Tag: Artwork

Doctor Who?

The BBC has announced that the new Doctor Who will be Jodie Whittaker, the first woman to take the role. The reactions to this were entirely predictable: A lot of positive comments; a lot of whining about the PC police ruining the character; a lot of internet analysis of the significance of the decision and what the subsequent whining tells us about society and internet culture.

I used to watch the original series as a child, when Tom Baker and Peter Davidson took the role, but I’ve never really got into the recent revival of the series. As I’ve mentioned before, for someone with geeky tendencies, I’m not big on sci-fi and fantasy shows (with one exception). I’ll probably check out this new incarnation of the Doctor however. Jodie Whittaker was good in Broadchurch and, if the scripts are decent, I can see her creating an intriguing version of the character.

I was tempted to finish this post with some hot Doctor Who cosplay, but decided that the image below was more suited to this blog. It features the characters Amy Pond, Rory Williams and the eleventh Doctor. I’m afraid I don’t know the artist.

Hades and Persephone

Apologies if you had trouble reaching the site over the weekend. My site hosting service was screwed up again, much to my frustration.

The artwork below is by Jessica Madorran, and is a twist on the traditional representation of Hades and Persephone. In Greek mythology Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest and agriculture. When the god of the underworld, Hades, kidnaps the beautiful Persephone the result is a great famine, as Demeter curses the land while roaming it looking for her daughter. Zeus eventually brokers a compromise, with Persephone spending just one third of the year in the underworld with Hades. During that time Demeter grieves for her daughter, causing us mortals to get stuck with winter. Not quite sure why abducting a helpless maiden should get you a compromise deal of 4 months visitation, rather than say a well deserved thunderbolt up your ass, but that’s Greeks gods for you.

The twist in this artwork is a gender reversal, with a female Hades and a male Persephone. I like that change, but it’s odd that someone would commission such a piece. Is there such a thing as a greek mythology gender-swap fetish? Apparently so.

You can see more of Jessica’s work here.

Finding a Dominant Woman

Probably the commonest question and debate topic for submissive men on forums and blogs is: How do I find a partner who is a dominant woman? I’m afraid I personally don’t have any great advice on that. I just double checked around my condo again, and I’m definitely shy one dominant woman partner. However, I can point you to somebody who might be able to help – Sharyn Ferns and her new book. As anyone has read her blog will know, she is both a dominant woman and a fine writer. Those strike me as two excellent credentials to have when writing a book entitled ‘How to find a Dominant Woman.’ It costs about the same as a cup of coffee, so really, what do you have to lose?

This artwork is by sadistic smilez.

Palette Cleanser

After the heavy scenes and crazy toys of the last couple of posts, I thought it was time for a change of pace. A palette cleanser as it were. Something simple and sexy, showing femdom at its minimal best. Think of this post as a small scoop of raspberry sorbet, in the shape of some hot femdom artwork.

This is by the artist domirine.

All the cool kids are doing it

Teen Vogue is not a publication that I thought would ever intersect with my areas of interest. As an actual teen (many, many years ago) I might have sneaked a look at Cosmopolitan sex articles now and again, but Vogue was always far too high fashion and culture to be interesting.

Fast forward a couple of decades and, weirdly, comments about Teen Vogue articles began popping up on my radar from political twitter feeds I follow. Apparently they were doing a better job than a lot of mainstream sources in covering the disaster zone that is American politics. Now I find myself linking to this recent piece on BDSM and consent. It doesn’t break new ground on the topic, but for a magazine with ‘Teen’ in the title, it’s a pretty solid article. Sex and teenagers is always going to be a combustible combination, particularly when you mix in the crazy complexity that is BDSM. Unfortunately banning behavior with teenagers never works, particularly when material is just a click away on the internet, so I’m happy to see this kind of well thought out mainstream coverage.

This looks like an image cut from Manga, but I don’t have an original attribution unfortunately.

KinkD

There’s a new kinky dating app available – KinkD. Its userbase is pretty small at present – 30K is the number mentioned – but it has got some press coverage (e.g. this and this and this), so maybe it’ll grow quickly. I hope they succeed, as there’s definitely a gap in the market. They really should tweak their imagery however. The lady they’re featuring sporting a black lacy mask doesn’t really seem to know what she’s supposed to be doing with the crop she’s holding.

This artwork is by Apollonia Saintclair and is called La visite galante (Enjoying the visit). KinkD should really hire her to create their promotional material, as it’s much sexier than what they’re currently using. If you’d like to see more she has a book and prints available. 

Kinky Speed Dating

Apparently, it’s a thing. At least it is if you live in Los Angeles. You turn up at the event, fill in a match card, do a series of 5 minute dates and then wait a few days to see if anyone you met is interested in getting kinky with you. It sounds simultaneously horrifying and appealing.

The traditional way to meet kinky people in person is a munch. Which, from a personal perspective, as a naturally shy person, is a pretty stressful concept. Munches are unstructured social events. I fear cliques, hidden social dynamics and the mix of motivations for attendees (much like this). Kinky speed dating might lead to some strange conversations, but at least everyone is on the same page when it comes to motives and the process.

If anyone has attended one of these, or is planning on going to the June 15th one in LA, I’d love to hear how it went via a comment.

The image is from the Angry Little Girls webcomic series by Lela Lee.

Dancers and Dommes

In a classic case of ‘why did nobody think of this before’, the artist Natalie Frank has done a series of painting featuring both professional dancers and professional dommes. I think that’s a very smart juxtaposition, given the physical, artistic and collaborative aspects that both professions share. That said, while I appreciate the paintings she’s created, it feels like a great idea that needs further development. There’s a sense of movement and rhythm inherent in both, and which comes through in her dancer paintings, but is less obvious in the domme ones. That set of pictures seem oddly static, which is strange given her underlying concept. I feel she captures the dynamic of the participants, without capturing the physical energy of a typical scene.

The exhibition is on display at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago.

Complexity

I received a couple of fascinating comments from Michael on the recent subspace post I published. He concurred with my thoughts that his subspace felt different to the psychology definition of dissociation, but also described how  financial domination had triggered a reaction that did resemble the classical sense of dissociation as a detachment from reality. So prodding different bits of kinky wiring in his brain had triggered quantitatively different types of ‘subspace’ for him. I was trying to decide if subspace was more like X or Y, and it turns out it was both X and Y to the same person.

I think that’s an excellent reminder of the dangers of being too reductive when it comes to kink. There’s a tendency to try and categorize, box and label different activities and dynamics. I do it myself on this blog. Simplifying the world is the way we understand it, but it’s always important to keep in mind that you are simplifying, and reality is messy.

Kink is about power, sex, pleasure, control, fetishization, danger, risk, pain and relationships. You know, all the really simple stuff in life. It touches on our most primal instincts and our deepest emotional triggers. It’s hardly surprising that there are countless ways to experience it and although we may share common labels, we all may have slightly different interpretations of them. Be wary of people making absolute statements or asserting a universal kinky truth. I’m not sure there are any.

Weirdly I’m reminded of an old quote from a British football (soccer to the Yanks) manager called Bill Shanky who said that “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” If that’s true, then dare I add that kink might be even more important (and complex) than football?

In honor of Michael’s financial domination dabbling here’s a lovely piece of artwork from the ever brilliant Sardax.