Stupid Comcast knocked out my internet access for most of the night. It has returned as I’m about to head to bed, so I’m just going to throw up a little D/s eye candy in this short post. Enjoy!
This is from the Alias Slave tumblr.
Tag: Fm
Rapt in rope
I spent several hours tonight entrapped by a rather large amount of rope. Somewhere between a 100 and 150 feet of it by Lydia’s estimate. I’m not sure we’ve ever used that much before, except perhaps in a couple of suspension scenes. In this case I was flat on my back, with a rope harness around the torso acting as an anchor point for all the other strands that captured my limbs. There were also electrics, clamps and chopsticks involved at various times. Oh, and classical music. Normally that wouldn’t be torture in itself, but when you’ve got a microphone and a sound activated electrical device hooked up to your genitals, well lets just say you don’t want too many rolling drums or crashing cymbals.
We didn’t snap any photographs, but I thought the one below seemed appropriate for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there was a head harness involved, although in my case it was a single strand as a knot gag and then a pair of strands as an inverted Y across my nose. Secondly, nipple caressing was also featured. Unfortunately, it was the other way around, and done immediately after the removal of four really vicious little clamps. That means every touch, no matter how gentle, was agony. It takes a particularly cunning sadist to twist something that should be pleasurable into a painful torment.
I found this image on the Sweet Note image board.
His chiropractor would not approve
I like the bowed shape the guy is making here. The vertical rope, with him curving back to receive the flogger creates a nicely composed scene. I’m not sure if it was originally in black and white, but it certainly helps the shot, with the two of them silhouetted against the dappled tree.
However, after tweaking my back last year, I can’t look at these kind of shots without wincing. I’ve got to think that the reverse flex is really hard on the lower disks. At first I thought it was just how he’d chosen to stand. But as I study it now I’m wondering if there are stinging nettles in front of him. If so, that’s a particularly devious predicament bondage set-up.
I found this on the Domenique Von Sternenberg tumblr.
Big brother is watching you
Anyone writing a sex blog has to consider the issues of privacy and anonymity. Just how much do you reveal to the world about your life and what risks are you prepared to take with your real identity? A few bloggers choose to share their identity, most hide behind a pseudonym. Similarly when it comes to personal images, a few post faces shots, but most choose to censor to some extent. There’s a tricky balance to strike between sharing interesting information and creating potential problems for daily life outside of kink.
When I started writing this blog I made a conscious decision on where I was going to draw that line. I definitely wanted to share very personal thoughts, activities and images from my life. At the same time I didn’t want this blog popping up on search engines for anyone looking for the ‘real life’ me. As a result, while I’m safe from family members or employees googling me, anyone who knows me and happened to browse this blog would probably identify me fairly quickly. I think a combination of the about page, the personal snippets that sneak into posts and the body shots of my sessions would be enough for that. I think it’s fairly unlikely to happen, and it wouldn’t be the end of the world if it did, but it’s definitely a possibility that lurks uncomfortably in the back of my brain.
I was therefore intrigued to see a letter to Dan Savage in a recent column touching on this very issue.
How are you supposed to react to the discovery—entirely accidental—that your youngest brother has a “femdom” relationship with his wife? I stumbled over my brother’s “anonymous” sex blog. It goes into detail about the “domestic discipline” she subjects him to: humiliation, spanking, “ruined orgasms” (whatever that is!), cuckolding. There are no names, but there are pictures. Their faces are blurred out, but I recognize their living room, their bedroom, the necklace my sister-in-law wears, my brother’s chin and hair.
The actual blog isn’t mentioned, but I couldn’t help wondering if it belonged to any of my readers. Or even if it was one of the blogs on my blogroll. If you’re a femdom blogger reading this and have an older brother who has suddenly started behaving oddly and will not meet your eye, then you may have a very awkward conversation in your future. That is if he doesn’t follow Dan’s advice to keep his mouth shut.
There is of course the issue of exactly how the older brother ‘stumbled’ on their sex blog. It’s not the kind of thing one would typically come across via normal aimless browsing. From the letter he seems a little confused about what a ruined orgasm is, so on the off-chance he also inadvertently stumbles onto this blog, I thought I’d help him out. The images below are from animated gifs showing a trio of nicely ruined orgasms. Click through to see the animations on tumblr.
Smirk
This shot makes me very happy. I really can’t think of any description of her expression other than ‘smirk’. She’s obviously thinking “I’m fucking him up the ass and you’re photographing it. How great is that?” She has the best grin in the world.
I found this on the pegtastic tumblr.
Rectum? Damn near killed him!
