Mainstream – Page 49 – Femdom Resource

PDS revisited

After my posts earlier this week (here and here) on PDS (Public Display of D/S) I thought I was done with the topic. Then I stumbled on the image below and felt like riffing on it a little more.

Personally I don’t kink on humiliation and I have a very low embarrassment threshold. I can get embarrassed just watching television on my own. Some people hide behind the couch when watching horror movies. I do it when watching comedies like Fraiser or Seinfeld. All this means that I’m not big on being leashed and led through the local shopping mall in a pink tutu.

On a more general philosophical note, I’m also not a fan of dragging innocent bystanders into a scene they’ve not consented to. However, when it comes to public spaces a little bit of my libertarian side does tend to leak out. A shared space means it should be for everyone. The fact I may not appreciate a couple making out, or practicing their fetch/sit/stay commands, doesn’t mean they should automatically be prevented from doing so. It’s their space as much as it is mine. After all, if it was left to me, I’d ban Ugg boots and Cargo pants from public display. Aesthetically I think I’d be right, but it’s hard to argue from a provable harm point of view.

For me the deciding factor for a lot of these ambiguous situation lies in intent. If you’re trying to piss people off and get off on their shock factor, then that’s obnoxious and out of line. But if you’re genuinely immersed in your thing, and trying to do it in the least confrontational way, then you should get a lot of leeway.

All of which brings me to the picture below, which I thought was very sweet. It made me smile. For all my fear of embarrassment, I’d be very happy to be this gentleman. And anybody complaining about it could go and kiss some other part of my anatomy.

I found this on the appropriately named Kiss the Feet tumblr.

The cutting edge of gender issues (beware of icebergs)

I was amused to read this gawker article on an ironic Fox News snafu. The original Fox article was all about the benefits of traditional marriage and traditional gender models. Unfortunately for them the picture they picked to illustrate it was of the first same-sex couple to get married at the Empire State Building. Sadly they eventually spotted their faux-pas and changed the picture.

Although the picture problem was funny, the article itself is also pretty amusing. My favorite section is …

Prior to the 1970s, people viewed gender roles as as equally valuable. Many would argue women had the better end of the deal! It’s hard to claim women were oppressed in a nation in which men were expected to stand up when a lady enters the room or to lay down their lives to spare women life. When the Titanic went down in 1912, its sinking took 1,450 lives. Only 103 were women. One-hundred three.

Now I’m a man. Far be it from me to dictate when life was best for 50% of the world’s population. But I have to say that as general measure of happiness and liberty, the “chances of dying in a cruise ship disaster” test doesn’t strike me as the most representative one. If I had to pick between early access to lifeboats and say the right to vote (8 years after the Titanic sank), equal pay (<50% in 1912, and still only around 75%) and protection from workplace discrimination (not introduced till the 60’s), then I’m taking my chances in the icy waters. Although if I have to also listen to that God awful Celine Dione song then it might be a trickier decision.

While it’s idiotic to use simple gender based social conventions as markers for oppression, that doesn’t mean the social niceties themselves aren’t worth preserving. I enjoy the opportunity to display some old fashioned manners. Sadly, while standing for a lady is common enough, someone asking me to adjust their garter is a touch rarer. While this shot has an older feel to it, but is actually from 1981. It’s by Helmut Newton for Vogue.

Astride her captive

I’m not sure where I found this image. A reverse image search tells me it’s a character called Fujiko Mine from the manga series Lupin III. I’ve never seen the series, but wikipedia says she’s a professional burglar who uses her attractiveness to fool her prospective targets. In this case it seems to have worked out well for her, although her captive appears to be having second thoughts.

Leash laws

Earlier in the week I came across this story on a public display of D/s. It’s an advice column, and featured the story of a woman taking her leashed partner for walks in a residential area. The letter writer was a concerned neighbor who wanted to know how to handle it. While the ultimate advice given was good (be friendly and don’t worry about it), the tone it was couched in was obnoxious. It seemed to have no understanding of why somebody might do it and attributed it entirely to a juvenile desire to shock.

I was pondering writing about this when, courtesy of a post from Mistress T, I was pointed to a follow-up article. The domme in question, a woman named Kai’enne, had seen the article and contacted the columnist. It’s a much more positive piece and puts across their D/s lifestyle in an understanding manner. It reflects well on all involved, although the reader comments are depressingly full of the usual hateful rubbish you might expect.

Then, just minutes after I’d read that article, I came across this post by Mistress Alex. It features leashes, public exhibitionism, bootblacking and the photograph below. I wonder what the original letter writer would have said to this scene in her neighborhood?

Mistress Alex is a NYC based pro-domme. Her blog is available here and her professional site is here.

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.

I’m safely back in Seattle. Unfortunately I’m feeling pretty wiped out after spending a day in NYC and then around ten hours traveling (door to door time). So it’s time for a short simple post using something from my random grab bag of images that I’ve enjoyed.

I found this one on the devoted sub tumblr. I haven’t determined it’s original source, but I believe that’s the model Xenia Tchoumitcheva. It looks like it could be a candid behind the scenes shot captured while on a fashion shoot. If that’s the case, then the gentleman helping out the beautiful Ms Tchoumitcheva appears to have one of the world’s more interesting jobs.

The boyfriend trainer

For those looking to enjoy some virtual domestic violence, I have just the app for you. As this yahoo post describes, an Apple app called ‘The Boyfriend Trainer’ let’s you lead a guy around on a leash and slap/zap/mace him as you desire.

“Crack that whip and teach your guy a thing or two about being the Perfect Boyfriend!” reads the game’s description. “When scolding doesn’t work, just zap him, whack him and train him to be your ideal man!”

