#IWD

It was International Women’s Day on Friday. I have a good deal of sympathy for Miss Pearl’s point of view, expressed via this tweet

The next person who tries to particularly make #InternationalWomensDay about #femdom is getting a lecture on fetishism of power not being inherently empowering.

If there’s going to be at least one day that isn’t about what excites men’s dicks, this would seem like a good one to start with.

On the other hand, I did really like this IWD tagged tweet from Lucy SweetKill, featuring her, Dia Dynasty, the image below and the following quote from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.

I’m therefore going to claim for the purposes of this post, I’m like the telephone company, simply a transparent conduit for information. I put this all before you, make of it what you will.

Treasure of a Different Kind

I’ve written in the past about the correlation between pro-domme tribute rates and session quality (i.e. there isn’t any). Mistress Servalan has an interesting take on the same topic in this series of tweets. She notes that she keeps her rates at the lower end of the average because…

1 – I genuinely love to play & love longer sessions. I would rather be in the dungeon than pretty much anything.
2 – I like to play with all different types of people. Some of my favourite subs scrimp and save for their sessions, some don’t have to….
Which leads to….
3 – Many of my play partners view my offical tribute as a starting point. If they are able to contribute more they do.

I think that’s a wonderful and very generous approach approach to take. It reminds me a little of the famous slogan from Marx – “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” Although arguably the same view also traces back to the New Testament.

I did some basic currency conversion math on Mistress Servalan’s tribute rate. For a 3 hour session, her $700 Australian translates into around $500 US. Which is insanely great value for such a talented domme. I’ve played with a lot of US based dommes whose hourly rate alone is around that number. If you are lucky enough to play with Mistress Servalan, and you’re not scrimping and saving, then I really hope you’re tipping way over the odds. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go look up the cost of Seattle to Sydney flights.

This is from Mistress Servalan’s twitter feed, and features her lovely metal headcage created by Fetters. Oddly enough, they’re based just a few miles from where I grew up in England. So I’m sitting in Seattle, writing about a pro-domme in Sydney, featuring a company based in my childhood home of Warwickshire. Small world.

Pervette

Last week, after writing about playing with Domina Colette,  I mentioned her passion project – Pervette. At the time I said it deserved a write-up in its own post, and so here we have it.

It has one of the most interesting structures I’ve encountered in a kinky website. Most sites, whatever their topic, tend to be laid out like a library. There’s a catalog, a clear structure and everything is sorted to be easily found. Pervette reminds me more of an art gallery or an old bookshop. The kind made up of odd little rooms, different sized doors and strange steps where you don’t expect them. You don’t march in and grab what you want. You browse, wandering through it to find hidden treasures. Possibly it’s connected to L-Space.

The software engineer in me wants to deconstruct it, sort it, link to all the parts I’ve found. But I’ll resist that urge. Instead I’ll just mention that it’s iterative and evolving. Keen explorers can find the beginnings of a ‘choose your own adventure’ autobiography, guidance on being a domme and some lovely writing on the meaning and value of D/s. To give just a taste of that latter category – try here. Or simply create your own journey from the entrance.

Of course my other reason for posting about Pervette, is it gives me an excuse to feature a photograph of Domina Colette again. This is from a 2016 tweet and looks like the maximum amount of fun that can possibly exist in a single enclosed space. It features Domina Colette, Domina Dynasty and Lucy SweetKill.

Taking a firm grip

I don’t think this rather sexy image needs any additional commentary from me. Which is probably fortunate, as it’s some ungodly early hour in the morning and I really should go to bed. Apparently in any one evening I can either cook a fancy meal or write a decent length blog post, but not both.

This is by Lilith Darkmoon, a pro-domme based out of the Netherlands.

