Communication Skills

Being a good submissive masochist is a lot harder than I ever thought it would be. Back in the days when it was all still fantasy I assumed you just did what you were told and cried uncle (or pineapple or your safeword of choice) if it hurt too much. The reality turns out to be a little trickier than that.

One of the skills I’ve slowly acquired over the last few years is figuring out when to step outside a scene to communicate additional information. When I started this always felt like a very bad thing to do. The perfect submissive shouldn’t suffer from cramps, or pinching ropes, or panic attacks. It was a sign of weakness or failure if I did. Fortunately I’ve since learnt and been taught (by some great dommes) that this is a fairly naive point of view. The goal is intentional controlled pain. Not random stuff that the domme doesn’t even know about. To remain focused and to get into the right headspace requires good communication, allowing the domme to remove unintended distractions. A few minutes to adjust a rope or flex a limb can make the world of difference to the overall success of a scene.

Ironically one of things I’ve never needed to do is to stop a scene because it hurt too much. This certainly isn’t due to any great fortitude on my part. Instead it’s a tribute to the skill and judgement of the dommes I’ve played with. The closest I ever got to it was when paying with clover clamps, like the one in the image below. In that case Lady Lydia had dabbed a decent amount of icy/hot onto both clamps before applying them and then tying them off taut. The combination of the chemicals and the clamps was intense, and there was a short period where it almost seemed too much. Fortunately I was so surprised at the idea of actually having to say something that it distracted me long enough for the pain to become manageable. In hindsight it was a little like learning to fly HHGTTG style. I was so surprised at how much it hurt I forgot to actually be hurt. A neat trick when you can pull it off.

Clover ClampI found this image on the Superior Femme tumblr site.

Avast, ye mateys!

In the last couple of days an old post of mine on the recently popular subject of the devaluation of male submissives sparked to life. Maymay added some thoughts, as did Alisa. That triggered some blog browsing on my part, and led me to a post by Alisa which made me laugh out loud. I’ll quote the relevant part…

If we’re playing pirates and wenches, you’ve captured me off a British vessel and have had your way with me, perhaps you’ve tied me up and left me in a corner while you await ransom, but eventually we tire and we go out and we get dinner. And when we put on our clothes and walk out the front door you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that you are not a 15th century pirate* because if you don’t, we’ve got problems. There is no confusion, I will not be mistaken for a captured wench at the corner diner, neither of us will have period dialects or accents, there is no risk of scurvy.

I think that’s a very visual and illustrative way to highlight an important point – submission is a negotiated state with very defined boundaries. A dominant who can’t handle those kind of transitions and state changes is not someone to play with. But the importance of the underlying point aside, it was the mental picture that made me laugh. I can just imagine a nonplussed wait staff staring at each other while a big macho dom in a white shirt and leather pants curses them as spineless landlubbers. He’d be ordering grog while his erstwhile play partner holds her head in her hands and regrets the day she decided to fool around with Captain Rum (who doesn’t even know the way to France).

Given this is a femdom blog, I thought I’d pick some suitable female pirates to illustrate the post. These two come courtesy of the Femdom Artists site and pulpy 1960’s magazines.

Pirate Queen of the China SeasSex Crazed Pirate Female SadistsYou can see the original two posts here and here.

* The anally retentive history nerd in me feels the need to point out that pirates and the British Navy was mainly an 18th Century phenomena, not 15th Century. The Royal Navy wasn’t actually founded until the 16th Century. OK. End of annoying nerd moment.

Inspiring a little creativity

There was a study in the news recently that claimed that negative feedback would inspire more creativity than positive feedback. Those given positive feedback during a task felt better at the end of it but created less interesting work as a result.

If that’s the case then the gentleman below better prepare for a burst of creativity. I have a feeling she’s planning to inspire him. Somebody should push a paintbrush into his hand.

Of course it’s quite likely he’s a masochist, and will enjoy it. Which I guess would make him less creative. Hmmm. These things always end up more complicated than you expect.

InterrogationI found this on the Kinky Games tumblr site. The watermark URL doesn’t go anywhere interesting, but I assume it must be something to do with this site originally.

Indulgence

I normally try and pick images that’ll be interesting to a broad range of people. I’m never going to post something I don’t personally like, but my immediate reaction isn’t the single selection criteria I use. There are a lot of images I think are hot but don’t get posted here because there’s nothing striking or distinctive about them.

However, on this occasion I’m afraid you’re going to have to indulge me. I’ve nothing clever to say about this image. I just want to do bad things with her. Or, more specifically, I want her to do very bad things to me. Screaming would be involved.

Beautiful girl with glassesI found this on the Bedroom Fairy Tales tumblr site.

Quirky Smile

This image is entitled ‘Thigh Caning’ which should tell you all you need to know about the reason for her smile. It looks like she’s thinking “Hmmm, he’s making some funny noises. I wonder if I should pull his arms a little higher or try beating him a little harder? Or perhaps both…..”

Although I suspect in that position his knees and feet will be hurting him almost as much as his thighs. Probably the cruelest thing she could do would be to leave him tied in position and simply watch as the pain slowly builds.

Thigh CaningI found the image in this post on the Whipping Mistress blog (written in Japanese). It’s obviously originally from the Captive Male site.

Together and apart

An entertaining hour or so of clueless and confused wondering through Japanese femdom blogs (translation technology has a long way to go) brought me to these unusual bondage images (click to enlarge). It’s rare to see a coupled tied together like this. There’s some beautiful ropework, and a clever hood+scarf combination to pull their heads together. They’re intimately entwined, and yet cannot touch, move or caress each other. Together and yet apart.

