Escalation

Ariel Anderessen has a new substack article up on the subject of pornographic escalation. That’s the highly dubious theory that consumers of porn get bored with their initial sexual interests and seek out harder and harder material. So you might start out with furtive glances at the Sear’s catalogue lingerie section but you’ll ultimately end up masturbating furiously to snuff videos from the dark web.

Ariel gives this theory a good kicking and she’s right to do so. It seems like  a bunch of nonsense from the anti-porn crowd. However, while I agree with everything she says, I think there’s an interesting angle she didn’t cover – evolution of fantasy.

Some people are pretty fixed in their kinks. They liked spanking as a teenager, they like spanking in their 60’s. That’s simply their thing. For others fantasy and interests can evolve over time. I think that’s particularly true when your fundamental kink is an underlying emotion or dynamic rather than a specific act or appearance.

For example, I think one of my main kinks is control. That manifests itself in different ways. The original kinky porn I saw featured bondage and corporal punishment, so that became a means of control that I looked for and fantasized about. Over time I encountered different ways you can play with control and that expanded my interests. Today I think that both cuckolding and toilet play are hot, but they weren’t even on my radar 20 years ago. A casual observer might see that as escalation due to porn. In reality my underlying interest hasn’t changed, it has just found new ways to surface.

I also think that fantasy and pornography tends to exist at the border between what you can do and what you can imagine. If you start exploring your kinks and playing out fantasies in real life, then the porn and erotica you desire tend to shift to the edge of that. For example, I still love bondage and still fantasize about it. But now I do regularly get tied up, the erotica I like tends to shift towards heavier and more extreme bondage (like this story). That might look like pornographic escalation, but it’s not porn that’s caused that. It’s the fact I want my fantasy world to exist slightly ahead of my real life world.

This is a shot of Ariel from her social media feeds. You can find more of her writing on her substack. She’s primarily a sub, but for those who like all types of kink you can find links to her work here.  She also has a memoir out.

An Afternoon with Vera

By now it seems that every fashion / lifestyle magazine has done some variation on the ‘Day with a Dominatrix’ article. Today it’s the turn of Australia’s Fashion Journal with this article featuring Vera Beaufort.

I’m featuring it here because I think it’s one of the better examples of its kind. Less sensational and voyeuristic and more in touch with the dynamics of a real session. The play described is a lot more formalized and ritualistic than my sessions but still has the ring of truth to it.

The other reason to feature it is that it gives me an excuse to post a sexy picture from Vera Beaufort’s site. She has a lot that fit that description but I particularly liked this one. The intimacy of the spit contrasts beautiful with the control and objectification of his outfit.

Vera Beaufort is based out of Melbourne and in person sessions can be scheduled via her site. You can also find her on Bluesky.

Virgin Island

Virgin Island is a reality TV show from the UK featuring 12 virgins on a 3 week intimacy retreat. Their virginity is unwanted and so the viewer gets to watch them work with sex therapists/surrogates and overcome their issues around intimacy. It sounds like the kind of show I’d absolutely hate and watching it would create a serious risk of death by second hand embarrassment.

However, it actually gets positive reviews and seems to have been created with some thought and a lot more sensitivity than the average reality TV show. I’m still never going to watch it, but it’s good to see thoughtful coverage of sex in a genre that typically leans into the exploitative.

I mention it here because an episode in the last season actually featured some femdom. One of the participants (Ed) was interested in submission and got to roleplay it with the resident BDSM coach – Shelby Devlin. There was exploration of spanking, forniphilia and some mild humiliation. All fun stuff and I hope Ed gets a chance for more kinky exploration in future. Preferably without a camera crew around.

This is the aforementioned Shelby Devlin. She’s a sex / intimacy and BDSM coach with a Master’s degree in Sexuality Studies. You can find her general website here and one that seems more targeted to BDSM and Kink coaching here. She runs workshops that are detailed here.

I believe this photograph was created by Alyssa Keys Photography.

Career Women

This is an old comic from a 1956 edition of Army & Navy Fun Parade. Obviously, given the patriarchal nature of America in the 50’s, this was a bit of absurd humor. A laugh at the crazy idea of a career woman with a house husband in a pinny. However, I wonder, did a few male readers see this and experience a strange frisson of excitement? Did it trigger any odd feelings of the rightness of the scene? I’m going to bet there were at least a few.

I sourced this via Reddit.

