Photograph – Page 160 – Femdom Resource

Playing with the cliche

I try and avoid posting too many stereotypical shots of dommes in fetish gear staring into the camera. It’s not that I’m not partial to the occasional one now and again. They’re popular for a reason. However, there are plenty of tumblrs featuring them already, and I like to try and keep this sites appeal as broad as possible.

Occasional one will catch me eye as being a little different, and this is such a case. All the standard elements of the cliche are there. Leather boots. Tight latex. Black gloves. But she looks so relaxed and calm. There’s no sneering or haughty posture. I get the feeling she’d be a lot of fun to play with. She manages to look great without appearing to be trying too hard.

I found it on the my wife is in charge tumblr. I’m afraid I’ve no attribution for it. Google images can’t find a single copy of it, let alone the original site. If anyone knows who this is leave a comment and I’ll update the post.

Smart people saying stupid things

I’m starting this post with a warning about the links it contains. Normally that would mean I was about to discuss edge play and feature potentially disturbing images. However, in this case the links are to conservative journalists talking about kink. I realize that may still constitute edge play for some people. On the face of it they’re discussing extreme porn from kink.com, but it quickly gets into general issues of consent and sexual ethics.

What started this unlikely flurry of posts was an essay by Emily Witt entitled What Do You Desire. The heart of the piece is a description of a shoot for the Public Disgrace site, but it also encompasses the tech culture, San Francisco culture and Emily’s own personal life. It’s an essay that got a lot of attention across the web, not just from the writers below. Personally I was unimpressed. As a kinky and techy person, who lives on the West Coast and visits the Bay Area often, I expected to read something I could relate to. Something that reflected, at least in some way, my experiences. Instead it comes across as a high concept piece. Rather than immersing herself into the culture and drawing conclusions from it, I got the impression Emily went in with a concept and cherry picked her observations to match.

While I might not have been impressed, a lot of other people were. What particularly entertained me were a series of posts from conservative writers. Roughly in order (as they responded to each other) there was: Rod Dreher, Noah Millman, Alan Jacobs, Noah Millman 2, Rod Dreher 2, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, Conor Friedersdorf and Rod Dreher 3.

There’s enough material in those articles for a dozen posts, but I’ll try and limit myself to just this one. As you might expect they have a few interesting insights scattered randomly through a whole steaming mound of ignorance. I don’t fault them too much for that. No doubt if I was writing about Conservative Evangelical Christians in the South on the basis of a single provocative article I’d also reveal a lot of my ignorance about that group. What I will fault them for is the horrible underlying logic in some of their arguments. Particularly Rod Dreher writing here on the subject of consent.

His argument is, at the heart of it, a variant on the slippery slope fallacy. He starts out by defining consent as the way people judge right from wrong. He then points out consent alone can never be enough, because people can consent to terrible things. For example, the cannibal who ate a willing victim. And therefore, if consent is not your guiding light, then what can be? How can anyone define what is morally right? The only answer must be God.

For all its many flaws, Christianity (like Islam, like Judaism) at least offers a standard by which to judge right and wrong….
…Christianity at least holds on to the idea that Truth exists, and is knowable, however imperfectly.

The huge glaring flaw in this appeal to absolutism is of course the problem of defining religious Truth. Saying Jesus would have frowned on cannibalism is uncontroversial. But what was his position on silk scarves tied to the headboard? Or a little nipple biting during coitus? And if that’s OK, does he draw the line at nipple clamps? How about anal sex between a loving couple? What if it’s a loving gay couple? I haven’t noticed too many burning bushes appearing recently to give us guidance on these areas.

Of course what people like Rod Dreher really want to impose with a religious standard is their standard. They really know what God meant to say. Of course in reality they have no divine hotline. They’re just people making judgement calls about right and wrong like everyone else. They just don’t trust the rest of us to do it properly.

I’ll leave you with an image of two sinners doing terribly wicked things. I know it might look like a beautiful image of two people enjoying an intense and intimate moment, but that can’t be right. Nipple clamps are clearly the work of Beelzebub.