It sounds like a fairly stupid and obnoxious digital toy, but that’s not what annoys me about it. What really bugs me is what I’m sure would happen if this got tweaked into a BDSM app. After all, a lot of the actions described are things some men (including this one) enjoy immensely in the right circumstances. With some minor changes to the game scripts, and a new marketing campaign to cast it as a consensual D/s interaction, much of the criticism would be mollified. Of course if that was the application in question, Apple would undoubtedly ban it from the app store. They don’t allow sexual applications.

Jezebel points it out as a double standard between men and women. What annoys me far more than that is the double standard on sex and violence. Media featuring non-consensual sex and violence is a big part of mainstream culture. This application is a good example, along with movies available on iTunes like The Last House on the Left or I Spit on Your Grave. Yet mix sex and consensual violence together and you’re instantly confined to the porn ghetto.

Luckily there are better ways to train a boyfriend than swiping your iPhone screen. From the smile on the lady below, I’d guess she’s pretty happy with the progress from her training regime to date.

I found this image on the Mujeres Dominantes tumblr. It’s originally from the Strapon Dreamer site.

Punk, porn and femdom

After publishing my post on the AVN awards a couple of days ago, I dug a little deeper into the background of the BDSM award winner, Rubber Bordello. It looked like it was made with more humor and style than is usual for porn movies these days. I noticed it also won for the best soundtrack and best song, written by someone called Fat Mike. It took a few seconds for the penny to drop that this was the Fat Mike – founder, lead vocalist and bassist for legendary punk band NOFX. Not to mention his very entertaining side project of Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (famous for punk covers like Over The Rainbow). I’ve been a fan of his music for years, but never expected to hear a ragtime BDSM porn soundtrack from him.

It turns out his partner is Soma Snakeoil, domme, fetish model and director/writer of the movie. By all accounts Mike is a pretty kinky guy…

It’s something that I’ve always done in my life, but people think most of the stuff I write about is bullshit. “Oh, he must have made that up because there’s no way a Japanese dominatrix put out cigarettes on his nipples.” Yep, that actually happened. We probably have thirty hours of footage that didn’t make it onto Backstage Passport and it’s of me getting beat up in Japan by Japanese doms. That’s a double feature right there.

That’s taken from this interview on the background to writing the Rubber Bordello soundtrack. There’s also a more general one on his BDSM interests available here. I’m not sure if a punk musician can be described as mainstream (unless you’re Billie Joe Armstrong), but it’s nice to hear someone like him talking openly and honestly to the press about their kinky proclivities.

The image features Soma Snakeoil as the player and Perfect Miss Pixie as the cello. You can find more shots of Soma on her members website. Alternatively, if you’re in the LA region, there is the possibility of arranging a session with her.

Interlude

I did have a follow-up to yesterday’s AVN post swirling around in my head. But then real-life intruded. Which in this case consisted of friends, dinner, drinks, more drinks and finally watching favorite movies late at night. The movie in question was Watchmen. It gets short shift from the comic book aficionados, but I personally think it’s one of the best comic book adaptations in recent years. For fans of latex and aggressive women, the corridor fight sequence is definitely not to be missed. In that spirit, I’ll leave you with an image of Malin Åkerman as Laurie Jupiter / Silk Spectre II.

Cross-dressing meth priest liked sex in rectory

This is another post that isn’t particularly femdom themed. It also features the third kinky priest I’ve blogged about in the last week or so. But when I saw the title of the article, as replicated above, I couldn’t resist posting it. The San Francisco Chronicle carried the story in question, and pretty much nailed it in the heading.

The chronology of events isn’t exactly clear from the write-up. Becoming a Catholic priest was obviously step one. Not a great career choice in my view, but fair enough. From that I think he moved onto the cross dressing and having sex with men in the rectory (make your own pun up there). Good for him on that progression. Then he opened an adult video store, possibly the one fact they didn’t manage to cram into the title. Again, I think that’s a perfectly fine and respectable thing to do. Finally, he concluded his richly decorated resume by manufacturing and dealing meth. That’s the point I have to part company with him. It’s a disappointing move for a man of God.

My favorite line in the whole crazy article is…

rectory personnel became concerned and notified diocese officials when Wallin, sometimes dressed as a woman, would entertain odd-looking men, some who were also dressed in women’s clothing and engaging in sex acts.

It makes me wonder – did they need all those things in place before they became concerned? Would the cross-dressing have been OK, but the sex acts really put it over the edge?

I’ll leave you with a cross-dressing image, courtesy of Kimberly Wilder, that’s at little more aligned with a femdom theme. I think she’s being teased with the key to her chastity belt.

Dear Abby

Pauline Phillips, more commonly known as the columnist Dear Abby, died on Wednesday. You can read her NY Times obituary here. Not having grown up in the US, she wasn’t a big part of my cultural background, but I’d certainly seen and enjoyed her writing.

Reading advice columns is always a bit of a guilty pleasure for me. It’s fun to either feel smug at coming to the same conclusion as the columnist or indignant at how foolish their advice is. Not to mention the ‘sightseeing at the asylum’ element of occasionally encountering a nutty letter from a bewildered person in a strange situation. Dan Savage, writing in his tribute to Dear Abby, quoted what is by far the best and most concise response I’ve ever seen in an advice column.

Dear Abby: Two men who claim to be father and adopted son just bought an old mansion across the street and fixed it up. We notice a very suspicious mixture of company coming and going at all hours—blacks, whites, Orientals, women who look like men and men who look like women. This has always been considered one of the finest sections of San Francisco, and these weirdos are giving it a bad name. How can we improve the neighborhood? — Nob Hill Residents

Dear Residents: You could move.

In tribute to those women who dress like men and vice-versa, here’s an entertaining image I found on the sex is not the enemy tumblr. Personally I always appreciate a woman in a sharp suit.

I’m afraid I don’t have an original attribution for the image.