An attractive Asian mistress standing over a wax splattered slave isn’t a particularly unusual femdom shot. Having the slave bound with heavy ropes to a couple of ornate side tables is a little rarer. Sticking what looks like a lit firework in a delicate part of the slaves anatomy is pretty much unique in my extensive porn surfing experience. Of course I now standby for people to bombard me links to the numerous firework BDSM tumblrs that are no doubt out there. FemdomFireworkFetish.tumblr.com perhaps? Or maybe CherryBombCherryPoppers.tumblr.com?
Despite the post title I think it might actually be stuck in his urethra, although it’s kind of hard to see. I’m also a little puzzled what she’s doing with the string she’s holding. Is that a ‘pull in case of emergency’ cord? Or is she simply using it to steer the spray of fire?
I’ve never experienced anything quite as dramatic as this, although I did enjoy sparklers in the cell popping session I did last year. In that case Lady Lydia passed them over my torso from an inch or two away. They were very pretty and gave a nice prickling pain effect as the sparks splashed against the skin.
I found this on the SweetNote femdom image board.
Short and sweet
After all the verbiage in the last three posts I thought something simple and to the point was called for today. I don’t know the original artist for this image or anything about it. I just like it. She manages to look both a little tentative and yet still commanding all at the same time.
I found this on the lifes beauty (aka django mango) tumblr. If anyone does have any background on the image or can attribute it for me then please leave a comment and I’ll update the post.
Kink, sex and money (concluded)
So here’s what I promise is my third and final post in this mini-series. Having talked about different types of sex work and the way I believe the law has shaped them into their current forms, I though it’d be interesting to mull over what would happen if the laws were liberalized. Would that be a good thing?
On the face of it this seems like a dumb question. Removing the legal risk for both sex-workers and clients would seem to benefit them both. I think that’s certainly true for escorts and their clients, but the picture is potentially a little more complex in the kinky domain.
Lets assume that I was right about the impact the law has had on the shape of the commercial BDSM industry. Lets also assume if the laws were liberalized that we’d see a similar evolution to what happened in the pornography industry. The two current distinct markets of sex and BDSM would intermingle and the intersection between them become a far more significant factor. That not only mirrors what happened in porn, it would also more closely reflect how a lot of kinky people play in non-commercial settings. What might the effects of this be?
Firstly, it means pro-dommes could set boundaries based on their personal limits rather than legal constraints. For some, probably a majority, this wouldn’t change anything. But undoubtedly a non-trivial fraction would be open to incorporating more sexual play (which is not necessarily the same thing as conventional intercourse). At the same time the way would be open for escorts to more easily contact and market to current pro-domme clients. The forums and boards that only allow discussion of legal kinky activities would be able to host a much wider range of topics and sex worker views. The end result of all that would be a more complex and varied market place. The (almost) universal rules about not requesting any sexual activity would be out the window.
You could argue that this wouldn’t matter. A session setup is always a negotiation between two individuals anyway. Not all dommes do the same set of activities today, so what would be different? I suspect that one difference might be the hassle factor. With a fuzzier definition of what’s acceptable, clients would have much more varied expectations, and more to negotiate about. The “…but mistress x let me do this…” factor would rise significantly. Another difference might be pressure to compete in the marketplace against more sexual providers. Would we lose experienced and expert mistresses who couldn’t remain commercially viable at limits they were comfortable with?
It might also affect the intake of new pro-dommes. I think the current barrier to entry to the profession is lowered by the fact a domme remains clothed and sexual activity is not an option. Arguably this attracts too many women without a kinky bone in their body who see it as an easy way to make good money (see this article for example). I think that’s a very misguided approach, as being a good pro-domme requires immense skills and talent (as I’ve said in the past). However, I wonder how many pro-dommes got involved because traditional sexual activity wasn’t required, and then discovered a kinky dominant side that they enjoyed exploring. How many potentially great dommes would be lost in a more sexual market space?
My final point is a kind of obscure one, and a little bit of a personal one. At present I suspect that there is a hidden subsidy that flows from one group of pro-domme clients to another. Today a guy into body worship, verbal humiliation and tease and denial may well visit the same pro-domme as a guy into heavy leather bondage and electrical play. The latter requires expensive equipment while the former requires very little. So those clients into the lighter side of kink are helping to subsidize the guys who enjoy all the custom furniture and expensive toys many pro-dommes own. If the market was more finely segmented that subsidy might vanish. Maybe a kink savvy escort would be a better fit for the body worshiping verbal humiliation guy? As someone who indulges in a pretty broad spectrum of play, but definitely enjoys all the toys and tools of a well equipped pro-domme, that change wouldn’t be a welcome one. It’d potentially reduce the number of pro-dommes with well equipped playrooms.
