Tag: Bondage

Warning Signs

I thought I’d continue my previous post on the incompetent domme and the site she shoots for with a few follow-up thoughts.

Firstly, always be alert for warning signs in any kinky interaction – whether it’s playing in person or simply buying someone’s BDSM porn. I remember seeing the site in question advertise for film slaves with the condition that they’d only waive the usual session fee if the slave didn’t use their safeword. That’s obviously a horrible incentive structure. The submissive is liable to push beyond safe limits to avoid paying and the domme is encouraged to push hard in order to save the company money. I should have called them out when I saw that, but somehow it slid past me at the time.

Secondly, be smart about where you consume porn from. If you like a lot of low risk activities, then it probably doesn’t matter who the domme is. Femdom Empire features a lot of crossover models from the regular porn world,  but they tend to stick to activities like pegging, foot worship, facesitting, tease/denial. etc. I’ve never seen them do extreme scenes that create non-trivial risk. On the other hand, if you’re more into things like impact play, heavy bondage, CBT and medical play, then pick sites that feature a lot of well known pro-dommes. For example, The English Mansion site definitely features edgier activities, but it’s also run by a well known domme and features a lot of top professionals.

Finally, if you’re a submissive, don’t think you can delegate all safety concerns to the domme. Playing safely is a joint responsibility. If you’re concerned about raising issues mid-scene – which I’ll admit can be difficult – then build into more intense play slowly over time. That makes it much easier to adjust course or raise concerns between sessions when you’re in a clearer headspace. I’d rather look forward to playing again and pushing just a little further than leave a scene with an injury or a messed up mental state.

Talking of the English Mansion, heavier activities and professionals who know what they’re doing, here’s Domina Liza in a shoot for them. She’s certainly someone who knows how to correctly wield a single tail.

Her Delicate Touch

Here’s something sweet to start the week. This image is from the SF based pro-domme Mistress Wild Iris, via this tweet.

Ironically, I find one of the things that makes a great pro-domme isn’t their ability to crack a single tail, or rig a fiendishly complex bondage scene, it’s the delicate touches they bring to their scenes. It’s knowing when the submissive needs a grounding contact to bring them back. The breath of a whisper into their ear. The press of a sensual warm body on a bruised back. It’s that momentary physical and emotional connection that allows intense sensations to be sublimated into a D/s dynamic.

You can see more from Mistress Wild Iris on her twitter feed.

John Willie

In writing yesterday’s post I stumbled across this page, featuring a series of photographs by John Willie. I primarily knew about Willie as an artist via his famous Sweet Gwendoline series. I hadn’t realized quite what a talented and prolific photographer he’d been. The photographs featured have a surprisingly modern feel to their kinky dynamic. Perhaps the biggest difference is in the type of rope used and the style of bondage. These days everyone has access to fancy dyed bondage rope and tutorials on artistic knots and fancy rigging techniques. Back in the 40’s and the 50’s they were figuring it out for themselves as they went along.

If you’re a fan of his imagery, you might like to know there’s a hardcover book of his photographs available. I’ve just ordered a copy for myself. It’ll sit nicely on my bookshelf next to Eric Kroll’s book on Eric Stanton.

Captive

Something simple and sexy to start the week. Sadly I’ve no idea who the artist is or where this is from. I get a bit of a deep South jail vibe from it. Maybe a no good country boy bootlegger with the Sheriff’s daughter? She plays the innocent, but has a devilish streak a mile wide.

Taking a firm grip

I don’t think this rather sexy image needs any additional commentary from me. Which is probably fortunate, as it’s some ungodly early hour in the morning and I really should go to bed. Apparently in any one evening I can either cook a fancy meal or write a decent length blog post, but not both.

This is by Lilith Darkmoon, a pro-domme based out of the Netherlands.

Baton’s Bastinado on a Submissive’s Secured Soles

Bastinado is one of those things that doesn’t seem to scary until you try it, at which point it rapidly shifts into the horribly fucked up and disturbing category. It’s pretty much the opposite of something like sounding. That looks scary, but when you eventually do find someone to stick a metal rod down your urethra, it’s actually fine. Almost pleasant even. That’s definitely not the case with foot punishment.

