Man / Male Bondage Photograph Gallery 4

Vintage male bondage photographs number four of four.

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Man / Male Bondage Photograph Gallery 3

Vintage male bondage photographs number three of four.

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Continue reading Man / Male Bondage Photograph Gallery 3

Man / Male Bondage Photograph Gallery 2

Vintage male bondage photographs number two of four.

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Man / Male Bondage Photograph Gallery 1

Vintage men in bondage photographs.

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Continue reading Man / Male Bondage Photograph Gallery 1

Ten Quotes about Labels in BDSM

Are Labels Libels?

BDSM Sterotical Labes Falsehoods

A woman writes of her lover::

A couple of folks were chatting with Philip this evening about our relationship. They were wanting him to define it for them.

Just about all he could do was assert that he wasn’t a slave, and he wasn’t owned.

We’ve never tried to define it in current yet ever changing kink terms to fit the masses. He submits to me. He can say no if he wants to. I’ll generally do what I want to do any way, and he’ll generally say…see what saying no got me?

I listen to tone of course.

I watch his eyes and for his own small signs of personal discomfort with a given situation.

I try to be reasonable, unless I’m playing SDS on him.

He’s got the option of opting out of anything at any time, all he has to do is safeout.

I say he’s mine, he says he’s mine, past that there is no set structure or protocol. It just doesn’t seem to be needed.

Nondefined structure

Since it has occurred to me that an especially moving BDSM experience with Alexandra might be called poetry or music and not scening this distinction hit me:

One of the things I’ve often noted in this sort of discussion is that there are people who speak in a poetry of romantic ambience,
about feelings and desires and emotional connections, and there are people who speak in a prose of details and obligations and contigencies (my native tongue).

M/s, history and symbolism

I am in a full time D/s based relationship now. At different times I am
his submissive, his slave, his bottom, his friend, his lover, his mate …
well, you get the idea. We are so many things to one another; I love the
complexity of our relationship.

Labels – submissives & slaves & bottoms & wenches

When I was starting out, the labels and classifications were a pretty big deal to me. It was a little overwhelming, so it was nice to have pigeonholes to put
everything into. It was comforting. It became obvious pretty quickly, though,
that there was no real concensus about these things. One person’s “slave” was
another’s “submissive”. There were lists and categories of this that or the
other thing – “Nine Levels of…” or “10 Rules For…” but they were
oversimplified, and one rarely agreed with another, and I found I didn’t
totally agree with any of them.

Labels and classifications

Labels are shortcuts for communication, and that’s their main purpose. They
can become oppressive (and, I think, a bit dangerous) when they become
avatars for some ideal state (i.e. the occasional ‘you ain’t no true slave’
crap that appears here from time to time).

Labels [mini-rant]

Labels are sometimes convenient to help us identify with a group
of people. They can also be nasty generalisations that folk use
against us.

Redefining myself

Do you mean that people attach labels like ’24/7′ and ‘lifestyle’
in order to make it seem that they are a greater Dom/sub or that there
relationship is more real, more intense than anybody else. I think that
some certainly do and this creates an impression that this has to be the
aim for everybody or else you will never be a proper Dom/sub.

You see plenty of labelling like this in personal ads, but it’s
pretty meaningless without further qualification, because it means so
many different things to different people.

Is 24/7 another way of saying “bigger is better”?

… I don’t blame a lot of the blogger’s for disappearing or hiding when the answer they give are not the answers the reader wants to hear. or they are burnt out from the derivative thoughts and opinions. And its also no wonder why there are so many fakers. I get it now you have to fit the Femdom mould in order to belong. and after all doesn’t every one want to belong. …

Will the real Femdom please stand up !!!!

We really need a special insulting term for psuedo-doms male and female. You know the type: guy’s only in it for the blowjobs, gal’s only in it to get her housework done for her? People who are users who are totally uninterested in the art and the subculture of BDSM. They don’t have years of experience: they have the same damn year over and over. How about “duminant”?

Labels

Benchmarking and labeling – The biggest problem in BDSM is the tendency, many people have, to find benchmarks and label others. Since BDSM is a very personal thing, the truth is that every relationship and every emotion is personal, hence different from others. There are no benchmarks and labels do not really help either. True dominants and submissives do not excist. In fact there probably are not even good or bad doms or subs. They are just different.

The Many Faces of the Community

Male Slave in Christmas Bondage

Holiday Bondage Cheer

Male slave in Christmas bondage, -gay man gagged as present.

Don’t unwrap until Christmas?

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In Praise of Professional Dominatrices

(NB: I wrote this over five years ago. I haven’t reread a word of it.)

ProDommes & Stereotypes

Professional Dominatrix's Knee High Leather Boot

I esteem a number of professional dominatrices.

As I’ve mentioned before I’ve exchanged thoughts and feelings with some on and off for years. Not as a client: I’ve never (yet) paid for an evening’s S&M.

Nor necessarily about kink. Many of these conversations predated my relationship with Alexandra or my writing about fetish. They didn’t know of my masochism. We shared some other interest or they esteemed something I’d written about sexuality (probably gender identity).

So I felt a bit uncomfortable with a remark I found on a blog:

Just because [submissive male partner] will allow me to perform some act on him, and while he may desire it, it does not mean that I should or will perform it. Besides any legal issues, it has to be done within the boundaries of my own comfort. I am not a pro-domme, nor do I seek to act like one.

