Success!

Regular and observant readers will have noticed my blogroll has gone through a few iterations in recent months. My original dynamic one stopped working with the latest versions of WordPress, so I’ve been forced to use a simple static one for the last few weeks. Multiple people left me comments and emails saying how much they liked the old dynamic blogroll, so I spent a bunch of time looking for a good replacement. Unfortunately nothing out there had the performance and the features that I needed.

Luckily, I’m both a software developer and a masochist. I also love my readers. So I took some free time over the holidays to teach myself PHP and WordPress internals (definite masochistic appeal there) and wrote my own. The result can be seen to the right (desktop) or bottom of the page (mobile). This should still give zippy page response times while picking up new posts to display in an hour or two. It also adds some nice features like post snippets and the ability to drop sites that haven’t posted for many months. If anyone spots problems with it or has suggestions for improvements then please let me know via a comment or email.

After wrestling with code and weird bugs for the last few days, I now feel a little bit like this lady. I’ve beaten the software into submission and stand triumphantly above it. Sadly the original source for this image appears to have been less successful and is now a dormant site.

More kinky lessons

I hadn’t intended a series of posts on kinky lessons, but immediately after yesterday’s post on Midori, I spotted this from Rain DeGrey. Anyone interested in strap on play and in Santa Cruz at the end of January, can pick up some tips from an expert who has definitely pushed the limits on wielding a strap on.

This rather nice artwork is by Slippy, as featured on her tumblr here.

Always something new to learn

Female readers who find themselves in San Francisco or New York in January may be interested to check out the Forte Femme event. It’s run by Midori and is an intensive course over a weekend for dominant women. In the words of their site, it’s designed to offer a…

supportive environment exploring what it means to find and enjoy your power as a dominant femme.

I can’t speak to the course personally, as being neither dominant nor female, I’m not exactly the target audience. But I know Midori has been running course and events like this for years and she has an excellent reputation as a BDSM and kink expert.

This image by Morey Studio (posted to their tumblr here) feature Midori binding Dita Von Teese. It was shot in 2001.

A big problem

After yesterday’s post on Perfect Villainess – a commercial site targeting a specific porn niche – it seemed appropriate to link to a recent post of Mistress T’s. In it she writes about kinks she will no longer cover. One of those was the giantess fetish, about which she said…

I used to love this fetish. The vids were fun to create, but 2 things happened: 1. Piracy. The market for Giantess is small so they ban together to share content really effectively. 1 guy buys the vid & shares it with hundreds of others which means that I don’t make enough money off the vid ….. So I don’t film them anymore

Piracy often gets talked about in the abstract. People understand it hurts content providers, but the effect is intangible to them. Here’s a very clear illustration of its impact on all sides of the equation. A niche fetish with a small number of fans lost a top creator who loved making videos for them. Good job guys. Not only do existing creators quit, but there’s the hidden cost of discouraging new entrants to the market.

I doubt posts like this are going to stop piracy dead in its tracks but, if you do consume kinky commercial material via the various tube and torrent sites, maybe consider a Christmas present to yourself of a subscription in a site (or two) that you particularly like? Or if there’s a domme that really pushes your buttons, buy some of her online clips? Maybe put something back into the system for all those creators who have given you many happy moments?

I’m afraid I don’t know the name of this artist. There’s a handful of his or her drawings floating around online – all in a similar style and feature the giantess fetish. Unfortunately I’ve not seen them pulled together in a single gallery with a useful attribution. Obviously if you can help me out there, please leave a comment.

Update: Thanks to an expert on tracking down image provenance, I can now attribute the image to the artist Enka Boots. You can see more of the artists work here.

Guns, Girls and Gauloises

I always find myself somewhat conflicted when I come to write about specialized femdom pornography that caters to certain fetish niches. On the one hand it’s undoubtedly true that there’s lack of good porn that captures the intimacy, sensuality and dynamics of femdom relationships. On the other hand, that doesn’t make the sites catering to the more classic fetish niches invalid. I might wish there were more good French restaurants in my town, but that doesn’t mean I should be mad at the Mexican restaurants. Particularly if they’re really good Mexican.

The latest site that prompted this thought process is Perfect Villainess. As its homepage makes clear, it has a very specific focus – the classic femme fatale. For members there are lots of image galleries (200+) of attractive ladies smoking, brandishing guns, flexing crops and offering the camera smoldering looks. If that’s your particular thing, then it’s worth checking out. It’s images only, and solo female only, but I think that works for these kind of classic shots.

In some ways this kind of site is the antithesis of what kinky porn used to be like 10+ years ago. I remember ‘kinky’ image photosets that would start with everyone in full fetish gear, and by image 7 of 100, everyone would be naked and screwing. That was very frustrating. Now it’s a lot easier to find quality sites to scratch specific fetish itches. I can only hope the complexity, depth and variety in those niches continues to grow.

This is Letizia from a gallery on Perfect Villainess. You can follow their tumblr here.

Note the owner of Perfect Villainess dropped me a note and asked if I’d be interested in taking a look at it. I didn’t get anything for writing about it, and I don’t get a cut of anyone who joins. I was just interested in featuring it.

In a galaxy far, far away…

Apologies in advance. This is a somewhat self-indulgent post that’s low on femdom content. I’m sure regular service will be resumed tomorrow.

It has been a Star Wars heavy weekend for me. I finally got around to watching the Force Awakens on Friday and on Sunday caught Rogue One. I enjoyed them both, but what really grabbed my attention was the strong female lead characters. Rey (played by Daisy Ridley) and Jyn (played by Felicity Jones) are both stand out performances. The Rebel and Empire forces are still sadly about 90% men, but for me it’s the female characters who are memorable.

The feisty and acid tongued Leia was a key part of the original trilogy. Star Wars nerds tend to salivate over her metal bikini scene, and I’ve never really understood that. You’ve got this kick-ass princess who can banter and shoot with the best of them, and you like the bit where she’s chained up to a giant slug? Anyway, after the disaster of the prequels, it seems they’ve got the franchise back on track. I can only hope there’s a lot more heroic ass kicking and a total absence of slave girl outfits in Rey’s future.

Rey by Kuvshinov IlyaThis drawing of Rey is by the artist Kuvshinov Ilya. If you enjoy his work, he has a Patreon account here.