There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about…

I had a pleasant surprise when browsing one of my favorite tumblrs recently. The site in question is the Happy BDSM one, and the pleasant surprise was that the owner had reposted the text from one of my posts. Image reposts aren’t uncommon, but to see my text posted was unusual. I say it was a pleasant surprise, but my initial response was actually to be puzzled. For just a moment or two I wasn’t sure what I was reading. I knew I’d seen it somewhere before, but couldn’t quite put my finger on where…

The purpose of mentioning all this isn’t to brag (well, maybe a little), but to make an observation on the brilliance of the tumblr design philosophy. I spotted three different bits of my writing reblogged to the tumblr (also here and here). My original posts generated a grand total of 3 comments from my readers (for which I’m grateful). The three reposts to tumblr generated a total of 208 notes (either likes or reblogs). That’s a 70x increase in feedback over the originals, and I think that’s mainly down to how tumblr lowers the barriers to sharing and participation. Writing a comment on someone else’s blog can sometimes feel like an intrusion into their space, where reblogging on tumblr feels more like a compliment delivered in you own space.

Following the theme of happy BDSM, here’s a lady enjoying herself. His expression isn’t all that clear, but I like to think he’s smiling under there.

Tongue Out

I’m afraid I have no original source for this image. Anyone pondering the post title should take a look at this.

Day & Night

Courtesy of this Huffington Post article I discovered this photographic series by Forest McMullin. Entitled Day & Night, it features pairs of photographs with kinksters in their daily life and then dressed for play.

The article itself is kind of a silly one. It has a sense of wonder and surprise that kinky people can have ‘normal’ daily lives. I get the feeling the author expected BDSM aficionados to spend their days dressed in leather or crawling around on all fours. Rather than a ‘Hey, normal people can be kinky!’ message it ends up being  a “Wow, some normal people are secretly freaks!” one.

As for the photographs, I do like the variety of people they show. Photographs peeking inside kinky lifestyles are nothing new, but shooting pro-dommes in New York or inside trendy fetish clubs in LA is one thing, shooting regular folk from Georgia is a little different. I just wish the settings had been, for want of a better expression, slightly less porn-y. Most shots feature dungeon equipment or fancy toys. I get that makes for a better contrast to the ‘daily life’ shot, but I’m not sure it’s representative of a lot of kinky people. Some pervertibles from Home Depot and less in the way of fetish wear might have made for more realistic and quirky shots.

That said, I have to say I particularly enjoyed the shots of Adriana, Dea, Suzina & Tim, and Kim-Lady_Hotchkiss (shown below).

Kim-Lady_Hotchkiss by Forest McMullin

You can see the full set of photographs in this flickr stream.

CFNM Trio

CFNM isn’t typically my thing. Yet somehow this image manages to be oddly appealing. I think it’s because everyone in it looks so comfortable. The guys appear happy and confident being naked, while she seems relaxed and enjoying being the centre of attention. It looks like everyone is having fun with it.

CFNM

I’d guess this is the work of an independent photographer, but I haven’t tracked down the original source. I found it on the because you are mine tumblr.

Two tongues

My previous post linked to an article on kink and sexual orientation by Jillian Keenan. One bit of it caught my eye in particular.

For years, I identified as bisexual because I’m sexually attracted to both men and women and have acted on that attraction. But in recent years, as I explored my own sexuality more, I’ve realized that’s not quite accurate. I’m not attracted to men or women as a group—I’m attracted to “tops,” or sexually dominant people, as a group; their gender is irrelevant. Many kinky people describe similar feelings.

I thought that was an interesting statement, although I do have a couple of questions about it. Firstly, if a man is attracted to primarily dominant women, is he no longer heterosexual? Or is he’s attracted only to submissive guys, is he not homosexual? I don’t think we define D/s attraction as mutually exclusive with gender attraction in those situations, so it seems odd to do so in the bisexual case. Secondly, if you read the other article she wrote about her spanking history, she clearly identifies that her husband is vanilla. Yet she still fell in love with him, which seems to be slightly contradictory to the above quote.

Those niggles aside, I do think there’s something in what she’s suggesting. I’m not sure if there are a lot of kinky people who match the exact profile she describes, but there’s definitely more fluidity around sexual identity. Partly this might be because it’s a self-selecting group of people with an obvious disposition to try new things and experiment sexually.  However, I also think that dominance and submission can sometimes create such powerful feelings and emotions that it can override or short circuit someone’s common gender preference. I can’t image myself in a romantic relationship with a man, or having a conventional sexual relationship with one, but I can imagine trying a FM/m dynamic. Or even even doing a M/m play scene, provided the kinky dynamic was set up in such a way to override my inbuilt sexual preference for women.

