Femdom Resource – Page 247 – The beauty of dominant women

Cultivating the palette

I’ve been pondering on pain in recent days. What draws some people to it? What makes a masochist and why do other people find them so strange?

I think if you asked most people why they didn’t like pain, they’d assume you were crazy. It hurts. What else is there to say? However, when I look at how people experience pain in everyday life, I suspect that it’s not the sensation itself that’s the primary issue. Instead, it’s the fear and uncertainty that comes with it. Sure when you hit your thumb with a hammer there’s that brief flash of agony that temporarily blocks out coherent thought. But after that, as it subsides to a dull throb, what stays with you is the uncertainty. Have I fractured something? Did I damage the nail? Is it going to swell up? Will I need a trip to the ER? It’s a similar story with chronic pain, like a bad back or a damaged ligament. The pain might be manageable, but what stresses people is the lack of control. They don’t know when it’ll stop, when it might flare up, how much it might impact their daily life.

It’s hard to find examples of pain in normal life that doesn’t have this element of fear and uncertainty. However, there are a few – working out, eating spicy food or playful biting and scratching during sex. The sensations here are often painful ones, but are not described that way. There is no fear or uncertainty, the situation is a controlled one, and therefore the perception is a much more positive one.

When discussing masochism there’s often a lot of talk about wires getting crossed in the brain, as though there’s something fundamentally different about masochists. I wonder how true that really is. Growing up I was never particularly interested in pain. What fascinated me was exchanging control. Pain seemed like an interesting way to emphasize that exchange – I can hurt you and you can’t stop me – but it didn’t seem like an end in itself. It was only when I got physically involved in BDSM that I began to think about it differently. The very safe and defined limits of a play session allowed me to experience the sensation of pain, but divorced from the negative connotations it usually has. I began to explore and appreciate the sensation both in its own terms and as a tool for play.

I therefore wonder if there are a lot of other people out there who would be masochists, but never have the chance to find out. Is appreciating pain perhaps something not inherent in certain people but – at the risk of sounding like a cross between a Bond villain and a Cenobite – just something that needs to be cultivated? People can learn to appreciate oysters and good wine. Maybe nipple clamps and leather floggers are a similarly acquirable taste.

I’ll leave you with a couple of shots from Divine Bitches of Mistress Madeline helping somebody cultivate their own particular palette for pain. If he hasn’t developed one already, this looks like the perfect time to start.

When no news is good news

The extended trailer for the movie Cloud Atlas was recently released. It’s a movie I’m really looking forward to, and it marks the return of the Wachowskis, who shot to fame with the original Matrix movie. They also released a short introductory video which is notable for featuring the first official public appearance by Lana Wachowski. She was formerly known as Larry until going through gender reassignment. As this Salon articles discusses, the real big story here seems to be what a non-event this was. There was no big media kerfuffle, just a lot of general positive articles that covered the facts in a non-judgmental way. What a pleasant surprise.

As far as femdom links go, there is a connection, as Lana was (and presumably still is) reported to be a fairly kinky person. She attended BDSM clubs and had a well publicized relationship with Ilsa Strix, a highly regarded pro-domme from LA, as described in an infamous Rolling Stone article. It’s an unwritten law of human nature that people tend to believe what they read, unless they happen to know something about the subject in question. In those cases the writing is invariably found to be horribly wrong and misinformed. Oddly enough, this doesn’t cause people to stop believing everything else they read. I have zero personal knowledge of any of the people in the Rolling Stone article, but it does seem like a lot of sensationalized gossip cooked up by people only peripherally involved. The BDSM comments and discussion of pro-domme behavior are also fairly ludicrous. My favorite was this one, describing how Ilsa Strix played…

If her submissive said, ‘I don’t really think I’m interested in needles,’ she might just come up and, boom, put a couple of needles under their fingernails

Any pro-domme who thinks that a good way to introduce piercing to a submissive is needles under fingernails is going to go broke in short order. By all accounts Ilsa was a smart and excellent domme, and so it’s quotes like that which make me doubt the veracity of the article beyond the very basic facts.

I’ll leave you with a couple of shots of Trinity, from the first Matrix movie. It’s one of my favorite movies, and the appeal of watching Carrie Anne Moss kick ass in slow motion never really fades.

Playground antics

Hair pulling always brings out the kid in me. Normally when I’m hit, bitten or scratched I relax into it. I never feel the need to retaliate. But something about hair pulling makes me itch to fight back. I’m sure there’s some deeply buried reason for this that stems from playground fights as young child. I’d like to say it’s down to a cute but feisty young girl who used to pull my hair and tease me as a child, sending me down the path of femdom from an early age. Unfortunately she was only a figment of my childhood imagination.

The bondage around his wrists looks fairly hopeless in this shot, but I do like the red marks on his thigh. That crop she’s holding clearly isn’t just for domm-ey decoration.

Lessons in control

In the last few months there have been countless mainstream articles using the 50 Shades of Grey phenomena as a jumping off point to write about BDSM. I’ve commented on some of the poorer examples in the past. Today I’m happy to bring you one of the better ones. It’s by Vanessa Pinto and describes her experiences in a class on female domination run by Midori.

It’s a 3 day course and features lectures, a field trip and a lab session with a trainer bottom to practice on.

Something very primal came over me, and as I circled him like a bird of prey, I could see that he wasn’t as complacent as he once was. When I wound up to slap him in the face and saw the reaction that I yearned to see, one of peace mixed with excitement. I knew that he was mine to do with as I pleased.