(Link not given: it is irrelevant and I have no desire to spark any friction.)

The point about the dominant’s comfort is well taken. The dominant needs to remain in his or her individual comfort zone. Though typically bottoms want their tops to do just a little bit more. (We are a greedy group aren’t we.)

But I demur at the notion that a dominant woman who enjoys more colorful play is akin to a ProDomme. Look at the explorations that Alexandra and I have shared. And the Perv-O-Meter is apt to register in the higher ranges when she returns.

Just good clean risk aware physical and emotional roaming around the byways of kink seeking to share certain mutual pleasures that are a part of our love.

I’d never suggest someone is not a “true dominant” because they have limits. (One of those things too many bottoms forget.)

Alexandra’s degradation and physical punishment of me doesn’t make her a professional dominatrix. She’s my lover.

But she’s not a better person for not being a ProDomme.

Even kinky people can be manipulated by the mass media clichés about professional dominants. Sure, some of the women abet those perceptions on their sites. That is just showmanship, letting the customer know that he can live his fantasy. Dig deep enough in the site and you’ll find it clearly stated that the client’s safety is paramount and insane requests won’t be honored.

ProDommes are often bright, cheerful, smart women. Mistress Matisse is sort of the poster girl of the good ProDomme.

So many of the women are creative. They know they are performance artists.

Do you think it is easy to put on all that garb to be the glamorous and pungent realization of a man’s dream. That while they like looking sexy maybe they’d rather relax in a t-shirt and sneakers?

Resilience and resource is required to stay sane and happy when many of the clients are demanding, whiny, bent in anything but a fun way. So many different performances with men who’ll become angry should your role drop if only for a moment.

Empathy and insight is necessary to get through the day. A good professional dominatrix – I’m sure there are plenty of rotten ones – just as there are incompetent plumbers and spiteful store clerks – develops real insight into human sexuality. A rough and ready wisdom that is nothing to be despised.

I suspect able sex workers have done more for human happiness than psychiatrists with the bottles of pills who often treat their clients like experimental lab animals.

Sexism?

A Ramble With No Conclusion

As a boy the only sexism I’m aware of absorbing was that a male should be especially polite to women: give her your seat on the bus, open door the door and preceede you.

And I did. Until a female friend told me that I was being foolish when I went out of the way to open a door for her. Thinking about it there seemed to actual reason to treat females from males in any fashion. So much for that.

Not that I was negligent or impolite. My Savannah (of the time) born conditioning left me if anything overly courteous. And I could focus my urges to be gallant on boys anyway.

This was the era of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Women actually marched bearing placards demanding – how amazingly – compensation equal to that paid to men. However imperfectly this aspect of American life was born anew. At least for most professional women.

Given my self-selected group of friends I thought that was the end of the matter. Mostly. Visiting a couple once while another couple was also visiting I found myself feeling uncomfortable and confused that the two women did everything related to food and comfort (an offer to assist was dismissed).

And I mostly spent time with gay men. What did I know?

When I got sick watching contemporary television and movies provided a great gender education. Women are less logical than men – huh? Perhaps in a parallel dimension. Not on the Earth that I live on.

Superior Dominant Female

Prior to the popular culture experience it was discovering Femdom that I was living in some sociological niche.

There is of course the whole female superiority rigamarole. Women are tougher, faster. I remember when a woman hit the talk show circuit with that in the 1970s. They are also sweeter, nicer and benevolent. Yeah. Junk ethnology and historical ignorance. Not that I object to this as fantasy. (I fantasize everything.)

Submissive Man's Penis

Now, men – men just aren’t so sweet. In fact all huamn males have penises for brains. And give one an orgasm and he’ll be selfish and rude. Deny a man orgasms and he’ll do all the practical chores that he’s been neglecting.

And here I thought I was a nice guy.

As unseemly as it may sound I wish I were like that. As someone who spent far too long as a romantic sap and paid for it some brute selfishness would’ve given me a better life.

I’ve tended to blame men for the varieties of F/m sexism. But thinking back I’ve certainly seen dominant women who post things like “10 Ways Men Are Like Dogs.”

So some female tops perpetuate sexist stereotypes. But about men.

Not that I’d dare try to quantify the degree. Most of the kinky people I’m really aware of are free of gender junk.

I’ve sometimes thought of female superiority as a very abstract aesthetic device as a possible emotional tool.

Femdom Malesub Stereotype

Do some dominant women use untrue generalization about men as a metaphor?

(This entry was not what I started out writing. Nothing new there. Begged questions, exceptions acknowledged.)

What Really is Male Submission?

Listen and Pay Attention

Sweet Happy BDSM Female Top

I have no patience with definitions of what constitutes authentic submission. In a power exchange relationship whether F/m or any Gender/gender proper submission is what proves successful for both partners.

Behavior that approximates an ideal. Ideal conditions are boundaries that are rarely reached.

For me I’d say submission is deferring to the top’s wishes as best as I can. That is consistent with my emotional and physical well-being. People submit because they believe it will satisfy an internal necessity.

The key element that most men lack in offering this deference is probably in actually perceiving and understand the top’s wishes. I have plenty of good will and honest desire. But with the virtues that I can honestly attribute myself I’m forever hurt by how often I could have been more conscious of what was desired and would have made experiences better.

Like all relationships BDSM prospers given communication, attentiveness and empathy.