GERMANY – A German dominatrix, identified only as Ute B., has been fined more than £6,000 for making sick snuff films that saw her kill 30 mice by causing their bodies to burst with her feet
A dominatrix has been fined more than £6,000 for killing 30 mice by stamping on them and causing them to burst open as part of a sick fetish.
The woman, identified only as Ute B., 48, had been persuaded to make 41 videos of “feeder mice” – intended to be fed to snakes – being stamped on after experiencing financial difficulties after her divorce, a court was told.https://get-latest.convrse.media/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailystar.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fweird-news%2Fdominatrix-crushed-30-mice-feet-26610502&cre=top&cip=3&view=web
She was tasked with crushing the mice to death using boots, high heels or ballet shoes, cause them to burst, then being rubbed with the shoe she used.
The dominatrix admitted her role in the video also possession of three child pornographic images, which she said had been sent to her by a client as part of a role play.
The District Court of Wuerzburg in the south-eastern German state of Bavaria fined her €7,200 (£6,060) and her cameraman Oliver R., EUR 6,300 (£5,310).
Prosecutor Jonas Compensis told the court: “It was the accused’s task to crush the living mice to death with boots, high heels or ballet shoes, with particular emphasis being placed on the animal’s body bursting open and then being rubbed with the shoe used.”
B.’s lawyer, Ulrich Ziegert, admitted it was an “ugly thing” and claimed his client was in financial difficulties following her divorce proceedings.
He said B. had been persuaded by an acquaintance to make 41 videos of “feeder mice”, which had in any case been intended to be fed to snakes, being stamped on.
The cruel acts were discovered during a raid in July 2018 by cops probing extortion charges she faced.
Police inspector Klaus W., 58, said: “It was an accidental find. A victim had filed a complaint against Ms B. in Hof for extortion. It was a financial domination thing, where eight victims were supposed to pay her extortion money.”
She was spared jail by judge Thomas Behl when she appeared before the court.
But she is due back in court accused of blackmailing clients by threatening to send embarrassing photos of them in women’s underwear to their families if they failed to make her payments of between €2,550 (£2,150) and €11,000 (£9,270).
B., a trained hotel manager who currently works at a sauna facility, has previously been handed a fine equivalent to 90 days of pay in 2017, after the District Court of Horb am Neckar found her guilty of extortion.
She portrays herself as an animal lover in social media posts.
NEW – ZEALAND – Police are investigating the use of Jacinda Ardern‘s image in a strip club’s online marketing, which could lead to it copping a massive fine.
Calendar Girls NZ posted a provocative meme on social media of a semi-naked dominatrix with the Kiwi prime minister’s face transposed.
The post has led to a New Zealand police investigation.
The woman in the image was wearing underwear, straps and buckles and holding a whip.
The Facebook post, which was published on Friday, was accompanied by a caption, ‘Special guest today only!’
The Wellington strip club deleted the post on Saturday after complaints, stuff.co.nz reported.
Visitors to the page said the photo was disrespectful to Ardern and the club’s employees.
‘I feel sorry for the women who work for you, this shows you have a horrible attitude towards women and consent,’ a visitor to the page wrote.
It is understood to be an offence under New Zealand’s Harmful Digital Communications Act to share a naked or semi-naked image of a person online without their consent.
That includes images that have been edited to appear as though a person is in them.
NZ police confirmed it had received a complaint and was investigating.
The maximum fine a company could pay for an offence under the act is $200,000 or $50,000 for an individual.
USA – PHILADELPHIA – The most Instagrammable (and arguably sexiest) experience in Philly is located inside a two-bedroom, one-bath home right off Roosevelt Boulevard.
Dubbed The Hottie House, this Northeast Philly Airbnb is marketed as “WAP inspired.” It’s designed to host a pretty unique set of activities: bachelorette weekends, lingerie and thirst trap photoshoots, or your first encounter with a dominatrix.
A stay at this cutie crib will currently run you around $167 per night — not counting cleaning fees, of course — and availability appears to be open from mid-April until the end of June.
The house is the project of a local, 26-year-old creative director, makeup artist and YouTuber who goes by the name Siren Redd across her ventures. Think of the space as a mix between a photo-op centric experience (like the new Museum of Illusions) and a classic photo studio, with the goal being to inspire content as much as be enjoyed in a vacation.
“I write and direct and contract for Philadelphia models, artists, and businesses,” Redd, a Delaware native who has been working with Philly talent for the last two years, told Billy Penn. “Originally, I created the space because I felt like it was so hard to find sexy content spaces for the style of my videos and photos.”
Sexy is definitely the operative word here.
The Hottie House comes with plenty of standard Airbnb fare, like a fully stocked kitchen, toiletries, and a dossier of nearby amenities. But it also offers stuff you’d sooner find on the set of a 2008 Lil Wayne video than a hotel room.
The space opens with a bright affirmation mural painted by local muralist and designer 7GOD. Want that extra boost? “I am hot, I am paid, I am sexy,” the wall shouts at guests in bold black type-face.
Each bedroom has a distinct vibe. The first is jungle-themed, with a neon sign over the bed frame welcoming you to the jungle (in case you forgot). Vines drape from the ceiling and the walls are patterned over dense, tropical foliage. Per social media posts, it also appears you can rent a snake.
The master is called the “Lovers Dominatrix Bedroom,” complete with a stripper pole, a custom heart-shaped bed, and a set of dominatrix toys (the Airbnb listing notes they are “props only.”)
The apartment also comes equipped with content creation essentials, such as ring lights, full body mirrors for fit checks, and plenty of neon to set the mood for your photo sesh. (We’re thinking red for boudoir shoots but green to show off your new reptile collection from IllExotics).
Redd said the majority of bookings so far are for personal use, but she designed the space with the up-and-coming artist in mind. The other side of the Hottie House is a creative concierge service, where Redd coordinates prop rentals, video and photoshoots, and even creative direction.
“I made the house for me, but I put it on Airbnb for everyone to use it,” she said. “It’s very hard to find content spaces that have that sexy, vibrant vibe, and not everyone can afford to have a set built from scratch.”
Redd began storyboarding the Hottie House around 6 months ago, and the goal was to mimic the aura of Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion’s hot girl anthem, “WAP.” In the fantastical, borderline surrealist music video, Cardi and Meg walk through a mansion filled with aphrodisiacs: animal print, reptiles, and titty-shaped fountains.
The Hottie House is similar, albeit more realistic. It cost about $13,000 to paint, style, and refurbish, Redd said, and she handled most of the manual labor herself. Many of the selfie walls came together like standard craft projects, with Redd ordering materials on Amazon.
