The beauty of dominant women
This artwork is by the Italian artist and writer Enrico Marini. It’s from a series called Noir Burlesque. I’ve not read it, but I love this art style and noir themed stories, so I’ll have to pick up a copy. Who doesn’t love a red headed femme fatale?
The streets of Soho (NYC edition) recently featured an unusual collaboration between fashion brand Alexander Wang and artist/domme Sabine Tautou. Designed to promote a new handbag, it featured a heavy mummification scene with a man bound to a lamppost. Yahoo news has some background and TMZ has a bunch of photographs. On the streets of SF during something like the Folsom Fair it’d be no big deal, but I imagine Soho commuters and shoppers might have been a touch taken aback.
Hopefully the man wasn’t enjoying it, because then it’s obviously art. Anyone passing by was getting a free cultural experience and should be grateful. On the other hand, if he was getting off on it, then that’s a kinky scene that is non consensually involving strangers. AKA a terrible thing to do. They didn’t ask to be subjected to such perversion. Of course, if he enjoyed some bits and not others, then it’s ethically more complicated. Does one cancel the other? Or is it both a cultural experience and a nonconsensual kinky scene simultaneously? Like Schrodinger’s cat, just with less cat and more duct tape.
I’m beginning to suspect that the creator of the comic SMBC (aka Saturday Morning Breakfast Serial) has a bit of a kinky side. I base this purely on the number of examples of his work that I’ve found suitable to feature here.
The latest example is below. If you look at the hover text on the original site’s posting it says he once joked about this on old Twitter and a domme said she’d done in plenty of times. I’m not surprised by that. Kneeling on nasty things is a time honored punishment. Lego just adds a whimsical touch.
Personally, I’d rather take a heavy beating over kneeling torture. The very small number of times I’ve been forced to kneel on rice or similarly painful surfaces, I’ve had to safeword within a minute or two. I almost fainted on one occasion. Guess I just have particularly bony knees.
I’m going to risk repeating myself here. I blogged about the new Greg Araki movie – I Want Your Sex – back in January when it was doing the festival circuit. There wasn’t a trailer for it back then and the reviews were mixed.
It’s now on general release. There are a bunch of positive reviews for it. And there is a trailer which makes it look both funny and pretty damn kinky. I’m now actually excited to see it.
The Guardian has a recent interview with Araki on the film, where he reveals it was originally written as a male boss dominating his female intern. That was back in 2014. Fortunately for us, he decided to flip it around.
I have seen some comments online saying that it’s a shame to have a domme being portrayed as consent violating and abusive. I do get that, but I suspect in this kind of comedy everyone is going to be portrayed with some major character flaws. Sane, safe and sensible make for great scenes but not great drama.
Olivia Wilde in a scene from ‘I Want Your Sex’.
Femdom lovers are a varied bunch. We all have our own kinks, preferences and hot button activities. There’s no such things as a standard kinky person.
However, in many years of Femdom blogging, I have discover one unifying element. The common thread that seems close to universal. That’s a fondness for Catwoman. For some she’s a formative character. For others, just a fun, sexy mainstream representation of a dominant woman. Either way, it’s hard to find a submissive who doesn’t have a fondness for at least one of the interpreters of the character over the last 60 or so years.
This all came to mind thanks to this entertaining interview with Julie Newmar. She was the first actress to play the character and is arguably still the benchmark.
Newmar made the character her own, setting the template for a long line of successors, from Eartha Kitt to Michelle Pfeiffer and Anne Hathaway. Her dancer’s experience helped with the feline mannerisms: “I adopted two cats in order to watch their physical behaviour.” She even made her own adjustments to the costume, lowering the belt to the hips to accentuate her waist and taking it in until “it was like liquorice poured over the body; it fit that well.”
She clearly knew what she was doing, because that dropped belt was a lovely touch. While Anne Hathaway and Michelle Pfeiffer may have had more overly fetishistic outfits, it’s hard to beat the sensuality and playfulness Julie brought to the role.
Here’s a scene idea for those who prefer their humiliation to come with a philosophical slant. It’s by the cartoonist and graphical novelist Erica Sjule (also on Instagram).
Virgin Island is a reality TV show from the UK featuring 12 virgins on a 3 week intimacy retreat. Their virginity is unwanted and so the viewer gets to watch them work with sex therapists/surrogates and overcome their issues around intimacy. It sounds like the kind of show I’d absolutely hate and watching it would create a serious risk of death by second hand embarrassment.
However, it actually gets positive reviews and seems to have been created with some thought and a lot more sensitivity than the average reality TV show. I’m still never going to watch it, but it’s good to see thoughtful coverage of sex in a genre that typically leans into the exploitative.
I mention it here because an episode in the last season actually featured some femdom. One of the participants (Ed) was interested in submission and got to roleplay it with the resident BDSM coach – Shelby Devlin. There was exploration of spanking, forniphilia and some mild humiliation. All fun stuff and I hope Ed gets a chance for more kinky exploration in future. Preferably without a camera crew around.
This is the aforementioned Shelby Devlin. She’s a sex / intimacy and BDSM coach with a Master’s degree in Sexuality Studies. You can find her general website here and one that seems more targeted to BDSM and Kink coaching here. She runs workshops that are detailed here.
I believe this photograph was created by Alyssa Keys Photography.
I was amused to spot this vintage ad targeting doctors prescribing Valium (via reddit). Apparently relating well to women with domineering traits was a thing men needed medication for back in the 1960s. It’s a good job we live in (slightly) more enlightened times, or I’d be dosed up to my eyeballs. Although in my case, domineering traits leads to tension that’s more sexual than psychic.
I feel they missed a trick with the models used. We all know sex sells. Surely this was the perfect excuse for some more obviously domme fashion choices of the era?
I found this Guardian article on the mapping of the clitoral nerves amazing. Unfortunately, I don’t mean that in a good way. The bits that amazed me were…
That’s an amazing lack of attention to a major organ possessed by 4+ billion people. According to this article it actual did get some minimal coverage in Gray’s early anatomy textbooks but was removed in 1948! Then it re-appeared in the 1960’s, but incorrectly described.
Imagine if medical researchers paid a similar lack of attention to other major body parts? “We’ve heard of these odd knee things, but we’re not sure if they’re really worth covering. Something to do with the bending of the legs? Seems a bit of a niche interest.”
Image features someone doing their own hands on anatomical research. Although maybe that should be mouth on research. Not sure of the original source. I located it via tumblr.
Chaining yourself to railings is a time honored protest technique. Femdom dating app Chyrpe gave it a new twist this week, using it as a marketing stunt on Camden Town High Street. They had a bunch of guys wear femdom themed t-shirts chain themselves to lampposts and railings.
According to the app’s marketing officer…
“Suddenly people that did not have a space to find their partners, because it was and still is a topic that is looked at with shame and embarrassment, can now be confident to find a partner and enjoy it.
“We have a community where men enjoy it when women make decisions and take action. Kinks are always there of course but it is an option and they don’t necessarily have to act with it.”
I’m not sure how effective it as an advertising technique, but it got them coverage in the local press at least. And I have to salute them for using regular looking dudes. If you’re doing a marketing stunt for a femdom dating app, it must be very tempting to put a hot leather clad lady domme front and center. That would be the fastest way to get press coverage, but would also undermine their entire message.
I wonder if these are real submissives or just volunteers and interns from the office?
Photograph source from the Camden New Journal article. The Chyrpe site can be found here.
