Tag: Photograph

Dating Skills

This New York Post article on a domme class for Manhattan women to up their dating game is a strange one. On one hand I’m all in favor of encouraging more interest in femdom and people learning new kinky skills. On the other, it seems very mercenary and calculating, and not in deliberate findom type way. Learning to top so you can match the fantasies of a rich guy and hence convince him to marry you seems like the opposite of female empowerment. But maybe I’m being too sensitive about the whole thing.

This is a screen shot from the show Billions (mentioned here previously). With Maggie Siff playing the partner and domme to Paul Giamatti’s Manhattan power player, it’s cited in the Post article as inspiration for the kinky curious.

A Session with Adreena

My UK trip has migrated north, from partying in London to spending time with family in Warwickshire. My opportunities for kink have thus been temporarily curtailed. However, before I left London, I was lucky enough to meet and play with Mistress Adreena Angela.

One of the great things about Twitter is being able to get a sense of someone before you meet them. It’s obviously an imperfect and distorted view, but it has sometimes helped me figure out who I might connect well with. From Mistress Adreena’s feed I got the impression of someone who played with a positive energy and enjoyed tease, denial and the wonderful frustration of intimacy that’s so near…yet so far away. Those are dynamics I love, particularly when mixed with  a side-order of sadism, and the result was a great first session together.

One particularly enjoyable element was her use of extended eye contact. A lot of dommes use this to some extent, but I’ve never played with one who pushes it as hard as Mistress Adreena does. I’m sure it helps that she has absolutely gorgeous eyes. With my adrenaline and endorphins flowing, it was easy to temporarily lose my sense of self in her gaze. In normal circumstances I’d get embarrassed or shy and look away, but ironically the act of submission actually makes it easier for me to maintain eye contact. It changes a challenge into an acceptance.

This shot of Mistress Adreena shows off those beautiful eyes as well as some of her equally impressive tattoos. For sessions she plays out of her own well equipped space in London. If you’re interested in a professional session then her site with the contact process is here.

Kink and Cults

This article is longer than the kind I usually share and not specifically femdom, but I found it fascinating, so I’m going to share it here anyway. It’s by Tina Horn and draws connections between religious cults like the Moonies (which her parents were part of) and some aspects of BDSM culture. She’s worked as both a pro-domme and pro-sub, and those with knowledge of the professional scene on the East coast might well find themselves speculating on the identity of the ‘The Space’ she describes in the article. I can only think of one place that fits the bill.

This image of Tina Horn is taken from this interview with her in Slutist magazine.

Back in Blighty

I’m safely back to the UK, although I have apparently turned into an American tourist. I thought my recent US citizenship test was just a few easy history questions, but there must also have been a Men in Black style brain zapper hidden in there somewhere. In the last few days I’ve been lost more times than I can count thanks to the twisty roads and arbitrary street names. I’ve been amazed at the ubiquitous jaywalking and people drinking beer on the pavement outside pubs. And I’ve been confused by the currency (all these coins!) and the elevator buttons (the UK and US disagree on what the first floor is). The combination of bewildered tourist and an English accent has been a really puzzler to everyone around me.

On a happier note, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to meet up with Sardax on Tuesday afternoon. He’s an artist I’ve admired for many years and it was an absolute pleasure to chat with him about kink and Femdom over a coffee. I think his work captures the essence and beauty of Femdom in a very truthful and unique way, and we’re lucky to have someone with his talent contributing to the kinky community.

Sardax was also meeting up with Domina Emilia, Miss Opium and Miss Patricia, which is quite a spectacular trio of dominants to have in one place on a sunny afternoon in a park! It was a real honor to have the chance to meet and chat with all of them. The image below was shot that afternoon and taken from Domina Emilia’s twitter feed.

Domina Emilia (professional site here), Miss Opium (professional site here)and Miss Patricia (professional site here) are all London based pro-dommes.

If you’re interested in commissioning work from Sardax, his info is here.

Heading to the Old Country

I’m flying back to the UK tomorrow for a fairly lengthy vacation. Blogging may therefore be a bit erratic over the coming weeks, depending of factors such as jetlag, partying, proximity of family members to my laptop, etc.

I do have some kinky play lined up, although not as much as I would have liked. If I’m in LA or NYC for a few days on my own, it’s pretty easy to schedule sessions with different dommes. In the UK I have to coordinate with multiple sets of friends and family, none of whom expect me to be disappearing for a few hours to get beaten, pierced or peed on.

On the plus side, it’ll be good to see the country again before Boris has a chance to wreck it. I’ll be spending a decent portion of my time relaxing in the beautiful countryside of both England and Scotland. I’ve no kinky plans for that section, which is a shame, as British ladies and outdoor pursuits can have some interesting kinky possibilities.

I found this in an old tumblr archive. A bit of research got me to this photoset featuring a model named Natalie, shot by the photographer Cannizzaro aka The Booted Cat.

Happiness

This Swaddle article makes the case that BDSM can make you more successful at work. As one dominant woman in the article says…

I began to notice that especially on days after we had engaged in a play scene, I would feel more focussed, composed and clear-headed. It was almost as if the satisfied feeling I felt in bed, in that position of power, flowed over the next day. I feel like I know more about myself — my mind and my body.