The image is from the always excellent bondage is not a crime tumblr.

Terrifically tortured testicles

After a few weeks in which we were both traveling a lot, I finally got chance to get together with Lydia tonight. Cock and ball torture was on the menu. A lot of prodding, thwacking and zapping later, I’m a happily blissed out bunny. A bit tender and sore in some places, but definitely happy.

I can only hope the gentleman in the image below felt equally good after Mz Berlin got done with him. He certainly shouldn’t have been able to complain about a lack of focus on her part.

This image is from the Captive Male site. I originally found it on the In A Humbler tumblr (although that version had the site watermark trimmed off it).

Weirdly enough after writing the above post, while scanning through the tumblr reposts of this image, I came across this tumblr post, which is actually from the male submissive in the picture (Bondage Toy). Even more strangely he’s located in my part of the world and has obviously played with Lydia in the past. Of all the thousands of CBT pictures I could have picked for the post, what are the odds I’d pick not only someone local who’d played with Lydia, but also left enough information for me to find that out? Particularly given the only thing of his in the shot are a pair of dangling testicles.

A new experience

In my recent trip to San Francisco I enjoyed an entirely new experience – attending a BDSM workshop. I was there courtesy of Domina Yuki and Domina Ai-Li. Having sessioned with them both on prior days, they invited me along to a piercing workshop as their demo bottom. I’d never done any kind of play at parties or open events so, always curious to try new things, I jumped at this opportunity.

It was held at a large modern dungeon with plenty of space for people to setup their individual scenes. While I was there I spotted 6 or 7 groups doing scenes, with maybe 15 to 20 people in attendance. The three of us grabbed a spot in a corner and I got naked while Yuki and Ai-Li plotted their plan of action.

The first they wanted to try was a needle zipper. They’d seen one done before by the person running the workshop and wanted to pick his brains on the right way to do it. All three of us were experienced in both piercing and zippers but none of us had tried them in combination before. So, after a few pointers from the workshop coordinator, they broke the needles out and starting threading them into place on my torso.

It was an interesting experience doing a scene as part of a workshop rather than a dedicated session. It felt a little like a craft project. There was a lot of discussion along the lines of “Hmm, that doesn’t look right. I’m going to redo that bit” and “How are you doing the knots?” and “Shall we pull it this way or more over here?” I simultaneously felt like part of the project team and also the object of the project. Which was a good feeling for me. Collaborative yet objectifying. You can see the results of their work on my torso in the following images: Top View, Side View and Up View.

When it came time to pull the zipper I heard the workshop coordinator advertising the fact and a small crowd gathered where we were. This upped the strangeness factor significantly. I was naked in front of a bunch of strangers. I’d never been on the end of a needle zipper before. And the two tops involved had never done one before. I wasn’t particularly stressed or worried, but it was kind of weird. My main concern was that I might scream like a baby when they pulled the cords.

Luckily everything went smoothly. We even captured a video of it, which can be seen here. At the start you can hear Yuki and Ai-Li debating exactly how to pull the cords. Then there’s some ooh’s and ahh’s from both me and the crowd, following by applause from the crowd and laughter from me right at the end. It wasn’t particularly painful (compared to say staple zippering), but it is quite an intense sensation as the skin is pulled and twisted by the needles. You can see the end result post pull in this image (warning – some small blood trickles).

After the zipper we moved onto a slightly more playful idea – a butt corset. The idea here to pull my two butt cheeks together with needles and elastic cord in the style of a corset. I’ve had a corset done to my back before, but never anything quite this far down. I think the end result worked out pretty well, as shown in the images here, here and here.

Overall it was a great experience and one I’d be happy to repeat. Despite the available evidence to the contrary I’m not an exhibitionist, and don’t particularly get anything from the idea of semi-public scenes. However, the scientist in me loves the idea of experimenting, trying new things out and sharing ideas. I’m also strongly attracted to the idea of being useful and contributing something. A workshop like this pushes both my masochistic and service buttons. Not to mention the fact that it’s a lot of fun to hang out with two such talented and friendly dommes as Mistress Yuki and Mistress Ai-Li.

