The beauty of dominant women
Here’s a nice image to pair with the one in yesterday’s post. There’s another attractive blonde woman involved, but rather than a teasing contact with the tip of the tongue, it’s a full sit on the face (and tell me that you love me). I like her simple clothes and that lock of hair falling across one eye. Very cute.
I found it originally on the Rue Montorgueil tumblr. The image is watermarked but it doesn’t appear to be an active site anymore.
I was out celebrating a friend’s birthday tonight. Neither of us are exactly old, but we were both bemoaning the aging process. Hangovers take longer to recover from, bodies don’t bounce back quite the way they used to and memory gets just a little more flaky. I’m only in my late 30’s, and already significant chunks of my conversation seem to consist of “You know, they guy on that show, with the restaurant, what’s it called? The one in New York. You know the guy. He was in that other thing, with the woman.” If it wasn’t for smart phones and web search we might never get a proper noun into the conversation.
If I’m going to struggle with something just on the tip of my tongue, I’d rather it was a little more exciting than media trivia. This gentleman seems to have a much better alternative.
I found this on the Lash Kisser tumblr site.
A letter in a recent Dan Savage column got me thinking about the risks of confessing kinks to partners. The letter’s author is writing about her previous boyfriends admission that he liked to be peed on.
I’m GGG, so I mulled it over and decided that I am not comfortable with that. I was able to explain that regardless of how sanitary it may be (one of his selling points!), I am not down and he deserves to be with someone who is. Couple weeks later, I started talking to my future husband, who has the same kinks as me. Thanks for teaching me that being GGG does not mean doing whatever your partner wants but to always be respectful, even if it eeks you out.
I’m not really sure why the author felt the need to write the letter to Dan. I don’t think she comes out of it well. Having a limit on what you’re prepared to do is right and proper. But dumping the guy and making it sound like she did so for his benefit seems to be pretty poor form. As Dan points out in his reply, she can’t be certain her new love doesn’t have similar or worse kinks. After all, he’s going to be very reluctant to confess anything now he knows what happened to the last guy she dated.
While I was pondering this I came across this recent post by Miss Troy Orleans, where she commented on the sharing of kinks in a relationship.
I don’t think the men give their spouses enough credit as far as what their wives desire or what they might be open to as far as kink. I believe every marriage has room for some kink — perhaps it’s not the kind of heavy bondage, degradation, or skill-driven play typical of professional sessions — but with patience, communication, cooperation/accommodation, and an open heart, any couple can incorporate some kind of kink into their sex life.
I’ve never been married, so this is not a problem I’ve ever faced. However, I’ve read enough personal accounts of kinky confessors to realize there are many possible outcomes. Everything from kinky heaven in a newly rejuvenated relationship to divorce, despair and the fighting of wild dogs for a pork rind in a seedy back alley while the local hobos bets on the outcome. You should aim to steer clear of that last option if possible.
The one thing that always seems true is that predicting how a partner will respond is incredibly hard. I’ve yet to hear anyone say “I always thought my wife would like me to wear a fireman’s outfit and pee on her while making siren sounds, and it turns out I was right!” Complex internal sexual wiring doesn’t often manifest itself in obvious ways via someone’s personality or behavior. People will talk about indicators that seem obvious in hindsight, but they are never describing predictors they were aware of beforehand. It seems that the only answer for existing partners is to try and start with the kind of relationship Miss Orleans describes, and then hope they can find common ground.
Given I started with a letter on watersports, it seems only fitting to finish with some photographs featuring some liquid loveliness. Both of these are from the Felm Cyber Tumblr.
If you’ve ever wanted to tour the Kink studios in San Francisco then now might be a good time to do it. Groupon has an offer running where you can do the armory tour at a reduced rate. In the offer preview they draw a comparison with the Smithsonian, which seems to be pushing it a bit, but it certainly sounds an interesting thing to try.
For a little added comedy value you can also take pleasure in the fact that you’re annoying the people over at Morality in Media, who are calling for a Groupon boycott because of this offer. This is the same group that equates 19th century slavery with consensual adults filming porn, so they don’t exactly enter the discussion with a huge amount of credibility. That bastion of quality reporting, the World Net Daily, has an article and a video clip with the morality police in question.
“Groupon should be thinking of their wider commercial audience, most of which, unlike Groupon, would not support torture and humiliation of women and girls for the sexual enjoyment of disturbed men,” said Hawkins. “But since Groupon not only seems to support Kink, but is happy to profit from the torture of women, we have called for a national boycott.”
Dawn Hawkins
Quite honestly I’m a little offended. In all the quotes and the lengthy video clip she doesn’t once mention men getting tortured for the sexual enjoyment of disturbed women. I know there has been a lot of discussion about the devaluation of male submission in the femdom community. Now I’m apparently getting devalued by the anti-porn crowd as well. What am I, chopped liver? I want to be a victim to. All those filthy and depraved women out there who want to watch my poor body be tightly bound and viciously tortured by viciously sadistic leather clad *cough* sorry.