Beatings on the ass or thighs can be very painful, but there’s something simple about them. Lots of muscle, thick bones and layers of fat. In contrast the foot has 26 small bones and 33 joints all packed into a relatively small space. That creates a complex series of nerve ending packed surfaces, where the sensations can vary dramatically from blow to blow. Whenever my feet are beaten I always have the vision of little bones cracking and breaking, which frankly freaks me out. Of course the human body is a lot tougher than it looks, and no sane scene will ever get anywhere that kind of point. Feet can absorb a lot of punishment. Unfortunately my imagination refuses to believe that. Stupid imagination .

This image features Mistress Baton and was taken from this tweet. The little bit of tape fixing his big toes together is a particularly devilish touch. If you’d like to enjoy a beating from Mistress Baton in person, then her tour schedule is here.

Extreme Breathplay

Rolling Stone magazine has an interesting article on waterboarding as a kink. It features Elise Graves, the bondage aficionado I played with and posted about last week.

Waterboarding is certainly a more extreme kink, although I think its intensity can vary dramatically depending on how it’s done. I actually experienced it a couple of times a few years back, but not in an inverted position and not with a huge amount of water. I was basically horizontal and could lift my head slightly, which meant the water tended to drain away from my nose and mouth. I suspect that makes a big difference to the degree of terror induced. The coldness of the water triggered the mammalian diver reflex, which combined with bondage and a D/s dynamic created quite an unusual and intense headspace.

It’s a kink I could never have indulged in during the years when America was actually using the technique to torture prisoners. That’s not entirely logical – what I did in a Seattle playspace had no bearing on what the government did thousands of miles away – but it felt wrong and immoral to get sexual kicks from something that was being used in such a horrible way. When I did eventually try a lightweight version of it, years after Obama banned its usage on prisoners, we still avoided any kind of interrogation dynamic or roleplay. That seemed too close to a terrible reality.

Of course water and cloth is just one way to take someones breath away. As this Rodzo artwork shows, there are other options.

Bondage Therapy in Seattle

Bondage virtuoso Elise Graves has been in Seattle for the last few days. Primarily she was here to shoot for House of Gord, but she did reserve time for a couple of private sessions, and I was lucky enough to score one of them. A lovely mix of whipping, electrical play and bondage was the result. We didn’t get pictures, but fortunately for me, she did shoot them in her other session, as shown here.  I’m not sure who the other Seattle submissive is, but my thanks to him for these shots. He appears to be doing a better job of handling the rope suspension than I did.

Rope isn’t normally my favored bondage medium. I realized today that a big part of that is the time it often takes. When I’ve limited time to play, and I’m paying by the hour, I somewhat resent burning a lot of the session getting into and out of bondage. The process can be enjoyable, but not as enjoyable as what comes afterward. Fortunately, with an expert like Elise, that becomes far less of an issue. I’ve played with a lot of word class dommes, but I think she’s the fastest rigger I’ve ever experienced. She very quickly pulled together well balanced positions, with just the right degree of stress.

Elise’s smile in this image is very indicative of the way she plays. There was a lot of happy positive energy in our scene today. This image is from her Bondage Liberate site. I found it via her twitter feed.

Tripping

On the face of it, this article about a poker player experiencing sensory deprivation to win a bet has nothing to do with femdom. However, I’m linking to it because sensory deprivation is definitely a kink and the hallucinations he experienced actually reminded me of some of my own experiences with that particular kink.

I’ve always been limited to a couple of hours of reduced senses, rather the days he went through. On the other hand, I mix in heavy bondage, pain and breath control, which certainly ups the intensity of the experience. A couple of times in the state I had a sense of space opening up around me, my consciousness drifting in a large dark void, with spinning yellow stars moving around me and away from me. In hindsight I’m surprised I didn’t freak out, particularly given that sensory deprivation is a pretty tough scene for me to handle at the best of times. I think I intuitively knew, much like the poker player in the article, that embracing the vision and relaxing into it was the key to handling it. If memory serves me correctly, it only lasted a short period before I was quickly snapped back to reality by the domme electrocuting my testicles. That’s always guaranteed to capture a man’s attention.

This image is from Lady Hinako. From her blog and twitter feed she’s clearly an expert at heavy bondage and sensory deprivation scenes. I particularly like the contrast in this image between the cute doll like figure and the obvious immobilization and sensory restriction the man inside is experiencing.