Redd told Billy Penn she curated art throughout the house from Philadelphia-area artists. Guests can scan a QR code upon entry that can provide them with details about each creator.
Looking to spice up your Hottie House Experience?
Redd said she can provide video shoots, massages, a private chef, and — yes — exotic animal rentals. She also said more services and amenities are coming soon.
Redd does, however, caution that the space isn’t for everyone, so pearl-clutchers and offline boyfriends need not book a reservation.
“The house is for girls’ trips,” Redd said, “the sort of situation where people think everything can be an Instagrammable moment.”
ITALY – A twisted food blogger has told police he filmed himself as he brutally killed a porn star whose dismembered body was found in bin bags by the side of a road in Italy this month.
Davide Fontana, 43, kept the camera on his phone rolling as he battered victim Carol Maltesi, 26, with a hammer while she was naked and tied up to a stripper pole with a bag on her head before he slit her throat.
He then told shocked officers he waited a day before trying to burn the mother-of-one’s face to disguise her identity and then buying a saw to dismember her body into 15 pieces.
Fontana, who also works in a bank, then bought a deep freezer from Amazon and kept her body in four bin bags at his home before dumping it on a verge.
The remains of Carol, who turned to pornography during the pandemic to support her child, were found earlier this month by a passer-by at Borno near Brescia who was shocked to find her severed hand inside.
She was identified after police revealed details of her distinctive tattoos and she was recognised by people who had seen her adult work on Only Fans.
Carol was last seen in January, but Fontana carried on using her phone and sending messages to give the impression she was still alive, even paying the rent of the flat where she lived nextdoor to him in Rescaldina near Milan.
ANPR cameras saw him using Carol’s car near Borno earlier this month when he dumped her body.
He then went to police to try and throw them off the scent by giving them ‘information’ about her disappearance.
But officers became suspicious of him and arrested him.
He later broke down and admitted he had killed Carol, who also went by the screen name Charlotte Angie, as they made a violent porn film together.
In his leaked confession Fontana said: ‘We were supposed to make two films, with the second one being more violent. It was the morning of the January 10 or 11 and we were in her house.
‘We finished the first film and then we went to the bedroom where there is a lap dancing pole. I tied her wrists to the pole and put a plastic bag over her head.
‘She was completely naked and I also tied her feet up. I had a hammer and started hitting her on her body, not hard, starting from her legs.
‘Then as I worked my way up I started to hit harder until I got to her head.
‘I don’t know why I did it, I don’t really know what happened. She was still moving her head but I carried on hitting her.
‘Then I suddenly realised what I was doing. I took the bag off her head, I thought she was dead, there was a lot of blood and she was badly hurt.
‘I didn’t know what to do so I grabbed a kitchen knife and slit her throat. It was an act of kindness; I could see she was suffering.’
ontana told cops he had deleted the videos from his phone but forensic experts are examining it’s memory card to try and recover the gruesome images.
Carol, who had previously worked in a perfume store, had turned to pornography during lockdown to make ends meet and support her six-year-old child.
Colleagues told local media: ‘We knew what she did but she wasn’t ashamed. She had made her own mind up and wasn’t coerced. It was her private life.’
One neighbour said: ‘Her and Davide were an item for a while but then split up. They seemed to get on well afterwards.
‘She had split up from the father of her child, he lived elsewhere and he had their son, but the little one would come and stay every now and then.
‘My child and him would play together in the courtyard. No-one can believe what’s happened.
‘I know she had family in Holland because she had told me and she had gone there for Christmas.
‘She had even spoken about moving there but nothing had come of it. She was a lovely, kind gentle woman and a devoted mother.’
Fontana is currently in custody and due to appear in front of an investigating magistrate accused of aggravated murder as well as mutilating and hiding a corpse.
A police spokesperson said: ‘This is a shocking case and some of the officers themselves have been left very upset at the details they have heard.’
Take, for example, South Africa. Although it’s a country of awe-inspiring history, culture, and cuisine, it’s not particularly well known for its BDSM scene.
Recently, I was fortunate enough to discover Mistress Baton. A South African-based Dominatrix, disciplinarian, and well-established producer of BDSM content.
The scene was a big hit amongst my readers with a penchant for S&M, and not just because of Mistress’ caning skills which she honed with training from various specialist punishes ranging from an SA Correctional Services caner and a SAPS cancer.
“This particular BDSM implement is so severe and infamous, that it is outlawed in certain countries like Spain.”
The question on many of your lips was: “What an earth is that divine caning instrument in her hand?”
To answer that question, I called upon the knowledge of Mistress Baton herself. Today, she will lead us by her skilled and disciplined whip hand to explore the fascinating world of the Sjambok and other BDSM tools from the heart of Africa.
The Sjambok: The notorious African whipping stick
Other names: Sambok (Afrikaans), Imvubu.
The Sjambok is sometimes called a type of whip, which is misleading – It is a rigid and stiff implement – quite the opposite of a whip.
It was traditionally made from hippopotamus or rhinoceros hide. It has been used for centuries by cowherds and wagon drivers, to drive large cattle on the African plains. Additionally, it is also used to look for and drive away snakes in the long grass.
During the Apartheid era in South Africa, rubber sjamboks were used to break up riots by the Apartheid police, sometimes causing deaths.
These days, plastic sjamboks are most commonly used and most readily available – it’s even sold here in South Africa at traffic lights at intersections! Typically from a mixture of heated plastics bonded together.
It is widely used in informal township courts, by Oqonda (township vigilantes) in South Africa, to significant effect. Mostly on youths who steal, use drugs or sell drugs.
During the transition post-apartheid, some Comrades (left-wing activists or particularly militant supporters of the African National Congress) became what you call ComTsotsi: a slang term used to describe a Comrade with criminal element motives.
There was a DC, a Kangaroo Court, and the sentence was commonly 50 lashes. This was seen as a solution to get rid of that criminal element to a Comrade.
A particularly dark fact about the Sjambok involves Adolf Hitler. The former dictator of the Third Reich was said to be so fascinated by Sjamboks that it was borderline obsessive.
It’s also said that Hitler imported sjamboks from South Africa and was rumoured to have quite a collection.
Another variation of sjambok variation is the “Lerala” (Sepedi/Northern Sotho). This was a leather implement crafted as a flexible stick and used to punish specifically men who raped/stole/etc.
The wooden spoon in BDSM
Other names: Paplepel (Afrikaans) or Ukhezo (Zulu).
