A great example (of how not to do it)

I’ve often considered writing a submissive’s guide to organizing a first pro-domme session. Not that I’m any sort of expert, but I picture it as a letter to my younger self. The sort of article I wish I’d read when I was 21. Fortunately, I’m not sure I need to write it anymore. An article entitled ‘No, a dominatrix won’t have sex with you‘ pretty much provides the definitive guide. Just do exactly the opposite of whatever this guy does, and you should be OK.

Admittedly he didn’t initially realize she was a professional (in purely a taking the money sense of the word), but I don’t think it changes the basic message. For example, if she’s happy to meet you at 2am on the street and then mistakes you for her drug dealer, don’t do what this guy did and return to her apartment. Similarly, if the pre-scene discussion consists of her mentioning her boyfriend and then saying she’ll do it for free because you’re cute, that is not your cue to take your shirt off.

My favorite part of the whole thing was his last line – “The biggest lesson I took from this is one that I will carry to my grave: A dominatrix doesn’t have sex with you.” Really? That was your big learning point? A few others did spring to my mind. Add while that statement is generally true for pro-dommes in the US, for any random OKCupid date you meet collecting garbage on the street at 2am, I’d say all bets are off.

I’ll leave you with a picture of a real pro-domme having fun with her ‘boy toy’. This is Ms Mona Rogers, a genuine professional (in all senses of that word) from NYC.

Mona Rogers doing sensation play

That Wascally Wabbit

I’m not sure if this really counts as femdom. Bugs may have a penchant for slipping into a dress whenever the situation demands it, but he is consistently portrayed as a male rabbit. I guess that makes this cross dressing bestiality BDSM. That’s typically not a category that I’m eager to see an image from. However, this one made me smile. It seems to fit with Bug’s personality so well. And, God help me, he does look pretty good in that black, white and blonde get-up.

I believe the artist goes by the handle Bathgate21. You can see more of his work in this gallery. I also enjoyed this image, featuring Bugs, Elmer and Daffy. They make a great trio whatever the situation, and featured in one of the funniest cartoon sequences ever committed to celluloid.

Bugs Bunny dominating Elmer Fudd

10 ways to tell if your sex article is rubbish

Reading Cosmo has always been a guilty pleasure. When I was young, and furtively reading copies my mother brought home, it seemed a fascinating window into a sophisticated adult world. Now I’m older, and find it in waiting rooms, it’s still a fascinating window into a different world. Unfortunately the world is one of absolutely nutty advice written by people who appear to have absolutely no clue what they’re talking about.

I’ve recently seen a few blog posts pointing to a Jezebel article mocking Cosmo’s BDSM advice. However, I have to say they’re a little late to the game. Cliff over at The Pervocracy has been entertainingly pulling apart their sex advice for years now. And while mocking Cosmo sex advice is like shooting fish in a barrel – if it’s a tiny barrel, and a big fish, and it’s dead already, and you’ve got a shotgun – I have to say she’s doing a much better job of it then Jezebel. Here’s a taster from her most recent post

If you ask him out on a second date, he’ll likely feel emasculated… and that’s pretty much the worst thing you can do to a guy.

It’s gotta be inconvenient having your gender role defined by what someone else does. You’re going along, being all masculine, and then your date fucks it up and breaks your masculinity so you have to be feminine! And you don’t even own a decent pair of heels so then you have to go shopping! Talk about a pain in the neck!

And here’s a snippet from her take on their article on that book

Maybe it will discuss how BDSM exists as a community, how it encompasses a broad range of activities and motivations, and above all else, how crucial enthusiastic consent and explicit communication are in BDSM!

Suprise-attack him with a few of these tonight… and that’s an order.

…Maybe not.

Use the back of a brush to swat his thighs when he steps out of the shower–wet skin is more sensitive.

That’s not a sexy surprise, Cosmo. That’s battery.

If you’ve not read any of The Pervocracy articles before, then I think you’re in for an entertaining treat. In the meantime, I’ll use the flimsy above reference to a swat with a hairbrush to feature this image. It’s of Miss Dawn, a professional disciplinary from Cambridge in the UK.

Miss DawnIf you find yourself in the Cambridge region and fancy a swat across the thigh with this hairbrush (wet or otherwise), Miss Dawn’s session information is here. I originally found the image on the Strict Women tumblr.

Size does matter!

Slogans on t-shirts tend to have only a very loose relationship with reality. I have a soft spot for my George Carlin one – “Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups” – but in general they’re not a reliable source of information. In terms of credibility they rank somewhere between bumper stickers and Fox news. Although not necessarily in that order.

However, judging by the pictures below, it appears that Mistress Lana is someone who believes in living up to her clothing’s slogans. That’s a large cigar and an even larger strap-on. The featured gentleman looks a little perturbed. I hope for his sake the slogan on the back of the shirt is something like this.

Mistress Lana smoking cigar
Mistress Lana with strap-onMistress Lana is a Moscow based pro-domme. If you find yourself in that part of the world, her session information is available here.

