Tag: Photograph

Warning Signs

I thought I’d continue my previous post on the incompetent domme and the site she shoots for with a few follow-up thoughts.

Firstly, always be alert for warning signs in any kinky interaction – whether it’s playing in person or simply buying someone’s BDSM porn. I remember seeing the site in question advertise for film slaves with the condition that they’d only waive the usual session fee if the slave didn’t use their safeword. That’s obviously a horrible incentive structure. The submissive is liable to push beyond safe limits to avoid paying and the domme is encouraged to push hard in order to save the company money. I should have called them out when I saw that, but somehow it slid past me at the time.

Secondly, be smart about where you consume porn from. If you like a lot of low risk activities, then it probably doesn’t matter who the domme is. Femdom Empire features a lot of crossover models from the regular porn world,  but they tend to stick to activities like pegging, foot worship, facesitting, tease/denial. etc. I’ve never seen them do extreme scenes that create non-trivial risk. On the other hand, if you’re more into things like impact play, heavy bondage, CBT and medical play, then pick sites that feature a lot of well known pro-dommes. For example, The English Mansion site definitely features edgier activities, but it’s also run by a well known domme and features a lot of top professionals.

Finally, if you’re a submissive, don’t think you can delegate all safety concerns to the domme. Playing safely is a joint responsibility. If you’re concerned about raising issues mid-scene – which I’ll admit can be difficult – then build into more intense play slowly over time. That makes it much easier to adjust course or raise concerns between sessions when you’re in a clearer headspace. I’d rather look forward to playing again and pushing just a little further than leave a scene with an injury or a messed up mental state.

Talking of the English Mansion, heavier activities and professionals who know what they’re doing, here’s Domina Liza in a shoot for them. She’s certainly someone who knows how to correctly wield a single tail.

A Problem in the Pant Department

If you hang out on kinky social media sites you’ll inevitably come across stories of people braving airport security with kinky toys. The best advice I’ve heard for when a TSA agent starts quizzing you on the contents of your toy bag is simply to say “It’s a sex thing”.  That pretty much guarantees they’ll want to quickly drop whatever it is and move on.

Of course that approach doesn’t really work if the toy in question is currently residing in your pants and locked onto your dick – as Thumper recently found out. While airports have strict rules about taking shoes and belts off, chastity devices occupy more of a grey area. Although they do have special TSA locks for luggage, so maybe that could be adopted for dicks? Just make the agent in charge of telling everyone how to put their laptop in a bin also responsible for unlocking  chastity devices and running them through the x-ray luggage scanner. Admittedly you might upset some people re-locking your chastity device on the other side of the security gate, but you could just tell them it’s for their own safety. The contents of your pants are now guaranteed to be safely non-explosive, both literally and metaphorically.

Thumper clearly handed the situation with great aplomb. He was at least fortunate to be in a simple plastic device. The conversation might have been different had he been in something like the steelweeks device below. I think this is very cool, but I wouldn’t want to try and explain it to an uncomprehending TSA agent. The only thing that’d make it more suspicious would be a couple of blue and red wires and a big countdown timer.

This is the Steelwerks Steampunk device.

Tease and Arghhhh!

Here’s a question for my male readers: What could possibly be the problem with a beautiful woman in exciting fetish garments, tying you down and then gently teasing and caressing you? The answer –  at least in my specific case this evening – is if the aforementioned woman has already sutured your foreskin closed, creating a tightly packaged penis parcel. In that situation your dick will try and do its best alien chest bursting impersonation, only to be thwarted by several strands of thin suture thread. The end result is less gory than the classic John Hurt scene, but the amount of screaming is about the same. It’s a situation where you really don’t want to pop a stitch.

The instigator of this pleasure/pain combination was Ms Savannah Sly and, although it may not necessarily sound like it, we had a wonderful scene tonight. There were also needles, staples and electrics involved at various points.  It’s always a fun time when the activity list sounds more like a trip to the ER than a kinky scene. Although I doubt many doctors would giggle quite so much when sticking a staple into my nipple.

This image is of Ms Savannah Sly brandishing another sharp pointy toy. You can see more of her via her twitter feed.

What Happened Next?

This is one of those images with endless possibilities. Depending on your personal kinks or proclivities, there are a lot of different ways you can imagine this scene unfolding. Although I do think that 99% of them involve those jeans coming off.

This is Liara Roux, who both creates porn and works as a professional companion. The man with the eye catching erection is Oliver Davis and the scene was shot by Ashley Lake.

You can see more from the scene in this tweet and on Liara’s site.

Her Delicate Touch

Here’s something sweet to start the week. This image is from the SF based pro-domme Mistress Wild Iris, via this tweet.