This is an implement primarily used as a swift form of justice on small children in the kitchen across South Africa. In BDSM circles, they’ve found a new role for lovers of impact play.
When used in BDSM play, a wooden spoon can achieve a quiet but forceful impact on a sub. This often results in a rather intense stinging sensation.
Tree Switches for Birching
Whipping as a form of corporal punishment goes back to the Medieval era in the British Isles and was commonly used to enforce discipline or enact punishment, particularly in the military.
In 1862, Victorian courts were granted access to Birching. This form of corporal punishment saw victims struck repeatedly, often on the behind, with a bundle of leafless tree switches, twigs or branches.
Birching was only entirely outlawed in the UK in 1962, although the self-governing Isle of Man only repealed the law in 1993. It has since found an active role between consenting fetishists in BDSM.
But it is not only the British who have a fondness for tree switches and Birching in BDSM! It is widely used in South Africa too. The trees mainly used here, where we don’t have birch trees, are fruit trees like peach and apricot or willow trees.
Other names for the birch in South Africa:
Uswazi (Zulu/Swazi) – thin switch
Induku (Zulu/Swazi) – thick stick
Umqaqongo (Xhosa)
Umpetshisi (Xhosa) – twig from a peach tree.
Umpentshisi (Zulu) – peach tree branch.
Moperekisi (Sepedi/Sotho/Tswana) – peach tree switch.
Bulls Pizzle whip
Other names: Bultrilsambok/beespielsambok (Afrikaans), picha de toro (Spanish).
This is made from the cured, dried and stretched skin of a bull’s penis. It is a type of Sjambok, though it’s shorter, less pliable, more rigid and more sinewy than a sjambok.
Historically, the Bulls Pizzle Whip can be traced back to the 16th century. Stemming from the Dutch word for “sinew” (pees), the modern name is said to derive from the Low German pesel or Flemish pezel.
Traditionally, these implements were used for moving cattle. But they were also widely used as protection against thieves and pickpockets in other countries, such as Spain.
They are made from a slaughtered bull’s penis which is stretched out before being left in some water to naturally expand. Finally, it’s left in the sun to dry out.
The Bulls Pizzle Whip is so severe and infamous, in fact, that it is outlawed in certain countries like Spain.
African whips
Whips are widely used throughout Africa and are used primarily on livestock. But it is not uniquely South African like the other implements in this guide.
Anecdotes overheard during research:
“Isitswebhu – normally used to whip livestock, but stings ever so bitterly on your ankles. Made from plaited leather with a wooden handle.”
“Umqaqongo – teachers at primary school would ask the older boys to bring sticks, they knew who brings the fattest, bendiest, hheyi futhi!”
“Umpetshisi – twig from a peach tree. My babomkhulu (father) had this trick of hiding it in his back, inside his red PPE coveralls to ambush us with.”
“Ukwipili/cane – some high school teachers claimed to buy their canes from Enduduzweni, a home for the blind in Umlazi.”
“Kgati – this is a slender (very bendy) tree branch that is/was used by men in the mountains to teach each other some lessons. I’ve done this with my friends and I went home with a couple of wounds but you should’ve seen the other guy.”
“Mozacha – this is what my mother used to Moer (beat) us with. It is normally picked from a shrub tree and the target spots are legs and everywhere else magriza thinks will effect more pain.”
“Lepara – this is a dried thicker tree branch crafted into a walking stick by the elderly. Rakgolos like pointing stuff with this thing, and they’ll swing it to you fast. I still have a scar on my hand for a fall I took fleeing from this thing from an old Pirate supporter madala in Mbombela whose parking I stole with my lightning-fast Golf around 2011.”
They make a delightful, sickening dull thwack when it hits the target. I love the sound it makes almost as much as the involuntary sounds emanating from people when I use it on them.
Why involuntary? Some pain is too great to contain, it cannot be endured in silence.
A sobering summary to these types of whips used for BDSM punishments in Africa
In conclusion, Africa is a continent that is never short of surprises and discoveries. Its criminally underrated contribution to BDSM implements like the Sjambok is just one of them.
When it comes to explaining these divine whipping implements in accurate native detail, there are few people who are qualified as Mistress Baton.
As well as being a highly respected figure in the BDSM scene, Mistress Baton sells hippo hide sjamboks made by a South African master craftsman to fetish connoisseurs with a taste exotic implements made with exquisite quality.
To discover more of her unique fetish content, inquire about obtaining a handmade hippo hide sjambok, or test your limits in person during one of her notorious BDSM sessions, you can reach her at mistressbaton @ gmail.com.
SOUTH AFRICA – CAPE TOWN – Over the past two decades, rope bondage has grown in popularity and mainstream visibility. Maverick Life caught up with Astrid, a Cape Town-based bondage practitioner and teacher, to chat about her bondage journey, as well as her work towards building a safer and more inclusive bondage community.
y approach is actually quite wholesome. Bondage can be shadowy work, there’s a lot of stuff there that is revealed with the rope. But my sort of entry point, especially for new people, is to communicate that this is actually about communication; it’s about trust; it’s about self-advocacy; it’s about creativity and joy and pleasure. Those are the kind of words I use when I talk about bondage,” explains Astrid, a Cape Town-based 29-year-old bondage practitioner and teacher. In July 2020, together with her wife, Simone, they founded Embodiment, a rope bondage practice as well as a physical space based in an industrial building in Salt River, Cape Town, where they run workshops, rope jams, private lessons, sessions and photoshoots.
Astrid’s journey into the world of “kink” began in 2015. Her boyfriend’s sister at the time invited her to a kink party in Tokai. “I thought: Oh, that sounds very exciting. Let me go and do some, like, anthropological research,” she says. Once there, she found herself drawn to the “honesty” and the way people were “just expressing themselves at kink parties”. However, she had some reservations; she was uncomfortable with the homogeneity of the parties. As she describes it, “the kink scene was, and is, very white, cis, able-bodied, heteronormative, straight, middle-aged”. Still, she found the essence of it to be very wholesome, pleasure-centric, body-positive, “and also problematic, there were problematic elements, but there was a lot of beauty there as well”.
She continued attending the parties, “getting spanked and tied up”. The following year, she moved to Australia, at first for three months as part of her studies towards her master’s degree, and later her PhD. As a way to meet people and socialise, she explored online kink forums and found her way into the kink scene. “And that’s when I discovered Shibari,” says Astrid, referring to the Japanese practice of rope bondage. Upon her return to Cape Town, she founded Ropey Things in 2017, a “sort of peer-to-peer learning environment for rope”, together with other people in the city that knew were into bondage. “We started giving these workshops together, where we would teach specific ties, and a little bit about consent, safety and negotiation. From the get-go, it was a very educational thing for me… I’d discovered this thing that I love, and I wanted to bring it back and teach other people how to do it in a safer way. We tied and taught around the city for a few years and then eventually this collective morphed into the physical rope space we have now,” says Astrid.