After a post featuring lots of links to images of a naked me, I feel I should finish with something a little more visually appealing. This is Mistress Yuki and Mistress Ai-Li taken with an unidentified slave.

Melt in the mouth

I’m not typically an ice cream fan. Normally I’d prefer a sorbet. But a naked lady, a strap-on and a tub of ice cream? That works. That really works. Add some champagne into the mix and we could be talking about the perfect evening in.

I found this on the I Crave Domination tumblr. I’m afraid I can’t track down an original attribution. Weirdly google images can somehow figure out this is a shot about ice cream, but not who originally published it.

New tumblrs added

As the title states, I’ve added a bunch of new tumblrs to the Femdom Image page. I’ve also cleaned out any dead or dormant sites and removed a few that were no longer showing appropriate content. The new entries are…

The image below is taken from the Dudes in Distress tumblr. It’s a nice combination of colorful rope and predicament bondage. He’s one lucky distressed dude.

Dominatrix for Dummies

Sadly the post title doesn’t refer to another entry in the eponymous Dummies series. Which is a shame, as I think it might make an entertaining read. Instead it refers to a one-woman show by Eleanor O’Brien. It’s based on her experiences training as a pro-domme in NYC and looks like it might make for an amusing evening. Apparently one of the dommes she mimics is called Margo, but I’m sure that’s no relation to the NYC based Miss Margo of my blogroll! If you’re in Portland and interested in attending, it’s playing this weekend (14/15/16 June) at the CoHo theater.

I have to admit my first thought on seeing the original article title – once I got over the strange syntax (surely it should be Domination for Dummies) – was that if you’re a dummy, you probably shouldn’t be a dominatrix. My second thought, hard on the heels of the first, was I wonder if anyone has a fetish for incompetent dominatrices? The kind who’d hit themselves with their own whip, giggle during serious interrogation roleplay and tie themselves into knots rather than the submissive. I’ve never heard of such a kink, but if the internet has taught us anything, it’s that if you can imagine it, somebody will fetishize it. If it does exist, then it strikes me as one of the most dangerous kinks you could possibly have.

Picking a picture this post was tricky. I didn’t want to use a recent shot and risk an angry email from an offended domme. Luckily when you’re looking for incompetency in kink, you can always turn to 70’s porn. This one’s a real doozy. There’s a weird belt leash, an incompetently waved whip, some strange eye makeup, a slave apparently enjoying his dinner and a domme about to brain him with a champagne bottle for some reason. Perhaps she think slaves should be christened in the same way ships are?

Identity crisis

I’m going to do something fairly foolish in this post and disagree with someone who doubtless knows their business far better than I do. Not to mention someone who lives locally, swings a mean single tail and could almost certainly kick my ass. I’m talking about Domina Victoria Rage and her recent post on safety and screening when setting up pro-domme sessions.

There’s a lot of good information in it, but I do have to take issue with her suggestion that clients should always use aliases. She goes onto say…

Come to me with a real sounding first and last name and that’s a red flag that you might take my privacy as lightly as you’ve taken your own.
There’s no reason on the planet why personal information should be exchanged on either side, anything you say is a gamble because both of you – just by seeing each other – are in a position to do damage to the personal life of the other.

Anyone I session with, or even just meet, will know my real name. I’ll typically provide it in the first few exchanges of emails. And a domme who expects me not to do that creates a red flag of my own. It suggests to me that she’ll not take my privacy seriously and that the onus is on me to always guard information from her. I’m absolutely sure that’s not the case for Domina Victoria, but I would find it really weird to not use my real name with a domme when I’m trusting her in so many other ways during a session. I would feel inauthentic.

