Fm – Page 137 – Femdom Resource

The joy of a red bottom

I’m spending a couple of days down in Portland to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Updates may therefore be slightly more erratic than usual. I normally manage to combine kink+food+drink into my trips, but in this case I’ll be missing the first and most enjoyable part.

In the meantime, here’s two more images on the corporal theme. I’m normally not a fan of shots featuring the domme staring into the camera. I prefer them to be engaged with their submissive. However, the “Hey! Look What I did” genre is a happy exception. It’s always a pleasure to see a dominant take pride in her work.

I found both of these images on the Some Husbands Need Disciple tumblr.

Approaching at speed

Looking through old Leda images while preparing yesterday’s post put me in a bit of a corporal mood. So expect a few more images on that theme over the coming days.

Today’s shot features Cassie Canes approaching her target zone at speed. Personally I find a cane can hurt like hell when delivered with just a rapid flick of the arm. Heaven knows how much more it stings when the disciplinarian arrives at a gallop.

Before a fast bowler in the game of cricket delivers his first ball he will carefully pace off his run-up. The idea is to ensure his foot lands perfectly on the line (called the crease) as he releases the ball. I wonder if Miss Canes did the same thing? That’d certainly be a more ominous sight than the usual practice swishes.

I found this image on the Femdom Marriage tumblr. Obvious it’s originally from the Cassie Canes site.

Ed Lee

I was sad to read that Ed Lee, founder of Nu-West/Leda productions, had recently passed away. In an earlier era of really bad BDSM porn, he produced some of the most authentic and exciting corporal material around. As he describes in this interview, he was taking a big risk by doing so. The legal situation was very unclear and even if you won in court you could still end up bankrupt.

As a young femdom aficionado in the late 90’s I remember travelling down to London’s Soho specifically to hunt for Leda videos. I’d seen some of the still shots on-line and wanted to get my hands on some high quality VHS. There was only one shop that sold them (as they were illegal in England) and unfortunately they had a very loose approach to labeling their tapes. You’d buy 3 tapes and hope at least one of them was what it claimed to be. I suspect they were all pirate tapes, which no doubt would have infuriated Ed had he known. Being young and very nervous I never had the guts to go back and complain. After several trips and a dozen random tapes of all sorts of random porn (mostly rubbish), I’d managed to accumulate just 3 Leda ones. It was worth it though. The production values weren’t great, but the authenticity was never in doubt.

I’ll leave you with two shots from the short-lived Ma’am magazine he produced. Thanks for everything Ed.

Phrases of dread

There are any number of ominous phrases that I dread to hear. For example – “I’m not racist, but…” You can guarantee that something horribly racist always follows that. Another ominous one is – “We need to talk.” In my experience, nothing enjoyable or pleasant has ever followed that statement. “Please don’t be angry” is also a sign that happy fun times are not ahead. But perhaps the scariest one of all is – “For the sake of the children.” This phrase is a clear indication that provable harm to adults is about to be done in an effort to avoid nebulous and ill-defined harm to theoretical children.

The latest example of this comes from the beautiful country of Iceland. According to this and this article in the British press they’re thinking of banning online pornography to protect their children. The articles are full of weasel words and unsupported claims, with the usual suspects (such as the reliably overwrought Gail Dines) bringing along their axes to grind. The headlines would lead you to think they’re just targeting violent porn, which would be bad enough. However, in a nice bit of double-speak, it appears they’re defining all pornography as violent, so they get to ban it all.

I could pull any number of quotes out of the articles to mock, but I think my favorite was – “A strong consensus has been building, with people agreeing that something has to be done.” Which reminds me of the old expression: Something has to be done. This is something. Therefore, we have to do this.

I’m not sure how big the BDSM scene is in Iceland. I do know there are least a couple of pro-dommes there (Mistress Freyja and Mistress Dont U Dare). Last month I had around 700 page views from Iceland, which might only be 0.1% of the US total, but still indicates a non-trivial number of readers. So for all my Icelandic readers, I’ll share some horribly violent pornography with you before my site gets banned. I hope this doesn’t send your children off on a murderous rampage.

The obviously obscene and dangerous image is called Romance and is by Reraizure (free deviant art login required).

The holy trinity

I always enjoy analyzing the dynamics of BDSM play. How it works and how actions map into emotions. It’s an infinitely complex space and I’m sure everyone reacts to it differently. However, after playing earlier this week, it struck me that there are three main styles of interaction in the majority of my sessions: Pain, pleasure and comfort.

Pain is an expected part of BDSM. It’s the needle to the nipple, the cane to the inner thigh. Pleasure is also an easily understandable aspect. It’s the pressure of a vibrator or a gentle pegging. The third and final component, comfort, is the hardest to describe. It’s the soothing hand to the cheek or a murmured word of praise. It’s what calms me down when the pain begins to build and helps anchor me when my stress levels rise.

The dynamic can shift rapidly between these three themes, and I find it particularly interesting how that affects the connection between myself and the domme. I think most non-kinky people would assume that pleasure would bring you closer to someone and pain would push you away. Yet for me it’s very much the opposite. The pain elevates the domme in my eyes, making her the center of my world, and the comfort draws me to her. The interplay between the two is a very powerful and attractive one. In contrast the pleasure sends me into myself and weakens our connection. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy it or appreciate it. Just that it has a simpler, baser appeal, that’s much more about me than it is about us.

When it comes to femdom porn, it’s normally big on the pain and pleasure, less on the comfort. This shot seems a happy exception. Judging by his red marks he’s certainly experienced the pain part.