The word Shibari literally means “to tie”. According to the book, Essence of Shibari: Kinbaku and Japanese Rope Bondage, “in current English vernacular, shibari often gets used in reference to Westernised Japanese aesthetic ropework, while kinbaku is used for Japanese work done in Japan. However, both terms are used in Japan at this time.”
“When I was first [introduced to bondage] here in South Africa, I was exposed to a more Western-style bondage. The Japanese aesthetic is more sort of perfectionistic… there are certain aesthetic principles,” Astrid explains. While the eroticised practice of bondage is a relatively recent practice, having been established in the late 19th to early 20th century, its roots are often traced back to Japan’s Edo era, the period between 1603 and 1867. Back then, captives we restrained and sometimes tortured using rope. At the end of the 19th century, rope bondage started popping up in kabuki theatre. By the mid-20th century, bondage photography and illustrations were published in fetish magazines on both sides of the Pacific.
When asked about the differences between Western and Japanese bondage, Midori, the sex educator and mononymous author of the 2002 title The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage, largely regarded as one of the most influential books on Shibari in the West, advises caution about making too much of Shibari’s military origins: “Every culture has its darker part of its history of human conflict, and that also echoes into our darker erotic desires… So when you think of conventional BDSM like handcuffs, right? What’s the origin of handcuffs? Origin of handcuffs is law enforcement and incarceration by police… Those tools end up becoming tools of fantasies for our kinky little sex games,” Midori explains.
She argues then that the aesthetics of Japanese Bondage are culturally specific because of the role that rope and knots have played not only in the restraint and torture of prisoners but also in Japanese culture generally: “Aesthetics are different indeed. And that’s also culturally specific as well. So don’t so much look at.. okay, the tools. The tools that are used are different because of the cultural framework. In the West, you have metal-based bondage because think in terms of medieval use of metal implements. Metal and wood. Right? Think medieval as the Spanish inquisition… And you get the handcuffs because of cops. So the tools are the tools of incarceration specific to the culture… Whereas in Japan think of rope as an extension of wrapping. Or rather a subcategory of wrapping. Everything in Japan is wrapped… Gifts are wrapped, origami is wrapping, the national traditional garment, the Kimono, is actually a series of wrapping. It is a culture that is obsessed with wrapping. And so, why wouldn’t you also wrap your sweetie before you have hot, dirty sex?”
While sex and eroticism form a big part of Midori’s practice, Astrid notes that the experience of bondage and the expectations are different for everybody. “But I would say there are some general themes. We call our rope space in Cape Town, Embodiment because we wanted to sort of reflect the sensation of being contained, being embodied, being brought into your body and out of your mind. So I would say one of the overarching themes is this presence within your body, almost like a mindfulness practice.” That said, she emphasises the validity of different approaches to rope bondage: “It can be erotic, playful, creative, shameful, subversive, soothing, reassuring. Emotion is output by the person tying, through their movements and how they lay the rope. The job of the receiver is to be present in their body, be aware of what they are receiving and transmit emotion back. Rope is a lot like dance in this way. There is a leader and a follower, an exchange of emotion and co-creation of something meaningful.”
Similarly to mindfulness practice, she notes that intention plays a key role in each session. As bondage is an integral practice in her relationship with her wife Simone, upfront negotiation around intention and consent is also an important part of each session. Says Astrid: “When Sim and I want to tie together, I’ll be like, ‘What are you feeling today?’, and she might express that she wants a loving, celebratory, caressing tie, or she really wants to be pushed. So then whatever we do, flows from that intention; however long I might leave her there, in that predicament, in that challenging position, will flow from that intention. Tying is almost as intimate as someone picking your clothes for the day, and then putting the clothes on your body and then…” Simone finishes the sentence, “… taking them off at the end of the day, and you have to walk around and whatever they’ve put you in. And it could be something like absurd, it could be something really uncomfortable.”
However, some practitioners also like to practice self-tying as a solo experience. The popular Shibari subscription app founded in 2019, Shibari Study, offers a wide range of videos to stream, including performances by advanced practitioners, as well as beginner lessons covering theory, the rope itself, types of knots, and a diverse section of Shibari practices from suspension to floor tying. In one of the videos, presented by Shibari teacher Anna Bones, and titled The Pleasure of Self-Tying, she states: “I like self-tying because it’s a space where I can be with myself, without judgement, and being fully present and not really thinking about anything else other than what I’m doing… It’s really creative as well, and you can take a lot of liberties.”
Simone also enjoys solo tying because she likes to push herself mentally and physically. “And there’s a lot I can do by myself. But there’s an element to introducing another person and relinquishing the control to them, that enables me to dig deep into myself and access places that I can’t normally access by myself. I think it’s the same for a lot of other people, and it gives them that sense or feeling that they are embodied; a feeling of mental clarity and a deeper sense of being in touch with themselves, as well as the people around them.”
While the couple says they work to engender a spirit of trust, respect and communication in their practice with each other, in the community that is part Embodiment, as well as with private clients looking to either be tied or learn how to tie, they emphasise that the world of bondage is not without its issues. “People tend to think that kink is like a utopia where everybody is superconsensual and supercommunicative. It can be, but for the most part, I would say, kinky people are just like vanilla people in the sense that they also struggle with communication; they also struggle to set boundaries. There are also predatory people in that scene,” Astrid explains.
Another concern for the couple is the tendency among some participants to want to separate identity and politics from their pleasure, specifically the way some people speak about their kink online, seek out potential suitors and organise events, is not with inclusion in mind. These range from people who might want to see the space as one where classism and racism doesn’t exist, through to the kind who might want to indulge in racialised slave-master role play. “When you start to challenge them, they’re like, ‘No, no, no, this is a space of utopia. This is our sacred safe world, and everything is finely negotiated and perfect’. They want to dominate a woman, or they want to dominate a queer person, or they want to be sissified. Play that involves identity is fine — sometimes playing with tropes or stereotypes in a conscious way enables you to challenge them. The issue comes in when the assumptions you have about those identities go unchallenged and you are literally indulging in racist, sexist, classist, ableist stereotypes,” says Astrid.
