Tag: Mainstream

The Unifier

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.

Virgin Island

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.

Medication

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?

Medical Miracle

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…

  • The clitoris did not even make it into standard anatomy textbooks until the 20th century.
  • In the 38th edition of Gray’s Anatomy in 1995 it was introduced as just “a small version of the penis”
  • The nerves of the penis were mapped 30 years ago, but it’s taken till now for the clitoris to get the same attention.

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.

Chyrpe

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.”

Ana Yuri – Chyrpe Marketing Officer – Camden New Journal

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.

Masochistic Hook-ups.

I thought this was an interesting Guardian article: I spent years meeting strangers for masochistic hook-ups. Was I a sex addict?

It’s written by Leesa Morris, describing her experiences with the aforementioned hook-ups. She left a vanilla marriage and leaned in hard to her kinks and desires. In fact she leaned in so hard that it became a dominating (ahem) and unhealthy element of her life, leaving her unsatisfied and unhappy.

There’s a couple of obvious takeaways. One is that anything can be unhealthy when taken too excess and dependency. The other is that if kink is an important part of your makeup, a monogamous vanilla relationship is unlikely to be satisfying over the long-term.

I thought it also highlighted a couple of interesting gender differences. Firstly, she describes the lack of aftercare in her transactional encounters in this way…

A solid part of healthy BDSM play is the cuddles afterwards. The official term is “after-care”, and it’s when the dominant heaps affection on the partner who has taken the punishment. Closing the loop, if you will. But because I wasn’t making meaningful connections, the guys would usually leave afterwards, and I’d be alone with my bruises.

I’m all for aftercare but I don’t think I’ve ever had a post session cuddle from a domme. Aftercare in professional sessions is mostly just 5 minutes to unwind, chat about what happened and drink some water. While I’m sure a lot of guys wouldn’t object to a cuddle and a lot of affection, we’re also happy to leave with just a hug and a bunch of endorphins to process.

The other difference was simply how many masochistic hookups she could arrange. A male submissive, outside of hiring professionals, could never make those connections so quickly and easily. While the difference in numbers between male submissives and female dominants may be over-blown, there’s clearly a big difference between the available of dominant play partners for female versus male submissives. And equally clearly,  both dominant and submissive guys are more at ease with transactional encounters. That’s probably not going to make news at eleven.

I’m not sure if this is actually aftercare, but it certainly seems like a tender moment. I found this via tumblr, but I believe that’s French domme Mistress Ibicella.  You can find her Bluesky here.

Second Skin

Fans of fetish, in particular its history and meaning, might want to check out a new book called ‘Second Skin’ by Anastasiia Fedorova. I discovered it via this LA Times review. It also got positive coverage in places like Cosmo and Dazed. I’ve not yet got hold of a copy yet myself, but it seems interesting and worth checking out.

“Second Skin” is more sociological than sexy; more anthropological than animalistic. Its raison d’etre is not simply to convey the history, the mechanics, the meaning or even the sexual pleasures of fetishism.
(from the LA Times article)

Discussing such a book does give me the perfect excuse to feature some lovely fetish imagery. This is Dusseldorf based pro-domme Miss Kiara. This touches on at least 3 primary fetishistic themes – leather, smoking and that black/white smart dress style. Although I’m sure those are not the only fetishes Miss Kiara might be appealing to.

Banging Heads

Here’s Wonder Woman fulfilling a common fantasy – cracking some political heads together. I’m sure we’ve all dreamed of doing this. Particularly with the current bunch of criminals in power.

The artist is H. G. Peter. He’s credited as the co-creator of Wonder Woman, alongside William Marston. Having just looked up his details, I was astonished to learn he was born in 1880. I know Wonder Woman is from the Golden Age of comics, but it still feels relatively modern. Yet its creator was born in the Victorian era and was already 34 by the time World War I started!

I Want Your Sex

A film featuring Olivia Wilde as a domme who pegs, spanks and bullies her junior assistant sounds like a winner. That’s the premise of the erotic comedy ‘I Want Your Sex’ which recently premiered at the Sundance festival. Unfortunately, the reviews so far (Daily Beast here and Guardian here) are mid to poor, which is a shame. Still, any movie that features Wilde as a sociopath in revealing outfits of leather, latex, high heels and chainmail (as the Daily Beast puts it) can’t be all bad. Maybe worth a stream once it makes it to a wider distribution.

This is Olivia Wilde attending the Sundance Premier.