Mainstream – Page 39 – Femdom Resource

Day & Night

Courtesy of this Huffington Post article I discovered this photographic series by Forest McMullin. Entitled Day & Night, it features pairs of photographs with kinksters in their daily life and then dressed for play.

The article itself is kind of a silly one. It has a sense of wonder and surprise that kinky people can have ‘normal’ daily lives. I get the feeling the author expected BDSM aficionados to spend their days dressed in leather or crawling around on all fours. Rather than a ‘Hey, normal people can be kinky!’ message it ends up being a “Wow, some normal people are secretly freaks!” one.

As for the photographs, I do like the variety of people they show. Photographs peeking inside kinky lifestyles are nothing new, but shooting pro-dommes in New York or inside trendy fetish clubs in LA is one thing, shooting regular folk from Georgia is a little different. I just wish the settings had been, for want of a better expression, slightly less porn-y. Most shots feature dungeon equipment or fancy toys. I get that makes for a better contrast to the ‘daily life’ shot, but I’m not sure it’s representative of a lot of kinky people. Some pervertibles from Home Depot and less in the way of fetish wear might have made for more realistic and quirky shots.

That said, I have to say I particularly enjoyed the shots of Adriana, Dea, Suzina & Tim, and Kim-Lady_Hotchkiss (shown below).

You can see the full set of photographs in this flickr stream.

Spanking as an orientation

This post brings you pointers to a couple of articles by the writer Jillian Keenan. Neither are specifically femdom, but I think they’re interesting and relevant to kinky people in general.

The first is an old one from 2012 on how she came to terms with and shared her spanking fetish. I’m sure anyone with a deeply buried and unfulfilled fetish will be able to relate to her predicament. I only wish everyone could resolve their issues with their partners as neatly as she seems to.

The second is a recent article in Slate on the topic of Is Kink a Sexual Orientation?. This is a well trodden path and there has been much prior writing on it. For example, I featured this by Clarisse Thorn in a previous post. While the topic might not be a new one, I think Jillian has put together one of the better articles on it.

I’ll probably throw together some more thoughts on the orientation topic tomorrow, but for now I’ll finish with a spanking image. Given that Jillian is a spankophile that seemed appropriate. However, it’s not exactly a traditional spanking shot, given the area being targeted.

I’m afraid I don’t have a source for this image.

A sad week

This hasn’t been the best of weeks. Robin Williams’ death was a shocking piece of news. I liked some of his films, but wouldn’t have described myself as a fan until I saw him live a few years back. It was at a small club in Seattle and I went just because friends had somehow scored tickets. I thought it’d make for a pleasant and amusing evening out. I ended up in tears of laughter. He had such an incredibly energy on the stage. I’ve seen many famous comedians over the years, but none had the kind of intensity he created. Heartbreaking that such a talent could die the way he did.

Following that came news of Lauren Bacall’s death. She at least passed on naturally after a long and eventful life, but it was still a sad moment. She was one of the great talents and characters of Hollywood. I loved her movies, particularly the ones she played opposite Humphrey Bogart. I think this quote about her granddaughter dragging her to see the recent Twilight flicks sums up her personality beautifully.

“She said it was the greatest vampire film ever made,” Bacall recalled. “After the film was over, I wanted to smack her across the head with my shoe.”

The first image below, with a bit of Bogart bondage, is from The Big Sleep. That has the unique characteristic of being one of my favorite movies and also one of my favorite books. The second image looks like a publicity shot. To paraphrase the great Raymond Chandler, she gives me a look I can feel in my hip pocket. In fact it’s almost impossible to find a photograph she doesn’t look amazing in (for example these two shots here and here).

Thanks for all the memories Robin and Lauren.

My Mistress

On the continuing topic of movies, although in a less family friendly vein, is a new Australian feature entitled My Mistress. It stars Harrison Gilbertson as a troubled teenage boy and Emmanuelle Béart as the beautiful dominatrix who lives down the street. I haven’t seen any reviews for it yet, but you can watch the trailer here.

Much as I enjoy seeing Emmanuelle Béart in tight latex and high heeled boots, it’s a shame the dominatrix tropes are so inextricably woven into the idea of domination and kink. It’d be nice to see a movie where kink and femdom wasn’t tied to professional dominance, and where the leading lady didn’t look like she’d be equally at home playing catwoman. Despite all that, the movie does look like an interesting one to watch out for.

Frozen

Lacking any children to entertain I’ve not seen the latest Disney hit Frozen. While I’ve no plans to remedy that anytime soon, I was intrigued to read about a set of handcuffs somebody had built based on those used in the movie. They’re apparently designed to prevent wizardly powers being invoked, and are therefore fearsome metal mittens that cover the entire hand. They even come with a fancy carry case. The effort put into them is impressive, but I wonder if turning up with a BDSM device modeled after a scene in a children’s movie might be more creepy than cool.

