotional masochism is part of a person’s psycho sexual makeup. Unfortunately if you are going to practice within the extremes you can expect this behavior to continue
Irene Boss

…..forced bi, cuckolding, and full toilet are three of my favorite things. With my emphasis on humiliation and mind control I seem to both attract and be attracted to the delicate, fascinating psyches of slaves, some of whom inevitably gravitate towards emotional masochism. It is the psychological play that grips me, and in some ways I think that is the most dangerous kinky activity out there.
Miss Darcy

It seems strange, but I realized as I was reading this, that I’d never really thought about emotional masochism. I’d only ever thought about it as a physical concept. This is no doubt because that’s the way I’m wired. Any anger, insults or humiliation in a scene really kills the mood for me. Cruelty and objectification are great, but being insulted quickly pulls me out of submissive mode and into ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ mode. However, regardless of my personal wiring, in hindsight it seems pretty odd that in years of thinking about femdom I’d never really pondered emotional masochism.

Now I do come to think about, I realize how incredibly difficult it must be to explore, on both side of the D/s equation. When I play the thing I’m trying to ultimately optimize, my emotional state, is not the thing that’s being directly messed with. A great session might be very cathartic and leave me emotionally on a high, but it’s not always necessary to get there. I can just have a good session and end up feeling happy and lightly buzzed. In contrast emotional play seems far more risky and volatile. It could be fantastic if you have a cathartic breakthrough, but terrible if you don’t reach that tipping point. To use a slightly odd but apt analogy, it seems a little like flying from an aircraft carrier. Once you commit to it there’s either going to be a plane in the air or a big expensive splash. There’s no middle ground.

The other thing that struck me was how differently the same activities can be viewed. For example, Miss Darcy talks about cuckolding as an example of emotional masochism. I find cuckolding an intriguing idea, although I’ve not had the chance to experience it. But if I was to do it, I’d always think about it in the context of tease and denial. A case of – “He gets to enjoy the greatest pleasure while you’re frustrated.” I could never do it as – “You’re not enough of a man so I need this guy to satisfy me.” That would just be annoying, and life is already too full of annoying things.

Similarly any forced-bi play would have to be in the context of a hot sexual scene enabling her pleasure. Doing it as a kind of punishment or humiliation would just seem weird to me.

I guess I can be grateful that, through no skill of my own, I got lucky in the nature/nurture dice game that molds our kinks. Physical masochism just leaves me with some odd marks to explain. I don’t have to risk an emotional rollercoaster or a nervous breakdown each time I play.

– Image removed on request – 

Stupidest thing you’ll read today

I realize that as far as title’s go, that’s not one guaranteed to lure the reader in. I’m also aware that some people may be thinking “So how is that different to the rest of your posts?” However, I’m fairly confident that most people will agree that the linked article is even more ridiculous than my usual random rubbish.

The article in question is about pornography rather than femdom, but it was amusing/infuriating enough that I though it worth sharing. The title is “Pornography and National Security”, which would also make a pretty good onion article title. The author Jennifer S. Bryson (of the Witherspoon Institute) uses it to argue that widespread pornography may be contributing to the problem of terrorism. As far as I can tell she bases that on the fact that terrorists have been found with pornography and have been known to visit strip clubs.

It’s written in classic Fox news style, light on facts, but heavy on leading questions like “Is it possible that…?”, “Could it be….?” and “Are we as a society…..?”

Personally I wonder, could the author possibly have her head further up her ass? Is it really true that she doesn’t understand the difference between correlation and causation? Does she perhaps not see the contradiction between claiming that pornography is ubiquitous and simultaneously claiming that finding it on terrorists is meaningful of something? Would she be better off spending her time on her line of biblical coloring books rather than writing fact free articles trying to link 9/11 to pornography?

My favorite quote from the article is:

Would those terabytes of pornography and such more aptly be dubbed “terrorbytes”?

Errr, how about no? Although it does sound like a great idea for a Stephen Colbert monologue.

Humpty Dumpty

The comments on my earlier post entitled ‘Femdom doesn’t exist‘ got me thinking a little more about definitions and categories. This isn’t new ground for me, as I’ve pondered BDSM labels in the past. This time I thought I’d come at it from a different angle, and rather than start with the existing labels, I’d try and define new categories based on what I’ve observed. I can then see how (or if) my groupings map back into the well known labels people regularly throw around. The two dimensions I’m thinking about are masochism and submission, and it seems a lot of the complexity arises out of the latter.

