Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing a Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers.

Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe

Do you know this painting by Edouard Manet? You can see it here. It is a painting of  two fully clothed men at a picnic with a naked woman. There is another partially clothed woman in the background.

There Is a photo I like of Man Ray and Paul Eluard with one of my favourite photographers Lee Miller and two other women. You can see it here. Miller herself also took a photo of the scene which you can see here. The men are fully clothed and the women all topless.

There is an interesting eroticism in the notion of clothed men accompanied by naked women. To me it implies a level of D/s control and has an erotic charge of the women appearing to be making themselves available to the men - or having been made available for them.

I imagine it would work also the other way round with clothed women and naked men where the power balance would be the opposite.

Inès works as an artists' model and so is regularly naked in a room full of clothed people. Usually the groups are mixed but often can be men only or can be one-to-one sessions with a man. The eroticism of this situation is carefully avoided, it is supposed to be art, a professional relationship, but I find it hard to believe there is not an undercurrent of eroticism.

Next weekend Inès and I were hoping to go to an event where the men would all be dressed smartly in suits and the women all naked. I think because of work commitments it may not be possible. This is the second year running we have tried to get along but things have got in the way. We are both disappointed, perhaps especially Inès. As well as the power dynamic she also gets off on the exhibitionism.

Have others been involved in this kind of scene? Do you enjoy the power dynamic of clothed/unclothed? Do you like to be an exhibitionist or do you like to be the voyeur?

Dominance - being weak to be strong

There are a lot of pressures on Doms to remain strong. That is their role. Their subs expect it. That is why many have given their submission to another - for them to be strong and control and care for them.

But there are times when we all need some down-time. For a Dom that may be to be weak for a while; to let go and not be all-powerful; to just relax themselves and let go of the responsibility. "Responsibility" puts on so much pressure. In the end we all need a break from it. There are many who have responsible real life jobs who love to spend time as a submissive with a dominant just to be able to let go. So if someone close to you relies on you to be dominant then where do you go? What do you do when pressures build up? How do you respond?

A friend recently wrote to me that she remembered her Domme saying to her, "that she could never do a 24 hour play relationship because she needs to be able to be weak sometimes in order to be the strong dominant I know."

This was at a time when we were both feeling lots of pressure and stress. She continued, "And I feel totally weak because all the stress from the last weeks is catching up with me. But I realize I need this so that I can go on later." Then recommended that I take a break too.

It is the same for all of us - whether dominant or submissive. We sometimes need a break from stress. BDSM can sometimes be that break - to take us totally out of our day to day worries. However if we are over-stressed then it might be difficult to maintain that dominant demeanour.

So subs, if your dominant needs a break, remember the very wise words of my friend about her dominant, "she needs to be able to be weak sometimes in order to be the strong dominant I know."

keeping on keeping on...

I recently received some very kind and complimentary words about this blog from a commenter here.

They concluded, "Thank you, Pygar, for writing such thoughtful posts and creating a great space on the web for us to ponder these issues."

The post helped motivate me to continue writing the blog. It is difficult sometimes finding the time in a busy life. The popularity of the blog has varied over the years and has lost a considerable number of regular readers since my year's hiatus while I was in China. There is also the problem of coming up with new, relevant and interesting topics for discussion after so many years.

However it is always good to be reminded how many people over the years have found the blog interesting and helpful. I know people's lives have been changed by it. I know too that the strength of it is in the discussion and contributions by those who join in by commenting.

So I will try to keep writing. Let's keep discussing "the ethical questions that D/s and BDSM bring up". Please help me by adding the occasional comment and even suggesting topics that you would like to be discussed.

Thank you to all my readers.