It struck me that I’d absolutely love to be one of those trainer bottoms. And that’s not because I particularly like the idea of the play itself. I’m sure that an hour or two with a strange and novice domme is not going to compare to the regular sessions I enjoy with experts who have done it for years. I also don’t kink on semi-public play or exhibitionism. What makes the role so appealing is the chance to watch someone else discover the joy of BDSM. There’s a lot of discussion on femdom blogs about how the culture of kink puts potentially dominant women off. Just for once it’d be nice to see the other side, where a talented educator can help some women explore a repressed and potentially important part of their sexuality and personality. I think it’d be immensely fulfilling to be part of that process.

The image below features Midori and Mayan and is most definitely not taken from her introduction to female domination class. I’m fairly certain suspension scenes would be in the advanced school. This is from the movie Silken Sleeves by Maria Beatty.

Some foot on foot action

The sole of the foot is a wonderful body part to torture. It’s very sensitive, which is surprising given how much daily wear and tear it undergoes. Everything from tickling through to caning works well. Even the threat of punishment to it can be a powerful head-trip. I remember a scene where Lydia was scrubbing parts of my body down with antiseptic prior to doing some piercing. I was relaxing in the bondage she’d already put in place, thinking as she cleaned each spot – “Nipples, kind of expected that. Cock, OK. Upper leg, that’s unusual. Bottom of my feet! Oh shit….” Fortunately she never did get around to sticking needles into the soles, and she later confessed she was just doing it to scare me a little!

This photograph strikes me a quite a clever one. It works both from the fetishistic point of view and from the masochistic one. It also creates a nice contrast between the vulnerability of their respective feet. His are upturned, naked, defenseless. Hers are spiky, hard, wrapped in leather, forcing down. The more normally she stands the more it hurts him.

I found in on the 24-7-Sub tumblr. I believe it’s originally by the French photographer Jean Fabien. You can see it in this gallery on his site.

Concentration and surrender

After the strangeness of the last couple of posts, here’s a return to what passes for normality around here. It’s a simple shot. Some rope bondage, a naked man and a focused woman. It really caught my eye for the contrast between their expressions. It’d be hard to get a greater difference. She’s concentrating, trying to judge the exact pressure and movement necessary to achieve the effect she wants. He’s lost to the world, head back, surrendering to the sensation. It’s hard to tell if it’s pleasure, pain or both that he’s experiencing. Either way, it’s a great moment to capture.

I found this on the Gustos Extremos tumblr.

When the going gets weird…

Weirdness often seems to occur at the intersection between the ordinary and the extraordinary. For example, while BDSM dungeons are unusual places, I don’t find them weird at all. Everything is in a common context. However, discovering one of my distinguished elderly aunts sipping a cup of tea while browsing a collection of nipple clamps in a dungeon, now that’d be weird. And possibly therapy inducing.

Pornography is a similar story. I can look at a picture of a bound man sucking a half naked transsexual and just think it’s a hot visual. Yet, occasionally there will be some weird juxtaposition of elements in a scene that turn it into WTF moment. Take the shot below for example. It’s not the dog hood alone that makes it weird. It’s the nonchalant way he’s wearing it, relaxing on the living room couch in his weekend casuals. Exactly what’s the role play here? I think if he was naked and leashed on the floor, in a bizarre way, it’d be a lot more normal a scene.

I found this on the All About Me (aka dominant damp knickers) tumblr. It’s originally from the Sharing My Wife site.

Sapphic sisters saddle up

I’m not sure I can strictly count this as femdom, but it was such an amusing book cover and title that I just had to feature it. In my defense, the lady on the left with the boots, riding crop and oh so tight top, is definitely looking with dominant and predatory intent towards the demure lady on the right.

I found it via this article on some of the worst book covers of all time. Obviously in this particular case when they said ‘worst’, they actually meant ‘most awesome’. It’s available from amazon, should pulp fiction featuring sisters of sapphos and glossy coated fillies be your thing.

I was also tempted to feature this book cover, which might have appealed to all the castration fantasists out there. Unfortunately, I think it’s a photoshopped version of this book, so doesn’t really count.

Dressed for the occasion

I’m typically not a fan of outdoor femdom shots. Partly this is because I have some hard limits around public humiliation and creepy crawlies. So anything that risks combining the two is difficult for me to fantasize about. But it’s mostly because the domme’s clothing is so frequently hilariously inappropriate. Take the shot at the end of this link for example. Huge stripper heels and a skimpy leopard skin dress are really not ideal for a stroll through a field. It looks like she’d end up more uncomfortable than he would.

In contrast the shot below caught my eye as an example of how it should be done. It’s a nice autumnal parkland setting, and she dressed elegantly but appropriately. The boots are perhaps a little shiny and impractical, but keeping them polished and clean will give him something to do when they get back from their morning constitutional.

You can see a second image from the scene in this post on the public humiliation tumblr.

A moment in time

Most of the images that I feature are dynamic, with a sense of movement or energy. They capture a moment that the viewer can extrapolate from, either forwards or backwards. This image is different. I don’t know how they got to this position, or what’s about to happen. There’s a sense of stillness to it. She’s beautifully dressed in an eye catching red and he’s naked, vulnerable, collared. There’s just this moment, and nothing more.

I found this image on the Heidi Silicium tumblr.