Of course at the end of the day, all this is idle speculation. As far as the US is concerned, there’s little chance of having a sensible political conversation about legalizing sex work. The political system is far too screwed up for that to happen. As someone who tends to the socially liberal point of view, I think that’s a shame. Despite my speculation on possible downsides in some areas, I think when considering the bigger picture then legalization would be without doubt the right thing to do.
Picking a picture for this post was hard. The future repercussions of sex work legislation doesn’t lend itself to kinky photo fun. In my last post I mentioned Mistress Matisse, and given her varied career in sex work I thought she might be a good candidate for an image. She’s worked as a dominatrix (obviously), as a stripper (described here), as a peep show dancer (at Seattle’s now defunct Lusty Lady) and as an escort (memorably captured in her essay ‘The Whore on Christmas‘). Here’s a nice shot of her about to paddle the hell out of some lucky guy’s ass.
Kink, sex and money (continued)
In yesterday’s post I was pondering the intersection of sex and commercial domination, and suggesting that the laws around sex work had led to the well defined modern pro-domme industry. I thought in this continuation post it’d be worth thinking about the other side of the sex work coin, the escort business.
Now I have to admit that I don’t have as much experience in this area as I do with pro-dommes. However, I have hung out on a wide variety of sex forums and sites, and I’ve always been puzzled by one question. Why aren’t there more kinky escorts? While legal issues may have helped shape the pro-domme industry, why should that have any impact on escorts? In the vast majority of the US (outside a few bits of Nevada) paying for sex is illegal. So given escorts are already operating without the same legal and conventional boundaries pro-dommes typically have, why do so few not try to broaden their appeal to capture both the sexual and the kinky market?
I should probably briefly pause at this point to make clear that I’m not suggesting that the skill-sets between the two professions are the same. Or that all an escort needs to do to steal some pro-domme customers is to buy herself a whip and a pair of leather boots. But at the same time, you don’t necessarily need a MA in rope suspension and a PhD in medical play to mix some light kink with a little sex. Why isn’t that category better represented by sex workers?
My personal theory is that the reason can be indirectly traced back to those same laws that helped define conventional pro-domme activities. As I suggested yesterday those laws created a fairly well defined idea of what a pro-domme is and does. It’s a role that’s externally perceived to be about pain, punishment and humiliation. It’s about naked guys on all fours while a woman struts about dressed like a leather clad Nazi stormtrooper. There’s no fun and there’s no pleasure (as it’s conventionally defined). I think that’s an incorrect perception, I’ve had all sorts of fun, playful and pleasurable sessions, but it’s a common one.
This dichotomy of sex and kink creates a marketing problem for anyone trying to bridge it. The kind of forums where you can advertise and reach out to pro-domme clients frown on any kind of sexual service. There’s the ‘circling the wagons’ syndrome I discussed yesterday from the dommes (‘escort with a whip’ is a common disparaging description), and there’s the site moderators worried about any legal ramifications. Well know places like Max Fisch will rapidly delete any discussion that touches on potentially illegal behavior. On the flip-side, trying to market to the escort customers who might be kinky, runs the risk of scaring them off with all that weird BDSM stuff. Mistress Matisse wrote a blog post several years ago that touched on this. She had a friend who worked as an escort and would call up Matisse if one of her regulars suggested anything a little kinky…
…she always introduced me by another name, because a lot of her guys displayed nervousness when she floated the idea of bringing in “a pro domme”. Oh, no thank you, that would be too much, they’d say. They weren’t that kinky. But when Miss K said something like “I have a girlfriend who has a flogger and a strap-on” – or whatever the appropriate thing was – the answer was: “Sure, love to meet her!”
Mistress Matisse
The ironic thing about the very limited intersection between these two commercial areas is that in the non-commercial domain that’s where most kinky people find themselves. A couple exploring BDSM doesn’t rush out to fit a hard point in the bedroom, buy a 6 foot bullwhip and enroll in advanced classes in piercing and cutting. Instead they do a little bondage, maybe some spanking or CBT and buy a few fun toys to try. Even among couples who get seriously interested in it, there seem to be very few who take it to the level of putting together the kind of set-up you’d find a pro-domme using.
Personally this gap in the market doesn’t bother me too much. I like the kind of intense and heavy pure BDSM sessions a skilled pro-domme can put together. Sex is pretty much the last thing on my hand after I’ve been bound and tortured for two hours. But I do think the distortion to the market caused by the law in this area probably leaves a lot of potential clients out in the cold. They don’t think they’re kinky enough to see a pro-domme, but they’d like a little more than meaningless vanilla sex.