Much like the controversial “No fats, no fems, no Asians, no blacks” disclaimers sometimes seen on profiles on dating and hook-ups apps like Grindr, in the “broader kink community” there are also practitioners who express a strict preference to only “play” with people of their race. “However, one wonderful thing about the kink spaces is that there is a lot of focus on building community because community does keep us safe. That way you’re able to get rid of the toxic elements, and it does work. But that only happens when somebody already sort of oversteps a boundary. It’s very reactive rather than proactive,” Astrid explains.
As part of the mission to build a safer and more inclusive rope bondage community, together with collaborators, she has been offering introductory workshops, “where self-care, consent, boundaries and negotiation techniques are discussed and explored with practical examples. We have also launched a kink market that happens once every two months where people can come and browse kinky wares, chat to practitioners, get spanked, tied and practice consent all in the light of day rather than at a kink party where no effort is made towards education. We are working really hard to make our scene more proactive about safety and consent than reactive to abuse.”
Another visible advantage of the growing community around bondage is perhaps the decreasing stigma around the practice. Fellow practitioners and members of the local bondage community have open Instagram and Facebook pages where they are able to share images and insights from their practices. For example, Embodiment’s own Instagram page, @embodiment_ct, or their collaborators and friends such as sex educator and bondage practitioner Tapiwa’s page, @sungakonji. And unlike the homogeneity Astrid experienced upon her entry into the kink scene, this community is far more diverse. That said, and even though both Astrid and Simone are quite open about their practice, they did ask that we use only their first names for the article, as certain prejudices towards rope bondage still prevail, and as Astrid puts it, “If I’m doing freelance work, and someone happens to google me for that, I don’t necessarily want ‘bondage girl’ to be the first thing they see about me. But I am really proud of our community and the work we have collectively done to make it safer and more wholesome.” DM/ML
Dear BDSM friends,
Again we have a Christmas in Covid misery.
Still, I (tom Verhoeven) want to wish you happy kinky holidays and a very healthy 2022 full of BDSM.
As far as BDSM radio is concerned, the plans are unfortunately not that great.
My physical ailments and therefore financial position make it impossible to make music radio 24/7 again.
Unless I win a big lottery prize.
However, I will keep the Spotify and Youtube lists up to date with Rubberron so that you will not be without music.
I will continue to update the BDSM media news from the newspapers and media, hopefully once a month.
Of course, tips and "fanmail" are always welcome at bdsmradioeu at hotmail.com
Kinky greetings,
tom verhoeven from the Netherlands
UK – A DOMINATRIX has boasted of a late-night visit by a jubilant Man City star after his team’s 7-0 spanking of Leeds.
See video and more larger photo’s on: Thesun.co.uk.
Mistress Estée, who hands out a good thrashing herself, claims she held the kinky session with the elite player at her red-walled dungeon.
She bragged of the encounter on her TikTok page saying: “When he wins 7-0 for Man City against Leeds then comes to me afterwards!”
In the video, the 21-year-old dominatrix, who has a large social media following, is seen dressed in a long black PVC dress, dancing provocatively to Rod Stewart’s hit Da Ya Think I’m Sexy.
The clip has been watched 1.3million times and liked by 63,000 people.
In another TikTok post, the English-born, half-French beauty, is seen in a sexy Santa outfit and says: “When he plays for Man City but comes to the theatre of dreams” — a cheeky reference to the Old Trafford ground of City’s rivals Manchester United.
The jet-setting Instagram model also poses in just a City home shirt in her dungeon.
She said the player, who featured in Tuesday’s thumping, drives a £150,000 supercar.
Her posts left fans guessing who the player might be.
In the comment section, one sleuth said the mistress had previously mentioned the nationality of the player over the summer, to which she teased: “Aaah, someone getting closer!”
Another commented on Premier League stars cheating on their Wags, to which she replied: “Yeah exactly but the wf/gf must not live up to expectations.”
The Sun has no evidence that a City player did in fact visit her dungeon, thought to be outskirts of Manchester, as she claims.
But she will certainly have tongues wagging at the Etihad.
City boss Pep Guardiola needn’t worry about the player catching Covid from Estée ahead of tomorrow’s match at Newcastle United — the 5ft 4in beauty showed off her vaccination card in one clip.
She runs several social media accounts and boasts tens of thousands of followers, but directs punters to her page on an adult site for her most X-rated content.
She regularly posts of her travels to the likes of Dubai, Greece and French Polynesia and wearing designer clothes and jewellery.
Estée is seen in a private jet and helicopter, and spends time on yachts and at huge mansions.
The customer was walking through the store when she stumbled upon a leather fashion harness next to some belts.
Stunned by her discovery, she posted a picture of the find on Twitter – leaving followers in stitches.
Taking to Twitter she said: “Jeez oh – nipped into Primark and wasn’t really expecting to find bondage gear among the jammies, Christmas jumpers and fluffy socks.”
Social media users on the app found her post hilarious.
But they were quick to point out her mistake – nothing it was just a fashion harness.
One user wrote: “It’s hardly bondage gear.”
And another explained to the Twitter user what the accessory actually was.
They replied: “Don’t see any bondage gear just belts and fashion harnesses.”
The bizarre Primark find comes on the same day a sassy teenager pencilled a VERY DEMANDING letter to Santa.
USA – Billboard singer & actor Lovari says there’s “No Holding Back”, like the title of his album, when it comes to those trying to shame him for his fetishes. In a bizarre Instagram rant, complete with hashtags of F**kYou, he shares an expletive laden story post condemning personal conversations of unnamed sources of people who allegedly belittled him about his desires and fetishes. The post includes a screenshot of a blog written by an assumed ex-lover, spilling details about their romantic experience with Lovari. Claiming that he “will not be shamed” and proclaiming to be a “freak and proud”, the singer then posted two s&m bondage photos of himself, photographed by renowned artist and activist Luna Ortiz, taken when Lovari was 18 years old. Reactions on the Instagram post were mixed. One user commented, “Nobody can shame you if you claim your own truth. You go boy!”, while others claimed the singer was “so desperate for attention”.
The shift in gears from a recurring National Anthem singer to provocateur was first seen last month, during a performance of his song “Keep It Moving” at Celebrity Boxing in Atlantic City. At one point, the singer gave the crowd the middle finger and then pointed it down towards his crotch.
This is not the first time that Lovari has promoted sensual themed projects. In 2015, he teamed up with former adult actress and television icon Robyn Byrd to record “Touch Me”, which reached the iTunes Electronic Chart. A year later, he co-produced two titles for adult film company Original Latino Fan Club. Later this year, his aforementioned song “Keep It Moving” will be featured in the #nude# themed comedy “Modest Male Exposure”. His most recent Instagram post mentions a forthcoming magazine interview with legendary erotic director Chi Chi LaRue, and an unnamed music video directed by another former renowned adult film director Brian Brennan.
