Bondage – Page 38 – Femdom Resource

Go East, young man

I’m going to be taking a few days vacation in New York. Blogging may therefore become a bit hit and miss until early next week. Apologies in advance for that.

My timing was very fortunate, as I’ve managed to arrange some time with Troy Orleans before she begins her sabbatical / extended break. This wasn’t entirely down to happenstance. I had some friends dithering about taking a NYC trip around this time, and then when I saw MTO’s post, I decided a firm nudge was needed and got them to commit. So I’m now looking forward to doing some great restaurants and bars with them, and indulging in some kinky fun with Miss Orleans. Other than the horribly early flight I have to catch, I’m looking forward to every minute of it.

This great bondage shot is of Miss Orleans as taken by the talented Natasha Gornik. I found it in this post on her blog.

Lazy blogging

I have to admit that I’m not always the best organized blogger. Some people have multiple posts and drafts lined up in their queue ready to go at the push of a button. I typically have a bunch of thoughts, a few random images, and a glass of wine to work with. Sometimes they come together. Often they don’t. When I’m stuck and it’s late at night, I turn to some of my favorite tumblrs for inspiration. I figure if I can find a good image I’m 80% done already.

One of those ‘go to’ tumblrs is the Happy BDSM one. A feel-good photograph of a grin and some kink is always an easy one to blog about. I was therefore perturbed to browse it tonight and discover a whole bunch of my old posts popping up on it (all with the correct attribution). Did nobody tell these people that they’re where I go for images? It doesn’t work if it’s the other way around. It’ll end up as an infinite loop of reposting with zero added value, much like the Huffington Post. Somebody has to do some actual work here, and I’ll be damned if it’s going to be me.

Anyway, while the Happy BDSM folks sort themselves, out, I’ll leave you with the kind of image I was hoping to find and steal from them. This was actually from the Kaisub blog.

I feel that I should be able to track an original source for this image. It looks like something from a professional shoot, but nothing pops up on a Google reverse image search. The Japanese style genital blurring is also kind of odd for what looks like a Western image. Anyway, if anyone can help me attribute it, then please leave a comment.

Comparative stupidity

I’ve not exactly been kind to 50 shades of Grey in the past. Posts like this one and this one have made my feelings pretty clear on the subject. I was therefore shocked to discover an article on the topic that was even dumber than the source material itself.

You’d think that the trilogy would be a God send to the anti-kink and anti-porn brigade. After all it portrays a horribly dysfunctional relationship with many BDSM themes. Taking pot shots at that should be easy, yet somehow Gail Dines in this Guardian article screws it up. She attempts to conflate Christian Grey with an Irish serial killer because – and I can hardly believe I’m typing this – they’re both played by the same actor. On that basis we should assume that Richard Nixon was a serial killer who invented corn flakes. After all, Anthony Hopkins played all three characters (Nixon, The Silence of the Lambs and The Road to Wellville). I guess I should be grateful that someone who holds views so diametrically opposed from my own is such an idiot.

I wasn’t really sure what image to feature with this post, so let’s just go with something elegant and beautiful. Feel free to assume there’s a dominant lady waving a whip just off frame if the lack of overt femdom offends you.

This image is tagged ‘William’ but I’ve failed to locate an original source for it. If you know then please fill me in via a comment.

Gooey

I’ve heard people describe their mental state after a scene in many different ways. Words like floaty, zoned, buzzed, energized, peaceful, sleepy and emotional often crop up. Personally I often think of the word gooey. That seems to capture the kind of happy mushy emotional puddle that ends up as me curled on the couch. My natural cynicism takes a well deserved rest and I end up feeling oddly soft and sentimental.

The image below bears absolutely no physical relationship to the scene I just did tonight with Lydia. That featured mummification, sensory deprivation and a lot of nipple torture. Yet it’s the kind of image that catches my eye when I’m in this aforementioned gooey state. It makes me go “Ahhh” and puts me in mind of all the fun little connections that get made during my scenes. It’s sweet, and that goes well with gooeyness.

This is originally from Whipped Ass. I found it on the Girls Rule Subs Drool tumblr.

What’s in a name?

I’m always intrigued by the names porn sites choose. There’s such an broad range from the effective through the banal to the terrible.

Some of the femdom names I like includes Cruella (puts me in mind of evil Disney queens), Femme Fatale Films (descriptive and creative), Strapon Dreamer (explicit yet whimsical) and The English Mansion (brings to mind governesses, nannies and haughty ladies in jodhpurs). In the banal group I’d put things like Men In Pain, CBT and Ballbusting, Young Dommes, etc. They do exactly what it says on the tin, but there’s not a lot of imagination involved. Then there’s the ones that just make you go ‘huh?’ For example, Ballbusting Chicks (Chicks? Really?), Mean Dungeon (too anthropomorphic), Men are Slaves (seems kind of broad), Lethal Lipstick (sounds like a bad B movie) and anything involving the word bitches.

The image below is from Brutal Facesitting. Those are not two words that really belong together. And does anyone here look like they’re being brutalized? Give the dictionary definition of ‘savagely violent’ I would say not. I can’t see savagely violent cunnilingus being a winning technique for anyone.

Just for me

I try and pick images for posts that will be generally interesting for a broad range of people, provided that people = kinky and interested in femdom. I didn’t start this blog for it simply to become my online porn collection. There are plenty of tumblrs out there if that’s all your after. However, now and again I feel the urge to post something that’s just for me. Something that pushes all my buttons and makes me silently sigh with a sense of wistful happiness. This is one of those times.

