Tag: Hood

Strange Comfort

I’ve been in a bondage frame of mind recently. I think it’s the cold weather. There’s something comforting and relaxing about certain types of bondage. Almost like being gently hugged. That sense of relaxing into an embrace, with no further thought being necessary. Some people like to avoid the chill by cuddling in front of a roaring fire. Others tilt towards layers of rope, tight leather straps and isolation hoods. I think my dream scenario would be to combine the two, with heavy bondage and cuddling in front of a roaring fire. I really need to make that happen someday.

This image is by the artist Harry B, sourced via this tweet.

Black, White and Leashed

This fabulous image comes courtesy of Mistress Lucy SweetKill via this tweet. It’s a common trick to convert explicit shots to black and white in order to make them look more ‘arty’, but this has clearly been constructed from the start with a monochrome palette in mind. The elegant simplicity of the outfits paired with the blank but shaded background work beautifully. 

I particularly like the contrast between their universal body language and the extremism of the appearance. A dog walker’s attention being caught by something while the dog pulls ahead on it’s leash is a common sight on city streets. Deploying that body language here makes an otherwise stark and fetishistic scene so much more human and relatable. 

Fetish Pony

Fans of fetish artwork will recognize the distinctive style here of Michael Manning. He’s the creator of well known series Tranceptor and The Spider Garden. What I particularly love about this specific piece is that it’s a commission by  @DrPonyBatBond, featuring him with Mistress Michelle Lacy. In a world where content creators have to fight to get paid for their work, and erotic content is constantly being stolen, it’s great to see someone commissioning original artwork from an artist they admire. The nature of the piece and the kinks involved also fit beautifully with the artists personal style, resulting in a very memorable image.

If you’d like to commission your own piece from Michael Manning, then his commission page is here. Alternatively, you could subscribe to his Patreon here.

Use Your Words (revisited)

My safeword post from last week generated a number of thoughtful comments. The general consensus seemed to be that simple open communication was a good way to go and that safewords didn’t need to be particularly original.

poe2600 raised the interesting point that most submissives are very resistant to using safewords, even when they probably should. I think there’s a good deal of truth in that, although there always exceptions. I remember one pro-domme telling me about a client who she call the traffic light guy. He thought he should accompany their entire session with a constant stream of  ‘green… green… yellow… green… yellow… red! red!… yellow.’ Needless to say that wasn’t exactly conducive to a good D/s dynamic. Exceptions aside, I think it is true that there’s a natural inclination to try and avoid breaking the flow of play with a safeword. Which makes for another good reason to use your words and communicate in a more graduated and subtle way than a simple go/stop approach.

The trickiest situations for me are those where I see a possible problem arising later in the session and have to make a judgement call on when or if to call it out earlier. Typically this is when complex bondage and layered sensations are involved. For example, playing in NYC earlier this year I had a situation involving some particularly painful nipple clamps, a straitjacket and a lot of leather straps. Nipple clamps are usually painful going on and off, but become numb when on. These were not reacting like that. The pain was high and not diminishing, but it wasn’t yet at my stop point. However, the domme was about to tighten the straitjacket over them and I could see a lot of leather straps ready to go around it. Adjusting the clamps when they were hidden under all those layers would be a significant undertaking.

My solution in these situations is always the same – given the domme the information and leave the decision to her. I might be misreading her plan and adjusting later will be easier than I expect. Or she might prefer to push on and deal with any adjustments if it becomes necessary. In this case I told her that they were intense and bearable for a short period, but possibly not something I could handle over an extended period. She then elected to swap them for a different pair before pulling all the bondage into place. The remainder of the session then unfolded flawlessly.

These situations are always tricky because they’re not a simple binary choice. I also don’t want to be another traffic light guy and overload the domme with feedback. It’s ultimately a judgement call based on the the likelihood of needing to adjust something and how difficult it looks like that adjustment will become.

I’m fairly certain this shot of bondage and nipple torture is of Domina Yuki. That’s not me in the photo, but I’ve done a very similar scene in that space.

Command and Control

A few week ago Mistress Troy Orleans posted an interesting twitter thread on her approach to play and the difficulty of finding appropriate labels for it. I liked a lot of things about, particularly this sexy as hell digression, but I wanted to pick up on the following section in particular…

During a scene, I’m undeniably in control, but if something’s not working, I’ll adjust. My ego’s not attached to the action.