Non-masochistic / Non-submissive
We all know about these people, as they make up the majority of the population. Vanilla. Boring. Let us speak of them no more.

Masochistic / Non-submissive
These people enjoy pain purely for the sake of the sensation. They want to be hurt and enjoy the associated adrenalin rush without necessarily giving up power. A well known subset of this is the Smart Ass Masochist (SAM), someone who likes deliberately teasing and provoking a domme in order to create a reason for punishment.

Masochistic / Sexual submissive
This defines someone who enjoys both pain and power exchange, but only in the context of ‘sexual’ play. This play might be a session in a dungeon, an event at a party or simply a couple having fun in the bedroom. But it’s essentially a bounded experience in time, where control is only temporarily relinquished. The stereotypical example of this would be the high powered CEO or hot shot lawyer who skips out of the office for a couple of hours so he can be tied-up and beaten by a pro-domme.

Masochistic / Lifestyle submissive
I suspect for a lot of readers of this blog, both male and female, this represents the most desirable category. It integrates a kinky sexuality within a female led relationship. This doesn’t necessarily imply a specific division of responsibility or a predefined assignment of roles in daily life. It simply means the D/s dynamics and power exchange shades daily interactions as well as specifically sexual ones.

Non-Masochistic / Service submissive
These people find satisfaction in performing tasks and being useful for the dominant. This might be something as simple as cleaning or cooking, or as elaborate as being turned into a human-pony and used to pull a buggy. Pain, if it’s employed at all, is a mechanism for punishment not pleasure.

Now having defined these anecdotally observed groupings, how do the common labels of bottom, slave, masochist and submissive map to them? I think the answer to that is ‘with difficulty’. Three of the five feature some type of submission, and three of the five feature masochism. Slave certainly maps to the last group, but arguably also applies to the lifestyle category. And I think the term bottom could be equally applied to both non-submissive and sexually submissive masochists. It’s therefore not really surprising that confusion and misunderstandings frequently occur when writing about femdom. The basic vocabulary we’re using is woeful inadequate and imprecise. And to make it worse, people frequently use the terms as if they were well defined and universally agreed.

I guess at this point I should really propose a solution to the problem. Perhaps the paltego labeling system of Mas/NonSub, Mas/SexSub, Mas/LifeSub and NonMas/ServSub? Or maybe some kinky equivalent to the geek code (if that doesn’t already exist)? There’s already the hanky code of course, but that’s mainly concerned with specific activities rather than models of interaction. It’s also hard to take a code seriously where a few wash cycles can change your sexual preferences from anal sex, into uniforms, into oral sex, into aquaphilia (dark blue, medium blue, light blue and aqua respectively). Lets at least shoot for something that’s machine washable in future.

One additional point of interest is the categories I decided to omit from this list, namely the non-masochistic versions of sexually submissive and lifestyle submissive. This isn’t to say people in those groups don’t exist. It’s just that I wonder if they would actually define themselves as kinky. A non-masochistic sexual submissive would be someone who enjoys receiving pleasure and letting their partner take control during sex. In many ways that seems more a sexual preference or style, rather than a kinky activity.

Finally, after all that random musing from me, I think a little eye candy is in order. The picture has no real relationship to the text, I just found it (on Domenique von Sternenberg’s tumblr site) and enjoyed it.

Mistress squeezing testicles

Oh, and for anyone that has made it this far, and is still wondering about the title of the post, it’s a reference to one of my favorite parts in Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

`The question is,’ said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

`The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master – – that’s all.’

Needles with Lady Lydia

This is one of those occasional posts where I post some original content, in the form of images from one of my own scenes. Some of the past examples of this have included butterfly boarding, suturing and saline injections.

Like those previous scenes, this one was done with the wonderful Lady Lydia McLane, and contains activities some might consider edge play. There are images of piercings and of some blood smeared on skin. If that doesn’t sound like something you want to see, I advise you not to click through the link below.

I feel I should also point out that I don’t only play in this fashion. I’m a bit of a kinky omnivore, and regularly enjoy a very wide variety of activities. However, I think there are enough shots on the web of people getting caned, bound, smothered, flogged, etc. The world probably doesn’t need more from me, and so I don’t tend to try and capture those kind of scenes for posterity.

