Tag: Photograph

Art, advertising or kink?

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.

Multitudes

My last post touched on humiliation as a kink and elicited some interesting comments. It reminded me again that what looks like a single kink is always really many kinks hiding under a single title. It’s never a case of someone simply being into X. It’s always X done in a certain way for a particular reason.

Take watersports for example. If you’re not into it then piss is just piss. There’s only one way to not like it, but hundreds of different ways to be into it. Maybe it’s the animalistic primal nature of it. Or maybe it’s being objectified as a toilet. For one person it could be demeaning. For another it’s worship. Someone into wet messy piss play will have a very different scene to someone who dreams of being turned into a piece of toilet paper.

Humiliation is another example of a kink that’s simple on the outside, many things on the inside. A kinkster might enjoy a bullying dynamic that humiliation enhance. Alternatively, humiliation could be a cathartic release via an ego death. Maybe it’s about enhancing the domme by diminishing the submissive. Or maybe reliving an adolescent trauma that’s been eroticized over time. If you’re into objectification then humiliation might be all about reinforcing that reduction of self.

To horribly rework Tolstoy’s comment about marriages – every unhappy kinkster is alike, but each happy kinkster is happy in their own way.

My personal humiliation kink is very mild, but aligns a little with this kind of caption. It’s a positive and upbeat kind of humiliation.

This was a from a tumblr that had a bunch of similarly themed images. It’s sadly vanished, gone the way of many tumblrs. I wish I could find the creator again, as they authored a lot of well written femdom captions.

New Things

My LA trip continues to be a kinky delight. I’ve done two sessions with the amazing Domina Sophie Agenoux, both of which were a hell of a lot of fun. My last post gave a pretty clear hint about some of our activities. However, I also got to try a couple of new things. Given I’ve been playing for many years that’s an unusual but welcome experience.

The first new thing was a chastity cage. It seems weird to say this, given they’re such a staple of femdom and I’m a big fan of tease + denial, but I don’t think I’ve ever worn one before. This wasn’t a lengthy lock-up by any measure. Just a segment at the start of the session to set the mood. But it was fun to try and definitely did help create the right headspace. My top takeaways were that doing it more seriously for a longer period would require a properly fitted custom cage, and mixing pubic hair with hinges and locking mechanisms is a bad idea. Shave first.

The other new thing we worked into our second session was some gentle verbal humiliation. Until now that’s been a verboten dynamic for me. I was always concerned how I’d react to it and if it’d curdle into a sour post play emotion. I took a chance here as it seemed to be a nice fit with the tease/denial/objectification dynamic we were doing, and I trusted Domina Sophie to ease into it carefully. That turned out to be a great call, as it added a lovely frission to the play and Domina Sophie judged it perfectly.

I don’t think I’ll ever get into heavy and overly negative humiliation play. Being called a loser or useless does not spark my interest. However, there’s a variation I think of as the backhanded compliment: You don’t get to have X, you’re no good for X, but you do make a great Y. It’s demeaning – given a conventionally desirable X and a Y that is decidedly not – but in an oddly positive and hot way.

This shot of Domina Sophie Agenoux was sourced from her Bluesky Feed. If you’re in the Southern Californian area and wish to schedule a session then you can find her professional site here. I really can’t recommend her highly enough.

Milking the Dog

I’m a big fan of the objectification this set-up creates. The heavy and full coverage dog suit is dehumanizing – and therefore hot – in its own right. The suspension bondage reduces agency still further. The motorized milking machine will drag a specific reaction from his body whether he likes it or not. The fact he can helplessly flail those stubby limbs around but change nothing makes for a lovely finishing touch.

The creator of this scene is Mistress Hinako and she posted this along with a short video to her Twitter feed. As she says there – ‘I wake up early every morning to milk my dog’.

Working with Couples

Boston base pro-domme Jane Cockatrice has a thoughtful post up about working with a kinky couple and helping mentor them. The woman was interested in becoming  “…more confident in her dominance and learn how to create more intense experiences for both of them.”

I wouldn’t describe it as a ‘how to’ piece, but there are plenty of useful observations and wise words in there. For example…

Sometimes women become so focused on whether they are doing everything correctly that they don’t fully allow themselves to enjoy their dominance. They wonder whether they look dominant enough. They worry that their dirty talk isn’t perfect. They continuously monitor whether their partner is enjoying himself. They may feel responsible for producing his ideal fantasy while forgetting to notice what the experience feels like for them.