I’ve blogged on the concept of flow in the past (for example here), but reading the Swaddle article made me wonder if something more basic could be at play. Is it simply that being happy makes people more effective?

I know when I’m feeling happy at work (from kinky play or any other reason) I’m more likely to engage effectively in discussions and do a better job of selling my ideas. On the flipside, if I’m feeling unfulfilled or down, I’m more likely to get hung up on pointless arguments and trying to win the debate at all costs. Being effective in my work is often as much about knowing when to let something I disagree with slide as it is about doing the right thing. If I’m buzzed and flying on endorphins from a great play session, then I think I’m smarter about picking my battles. Not looking to work for emotional fulfillment actually leads to smart decision making and hence a more productive work life.

In summary: I should be able to claim on expenses for my kinky play with pro-dommes. It’d be a net gain for my company. I look forward to trying that argument out with my boss. I’m guessing it’ll have to go under the “Miscellaneous” section on the expense form.

Talking of happiness – here’s a very cheerful looking lady. Hopefully the man destined to wear that interesting funnel gag she’s holding is equally happy with the idea.

Oh, Snap!

Normally a domme staring into the camera rather than engaging with her submissive spoils an image. In this case the slightly disinterested look away really makes it work. The timing and impact of the pain is a minor and secondary issue compared to making sure the camera gets a good shot of her.

I found this in an old tumblr archive, but I’m fairly certain it’s from the CBT and Ballbusting site.

Governess Inka

I’m continuing the corporal theme for just one more post. I love this image for the contrast it presents with most online erotica. Mistress Inka is sitting in a comfortable chair, in a regular room, in a dress that not only covers every inch of her body but obscures even her shape. Yet it’s still wonderfully sexy.

I also think it’s also another example of how loose the link between kink, culture and personal experience can be. This has a real Victorian governess feel to it. I’m guessing nobody reading this had a governess, and certainly nobody had a Victorian one. Yet the image and dynamic still works. Certain archetypes persist, drawing on underlying desires that we may not even be aware of. The image uses an idea from the past, but that’s really just camouflage to sneak in its kinky themes of punishment, control and desire.

Image is from this tweet. For the watermark, I assume it’s associated with Sissy Manor (main site here). Mistress Inka’s professional site is available here.

The English Vice

Speaking of kinky cause and effect – as I just was – corporal punishment and impact play is another interesting example of an arguably misattributed cause. It used to be said that the English love of spanking and flagellation was derived from the use of corporal punishment in school. As a theory, it seems to make sense. Boys just coming into adolescence and packed with sexual energy were being beaten, and then transmuting that trauma into a kink. Hence, we ended up with the English Vice.

The flaw in this claim is that corporal punishment has been banned from British schools for a long time now, yet it still seems to be as popular as ever in kink. It’s also popular across a wide range of countries, even those that didn’t think beating children was a good idea. Personally, I was never beaten as a child, but corporal punishment scenes featured heavily in my fantasies in my 20’s and 30’s.

Obviously to prove the case one way or another one would need to do a proper survey and analyze kinky preferences over time and culture. It’s possible that corporal scenes are a lot more popular with a certain type of older British male than in the rest of the kinky community. But my suspicion would be that while corporal punishment in school might have colored peoples kinks, anyone who ended up indulging in it later in life would have been kinky anyway. Those submissives who were spanked or caned as children draw a correlation, where those who weren’t simply shrug and don’t worry about why they like it.

I’m afraid I’ve no idea who shot this picture of this happy lady caner.

Taboo

It’s often said that taboo subjects are a great source of kinks. Making something forbidden or secret gives it power, which in turn makes it alluring to our sexual subconsciousness. It’s a view that I’m skeptical of. There’s probably some truth in it, but it seems overstated.

The fact that kinks often involve taboo subjects doesn’t necessarily mean that the taboo is the cause of them. Correlation is not causation. For example, using mommy/daddy terms in quasi-incest roleplay is clearly a socially taboo area, but maybe people are simply kinking on the power differential between adult authority figures and youngsters. Or on the contrast between expected relationship and the distorted kinky version of it.

To show that the allure of the forbidden is the underlying cause of a kink, you’d need to show how changing the social perception of a subject also changed how people kink on it. I really struggle to come up with an example of that. A few weeks ago I wrote about the lure of the ankle in Victorian Britain. It’s clear that over the last 100 or so years, women’s fashion has changed enormously. What was taboo to reveal is now commonplace. Yet I haven’t seen any sign that kinks around clothes and bodies has diminished at all. Women in very visible boots or high heels no longer scandalize society, but the footwear fetish isn’t going away.

Toilet play is another area where the taboo is often cited as causative. If that were the case, you’d expect kinky interest in it to vary in inverse proportion to the social stigma. Yet Japan has a mainstream museum of poo, complete with poo themed video games and souvenir poo on a stick. At the same time their pornography has no shortage of scatological content. It certainly seems a lot more common than in US porn, a country far more uptight about the who/how/when of its toilets. Rather than repression creating kinks, it almost seems the other way around.

This image is from Team Rinryu, creators of the Yapoo series. Their content is fairly extreme and often scatological in nature. This scene is obviously just a simple face sitting one – and absolutely nothing more than that.