Tag: Photograph

Better Than Life (or not)

I recently purchased a HTC Vive Virtual Reality system. It’s a technology I’ve always been interested in – I even worked on it back in the 90’s – so I was intrigued to try out the latest and greatest systems. There are lots of companies investing in this space, including Facebook, Sony and Google, but the Vive looks to be one of the more advanced options right now.

Obviously, for the purposes of writing this post, I had to try out some VR porn. My readers deserve a proper investigation into the topic I thought. It would have been almost be selfish of me not to look at it. My top piece of advice for anyone in a similar research mode would be to buy the Virtual Desktop application. It makes browsing and running movies in different VR formats a breeze. When you have to deal with clunky headsets, headphones and twisty cables, the last thing you want to be doing is pulling it all on and off while you try and figure out why the naked people aren’t showing up properly.

Based on the very limited number of movies I’ve tried so far, my impressions are mixed. It does undoubtedly give you a much greater sense of presence and of being ‘in the scene’ than a regular movie. Sometimes, with the performer close and talking directly to camera, it was almost uncomfortable, a sense that my personal space was being invaded. Taking the headset off can be quite disconcerting, the sense of being elsewhere is so strong, that coming back to reality is a jolt.

However, making it more real in one aspect also highlights how unreal it is in others. You can’t touch. You can’t feel. You can look around, but not move around. The actors can’t interact with you. In that sense, it was much more frustrating that regular pornography. Watching regular femdom movies will often make me wish I could do a scene with the domme involved, but I never want to actually be in the scene I’m watching. It wouldn’t make any sense to think that – it’s obviously a movie. VR scenes did create that kind of frustration. I wanted to feel the pain, the pinch and the pull. I wanted that cock getting whipped to really be mine. Instead it was like my body had been anesthetized. Ironically, the virtual reality material actually created a greater desire to go out and play with real people in actual reality.

I’ll follow-up with some more thoughts on this topic in a post tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s a shot of Maitresse Madeline and Mike Panic in a cuckold scene from the Kink new VR studios.

Oh, and 10 kinky bonus points (no redeemable value, offer not applicable in all States, participants must be over 18 years old) to anyone who can tell me where the reference in the title comes from. As a hint, it’s a comedy reference.

Isabella Sinclaire

While I’m on the subject of professional domination, here’s a recent podcast featuring Isabella Sinclaire. It’s kind of long at just over an hour, and targeted at a mainstream audience, but it has some interesting thoughts on her career, life outside work, style of play, etc. I was particularly intrigued by her comments about working with couples where both identify as submissive. She feels that the 50 shades films triggered a lot of exploration of BDSM, but people often discovered they both wanted to bottom, and so came to her to learn how they could switch as needed.

If you’ve not heard of her before, I think it’s safe to say she’s one of the most well known pro-dommes in the US. I’ve featured her in the past (e.g. here and here), she runs a well known fetish production company and she hit the mainstream via this ad.

If you’re interested in a professional session with Isabella, then her site is here.

Dana Kane

In the early years of this blog there was a fair amount of discussion, in both posts, links and comments, about the validity and authenticity of professional domination. Some maintained that the financial aspect always made the D/s dynamic inauthentic. A few people even held that pro-dommes were a significant negative influence on kink and femdom and the community would be better off without them.

Over time that kind of discussion seems to have faded. Possibly I’ve convinced people that while the professional aspect certainly makes a difference, it’s not the defining characteristic or necessarily a negative one. Possibly everyone who argued otherwise has got fed up and gone elsewhere. Maybe I’m just more sure of myself and therefore less likely to take offense and pick an argument.

If I was still regularly engaging in that kind of debate, then I’d certainly want to highlight a post (from 2015) by professional disciplinary Dana Kane on her relationship with one of her playmates Paul. It’s entitled ‘Can I come to your funeral?‘ and, as the title suggests, it’s both a powerful and emotional one. It covers both the development of their relationship and what happens when Paul becomes ill. It’s tricky one to summarize beyond that, so I’m not going to even try. Just go read it. I think it does show what a caring person Ms Kane is, how important kinky relationships can be to people, and also how complex and conflicted they can potentially be.

This image is of Dana Kane spanking Michael Darling for the Dreams of Spanking site.

Twitter Tantrum

Amazingly, while I was posting yesterday about the kinky T-Mobile Ads, Verizon and T-Mobile were getting to a ridiculous twitter feud over them. It ended up getting covered in a whole bunch of places, for example here and here. Some people even got upset with Verizon’s line that “Unfortunately no one will hear your safe word if you’re on @Tmobile“. Personally I thought that was kind of funny. Not sure how you get offended by it.

There has been a lot of controversy in the US in recent years over rulings treating corporations as people. Perhaps those opposed to that have been going about it the wrong way. These corporations are acting like people – specifically petulant teenagers on social media. So they should be able to get involved in politics, but only with the allowance they earn from cutting the lawn and taking out our garbage. And if they don’t behave themselves, we’ll ground them and take away their twitter account.

I believe this is the model Elena Berkova enjoying some quality texting time.

Superb Owl

America had some kind of sporting event combined with a pop concert and a product fair on Sunday. Yes, it was once again time for the annual Superb Owl (as coined by Mr. Colbert).

I’m tempted to make a joke about the Falcons being big breathplay fans, given how much choking was involved, but that feels like it’d be a cheap shot. Instead I’ll focus on a couple of the more amusing advertisements. T-Mobile enlisted the excellent Kristen Schaal to spoof Fifty Shades of Grey with this initial ad and then this follow-up. I say it was a 50 SoG spoof, but frankly Kristen’s character seems way more into enjoying kink than any of the characters from that sad series.

Weirdly this isn’t the first time I’ve featured T-Mobile. A few years ago they had an ad with Carly Foulkes on a motorcycle that pushed mine and I’m sure a few other people’s buttons. Somebody in their marketing department clearly has a kinky streak.

I’ll leave you with a shot of a woman doing to a man what the Patriots just did to the Falcons.

I’m afraid I don’t know who shot this. I found it on the Femdom Times site.

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.