Couple in BondageCouple in Bondage

Couple in BondageCouple in Bondage
The woman responsible for this paired bondage is Mistress Juri, shown in the shot below with another of her bondage subjects. She’s got a number of interesting shots on her website, so it’s worth a browse. I particularly liked this image of tightly bound solo male.
Mistress Juri

Creatively Destructive

Kaya over on her Under His Hand blog has a very interesting new post up. She writes from the perspective of the submissive in a M/f relationship, but I have her on my blogroll as she often has pertinent things to say about the dynamics of a lifestyle D/s relationship. In that context the exact gender of the top and bottom can often be irrelevant to the point being made.

The actual post is too long to quote in full, so I’d suggest reading it to get the full context. The heart of the issue is the idea of activities that will diminish the status of the submissive in the eyes of the dominant. Activities that both would ‘enjoy’ in their very different ways, but risk permanently altering the balance of their daily relationship due to their extreme nature. I’ll quote what I think is the key section.

So, we were talking the other day, talking about something mostly unrelated but in the vicinity of one of those “activities”, when pretty much out of the blue, he turned to me and asked me about it.

There was an immediate flush of shame and embarrassment, and a reluctance to admit to anything. Rather than admitting shit, I deflected and answered his question with a question.

Or rather.. I answered his question with a statement that really really was a desperate question in disguise.

“I can’t because you’d think less of me and not like me anymore.”

He was quiet a minute, and then nodded. “You’re right.”

And everything inside just sort of… collapsed. I showed nothing on the outside though.

Kaya from a post titled ‘Love in an Elevator‘

She doesn’t list what the activities might be and I don’t think it really matters to the discussion. I just found it fascinating to think about the broad concept of such an act.

I’d suggest you can classify creative acts into two broad categories: Constructive and destructive. Constructive acts are things like writing software or designing a building. The creative act leaves you with more than you started with. It might even be repeated to enhance and build on the initial creation. Destructive acts are things like cooking or staging a play. They suck up time and resources and at the end you’re left with nothing but the memory of the act for those who participated.

I think as humans we’re hardwired to treat relationships as creatively constructive. The daily creative decisions we make are meant to improve and increase the strength of our relationships. Given the normal cost function we’re trying to optimize that makes sense. We have limited time on the earth and relationships require significant time and resource investment. We want to maximize the return on that investment given our limited opportunities.

Yet here is an example of creatively destructive act that could be applied to a relationship. It’s possible that both parties would gain more from consciously destroying aspects of the relationship (or even the entire thing) in order to appreciate the experiences they desire. Now that is not to say in this specific case that’s the right thing to do. In fact Kaya is clear she very clearly doesn’t want to lose her masters love and respect. But in the general case, perverse as it seems, there could be an argument for trading away a good relationship just to experience the act of destruction. Looking at it very coldly, it’s an opportunity cost problem.

In the past I’ve seen submissives talk about similar acts in relationship to pro-domme sessions. Often they focus on thing like toilet service, with the suggestion that the submissive becomes more and more worthless with each degrading act, until finally they’re good for nothing but being toilets. I’ve always treated this as a fantasy projection from the submissive. Pro-dommes are only going to do things they’re comfortable with, and I’ve never seen a suggestion from any of them that there’s some slippery slope of degradation. There’s also very low opportunity cost in this case. Once the fantasy is played through the submissive can simply find another pro-domme to play with.

In the lifestyle scenario it’s a far more genuine and riskier proposition. How close to that invisible unmeasurable line do you want to tread? Or should you consciously cross it and destroy what you have for the sake of an ephemeral experience? How do you make any kind of sensible judgement about what you’re risking and what you’re gaining?

One could of course suggest that it’s simply the responsibility of the dominant to sort his or her head out. If they want to subject their submissive to it, they need to be sure they can deal with their own resultant feelings and still offer the necessary love and support. But of course when the attractiveness of the activity is proportional to the disgust it generates, that is easier said than done.

I should repeat that I have no idea of the kind of the specific activities Kaya is referencing. But when it comes to finding suitable images to illustrate extreme femdom activity I always have one reliable site to use – Team Rinryu (warning extreme content). In this case we have a cute girl, a nice smile and a man with an open mouth.

Femdom toilet

CBT done simply

The CBT post from a couple of days ago provoked a number of comments about the skill required to do it right and the fine line between pleasure and pain. Here’s a nice shot of a very attractive young lady who seems to have trampled right across that line and is marauding around on the far side of it. Assuming marauding is possible whilst wearing high heels.  That looks like a fair amount of pressure she’s exerting. No need for fancy clamps, brushes or electrics here.

This shot actually reminded me of a recent session of mine, although I experienced it in a reversed form. In my case the domme (the devilishly inventive Lady Lydia) had my cock and balls tied into a neat package with thin cord and was using that to pull me onto my tiptoes in a standing position. With her hand still holding the cord taut she then stepped forward and stood on my toes with her high heel shoes. That creates a particularly tortuous position, without any good options to minimize the pain. She laughed of course, which then made me laugh despite the pain. Anyone watching us would have probably thought we were crazy, but a happy sadist always makes me a happy masochist. .

Stepping on a slaves ballsI found this on the femdom marriage tumblr site. It’s originally from the appropriately named Young Goddess site.