Tag: Photograph

Order of Indomitus

While I might not be into organized matriarchal societies crossed with femdom kinky fun (as discussed in yesterday’s post), I do recognize it as a button pushing fantasy for some. Probably the most well known example of it was the Other World Kingdom, more commonly known as OWK. Although it eventually closed down in 2008, it did run successfully for over a decade, attracting a wide variety of dommes and slaves over that period. This old post of mine has some interesting links on it for those curious about the background story. Mistress Troy of NYC has also posted some thoughts and articles on it.

Sadly for OWK fans there has never been an obvious successor with the same kind of scope and vision. However, some femdom organizations have tried to capture the spirit of OWK, with one of the most recent being The Order of Indomitus. Based on their FAQ and this article it seems like they’ve captured the outdoor play, multi-mistress and immersive femdom fantasy environment that OWK targeted.

Every woman brings something different to the event. 100% of your time is being spent in a non-stop femdom environment with a small undertone of fear, a bit of laughs, a certain amount of comfort, a certain amount of unknown, and depending on what turns you on, a dash to an over-dose of eroticism.

It’s not really my thing, but for anyone out there who really regrets never visiting OWK, it might well be worth checking out.

These images are from the Order of Indomitus web site.

Gynecocracy

One particular strand of femdom thinking that’s rarely featured here is Gynecocracy or Matriarchy. That’s not because I’m a big fan of the current patriarchy – and certainly not the very specific patriarch we find ourselves with at the moment. It’s because femdom with gynecocracy typically seems to fall into two camps: The silly and the annoying.

The silly one is the one written by men with one hand in their pants. It seems to assume that once women are in power, they’ll all want to spend an inordinate amount of time dressing in exciting leather outfits, brandishing whips and bossing naked men around. They might do horrible things to the men, but it’ll all be done in a sexily cruel kind of way. Castration may be required, but don’t worry, big buxom nurses in tight outfits will be handling the snip.

The annoying one is the version that simple asserts every household would be better off with a woman in charge. Apparently inside every woman is a domme waiting to get out and take charge. And if she seems unsure about that, it’s the mans job to explain it to her, and insist that she knows best. Or I guess insist that he knows best that she knows best. It all gets a bit recursive at that point.

Personally, I’m all for egalitarianism at a societal level, with local variations of power and control negotiated on a case by case basis. However, if you genuinely harbor Gynarchy fantasies, may I direct your attention to this post by a radical feminist on her version of a women led society. Sexy femdom fun it is not. At first glance it seems like a joke, but judging by the rest of the blog, I think it’s meant to be taken seriously. Kind of ironic that in a post that’s supposed to extol the virtue of female leadership, she puts forward an approach that makes Stalin or Hitler look like models of restrained and sensible governance. Fortunately, she wants to euthanize all the pornographers, so I guess I’ll be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

I think this image represents something from the silly camp. It’s Olga Schoberova in the role of Ayesha ruler of Kuma from the Hammer movie ‘The Vengeance of She‘.

Thanks to this ErosBlog post for directing me to the radical feminist blog. Certainly made for some eye opening reading.

Whips, boots and marks

I normally dislike shots featuring a domme reduced to just her boots or a torso. Faces and a sense of connection between participants is normally important to me. Yet there are always exceptions, and this is one of them. The composition fits both his perspective and the psychology of the scene.

I love the marks on his back, the simplicity of the room and the arrayed selection of implements.  I like to imagine he has been told to maintain that position no matter what, and she has been prowling around him, picking and choosing whips as her whims take her. For almost an hour now the only sound has been her heels, his stifled cries and the occasional self satisfied sigh from her as she inspects the whip marks.

I’m afraid I don’t know the original source for this. You see a larger version on the tumblr that originally posted it.

The places you’ll go

Writing about Kink’s Armory space last week got me thinking about all the different play spaces I’ve experienced over the years. If you’ve never visited a professional BDSM space, you might be surprised where they pop up. Old industrial buildings in the cheaper parts of town are certainly common, but they’re not the only option. For example, over the years I’ve experienced:

  • A big McMansion in a rich suburb. A large chunk of the second floor had been converted to the play space. It was odd to experience being bound and beaten while chinks in the window blinds gave me glimpses of people watering their lawns or kids playing in the street.
  • An ultra-modern loft style condo. I was late to arrive, as I spent the first 10 minutes convinced that the play space must be in the old brick warehouse across the street. That seemed so much more likely than the trendy and expensive condos.
  • The top floor of a downtown office block. It was an incredibly well equipped space, and it must have been a nightmare to get all the big heavy dungeon furniture up the lifts and stairs without arousing suspicion.
  • A townhouse in the heart of San Francisco. I was banned from visiting during the day, as it was thought my screams would disturb the dot com company next door.

Most spaces adopt the functional but cliched black / red color schemes for the walls and equipment, but there are a few happy exceptions. Troy Orleans in NYC has a beautiful establishment with natural light, clean white walls and a very well thought out use of space (see a shot here). Similarly, Lucy Khan in LA has a luxurious and well composed space that actually looks like an interior designer was involved (see a shot here). Personally, I always prefer to play somewhere that feels like a beautiful space to be in, rather than in a dungeon cliche.

This image is by Natasha Gornik and was featured on her tumblr. It doesn’t say so on the post, but I believe that’s Miss Troy Orleans again. I think it’s a nice example of an intense scene but with still a clean and beautiful aesthetic.