All that said, for anyone who hasn’t already moved onto the next post at this point, and wants to see what you get when you mix a great domme with a skinny British guy and a selection of needles, feel free to click through to the images and scene description.

Femdom doesn’t exist

This post may get a little metaphysical. Having previously argued that femdom wasn’t broken, I’m now going to suggest that it doesn’t actually exist. How’s that for consistency?

This post actually started life as a reply to a comment from weezie, and was a continuation of my thoughts on the original post. The reply ended up being such a sprawling mess I thought it deserved it’s own post, so it could at least sprawl at its leisure. Rereading the original post again the last sentence caught my eye.

Maybe I just need a new word – “FemDom” seems broken.

I’ve already tackled the ‘broken’ part, but it seems to me that the first part here, the ‘new word’, really gets to the heart of the problem. Because what actually is femdom? Wikipedia, that definitive purveyor of absolute truth on the internet, defines it as: “Female dominance (or Femdom) is those BDSM relationships and BDSM scenes in which the dominant partner is female.” Which is true as far as it goes, but seems a little circular for a definition.

Being the analytical engineering type I like to define things in very concrete terms. What do I see? What do people do? What actions are performed? When I try to define it in those terms, I very quickly end up with a big complex multi-dimensional space. For example, some possible axis include…

Pain – From an essential part of the experience to something always unpleasant and unwelcome.
Dress – From heavy fetishwear through to normal daily clothing.
Time – From having a very strictly defined and limited playtime to an active 24/7 lifestyle that blends into daily life.
Attitude – From a warm and loving approach to a cold and distant dominance.
Character – From heavy role-playing to an active dislike of any kind of ‘false’ roles.
Submission – From deeply submissive at all times to enforced submission only in aspects of play (e.g. bondage).
Psychology – From humiliation and degradation to affirmation and equality.

I could go on, but you probably get the picture. Any kinky person sits at a different point on these many axis. Or, more likely, sits at a range of different points on these axis, creating a sort of complex multi-dimensional fuzzy shape in kink-space. A heavy masochist/non-submissive/leather loving/role-player occupies a very different area in the space to a submissive/24×7/cross-dressing/cuckold. Some people will have very small tightly focused kink shapes, while others will occupy be far more vague and volatile. The Kama Sutra may describe 64 different sexual positions, but that’s nothing compared to the infinite complexity of kinky coupling.

So if what I observe varies dramatically, if different people use different definitions and the actions are inconsistent, can the concept even exist in a useful and meaningful form? Is it nonsensical to say that the masochist doing a piercing scene with a pro-domme is engaging in the same general activity as a lifestyle submissive giving their partner a pedicure and foot massage? Femdom, if it exists in any form at all, encompasses this entire space. But people typically use it as a shorthand for specific regions that are meaningful to them.

This problem is compounded by the fact that the representation of femdom in pornography and kink culture is clearly not an even distribution across kink-space. For example, the area outlined by pain, fetishwear, humilation and cold dominance is heavily featured in BDSM porn. Whereas people desiring a warm loving approach, with no heavy pain, no fetish gear and a sense of infused submission are far more badly served. Partly that’s a practical decision. It’s a lot easier to portray the former in a photograph or ten minute video clip than it is the latter. It’s also down to market forces, historical tendencies, then influence of other porn genres, etc. And there’s no doubt a self-perpetuating element to it as well, as the culture reacts to itself and not just external pressures.

Whatever the reason for this uneven representation, the result is often the kind of understandable frustration expressed on blogs like Not Just Bitchy, Delving into Deviance and of course the original Bitchy. Fed-up with the leather, heels, whips and snarling pro-dommes, they proclaim this isn’t femdom. It’s a twisted warped version of something that should look very different.

I have a lot of sympathy for this position. I’d like to see a richer and more interesting kinky culture that is welcoming to new people. But it’s not clear to me that this is a zero sum game. It doesn’t seem necessary that the traditionally over-represented areas have to be scaled back for the alternative voices to be heard. The young guy jerking off to leather clad spiky heeled dommes might grow up to be a wonderful and thoughtful submissive for someone. Putting positive alternative voices out there is more likely to make that happen than attacking the images he likes.

