Kinky Career Arc

Delphine (of the Bay Area) has shared an interesting overview of her career in kink and sex work via this blog post. She started as a bondage model with Insex, which I’d imagine was a real trial by fire. From there she transitioned to the domme role and ultimately added full service work into the mix. Her latest evolution, and what seems to be the trigger for the post, is exploring bondage as a submissive again. Not as a replacement for her domme work, but as an adjunct to it.

It’s pretty rare to see people who domme professionally also talk about switching. I suspect there’s a fear it might impact their primary line of work. Or that they’ll have to deal with clients wanting to top them. One exception to this who comes to mind is another Bay Area domme – Elise Graves. She creates a lot of material as both top and bottom for her Bondage Liberation site. Bondage does seem to have a special appeal that brings out the switch in people. I’ve zero desire to ever be a top,  but I could imagine getting into rigging and rope if I had a partner who desired it.

This is a shot of Delphine from her website. If you’re in the Bay Area and would like her to tie you up, check out her site here.

Met ’25

It was the Meta Gala bash last week. Normally the outfits there are incredible but not particularly aligned with this blogs typical content. However, the theme this year was “Tailored For You”.  That meant it leant into a lot more sleek tailoring that I think I can justify posting.

My absolute favorite was Zendaya’s Louis Vuitton outfit, shown below. There’s something special about a woman in a beautifully tailored suit. Anna Sawai had a strikingly similar Dior outfit and looked equally amazing. Kim Kardashian went for a leather corset and skirt combo that would have been at home in any kink event. She would need a retinue of slaves to carry the train around, but I’m sure she’d have had plenty of volunteers.

Oddly enough, the last time I featured the Meta Gala – back in 2018 – that also involved Zendaya. Her outfit that time was very different to this look, but equally impressive.

Plura

I’ve heard of a lot of unusual activities taking place in a dungeon space but never a ‘sound bath’. Apparently this is a ‘a meditative practice where participants are exposed to resonant sounds, like those from singing bowls, gongs, or other instruments, to create a sense of relaxation and deep relaxation.’ It’s a regular thing at LAs Dungeon East.

I gained this new information via this mashable article on Plura. That’s a new dating/meet-up/event app for people into polyamorous, kinky and generally non-traditional relationships. I’ve covered similar apps before – I think the last was FeelId – but they’ve never quite broken through to the mainstream. Hopefully, Plura will have better luck.

Mentioning Dungeon East does give me an excuse to feature it’s fabulous owner – Justine Cross. This is from her Bluesky account and is obviously shot in the aforementioned Dungeon.

Financial Mismanagement

Reddit recently had an ‘Ask Me Anything’ thread featuring a woman whose husband secretly spent $200K on financial domination. I’ve no idea how they validate the authenticity of these kind of posts – Reddit is full of creative writing these days – but it is kind of interesting to pick through.

What struck me from the comments was how often the old cliche of kinks being tied to previous trauma came up. I thought we’d all moved past that a longtime ago. There may or may not be correlation in this case, but there are plenty of people making stupid decisions without kinks, and plenty of kinky people lacking any kind of traumatic background. Hopefully, there is a good therapist involved here to unpack the mess and help them figure it out.

It’s a lot of money to spend, but the financial domination part of it seems like a bit of a red herring. Any kind of regular engagement with professional sex workers is going to get expensive, whatever your kinky proclivities. An average in person session with a pro-domme these days is $800 or more. Do it once a month for 10 years and you’ll be closing in on $100K. I’ve never done the math on my outgoings, but it has got to easily be into 6 figures. Fortunately, I’m an overpaid tech type with no dependents to worry about. In the case of the couple in the AMA, it’s the cheating and dishonesty here that the real issue, not the type of kink.

This captioned image has been floating around on various femdom tumblrs. Not sure of the original source. It seemed appropriate here.

Categorization Complexity

Is it rude to turn art into porn? To take a shot originally intended as art and present it in a sexual context? To change the artists intentions? Assuming we can judge their intentions of course.

The most obvious cases of this are image captioning  – literally putting words into peoples mouths. A good number of these take regular non-pornographic imagery and re-cast them into a pornographic context. However, even posting an image to a themed tumblr or a blog like this changes the interpretation. I sometimes wonder about the rights and wrongs of that.