This young lady seems to have some wizardly powers all of her own. I’m not sure if she’s responsible for the snow itself, but she’s certainly responsible for making all the gentleman’s clothes disappear. I just hope she’s got an equally good spell for making those high heeled boots grip on icy ground.

Comic Con

The latest San Diego Comic Con just wrapped up. I’ve never attended but I would like to at some point. Spending a few days wallowing in that density of pop culture seems like it could be an interesting experience.

One of the new films being featured there was Sin City : A Dame To Kill For. Frank Miller has become (or revealed himself to be) a deeply unpleasant person with some of his later work and comments. Yet I still have a soft spot for his early work. The new movie looks par for the course, with ridiculous hard boiled dialog, lots of violence, brooding men and femme fatales in slinky outfits. Watching it will doubtless be a guilty pleasure.

The Comic Con articles I always enjoy most are those feature Cosplay. I’ve no desire to dress up myself, but I do love the effort and imagination some people put into it, as well as the obvious fun they have. The io9 site has some good photographs from this years event: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4 and final round-up.

The image below is actually from the 2011 Comic Con, but I liked it so much I just had to feature it. That’s Adrianne Curry as the evil commander holding Vader’s leash. If she’d been in charge those hippy Jedi wouldn’t have stood a chance. I’d certainly have signed up at the nearest Empire recruiting office.

Vanity’s Price

Continuing the vintage theme, here’s a movie poster from a 1924 Italian feature entitled Vanity’s Price. I couldn’t track down a detailed background for it, but I was amused to discover this original review in the New York Times. It was written by Mordaunt Hall, who was the first ever movie critic for that paper. Given he performed that role from October 1924 to September 1934, and that the review is dated to October 8th 1924, I have to assume this was one of the very first movies he and the NY Times ever reviewed. The review features mention of scoundrels, thrashing, startling gowns and charming of the opposite sex. So clearly nothing much has changed in films over the last 90 or so years.

The Institute of Sexology

My British readers may be interested to know there’s a major exhibition on sex due to launch in November from the Wellcome Collection. The exhibition title – The Institute of Sexology – is an excellent one. I’d love a laminated FBI style badge with that on it. There actually was an institute of sexology in Germany from 1919 to 1933. That end date should give you a pretty good hint which particular group of assholes put an end to it.

The postcard below is part of the new exhibition. It was originally sent from Paris to the Austrian psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. He’s famous for his studies of sexual behavior, published in his book Psychopathia Sexualis. He didn’t coin the terms sadism and masochism, but it was his book which popularized them. Unfortunately he’s hardly a poster child for kink, as he considered any form of recreational sex to be a perversion. That’s kind of amusing to look back on, given that 99% of sex these days is recreational.

Presumably he didn’t approve of the behavior shown in the postcard. It’s hard to get pregnant while riding a man like a horse and beating him with a rod. At least I hope that’s the case, as I wasn’t wearing a condom the last time I tried it.

Mixing work and pleasure

I’ve featured unusual scientific research on pain in past posts. A recent article from io9 continues this theme with details of 1933 experiment that lovers of CBT may find familiar. I’m proud to say it featured a couple of British scientists, whose names have sadly not entered history alongside other greats like Newton, Faraday and Darwin.

They were researching referred pain, a strange phenomena where damage to one part of the body manifests as pain in an entirely different part. They needed an easy way of causing pain and, being men, immediately turned to the idea of squeezing testicles. Also being good scientists, rather than the evil crazy kind, they experimented on themselves, using weights to apply controlled pressure. Presumably the Nut Crusher had yet to be invented. Their conclusion was that testicular pain also manifested in the torso, on the same side as the squeezed testicle. Perhaps my male readers can confirm or deny the truth of this finding? Or maybe try a repeat run? It’s not kinky, it’s just good old fashioned research.

Apparently the originally published paper doesn’t list who inflicted the pain on who. Personally I wonder if they persuaded an attractive medical student to do the job. You know, for science.

This couple appear to be conducting an experiment of their own. I’m not sure if it’s under controlled conditions, but she’s certainly generating a statistically significant amount of pain. I found the image on the Innocence is Bliss tumblr. I believe it’s originally from the Female Dom site.

Manipulations and modifications

I’m continuing the Photoshop theme from yesterday’s post with this image. It’s another example of a well done modification that sort of works but also clearly looks a little off.

The original image, with it’s chained goat and serious looking Evangelia Randou has a disquieting erotic aspect all of its own. Somehow that high necked dress is sexier than a lot of the crazy fetish wear I regularly see. I don’t think dropping in the hooded guy really improves the shot, but the original is so strange, it almost survives the change. I wonder if the man in the mask is also the manipulator of the image?