The fact we use this single term to describe such an incredibly varied and complex experience is always going to lead to problems. People want to feel a sense of ownership in their self-identified culture, which is difficult when the culture encompasses so much and is pulled in so many different directions. I think one helpful step would be to attach far less importance to the term femdom, and focus more effort on defining and naming the specific areas that appeal to us. Recognize the complexity and validity of the entire kink-space, but carve out and identify important regions. Identities and names provide rallying points and help shape thinking.

Of course, given my blog title and domain name, I probably should be a little careful about arguing femdom doesn’t actually exist as a useful concept. I’d hate to vanish in a puff of logic.

‘I refuse to prove that I exist,’ says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.’
`But,’ says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.’
`Oh dear,’ says God, `I hadn’t thought of that,’ and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.
`Oh, that was easy,’ says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

Douglas Adams in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Finally, to finish what has to be the longest post on this blog to date, here’s a nice image of someone enjoying the thing that doesn’t exist. I found it on Femdom Style Counsel.

Happy Caning

Femdom is broken

At least it is according to this post by weezie over on the Not Just Bitchy blog.

Did we keep the receipt? I don’t remember filling out the warranty card. It’s probably lost in a kitchen drawer along with all my appliance instruction manuals. And what is the standard returns policy on a social/sexual/lifestyle orientation?

I actually have a great deal of sympathy for the underlying point of the post. I’d like to see more material focused on genuine emotional connections between people. Random fetish elements and kinky trappings alone do nothing for me. However, I think a good underlying point is lost in a huge overreach, with big generalizations that just don’t stand up.

You’d be hard pressed to find a single collection of images, interviews, articles, or books that doesn’t make the cock (artifical or otherwise) the central star of the story. When did everything become about dicks and not about d/s?

When I look around image blogs or interview sites or article collections I really don’t see a surfeit of cocks. If anything there’s a lack of male bodies and appendages. There are certainly a lot of dominant women (in a variety of attire) and a fair amount of traditional BDSM activities and toys, but I’m typically not having to wade through wall to wall cocks (if you’ll forgive the mental image). Sites like kink.com take a lot of criticism from some sections of the femdom blog community, but whatever their faults, I do think they’ve made a positive contribution by actually introducing more male bodies into their material. I remember the old days of kink porn (the late 80’s and early 90’s in my case), when it mostly consisted of naked tied up women or annoyed looking dommes in leather outfits. Sites like leda showing ‘genuine’ M/f or F/m interaction were the exception, not the rule.

I think we can all agree that FemDom porn is particularly terrible.

Really? All of us? I don’t want to be out on my lonesome here, but…ahem….raises hand. Firstly – particularly terrible? That suggests that within the porn genre itself, the femdom segment is particularly egregious. I’ve argued in the past that femdom porn is actually one of the more authentic genres. It at least sometimes represents how some people in the community play in their leisure time when the camera’s aren’t rolling. Would anyone argue that other well known porn segments (lesbian, milf, teen, racial, ts, etc.) are in some way better or more authentic? And secondly, what absolute standard are we holding femdom porn up to? Thanks to the internet it’s certainly better now than it has been at anytime in the past. So what’s the comparison point? I’d agree there’s a lot of crap out there, and a lot of viewpoints are under-represented, but that’s not quite the same as saying it’s particularly terrible.

I think the argument goes something like this: If a submissive is willing to take a dozen lashings, or engage in CBT, or even go into an orgasm-denial full-time-relationship, that “proves” the submissive loves his partner and is willing to devote his body and life to her.

News flash: HE PROBABLY LIKES THOSE THINGS. See that stiff cock in all of those circumstances?? Do Dominants really truly believe it’s all about them and not about his dick? Does he cuddle? Does he nuzzle their neck without prompting?

It was this section in the original article that really triggered this post, as I found it very puzzling. Obviously any submissive engaging in corporal or CBT enjoys it at some level. That’s why he (or she) does it. Similarly, a service submissive gets satisfaction from cleaning or cooking or whatever service is required. And somebody who cuddles or nuzzles their partner is doing it for the emotional and physical closeness it brings. We enter into relationships for what we think we’ll get out of them. That’s true whether it’s D/s or vanilla, gay or straight, romantic or platonic. The trick of course if finding someone with complimentary needs.

