Relaxed Selfie

It has been a while since I played, and a while I traveled anywhere. I don’t have an immediate plan to fix that, but I’m beginning to feel the urge to put one together. Browsing the twitter feeds of some of my favorite dommes and seeing their session snaps is certainly adding fuel to that fire. For example, the shot is from Domina Yuki’s twitter, and looks like a very fun way to spend an afternoon.

Stupidity in the UK – now slightly reduced

Regular readers will hopefully remember me covering some really stupid new laws in the UK that attacked freedom of expression and had a big impact on independent BDSM producers. Posts like this, this and this touched on some of the background and the law’s impact.

The good news is that the agency responsibly for clamping down on many independent porn sites (ATVOD) has been stripped of its power. And this month Pandora Blake – creator of the Dreams of Spanking site – managed to get her original ban overturned on appeal. She’s written about it on a blog post here.

Her site is now back up and running and accepting new members. So if you’re a spanking fan, and want to support a great independent site run by someone who has fought long and hard against censorship, then I suggest checking it out.

Dreams-of-Spanking_houseboy-film072This image is from the Houseboy – The Film. It stars Eliza Grey, Pandora Blake and Tai Crimson.

Creative kink

It’s not femdom, but I thought this article on the composer Georg Friedrich Haas was interesting. On the surface it’s interesting just for the people and dynamic involved. At the meta level it’s interesting how it was covered in a very clear and non-sensational fashion by a mainstream newspaper.

PianoThis lady has obviously misplaced her piano stool, but she’s not letting a silly thing like that stop her bashing out a tune or two.

What a dummy

Somebody really needs to start sponsoring pro-domme sessions for editors of gossip and celebrity web sites. I’m not sure they really understand the concept of domination or femdom, but perhaps it’d be possible to beat it into them.

The latest idiocy I’ve seen in this vein was triggered by this Interview Magazine photo spread with Kylie Jenner (photographed by Steven Klein). In it she appears to be pretending to be some sort of mannequin or blank posed doll. They are admittedly fetish shots, but she captures no element of a dominatrix in any of them. Carrying a serving tray with a glass of wine and wearing ass-less pants is not a very domme thing to do. Yet every damn gossip/fashion/news site (for example here, here and here) describes her as going for a full on dominatrix look. Most of them even lead with the picture of her being picked up and carried by a man, right under the word dominatrix.

To be fair the original article doesn’t use that expression. It’s just every idiot who links to it does. Somebody needs to inform these people that a domme is about power, control and domination. Not slipping on a tight latex outfit and doing what you’re told.

Kylie Jenner for Interview Magazine
For my featured image I’ve picked the one shot that almost works as a femdom shot, if you don’t see it in the context of the other images in the shoot.

Under the feet of the beloved

I’ll finish my trio of vintage themed posts with something from the German artist Paul Kamm (also known as C. Soulier). As you can probably tell from the style of this piece, it predates the 50’s images I featured previously. I’ve no exact date, but it’s most likely from the 1920’s or even early 1930’s.

I can’t say it does much for me erotically, but I do love the history it represents. Here’s a German artist born in the nineteenth century, drawing between the World Wars, working in a distinctive style of his time, creating a scene that wouldn’t look out of place on the latest kink.com shoots.

Paul Kamm artworkIf you’re interested in more of his art, the Femdom Artists site has a number of his images.

Not the brightest bulb

I’m not sure what’s the appeal of objectification as a lamp. I certainly get the hotness of objectification in general. It’s just the lamp part that puzzles me. Isn’t part of being objectified about being a useful object? Footstools, toilets, dildos and even shelves make sense to me, but no matter how sparkling their personality, it’s impossible for someone to literally light up a room.

This isn’t the first time I’ve run across this kink. You can see past examples here and here. I’ve never heard anyone declare themselves a lamp fetishist, or read erotic fiction on intertwined anglepoise, or spotted a saucy looking lampshade in a domme’s toy chest. Yet people are making images of it. Good for them and their kinks, but consider me puzzled.