Andrea Keaney, who is known in the adult industry as Megara Furie, has revealed she‘s using the people skills learned from her racy role to inspire a new type of clientele as a life coach.
The 37-year-old, who has worked in BDSM for the last 12 years, has previously shared her strangest requests, including putting flowers up a customer’s backside and being asked to force-feed a client a live praying mantis.
But despite a serious stigma surrounding such a job, the geology graduate reckons her unique CV makes her the perfect person for people trying to change their lives.
Andrea, from Bishopbriggs, told The Scottish Sun: “I’d already been doing hypnotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and then I came across coaching and it was just by accident.
“And when I started to learn the process of coaching and in particular transformational coaching, I realised it was really aligned with a lot of the stuff I was already doing.
“For example one of the barriers to people being able to express themselves is limiting beliefs and that shows up everywhere – and it shows up in sessions as a dominatrix.
“People are too shy to say what they want, too scared to express themselves and be vulnerable because they have all these beliefs about themselves, about what I will think of them and what that means for them.
“And what I realised is that it doesn’t just happen in the dungeon, it happens everywhere.
“One of the things I really enjoy about being a dominatrix is being able to help people to be their true self in that setting and now I get to do that for people in every setting of their life which is really cool.
“I get to do everything I was doing in the dungeon – well not everything – but I get to do the mindset work I was doing in the dungeon and now I’ve got a lot more clarity and focus and it’s a lot more intentional the way that I’m doing it.”
Andrea, who became NLP qualified in 2019, started working as a dominatrix in 2008 and admits people were surprised at her sudden career shift when she started her second job last year and set up her business Dominant Mindset Coaching.
But she insists the occupation she’s famous for isn’t as seedy as people think and that it’s actually the perfect platform for her new profession and passion.
She says: “For the untrained eye you would look at it and go ‘oh it’s seedy, it’s just people going in and getting spanked and getting their kicks.’
“But actually there’s a lot more to it than that, a lot of discussion that takes place before, during and after a session.
“People book sessions because they maybe want the physical or mental side of it but really the main thing that they get from it – and if you’re a good dominatrix you’ll know this – they’re looking for validation, looking for a safe space where they can just let some of their guard down and be fully themselves.
“Being able to do that is what gives them a spring in their step when they leave.
“And being able to give them that is the rewarding part for me.”
USA – A group of students eagerly scribble their names on blue raffle tickets surrounding tables and a mattress draped with flower petals positioned in the quad on Wednesday Nov 17. The raffle prizes on display are not your usual baskets of baked goods or reusable water bottles, instead including a selection of dildos, bright pink fuzzy handcuffs, ball gags, vibrators, and even a jewel adorned butt plug.
The Humboldt State women’s resource center put on their annual Kink The Quad event after being unable to put on a 2020 event due to the pandemic. Isabela Acosta, a sophomore art history major, is this year’s body politics and health educator for the resource center. Acosta helped coordinate the event and hopes it encourages discussions about consent culture on campus and education about safe sex.
“People are weird with sex especially kinky sex and ropes, I see people get really guarded and that’s fine,” Acosta said. “It’s not everybody’s thing but it’s not something you should be ashamed of or make someone else feel shamed for it.”
Acosta mentioned how this year’s Kink The Quad event has collaborated with other on-campus associations like CHECK-IT Violence Prevention and the Benjamin Graham Sex Research and Education Lab to table alongside the demonstration. Acosta put an emphasis on a bondage theme for this year with a focus on shibari – an ancient Japanese form of rope bondage.
“I was worried about negative opinions and negative feedback but everyone was really excited, especially the staff I met with, they were all really looking forward to this event,” Acosta said.
The event included a sex toy raffle, all provided from Good Relations storefront in Eureka, free condoms and lube, CHECK-IT resource booklets, and a live shibari demonstration every hour until the event concluded. Acosta was leading the shibari demonstrations with fellow student staff members and even a student volunteer, art studio major Livia Stella Miller. The shibari demonstrations focused on the importance to use safewords during kinky sex for consent and comfort as well as tools for safety when participating in certain kinks, like scissors with bondage. Volunteers who were being tied up also did demonstrations using their safe word for breaks or to stop completely. ’Apple’ was the safe word for volunteers.
“It was a little less itchy than I expected and really fun,” Miller said. “Kinks in particular revolve around a lot of power dynamics especially bondage so it’s important to know how to make your partner feel good and not bad, even in kinks that aren’t involved with power dynamics it’s just important to make people feel good.”
CHECK-IT Violence Prevention was also tabling at the event and handing out booklets for supporting victims of dating violence and normalizing consent culture. CHECK-IT staff member Sophia Effa, a psychology major, was running the table and has been working with the program for around two years. Effa feels Kink The Quad has destigmatized the mentioning of kinks by just being present on campus for the student body.
“I think it’s important because I feel like not a lot of people have access to education revolving around kinks that’s ethical and safe, so I think an organization on campus like the women’s resource center is really important for educating our students because not a lot of people have access to that,” Effa said.
Hannah Craven, an HSU psychology major who showed up for the event and demonstration, was surprised to see how many students were also there and was glad to see education about harm reduction when using sex toys with a partner or initiating kinky sex.
“I thought this was really interesting because its almost strange to me a school would have this,” Craven said. “In the past schools I’ve been to they have very much shied away from sex education especially in this way. It’s interactive and kink focused. I also feel like this is very inclusive to same sex partners which is nice because you know we were never really taught those things.”
Kink the Quad is an annual event on campus every November but Acosta hopes to get more kink spaces on campus in the future while working with the women’s resource center.
“There will definitely be more kinky events on campus in the future,” Acosta said. “I’m gonna try and plan something for the spring semester and see what happens.”
UK – From the tragic scenes which highlighted financial issues for pensioners – which left Edna eating a single piece of lettuce on a plate for her meal – to her lovable pooch Tootsie, Edna was an Emmerdale legend.
Actress Shirley Stelfox played her from 2000 until her death in 2015, appearing in a whopping 1,503 episodes.
But Shirley was a lot different to Edna’s stoic personality, and played a huge variety of characters throughout her incredible acting career, including taking on the role of a prostitute in George Orwell adaptation Nineteen Eighty-Four.
The actress tragically passed away from terminal cancer just four weeks after her diagnosis.
To commemorate six years since her death, Daily Star takes a look at Shirley’s life off-screen.
