After all that talk of play spaces and interior decor, here’s something very simple. No fancy furniture or dungeon equipment. Just a cute couple in a sweet moment.
Tag: Photograph
The places you’ll go
Writing about Kink’s Armory space last week got me thinking about all the different play spaces I’ve experienced over the years. If you’ve never visited a professional BDSM space, you might be surprised where they pop up. Old industrial buildings in the cheaper parts of town are certainly common, but they’re not the only option. For example, over the years I’ve experienced:
- A big McMansion in a rich suburb. A large chunk of the second floor had been converted to the play space. It was odd to experience being bound and beaten while chinks in the window blinds gave me glimpses of people watering their lawns or kids playing in the street.
- An ultra-modern loft style condo. I was late to arrive, as I spent the first 10 minutes convinced that the play space must be in the old brick warehouse across the street. That seemed so much more likely than the trendy and expensive condos.
- The top floor of a downtown office block. It was an incredibly well equipped space, and it must have been a nightmare to get all the big heavy dungeon furniture up the lifts and stairs without arousing suspicion.
- A townhouse in the heart of San Francisco. I was banned from visiting during the day, as it was thought my screams would disturb the dot com company next door.
Most spaces adopt the functional but cliched black / red color schemes for the walls and equipment, but there are a few happy exceptions. Troy Orleans in NYC has a beautiful establishment with natural light, clean white walls and a very well thought out use of space (see a shot here). Similarly, Lucy Khan in LA has a luxurious and well composed space that actually looks like an interior designer was involved (see a shot here). Personally, I always prefer to play somewhere that feels like a beautiful space to be in, rather than in a dungeon cliche.
This image is by Natasha Gornik and was featured on her tumblr. It doesn’t say so on the post, but I believe that’s Miss Troy Orleans again. I think it’s a nice example of an intense scene but with still a clean and beautiful aesthetic.
Reversa
Something simple for fans of the CFNM genre today. This is actually from an advertising campaign for an anti-aging cream called Reversa. I tend to the belief that such things are snake oil with little to no scientific basis. Has there ever been a properly controlled test of such things? However, I do like this shot. It almost seems to argue against the product itself. Who cares about a few wrinkles if you can pull off this kind of poised elegance?
Zen and the art of spanking
Combining zen and spanking is apparently now a thing. At least according to this article. It was recently featured in the Taste of Love Festival, which describes the goal as…
…to create an awakening of energy in the base of the receiver and allow it to be ridden and flow through the body.
This actually resonates with me. I’m generally not a big hand spanking fan. I like my impact play to involve some canes or paddles in order to push my masochistic buttons. Regular hand spanking seems kind of playful and (dare I say it) a little vanilla. Yet there’s definitely an energy and rhythm to it that can be quite focusing. I can imagine combined with breath work and the right sense of flow it could be meditative.
This is Dana Kane helping a gentleman reach a more zen like state for the Dreams of Spanking site.
Glitoris
It’s not often you get to see a giant golden clitoris on the stage at the Sydney Opera House, but this blog can deliver the goods. I guess technically it was Amanda Palmer and Alli Sebastian Wolf who delivered the goods, the Guardian newspaper by proxy, and this blog by proxy of proxy. But whatever. All those who don’t read the Guardian or live in Sydney, you’re welcome.
The associated article has a number of interesting facts. The one that really caught my eye was that the clitoris ‘is the only part of the human body that never ages’. That seems suspect. I assume most ladies do no have a Tardis down their pants, so it’s not actually time travelling. Most clitori are probably the same age as their owners. I guess they mean it doesn’t decay with age. Although that seems suspect as well – how do you define decay? I can think of a fair number of body parts that keep working till you die. The clitoris does apparently grow over time, so if we’re looking for things that get bigger but keep working, my stomach would be another good candidate.
Anyway, quibbles aside, I love the idea of a giant glittering clitoris appearing on stage. More events should have that. You couldn’t have paid me to watch the inauguration on Friday, but if there’d been a giant glittery clitoris appearing behind the pussy grabbing pres, I might just have tuned in.
I’m afraid I’ve no source for this tongue on clitoris action.
Doubling up on dungeons
The closure of kink.com’s armory space got me wondering what’ll happen to all the fancy equipment they’ve built or collected over the years. I can’t imagine there’s another single place in the US with quite the depth and range of BDSM toys and furniture that they have. Losing it would be a great shame. Although maybe there’s a business opportunity here?
BDSM play spaces in the US are normally tucked away in odd corners of cities, with unclear rules about who can rent them and elaborate protocol for how to approach them inconspicuously. There’s always an understandable desire to avoid annoying the neighbors or drawing the attention of local authorities. Some have great equipment, but it’s often squeezed into a few small rooms, and the soundproofing can be less than ideal. If kink.com is going to spread filming to new locations in different cities, how about building out these facilities so they can be rented by others? That would allow them to get value from the space when they weren’t filming, and allow kinky people to play with the fancy equipment. Plus, any space already zoned for filming kinky porn with a cast+crew shouldn’t have an issue with 2 or 3 private people turning up to use it.
Obviously they’d need something a bit more permanent than a set that gets torn down between each shoot, but with some themed areas and equipment that can be moved easily, it should be possible to make it flexible enough. I can imagine pro-dommes would love to be able to offer clients a play experience in a setting they already know from watching kink’s movies. Alternatively, given the popularity of clip stores, they could rent it out to dommes wanting to do their own filming. It’d already have all the infrastructure in place ready for setting up lighting and sound.
