Labels and perception

I’m always interested to read mainstream descriptions of kinky behavior. When you spend a lot of time reading sex blogs it’s easy to get blasé about all sorts of activities. Seeing it filtered through a vanilla perspective can help illuminate how other perceptions might differ.

Take for example the article from yesterday’s post featuring the unfortunate domme who was arrested for needle play. It’s not particularly judgmental (compared to some of these articles), but it still talks about drawing blood, sticking needles into genitals and suturing. I can imagine most vanilla people, and quite a few kinky ones, reading that and going “Ewww! That’s crazy. What kind of insane masochist would do that?” Yet I’ve done all those things, and they don’t really hurt that much *. I’d say an old fashioned caning is way more painful. Hell, smashing my toe in the dark into the corner of the kitchen table is more painful. Familiarity normalizes them.

It’s also a good example of the importance of language. Call it play piercing and it sounds relatively innocuous. Play isn’t exactly a scary word and lots of people get decorative piercings these days. Describe it as needle play and the intensity ramps up a little. Describe it as needles stuck into genitals and it sounds nuts. I touched on a similar theme with respect to the idea of sadism a couple of weeks ago, and it’s a concept that applies pretty broadly in BDSM. Spanking sounds fun and lighthearted. Corporal punishment not so much. Breath play is innocuous next to asphyxiation or smothering. Would you rather say you were pegged or that you were anally penetrated with a dildo? And talking of which…
Pegging
I found this on the Pegging with a Smile tumblr. I’m afraid I’ve no original source for it.

* One possible exception to the “don’t hurt that much” comment is suturing. It’s OK if you use hypodermic needles to pass the thread through the skin (as I experienced here), but using a genuine suturing needle hurts like hell (as described here).

Joining the medical establishment

Just hours after writing yesterday’s post on piercing I was intrigued to stumble across this article from Japan on a domme getting arrested for needle play. She’d posted images of it on her blog (link anyone?), and obviously the Osaka police have such low crime rates that they’ve time to waste hassling adults having consensual fun.  Apparently it’s illegal in Japan to do anything that might draw blood without a medical license. That would seem to make a lot of BDSM play potentially risky, as even canes or single tails can draw blood if applied with sufficient force.

Obtaining a medical license seems like a tough requirement just for getting your kink on. I’m guessing it’s not the kind of thing you can obtain with a few evening classes at your local adult education establishment. In fact according to this article, even medical students in Japan can’t do minor procedures like give an injection. They have to graduate, which takes around 6 years. Yet despite that rule, the US somehow still manages to spend 2.5x times what Japan does on healthcare. Getting arrested for play piercing images clearly isn’t the only screwed up thing here.

I really wanted to find a sensual and visually attractive piercing shot to feature with this post (something like this). Unfortunately, despite a lot of hunting around, I’ve come up short. Ironically needles tends to feature in a lot of Japanese femdom movies, but there’s little good imagery out there. Most of what there is tends to be extreme and lack any D/s vibe to it.

Instead I’ll go with the medical theme and something from the pen of the great Sardax. I’m not sure what ailment this course of treatment is for, but I’m sure it’s a highly effective approach.

Nurse with syringe by Sardax

You can find more of Sardax’s fine work at his site. You can also pick up his illustrated and translated version of Venus in Furs at Amazon UK.

Gulliver’s Travels

Last week I mentioned a piercing session I’d done with Lydia featuring a fair number of needles. This week I bring you a few photographs from the session. If you’re at all squeamish about piercings or naked gentleman bits, then I’d suggest not clicking on the image links. Both elements feature heavily. On the plus side, there is a sexy picture to finish.

The original plan A for the session was to do a butterfly boarding. We’d done this before, back in 2011, in one of the first sessions I documented. Unfortunately, Lydia couldn’t track down any foam board at short notice. Ever creative, she moved onto a plan B of using my body as the board. Specifically my thighs and stomach. The idea was to pierce through the genitals and then through the torso skin, stitching everything into place with needles. That sounded good in theory, but several painful minutes demonstrated it didn’t work well in practice. The needles tended to pull out too easily. Fortunately, it was a case of third time lucky, as plan C was a striking success. This stuck to using my body as the board, but combined pairs of needles acting as anchor points with cords to stretch everything into place.

