Back in the Archives

I’ve been browsing images from old tumblrs recently. Back before they shot themselves in the foot (and head) by shutting down adult sites I ripped a bunch of them to my local storage. There’s no comment or links obviously, but I do have a lot of the images.

Browsing them again, what’s really my caught my eye is the refreshing lack of AI content. Not all the content is great, but it’s at least created by artists and features real people.

My original reason for grabbing the images – other than my instinctive digital pack rat behavior – was the belief that tumblr was going to be PG-13 from then on.  That’s turned out to be only partially true. However, the unexpected benefit has been a big image cache taken before AI slopped everywhere. They’re my version of low background steel. That certainly wasn’t what I was expecting when I originally grabbed them.

As I’ve said before, I’m not religiously against AI. It can be used in interesting ways. But it’s way too easy to spam out endless images that are the visual equivalent of fast food. All gristle, fat and emulsifiers.

This is one of the images from the archive. Not sure of the original source. The hanging weights are a particularly eye catching part of the setup.

Honorifics

The UK is doing stupid authoritarian shit again.  However, it’s too annoying and depressing to post about that, so instead I’m going to talk about honorifics.

I recently read a social media post from a domme complaining about submissives not using her appropriate title. She was fed up with emails that skipped it entirely or used the more general ‘Mistress’. If you’ve built a very consistent personae around a particular title I can totally understand how that would be annoying. However, as someone who – via this blog – has cause to link to and mention a lot of dommes, let me add one or two words of defense.

I’m often surprised at the inconsistency of honorific use. Some dommes will have one title on their site, a different one on their social media banner and then post using yet another one. If someone describes themselves as Domina in one place, Mistress in another and the text on their website uses simply their name, what is the right form of address? I’ve spent way longer than I’d care to admit going back and forth between sites, trying to figure out the right way to title dommes in posts. If the URL to a website is ‘Domina’ but the banner is ‘Goddess’ then which is right?

There’s the added wrinkle that some dommes don’t like to use particular honorifics unless they’ve accepted you as a submissive. Others insist on them from the first point of contact.

I certainly don’t say this to criticize dommes. Or to defend lazy submissives who don’t do their research. Just to highlight that even for someone like myself, involved in the culture and community for many years, it can be sometimes be tricky to get right.

Here’s one answer to slaves who say the wrong thing. It’s tough to get ‘Mpmmphhh!’ wrong. Image is sourced via tumblr and I’m afraid I don’t have an original source.

Well Dressed

One follow-up thought to the sissy themed post from earlier this week. And when I say thought, I mean a series of highly unscientific anecdotal observations from yours truly.

I think if you go back ten or more years and look at material created on the sissy theme, it tended to lean heavily into the extreme. Big wigs, heavy makeup, lots and lots of frilly pink, etc. That in turn tended to lean more into the humiliation elements of the kink. Looking good ran somewhat counter to that primary goal.

I’d suggest that has shifted in recent years. I see a lot more imagery posted on social media where the emphasis is on being well dressed, elegant and with expertly done make-up. There’s obviously still a heavy emphasis on femininity and roles like maid, waitress, escort, etc. The roleplay hasn’t changed but often the approach and style has.

As I said at the top of the post, this is based on nothing more than my random observations. I haven’t been doing a sissy survey or anything. But assuming it’s true, it’s interesting to wonder why it might be. Perhaps more people wanting to explore cross-dressing without being interested in humiliation? Is that in turn triggered by more transgender people being out and visible in society? I’ve no clue, but it’d make for a great research subject.

This image is from the Bluesky feed of Lady Justice. She’s an Edinburgh based pro-domme.

Sissy

Interesting twitter thread here on the subject of sissies from Mistress Mercer and Lady Vi. It’s a pushback on the negative press that type of play can often get. For those who understandably choose not to frequent twitter, I’ll reproduce a couple of the relevant tweets here…

My very first long-term ‘sissy’ partner PROMISED Me they “weren’t trans”, and it was just a weird sex humiliation thing.

She ended up transitioning within 6 months of being in a safe and loving environment where her gender expression and exploration was honored and appreciated.

You absolutely *do not fucking know* what someone is going through, and it’s extremely harmful to judge the way that they are coping, processing, relieving, or coming to terms with their own desires.
Mistress Mercer

It’s true. I took on a sissy years ago who wanted an extended “sissy maid” training session to prepare them for a play date they had (or something along those lines).

We only had one session and then they decided to divorce their wife and transition. People discount how profound it can be to feel safe, seen and accepted.
Lady Vi

I don’t have much to add to the topic, but it seemed like a perspective worth sharing. There must also be a large number of people who have explored this kink and – in an ideal world – would consider transitioning, but can’t bring themselves to take that step. We’re sadly not living in an open minded and accepting time.

Here’s a theme appropriate image sourced from Mistress Mercer’s twitter feed.

Mistress Mercer is a ‘Suffering & Sissification Specialist’ based out of Myrtle Beach, SC. You can find all her relevant links here.

Good Kicking

I’m sporting some lovely deep bruises on my chest and arms today. Savannah Sly was in town and last night she gave me a damn good kicking. Not to mention slapping, punching, gouging, pinching and general mashing. It left me a bruised but very happy bunny.

This photograph is not us and not from last night. It’s by Aaron Hawks from 2005. I picked it because I felt it captured a little bit of the energy of our play. Controlled deconstruction. Everything scattered but with purpose.

You can find Aaron Hawk’s professional web site here. He’s a professional photographer and artist based in my hometown of Seattle.

Gag Drool

Today’s post brings a new artist to the blog – prawncrawl. You can find them and more of their work via Bluesky.

If you’ve ever admired these open mouth style gags but not tried one, then I’d definitely recommend giving them a go. I find them wonderfully sexy things, both in art and in real life play. There’s something very invasive and therefore erotic about the domme being able to simply push their fingers (or other things) into your mouth whenever they choose to. It’s even more exciting when combined with the kind of bondage and sensory deprivation shown below.

See more great art like this on prawncrawl’s Bluesky feed.

Art, advertising or kink?

The streets of Soho (NYC edition) recently featured an unusual collaboration between fashion brand Alexander Wang and artist/domme Sabine Tautou. Designed to promote a new handbag, it featured a heavy mummification scene with a man bound to a lamppost. Yahoo news has some  background and TMZ has a  bunch of photographs. On the streets of SF during something like the Folsom Fair it’d be no big deal, but I imagine Soho commuters and shoppers might have been a touch taken aback.

Hopefully the man wasn’t enjoying it, because then it’s obviously art. Anyone passing by was getting a free cultural experience and should be grateful. On the other hand, if he was getting off on it, then that’s a kinky scene that is non consensually involving strangers. AKA a terrible thing to do. They didn’t ask to be subjected to such perversion. Of course, if he enjoyed some bits and not others, then it’s ethically more complicated. Does one cancel the other? Or is it both a cultural experience and a nonconsensual kinky scene simultaneously? Like Schrodinger’s cat, just with less cat and more duct tape.