Thursday, March 31, 2011

A Tempest in toe-shoes Pt III


Darren Aronofsky and Natalie Portman

Entertainment Weekly
EW.Com March 28, 2011

'Black Swan' director Darren Aronofsky defends Natalie Portman in body-double controversy
by Adam Markovitz

Responding to claims that Black Swan star Natalie Portman didn’t do the majority of her on-screen dancing in her Oscar-winning role, director Darren Aronofsky released the following statement through studio Fox Searchlight:

“Here is the reality. I had my editor count shots. There are 139 dance shots in the film. 111 are Natalie Portman untouched. 28 are her dance double Sarah Lane. If you do the math that’s 80% Natalie Portman. What about duration? The shots that feature the double are wide shots and rarely play for longer than one second. There are two complicated longer dance sequences that we used face replacement. Even so, if we were judging by time over 90% would be Natalie Portman.

And to be clear Natalie did dance on pointe in pointe shoes. If you look at the final shot of the opening prologue, which lasts 85 seconds, and was danced completely by Natalie, she exits the scene on pointe. That is completely her without any digital magic. I am responding to this to put this to rest and to defend my actor. Natalie sweated long and hard to deliver a great physical and emotional performance. And I don’t want anyone to think that’s not her they are watching. It is.”

Last Friday, ballerina Sarah Lane told EW that Portman only danced 5 percent of the full-body shots in the film. She also claimed that one of the film’s producers asked her not to speak publicly about her work during Oscar season. Lane’s comments came after Black Swan choreographer (and Portman fiancé) Benjamin Millepied told the L.A. Times that Natalie did “85 percent” of the dancing in the film. Lane could not be immediately reached for comment regarding Aronofsky’s statement.

Personal comment: I think with the film editor’s counts “139 dance shots in the film. 111 are Natalie Portman untouched. 28 are her dance double Sarah Lane.” that is probably the end of the discussion. Although I don’t think it necessarily addressed Sarah Lane’s contention that “Of the full body shots, I would say 5 percent are Natalie” since there were a great many upper body and leg/feet shots that NP may have done and we don’t know what the editor included or excluded in his count of ‘dance shots’. Even so, I’m so sorry that Sarah Lane seems (to me) to be coming off in this whole thing as whiney.

Entertainment Weekly
EW.Com March 28, 2011

Mila Kunis blasts 'Black Swan' controversy: 'Natalie danced her a- - off.'
EXCLUSIVE by Adam Markovitz


Black Swan co-star Mila Kunis is speaking out in support of her friend and cast mate Natalie Portman amid accusations that the bulk of the dancing in Portman’s Oscar-winning role was actually performed by her dancing double, American Ballet Theatre soloist Sarah Lane. “Natalie danced her a– off,” says Kunis. “I think it’s unfortunate that this is coming out and taking attention away from [the praise] Natalie deserved and got.”

Kunis also says Portman has been honest about how much of the demanding footwork she was — and wasn’t — able to do. “She’ll tell you [that], no, she was not on pointe when she did a fouettés [turn]. No one’s going to deny that. But she did do every ounce of every one of her dances,” she says. “[Lane] wasn’t used for everything. It was more like a safety net. If Nat wasn’t able to do something, you’d have a safety net. The same thing that I had — I had a double as a safety net. We all did. No one ever denied it.”

Last week, Lane told EW that she performed 95 percent of Portman’s full-body dance shots. Portman has been defended vocally by fiancé and Black Swan choreographer Benjamin Millepied and director Darren Aronofsky, who insists Portman did 80 percent of the dancing in the film.

Personal comment: I guess Mila needed to get her name into the publicity. I don’t think the comment “Natalie danced her a– off” contributed much to the discussion, but her comments did show solidarity with the official, and apparently correct position, based on the film editor’s dance shot count.

More on Ballet sex by Jack: “I understand that one's posture and muscle tension in the legs, pelvis and back change when one is wearing pointe shoes. There is a quite similar change when one is wearing very tall heels with the difference perhaps that in the latter the weight can be carried on the heel and so the leg muscles are involved differently. But I would think that if the heel height is extreme the pelvic and back involvement is quite similar. And then there is standing on ones "tippy-toes", admittedly difficult for any length of time, but a similar muscular change would take place. Obviously ballet dancers stretch and strengthen their leg muscles so that this "unusual" posture is normalized so that they can stand, dance, and move about on their toes. I am not convinced that having "sex" in any of those three - pointes, extreme heels, or tippy-toes is very different. I'd think for a male it's hardly distinguishable. Of course someone who has developed more muscle control, her legs and pelvis can provide a different experience to her partner and herself presumably, but that would be true whether she was en pointe, in killer heels, or on her tip toes and so sex with a well developed female body is better than one that's not. We get it. I'm not getting it Jill, but perhaps I need to experience a side by side test so to speak. Ha-ha-ha That would be fun! Tester is blindfold for a double blind (ha-ha-ha) study.”