Rival soap stints
Emmerdale wasn’t the only soap Shirley appeared in – although it was her most legendary role to date.
In fact, her first ever small-screen acting role was in rival ITV soap Coronation Street back in 1960.
She played various Corrie characters over the years, the most recent being Shirley Henderson in 1990 – but she also appeared as a barmaid and video dating agency businesswoman.
Shirley even appeared in BBC soap EastEnders in 1999 – one year before she joined Emmerdale – as Jane Healy, Mel Owen’s mum who attends her wedding to Ian Beale on New Year’s Eve.
She was revealed to have been killed off 20 years later.
But Shirley actually had a spooky connection to one member of the Emmerdale cast before either of them signed up to the ITV soap.
She appeared alongside Elizabeth Estensen – best known for her role as Diane Sugden until she quit the soap earlier this year – in Noel Coward’s 1985 play Cavalcade.
As well as appearing in other soaps like Heartbeat, Brookside and The Bill, Shirley appeared in six episodes of Keeping Up Appearances as Rose in 1990.
However, she only appeared in one series of the show before being replaced by Mary Millar due to prior commitments.
Raunchy scenes
Although many fans will remember Edna as prim and proper, always hiding her hair beneath a tight hat, Shirley looked a lot different in real life.
She even played a prostitute, labelled simply ‘The Whore’ in the adaptation of George Orwell’s novel 1984, appearing in a cropped scarlet wig and black lace choker for the sultry scenes.
Shirley slipped into a strapless black dress which featured sequins and a plunging neckline for the shoot, donning a dark smokey eye make-up look with dark red lipstick.
She also appeared in comedy Personal Services as a whip-wielding dominatrix intent on helping to host kinky sex sessions for upper class folk.
And in real life, Shirley tended to wear her long blonde tresses loose and tumbling past her shoulders.
In hospital scenes where Edna was first seen without her iconic hat, the actress revealed she actually had to wear a wig.
She remarked at the time: “I had to cover my blonde hair with a wig because I only have a couple of grey hairs, even at 63!”
Tragic losses
Shirley was married twice in her life – first to Keith Edmundson for three years. The pair shared a daughter, Helena, before eventually gong their separate ways.
The star later tied the knot to fellow actor Don Henderson in 1979 – who was best known for his roles in shows like Red Dwarf and Doctor Who.
Shirley helped to bring up Don’s two children from his first marriage, and the pair were together until Don tragically died from throat cancer in 1997.
Speaking about what Don might have thought of her character Edna, Shirley told the Birmingham Sunday Mercury in 2004: “I can just see him now, roaring with laughter.”
But she explained that seeing Edna in a relationship of her own would have been too strange, explaining at the time: “It would show too much of her soft side and change her character. Edna was brought in to give Ashley and Bernice a hard time, and I think it’s very important to keep that edge.”
Health issues and death
Shirley suffered from bilateral amblyopia all her life, a condition of the eyes which means the brain fails to fully input sight from one eye and favours the other.
The condition left her short-sighted.
In 2015, Shirley was diagnosed with terminal cancer – and she passed away just four weeks later. She was said to have died peacefully at home with her daughter Helena by her side.
ITV executive producer John Whiston paid tribute to the star at the time, commenting: “The family here at Emmerdale are deeply saddened by Shirley’s passing. It is hard to imagine Emmerdale without her.
“We offer our condolences to Shirley’s family and share our feeling of loss with the millions of viewers who will miss Edna enormously.”
Her co-stars also paid tribute to their beloved colleague, with Donna Windsor star Verity Rushworth posting: “Thinking of the entire @emmerdale family and the loved ones of the legendary Shirley Stelfox. Taught me so much when growing up.”
Heartbreaking final scene
Edna was last seen on-screen on October 26, 2015 during a poignant scene with co-star Freddie Jones, who played Sandy Thomas until just before his death in July 2019.
Sandy had been lodging with Edna and decided to gift her a set of walkie talkies to chat to him when he moved out.
He told her: “I thought it’d be very strange for you to go back to living on your own again. But like this, we shall be only the touch of a button away.”
NORTH – IRELAND – BELFAST – Looking for holiday rentals during the festive season can be a real pain — but now there is a naughty little Airbnb listing which offers just that, and more.
Carnal Chambers sex dungeon in north Belfast is advertised on Airbnb and on social media as a fully-equipped BDSM house for hire.
It is owned and run by international dominatrix Mistress Royale who is currently advertising discounted rates for her services at the dungeon throughout the festive period.
The space is listed on Airbnb as a “unique and special” two-bedroom house complete with “an adult play space and a pink room for makeover and transformation”.
The listing also notes: “You can find a completely blacked-out cell with concrete floor for extended confinement time.
“This SM (sadomasochism) House is a mix of a comfortable stay and play where you can enjoy your time away from home along with fun, a bit of kink and holidays.”
With overnight bookings for the Belfast sex dungeon starting at £90 per night, Sunday Life went along to have a look inside the torture chamber and see what all the screaming was about.
Situated off the busy Crumlin Road in north Belfast, the unassuming residential property belies the world of sexual intrigue held within.
On entering the property, it looks like many other suburban Belfast homes with a kitchen-diner on the ground floor complete with rug and cosy fire.
However, on closer inspection, you’ll find a giant leather bondage throne tucked away in the corner of the room under a blanket.
The throne is a specially designed piece of kit which comes complete with an array of fastenings and straps which provide multiple ways in which to bind someone to the chair.
Perched atop the mantelpiece above the fireplace sat a number of penis cages, similar in use to a chastity belt for a woman, alongside a ‘lucky charm’ ornament, featuring a leprechaun and a horseshoe.
The rest of the ground floor was just as you’d expect to find in any family home except for the door under the stairs which led to the aforementioned confinement cell.
Roughly a foot wide and around five-feet long, the space under the stairs consisted of nothing but a concrete floor, some hooks in the wall and a dog bowl.
After peering under the stairs and resisting the temptation to climb inside the cell and shut the door behind me, it was time to go upstairs and check out the other rooms.
First I came across the adult play room which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It had one large dark red ‘gynaecologist chair’ in the centre of the room which doubles up as a spanking bench.
Sat in front of a large mirror, the chair formed the centrepiece of the room and was accompanied by a smaller black BDSM chair complete with wrist and head restraints.
The room also came complete with a mains-powered sex-machine, a six-foot tall St Andrew’s Cross restraint for torture plus a treasure trove of sex aids and equipment. Stacked on several shelves by the window were dozens of sex toys, including gimp masks, dildos of all shapes and sizes and a large rubber fist, as well as a number of wigs.