While using an alias is pretty much universal for pro-dommes, it’s certainly not for clients. Some dommes demand a photographic id before a session, or will take credit cards, which instantly rules out fake names. And personally I don’t buy the argument about creating risk to personal lives. I’d be much more worried about crazy ex-girlfriends than pro-dommes. The former typically know your social circle, know your intimate sexual secrets and may have nothing to lose by spreading gossip. That’s a scary mixture. In contrast a pro-domme sharing information risks her professional reputation and therefore her livelihood. She has a strong incentive to keep information private. I’m not saying it has never happened, just that as things to worry about, it’s way down my list.

As an entertaining side anecdote on identify and verification – I once had someone complain that my professional linked-in profile didn’t have enough contacts. I had a 100 or so listed, but she said she preferred to see 200+ before she trusted it! This was someone I’ve never mentioned here, and someone who crossed a few of the legal lines that pro-dommes are typically so strict about. She was therefore far more concerned about legal entrapment and demanded strong proof of identity before she’d meet. I was highly entertained by the fact that my long neglected linked-in profile might suddenly be a kinky sex deal-breaker. I wish I’d know that when I was busy deleting all their spammy emails to update it!

I’ll leave you with a shot from Domina Victoria’s blog. I love the contrast of the white skin, the red nails and the big glorious cock.

New blogs added

Like the title says, I’ve added a number of blogs to my femdom blog page and the dynamic blog roll over on the right. Hopefully many of them will be both new and interesting to my readers. Specifically the added entries are…

I’ve also added my first non-English blog – Lady Lua and net – which is written in Spanish. My foreign language skills extend as far as restaurant menus and cooking terms, so judging blogs is tricky. However, I occasionally get emailed links to non-English blogs that look interesting, so I’ve decided I’ll take a shot with on-line translation tools and include a few that I think might be good.

Also, while I’m on the subject of blogs, does anyone know what happened to Lily over at the Black Leather Belt blog? I always enjoyed her writing and she simply seems to have vanished from the blogosphere.

Finally, the image below is taken from the newly added blog of Mistress Liliane Hunt. She’s a San Francisco based pro-domme, shown here indulging in some puppy play.

The gift that keeps on giving

Stabbity recently put up a post on the well worn expression – “The gift of submission”. This crops up fairly regularly in D/s discussions and I think it’s fair to say that Stabbity is not a fan. She doesn’t like the mismatch between the D/s dynamic and the cultural assumptions that come with a gift. For example, it’s rude to take back a gift, but entirely correct to take back submission should that be desirable and/or necessary.

I agree with her general point, but also dislike the expression as it’s commonly used for a different reason. To me it always seems to have an element of hypocrisy. A gift is given primarily for the benefit of the recipient. I’m not going to give someone a bottle of wine and then expect to be able to drink half of it. Yet submission is almost always about meeting personal needs. Obviously one always wants to do that in a mutually beneficial relationship, but it’s rarely a case of being singularly beneficial for the sake of the domme. In fact, of all the situations where the enjoyment is unevenly distributed, I’d bet that the vast majority skew to favor the submissive. Beating a kinky partner when you’re not really into it is being GGG. Beating an unwilling partner because you’re kinky is abuse.

Despite all these problems, I would like to reclaim or recast the expression. For me when I think about the gift of submission, I think about it being a gift to myself. I’m not sure how I ended up wired as both kinky and submissive, but I do now appreciate that it happened. For many years I compartmentalized that side of myself, treating it as something distinct from who I actually was. Acknowledging it and incorporating it into my life certainly hasn’t made my life simpler, but has made it far richer and more interesting.

In contrast to the standard usage of the phrase, which paints submission in an altruistic light, I’ve often been tempted to see it as a selfish trait. That it’s a flaw in me that will put additional demands on a partner. Thinking of it as something that I’ve been given, as a gift that gives me unusual yet desirable characteristics (plus a rich source of NSFW anecdotes), helps me fight that negative view. It’s not quite a superpower, but it can be a complex-yet-beneficial power.

The image is by JSV Photography. He has a blog here, including this entry on the above photograph. He also has an eBook of bondage for those of you into beautiful women in rope. I originally found the image on the Redhead with a Riding Crop tumblr.