Anyway, here’s a shot from Kink’s Men in Pain featuring the aforementioned torture and humiliation of women. Although in this case the lady in question does seem to have a fair sized penis. They might want to re-check their casting guidelines.
The shot below is taken from the gallery on Mistress Alex’s site. She has a lot of great images in that gallery, with many that are far more explicitly BDSM than this. There are cages, naked men, whips, floggers and beat downs. All sorts of good stuff. But this slightly more ambiguous image is the one that really appeals to me. I think it captures a moment of balance, the point where all the possibilities of a session begin to resolve into the actualities.
There’s often a lot of laughter and banter at the start of my sessions with Lydia. Some of that is purely practical. It takes time to get ropes tied and bodies arranged, and it’s more fun to talk than not to. A larger part of it is is the nervous energy and anticipation we’re feeding off of. I don’t quite know what’s about to happen, but I’m looking forward to finding out. The domme has got a good idea what’s about to happen, but until it starts to unfold has (presumably) no idea how her ideas will translate into the energy and dynamic of the scene. I love that point of transition, the shifting balance between us, the changing gears of dominance and submission. Hallways are a natural transition place and this image, with its choice of doors and “I was waiting for you” stance, captures an element of that session moment.
Yesterday’s post had me talking about gloves, and how I prefer a more functional style. Purely by chance today I came across the shot below, which features simple short black leather gloves. Happily, they’re also combined with breath play and nipple torture, two of my favorite things. I suspect a fetishist would prefer the gloves from the previous post, but as a masochist, this shot is far more pleasing.
I found this on the Thou Shall Love Via Mistress tumblr.
Here’s a very visually striking pair of Gaspar gloves being modeled by Mistress Veronique. There’s a bit of a militaristic feel to them thanks to all those metal press studs.
While I think these look great, when it comes to playing rather than simply staring, I actually prefer something far more basic. The kind of short black leather gloves you’d use to protect your hands, or improve your grip, or avoid leaving fingerprints. There’s something sexy about function. These have great form, they don’t look all that practical to wear while working a guy over.
I found this on the Bits and Pieces tumblr. It was originally shot for the Boot Lovers site.
Today’s post brings you news of an article from 2004. Don’t say that Femdom Resource doesn’t deliver the latest in BDSM culture!
I was reminded of it after reading some of the comments on my earlier post about approaching a dominant woman. Ferns linked to an excellent post she’d written on the subject, which emphasized that the person comes before the submissive. It’s a package deal, and nobody is going to spend time with someone who can scream delightfully when whipped but is an annoying jerk the rest of the time. Playing with gags can be fun, but they shouldn’t be a requirement for a relationship.
This philosophy put me in mind of an old article from Mistress Matisse on how she started dating her primary partner Max. He’s actually a male dominant, but I don’t think that fact alters the underlying point. She wasn’t attracted to some aspect of his sexuality, that actually counted against him initially. It was the fact he was capable, quietly confident and self-possessed that was a significant part of the initial attraction. I also can’t resist posting a link to an article that opens with the following line.
As Max and I approach the fifth anniversary of our first date, I’ve been thinking about the fact that if my submissive, Jae, didn’t have such a big clitoris, Max and I might never have gone on that date at all.
Mistress Matisse in ‘Me, Max and Jae’
That must be a great way to start a response to the old cliched question – ‘So how did you two meet?’
For images I can bring you shots of two out of the three people in question. The first shot below is Mistress Matisse giving Bobbi Starr a spanking in a scene for Everything Butt. The second image is Jae giving some lucky guy a good paddling, taken from this blog post.
This image caught my eye because it looks like it was shot in a hotel room, which is a surprisingly rare setting for these kind of shots. I get quite a sexual vibe from it, of rough kinky sex, rather than a D/s scene. I have no idea who the model is or what the context is, but it makes me imagine a fun evening with a high class escort in an expensive hotel. Although that may say more about me than the photograph. And I should again emphasize that’s just the vibe I get from it, I’ve no idea who or where the shot is from.
I’ve only sessioned once in a hotel, and the whole experience created a very interesting atmosphere. It was exciting in a sexy, sleazy and sneaky way. It was in Vegas (always a good start for sleazy) at the Hilton hotel. Vegas has some amazing hotels – Bellagio, Mandarin Oriental, Wynn – but the Hilton isn’t one of them. It has got a real old school feel. By which I mean smoky, worn and a touch shabby. Most of the high end hotels try to keep the hookers from plying their trade too obviously in the casino, but not the Hilton. When I passed through it looked like it a great place to conduct a little business with a lady of negotiable affection.