When it comes to interesting play spaces, it’s hard to beat Germany. The photographs below are from Avalon Studios, and specifically their private residences. They offer a complete self-contained complex for rent, with multiple guest rooms, a dungeon, a clinic, a school room, a set of cells, etc. It’s can be rented by pro-dommes, BDSM film makers or just people wanting a kinky themed holiday. How many other dungeons out there boast a confessional for sharing all your naughtiest sins?
End of an era in SF
By strange coincidence, just after my previous post on Kink.com and their famous San Francisco studios, this article popped up in my news feed – End Of An Era: Kink.com To Stop Filming In Its Famous Porn Dungeon.
It seems that this change was triggered, in part at least, by a combination of falling revenue and the difficulty in maximizing use of the Armory building. Less people are buying porn and mainstream companies don’t like to share space with famous kinky porn studios. The new approach will be to keep just the kink.com offices in the Armory, making it easier to lease/repurpose the remaining space, and then spread the filming to other sets and studios. Given the high cost of San Francisco rent, that may mean directors building their own facilities in LA or Vegas.
I certainly wouldn’t hold kink.com up as an exemplar for femdom porn. Their shoots tend to play to a lot of the classic femdom stereotypes. High in leather, snarling and sneering. Low in emotional connection, sensuality and fun. They’ve also had allegations of workplace mistreatment. However, all that said, I am sad to hear they’re no longer going to be shooting at the armory. It always seemed amazing that a kink dedicated company could buy a run such a big and impressive property in one of the most expensive cities in America. I can remember when kinky material was obscure, hard to find and (frequently) cheaply shot. Now we have dedicated riggers and set designers putting together complex scenes and fiendish equipment in a huge army building in the middle of SF. For me that building was a physical embodiment of kinks transition from obscurity to mainstream success.
I hope their new approach will allow them to stay viable. If you like their stuff, then now would obviously be a good time to subscribe. Femdom is a lot lot more than humiliation, pain and fancy bondage, but there’s no reason those elements can’t also be some part of it, and kink.com often did a pretty good job on them
These two shots are of Claire Adams and EuroSex from the old Men in Pain channel.
Kink: The Documentary
I finally got around to watching the documentary on the Kink film studios by James Franco. Not sure why it took me so long, given I blogged about it being available on Netflix back in 2015, but there we are. Verdict: OK but not great. Probably if you knew nothing about BDSM then it’d be eye opening, but for me, and I suspect most of my readers, it was watchable without being particular deep or informative. On the plus side, it did have a good balance of Fm, Mm, Mf, etc. I was concerned it’d be heavy on the Mf side, but it was pretty even with a lot of screen time for people like Maitresse Madeline and Princess Donna.
One thing that did surprise me was the lack of experience that a lot of the performers demonstrated. Some years ago, a pro-domme who’d actually filmed a number of scenes for the studio told me – with some disparagement in her voice – that the directors really drove the scenes and the performers did as they were told. As someone who liked to create her own scenes with their own dynamic, this wasn’t a happy situation for her. Having watched the documentary, I can see what she meant. The directors and Kink employees were obviously experts, but some of the performers seemed to be fairly inexperienced with BDSM techniques. I’m certainly no expert, but I think my scene negotiation is crisper and clearer than one of the early Fm shoots they showed. The guy who was about to do a submissive role on camera seemed initially confused by the concept of caning, and was pretty vague in most of his answers. I guess the overlap between experienced BDSM players and hot, fit people willing to appear on camera is smaller than I thought.
As far as the documentary structure goes, I think they’d have been better off picking a very inexperienced new kink performer, along with an experienced older performer, and then following their personal stories. That character focus would have made for a more relatable film, and allowed them to dig deeper into the why and how people get involved in both BDSM and BDSM porn. All that said, it was a positive documentary that showed kinky people in a generally good light, so that’s at least a win.
This is Mistress Madeline with Curt Wooster in a shoot for Kink’s Divine Bitches site.
Time well spent
You know you’ve probably spent too much time hanging out on kink and fetish tumblr’s when you see an article titled – We Talked to a Professional Cuck About the ‘Alt-Right’– and your first response is ‘I bet I recognize the guy’. Sure enough, the gentleman in question is Jimmy Broadway, a familiar face to me (and doubtless other readers). I’m positive he’s featured in past posts here, although I can’t currently put my finger on them.
Anyway, the article itself is thankfully light on the political slant, and heavier on his experiences filming and performing. He also has a twitter account if you’re interested in reading more from behind the scenes and how the sausage gets made, or I guess in this case, sucked.
Here’s Jimmy in a Divine Bitches cuckold shot that feature a pair of classic expressions. I almost feel I should run this image as a humorous caption competition.
Divine space
According to this article, the Chinese city of Shenyang has created special parking spots just for women. That’s not an entirely new idea. Some cities have dedicated spots for women with young children, or marked spots in well lit and camera covered areas for increased safety. Sadly the Shenyang spots aren’t for those practical reasons. These spots are simply longer and wider (and pinker) to make it easier for women to park in them. Apparently they (allegedly) need help with their parking.
At first glance this seems incredibly sexist and patronizing. But what caught my eye was the labeling of them – Goddess Parking spots. So maybe there’s another explanation. Maybe the city transport division is staffed by femdom fans. They’re not being sexist, they’re just showing respect. If the next rule is that male parking violators have to be whipped by female traffic police, or that the city transport division staff have to clean the parked Goddesses cars in the nude, then we’ll know it’s a femdom fan thing. If not, then I guess we’re back to ‘sexist and patronizing’ as the explanation.
Sadly the Young Dommes site this image is from has ceased to exist.