Luggage

As I’m currently traveling, this seemed an appropriate image to share. One wonders what the storage arrangement inside the train is. Getting him into an overhead luggage bin would seem tricky. I’m picturing a special luggage van with rows of lock points for the wheels and the handle. Perfect for safely transporting all the slaves for the ladies on the train.

I found this via tumblr, but I’m certain it’s the creation of Loviante. You can get more of their work via their Subscribestar.

A Stupid Step

Given I’m currently visiting the UK, it seems appropriate to rant about their increasingly stupid pornography laws. Last year they were targeting a ban on depictions of choking. Earlier this year they went after depictions of sex acts between step family members. That last one is particularly stupid because they’re banning the fictional depiction of something that’s not actually illegal in the UK. So by all means fuck your step brother/sister/mom/whatever, just don’t pretend to do so on film.

It is of course reasonable to say that you don’t care about either of these kinks. The problem with that view is that the kind of government that’ll pass these laws is unlikely to stop there. Is a politician that votes for these bills going to take a different tack on say ABDL? Or Mommy Domme scenes? Or even just any regular kind of BDSM? If you think someone watching two porn actors call each other ‘step-sister/brother’ deserves jail time, what about watching a domme beat up a ‘helpless’ guy and then piss on him? Is an MP going to stand up and say there was a good argument for the step-family porn ban, but watersports and bondage deserve protection under the law?

From a selfish perspective, I find it particularly depressing. The UK is the obvious place for me to relocate if the US political situation continues to deteriorate. Yet here we have a left wing government wasting time on some seriously stupid stuff. This is a country where just 2.7% of reported rapes result in charges and the trials themselves face growing backlogs. You’d think the clear and obvious massive harm there would be a priority over what fictional material people jerk off to, but apparently not.

As far as I know this kind of image is still OK to share. But frankly who can tell? I don’t think that’s supposed to be the step-mom standing behind, but imagine trying to debate that fact in court.

The artwork is by Rosie-BRS over at DeviantArt.

On the Road

My last post on the stress of submitting web forms on pro-domme websites was based on a true story. I’m off on vacation and had spent the last few weeks making contact with a couple of dommes I was interested in playing with. I will hasten to add that they were prompt in response, easy to schedule with and their websites did not eat my session request form. However, that still doesn’t reduce the stress when pressing the ‘submit’ button for the first time.

Anyway, I’m back in the old country for a few weeks. Mostly to catch up with family and friends, but I will be indulging in some of my baser hedonistic instincts. Although is it actually hedonistic if you’re actively seeking out pain?

Will try and keep the blog updates flowing. In the meantime, here’s a bit of visual loveliness. Sadly I don’t know of the original source for it.

First Time Jitters

What’s the most anxiety inducing part about meeting up with a new pro-domme? Is it finding her playspace the first time, using whatever set of hoops you have to jump through for that? Is it the moment you first go to knock on her door? Or maybe the moment just after getting naked and just before walking out to meet her?

I think those all are solid options, but for me the biggest stress is way before the actual session. It’s the pressing of the ‘submit form’ button on her website.

Filling the form is stressful in itself as I’ve written before. But that damn button is the worst. Click, blink and it’s gone. Your carefully curated application – that you’ve re-read and tweaked a dozen time – is loosed into the world. Off in the ether. Did it work? Who knows. Maybe it’s sitting in her inbox. Maybe it gotten eaten by internet gremlins. All we can do now is play the waiting game.

Some dommes respond almost immediately. Others can take a week or more. Which then raises the question – when do I reach out again? I don’t want to be the unknown asshole nagging someone whose just busy or on vacation. But I also don’t want to be sitting there waiting on a reply if the button sent the form straight down to hell. Which has happened to me on multiple occasions.

That also raises the question – how do I reach out if the form doesn’t seem to have worked? Filling it in again seems silly. If it worked you’re just repeating yourself and if it didn’t you’re wasting your time. Some dommes have public emails but a lot don’t. Reaching out via IM on social media is one option, but always feels like a last resort to me.

I have found it useful to monitor social media for a sense of what the domme is doing. If they’re traveling, on vacation or obviously dealing with some issue, I assume it probably worked and they’re just busy. If they’re posting a lot about sessions and regular daily life then I’ll think about reaching out again if I haven’t heard back after one week.

One thing I do appreciate is when a domme lists on her website what her response process is. Some will even give the turnaround time you should expect, which is super helpful for reducing stress and knowing when it’s sensible to reach out to check on an application

Image shows the likely fate of new clients who nag pro-dommes unnecessarily about their session applications.