In my case I’d already pre-negotiated the evening, and it wasn’t affection I was after. I was meeting a pro-domme whose visit overlapped with mine and she was staying and playing in the Hilton. In a normal session, in a studio space, I never feel like I’m doing anything particularly edgy or subversive. The play and the space fit together. Arguably getting naked with a complete stranger for freaky kinky fun is also a pretty good fit for a sleazy Vegas hotel room. But somehow it seemed a lot more socially and morally suspect, which I kind of liked. Trying to keep the screams down so as not to disturb other guests while being draped over the suitcase stand for a caning was definitely a new experience. As was trying to dry off after a golden shower using the paper thin and well used hotel towels. I think I still smelled of pee in the cab on the way back to my hotel, but I’m sure that was no big deal to a Vegas cab driver.
I found this on the Mistress Candy (aka The Ties That Bind) tumblr.
BDSM has been popping up in the mainstream media recently thanks to the erotic novel ‘50 Shades of Grey‘. This book has been at the top of the digital best seller list, featured in mainstream magazines and newspapers, and just enjoyed a bidding war over the movie rights. It even got Dr. Drew in trouble for making dumb comments on the Today show.
When I first heard about it I was pleased that a BDSM novel was getting some widespread coverage. I liked the idea that people with a hidden kinky streak might feel they can explore it without embarrassing themselves. Then I took a look inside it via the free pages on Amazon. It’s pretty underwhelming. In fact I was about as far from whelmed as it’s possible to be. I can enjoy all sorts of gender and D/s combinations if they’re done well, but this has horrible prose, characters, structure, plot, you name it. I think this reviewer nailed it when she said “…this is a pretty dreadful book. Put simply, author E L James … is not a very good writer”.
I’ll quote a small section to give you a taste of what I mean. Here’s a scene where the male dominant is presenting his rules and limits to the lead female character. They’ve done nothing together at this point, and the female proto-submissive is not only completely inexperienced in BDSM, but is also a virgin who doesn’t even masturbate. There’s no reason given for this. She’s not crazy religious or anything, she’s just your typically 21 year old female college student whose sexual experience consists of being kissed twice.
I stare down at his rules. Waxing! Waxing what?
Everything? Ugh.“So, limits. These are mine.” He hands me another piece of paper.
Hard Limits
No acts involving fire play.
No acts involving urination or defecation and the products thereof
No acts involving needles, knives, piercing, or blood.
No acts involving gynecological medical instruments
No acts involving children or animals
No acts that will leave any permanent marks on the skin
No acts involving breath controlUgh. He has to write these down! Of course – they all look very sensible, and frankly, necessary… any sane person wouldn’t want to be involved in this sort of thing surely? Though I now feel a little queasy.
“Is there anything you’d like to add?” he asks kindly.
Crap. I’ve no idea. I am completely stumped. He gazes at me and furrows his brow.
From ’50 Shades of Grey’
From a writing point of view the ‘Ugh’ and the ‘Crap’ are jarring to read. The book seems to be full of these kind of interjections, including an endless stream of ‘Holy ****’ (just in a few pages I spotted a heck, a shit, a crap, a fuck and a cow). From a character development point of view I instantly hate the guy for putting ‘no children or animals’ into his list. Anyone who feels the need to do that is highly suspect. And from a plot perspective it makes zero sense to have a conversation about limits with someone who has no clue what is going on or what the possibilities are. It’s like the author knew about the idea of listing and negotiating limits, but had absolutely zero idea how to build it into the plot in a realistic and believable way.
I realize that my own attempts at fiction don’t exactly mark me out as the second coming of Shakespeare (although I did grow up near his home town), but there are a lot of genuinely good BDSM authors out there. Lily over at theblackleatherbelt just wrote a post on an anthology featuring some of them. Alternatively, from the femdom perspective, Her Majesty’s Plaything just featured a series of posts on Titian Beresford. Sascha Illyvich has even put together a handy list of 50 books she thinks are better options.
In my opinion the best literary thing to have come out of the book is this brilliant short parody written by the genuinely talented author Laura Antoniou (responsible for the Marketplace series). It’s far more entertaining than the original, while capturing the style perfectly.
It’s entirely possible that my original hopes for this book will still be realized. If it makes more people open to BDSM and exploring their own sexual desires then it probably doesn’t matter that it reads like the worst kind of internet fan fiction. And it’s nice to see an author making a bunch of money via one of the new publishing routes. I just wish this breakout book had been one I could recommend to people, rather than one I’d hate to be associated with.
Picking an image for this post was a little tricky, as Mf material isn’t the goal of the blog. I decided to go with a shot that featured both a female submissive and dominant reading a book that’s a touch better written than 50 shades of grey.
I found this shot on the Beauty of Submission tumblr.