Tag: Fm

Shush

Gags are weird. Visually, in images like this one, I find them crazy hot. That element of control and acceptance of control is a real button pusher. In actual play, my response to them is all over the map. Sometimes I love them and sometimes I hate them, and I’ve never figured out what makes the difference.

They’re not the only toy or activity I have a widely varying response to. For example, anal play can vary from awesome to ‘hell no’, but I typically understand what makes the difference. I’ve never got to that understanding with gags. Perhaps I need to experiment with them more. Despite most dungeons having a big selection of them, in my experience, most pro-dommes don’t use them all that often. Normally you either have to request them as part of the scene, or yell enough to start annoying the neighbors.

This image has been scribbled on my some silly tumblr owner, but I’m afraid I don’t have an original attribution. If anyone can help with a pointer to the creator then please let me know via the comments.

Updated: Thanks to Bacchus and this comment I got a clean and color version of the image. That in turn reminded me of an image I posted several years back. Much archive browsing got me to this post, and the conclusion that this image probably came from the sadly defunct Young Goddess site. Source successfully determined!

The ultimate kinky garage sale

Earlier this year, on the news that Kink.com was closing down its armory space in San Francisco, I pondered on what they’d do with all their fancy furniture. Now it seems we have the answer – sell it on craigslist. Or, more accurately, advertise on craigslist that they’re hosting a viewing and sale on the afternoon of the 15th.

It makes me wish I lived in San Francisco. I’d love to drop by and pick up something. I can only hope some of the furniture and toys finds its way into dungeons I frequent down there. For example, this cock pillory looks like it might be rather fun.

A waste of good alcohol

This kinky advertisement for the Oddbins wine merchant is … odd. I’m not really clear what message they’re trying to send. Plus, why would a domme spend the time to make what sounds like a very tasty cocktail, and then waste it? Surely the right plan would be to enjoy it while beating the slave, and the throw the dregs and melted ice in his face? They really didn’t think this through.

Here’s a lady who knows the right way to combine sex with a tasty beverage. Unfortunately I don’t have an original source for this image.

Dancers and Dommes

In a classic case of ‘why did nobody think of this before’, the artist Natalie Frank has done a series of painting featuring both professional dancers and professional dommes. I think that’s a very smart juxtaposition, given the physical, artistic and collaborative aspects that both professions share. That said, while I appreciate the paintings she’s created, it feels like a great idea that needs further development. There’s a sense of movement and rhythm inherent in both, and which comes through in her dancer paintings, but is less obvious in the domme ones. That set of pictures seem oddly static, which is strange given her underlying concept. I feel she captures the dynamic of the participants, without capturing the physical energy of a typical scene.

The exhibition is on display at the Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago.

Damiana Chi on Buzzfeed

Buzzfeed generally produces a fair amount of dreck, but this video featuring a day in the life of Damiana Chi is pretty good (Facebook version here). Produced by Tania Safi, its features Damiana Chi, her sister Jezebel Chi and a variety of their submissives and slaves. I particularly liked Max and Roxy, whose blissed out happy sub expressions mirror the way I feel when I play.

The above image of Damiana indulging in some rope bondage isn’t from the video, but from her twitter feed. She’s an LA based pro-domme, and if you’re interested in a session, then her professional site is here.

Twitter?

I’m beginning to think I should put together a resource page for Twitter links. I’m generally not a big user of social media, but I’ve come to like it for a few select use cases. I find Twitter to be oddly good for politics and dominatrices.

Politics because it works well as a link aggregator. Following just a handful of journalists gives me pointers to a wide variety of articles with some minimal commentary. For pro-dommes it seems to have taken the place of blogs and forums as a way to share photographs, thoughts and travel plans. I guess because it’s low friction and quick to tweet something from a smartphone. It’s particularly handy for snapping images of scenes or new equipment.

A few random twitter feeds I’ve browsed through in recent days includes Isabella Sinclaire, Domina Yuki, Morgana Maye, Mistress Servalan, Lucy Sweetkill and Lady Mephista. If there’s interest in my readers in putting together a more structured list of domme’s twitter feeds then let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

This is from Lady Mephista’s Twitter. She’s a Berlin based pro-domme whose regular site can be found here.

All in the mind

I’ve a session lined up next week with a domme I’ve not played with before. She’s visiting Seattle and I thought it’d be fun to get together. As part of our initial negotiation she asked me not to masturbate in the week leading up to our session. “No problem,” I thought. “That’ll be easy.” Turns out, that wasn’t entirely true.