Two TonguesI’m not sure where this image is originally from. I found it on the Alternative Female Domination tumblr.

Spanking as an orientation

This post brings you pointers to a couple of articles by the writer Jillian Keenan. Neither are specifically femdom, but I think they’re interesting and relevant to kinky people in general.

The first is an old one from 2012 on how she came to terms with and shared her spanking fetish. I’m sure anyone with a deeply buried and unfulfilled fetish will be able to relate to her predicament. I only wish everyone could resolve their issues with their partners as neatly as she seems to.

The second is a recent article in Slate on the topic of Is Kink a Sexual Orientation?. This is a well trodden path and there has been much prior writing on it. For example, I featured this by Clarisse Thorn in a previous post. While the topic might not be a new one, I think Jillian has put together one of the better articles on it.

I’ll probably throw together some more thoughts on the orientation topic tomorrow, but for now I’ll finish with a spanking image. Given that Jillian is a spankophile that seemed appropriate. However, it’s not exactly a traditional spanking shot, given the area being targeted.

Ball SpankingI’m afraid I don’t have a source for this image.

A captured moment

There are a lot of naked body parts and kinky toys on display here. The butt plug, chastity device and gag makes for a nice kinky combo. However, what really makes the image work for me is that shared look and her hand on his jaw. It’s a nice instance of connection that sparks the imagination. Without capturing those kind of moments you’re just let with some random naked bodies and an arbitrary collection of metal, plastic and leather devices.

A nice momentI found this on the equally deep in your eyes tumblr. There’s no attribution or watermark, but it looks awfully like a Divine Bitches shot to me.

The insidious shades

Ragging on 50 Shades of Grey is nothing new. I’ve done it often enough in the past, the mainstream press has done it, and over at Pervocracy Cliff has turned mocking it into something of an art form. Yet it wasn’t till I read this article by Jennifer Hanks that I realized how insidious its influence was.

She worked as a editor on erotic romance novels when 50 Shades first took off, and the article describes how it set a new template for that genre. Suddenly every hero was an abusive asshole with no idea of consensual play and every heroine an insecure virgin with no experience of BDSM. My job has its fair share of less than fun moments, but having to spend 8 hours a day reading endless 50 shades knocks offs that are actually worse than the original, well that must be hell. Particularly when the publisher doesn’t allow any variation on the theme…

By the time I leave my job — I’ve gotten into graduate school — we explicitly don’t accept books with female Dommes for any of our regular imprints. I imagine making a t-shirt that says DOMME on it in all caps and wearing it to work every single fucking day I have left.

I never realized how much that one book had influenced erotic fiction. Eventual its effect must wane, but until then we’re left with not just a horribly written trilogy, but a distorted marketplace for all kinky writing.

For an accompanying image I thought I’d go with something fun, sexy and clearly consensual. i.e. The opposite of 50 shades. This beautiful artwork by Yumine Guo is a perfect fit.

Artwork by Yumine Guo

Paging Sigmund

I’m not really sure what erotic niche this image should be placed into. I just know I like it. I guess it’s kind of CFNM, although there’s not a whole lot of C involved. Naked males are common enough in my posted images. Naked males wearing flip flops and a cock leash in the desert are more unusual, but not totally strange. But pun based domme outfits? I think that might be a first.

Freudian SlipThis looks like a burning man scene, but I’m afraid I’ve no firm information on where this was taken and who is in the picture.

A sad week

This hasn’t been the best of weeks. Robin Williams’ death was a shocking piece of news. I liked some of his films, but wouldn’t have described myself as a fan until I saw him live a few years back. It was at a small club in Seattle and I went just because friends had somehow scored tickets. I thought it’d make for a pleasant and amusing evening out. I ended up in tears of laughter. He had such an incredibly energy on the stage. I’ve seen many famous comedians over the years, but none had the kind of intensity he created. Heartbreaking that such a talent could die the way he did.

Following that came news of Lauren Bacall’s death. She at least passed on naturally after a long and eventful life, but it was still a sad moment. She was one of the great talents and characters of Hollywood. I loved her movies, particularly the ones she played opposite Humphrey Bogart. I think this quote about her granddaughter dragging her to see the recent Twilight flicks sums up her personality beautifully.

“She said it was the greatest vampire film ever made,” Bacall recalled. “After the film was over, I wanted to smack her across the head with my shoe.”

The first image below, with a bit of Bogart bondage, is from The Big Sleep. That has the unique characteristic of being one of my favorite movies and also one of my favorite books. The second image looks like a publicity shot. To paraphrase the great Raymond Chandler, she gives me a look I can feel in my hip pocket. In fact it’s almost impossible to find a photograph she doesn’t look amazing in (for example these two shots here and here).

Thanks for all the memories Robin and Lauren.

BigSleep
bacall1