Sapphic sisters saddle up

I’m not sure I can strictly count this as femdom, but it was such an amusing book cover and title that I just had to feature it. In my defense, the lady on the left with the boots, riding crop and oh so tight top, is definitely looking with dominant and predatory intent towards the demure lady on the right.

I found it via this article on some of the worst book covers of all time. Obviously in this particular case when they said ‘worst’, they actually meant ‘most awesome’. It’s available from amazon, should pulp fiction featuring sisters of sapphos and glossy coated fillies be your thing.

I was also tempted to feature this book cover, which might have appealed to all the castration fantasists out there. Unfortunately, I think it’s a photoshopped version of this book, so doesn’t really count.

The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

Today’s post brings you a two year old story that isn’t femdom related. However, it was just so ludicrous that I couldn’t resist featuring it.

The story features a man accused of possessing tiger bestiality porn. As a kink enthusiast I like some danger mixed in with my sex, but getting a tiger involved seems a touch extreme. I’m not sure they fully understand the concept of safe words. The police arrested him and took him to court, whereupon, as this newspaper articles describes

The prosecution offered no evidence when it was accepted that the tiger in the clip was not real, and that it was all a joke.
It emerged in court that police and prosecutors had not previously listened to the film with the sound on.
Following the act, the tiger turned to the camera and roared: “That beats the Frosties advert!”.

It’s a story that raises some interesting questions. For a start, just how realistic was this tiger costume? Are some of the Pixar animators now getting involved in making bestiality videos on the side? I’ve never seen a pantomime animal outfit that’d be mistaken for the real thing even for a second. Either we’ve stumbled across the world’s greatest animal impersonator or the police were morons. Also, where did they think the tiger was from? Did they start phoning around local zoos? That must have been an interesting conversation – “Excuse me sir, but have you noticed anyone fucking your tiger recently?” And exactly who did the police think they were protecting in this case? I know bestiality raises the issues of consent and cruelty, but a tiger? I understand that no means no, but I also think that getting ripped limb from limb by a 600lb killing machine probably means no as well.

More seriously, it illustrates a point about dealing with the police in these situations. This was a guy who got sent a joke video-clip and ended up in court because the investigating officer couldn’t even be bother to turn his speakers up. Imagine the incredible stress and hassle involved, not to mention the embarrassment factor, only to have the police and prosecution go “Ooops, our bad. Have a nice day.” The police aren’t paid to be fair or to try and do the right thing. Their job is to get enough evidence to arrest someone, possibly you, for whatever they think they can get a conviction for.

I’m both amused and simultaneously depressed when I see sex workers using elaborate codes and euphemisms to try and avoid legal entanglement. Payment is always a tribute or a donation. Sometimes it’s in roses, and they’re given just for time spent, never sexual services. Don’t offer the money, just leave it visibly on the side. Some pro-dommes will even not tell you to get undressed, instead the coded request is just to ‘get ready’. I understand the thinking, but the cynic in me suspects it’s all wasted effort. If a cop has decided to go after a discrete and professional sex worker who isn’t bothering her neighbors, then he’s probably not going to let little details like what was actually said get in the way. It’ll be her word against his, and I’m sure the jury will hear whatever magic phrases are necessary to secure the conviction.

If you’ve never seen the talk by Professor James Duane entitled “Don’t talk to the police” then I highly recommend watching it. Hopefully none of my readers will ever find themselves needing it. Sadly, as the original story shows, you never know when the police might intersect with your life in unfortunate ways. I just hope that Michael Palin and Eric Idle don’t find themselves under investigation for theft of a leg.

Finding tiger related femdom images for this post proved difficult. I’m therefore going to go with the law enforcement theme. Here’s Cole Conners from Men In Pain extracting a confession from Plew. Let’s hope he keeps Professor Duane’s advice in mind while she’s caning his genitals.

Cole Conners in police outfit with naked male prisoner
Cole Conners in police outfit with naked male prisoner

Public service film, British style

This advert for road safety strikes me as quintessentially British. Sexual innuendo, double entendres and weirdness in seemingly normal suburbs are a big part of British culture and humor. Road safety and kink aren’t obvious companions, but go ahead and click the link and you’ll see why I featured it. It puts me in mind of Personal Services, a British movie from the 80’s about commercial sex, kink and suburban strangeness. The scenes in the film bear no relationship to any kind of sex work I’ve ever encountered, but it is pretty funny, as this set of clips demonstrate.

While I’m on the subject of advertisements and motorbikes, am I the only submissive male around here with a crush on Carly Foulkes, the girl from the T-Mobile ads? I always kind of liked her in the early pink look adverts, and throwing on motorcycle leathers only added to the allure. There’s something very sexy about a girl who can ride a bike or drive fast. A skintight leather suit doesn’t hurt either. I’ll leave you with a picture of the beautiful Ms Foulkes herself.