Baton’s Bastinado on a Submissive’s Secured Soles

Bastinado is one of those things that doesn’t seem to scary until you try it, at which point it rapidly shifts into the horribly fucked up and disturbing category. It’s pretty much the opposite of something like sounding. That looks scary, but when you eventually do find someone to stick a metal rod down your urethra, it’s actually fine. Almost pleasant even. That’s definitely not the case with foot punishment.

Beatings on the ass or thighs can be very painful, but there’s something simple about them. Lots of muscle, thick bones and layers of fat. In contrast the foot has 26 small bones and 33 joints all packed into a relatively small space. That creates a complex series of nerve ending packed surfaces, where the sensations can vary dramatically from blow to blow. Whenever my feet are beaten I always have the vision of little bones cracking and breaking, which frankly freaks me out. Of course the human body is a lot tougher than it looks, and no sane scene will ever get anywhere that kind of point. Feet can absorb a lot of punishment. Unfortunately my imagination refuses to believe that. Stupid imagination .

This image features Mistress Baton and was taken from this tweet. The little bit of tape fixing his big toes together is a particularly devilish touch. If you’d like to enjoy a beating from Mistress Baton in person, then her tour schedule is here.

BED

Gloria Brame has put together a new directory site for listing BDSM educators and groups – BED (Brame’s Educators Directory). It provides not only contact details but also things like professional qualifications, past presentations, community memberships, etc. This strikes me as a fine idea, not only for people within the community, but also for people outside it looking for useful contact points.

The site also has some fascinating historical illustrations and photographs. I particularly liked the advertisement below from the section of circa 70’s and 80’s pro-dommes. The text on the left captures – in just a few lines – how much the world has changed. These days submissives starts complaining if a domme doesn’t answer their email in a day or two. In this case Domina Verushka required you to send her a letter, together with stamped and self addressed envelope for any reply. A tape of her voice is available for $12 – which is around $28 in today’s money. Allow 8 weeks for delivery. Makes spending a few bucks for the instant delivery of a video from a modern clip site seem like something of bargain.

Based on this website I believe that Mistress Verushka is actually still offering professional domination sessions. Which I think is awesome. These days she’s in NYC (Queens) and contactable via email. No eight week wait required.

Updated: My apologies to Mistress Verushka Mandrake. As she makes clear in this comment, she’s not the same as the San Francisco based Mistress Verushka from this ad. Should you be in the NYC area and wish to session with her, then I did at least get the link to her contact information correct.

Sweet Smooshing

I hadn’t intended to do another Valentine Day themed post, but somehow these romantic fireside photographs of a ‘Happy Valentines’ cake getting smooshed were too fun not to feature. I’m not really a fan of food play or feet, but this made me smile. Possibly I need more frosting in my life. The lady doing the smooshing is Madame Ingrid, a Pittsburgh based pro-domme.  You can see other shots from the sequence in this tweet.

If the cake play isn’t doing it for you, then check out this Vice article on Valentines Day for Doms and Subs.  It interviews a variety of kinky people about what expressions of love and romance means to them. Oddly enough, licking dessert from your Doms feet doesn’t feature in it anywhere.

Domina Colette

My short sojourn in San Francisco has come to an end. Happily it finished on a high, thanks to a wonderful session with Domina Colette.

This was the first time we’d played together and initial meetings always have a touch of extra stress about them. Fortunately, any nerves quickly dissipated once we started talking and then easing into the scene. Sometimes you just know a session is going to be a great one right from the start. I’d like to think that’s about chemistry and shared energy, but I suspect a big part of it is down to the skill of the dominant in carving out a safe virtual space for the scene to unfold into.

Compared to the two sessions from the start of my trip, this upped the masochistic side slightly, whilst still retaining a lot of tease and denial elements. I particularly enjoyed Domina Colette’s very hands on approach to nipple torture.  Often when doing CBT and NT, there’ll be  a lot of the C and the B, not some much of the N. Slap a pair of nipple clamps on and then immediately head south frequently seems to be the approach. Colette took a much more balanced approach, mixing pain and pleasure between the different areas, and using her touch to alternately ground me, tease me and hurt me. She promised me a lasting memento of our session, and the tenderness across my chest the next day was certainly that. Just the movement of my clothes against it would trigger a mild wave of pain and then a happy smile.