The shelves also contained assorted other items including bolt cutters, ties, wipes, puppy training pads and clingfilm.
The room was provided with extensive cleaning products and equipment and the Airbnb listing provides an “enhanced” cleaning service with every booking.
Finally, I poked my head into the makeover room which had a bed, a small restraint bench, vanity unit and a clothes rail, all lit up by multi-coloured disco lighting.
On the clothes rail were a number of costumes and uniforms, including nurse and maid outfits as well as a 1970s style blow-up sex doll.
The Belfast dungeon appears to have been operating since September, with dominatrix Mistress Royale advertising the house via its own dedicated Twitter account, the Airbnb website and her personal Twitter account.
She has shared pictures and video of her work and clients at the address on social media and has welcomed other dominatrices to the dungeon who have done the same.
On her Twitter profile she describes herself as a “BBW (big beautiful woman)” and an “international pro dominatrix” as well as specialising in “FinDomme (financial domination) and fetish”.
Elsewhere on social media, she describes herself as a “professional dominant, female supremacist, fetish model & performer, sex & kink educator, BDSM & fetish advisor” and “kink research pioneer.”
Aside from her Crumlin Road enterprise, she says she’s a model and performer working in Monaco, Jersey, Nice and London.
USA – As she skillfully tied her partner onto a steel suspension tripod, Marceline V.Q. let her inspiration lead her. Using natural hemp ropes to recreate a scene from Michelangelo’s well-known fresco painting, The Creation of Adam, Marceline pondered every reaction her partner made, as the woman hung in midair.
Her partner’s arm stretched out to reach something powerful yet invisible. Smiling, with her eyes closed, she looked totally absorbed.
“Something I really adore is just the feeling of rope flowing through my hands,” Marceline said, gesturing to mimic the rope moving. “You get into a flow state.”
By day, Marceline, 26, is an engineering researcher and a physics Ph.D. By night, she is a rope bondage artist and educator. Her pseudonym, “Marceline V.Q.,” is adapted from the character “Marceline the Vampire Queen” in the cartoon series Adventure Time, as she wished to keep her academic life separate from her rope bondage gigs. She tries to constantly challenge the world of BDSM—bondage, domination, submission, and masochism—with aesthetic concepts and complex rope techniques.
“When I was starting out, the struggle for me was trying to show people who weren’t involved in this that rope bondage doesn’t have to always be about sex,” she said. Although for her, it is and it isn’t.
Before the pandemic hit, she was invited to perform and to teach a class called the “physics of ropes” all over the country. Combining her artistic and scientific skills, she uses geometry to inspire most of her rope bondage work.
“When creating rope bondage work, I’ll take the idea of translating a four-dimensional object into three dimensions,” she said. “I’m sort of turning off the analytical side of my brain and feeling more than thinking, in a lot of ways. That’s unusual for people doing very intense mental work.”
However, Marceline’s rope bondage experiences weren’t always artistic. Smiling shyly, she admitted the “epiphany” moment came when she was playing a game of “cops and robbers” with her friend when she was 10 years old. Tying her friend’s hands behind the back with a rope, Marceline had this exhilarating feeling of stepping back to appreciate her “artwork” and thinking she wanted to be part of it.
“I think people understand their sexuality a lot earlier than they realized,” she said.
Marceline began her rope bondage journey in 2014 when she found out about several BDSM subculture groups on FetLife, the social network for the BDSM and kink communities. There she discovered “kinkers,” who go beyond what are considered conventional sexual practices. They don’t “practice” rope bondage. They “play” it.
Rope bondage, or “shibari,” originated from the Japanese martial art of restraining captives and then transformed into erotic bondage in the late 19th century, according to the first English instruction book on Shibari. “Shibari is a Japanese form of sex play using rope restraint methods. It may or may not be sexual, but it is certainly centered around joy and delight and play,” said Midori, the acclaimed sexologist and author of The Seductive Art of Japanese Bondage.“Even though most of the work I produced in rope doesn’t tend to be very sexual, I don’t want to completely separate myself from those origins, because that’s why we’re here today.”
The view of rope bondage has not been consistent over time. After studying in Japan for several months in 2017, Marceline says she noticed a slight shift in shibari communities. Some members started to consider rope bondage as art, which completely erased its “messy, dirty” history.
“Even though most of the work I produced in rope doesn’t tend to be very sexual, I don’t want to completely separate myself from those origins, because that’s why we’re here today,” Marceline said.
Midori also believes that learning rope bondage’s origin is essential. “Saying, ‘I am practicing this as art’ is pretentious,” said the sexologist, furiously. “It’s about elevating one’s own social prestige.”
Following the release of the erotic book Fifty Shades of Grey, kink subcultures gained mainstream momentum in 2011. Kink behaviors are common among adults in America, according to a 2017 study from Indiana University’s Center for Sexual Health Promotion. More than 30 percent of those surveyed acknowledged they had engaged in spanking, more than 22 percent engaged in role-playing, and more than 20 percent engaged in rope bondage.
“Fifty Shades of Grey changed the way people view kink and opened up the conversation about consent,” said Susan Wright, the spokesperson of the National Coalition of Sexual Freedom (NCSF), a nonprofit organization that advocates for the sexual freedom of all adults.
Although a number of films and books have thrust BDSM into the realm of popular culture, rope bondage is still taboo for a lot of people. Some feminist activists expressed strong opposition. “I do not believe meaningful sexual liberation is achieved through replicating the same dominance-subordination dynamics of institutionalized male dominance,” said Caitlin Roper, a feminist activist and a Ph.D. candidate researching female-shaped sex dolls. “With an understanding of feminism as a collective movement to liberate women as a whole from patriarchal oppression, I do not believe there is a feminist case for male violence and degradation of women, even if some women consent to it or say they like it.”
In the past few years, the National Coalition of Sexual Freedom saw a rising number of female dominant and queer people in kink subcultures. Marceline has mixed views toward the use of gender in the interpretation of BDSM. “Feminism is about giving women the agency to decide what’s best for themselves. I am one of those women who finds sexual liberation in kink subcultures, but there’s certainly an opportunity for really shitty people to get involved in the scene and use that for their own purposes,” she explained.
Reclaiming rope bondage’s versatility in the modern context, Marceline now believes that kink subcultures can be both sexual and visceral. She enjoys the interplay between the physical posing and the emotional components of it.
“You can think of rope like an intimate massage, or you can think of rope like a workout or therapy,” she said. “It’s like dancing.”
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