I think there’s an interesting balance to strike here from the submissive perspective. Obviously you never want to treat a domme as a kink dispensing machine. I always strive for sessions that have an organic and natural flow to them. One’s where the domme has the freedom to evolve as the mood takes her. On the other hand, you can also go to far in the other direction. The kind of sub who just says ‘Oh, do whatever you want Mistress!’ Dommes are not mind readers and guessing games don’t make good sessions.

I guess one could draw an analogy with collaborating over a painting. You can’t expect someone to be creative if you give them a paint by numbers picture and scrutinize every brush stroke. At the same time you can’t simply show up with a blank canvas and expect them to do all the work.

Image of Jane Cockatrice was sourced from her Bluesky feed. You can read more of her excellent blogging content on her professional site.

Money, Money, Money

Mistress Blunt has written a long and interesting article on the dynamics of long term findom relationships. You can find it here.

The common manifestation of findom – drains, cash meets, pay pigs, etc. – leaves me cold. I can intellectually get why someone might be into that, but it does nothing for me emotionally. Reading Mistress Blunt’s article was the first time the dynamic has really clicked for me as an erotic thing to do.

In practice, this dynamic can mean daily tribute requirements. Or it can mean you report your income to me. Or it can mean I approve of any discretionary spending. It can mean a legally drafted financial contract. It always means that the dynamic does not end when the session does, because there is no session. There is only your relationship with me, beneath me.

I kink on control and that level of control is undoubtedly hot. However, reading it also left me uncomfortable and with a slight sense of ickiness. It took me a while to figure out why.

It’s definitely not because I think Mistress Blunt is doing anything wrong or unethical. Far from it. She clearly puts a lot of thought into her relationships.

I think it’s due to how I connect money with independence and therefore consent. I need to be independent for consent to be meaningful. If I can’t easily walk away then I can’t withdraw it. And my ability to walk away – from anything, not just relationships – is anchored in my control over my money. I grew up with very little and I treasure the independence having it now gives me.

Of course, that connection with control and dependency is why I found her description of the dynamic so hot. I’m sure it’s also why others engage in it. I’m just not sure I could ever let go in that way.

This shot of Mistress Blunt is from her Bluesky feed. You can find her professional site here.

Window Paddling

This isn’t exactly a conventional corporal punishment shot, but it’s very sexy all the same. He’s tied against a window, so there’s an element of exhibitionism and public humiliation here. Her attractive but casual clothes and natural pose also give the impression of an ongoing dynamic rather than specific isolated scene. She’s just giving her boy his usual nightly punishment, in full view of the neighborhood.

I sourced this via the Miss Strict tumblr. I’m afraid I don’t have an original attribution for it. The reverse image search engines are so crap these days it’s almost impossible to get a useful source link from them.

I Want Your Sex (again)

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’.

Authenticity

Ivy Harte has published a short substack article on authenticity in pro-domme sessions – Have We Mistaken Unpaid for Authentic? I think it makes a nice company piece to the article on BDSM myths from Lady Vesper I featured last week. Money was actually featured in the last myth there, but I think Ivy Harte offers a slightly different take on the topic.

People sometimes imagine that authenticity and intention exist at opposite ends of a spectrum, as though something carefully crafted must somehow be less real. I don’t think that’s true. We don’t assume a conversation with a therapist is somehow less meaningful because money changed hands.

I’ve riffed before on this topic. There’s a conflation of money with power, where really it should be linked with consent and capacity. Contributing money creates the space and time to play, it doesn’t create power over the play.

When I’m getting pierced by a domme those are authentic needles. It’s not fake blood that comes out. Impact play give authentic bruises. I’m not pretending to be tied down and faking those screams. Nor are there real and fake version of subspace.

People have no trouble untangling money and power in other areas. Buying a theater ticket doesn’t give me the power to direct the play. I could hire a band for a party, and make song suggestions, but I don’t get to control how they play or suggest new lyrics. Only when I comes to BDSM do people get hung up on the idea that money equals power equals control.

This is Goddess Ivy in a shot sourced from her Bluesky feed.

Poised Pose by Pillar

This is one of those images where, as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to feature it in a post.

Madam M look as fabulous as she always does. Calm and collected. I also love her chair. That’s a very sexy piece of furniture. Finally, there’s those bound disembodied hands, with the warm organic rope and the hard industrial pillar. There’s a man hidden there somewhere, but he’s simultaneously in the foreground of the shot and also totally absent from it. Beautifully done.

Originally posted here to Madam M’s Bluesky feed. You can find her Loyal Fans here.