Fm – Page 132 – Femdom Resource

Spiky

I’m safely back in Seattle. A couple of games of Civ Revolution and many glasses of red wine kept me entertained while traversing the continent. Often on these kind of flights I’m nursing some bruises or tender spots from a session. Dommes seem to take an inordinate delight in making the hell of air travel even more uncomfortable for me. It’s almost as if they’re some kind of sadists. Fortunately, despite a couple of very enjoyable sessions with Miss Troy Orleans on the prior days, I didn’t have to contend with that particular issue this time.

I haven’t yet had time to track down some good post topics, so I’ll take the easy route and point at some interesting content elsewhere. D has a nice post up on using a dermaroller that caught my eye. I always enjoy discovering a new pervertible and this one looks like a lot of fun. Blending sensation play and pain is always a favorite of mine. The old school approach to this is the Wartenberg wheel, which might not be as intense or as versatile as a dermaroller, but does look beautiful. This is Mistress Varla using one in a K is for Kink shoot. I found it on Dishevelled Domina’s tumblr.

Heading home

Today is my last full day in NYC. I’ve got one more lunch lined up at a great restaurant, and then it’ll be 6 hours of reading books and starting at the back of an airplane seat. On the plus side, going home will hopefully allow me to get back to proper blogging rather than simply throwing up a few quick sentences and an entertaining image. And talking of which, here’s today’s dose of whatever caught my eye on tumblr. It shows a nice moment of tenderness together with an interesting alternative use for nipple clamps. I’m sure that right hand of hers is a guarantee of absolute attention from him.

I found this on the My Inner Domme tumblr. I’m afraid I don’t have an original attribution.

Multitasking

Here’s a man making himself useful. He’s holding her beer, cleaning her feet and providing a comfortable seat. If he could just hold that remote for her with his other hand and flip channels on request, he’d be perfect. As it is, she seems to be happy enough with the services on offer.

I found this on Freya’s Fancy tumblr. It’s originally from the Men are Slaves site.

Self-defense

This image caught my eye for the positioning of the hands. Him trying to protect himself and her trying to pull his hands away for a clear shot. It captures nicely that moment of balance where he wants to do what he’s told, but the instinctual need to protect a hurt area interferes.

This is originally from the Young Dommes site. I found it on the equally deep in your eyes tumblr.

Beauty of my dish

Japan has a rich tradition of erotic artwork. Shunga prints have recently become well known and admired in the West. This piece is of a more recent vintage and is by the artist Ryoko Kimura. It’s entitled ‘Beauty of My Dish – My man’s body dish for L’opera gateau au chocolat’ and if you’re interested in purchasing it or similar works it sold for around $32,000 US dollars back in 2005.

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.

Kerfuffle in the blogs

One of the things I enjoy about blogs is watching opinions and discussions ripple out across them. As a medium they exist somewhere between a newsletter, a diary and a conversation. The dynamics are complex and I’m often surprised by what posts will sink without a trace and what will trigger a storm of discussion and controversy.

One recent example of this was a post by that well known troublemaker Ferns on the subject submission, consent and the D/s dynamic. That was followed by this post by kinkinexile taking issue with the definition of dominance used. That provoked maymay into a series of posts written with his usual tact and subtlety on the theme that ‘Dominants are Rapists’. You can read them in chronological order as post 1, post 2, post 3, post 4, post 5, post 6, post 7 and post 8. That’s a lot of posts, so if you’re short of time then 1 and 6 are probably the key ones to read. Spinning off from all that was this post by Tomio Black and this by gingernic, plus no doubt others I failed to spot.

I was planning to stick my nose into the debate, but for the moment I’ll play the role of the lazy college lecturer and simply throw it out there for discussion. I am, after all, a resource site. Possibly I’ll come back to it in a future post. It should also go without saying that a link here does not imply endorsement of any particular viewpoint. The set of things I find interesting includes many which annoy or infuriate me.

As a meta-comment on the debate itself, I will say that maymay’s case is not enhanced by his tendency to classify the emotional and angry responses generated as proof that he’s getting close to the truth. I could post that all submissives are sad losers who don’t deserve a real relationship and generate a lot of strong responses. That wouldn’t constitute proof that I’d hit a nerve and was onto something. It reminds me of the old joke – ‘Yes, it’s true they laughed at the Wright brothers, but it’s also true that they laughed at Bozo the clown’.

I wasn’t really sure what image to go with here, but seeing as Ferns mentioned chores, I’ll run with that particular theme.

Victoria’s history

I found this recent Slate article on the history of the Victoria’s Secret company interesting. I’d always assumed that fancy lingerie stores were a standard fixture in the boutique shopping areas of most cities. Apparently that only became true in America in the 1980’s when Victoria’s Secret went from a company founded with $80,000 in ’77 to a $1.9B empire by ’95. I was particularly amused by the fact that the founder originally created it because the department stores made him feel like a ‘deviant’ for shopping there and he wanted somewhere for men to be comfortable. I know quite a few dommes where that embarrassment and deviance factor would count as a bonus not a drawback.

Of course this story gives me an excuse to feature a suitably frilly image with a hint of femdom. This is Larisa Fraser shot for Bonprix lingerie.

Chestnuts roasting on a high power hair dryer

I thought I’d seen most forms of CBT, but this is a new one to me. I’m not sure if the silver foil is designed to spread the heat, concentrate the heat or simply ensure he bastes evenly in his own juices. Either way it looks like a particularly intense form of torture. On the plus side he might end up with some stylishly coiffured pubic hair.

This is originally from the OWK site. I found it on the Dominalova tumblr.

Autonomy continued

At the risk of making the blog endlessly self-referential, I’m going to continue the theme of autonomy from yesterday’s post, and respond to an interesting comment that was left. You can read the whole thing here but the essence of it was: What about 24×7 mistress/slave relationship that doesn’t use safewords? That is a loss of autonomy, but in the context of a loving trusting relationship. How can that be abuse?

I think the issue of safewords in this context is a red herring. I also don’t use safewords when I play with people I know well. I trust they’ll play safely and respond when I communicate a problem. And in the context of an daily 24×7 relationship it’d be kind of weird to safeword. They’re really a very specific safety mechanism that’s useful when doing particular types of scenes or playing with someone new.

What I think is key is that the slave always has an option to step-back and renegotiate (in the loosest and most general sense of that word). Ultimately they must always have the option to walk away. That doesn’t necessarily give the slave control of the relationship. The dominant might simply say it’s my way or the highway, and that single simple choice to consent might carry a lot of significant implications. But meaningful consent can only come from autonomy – from the ability to make an un-coerced decision. If you don’t have that then you can’t consent. And if you don’t consent then that’s an abusive relationship.

I was going to go on to say that you can never negotiate away the need for consent, but with further thought I’m not sure that’s true. I can conceive of doing it for short time periods. For example, a heavy corporal scene where a submissive agrees to be tied down and given 12 stripes of the cane with no option for escape. That seems a reasonable situation for a submissive to briefly give up his autonomy entirely. It might be painful, but it’s not dangerous, and it’s for a very limited time period. I don’t think it’s reasonable to stretch that kind of agreement for weeks or months. I’m not sure where that line is drawn, but I’m sure there is one.

Of course there is one scenario where a lack of autonomy doesn’t necessarily imply abuse, and that’s if you’re unlucky enough to be caught up in the penal system. Prisons don’t go much for negotiated scenes and safewords. I’m not sure what crime the man below committed, or what police department issued her uniform, but I’m sure justice will be served.

The image is by the very talented artist Vernice61. I believe she’s saying ‘And drink it down!”