Sniffder

I’m used to flipping past some fairly crazy kinky outfits on my tumblr and twitter feeds. This one gave me a moment of pause however. Lots of kinky equipment focuses on controlling movement, breathing, eating, sight, etc. There’s not much that targets the sense of smell. If it’s considered at all, smell is usually a second order effect from materials like leather and latex. This cuts all those out and goes straight for the natural pheromones.

Amazingly, it’s not actually from a kinky source. It’s an art/science project by James Auger focused on blind dating and predicting compatibility. It was part of an exhibit at Moma and was featured in the NY Times.

It may not have started off with a kinky slant, but I can imagine a lot of people wanting to use it that way. Particularly if modified from a two  way to one way flow.

Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can

This image isn’t femdom, but I liked it too much to not feature it in a post. It’s normally hard enough to get a suspension scene with a single person right, let alone get a small crowd suspended successfully and simultaneously.

It puts me in mind of a scene from a Spiderman comic, where he’s just zipped past a bunch of dimwitted henchmen, sticking them to the walls and ceiling with webbing. In the best traditions of supervillain henchmen, they’ve even all got color coordinated outfits on.

I found this image via this tweet. Based on the translation, I’m guessing it’s from a bondage workshop in Paris.

Face Torture

One of the fun things about social media is the random insights it gives you into other cultures. It’s hardly a scientific analysis, but it is entertaining from an anecdotal (and possibly highly inaccurate) perspective. For example, domme twitter accounts from Japan seem to feature way more food shots than similar Western ones. I’ve no idea if that’s typical for twitter in Japan in general or something more specific to Japanese dommes.

My other entirely random and anecdotal observation is that facial bondage and torture is bigger over there than it is here. I almost never see Western dommes offer it as an activity or post pictures of it. Yet it seems not uncommon in Japan, with awesome twitter posts like this one or the image below (from here). Typically Western dommes are very functional when it comes to the face. It’s all about covering the eyes, plugging the ears, opening/closing the mouth or locking the whole thing away. I see plenty of that in Japanese BDSM as well, but they also seem to enjoy screwing around with the face a lot more. Distorting it, hurting it and exposing it in unusual ways. It doesn’t particularly appeal to my kinky side, but it does make me curious as to the reasons behind it (assuming my anecdotal observation isn’t complete bullshit).

Mail Boy

These leather mail (male?) sacks have been popping up all over the place on my twitter feed. Mostly accompanied by comments from pro-dommes say how amazing and awesome they are, and how they can’t wait to get hold of one. The original tweet from the Fetters store runs as follows…

Out of sight, out of mind. When not needed anymore, store your slave safely until the next time he’s required to serve you. No better option than the Mailsack – an elegant storage solution.

I wonder what it suggests when a device that stashes your slave away  out of sight and out of mind, with no option for interaction, is so immediately popular? Maybe it’s just that they want to give their slaves an exciting new sensory experience? That must be it. Definitely couldn’t be any other reason.

Should anyone wish to offer their slave this exciting new experience, this is the page to shop from.

The Pleasure of Play

I was surprised to see a very well known domme state (on twitter) how much she hated the term ‘play’ when it related to kink and femdom. It’s a term I never used in my early days of kinky exploration – because that was such super serious stuff – but it’s one I’ve come to use and like a lot.

I should say out of the gate that of course femdom can be more than just play. It can be a major part of a relationship, a 24×7 dynamic, a way to modify behavior, an ethos, etc. But let’s face reality. The majority of lifestyle femdom activity and almost all of professional femdom activity is a form of play (from the client perspective). And that’s absolutely not a bad thing.

The Oxford English dictionary defines play as – “Engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.” I think most people’s lives are full of serious and practical activities. Going to work, maintaining a house, caring for a family, paying bills – these are all serious and practical activities. Don’t we deserve a break to enjoy some recreation? And what could be more recreational than pulling on fun outfits, tying people up, teasing their erogenous zones or blowing their minds with intense sensations? There’s a reason pro-dommes use sensual, sadistic and playful to describe possible session dynamics and not words like serious, practical and sensible.

I don’t have a problem with someone wanting to get more out of a femdom dynamic than kinky fun times. I love reading about couples that have taken it beyond that level. But given a world serious lacking in fun, and a culture that has some seriously messed up views on sex and kink, why be against the idea of kink as play? Admittedly, sometimes it can be intense, crazy and freaky, but that doesn’t mean it’s not play.

Here’s a somewhat literal representation of play and femdom. This is from Underling.

Gift Wrapped Toy

There is a school of thought that it’s impossible to be on the receiving end of penetration and remain dominant. This teachers of this school are very stupid. No single activity is inherently dominant or submissive. What matters is the context and the dynamic between the participants.

I actually had a dominant express this thought to me last year, and to my everlasting shame I didn’t challenge her on it. I should have said that she absolutely had the right to draw her personal boundaries wherever she felt comfortable, and define activities however she thought was appropriate, but there was no single global rule about what penetration meant. Unfortunately at the time I was horny, naked and starved of kinky play. So I think my answer was along the lines of “Errrm…. Yeah. I guess. Sure. So when can we start with the beating?” Not exactly my finest hour. I did get the beating, so that was at least a plus, but I felt bad about it afterwards.

I believe this is fan art inspired by a series known as Tower of God.

Suspended Target

A few posts back I was musing on scenes where the level of pain is radically different from the visual the scene presents. This is the exact opposite of that. The scene looks awesome. I love the suspended bondage, the minimalism of the space and the dynamism of the whip. Yet I’m sure it also hurts like hell. The bondage alone looks challenging. Adding the sting of a single tail against taut flesh is particularly cruel.

This is from twitter feed of Mistress Iris. However, I believe that’s Mistress Rika on the other end of the whip.