Femdom Resource – Page 152 – The beauty of dominant women

Better than yoga?

Articles on BDSM and mindfulness have been popping up across the web in recent days. The first I spotted was at Time magazine, and since then I’ve seen similar articles at sites like Bustle, Instinct Magazine and Medical Daily. They were triggered by research published in the journal Psychology of Consciousness that claimed that BDSM could put people in a state of ‘flow’, where the rest of the world falls away and their concentration is heightened on the present moment.

It’s good to see positive BDSM stories on mainstream sites, and I doubt many people in the kinky world would dispute the idea of BDSM leading to altered mental states. Getting into subspace might not be the only reason people play, but it’s often an important one. That said, I do have problems with the study (as it’s described in the mainstream press)…

They only picked 7 couples, which is a tiny number to study. On top of that, the couples had a variety of relationship states (from long term to just met), introducing more variables into the tiny sample.
They randomly assigned top/bottom status. If everyone involved was a switch that might be OK, but if not, then it would seem very problematic. Ask me to top someone and you will not get mindfulness. You’ll get anxiety, stress and a partner stuck in a tangled web of granny knotted ropes. Switching for non-switches is not a good measure of normal BDSM play.
It doesn’t appear that they distinguished between top and bottom space. I’m not an expert on top space, but from what I’ve read it seems quite different to bottom space. Both have elements of being in the moment and the rest of the world falling away. However, top space seems to be about concentration and focus, a sense of mastery that aligns with the more traditional ideas of mindfulness and flow. Bottom space, for me at least, is not like that at all. It’s about not thinking clearly, surrendering to the moment and disassociating. I hear tops describe their state as having heightened intuition and understanding, where I can barely form words when deep in bottom space.

Hopefully the study will at least be a good starting point for further research. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with an image of a couple in their own particular state of flow. From the watermark I assume it was something to do with this event (I found it here).

flow

Out of practice

My recent trip to San Francisco was the first time I’d enjoyed any kinky play for almost 12 months. That’s something of a record. Admittedly, there was one other length and fairly memorable period that spanned from roughly age 15 to around my early 30’s, but in recent years kink was more of a weekly thing than a decennial thing.

Unsurprisingly, after all that time, I was a bit out of practice. The first session, which I blogged about previously, was easy. I just had to lie down and try not to yell too much while Domina Yuki and Mistress Magnum stuck suturing needles in me. It was intense, but any idiot can lie down. The second one, done a few days later with just Domina Yuki, was a bit more challenging. At one point she had me bound against a metal frame strung with rope webbing. Many tight small clips were painfully attached to my delicate parts and tied to the webbing, thus keeping me in place while she whipped my back. The me of a few years ago would have remembered that locking my knees and clenching up my muscles was a bad plan. The me of a few weeks ago wasn’t so smart. The result was a vasovagal response, where all my blood decided that the last place it should be was anywhere near my brain. Possibly it was getting its own back on the brain for putting it in this position. Luckily I did still have enough mental function left to let Yuki know, and after a glass of water and a minute or two to recover in a more relaxed position, we were good to restart.

I guess I need to get some more practice in. Although another solution might be to always play upside down. That should maximize the flow of blood to the brain.

inverted I originally found this somewhere on tumblr. It’s an edited image taken from a Vogue photoshoot.

Folsom Addendum

A final post on the Folsom Fair. Actually, more of an addendum to my first post than a new one. That post featured an image of Mistress Liliane Hunt and her posse. If you liked that shot, then you should check out her latest blog post. It gives a lot of background on her trip and the people with her, along with a lot more great photographs. She was even featured on this years poster, as an amazing looking fetishist Sarah Palin.

Rather than repeat another image of this year’s fair, here’s Mistress Hunt at the 2011 fair with her puppy. I love the look of joy on her face and his contented appearance. There’s a lovely energy to this.

Mistress Liliane Hunt with her puppy I found this image via this SFGate gallery.

Limits of consent

While writing yesterday’s post on the Folsom Street Fair, I came across this article on the issue of photographing participants in these kind of public events. I though the issues it raised and the article subsequent comments where interesting. The trigger for this was an Ask First campaign that wanted to raise awareness around consent. They used stickers to remind people to ask before touching or engaging with people. They also extended that to photographs. The first part sounds excellent to me, the last part I’m not so sure on.

Shared public spaces are for everyone to use. That means their for the kinky, the non-kinky and the occasionally curious. They shouldn’t be majority ruled or driven to the lowest common denominator of taste. As I’ve argued before, as long as the goal isn’t to piss people off, kinky people should be able to do their thing in public. However, at the same time, when the kinky people become the majority at somewhere like Folsom, they shouldn’t turn around and takes rights off others. It’s the photographers public space as much as theirs, and part of the social contract around public spaces is that you can be identified and photographed in them. That goes for the public, the police and the perverted. If being identified is such a big deal to you then either dress conventionally or wear some sort of mask or hood. You’re in a public space – that has consequences.