The two shots below are of Mistress Natsukiss. She’s featured in several of my posts in the past (for example here and here). I’ll be the first to admit that a tight leather outfit, black boots and a whip is a look that has featured in countless generic femdom images. But there’s something about Mistress Natsukiss that makes them work afresh for me.

I found these shots via the Phobos tumblr.

Goddam roleplaying bullshit

I first came across this image via the Selina Minx tumblr. I can’t say I was a huge fan of the bondage. It’s very sloppy, and I’m not sure how it’ll progress into anything that’ll actually restrain. However, I did like the smiles, the casual attitude and the lack of fetish clothing. Encouraging kinky play that’s focused on fun and pleasure seems like a good thing. Unfortunately I then did the reverse image search and stumbled across several very annoying articles. I suspect this is a stock photograph and it has been used for a number of Cosmo ‘spice up your sex life’ articles. For example, this and this. These are almost always terrible. For example, here’s a quote from one of them on bondage…

Although in reality it’s wrong, in fantasies and role play, its significance is completely different. In the real world, restraining someone is assault or rape, even. In role play, in contrast, it signifies: “you’re so desirable that I can’t resist you. You have such power over me that I want you at all costs”. And for a woman, it can be very liberating.

It’s hard to know where to start with this. Yes, bondage can liberating, but for men as well as women, and on both sides of the knots. As for the rest? Words fail me. I don’t play in some fantasy world of magic and unicorns. I play in a reality of bondage, masochism and negotiated consent. The idea of someone being so desirable and irresistible that you want to tie them up whatever the cost is deeply troubling.

Roleplay can be a lot of fun. I’ve nothing against it. But it’s just one narrow slice of kink. Instead it often seems to be treated as all encompassing. That’s particularly true for the mainstream press, who treat BDSM as a subset of roleplay. Can’t we just tie people up and beat them for the sheer hell of it? I want to get fucked up by someone being themselves, not someone pretending to be someone or something else.

Perverting perversity

I thought this was an interesting article on the history of the word pervert. Apparently it started off as a word to describe an atheist. It wasn’t till the end of the 19th Century that it became associated with sexual depravity. Prior to that unconventional sexual acts were simply seen as a sign of moral degeneracy and decadence. It was the early sexologists who created the idea of sexual desire being an orientation and re-purposed perversion (‘turning away from the right course’) to describe people who fitted into that group.

The really shocking thing about this is that it means the highly historically accurate Blackadder II, set in 16th Century Elizabethan England, used the word incorrectly for the character of the baby eating bishop of Bath and Wells.

Bishop: Yes. You see, I am a colossal pervert. No form of sexual depravity is too low for me. Animal, vegetable or mineral — I’ll do anything to anything.
Edmund: Fine words for a Bishop. It’s nice to hear the Church speaking out for a change on social issues.

The clip itself can be seen here. And for any of my US readers who have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, I suggest checking out one of the most brilliant comedy series ever recorded. It’s currently on NetFlix streaming, although I’d recommend skipping the first season and sticking to seasons 2, 3 and 4.

As for an image I wanted something featuring a whole heap of perversity, and the one below seemed to fit the bill. There’s bondage, cross-dressing, cuckolding, homosexuality and butt plugs. All sorts of good stuff.

I found the image via the sissiebondage tumblr and once again I’ve failed to track down an original source for it. Either Google reverse image search is really sucking these days or I’m picking particularly obscure images. If anyone knows the artist then feel free to leave a comment.

Sadism revisited

I feel the need to return to the topic of sadism and sadists. Some of the comments left on my post from a few days ago were thought provoking. In particular I was struck by how overloaded the term ‘sadist’ is.

Most labels we apply to people also carry a judgement about their behavior. Consent (or the lack of it) is seen as so important it’s often baked right into the label itself. For example, if I have consensual sex with a partner them I’m a lover, but non-consensual sex with anyone makes me a rapist. I can be a consensual flirt, but never a non-consensual one. That’s sexual harassment. I can be an employer of consenting workers, but only a slaver or trafficker of non-consensual ones. Actions themselves can be neutral, but the labels we use on people rarely are. A punch is neutral, but a boxer is not the same as a mugger.

Sadism is fairly unusual in that respect. It carries no information on consent. It’s accurate to describe a domme who enjoys S&M as a sadist. It’s also accurate to describe a horror movie psychopath in the same way. This strikes me as problematic when talking about kink in a mainstream context. As hmp accurately pointed out, non-kinky people really don’t get the idea of consensual sadism at a gut level. Having the same label used for very different behaviors is therefore particularly confusing. People are used to labels implying judgement about behavior, and given their gut feel about the infliction of pain, their default view of sadism will always be a bad one.

Masochism doesn’t have this problem. It’s a more passive label and consent is naturally implied. We really need another word for sadist that pairs more tightly with masochist. That way we could leave sadism as the general label for non-consent and save the new word for only when masochists are consensually on the receiving end. I’ve no idea what that word should be however. Any suggestions? Maybe I should get Dan Savage on the case. He’s done a pretty good job so far coining pegging, GGG and Santorum.

Given the subject matter it seems only fitting to finish with an image of a sadist in action. This is from the Divine Bitches site.

A nice neat package

Apologies to anyone who has recently left a comment I haven’t responded to. My blogging time on this particular vacation is proving to be even more limited than I expected. I will get back to all the comments in the next day or so.

In the meantime here’s a fun bondage shot featuring Princess Kali and a neatly packaged male. I really like the little extra touches like the big toe ropes and the wrap around his balls. I imagine that’s a pretty stressful position to be in.

The image has been messed with as so often happens on tumblr (I found it via Continuous State of Desire). I believe it’s originally from a Men in Pain shoot with Princess Kali.