Tag: Photograph

I like to watch

I should give you fair warning, this post might be a bit of a rant. In the past I’ve vented here on topics like flirting with limits and cold playspaces. Today I’m going to take on a very popular BDSM accessory – the blindfold.

I’ll admit upfront that there are good situations for using a blindfold. They clearly work well as part of a sensory deprivation scene. If you want to change a routine up and introduce some surprises then a blindfold can help with that dynamic. They’re also great for beginners to reduce the pressure on the domme. He can let his imagine run wild while she has time to figure out exactly how the cuffs are supposed to work. What I don’t understand is why they’re so popular outside these situations. They often seem to get incorporated because they can be, rather than as a necessary component of a larger plan.

I’m particularly puzzled by how often pro-dommes tend to use them. I think it’s fair to say that most pro-dommes are very attractive women. That might not be a requirement of the job, but it’s unarguably a significant advantage. They also tend to spend a lot of money on exciting fetish gear and sexy footwear. So why on earth would they want to slap a blindfold on me so I don’t get to experience that visual pleasure? I’ve heard that it’s so I can use my imagination, but frankly I have the rest of my life to use my imagination. I’m paying money so, just for a few hours, I can enjoy an amazing reality that’s better than my kinky imagination.

The other strange thing I’ve observed is that blindfolds often seem to get used in initial sessions when the dominant and myself are still getting to know one another. That really doesn’t make much sense to me. It’s tough to quickly build the kind of dynamic necessary for intense play when you only see one another for a couple of hours ever few weeks or months. So why would you want to put up a barrier to make it harder to build the necessary chemistry? If I know someone intimately, then a blindfold can represent an interesting twist on that relationship. But if I met you for the first time 30 minutes ago, a blindfold just means a stranger I can’t see and don’t know is now hurting me. That might be a kink for some, but I doubt it is for most submissives. Pain is only hot in context, and absent a history together, a blindfold takes a lot of that context away.

I’ll admit I’ve had some fun sessions with blindfolds. I remember a scene with Lydia featuring saran wrap mummification, ear plugs, a blindfold and an e-stim device that almost pushed me into a hallucinatory state. I had difficulty speaking at the end of that. But in that case there was a very clear reason for the blindfold, and it was done when Lydia and myself had already played together for a hundred hours plus. I’ve done a lot more sessions with other dommes where the blindfold only subtracted from the scene and made it that much harder to relax into the moment.

Feel free to leave a comment if violently disagree (or agree) with me on this. I’m curious if it’s just me who feels this way, or if there’s a perspective (particularly from the domme side) that I’ve missed.

I believe this image is by Miss May of the Fetish Webmistress site.

AWOL

Apologies in advance – I’m off to the wilds of Oregon for the weekend, so there’ll be no new posts until I’m back. I normally wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere without internet access, but I have family in town, and they wanted to see a bit more of the US than was visible from my usual haunts of urban cocktail bars and restaurants.

If anyone is looking for some alternative entertainment while I’m gone, I noticed that Midori had done a couple of podcasts on her Forte Femme course. You can listen to part 1 and part 2 here. If I’m honest I found the interviewer a little annoying, as everything was awesome and amazing. I’d personally have preferred a more investigative and inquisitive approach, but your mileage may vary.

Hopefully I’ll be back on Sunday with new posts. That is unless I’m captured and ravaged by a wild roaming dominatrix, as captured in this rare photograph. I know what to do when encountering a bear or a cougar in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, but what about a domme of the forest? Based on my knowledge of the urban domme, I’m guessing the answer is probably a cock shot of some sort. That’s probably better than bear spray when it comes to ensuring everyone stays a long way away from you.

This is from the lovely Goddess Jessica’s twitter feed.

Quite the Collection

I’ve played in hotel rooms a good number of times, and generally had a fun experience. With the right dynamic and a bit of ingenuity you can do all sorts of scenes with a small travel bag of toys. And, as I’ve posted before, playing in a more downmarket location can sometimes have thrills all of its own.

Mistress Chiaki is clearly not a subscriber to that particular approach, given this shot of what looks like a beautiful hotel room and a truly awesome collection of toys. I’ve seen professional dungeons with less equipment than that. I hope she has a retinue of beefy slaves to pack it all up and carry it around for her.

This is from her blog in a post back in April this year.

Drool

Mistress Sidonia has put together a very comprehensive list of gag types, spread across a pair of posts here and here. It’s a handy reference for anyone looking for new toys or techniques to try, as well as those who like to go through lists ticking off what they’ve tried to date.

One thing that always amuses me about gags is how many dommes love the drool they produce. There may be some dommes out there who don’t care about gag drool, but if there are, I’ve never met them. I’ve seen plenty of dommes complaining about submissives slobbering over their feet or dribbling onto their outfits, but somehow gag drool is never an issue. It’s either hot, funny, cute or all of the above.

This image is by Joachim Baldauf for Paper Planes magazine.

SF Trip Revisited

As I mentioned in past posts, I was fortunate enough to play with Domina Yuki and Mistress Chloe Mercury in San Francisco last week. Domina Yuki even took timeout from tormenting me to snap a few pictures of our sessions. Luckily for all my readers the play space had a big mirror, which means in addition to my dangly naked bits, the picture also feature the beautiful Domina Yuki.

This one was from the first session we did. There’s some plastic clips on my torso and a well bound package getting squeezed. Domina Yuki draping her leg across my torso was a nice touch. It’s simultaneously sensual, constraining and a position of dominance.

This shows some interesting leg bondage using a combination of leather and ropes. You can see some play piercing on my chest. The obscured piercing on the other side was slightly higher and in the nipple.