There seems to a presumption in the original article that because CBT might be physically satisfying to the submissive that somehow makes it invalid as femdom. Well here’s a new flash in return – sadists actually like hurting people. When I’m doing CBT, or any kind of intense masochistic activity, I’m not only enjoying the power exchange and the physical sensation, I’m also enjoying the pleasure my partner takes in it. I’d hate to play with someone who was bored or annoyed. The goal is mutual satisfaction, in whatever weird and wonderful forms that may take for both parties. Just because the submissive enjoys it doesn’t somehow make it ‘topping from the bottom’.

As I said at the start, I actually kind of agree with where weezie is coming from. There are many facets to femdom, and most of them are very badly represented in our culture. But I tend to get frustrated when I see ‘My preference isn’t represented’ stretched into ‘and your preference is wrong’.

I was tempted to illustrate this post with a big close-up of a wax spattered cock. But instead I’ll go in a different direction, and try something explicit and yet intimate. This is from the musing and muses tumblr site.

Intimate moment in bath

Submissive men on sale. Big discounts. Take one home, just $1.99

There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Delving Into Deviance, triggered by a post entitled ‘The devaluation of male submission‘. I came at it via Tom Allen on his vanilla edge blog, along with his interview at Dishevelled Domina.

I think it’s worth reading and raises some good points. I certainly agree with Tom when he talks about a lack of cultural models for male submission and female dominance. Outside of the stereotypical dominatrix dynamic, there is really no good understanding of these roles in conventional society. I also have a lot of sympathy with Dev in her original post when she expresses frustration at the ice queen archetype and the preconceptions of what femdom should and should not be. I frequently feel the need to fight against the tired cliche of the snarling domme dressed in leather. However, a number of the arguments in her post had me scratching my head.

One contention seemed to be that the ratio of submissive men to dominant women is 1:1, and she links to a post by Bitchy Jones arguing exactly the same thing. Now while there are a lot of good things you can say about Bitchy’s writing, such as entertaining, thought provoking and heartfelt, I never found logical coherent arguments to be her strong suit. In this case the argument seems to run: The ratio of dominant women to submissive men is 1:20 (made-up number), the actual ratio is 1:1 (made-up number), therefore 19:20 (made-up number) women are being excluded from their true identity as dominants. This is because of the current screwed up culture of femdom (supposition without evidence).

All the anecdotal evidence points to the existence of considerably more submissive men than dominant women. As Dev herself says, any woman signing up to a BDSM site is going to get an instant influx of men messaging her to be her slave. I think it’s fine to say that more women would enjoy exploring a more dominant role given better cultural models. But if you’re going to go completely against the existing evidence, and claim that the ratio is actually 1:1, it’d be nice to have some real data points to base that on. Or even some anecdotal evidence to throw onto the other side of the scales.

There’s also this statement:

As I’ve come to realize the fucked up state of femdom, I’ve concurrently become aware of the fucked up state of male submission – namely, it’s devaluation. While female dominants are made out to be some scarce resource, male submissives are depicted as a dime a dozen – common, and, even more disturbingly, weak and worthless.

Who is depicting male submissives as weak and worthless? When does this happen? The role doesn’t exist in the mainstream world, so it’s hard to see how it can be denigrated in that context. Good pro-dommes certainly don’t treat their submissives as weak and worthless. Maybe the reference is to local kink community activities, but that seems like it’d depend very much on the specific local community in question. Male submissives obviously can’t rely on their submission alone to make them valuable, the numbers just don’t work out. But that’s true for most things in life, both kinky and vanilla. Any relationship is about the total package each individual brings into it, and components of that package that are both rare and useful will always be more valued.

Finally, there’s this:

Pro-Dommes meet a need. They are the supply to a demand. However, they contribute to the perpetuation of a picture of female domination that just doesn’t reflect real life.

Whose real life are we talking about? Are not pro-dommes part of real life? They’re certainly part of my life, which seems pretty real to me. There often seems to be a tendency to draw very black and white distinctions between pro and lifestyle play. But in reality pro-dommes are normally lifestyle players themselves. And many lifestyle people enjoying playing with a lot of the accoutrements found in a professional dungeon. Pro-dommes aren’t dressing up in leather because they all own shares in cattle farms. They’re doing it because lots of people find it attractive.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Dev’s writing and I’ll be adding her blog to my blogroll. I’d certainly like there to be a lot more dominant women out there, and treasuring male submission is a fabulous thing to do. I’m just not sure I follow all the arguments in this particular post.