This top shot and this side shot show the arrangement pretty clearly. It led to a fascinating headspace, as every small movement pulled at different needles and communicated sensation across my body. Piercing always makes me floaty and the bondage elements of this approach pushed me deeper into that subspace. It also created an interesting feedback loop. Arousal pulled at the needles and, masochist that I am, that made me more aroused, which pulled the needles even more painfully. Lydia always likes to layer sensation, so the nipples also got involved, with cord running from them down via a belly piercing to the top of the cock. You can see the nipple piercing here and a torso view here. That connection across the body brought my breathing into the picture, each breath pulling at the taut cord and signalling down to the needles in their sensitive homes. Very intense but equally stimulating.

I’m always happy and laughing at the end of a scene, but in this case I was particularly amused when it came time to take everything out and I could examine the arrangement more closely. It put me in mind of the famous scene in Gulliver’s travels when he visits Lilliput and gets tied down on the beach. Except instead of Gulliver and ropes there’s my cock and a lot of frayed cords. It’s not really how Swift first imagined it, but possibly my genitals might pull off the role better than Jack Black did.

Given all the naked me in the image links, it feels only fair to finish with someone who’s not only far more photogenic but also responsible for conceiving and executing the scene. This is the wonderful Lydia, taken from her new and excitingly revamped website.

Lady Lydia

Just for me

I try and pick images for posts that will be generally interesting for a broad range of people, provided that people = kinky and interested in femdom. I didn’t start this blog for it simply to become my online porn collection. There are plenty of tumblrs out there if that’s all your after. However, now and again I feel the urge to post something that’s just for me. Something that pushes all my buttons and makes me silently sigh with a sense of wistful happiness. This is one of those times.

The two shots below are of Mistress Natsukiss. She’s featured in several of my posts in the past (for example here and here). I’ll be the first to admit that a tight leather outfit, black boots and a whip is a look that has featured in countless generic femdom images. But there’s something about Mistress Natsukiss that makes them work afresh for me.

Mistress Natsukiss
Mistress Natsukiss

I found these shots via the Phobos tumblr.

Goddam roleplaying bullshit

I first came across this image via the Selina Minx tumblr. I can’t say I was a huge fan of the bondage. It’s very sloppy, and I’m not sure how it’ll progress into anything that’ll actually restrain. However, I did like the smiles, the casual attitude and the lack of fetish clothing. Encouraging kinky play that’s focused on fun and pleasure seems like a good thing. Unfortunately I then did the reverse image search and stumbled across several very annoying articles. I suspect this is a stock photograph and it has been used for a number of Cosmo ‘spice up your sex life’ articles. For example, this and this. These are almost always terrible. For example, here’s a quote from one of them on bondage…

Although in reality it’s wrong, in fantasies and role play, its significance is completely different. In the real world, restraining someone is assault or rape, even. In role play, in contrast, it signifies: “you’re so desirable that I can’t resist you. You have such power over me that I want you at all costs”. And for a woman, it can be very liberating.

It’s hard to know where to start with this. Yes, bondage can liberating, but for men as well as women, and on both sides of the knots. As for the rest? Words fail me. I don’t play in some fantasy world of magic and unicorns. I play in a reality of bondage, masochism and negotiated consent. The idea of someone being so desirable and irresistible that you want to tie them up whatever the cost is deeply troubling.

Roleplay can be a lot of fun. I’ve nothing against it. But it’s just one narrow slice of kink. Instead it often seems to be treated as all encompassing. That’s particularly true for the mainstream press, who treat BDSM as a subset of roleplay. Can’t we just tie people up and beat them for the sheer hell of it? I want to get fucked up by someone being themselves, not someone pretending to be someone or something else.

Sloppy rope bondage with smiles

A pull, a slap and a buzz

Another day, another image I can’t attribute to the original artist. I’m beginning to get a touched vexed by my repeated failures in that respect. I’m not finding or researching images differently. I’m beginning to wonder if Google’s reverse image search is crawling less adult images these days.

Whoever the artist is, I like the sense of energy they’ve brought to the image. There’s aggressive some hair pulling, ass slapping and buzzing vibrators. It’s playful, but with an edge. Based on the visual evidence, he’s certainly not too upset about the situation.

Riding

I found this on the Elegant Femdom Art tumblr.

