Photograph – Page 174 – Femdom Resource

Underlying motives

I occasionally enjoy reading anti-porn and anti-sex work blogs. Although enjoy is probably not the right word. I find it cathartic to get annoyed and swear at my monitor now and again. Possibly this is related to my masochistic tendencies. It also helps me to a better understanding of the motives of the people behind them.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to worry about what happens when sex and money collide. Sex is a powerful motive force and undoubtedly bad things can and sometimes do happen when it combines with capitalism. I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to worry about how sex is represented in popular culture. However, whenever I go and read the work of these activists (like Gail Dines or Melissa Farley) it’s pretty clear they don’t care about these things. If they did they’d do proper research, provide solid data, talk to a wide range of the participants and present nuanced arguments that capture the inherent complexity of the issue. Instead they provide garbage fact sheets and arguments that dissolve like tissue paper when people such as Brooke Magnanti so much as glance at them.

What these people really want is control over others. And not the good sort of control that involves rope, blindfolds and safewords. They want to control how people live and how they think. I was reminded of this fact when I came across an article by Gail Dines on the new James Franco Kink movie. Unsurprisingly she’s not a fan, but the part that really caught my eye was…

The usual defense of Kink.com is that the women signed a contract and hence agreed to the acts. But as attorney Wendy Murphy of the New England School of Law argues, “torture doctrine is not hampered by concerns about consent because, as a matter of law and policy, one cannot consent to torture.” And anyway, what does meaningful and informed consent mean to the women subjected to these degrading and painful tortures, which are designed to break the body and the spirit?
Gail Dines in counterpunch

She’s not arguing that this material shouldn’t be filmed and distributed. She’s arguing that the very idea of consent in BDSM is meaningless. She emphasizes this opinion by repeatedly conflating the awful non-consensual tortures performed on prisoners at places like Abu Graib with what people consent to do for Kink.com. In her world not just porn would be banned, but BDSM itself would be outlawed by government mandate. The underlying motive here is not to help sex workers or target the issues the commercialization of sex creates. It’s to control how everyone behaves.

I’ll leave you with an image of the kind of activity that obviously should be illegal. That poor man can’t possibly be in his right mind to consent to such inhumane treatment. Although I guess it’s possible that he’s taking advantage of her and she therefore shouldn’t be allowed to be exploited like this. Either way, the evil pornographers taking advantage of these poor helpless people is the Captive Male site.

Grasping the problem firmly by the throat

I love breathplay but I’m actually not a big fan of throttling. It looks cool, but the the reality is risky, uncomfortable and hard to relax into. Squeezing all those delicate vessels contained in the throat is unwise and potentially lethal. If you’re vigorously fucking someone then grabbing them loosely by the throat is a wonderfully hot move. But if you’re trying to modulate oxygen then I think there are more interesting ways to achieve your goal.

It might seem less exciting than throttling, but try some saran wrap over the submissives face. Having clear plastic wrap gently kissed into place over my face has led to some of the great moments in my kinky life. It’s both sensual and incredibly evil. Each kiss seals the wrap closer and cuts off the oxygen a little more. Each breath warms the plastic wrap and makes it cling all the tighter. It’s not as visceral as a hand to the throat, but it’s way more effective and far easier to control.

I found this image on the I Crave Domination site. I believe this is originally a shot from the Men in Pain site.

Ruthless people

I was amused to read this article in GQ on a company that offers a kidnapping service. For a thousand dollars or so they’ll kidnap you, hold you hostage and do a bit of sadistic roleplaying. You even get your choice of kidnappers – either standard male goons or a team of ‘Elite Girls’ in microskirts and stripper heels.

What made me smile was how the writer seemed unaware of the very strong BDSM components. It makes absolutely no mention of that angle, whilst describing things like scene negotiation, safewords, bondage, etc. Pro-dommes have been fulfilling these kind of fantasies for years. Lydia even has an isolation cell she can store her victims in prior to an interrogation. Pretty much any major city will have a pro-domme who’ll be able to offer a kidnap and torture session, so I’m not sure why the writer felt he had to fly to Detroit to experience it.

Of course if you want a really exciting scene, you need a heartless family member on the phone refusing to pay the ransom. Hearing your wife opt for a new kitchen over freeing you would add an interesting frisson to the experience. I always enjoyed Danny Devito playing the heartless husband in Ruthless People.

The image comes courtesy of the Uniform Beauties site and the creative captioning from Servitor over at Contemplating the Divine.

