Fragrance of Choice

A third and final image in my series of femdom art that’s both interesting and unusual. This is by the Russian artist Waldemar Kozak and is entitled ‘I choose this fragrance.’ His work is (mostly) not femdom but it is erotic, with a style that incorporates pop art, vintage, sci-fi and surrealism. Not sure what’s going on here, or why the nurses have taken a break from treating their patient to search for fragrances, but it is an appealing image.

Updated: See this comment from Bacchus for what seems like an excellent explanation for what’s going on in this image.

The artist has a deviant art site, although it has sadly not been updated in a few years. You can also see a lot of his art on this page. I’m fairly certain I featured this image in a past post, although I can’t track it down now.

Birthday Bonk

Continuing the theme of slightly unusual femdom art, here’s one by the artist Vince Ray. Like the last post it has a 1950’s look, although in this case there’s no doubt about its recent provenance. Also like the last post, it’s a little hard to determine the overall theme. There’s some cross dressing, role reversal, leather gloved beatings and comic captions. All done in a pop art style. Odd but fun.

You can find more from Vince Ray at his site. I featured his work in a past post here. I sourced this originally from the anna doll tumblr.

Under the Dome

I thought this was an odd but interesting illustration. It’s obviously done in a 50’s style, but feels like it could be a modern interpretation of that aesthetic.

Is it showing someone’s very specific and niche kink? Or is it a slightly surreal take on the idea of a 50’s housewife and her need for a clean orderly house? A husband/wife scene with maybe a hint of cuckolding (signified by the phone)? Or a mother or babysitter keeping an unruly son under control? Or is it not intended to be sexual at all?

It’s signed ‘muffy’ but I couldn’t track down who that was or what the original context for this was.

Picasso in the Loo

I was amused by this Guardian story about the ruckus triggered by a female-only exhibition in Tasmania. The artist Kirsha Kaechele opened a ‘Ladies Lounge which included, as part of the artist’s intent, men’s experiences of exclusion’. Some man got butthurt about not being allowed in, sued for access and won. Kirsha therefore decided to hang a couple of the Picasso’s from the exhibit in the ladies loo. It’s a nice response, which could only be improved if she also hung reproductions of the paintings from the museum giftshop in the man’s loo. You can read an interview with Kirsha here.

The bit that caught me eye for the purposes of this blog was…

The Ladies Lounge, which opened in 2020, saw women who entered the space pampered by male butlers and served champagne while surrounded by some of the museum’s finest pieces of art.

Sounds lovely. I can only hope she advertised appropriately for the butlers. I’m sure there would have been plenty of men willing to do it for free.

This was sourced from the Madam Is All tumblr. I believe that’s English domme Miss Suzanna Maxwell.

Robert Bishop

A third and final post taken from the golden age of pornography. This one features the art of Robert Bishop, who created bondage themed artwork for HOM and Centurion Publications during the 70’s and 80’s. Most of his work features female submissives, with only occasional exceptions (for example here and here). However, if you’re a general fan of bondage, his work is worth seeking out. There’s a lot of gags and tight restraints, rendered in a very distinctive style.

Sadly, he took his own life in 1991. You can find his art still online, but there’s very little information available at the man himself. Indeed there’s still some debate around the pseudonyms he may or may not have used.

Rialto Report

Writing my previous post on HOM reminded me of the site The Rialto Report. If you’re interested in the golden era of adult movies and magazines it’s a fascinating resource. It has a lot of really detailed and well researched articles on many performers and producers from the 70’s and 80’s.

Sadly, the vast majority of it is regular porn, with not a lot of kink or fetish. However, there are a few exceptions. I featured it in this post which links to an article on an early femdom producer and this one on a classic fetish fashion designer. There’s also articles and interviews with well known stars whose careers took them across a wide variety of genres and kinks. For example, Porsche Lynn was a famous adult movie star before opening the dungeon she continues to run today. She’s interviewed across a two part podcast here and here. There’s also an interview with the fabulous Nina Hartley, who has not only created a huge amount of adult content but is also a free speech and industry spokesperson.

