Over promising

Here’s an article whose title writes a check that the contents can’t cash – 8 stunning dominatrix portraits that’ll change the way you think about BDSM. The Independent used to be a real newspaper, but it seems Buzzfeed is now the role model.

It’s based on a book called Dominas by the photographer Max Eicke. You can see the book in a video at his site. The book may stand up as a piece of art in itself, particularly with additional context from interviews, but you’re not going to overturn BDSM stereotypes with photographs of pro-dommes wearing their fetish gear and staring into camera. That’s a shot that’s in almost every pro-domme’s gallery, and about 50% of femdom tumblr content. Maybe start photographing and talking to non-professional dominant women if you want to overturn some stereotypes?

This is Fräulein Schmidt, one of the dominas featured in the book, and one of the few not in full on fetish gear. You can read more about the project in this article from huck magazine.

First Time Not So Fun

I hadn’t planned on doing multiple posts on first time experiences with a dominatrix. The previous one by Marga Gomez was simply an article that popped up in my inbox and made me smile. Yet weirdly, a day later, this video piece from Duncan Trussell on his first dominatrix experience showed up.  Even more weirdly, both Marga and Duncan are professional comedians, although their specific experiences and the context of them couldn’t be more different.

It’s hard to know what to say about Duncan’s video piece. It’s a lot less about kink, and a lot more about the human condition. His trigger for hiring a domme was the death of his mother and the resulting scene is . . . strange.

This image is kind of random. If anyone has a better suggestion for a suitable image after watching Duncan’s Vice video piece, I’d love to hear it. It’s not the kind of scene that lends itself to fun femdom shots.

First Time Fun

A lot of people have amusing stories of their kinky firsts. Nerves, naked bodies and subversive sex can lead to humor – in hindsight at least. Marga Gomez’s article entitled ‘My First Time with a Dominatrix‘ is one of those stories, and is a particularly funny and well written example of the genre.

Sadly, her first dominatrix experience doesn’t result in any kinky satisfaction. I can only hope she has managed to get her bondage and spanking itch scratched more effectively since then.

The spankee in this vintage shots looks about as unsatisfied as Marga was. I’m afraid I don’t know where the image originates from.

Is it safe?

I seem to have been cursed recently with events that remind me of kinky fun, without any of the actual kinky fun. I wrote about yoga and personal trainers in the last couple of posts. Today featured an appointment with my dental hygienist and her collection of instruments of torture.

There are many things you don’t want to hear from someone poking around in your mouth with a sharp metal pick. The opening line from my hygienist today was right up there with the best of them – “Do you have a high pain tolerance?” That was literally what she started with. I was tempted to tell her that if she tied me to the chair, slapped on some nipple clamps on and whispered how much my screaming excited her, then yes, I definitely did. But I figured nobody needs to have to deal with my weirdness when they’re just trying to do their job. So I put on my brave face, looked her straight in the eye and firmly said “Huh, well, I guess, maybe?”

Not sure where this image is from. I found it on the medkink tumblr, which is stuffed with pictures for medical kink fans.

No pain, No gain

After my previous yoga related post, Phil mentioned via a comment that working with a personal trainer in a gym was another BDSM like experience. He’s right of course. There’s a similar sense of being dictated to, pushing limits and suffering pain.

I have weirdly differing responses to those three different scenarios. With a domme being hurt and bossed around is hot sexy fun. With a yoga teacher I tend to be bemused about what she thinks I’m capable of and frustrated when I fail. With a personal trainer my internal unspoken reaction is one of “Fuck you! Don’t you know how heavy this thing is? Do I look like I have muscle tone? I’m in goddamn agony here!” No idea why I react so differently in these three cases. Maybe I should try combining them to see what happens?

The Fearful Symmetry

I’ve been doing yoga with an instructor over the last couple of months. I’d like to say it was all about getting in shape, but it’s really more about maintaining flexibility and not degenerating any further. In middle age you sometimes have to work just to stand still.

There are some obvious similarities between a yoga session and a BDSM session. They both feature physical discomfort, awkward positions, pushing at limits and having a woman firmly tell me “Now we’re going to do 6 more of those.” However, the slightly less obvious similarity that struck me today was about symmetry. Dommes and yoga instructors are always obsessed by it. You just know when start a yoga position or stretch on one side, you’re going to have to repeat it on the other. And any tortuous beating, piecing or pinching from a domme always has to be mirrored equally on both sides of the body.  I’ve even had dommes comment on how annoying it is if they can’t get things like marks and needles lined up neatly and symmetrically.

If there are any dommes reading this, then can I suggest occasionally trying asymmetric play? It might annoy your inner neat freak, but it will blow your submissive’s mind. Particularly if there’s no warning beforehand. We’re so trained to expect particular patterns that being random and uneven will inject a real element of surprise and uncertainty into a scene.

This image was shot by the photographer Henrieta Haniskova and is entitled ‘Yoga Dominatrix’. Yoga fans may recognize the pose. I think it’s ‘Upward Facing Dog’ but I’m far from an expert. There’s a description and fun video on the making of the image available here (also on Vimeo). Both of the models are actually yoga instructors. It’s a shame there aren’t more images from the shoot available, as it looks like they tried a lot of different positions before settling on this one.

Shush

Gags are weird. Visually, in images like this one, I find them crazy hot. That element of control and acceptance of control is a real button pusher. In actual play, my response to them is all over the map. Sometimes I love them and sometimes I hate them, and I’ve never figured out what makes the difference.

They’re not the only toy or activity I have a widely varying response to. For example, anal play can vary from awesome to ‘hell no’, but I typically understand what makes the difference. I’ve never got to that understanding with gags. Perhaps I need to experiment with them more. Despite most dungeons having a big selection of them, in my experience, most pro-dommes don’t use them all that often. Normally you either have to request them as part of the scene, or yell enough to start annoying the neighbors.

This image has been scribbled on my some silly tumblr owner, but I’m afraid I don’t have an original attribution. If anyone can help with a pointer to the creator then please let me know via the comments.

Updated: Thanks to Bacchus and this comment I got a clean and color version of the image. That in turn reminded me of an image I posted several years back. Much archive browsing got me to this post, and the conclusion that this image probably came from the sadly defunct Young Goddess site. Source successfully determined!

The ultimate kinky garage sale

Earlier this year, on the news that Kink.com was closing down its armory space in San Francisco, I pondered on what they’d do with all their fancy furniture. Now it seems we have the answer – sell it on craigslist. Or, more accurately, advertise on craigslist that they’re hosting a viewing and sale on the afternoon of the 15th.

It makes me wish I lived in San Francisco. I’d love to drop by and pick up something. I can only hope some of the furniture and toys finds its way into dungeons I frequent down there. For example, this cock pillory looks like it might be rather fun.

A waste of good alcohol

This kinky advertisement for the Oddbins wine merchant is … odd. I’m not really clear what message they’re trying to send. Plus, why would a domme spend the time to make what sounds like a very tasty cocktail, and then waste it? Surely the right plan would be to enjoy it while beating the slave, and the throw the dregs and melted ice in his face? They really didn’t think this through.

Here’s a lady who knows the right way to combine sex with a tasty beverage. Unfortunately I don’t have an original source for this image.