Whipped and fucked

After the verbosity of the last couple of posts I’ll keep it simple tonight. I’ve had a wonderful evening. To start I got heavily whipped by Lydia. My torso now looks like it was mauled by a creature with really big paws. Then I got well and truly fucked. Much grunting and moaning was involved. Finally, I drifted home on a cloud of endorphins, cracked open some good red wine and cooked a rack of lamb extra rare. In my book that’s a damn good evening.

Before I retire to the couch with another glass of wine, I’ll leave you with this appropriate image. Can’t say I’m a fan of the wet look stockings (or boots), but I do appreciate that she seems to be enjoying herself.

Somebody has annoyingly trimmed the watermark off (given the black border I have my suspicions which self-aggrandizing femdom site that would be), but I believe it’s originally from the Strapon Dreamer site. I found it on the Not Like That, Like This tumblr.

In the moment

This is a continuation of my thoughts on the Psychological Surrender article I linked to yesterday. There are too many good things in it to fit into a single post. One section I particularly enjoyed was on subspace.

It is an experience of being “in the moment”, totally in the present. Its ultimate direction is the discovery of one’s identity, one’s sense of self, of one’s sense of wholeness, even one’s sense of unity with other living beings…Within the context of that surrender, a self-negating submissive experience occurs in which the person is enthralled by the dominant partner. The intensity of the masochism is a living testimonial of the urgency with which some buried part of the personality is screaming to be released. The surrender is nothing less than a controlled dissolution of self-boundaries.

There’s an interesting contradiction exposed here. On one hand there’s the idea of letting going, relaxing boundaries and exposing the true self. I’ve heard pain described as ‘a holiday from your brain’ and I like that description. It’s impossible to have complex thoughts or maintain social boundaries while experiencing significant pain. You can only exist raw, unfiltered and in the moment. Yet, despite that, the person who becomes most important in those moments is the dominant. I often feel a wave of tenderness and love (or a chemical facsimile) for her, even as she’s doing something incredibly painful to me. So simultaneously there’s both a strong sense of wholeness and the idea that the dominant is the center of the world and all that matters.

Perhaps a way to resolve this contradiction is to think about personalities as layers. The submissive’s intellectual and social layers are stripped away, exposing their true identity. In turn the dominants boundaries expand, replacing what has been removed. The submissive’s sense of self therefore ends up more intimately entwined with both the dominants personality and their own essential makeup.

This image of a couple enjoying their own particular moment comes courtesy of Divine Bitches. I original found it on the Badkitty Kat tumblr.

Balance

A few days ago somebody emailed me and asked if I’d written any posts on the psychology of submission. Unfortunately, while I’ve touched on personal aspects of it, I’ve never really written about it in a more abstract sense. To be honest, I lack the expertise to do so. However, the email did send me hunting for people who had the relevant expertise. It turns out to be a pretty sparse space. It seems there’s no end of BDSM porn created, but relatively few people actually studying why people like it so much. Of the few articles I found, by far the best was one called ‘Psychological Surrender‘ by Dorothy C. Hayden. It’s a great article and one that might turn into several posts. For this one I’ll focus on the idea of balance.

Probably the last thing masochism appears aimed at is balance. In keeping with its paradoxical nature, masochism provides not so much a state of weakness, but a sense of surrender, receptivity and sensitivity. Masochism is the condition of submitting fully to an experience, which counters lives that, in our Western society, are ego-centered, constrained, rational, and competitive.

The idea of balance spoke to me strongly. In subspace I feel calm, peaceful and right. It is a sense of balance, but not one that would be recognizable to an outside perspective. I think it’s the difference between balance as equilibrium and balance as stability.

In daily life we constantly strive for equilibrium in all our relationships. It is an endless series of negotiations. To give a very random example – I had dinner with a very close friend of mine last weeks. Someone I’ve known for years. This event involved negotiating the location to meet, the type of restaurant, the start time, the topics of conversation, the wine to order, the appropriate level of information to share, the degree of emotional exposure, etc. etc. I’m not saying that we sat there consciously making these kind of decisions, but at some level that negotiation happened. Each person was striving to balance their needs and deal with the ambiguity of our relationship boundaries. That’s true for almost any relationship, from married couples through friends to managers with employees.

I think the beauty of D/s is that it’s possible to dissolve that kind of negotiation. You’re no longer striving for a ambiguous mid-point, but instead are looking for the permanence of an end-point. In the intense moments of a scene my only job is to exist. To be there for the dominant. To make her happy. In someways it’s a selfish perspective. I don’t have to worry about her opinion, or try to figure out what she wants, because she’ll force it onto me. I can be myself when I no longer have to worry about maintaining my boundaries. My real world persona has a fragility my submissive one does not. D/s offers a sense of balance and of stability, without the need to negotiate a complex equilibrium.