Made with Repix (http://repix.it)
Lamp_1_by_LeBete
I found both of these on the Domination on My terms tumblr. The second one is from LeBete on deviant art. I’m afraid I don’t have an attribution for the first.

A stroll in the city (update)

A couple of days ago I blogged about a woman spotted in London taking a man for a walk at the end of a leash. There was a lot of social media speculation about who they were and what they were doing. Well apparently the ‘mystery’ has been solved. According to this article in the Independent it was an acting/art project designed to provoke and film the reaction of passersby. The guy was the ‘director’ who’d recruited the woman via an acting website.

Hmmm. It reminds me of an artistic project I’ve been trying to put together. It’s a very provocative, but very creative piece. Absolute nothing, and I want to make this very clear, absolutely nothing pervy about it. I’m looking for 2 or 3 talented actresses willing to challenge their ideas of what theater can be. Nobody with latex or leather allergies please. Past experience with knots would be a bonus, as would trapeze skills and small hands. I’ll provide the male talent, the location and a very detailed script. Obviously as a starving artist I can’t offer any monetary compensation, but I can promise an unforgettable experience.

While I wait for the applicants to come flooding in, this story does give me a chance to post another PDS scene. From the sign this looks like it was shot in Portland, but I’ve zero background on it. I wonder what artistic statement they’re making?

Resting on her stool

Heading South

I’m taking a few days vacation, so blogging might be a bit erratic until next week. This is my “Oh my God, the holidays are over, I’ve got months of work stretching before me, I need a vacation” vacation. I booked it Jan 2nd, just as soon as the New Years hangover wore off. I wish everyone could have one.

I’m heading down to San Fransisco. I’m not sure it’ll be as relaxing a time as this lady seems to be enjoying, but I will be following her example with books, cocktails and kinky fun. In between all that I’ll try and keep the blog updated.

Relaxing

I found this on the Femdom Style Counsel tumblr. I’m afraid I don’t have an original attribution.

Power & Control – Agency & Autonomy

This is a post about semantics and definitions rather than hot femdom action. That might sound a touch dry, but language shapes how we think, and writing about the language and labels of kink helps me understand my own kinky nature better.

The trigger for this was a post last week entitled Inadvisable advice and a followup comment by Grumpyoldswitch. I’m not going to repeat it all in detail here (feel free to follow the links), but the crux of it revolved around autonomy, free will, power and control. What do you give up in a BDSM scene and what makes a scene exciting? I originally stated that I never gave up autonomy in scene and the commenter suggested that I did or at least pretended to. He felt that doing so, and being dehumanized in some way, was attractive and what a lot of people looked for. So what does a submissive give up in a D/s interaction?

Power and control are two obvious things that are relinquished. It could be simple, like the power to talk and move around. Or it could be more complex, like the power to make certain decisions or behave in a certain way. So does autonomy and agency go hand in hand with this? After all, if I don’t have control over my body, and I can only make narrowly constrained choices, do I really have autonomy? I would say the answer is a very firm ‘Yes’.

The definition of autonomy is the freedom to choose one’s own actions. As Wikipedia puts it – it is the capacity of a rational individual to make an informed, un-coerced decision. That means that any relationship where someone loses autonomy is automatically an abusive one. That is an important line to draw. I might only have one decision available to me – the option to shout ‘STOP’ – but with that decision all my power must come flooding back to me. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 1 hour scene in a dungeon or a 24×7 D/s relationship. The ability to step back and renegotiate is an essential one that should never be lost.

So what about pretending to lose autonomy? That’s where it gets interesting to me, as I think that’s what BDSM play is often about. Some people fetishize the activites themselves. They love bondage, or spanking, or whatever. But for a lot of others, including myself, the activities are a means to an end. They’re a way of creating a D/s dynamic. By emphasizing all the decisions I can no longer take the illusion is created of a loss of autonomy, where in fact it has just being temporarily stripped back to its bare minimum. When I’m busy being the best damn coffee table I can be, then I don’t have to worry about anything else, and it’s easy to pretend that the option to just not be a table doesn’t exist.

Coffee Table

This image has been cropped but I believe it’s originally from My Slave Life. I found it on the Consensual Spanking blog.