Reversa

Something simple for fans of the CFNM genre today. This is actually from an advertising campaign for an anti-aging cream called Reversa. I tend to the belief that such things are snake oil with little to no scientific basis. Has there ever been a properly controlled test of such things? However, I do like this shot. It almost seems to argue against the product itself. Who cares about a few wrinkles if you can pull off this kind of poised elegance?

Zen and the art of spanking

Combining zen and spanking is apparently now a thing. At least according to this article. It was recently featured in the Taste of Love Festival, which describes the goal as…

…to create an awakening of energy in the base of the receiver and allow it to be ridden and flow through the body.

This actually resonates with me. I’m generally not a big hand spanking fan. I like my impact play to involve some canes or paddles in order to push my masochistic buttons. Regular hand spanking seems kind of playful and (dare I say it) a little vanilla. Yet there’s definitely an energy and rhythm to it that can be quite focusing. I can imagine combined with breath work and the right sense of flow it could be meditative.

This is Dana Kane helping a gentleman reach a more zen like state for the Dreams of Spanking site.

Glitoris

It’s not often you get to see a giant golden clitoris on the stage at the Sydney Opera House, but this blog can deliver the goods. I guess technically it was Amanda Palmer and Alli Sebastian Wolf who delivered the goods, the Guardian newspaper by proxy, and this blog by proxy of proxy. But whatever. All those who don’t read the Guardian or live in Sydney, you’re welcome.

The associated article has a number of interesting facts. The one that really caught my eye was that the clitoris ‘is the only part of the human body that never ages’. That seems suspect. I assume most ladies do no have a Tardis down their pants, so it’s not actually time travelling. Most clitori are probably the same age as their owners. I guess they mean it doesn’t decay with age. Although that seems suspect as well – how do you define decay? I can think of a fair number of body parts that keep working till you die. The clitoris does apparently grow over time, so if we’re looking for things that get bigger but keep working, my stomach would be another good candidate.

Anyway, quibbles aside, I love the idea of a giant glittering clitoris appearing on stage. More events should have that. You couldn’t have paid me to watch the inauguration on Friday, but if there’d been a giant glittery clitoris appearing behind the pussy grabbing pres, I might just have tuned in.

I’m afraid I’ve no source for this tongue on clitoris action.

Doubling up on dungeons

The closure of kink.com’s armory space got me wondering what’ll happen to all the fancy equipment they’ve built or collected over the years. I can’t imagine there’s another single place in the US with quite the depth and range of BDSM toys and furniture that they have. Losing it would be a great shame. Although maybe there’s a business opportunity here?

BDSM play spaces in the US are normally tucked away in odd corners of cities, with unclear rules about who can rent them and elaborate protocol for how to approach them inconspicuously. There’s always an understandable desire to avoid annoying the neighbors or drawing the attention of local authorities. Some have great equipment, but it’s often squeezed into a few small rooms, and the soundproofing can be less than ideal. If kink.com is going to spread filming to new locations in different cities, how about building out these facilities so they can be rented by others? That would allow them to get value from the space when they weren’t filming, and allow kinky people to play with the fancy equipment. Plus, any space already zoned for filming kinky porn with a cast+crew shouldn’t have an issue with 2 or 3 private people turning up to use it.

Obviously they’d need something a bit more permanent than a set that gets torn down between each shoot, but with some themed areas and equipment that can be moved easily, it should be possible to make it flexible enough. I can imagine pro-dommes would love to be able to offer clients a play experience in a setting they already know from watching kink’s movies. Alternatively, given the popularity of clip stores, they could rent it out to dommes wanting to do their own filming. It’d already have all the infrastructure in place ready for setting up lighting and sound.

When it comes to interesting play spaces, it’s hard to beat Germany. The photographs below are from Avalon Studios, and specifically their private residences. They offer a complete self-contained complex for rent, with multiple guest rooms, a dungeon, a clinic, a school room, a set of cells, etc. It’s can be rented by pro-dommes, BDSM film makers or just people wanting a kinky themed holiday. How many other dungeons out there boast a confessional for sharing all your naughtiest sins?

End of an era in SF

By strange coincidence, just after my previous post on Kink.com and their famous San Francisco studios, this article popped up in my news feed – End Of An Era: Kink.com To Stop Filming In Its Famous Porn Dungeon.

It seems that this change was triggered, in part at least, by a combination of falling revenue and the difficulty in maximizing use of the Armory building. Less people are buying porn and mainstream companies don’t like to share space with famous kinky porn studios. The new approach will be to keep just the kink.com offices in the Armory, making it easier to lease/repurpose the remaining space, and then spread the filming to other sets and studios. Given the high cost of San Francisco rent, that may mean directors building their own facilities in LA or Vegas.

I certainly wouldn’t hold kink.com up as an exemplar for femdom porn. Their shoots tend to play to a lot of the classic femdom stereotypes. High in leather, snarling and sneering. Low in emotional connection, sensuality and fun. They’ve also had allegations of workplace mistreatment. However, all that said, I am sad to hear they’re no longer going to be shooting at the armory. It always seemed amazing that a kink dedicated company could buy a run such a big and impressive property in one of the most expensive cities in America. I can remember when kinky material was obscure, hard to find and (frequently) cheaply shot. Now we have dedicated riggers and set designers putting together complex scenes and fiendish equipment in a huge army building in the middle of SF. For me that building was a physical embodiment of kinks transition from obscurity to mainstream success.

I hope their new approach will allow them to stay viable. If you like their stuff, then now would obviously be a good time to subscribe. Femdom is a lot lot more than humiliation, pain and fancy bondage, but there’s no reason those elements can’t also be some part of it, and kink.com often did a pretty good job on them

These two shots are of Claire Adams and EuroSex from the old Men in Pain channel.