False bill of goods

I finally got around to watching the Bond movie Spectre. The film itself was entertaining enough (although not a patch on Daniel Craig’s first crack at Bond), but I was very disappointed in the role give to the fabulous Monica Bellucci. A lot of the hype on the release had been around Bond finally sparring with a woman his own age and Bellucci playing a Bond woman rather than a Bond girl. Sadly in the movie she’s a throwaway character with zero agency. In traditional Bond style he saves her life, seduces her, gets the information he needs and moves onto the next thrilling action sequence. Exit Monica for parts unknown.

Bond, as I should have guessed,ends up with the attractive blonde (played by Léa Seydoux) who is 17 years his junior. What a wasted opportunity. Ms Seydoux does a fine job, but it’d be great to see a Bond movie where the leading lady can match him for style, experience and character.

This is Monica Bellucci in a shot taken from her role in the Matrix Reloaded.

All in the mind

I’ve a session lined up next week with a domme I’ve not played with before. She’s visiting Seattle and I thought it’d be fun to get together. As part of our initial negotiation she asked me not to masturbate in the week leading up to our session. “No problem,” I thought. “That’ll be easy.” Turns out, that wasn’t entirely true.

I maybe should have a TMI warning at this point, but frankly, given everything I share on this blog, that point was probably several years ago. The truth of the matter is, despite browsing a lot of porn for this site, I don’t actually masturbate that much. Sometimes it’s just because I’m busy with other stuff, other times it’s because I like the anticipation of pleasure to come. I regularly go a week without an orgasm, so this seemed no big deal. Yet, now she’s planted that thought in my mind, it’s suddenly constantly in my thoughts. It’s like I’m a teenager again, where it just took a tight pair of pants or the slightest glimpse of a female curve to get me horny.

In years of play, I’ve never had a domme give me this kind of instruction leading up to a sesssion. And this is one I’ve never met before. Our chemistry at this point is zero. Yet still, she’s messed with my mind. Something I might have done anyway without thinking, has become a challenge. Long term chastity aficionado’s will no doubt be sneering at my feebleness at this point, but I’m fascinated by the effect such a simple instruction has had on me.

Complexity

I received a couple of fascinating comments from Michael on the recent subspace post I published. He concurred with my thoughts that his subspace felt different to the psychology definition of dissociation, but also described how  financial domination had triggered a reaction that did resemble the classical sense of dissociation as a detachment from reality. So prodding different bits of kinky wiring in his brain had triggered quantitatively different types of ‘subspace’ for him. I was trying to decide if subspace was more like X or Y, and it turns out it was both X and Y to the same person.

I think that’s an excellent reminder of the dangers of being too reductive when it comes to kink. There’s a tendency to try and categorize, box and label different activities and dynamics. I do it myself on this blog. Simplifying the world is the way we understand it, but it’s always important to keep in mind that you are simplifying, and reality is messy.

Kink is about power, sex, pleasure, control, fetishization, danger, risk, pain and relationships. You know, all the really simple stuff in life. It touches on our most primal instincts and our deepest emotional triggers. It’s hardly surprising that there are countless ways to experience it and although we may share common labels, we all may have slightly different interpretations of them. Be wary of people making absolute statements or asserting a universal kinky truth. I’m not sure there are any.

Weirdly I’m reminded of an old quote from a British football (soccer to the Yanks) manager called Bill Shanky who said that “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” If that’s true, then dare I add that kink might be even more important (and complex) than football?

In honor of Michael’s financial domination dabbling here’s a lovely piece of artwork from the ever brilliant Sardax.

Putin Propaganda

If I had to make a list of unlikely source for blogging material then propaganda from Russian president Vladimir Putin, frankly, wouldn’t have been on there. That’s because it would never have even crossed my mind to consider it. But if someone had then suggested it to me, I’d have been happy to add it to the top of the list. Yet this article is here to prove me wrong.

The material in question is a pop video by Alisa Vox. I’ve no idea what she’s saying – apparently it’s an anti-protest song – but I have to admire government propaganda featuring an attractive lady in a cliched ‘hot teacher’ outfit brandishing a stick and slapping it menacingly. Putin’s government may be authoritarian, repressive and corupt, but their music video department is at least delivering pop tunes and stern yet sexy teachers.

We apologize for the interruption

Anyone trying to reach the site on Monday will probably have encountered an ‘access forbidden’ error. Apologies for that. My web hosting company seem strangely reluctant to explain what happened but, as far as I can tell, they broke something and then took a day to figure it out and fix it. Hopefully normal service will now be resumed.

By way of recompense, here’s a sexy picture. It looks like Madison Young is prowling around her bound prey.

This is from the Men in Pain site.