This image is of Anna Monroy di Giampilieri, shot by Slim Aarons in 1984. He was an American photographer, famous for his images of celebrities and what in those days was known as the jet set. It clearly was intended to capture the wealth, power and beauty of his subject. I think that also makes it work for the Femdom inclined, but wonder how the artist and subject would feel about that.

Hooks

Writing about Fakir Musafar reminded me of one of the activities he helped bring into kinky culture – flesh hooks combined with suspension. His promotion of it was controversial, bringing charges of cultural appropriation. It’s a ritual used in multiple cultures – including some of the Native American tribes – and a bunch of white people adopting it into kinky culture was understandably not a welcome development for some.

I’ve never done it, but I have had several dommes say they’d love to do a flesh hook scene with me. Not sure what it is about me that creates the desire to suspend me from big metal hooks, but there clearly must be something. I doubt I’ll ever have the combination of nerve and opportunity.

While I might lack the right stuff, I do remember Mistress Matisse writing of her experience of a flesh hook scene. Oddly enough she was a participant rather than a coordinator. You can read about it over three of her old Control Tower articles – part 1, part 2 and part 3.  An intense scene.

This is Mistress Matisse from a recent photograph on her Bluesky feed.

Into the Dark

If you’re interested in exploring age play and similar kinks then I’d point you to this online course running this Thursday (20th).  It’s being run by Princess Natasha Strange, who is an experienced player in this area. Here’s a chance to pick up a few tips from her for a small course fee.

This is Princess Natasha Strange pictured in ‘Mother’s Den’ at her Portland play space. I sourced it via her Bluesky feed.

Black and White

My last post was about the use of strong colors in the outfits of female politicians and how that’s failed to penetrate the kink scene. That got me thinking about the opposite case: Why is monochrome so sexy?

There’s the obvious trope of black leather in kink, but it’s more than just that. Combinations of black and white crop up all the time. I’m partial to them myself. Is it the severity of the contrast? The seriousness they imply? The sterility?

I wonder if part of the story is practicality leading to fetishization. If you’re buying different kinky pieces to combine into different outfits, then colors complicate things. You have to worry about clashing and coordination. Monochrome is flexible and works in all situations. Dommes therefore bias to it, which leads subs to fetishize the look, which encourages still more monochromic looks. A colorless feedback loop.

I believe this is from the horror film American Mary.

The Uniform of Power

Miss Pearl posed an interesting question in a recent Bluesky post.

It’s very odd that people fetishize all sorts of things, but for dommes I don’t see a lot of people craving the color blocking powerful female politicians and modern royalty do.

It’s an established aesthetic, by this point.

I’d not really thought about it before, but she raises a good point. That is a very established aesthetic, as any quick image search will show. For example, this shot of Congresswomen from 2015 and the image at the top of this article.  But I’ve never seen it referenced or used much in a kinky context.

Is it too recent a trend? Most kinks take hold in a formative years, so perhaps kinksters in coming years will be craving bright red pantsuits. Or maybe political power is too diffuse and abstract to fetishize easily? Law making is messy even at the best of times, and we’re a long from those right now. Perhaps it’s down to how power is acquired. Politicians have to campaign and compromise to get it, which is healthy for society but not sexy.

Some might suggest that it’s because men fetishize the fantasy of women in power, but not the reality. They want it on their terms, not hers. But I’d never be so cynical.

This is Jane Grey, a London based pro-domme, showing off a suit in a particularly bright block of color. It’s probably a bit too daring for a politician, but looks fabulous on Mistress Jane. You can find more at her profession site and on instagram.

Femdom Decadence

If you’re in Southern California in March, enjoy play parties and have disposable income, then you might want to check out the Femdom Decadence Party. It describes itself as a ‘full day femdom immersion and play party in Joshua Tree’ and runs on March 22nd.

On the plus side, the Mistress line-up is a veritable Who’s-Who of LA pro-dommes. I can’t speak for the quality of the party or every domme, but I have had fabulous past sessions with attendees Mistress Damiana Chi, Mistress Inga Larsson, Mistress Kiko Rope and Mistress Lucy Khan.

On the negative side, it is $2,000 for the day per submissive. Which is a decent chunk of change. However, a multi-hour session with any top pro-domme these days can be a thousand dollars or more. So, in that context, it might be seen as bit of a bargain, given the location and dommes involved. Check out their website if it sounds like your kind of thing.

This is the elegant Mistress Kiko Rope, one of the attendees. You can see more at her website here.