I found this one the adore femdom tumblr. The originally site has sadly ceased to exist.

An Englishman’s home…

I’m on the record in past posts of disliking the fake stone dungeon effect that often crops up as a background for BDSM scenes. It’s particularly galling in American, as this is not a country that has ever possessed a castle with a dungeon. Anything built in Las Vegas or Disney World really doesn’t count. Not to mention some of the monstrosities that a realtor over here would claim as a castle.

I actually grew up a couple of miles from this place. That’s the still occupied Maxstoke castle in Warwickshire (home of other great castles). I am prepared to concede that if your house has a moat, was built in 1345 and once garrisoned troops during the English Civil War, then a dungeon setting would be perfectly fitting for a scene. I’ll be the first onto the rack in that situation. Until then, can we not find some more interesting settings to use?

Aside from the silly setting, I do like this shot. Kneeling on someone’s chest is an interesting position. You can create pain with the knees, or restrict breathing with weight, and maintain a strong psychological edge by looking directly down on the submissive. I found this on the forBABALON tumblr. It’s originally from Men in Pain.

The importance of posture

I sessioned with Lydia tonight, so right now I’m feeling very happy and buzzed. Many photographs were snapped, so hopefully I can share in a forthcoming post. Although I still need to publish some of the photographs I grabbed with Ms Troy Orleans last week. As problems go, excessive kinky imagery to sort through is not a bad one to have.

In the meantime, let me highlight a particular porn bugbear of mine: Awkward postures for dommes. The D/s dynamic suggests that a scene should always be focused around what the dominant wants. So anytime I see a dominant looking uncomfortable or in a non-ideal posture for them, it screws with any fantasy I might want to create around an image. It suggests the cameraman or the submissive is in charge and the dominant is subordinate to them.

Take the two images below. I kind of like the head in a box idea. I’ve got to think it’d be a real mindfuck to have you head isolated and immobile in that way. But her position looks so awkward. On tiptoes right at the edge of a table isn’t a great place to be. Not to mention the muscle effort needed to ride him from that kind of posture. In contrast the second image, while less visually dynamic, looks a far more reasonable position. I can enjoy that picture without some annoying bit of my brain niggling me with “That looks uncomfortable. Why would she do it like that? Does she not have a cushion to use?”

I found these images on Lash Kisser and X Ray Ted respectively. I believe the first is from Divine Bitches and the second from Men Are Slaves.

The cutting edge of gender issues (beware of icebergs)

I was amused to read this gawker article on an ironic Fox News snafu. The original Fox article was all about the benefits of traditional marriage and traditional gender models. Unfortunately for them the picture they picked to illustrate it was of the first same-sex couple to get married at the Empire State Building. Sadly they eventually spotted their faux-pas and changed the picture.

Although the picture problem was funny, the article itself is also pretty amusing. My favorite section is …

Prior to the 1970s, people viewed gender roles as as equally valuable. Many would argue women had the better end of the deal! It’s hard to claim women were oppressed in a nation in which men were expected to stand up when a lady enters the room or to lay down their lives to spare women life. When the Titanic went down in 1912, its sinking took 1,450 lives. Only 103 were women. One-hundred three.

Now I’m a man. Far be it from me to dictate when life was best for 50% of the world’s population. But I have to say that as general measure of happiness and liberty, the “chances of dying in a cruise ship disaster” test doesn’t strike me as the most representative one. If I had to pick between early access to lifeboats and say the right to vote (8 years after the Titanic sank), equal pay (<50% in 1912, and still only around 75%) and protection from workplace discrimination (not introduced till the 60’s), then I’m taking my chances in the icy waters. Although if I have to also listen to that God awful Celine Dione song then it might be a trickier decision.

While it’s idiotic to use simple gender based social conventions as markers for oppression, that doesn’t mean the social niceties themselves aren’t worth preserving. I enjoy the opportunity to display some old fashioned manners. Sadly, while standing for a lady is common enough, someone asking me to adjust their garter is a touch rarer. While this shot has an older feel to it, but is actually from 1981. It’s by Helmut Newton for Vogue.

Astride her captive

I’m not sure where I found this image. A reverse image search tells me it’s a character called Fujiko Mine from the manga series Lupin III. I’ve never seen the series, but wikipedia says she’s a professional burglar who uses her attractiveness to fool her prospective targets. In this case it seems to have worked out well for her, although her captive appears to be having second thoughts.

PDS

I was going to follow-up my previous post with some comments on my personal feelings about PDS (Public Displays of Dominance and Submission). However, as I started to write it, I realized I really wasn’t adding much to the debate. The rules on how a shared public space should be used are endlessly debatable and mutable.

So instead let me make a meta-point: Everyone stands on a slope. By which I mean there is no fixed point and stable surface from which to cast other opinions down. If you read the comments on the two articles I previously linked to (here and here) you’ll see a lot of de facto assumptions about what is appropriate behavior in public and what should be reserved for private spaces. The comment writers don’t seem aware that their universal truths are not universal at all. Unfortunately, if you hang out on BDSM forums and blogs, you’ll often see much the same attitude coming from the opposite direction.

This isn’t to say that there’s no right or wrong. Just that whatever position you adopt on any subject, be aware that you’re on a continuum. It’s still possible to draw lines and acceptable limits. Just don’t try and pretend that what you’ve chosen is somehow God given or universally accepted. Anyone arguing from that perspective instantly loses credibility.

After all that pontificating, let me make amends to my readers with some more leash shots. In this case they’re from The Properly Leashed Male tumblr and feature gentlemen being pulled by something a little more sensitive than a neck.