I think that’s an important point for people on both sides of the D/s equation. BDSM is complicated, particularly when doing heavy bondage or intense play. No matter how skilled the participants are – and Troy Orleans is very highly skilled – not everything will work out exactly as expected.

I’ve played with a small number of dommes who did tend to get frustrated or annoyed when a particular setup wasn’t working out as they’d imagined. Those were typically one off visits, because that reaction really kills the dynamic for me. I’m looking for someone in control, which means of themselves as well as of me. Control is about remaining in command of the situation when things don’t work, not trying to make the impossible possible. Plus, watching dommes creatively problem solve and experiment on me in realtime is hot AF.

On the flipside of the coin, from the submissive perspective, I think there can be a danger of treating play as a form of theater, with the domme as the actor and the submissive as both audience and props. That feeds into the bad idea of a scene as crafted narrative that needs to be executed for it to be successful. In reality it’s a highly collaborative process, where the end goal is a creation of a particular energy. Adjusting to something not work out should be viewed as part of building that energy, not a failure of the process. Variation and adaption are what make each experience unique.

Here’s a shot from Mistress Troy Orlean’s twitter feed of a man under her very tight control. You can see more media from her via her OnlyFans.

Self-Improvement

I’m starting on my New Year’s resolutions early this year by ordering myself a tight neoprene hood from Mr S Leather. Admittedly, buying fetish gear sounds more like kinky fun times than self-improvement, but there is method to my madness.

Regular blog readers may be aware that I have an issue with hoods. They stress me the hell out. A fact which I find annoying. Anytime I don’t like something it annoys me. I feel like I’m missing out. Hoods tend to be a big part of heavy bondage and I’d love to be able to incorporate them into my scenes. I totally understand both their aesthetic and sensory value, but so far that knowledge hasn’t helped when it comes to my stress levels.

My brilliant plan for 2020 is therefore to buy one for home and wear it in non-stressful situations. Like while washing up or doing food preparation. If I can train my brain to realize that wearing a hood doesn’t equal instant death by suffocation, then perhaps I can start to use them in scenes. I know of at least a couple of dommes who’d love to get me into their hood collection. In the meantime, if any of my Seattle readers spot a strange hooded man through the windows of a condo building, then rest easy. It’s just your friendly neighborhood femdom blogger trying to improve his kinky life skills. I shall keep you all up to date on how my experiment goes.

This is exactly the kind of fun hood I hope to condition myself to handle. Sadly I don’t have an attribution for it. As ever, if you know the source for this image, then please leave me a comment.

Sit! Good boy.

I’m continuing my theme from yesterday with this image. I’m not sure it strictly counts as a puppy play shot, but I think there’s definitely an ‘obedient dog at my side’ vibe to it. That’s probably helped by the straps on the side of the hood, which give the suggestion of flappy dog ears.

I believe this is NYC based domme Elena De Luca. You can find her professional site here.

At Ease in the Garden

Here’s a final entry in my trio of posts that fall under the category of  “Not for me, but wow, is that’s a lovely image’.

I love her composed elegance, and the color coordination of their outfits. Black, white and red used perfectly throughout. They even found a white bench and red riding crop. Plus, it’s nice to see a domme in a stylish hat that doesn’t look like a cast off from a military surplus store.  Personally, I don’t like playing outside or doing public scenes, but this shot really works.

I believe this from a modern Femdom magazine called ‘Goddess Love’. Apparently such things still exist in Japan, and even feature artwork from Sardax. I’m not sure if you can get it the US or Europe, but any Japanese readers might want to take a look. It makes me sad we don’t have similar magazines in the US/UK anymore.

In Your Face

I hadn’t intended my last entry – featuring pony play artwork – to be the start of a sequence of posts where I like the imagery a lot more than specific activity itself. However, that might be where we’re heading.

This image is from Mistress Blunt, and I love it, despite not really being into feet or foot worship. It’s very intimate, sinuous and sexual, while still retaining that D/s dynamic. The tweet was tagged as #romance, and that seems very appropriate. If feet in my face has to be a thing, this would undoubtedly be my favorite way to do it.

Mistress Blunt is an NYC based pro-domme.