At this point I’m going to once again stop with things still left to say. Looks like this’ll have to stretch to an unprecedented third post. Tune in tomorrow for more of my meandering thoughts.
Finding an image for this post wasn’t easy. I really wanted a shot of that rare breed – a kinky escort. Luckily my hard drive is replete with images from odd sources, and I managed to locate this one. The woman here is Tigerr Juggs, a London and Tokyo based escort who offers a very complete set of kinky services.
Kink, sex and money
There’s a post title with three simple and uncontroversial topics in it. I should have no problem dusting them all off in the space of this one blog entry.
More seriously, I’ve been idly musing over the intersection of these three areas for sometime, but this particular post was prompted by this blog entry by January Seraph. You can go read it for yourself, but the short version is that having been invited to participate in a pro-domme calendar project she was then uninvited for combing sexual acts with BDSM in the videos she’d shot. In the words of the unidentified calendar creator:
On a professional level this concerns me greatly. I require that all of the Pro Dommes in my production are not filming any sexual acts to protect my name, and themselves as well.
I found that extraordinary, particularly given that January had also offered to donate a full day of her studio’s time to shoot for the calendar, and it got me thinking more about sex and kink in the professional domain. I should add that what follows are my general thoughts, entirely unrelated to how January conducts herself in the different facets of her professional life. Her original post was just an interesting catalyst.
Anyone who has browsed pro-domme websites or scheduled a session will know that sexual activity between the domme and the client is very much verboten. Almost universally they’ll state that even suggesting it will get you hung-up on or booted out of the dungeon. Of course, there does tend to be some variance on where the line actually gets drawn. Some pro-dommes will do penetration with a strap-on, some will not. Some will limit body worship to below the knees, where others will do face sitting provided they remain fully clothed. But in general nothing happens that would typically be classified as ‘sex’.
I’ve also noticed a tendency for pro-dommes to ‘circle the wagons’ when it comes to defining what should and should not be allowed. I think this comes from an understandable desire to try and have a reasonably consistent boundary line across all pro-dommes, and not have clients confused about what they can expect. For example, masturbating a submissive (aka a handjob) is a fairly controversial area. That can clearly be a sexual service outside of a D/s interaction, and that can also be a very integral part of intense D/s play. Yet I’ve had lengthy on-line arguments with a few pro-dommes who tied themselves in logical knots trying to prove that it was impossible for a handjob to be a dominant act. It seemed that they felt a need to extend the entirely unarguable “I don’t do this” into the unreasonable “…and no other domme should.” I suspect that’s partly where the calendar project owner was coming from. She wants a consistent view of what a pro-domme does, and more specifically she wants it to be her view. Anyone outside of that is not just making a personal decision about boundaries, but in her mind is also bring her chosen profession into disrepute.
I think a lot of the lines drawn around professional domination have arisen from the current laws around sex work. For the most part it’s possible to operate as a pro-domme entirely legally. Some activities are legally risky (anal penetration, force-bi), but with care a pro-domme can be successful without breaking a single US law. I think this legal boundary line has helped create a more universal definition of what a pro-domme actually does. That’s not to say that if all the laws were repealed tomorrow that all pro-dommes would then suddenly expand their range of activities to cover more sexual acts. But I do think the laws have helped shape the well defined form the industry currently takes.
In this context, it’s interesting to observe the evolution in BDSM pornography in recent years. Ten or more years ago it was very much segregated from traditional pornography. Movies either showed penetrative sex or they showed traditional BDSM activities (bondage, fetish gear, mild pain, etc.), but never both together. There was a general assumption that to combine these two things together would land the producer in court under an obscenity charge (mostly thanks to assholes like this guy). The Cambria list provides a pretty good representation of what was then thought to be unacceptable. But a combination of the internet, a big reduction in prosecutions and producers willing to push the envelope changed the perception of the legal risks. Now there are sites like Sex and Submission dedicated to showing explicit sex combined with heavy BDSM. I actually know of pro-dommes who will not shoot for kink.com anymore, as sexual acts have rapidly become an expected part of a scene. So while individuals have kept their own personal boundaries intact, from an industry perspective the legal change (or perceived one) has acted to dissolve the strict BDSM/non-BDSM pornography divide. Now the material distributes itself across the entire possible continuum of activities.
At this point I’ll stop writing further. Clearly my original goal of nailing all the issues around kink, sex and money in a single post was a little ambitious. It turns out I’m going to need two posts for that, so check-back tomorrow for my continued thoughts on where escorts and kink fit in. Until then it seems appropriate to finish with a shot of Mistress Seraph, given that she was the original prompt for my post. Here she is doing a little CBT for the Divine Bitches site.