Of course if you want to combine photography with privacy, then the best way to go is the selfie. This lady seems to have mastered that pretty well, thanks to the help of a mirror and a handy doormat.

femdomselfie There’s no watermark on this, but my domme sense tells me that’s Empress Jennifer who has filmed for sites such as Men are Slaves and Asian Cruelty.

Missing the fair

I have the worst timing when it comes to the Folsom Street Fair. As I wrote last year, I always seem to be in SF around it, but never on it. There’s a regular software event called Oracle World a week or two before, which pushes up hotel prices, closes roads and packs the city with the kind of people interested in computer databases. I’ve inadvertently overlapped and been annoyed by that multiple times, including this year. The kinky, fetish event full of naked people and leather gear? Not once.

Anyway, my bad planning aside, the Folsom Fair just happened again. There’s a pretty good collection of photographs from it available here. The one below caught my eye as I believe the lady in the chariot in Liliane Hunt, whose blog has been on my blogroll for several years now.

chariot

United colors of kink

The image put me in mind of the Italian fashion house Benetton. Back in the 90’s they were famous for doing both colorful and controversial advertisements under the banner ‘United Colors of Benetton’. The bright colors were very much part of the fashion of the time, and while using controversial imagery to attract attention isn’t exactly new, they pushed it further than most.

Sadly this never graced a billboard. It’s actually a work by Maurizio Cattelan and Pierpaolo Ferrari for a biannual art magazine they do called (appropriately enough in this case) Toilet Paper. This particular image, called Sit on my Face, was part of a collection shot for Vice.

sit-on-my-face

Getting it all wrong

When a story about a dominatrix avoiding jail after a client died in a session originally surfaced in my inbox, I was pleased. Not for the dead guy obviously, but for the fact that she hadn’t been unreasonably punished. From just reading the article title I assumed he’d had a heart attack or aneurysm and gone out doing something he enjoyed. Intense kinky sex can certainly raise stress and blood pressure levels, and having a play partner die would be traumatizing enough without adding legal entanglements. Now, having read the story, I’m not so sure. Jail seems like a pretty reasonable place for her.

The client contacted her to do breathplay, which is a reasonable thing in itself. The badness starts with him wanting to be made unconscious. It gets worse with the fact she agreed to do it when clearly neither of them had a clue what they were doing. It culminates with her helping him use tape and a noose to cut off his breathing and then leaving him alone in a hotel room for 30 minutes. Leaving someone alone is a big red flag in most bondage situations, let alone when breathing restrictions are involved. Stupidity like that really deserves some prison time, even if he was equally idiotic in instigating the situation.

Personally, I love breathplay. I’ve had some of my most intense sessions while experiencing it. But it was always with people who knew what they were doing, who kept a very close watch on my physical responses and where we could escape it in a second or two.

This is the lovely Mistress Eleise – someone who definitely does know how to do breathplay properly. A gloved hand can be very effective all on its own. This is taken from her Femme Fatale Films.

Washing day

I’m home from a very enjoyably vacation. I’m sad it’s over, but hopefully that’ll mean I’ve time for more regular posts here. While I go and unpack my case and throw a bunch of dirty clothes in the wash, I’ll leave you with someone else who has been doing their washing. This looks a bit more fun than me running my tumble dryer.

washingday The watermark here indicates the photograph is by a ‘Bobbie Lyne’, but I can’t find a suitable photographer with that name online. There are a couple of models using that name, but I’m not convinced it’s their work either. As usual, if anyone has an attribution, please let me know.

Patreon

I noticed when writing my previous post that Yumine has set-up a Patreon account. For those that haven’t encountered this service before, it’s an easy way for fans (patrons) of artists to contribute a few bucks to them on a regular basis. It’s not designed to crowdfund a specific piece of work, but instead functions more as a virtual tip jar for ongoing work. Yumine is suggesting chipping in just a $1 or $5 per month.

I’ve not used Patreon before, but this seemed a worthwhile case to give it a go. Sign-up was very quick and easy, and it let me use either PayPal or a credit card. If like me, you appreciate Yumine’s work, then maybe give it a shot yourself?

calm Of course this gives me another excuse to feature her work in a post. I particularly like this piece as the D/s dynamic and activity reminds me a lot of my play. I love breathplay and nipple torture, while having a love/hate relationship with hoods. That often leads to a lot of nervous energy that has to be worked through.