The image was found on the My Inner Domme tumblr. I think it’s related to the clothing designer Fanny Liautard, but my search-fu is weak and I’ve not been able to trace a definitive link.

The lair of the white worm

That title sounds like something from a bad porn movie. It’s actually the name of a book by Bram Stoker of Dracula fame. More importantly, for the purposes of this blog, it got turned into a crazy film by Ken Russell.

It stars Hugh Grant (in one of his earliest starring roles) and a very sexy Amanda Donohoe. She plays the role of Lady Sylvia Marsh, a seductive snake lady who protects the lair of the aforementioned worm. In the scene below she’s taking care of a boy scout who is unlucky enough to come calling at her mansion. That look on his face in the second image is what you get when you let seductive snake ladies bite you in delicate areas. Things don’t end well for him, as this animated gif shows.

I can’t say it’s a great movie. Or even a good movie. It’s pretty cheesy with some ridiculous dialogue. But if you feel in the mood for an entertaining old school monster movie, then you could do worse than this. It even has a catchy soundtrack.

When in doubt, go for ambiguity

I was planning something different for tonight’s post. A radical new approach. I was thinking of writing something nuanced, well reasoned and insightful on the inherent complexities and contradictions of femdom. I’ve never tried it before, but I thought it might just work. Then I went out with friends and ate lots of middle eastern food and drank way too many cocktails. Plus a bottle of wine or two. So right now I’m lucky if I can spell femdom, let alone write about it.

I will therefore simply pick an interesting ambiguous image that I like. The fact it’s ambiguous saves me having to write too much. I’ll leave the interpretation to the viewer. It features the beautiful January Seraph who was kind enough to say nice things about my site.

Sit!

I love the incongruity of this scene. There’s the very 50’s style domestic setting, the elegant housewife and well loved family pet. With just one minor quirk…

I’ve personally never done any animal roleplay, but I do get the appeal. It pushes all sorts of kinky buttons. Obedience, restraint, training, collars, control, commands, etc. Pet owners are supposed to both care for their pets and also make sure they’re trained to behave appropriately. The pet itself doesn’t have to think too much, it just needs to offer love, affection and obedience. Or at least that’s the case for dogs and their human counterparts. Cats just need to look cool while swaggering around trying to conceal their disdain for the world.

The image comes from Mistress Liliane Hunt’s blog from a post on a Loup Garou Adoption Day. She’s a San Francisco based pro-domme. The pet is Tyke Puppy. I originally found the image on Selina Minx’s tumblr.

The least visible group in porn?

As regular readers might guess, I spend a fair amount of time hanging around tumblrs. I only feature femdom material here, but I can find material that pushes my buttons across a wide range of kinky activities and gender combinations. Hence my tumblr browsing is broad. One thing I found fascinating is looking at how different kinky groups typically skew their selection of material. Obviously my observations are entirely anecdotal and completely unscientific but what the hell. This is a blog, not a peer reviewed paper for Nature (although somebody should write one of those).

As you’d expect, lots of straight male submissives feature dominant women in exotic undergarment, with the occasional naked man as just a prop in the scene. They also have a smattering of what I’d call action shots. i.e. Images that catch a more complex D/s interaction. Essentially they post what they desire (the dominant woman) and, to a lesser extent, the interaction they wish to experience.

Straight female dominants also tend to post what they desire, buff naked submissive men, together with action shots. But the ratio is different to what submissive guys post. As a SWAG (Stupid Wild Ass Guess) I’d say it’s more like 50/50 compared to 80/20. There’s a clear preference towards more complex interactions and connections over eye candy.

Straight male dominants are heavily focused on their object of desire – naked bound women. The vast majority of shots are either of sole females or of disembodied males interacting with females. There might be an appendage in the shot, or a hand, or a whip, but almost all of the material is designed to let the viewer imagine himself as the dominant. It’s rare to see intense emotional connection in the images.

The most interesting one I find is the straight female submissive. Following the pattern above you’d expect them to post a mixture of Mf action shots and images of hot male dominants. And yet from my observation there’s a very heavy skew to posting shots of female submission. They might post more action shots than male dominants, but they rarely seem to post images of buff male dominants. Uniquely amongst these four groups they seem to post what they’d like to experience or who they’d like to be, rather than what the type of person they desire.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that male dominants are the least visible group in BDSM pornography. That’s a conclusion that should raise a few hackles given the ubiquity of the Mf dynamic in culture and porn.

The image is of Claire Adams from Men In Pain. I found it on the ‘my Wife, my Goddess‘ tumblr. It represents the kind of shot I personally enjoy the most.