Carly Foulkes

Tease and denial with chocolate chips

This is a bit of a silly photograph sequence, but it made me smile. It features Ember of the Suicide Girls conducting a tease and denial session with Sesame Street’s cookie monster.

Of course the Sesame Street characters are always ripe for parody. There’s the Avenue Q take-off and porn song, which in the weird cyclical nature of the Internet has been reworked back to the original Muppet characters. I also always enjoyed Dave Chappelle’s riff on it.

Cookie Monster in bondage
Cookie monster tease and denial
Cookie monster tease and denial

Schoolgirl fantasies

The comic below is from Nic Buxom’s site. It’s one of those sites that I find and then wonder how I’ve never discovered it before. She’s a professional dominatrix, but also worked as a pro-sub, and has written a large number of amusing and perceptive comics from the inside of the professional BDSM world. I spent a happy couple of hours working forward in time from this, her first comic, to the more recent but equally entertaining examples. Definitely worth checking out her posts, and perhaps also stop by her store or commission pages.

Nix Buxom Comic

50 shades of bleauh

BDSM has been popping up in the mainstream media recently thanks to the erotic novel ‘50 Shades of Grey‘. This book has been at the top of the digital best seller list, featured in mainstream magazines and newspapers, and just enjoyed a bidding war over the movie rights. It even got Dr. Drew in trouble for making dumb comments on the Today show.

When I first heard about it I was pleased that a BDSM novel was getting some widespread coverage. I liked the idea that people with a hidden kinky streak might feel they can explore it without embarrassing themselves. Then I took a look inside it via the free pages on Amazon. It’s pretty underwhelming. In fact I was about as far from whelmed as it’s possible to be. I can enjoy all sorts of gender and D/s combinations if they’re done well, but this has horrible prose, characters, structure, plot, you name it. I think this reviewer nailed it when she said “…this is a pretty dreadful book. Put simply, author E L James … is not a very good writer”.

I’ll quote a small section to give you a taste of what I mean. Here’s a scene where the male dominant is presenting his rules and limits to the lead female character. They’ve done nothing together at this point, and the female proto-submissive is not only completely inexperienced in BDSM, but is also a virgin who doesn’t even masturbate. There’s no reason given for this. She’s not crazy religious or anything, she’s just your typically 21 year old female college student whose sexual experience consists of being kissed twice.

I stare down at his rules. Waxing! Waxing what?
Everything? Ugh.

“So, limits. These are mine.” He hands me another piece of paper.

Hard Limits
No acts involving fire play.
No acts involving urination or defecation and the products thereof
No acts involving needles, knives, piercing, or blood.
No acts involving gynecological medical instruments
No acts involving children or animals
No acts that will leave any permanent marks on the skin
No acts involving breath control

Ugh. He has to write these down! Of course – they all look very sensible, and frankly, necessary… any sane person wouldn’t want to be involved in this sort of thing surely? Though I now feel a little queasy.
“Is there anything you’d like to add?” he asks kindly.
Crap. I’ve no idea. I am completely stumped. He gazes at me and furrows his brow.
From ’50 Shades of Grey’

From a writing point of view the ‘Ugh’ and the ‘Crap’ are jarring to read. The book seems to be full of these kind of interjections, including an endless stream of  ‘Holy ****’ (just in a few pages I spotted a heck, a shit, a crap, a fuck and a cow).  From a character development point of view I instantly hate the guy for putting ‘no children or animals’ into his list. Anyone who feels the need to do that is highly suspect. And from a plot perspective it makes zero sense to have a conversation about limits with someone who has no clue what is going on or what the possibilities are. It’s like the author knew about the idea of listing and negotiating limits, but had absolutely zero idea how to build it into the plot in a realistic and believable way.

I realize that my own attempts at fiction don’t exactly mark me out as the second coming of Shakespeare (although I did grow up near his home town), but there are a lot of genuinely good BDSM authors out there. Lily over at theblackleatherbelt just wrote a post on an anthology featuring some of them. Alternatively, from the femdom perspective, Her Majesty’s Plaything just featured a series of posts on Titian Beresford. Sascha Illyvich has even put together a handy list of 50 books she thinks are better options.

In my opinion the best literary thing to have come out of the book is this brilliant short parody written by the genuinely talented author Laura Antoniou (responsible for the Marketplace series). It’s far more entertaining than the original, while capturing the style perfectly.

It’s entirely possible that my original hopes for this book will still be realized. If it makes more people open to BDSM and exploring their own sexual desires then it probably doesn’t matter that it reads like the worst kind of internet fan fiction. And it’s nice to see an author making a bunch of money via one of the new publishing routes. I just wish this breakout book had been one I could recommend to people, rather than one I’d hate to be associated with.

Picking an image for this post was a little tricky, as Mf material isn’t the goal of the blog. I decided to go with a shot that featured both a female submissive and dominant reading a book that’s a touch better written than 50 shades of grey.

Female dominant reading her book with kneeling submissiveI found this shot on the Beauty of Submission tumblr.