If you’re interested in the possibility of a session with Domina Colette, or just want to see more images like the one below, then her professional site is here and her twitter feed here. She also has a passion project called Pervette, which I think deserves a post in it’s own right. It’s kind of a choose your own adventure, transmedia labyrinth and storytelling guidebook. Check it out and I’ll return to it in a future post.

This image of Colette and her silent maids is from her twitter feed.

Everyone’s Against Me

My weekend adventures in San Francisco have left me feeling a little tense. Nothing too excessive. Just the kind of mild tension where you bite a chunk out of your laptop and then start mindlessly humping the leg of the desk it’s sitting on.

I wrote a couple of days ago about my initial SF session with Mistress Iris. That left me, to phrase it delicately, somewhat on edge. My second session for the trip was with Domina Yuki. We’ve played together a lot in the past, and those sessions tended to skew towards traditional masochist play. This one did feature some CBT, electricity and a beautiful leather straitjacket, but was much heavier on tease and denial, with a particular emphasis on the denial. It’s one thing to be close to someone as desirable as Domina Yuki. It’s quite another to have her tease you about how frustrating that must be and yet deny any relief.

I don’t really cry in sessions. My standard response to pain is to yell or scream. Yet this session actually had me sobbing in frustration. Yuki even commented that I was pulling expressions she’d never seen from me before. I left the play space on a high of denial, with my whole body vibrating like a tuning fork.

Of course, the universe then chose to mess with me just a little more. Crossing Union square much later that night, a rather attractive young lady propositioned me with the idea that we might enjoy a mutually satisfying business arrangement back in my hotel room. That’s not normally my kind of scene, but just for a second or two some frustrated lizard brain cells were leaping up and down shouting “Do it! Do It!” Back at the hotel, having wrestled my id into submission and regretfully declined the ladies offer, the couple in the room next door then decided it was the perfect night for a marathon sex and spanking session. I was stuck there, horny beyond all measure, on a strict Scout’s honor of no touching, and all I can hear is endless slaps, grunts and cries of ecstasy.  I probably should have put headphones on to drown them out but, like a rubbernecker at a road accident, I couldn’t drag myself away. I might not have had any orgasms recently, but the couple in room 541 certainly made up the averages for me.

This was a shot from our scene, with me leaning over a spanking bench and Domina Yuki on top. There’s a similar shot from the same angle that better shows off Yuki’s beautiful boots here. There was also a very hot short movie, but sadly I don’t have the bandwidth to host it here. If  you can’t manage an in person session, but would like to see more of Domina Yuki and her scenes, then I’d suggest checking out her OnlyFans site. She posts a lot of great content to it.

A Brief Migration South

There’s a few inches of snow in Seattle. For many parts of America this would mean it was a mild winter day, but for Seattle it’s snowpocalypse. I’m really not kidding about that. People are stripping the local stores of produce, and emptying the hardware stores of snow clearing equipment. In terms of chaos, from my social media feed, it seems to rank somewhere above the Seahawks winning the Superbowl and just a touch below a zombie uprising.

Fortunately, I’m in San Francisco for a few days of fun, well away from the mess. Today I found the best possible way to keep warm and celebrate my well timed trip – playing with Mistress Iris. We had a wonderful session, with a lot of growling, snarling, whimpering, scratching and biting. There was no explicit animal role play, but if a nosy neighbor had sneaked up to  listen, I’m sure they would have thought otherwise. It’s odd, because I’m a fairly quiet person in normal life. Yet wrap some rope around me, and grab me by the balls, and suddenly I turn into an animal sound effects catalog.

This is Mistress Iris with some rather more attractive pets. Pedigree puppies versus me the mangy mutt. This is from a post on her instagram feed.