Ironically, I find one of the things that makes a great pro-domme isn’t their ability to crack a single tail, or rig a fiendishly complex bondage scene, it’s the delicate touches they bring to their scenes. It’s knowing when the submissive needs a grounding contact to bring them back. The breath of a whisper into their ear. The press of a sensual warm body on a bruised back. It’s that momentary physical and emotional connection that allows intense sensations to be sublimated into a D/s dynamic.

You can see more from Mistress Wild Iris on her twitter feed.

Pride in her Work

I normally don’t post images that feature the cliche of the domme staring into the camera while also engaging in a scene. I understand the idea – allowing the viewer to feel engaged with the domme while also enjoying the activity – but the images always feel very fake and disconnected to me. They emphasize the presence of the photographer and reduce the D/s chemistry.

I’m going to make an exception for this image. Firstly, because his expression and that little raise of his left leg is very cute. Secondly, because I imagine her expression is less a fake stare down, and more a sense of pride.  She’s totally pulling off her look and also nailing his ass. I’m not left thinking how fake it seems, but more that she’s proud of delivering a great moment on camera.

I believe this is from the Shadow Lane site.

Skew

I’m going to outsource today’s post to Ferns and her post on ‘Balance in F/m Voices‘. I think it’s an excellent analysis of an important topic, so go check it out if you haven’t already.

I realize outsourcing a post makes me seem like a slacker of a blogger, with no original thoughts. All of which is true. But in my defense, I do worry about the skew to femdom that the pro-domme industry creates, and Ferns does a great job of articulating the problem from a lifestyle domme’s perspective. I’ve posted about this in the past, and I’m still no closer to resolving the issues I raised then.  I can only keep trying to draw clear distinctions and promote non-professional views whenever I get the chance.

I believe this is from a fashion shoot by Karl Largerfeld.

Checklists

Writing yesterday’s post about bucket lists reminded me of another type of list – the BDSM checklist. If you’re not familiar with the concept it’s basically a quick and easy way to build a list of activities that you’re interested in exploring or absolutely want to avoid. Typically they’re used as an aid to negotiating a scene, but I also like them to give me new ideas or reminders of things I haven’t tried for a while.

Back in the day – when kinksters had to get up half an hour before they went to bed and pay mill owner for privilege to come to work – you’d actually print out a list and mark off interests. These days you can build and share a profile online, no dead trees or leaky pens needed. For example, somebody recently sent me a link to the Kinkomatic site, which seems to have a pretty comprehensive list of activities, as well as a fairly slick interface for creating, sharing and finding lists. You can read more about it via their FAQ. Alternatively, if you’d rather go with an old school approach, there are plenty of  basic activities lists online you can search for (e.g. this one has 256 entries).

Talking of old school – this magazine cover would certainly qualify. Presumably this gentleman ticked 36 (chains), 40 (choking) and 134 (leather clothing) from this list. However, I don’t see any options for ‘wearing hideous y-fronts’ or ‘roleplaying being a really bad actor’.  No matter how long the list, it seems there are always a few popular kinks that get left off.

It’s all in the Mind

The NYT has a short but informative article  on the complex relationship between brain and body when it comes to pain. It’s tempting to think of the body as the source of all physical pain and the brain simply reporting on the signals it receives but, as the article explains, it’s a lot more complicated than that. As every masochist already knows, and doctors are learning, pain is contextual, and the reprocessing that happens in the brain can make a big difference to the perception of the sensation.

I also found it interesting that the article draws a connection with itching. Ever since I got involved in kink, I’ve been fascinated by how that phenomena can be modified by my situation. In normal circumstances I find it almost impossible to not scratch a bad itch. The more I resist doing so, the greater the intensity and the compulsion to resolve it. I can’t think of anything else. Yet once in bondage, itches fade away. It’s almost like my brain has a switch it can flip – if I physically can’t fix the itch then no point bugging me about it. I’ve never had to stop play to get an itch scratched. But when the ropes or straps come off, any irritation immediately returns.

This lady is about to administer a two for one deal – pain and itching combined, thanks to a big bundle of stinging nettles. This is obviously originally from Femme Fatale Films.

Enjoy the Glove

I think this is one of those images that’s both not pornographic and yet incredibly sexual all at the same time. There’s just a pair of gloves, a glimpse of a shoulder and a sleeved arm, yet it conjures in the imagination all manner deliciously dirty invasive medical fantasies. I can almost hear the snap as the glove is pulled tightly into place. Take a deep breath as this might hurt … quite a lot.

This is by Mistress Sade, an NYC based pro-domme. You can find her social media feed here and session information here.