Wonder Women

After an endless stream of male superhero movies (Batman, Superman, Ironman, Spiderman, Ant-Man, Captain America, Thor, Deadpool, etc.) we’re finally getting a female superhero flick in the form of Wonder Woman. It’s due out on June 2nd in the US and, to celebrate, the Alamo Drafthouse chain decided they’d host a small number of women only screenings with proceeds going to Planned Parenthood. This fine idea was of course instantly attacked by a bunch of whiny male assholes whose sense of entitlement is inversely proportional to their IQ. Happily the theater chain’s response to all this whining was to add more women only shows at their other locations.

I’m looking forward to the movie. I’m sure I’ll manage to somehow squeeze into one of the eleventeen-billion showings that are open to all genders. In the meantime, I enjoyed the picture below from this article. From left to right that’s Patty Jenkins (director), Sue Kroll (president of marketing and distribution), Gal Gadot (star of the new film) and Lynda Carter (star of the old TV show). Nice to see women in key positions behind the screen as well as in front of it.

Strangely Sexy

This is one of those images I like a lot, but can’t really explain why. It’s possible I have a minor bob cut wig fetish. Her long velvety outfit wouldn’t seem like your usual femdom porn wear, but I love the combination of both formality and comfort it suggests. The setting makes me think of perverse sexual practices in a rich and yet decayed 19th century mansion. There’s both a gothic and a romantic element to it.

I’m afraid I’ve no idea of the source for this. I’d guess a fashion shoot, but Google’s reverse image search didn’t give me any clues.

The Epistemological Problem

My post on ‘The Path to Subspace‘ generated a number of interesting comments. One common factor that came through in them was the problem of definition. How do I know the experience I describe as subspace is similar to that experienced by others? The same could be said of any mental state, but at least life provides us with many common references points to calibrate our understanding of happiness, anger, pain, etc. Subspace is far more complex, with no common path to it and no simple reference markers.

Alex commented that a therapist had attributed subspace to dissociation. At first glance that seems logical. Dissociation can be induced by stress and is described as a detachment from reality. Subspace is reached by stressful BDSM play, and often described as ‘floating away’ or ‘zoning out’, so that seems to fit. Yet, when I read the kind of questions they use to test for dissociation, the match seems less clear. And in fact, when I look back on my own descriptions of subspace, I’m not sure I’ve done a good job of capturing the sensation.

Dissociation is described as detachment from reality, where subspace to me often feels like reality has detached from me. That might seem like silly wordplay, but I think there’s an important difference. In subspace all that matters is the domme, me and the dynamic between us. The surroundings falls away. It’s not that I’m detached, or absent from my body, but that everything in our little bubble seems hyper-real. The domme fills my world with her presence and the sensations of our play. The pain, the smells, the touch, the intimacy and the intensity. It overwhelms me, and turns everything outside our space into an afterthought. It’s not the volume on the world being dialed down, but the volume on the two of us being dialed way way up.

If you’re interested in reading more about the post title then this is worth checking out.

Trying too hard

It’s time for another post where I rag on celebrities for getting BDSM outfits wrong. Normally I’m complaining that wearing a leather jacket or a pair of boots does not constitute a BDSM outfit. In this case the problem is the opposite one.

Nobody could accuse Nicki Minaj of being subtle at the recent Billboard Music Awards. She’s got latex, chains and leather everywhere. There’s even backing dancers in pink gas masks. I’m just not sure what the hell’s going on with this outfit. It’s like she went drunk shopping at a fetish store closing down sale, and then decided to wear everything at once. Although I guess it does succeed in one respect. If I saw a domme coming at me in this outfit, I might not think it was sexy, but I’d definitely be scared.

The path to subspace

I got a very interesting question from profoundlife in response to my brain versus no brain post from last week. The post was about two different categories of play, one where the submissive could simply relax and go along for the ride (no brain) and the other where submissive was kept off balance and was regularly forced to interact and respond to the dominant (brain). The question posed was a simple one, but I don’t really know the answer.

Do you think sub space only happens really happens with no brain play?

That’s certainly true for me, but I’m not sure I can say it’s generally true for everyone. If I’m in subspace it’s almost impossible for me to interact intelligently and verbally with the dominant, or maintain any kind of complicated physical position. Being pulled into the present moment involves getting my higher level brain functions firing, and my internal mental dialog running, and that’s pretty much the end of subspace. But is that true for everyone?

Do people into verbal humiliation, public scenes or performing complex tasks for the dominant, get into subspace? Or a variation of subspace? I can imagine that being micromanaged by a domme and having to perform a lot of repetitive tasks in a very focused way might result in subspace, but that also seems like a way to turn a ‘brain’ type task into a ‘no brain’ one. The point of something like predicament bondage is to stop the submissive zoning out, but maybe some people can be so focused it turns into a type of subspace? Anyone out there have any thoughts or personal experiences?

Not sure of the original source here, but this looks like a scene from the Folsom Fair. I found it in this Femdom Destiny post. It’d think it’d be tough to get into subspace when you’re naked, leashed and on the streets of San Francisco.