I always enjoy suspension bondage, but it’s normally a really lengthy and un-fun thing to set-up. This arrangement, from our second session, using a leather harness and cuffs was great because it gave the same floaty sense of helplessness while taking just minutes to arrange. Plus, it was comfortable, meaning I could focus on the stuff that was actually supposed to hurt, rather than pinching ropes or awkward weight distribution. The weights hanging from the scrotum don’t look much in this shot, but at the time it felt like a medium sized cannonball was suspended there. Particularly when Yuki gave them a kick.

This trip was the first time I ever got to experience a Venus device. It was a surprisingly effective toy. Yuki had it set-up to provide enough stimulation to give me hope – but not quite enough to reach a point of criticality. Frustration ensued. Having it combined with an electroshock device on the cock made for a seriously confusing sensory mix. Having my breathing constrained – in the best possible way – was another layer of sensation to deal with.

It was a fabulous few hours of play, and I consider myself very lucky to get to play with such a talented domme. I really need to try and make it down to San Francisco more often.

This shot is of Domina Yuki and Mistress Chloe with another lucky slave. It’s take from their twitter feeds. I didn’t get to do a double domme session with them, but for anyone interested in that, now would be a perfect time to try it. They’re offering $100 off double session for the next month. I have to imagine that it’d be quite the experience.

He’s behind you!

This seems to be a popular image, as I’ve seen it pop up on quite a few tumblrs recently. I’m not really sure I understand why. It almost looks surreal to me. Like somebody should be asking – “Do you know there’s a naked man behind you with his head up your dress?” It kind of puts me in mind of a pantomime horse. Although in this case the front half is a lot more attractive and the back half has a much better view than normal.

I’ve no idea where this if from. Google’s reverse image search gives its best guess for this as ‘Photograph’. Which is simultaneously technically accurate and entirely useless.

Cross Promotion

I received a strange but amusing sales pitch the other day. A Sarah from the ‘Crazy Pet Guy’ blog wanted to write a guest post here. Apparently she thought there was a fair amount of overlap between her pet themed site and mine. Suggested topics included:

  • When Should You Give Up and Call a Dog Trainer?
  • How to Prepare Yourself for Dog Adoption
  • The Importance of Consistency in Dog Training: Why It Works

I get a fair number of these kind of guest post requests. A few are from other kink sites, which do actually have overlap with this one. Most are random spam emails that are clearly the result of dumb algorithms. This is clearly the latter case, but it’s also the first one that is both entirely unrelated and yet weirdly appropriate. I’m fairly certain Sarah doesn’t want to write about training a human puppy, or the importance of consistency in slave training, yet I was strongly tempted to reply with a few suggested kinky topics for her to work with. After all – when is it appropriate to give up on your human puppy and call a professional domme in? Should you rub their noses in it? Is it ever appropriate to spank them with a newspaper? How do you stop inappropriate leg humping? And is crueler to use a chastity cage or simply neuter them?

I’m afraid I don’t have a source for this image.

Tense

I’m feeling tense. Not normally a good thing for someone on vacation, but these are special circumstances. I’ve did a couple of different sessions on my first two days in town. One with Mistress Chloe and one with Domina Yuki. Both were a lot of fun – I even featured on Mistress Chloe’s twitter feed – but both also left my somewhat on edge, if you get my drift. I’m also on scout’s honor not to take matters into my own hands. So while my bruises may be slowly fading, my sexual stress levels aren’t.

Matters haven’t been helped by the hot weather in SF, which means everyone is out wearing skimpy summer clothes. I’m trying not to temporarily turn into one of those men who instinctively twist their neck to watch an attractive woman go past. I think the world is already probably over quota on middle aged male letches, and doesn’t need me to add to it.

This image was shot by Sergei Pons for Yo Dona magazine.

Heatwave

It’s about a bajillion degrees in San Francisco right now. Which seems the perfect excuse to feature this slightly strange but amusing summer themed shot from Mistress Iris. She’s definitely someone who enjoys exploring more unusual themes for her image galleries, as I’ve covered in the past. This is actually a ‘behind the scenes’ image, taken from her twitter feed. You can see the final official images from the shoot on her gallery page.

I wouldn’t put inflatable pool toys too high on my list of fetishes, but dommes in latex having fun is definitely a top 5 contender.

When Worlds Collide

Yesterday was one of my typically hedonistic vacation days. The afternoon featured kinky fun with a talented domme. The evening featured a big meal with many wines. Champagne consumption was a common element to both, although the vintage, temperature and volume varied considerably between the two.

The part of the evening that really made me stop and smile wasn’t the French bubbles, but a white Spanish Rioja that strongly reminded me of what I’d been drinking earlier that day. I’m not saying it tasted like pee but, to use a pretentious wine tasting term, it had many similar notes. There were tannins, which gave a slightly tea like taste, some oxidization, a little herbaceousness and a touch of underlying bitterness. It actually paired great with the fish dish that accompanied it, and I resisted the urge to tell the server what I was smiling about. She probably wouldn’t have taken it as a compliment.

It speaks to the quality of the dommes diet that I could make such a comparison. Probably best not to start setting up a bottling plant just yet however. I’m guessing pee doesn’t take to aging the same way wine does.

I’m afraid I have no attribution for this image.

Update: Thanks to a very helpful comment I can now attribute this to the artist Julian Serrano and a series of images he did called A History Of Sex. This is named Leo’s Fantasy. I particularly enjoyed this anecdote from the original exhibition…

The photo called Leo’s Fantasy caused a national stir in liberal Holland when the Groninger Museum — in a simultaneous presentation of this series — chose the picture of girl peeing into the man’s mouth for its poster, and wanted to put it on the tram. Church groups protested, and the courts first said it wasn’t obscene, and then said it was.

Hard to imagine an American museum thinking they could get away with this image on a NYC subway poster. Conservative groups over here would go insane.