Perverting perversity

I thought this was an interesting article on the history of the word pervert. Apparently it started off as a word to describe an atheist. It wasn’t till the end of the 19th Century that it became associated with sexual depravity. Prior to that unconventional sexual acts were simply seen as a sign of moral degeneracy and decadence. It was the early sexologists who created the idea of sexual desire being an orientation and re-purposed perversion (‘turning away from the right course’) to describe people who fitted into that group.

The really shocking thing about this is that it means the highly historically accurate Blackadder II, set in 16th Century Elizabethan England, used the word incorrectly for the character of the baby eating bishop of Bath and Wells.

Bishop: Yes. You see, I am a colossal pervert. No form of sexual depravity is too low for me. Animal, vegetable or mineral — I’ll do anything to anything.
Edmund: Fine words for a Bishop. It’s nice to hear the Church speaking out for a change on social issues.

The clip itself can be seen here. And for any of my US readers who have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, I suggest checking out one of the most brilliant comedy series ever recorded. It’s currently on NetFlix streaming, although I’d recommend skipping the first season and sticking to seasons 2, 3 and 4.

As for an image I wanted something featuring a whole heap of perversity, and the one below seemed to fit the bill. There’s bondage, cross-dressing, cuckolding, homosexuality and butt plugs. All sorts of good stuff.

Perversion

I found the image via the sissiebondage tumblr and once again I’ve failed to track down an original source for it. Either Google reverse image search is really sucking these days or I’m picking particularly obscure images. If anyone knows the artist then feel free to leave a comment.

60 needles = a happy man

I’m not sure about the precise maths on this. It’s possible that 59 needles make for an equally happy man. The science isn’t entirely clear. However, thanks to my session tonight with Lydia, I can confirm that 60 needles through various bits of his body makes this man happy. And floaty. Possibly even slightly giddy.

I shall endeavor to gather more datapoints on the needle/happiness curve in future investigations. In the meantime I’ll leave you with this shot of another happy man. No needles involved, but there is a judicially placed foot. I’m sure the owner of it appreciates the smile.

Happy Man

I found the image on the Freya’s Fancy tumblr. Annoyingly it’s another one that I can’t track down the source of. Feel free to leave a comment if you can help me attribute it properly.

Continuing negotiations

I find it amusing that I happened to start writing posts on negotiation just when our glorious political leaders in Washington DC decided to give such a fine example of how badly it can be done. I can only imagine somebody up there must have forgotten the safeword. It’s certainly doesn’t seem to be Safe, Safe or Consensual from this perspective.

I had a couple of follow-up thoughts from yesterday’s post. One came from a comment by Pat, who suggested that ‘Keep it honest’ should have been on my list. I very much agree. There’s nothing to be gained from exaggerating experience or being overly optimistic about limits and abilities. I’d rather start at 70% and enjoy pushing towards 100% than start at 110% and have to stop the action and ask to scale back.

My other thought was on the topic of negotiating with a familiar domme. Yesterday’s post was mostly about dealing with a new relationship, but what happens when you’ve got a few scenes under your (leather) belt? What’s the best way to handle a scene negotiation? Well, this might seem like crazy talk, but I’ve found asking the domme how she prefers to structure it works pretty well. I know it’s odd to give the domme control, but somehow it seems to work for me.

Just as there’s a wide variety of play styles in scenes, I’ve also found there’s a wide variety of negotiation styles. Some dommes, once they know you, are happy to structure the session with minimal input. My last few sessions with Cynthia Stone in LA were that type. I was comfortable letting her do that and she certainly had no shortage of ideas to try out on me. With others I might give a single area or idea for them to riff on. That’s the approach Lydia and I use for our sessions. Typically it’s just a single theme per session and she elaborates on it, blending in other ideas and activities as she likes. Other dommes prefer a more detailed negotiation, with a more specific list of activities they can pick from. That works fine for me as well.

Ultimately this ties back to one of my original points about playing as much as possible with the same domme(s). How to negotiate a scene is in itself something that can be discussed and negotiated between the participants. But before doing that we need to already have a good understanding on the basic stuff (limits, interests, triggers, etc.), and that only comes with familiarity.

I wasn’t really sure what image would be appropriate for this post, so I thought I’d return to the subject of my opening paragraph for inspiration. In both cases somebody is getting fucked. It’s just that for the couple below, it’s the fun kind of fucked.

Pegging with a smile

I found the image on the Pegging with a Smile tumblr. Unfortunately I’ve been unable to track down an original source.