I maybe should have a TMI warning at this point, but frankly, given everything I share on this blog, that point was probably several years ago. The truth of the matter is, despite browsing a lot of porn for this site, I don’t actually masturbate that much. Sometimes it’s just because I’m busy with other stuff, other times it’s because I like the anticipation of pleasure to come. I regularly go a week without an orgasm, so this seemed no big deal. Yet, now she’s planted that thought in my mind, it’s suddenly constantly in my thoughts. It’s like I’m a teenager again, where it just took a tight pair of pants or the slightest glimpse of a female curve to get me horny.

In years of play, I’ve never had a domme give me this kind of instruction leading up to a sesssion. And this is one I’ve never met before. Our chemistry at this point is zero. Yet still, she’s messed with my mind. Something I might have done anyway without thinking, has become a challenge. Long term chastity aficionado’s will no doubt be sneering at my feebleness at this point, but I’m fascinated by the effect such a simple instruction has had on me.

Complexity

I received a couple of fascinating comments from Michael on the recent subspace post I published. He concurred with my thoughts that his subspace felt different to the psychology definition of dissociation, but also described how  financial domination had triggered a reaction that did resemble the classical sense of dissociation as a detachment from reality. So prodding different bits of kinky wiring in his brain had triggered quantitatively different types of ‘subspace’ for him. I was trying to decide if subspace was more like X or Y, and it turns out it was both X and Y to the same person.

I think that’s an excellent reminder of the dangers of being too reductive when it comes to kink. There’s a tendency to try and categorize, box and label different activities and dynamics. I do it myself on this blog. Simplifying the world is the way we understand it, but it’s always important to keep in mind that you are simplifying, and reality is messy.

Kink is about power, sex, pleasure, control, fetishization, danger, risk, pain and relationships. You know, all the really simple stuff in life. It touches on our most primal instincts and our deepest emotional triggers. It’s hardly surprising that there are countless ways to experience it and although we may share common labels, we all may have slightly different interpretations of them. Be wary of people making absolute statements or asserting a universal kinky truth. I’m not sure there are any.

Weirdly I’m reminded of an old quote from a British football (soccer to the Yanks) manager called Bill Shanky who said that “Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.” If that’s true, then dare I add that kink might be even more important (and complex) than football?

In honor of Michael’s financial domination dabbling here’s a lovely piece of artwork from the ever brilliant Sardax.

Strangely Sexy

This is one of those images I like a lot, but can’t really explain why. It’s possible I have a minor bob cut wig fetish. Her long velvety outfit wouldn’t seem like your usual femdom porn wear, but I love the combination of both formality and comfort it suggests. The setting makes me think of perverse sexual practices in a rich and yet decayed 19th century mansion. There’s both a gothic and a romantic element to it.

I’m afraid I’ve no idea of the source for this. I’d guess a fashion shoot, but Google’s reverse image search didn’t give me any clues.

The Epistemological Problem

My post on ‘The Path to Subspace‘ generated a number of interesting comments. One common factor that came through in them was the problem of definition. How do I know the experience I describe as subspace is similar to that experienced by others? The same could be said of any mental state, but at least life provides us with many common references points to calibrate our understanding of happiness, anger, pain, etc. Subspace is far more complex, with no common path to it and no simple reference markers.

Alex commented that a therapist had attributed subspace to dissociation. At first glance that seems logical. Dissociation can be induced by stress and is described as a detachment from reality. Subspace is reached by stressful BDSM play, and often described as ‘floating away’ or ‘zoning out’, so that seems to fit. Yet, when I read the kind of questions they use to test for dissociation, the match seems less clear. And in fact, when I look back on my own descriptions of subspace, I’m not sure I’ve done a good job of capturing the sensation.

Dissociation is described as detachment from reality, where subspace to me often feels like reality has detached from me. That might seem like silly wordplay, but I think there’s an important difference. In subspace all that matters is the domme, me and the dynamic between us. The surroundings falls away. It’s not that I’m detached, or absent from my body, but that everything in our little bubble seems hyper-real. The domme fills my world with her presence and the sensations of our play. The pain, the smells, the touch, the intimacy and the intensity. It overwhelms me, and turns everything outside our space into an afterthought. It’s not the volume on the world being dialed down, but the volume on the two of us being dialed way way up.

If you’re interested in reading more about the post title then this is worth checking out.