This is Nina in a shoot for the Whipped Ass site.

HOM

The Chicago Reader has a short but interesting article on HOM (aka House of Milan) and one of its founders – Barbara Behr. It’s a flashback to a pre-internet age, where kinky porn was rare and existed very much in the shadows.

House of Milan was on of the ‘big’ three publishers of bondage material from the mid 70’s through to mid 90’s. I put ‘big’ in quotation marks because all three – HOM, Harmony Concepts, Calstar – were tiny and very niche by modern standards. It’s an era I’ve heard referred to as The Golden Age of Bondage Productions, which strikes me as a very misleading title. It suggests a lot of great material was being produced, where the reality was that the bondage was often poor and the shots of low quality. Operating on the fringes of legality with limited sales channels and minimal competition doesn’t typically lead to a high quality product.

That said, I do find the era and the people who worked in it fascinating. A lot of the artists have since become recognized, but the models, editors and photographers are a lot harder to track down. I featured a post on John Blakemore back in 2012 and I’m happy to add this one on Barbara. She worked as an editor, organizer and general manager for HOM, and involved a lot of other women in the business before sadly passing away in the 90’s.

Most of the content produced was M/f, but there was the occasional femdom. For example, this magazine, which was edited by Barbara and published in 1983.

Kink in the Produce Aisle

It’s always fun when your kinks sneak up on you. I had that experience today in Whole Foods. After recovering from my bout of Covid I needed to restock my cupboards. I was therefore squeezing fruit and weighing vegetables in the produce section when I was passed by a female store employee in a long rubber apron. Totally conventional outfit for someone whose job is dealing with moist and sticky products and 100%  practical. However, some tiny bit of my brain still went “Oooh! Long rubber apron. That’s kind of hot.”

Admittedly, I had been stuck in my condo for a week alone, so it’s possible I was slightly sensory deprived. She was also kind of cute. But that was an observation made only after the industrial green apron had kicked into life some kinky braincells. It’s always fun to be reminded of how weird you can be whilst trying to pick between bunches of cilantro.

This is Domina Juniper Dolor, sporting the kind of apron you’re very unlikely to find in your local grocery store. She’s a Bay area based pro-domme and this was sourced via her twitter feed.

DomCon 2024

DomCon LA just wrapped up and – as is their tradition – there was a big group shot of all the dommes. Or at least all those who were comfortable appearing on camera. The copy below is shrunk to fit my format, but you can see the original fullsize version by sweet girl julia here.

I’ve featured these shots before (e.g. 2019 here) and I always enjoy them. It reminds me of what a big wide world it is and how many kinky people are out there. Although I spend a lot of time in online kinky spaces (twitter, tumblr, blogs like this, pro-domme sites, etc.) I still tend to see a lot of the same faces and names. It’s only natural – the human brain can only handle so many connections. Seeing a shot like this, where I recognize very few people, is a good reminder of the bigger picture.

Originally posted in this tweet. If you’d like to support the photographer of all these shots over the years then the tweet also has her cashapp info.

Wrapping up Archetypes

Apologies if posting is sparse this week. I’ve come down with a case of Covid that I’m trying to fight through. Having dodged it entirely through the first few years of the pandemic, I’ve now had it twice in less than 12 months. Very frustrating.

Anyway, I’m going to try and wrap up the archetype series of posts with a couple of candidates to add to the core list. We’ve had Authoritarian, Seductress, Mother and Queen. How about the Princess or the Brat? In my mind these two exhibit similar characteristics: flirty, playful, self-centered, mean, manipulative and spiteful. However, one comment I got distinguished the Brat from the Princess on the basis of playfulness and convention following. Personally, I think they’re too close together to make them separate domme archetypes. However, it is an interesting thought. Are their two distinct domme styles here? Or is Brat more a sub thing?

This is from the beta crusher tumblr, which tends to specialize in young bratty domme captions (along with a lot of friendzone, cuckold and humiliation themes).