Bondage Blowjob With NooseThis image has been floating around a number of tumblr sites. I found it on lunar black. I liked it for showing an atypical activity for a femdom situation and still making it work. I’m certainly no fan of strictly demarcated lines for what is and isn’t appropriate dominant behaviour.

Sex Therapy

This isn’t so much a post as a pointer to an article of interest. It isn’t even a femdom related article, although it does feature kinky violent sex. I just thought it was an extraordinary article and worth sharing.

The article in question was written by Mac McClelland, a journalist who specializes in visiting the less pleasant parts of this world. After an intense and difficult trip to Haiti she began to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and found that a night of violent forced sex helped her to deal with it and move on.

I’ve fortunately never had to deal with anything as remotely difficult or emotional damaging as what she has been through. But, without wishing to draw any kind of direct comparison, I do understand how this very powerful blend of physical intensity and mental stress can lead to a cathartic release.

Extreme Edge Play

I always endeavor to give this blog a broad appeal, across both the gender divide and the top/bottom divide. Obviously everything I post has to be of interest to me at some level, but I try and avoid limiting it to a narrow range of activities or styles of play. I’m fortunate, or possibly cursed, with a wide range of kinks, so finding topics interesting to me is never too difficult. And anyone looking for a simple stream of hot domme images has plenty of other options.

One area that periodically pops up is edge play, involving activities that some might consider extreme. My post from yesterday would be a good example, as would some of my personal posts on butterfly boarding or suturing. I’m always careful how I present this kind of information, as I don’t want people to casually browse to my frontpage and get some enormous disturbingly graphic image shoved in their face. At the same time, I think edge play is an interesting topic to talk about and don’t want to ignore it entirely.

In that spirit, I want to talk about a type of edge play that scares the hell out of me. It makes branding or cutting look positively delightful, and I doubt I’ll ever try it, or even be in a position to. The description of it comes courtesy of a post from Em called ‘The Real Deal‘ over on Mrs, Kelly’s Playhouse. Let me quote the relevant part:

…. Scott will be totally and completely financially dependent on me. He gets a small social security check that no one could actually live off and that’s it. And though he is well-educated and smart, America hasn’t been nice to him in the job department. He’d have a really hard time making it on his own. Now that’s power.

Fortunately, for Scott, I really love him and will keep my promise to always give him a place to stay (probably the garage) no matter what happens. But when I consider how I want to wield my new — more genuine — power, whips, hoods, and cages, are not the things that come to mind.

I love all the naughty things we get up to, but I want a clean bathroom. I want laundry that is folded and put away properly. I want spotless floors and a meal on the table when I come home. I want organized files and clean counters. And I want all this without a word of complaint. No whining about time for himself.

This is actually a more interesting journey to me. We’ve had great fun but now it is not about fun, it is about what I want.

I find this fascinating to think about on a number of different levels. My immediate reaction was to recoil from the concept. I’ve been an independent and (relatively) successful person for well over a decade now. The idea that it’d be possible for me to voluntarily give-up that type of freedom is abhorrent to me. I’d always want the option to be able to walk away from a situation. But that led me thinking about what femdom mean to different people. Is it femdom to play a few hours a week with a casual play partner or a pro-domme? Or is that simply a sensation seeking physical encounter of a sexual nature? What about a lifestyle relationship where the male is the only financial provider? Even if she controls the bank account, he can walk away or change the arrangements at anytime. Does it make sense to talk about the degree of dominance as defined by the difficulty of ceasing the relationship? And at what point do issues of consent start to become relevant?

I wonder how many men out there, who purport to crave a 24/7 lifestyle relationship, would actually be happy with the kind of approach Em and Scott are exploring. I don’t think I could ever put myself in that situation. I’ve written in the past about the enjoyment I find in being pushed towards my limits. I think a lot of that enjoyment would dissipate if I didn’t have the option to step away.

Scolding the maidI found this image on Becoming Nathalie, it’s obviously originally from Nylon Jane. It’s completely unrelated to Em and Scott, but as a nice illustration of a housemaid being scolded it seemed to fit the post.