My reply: You recall that ballet sex was an outgrowth of the Paris Opera ballet dancers taking their lovers en pointe to offer a similar, tightened, grip to lovers that patrons experienced when frequenting prostitutes wearing high heels in Paris brothels. These days Strippers stilettos, ballet boots and pointe shoes all readily available for purchase. So a woman has a choice as to what level of skill she is willing to train for, to acquire a tightened grip to please a lover. To a true connoisseur of the female leg and the velvet vice of a ballerina’s vagina high heels then and now with the wearer’s toes flexed are not comparable to pointe shoes, because the flexed toes break the line of the leg and suggest that the woman in heels hasn’t the skill, muscles and stamina necessary to take a lover with her strongest grip while balanced on the platforms of pointe shoes. Even a woman in 5 inch stripper’s heels – which hold the wearer on three-quarter pointe - can’t compete and is relegated to third place behind ballet boot sex.

As to whether differences in the tightness and strength of the grip en pointe is distinguishable from when she is standing flat or is on her back it almost always is, but it depends on the woman, how long she has been taking pointe and how much time she spends on her toes. There are other considerations as well such as sexual experience and OB history, but the length of time she clenches her vaginal muscles, when she rises and remains en pointe, is a major indicator of how tight she will be. In some cases, me for example, I have to consciously concentrate on relaxing my muscles so a lover can comfortably enter me. But of course I wear Ban Wa balls or a Penetrator as much as I can, sleeping with the balls inserted when I’m not with a man or if he has taken me with them inserted, so I’m always training and exercising my muscles.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Cocaine and toe pads


Nearly new Gaynors with sueded platforms

Cocaine and toe pads: I’ve seen women overdose on cocaine dusted into the dome of a diaphragm and mixed with spermicide as a method of prolonging her high and enhancing her encounter experience, but until the other day I’d never encountered snow in a dancer’s toe pads. I was called to clean up a situation that occurred in a vacant McMansion west of the city and Gigi, Jacques 17 y/o daughter, went with me. She is interested in starting a small collection of items in her size that women were wearing when they died and I’m helping her when I can. I suppose she got the idea from me and my fascination with death rubber, but I don’t think her collecting interests are that tightly focused, at least not yet.

We put on respirators to filter the air and block some of the smell, pulled on latex exam gloves and began cleaning up. From what we found it appears a working girl in her mid 20s had set up business as an independent operator and had been offering ballet sex, doing clients on her toes, in the 4 Ts (full costume: tights, tutu, tiara and toe shoes) in a large room set up with portable mirrors and barre and video cams for recording her encounters. The cleaning crew sent by the realtor to check that the house was ready to show found her slumped against one of the mirrors with her dance bag at her side and a surprised look on her face. She had been dead a few hours as rigor had passed and her body cavities were attracting flies. In a closed house you have to wonder where the flies come from, but they were there. There was vomit covering the bodice of her tutu and it looked to me as though she had been in the midst if an encounter when she was stricken as her thong-back tutu and crotchless tights were askew and she was draining vaginal discharge. There were several empty condom packets, but no used condoms so her client must have cleaned up after himself.

Her dance bag held her partial packet of Yaz birth control pills, her diaphragm case with a heavily stained 70 mm All-Flex inside – suggesting to me that she used it for menstrual flow control as well as a gas-guard during dive-sex in the home’s enclosed pool – a tube of ContraGel spermicide that she was probably using as an intimate lube and a clean micromesh thong. We also found a small Ziploc sandwich bag containing a white powder which I thought was probably her coke stash and there was a lot of it. I’d seen enough stashes to see that it didn’t look quite right and I felt the consistency through the bag and there were tiny granules in it so someone had cut it with something they shouldn’t have.

We looked in the two large closets in the master bedroom that she was using and found one filled with ballet costumes and the other with designer clothes which she probably wore while trolling for clients. Then there was a smaller bedroom that she used to store her dive equipment, wetsuits, regulators and FFMs and rubber fetishwear. The air tanks and compressor to fill them was in the garage with the intake hose running under the garage door and into the top of a large bush by the door to get it at least 5 feet off the ground and hidden from sight to the casual observer. She had so much stuff that I thought someone must have helped her get set up or it must have taken her the better part of a week and a rental truck to do it herself. I found the receipt for the rental truck so she was probably working solo. Her driver’s license and passport said she was Canadian.

On cleanup I and whoever helps me gets to keep any of the possessions of the dead that we want, within reason. I think if we found a lot of cash that wouldn’t fly if the Organization found out, but personal positions are ours for the taking. Gigi was interested in the almost new Gaynor pointes with sueded leather platforms she was wearing as they looked to be about her size so she carefully untied the ribbons and pulled the backs down off her heels and off her feet. The Gaynors were her size with a medium box, high heel and deep and vamp. She was wearing Ouch Pouch toe pads that looked like she had sweated through them and bled through the one on her right foot. And when Gigi peeled them off her toes there was a white paste between her toes and in the bottom of the pads which I immediately suspected was how she took her hit and ended up overdosing. It’s unusual for a dancer wearing toe pads in Gaynors to get blisters and the blood was from a blister on the big toe that had opened and then started to bleed. I wondered how that happened, then thought to check the consistency of the cocaine residue she had poured into each toe pad and found the granules in her stash hadn’t dissolved in her sweat and were probably what had caused the blister, bleeding and perhaps the OD. I had Gigi put the toe pads in a specimen bag for analysis and looked at the shoe the Canadian has bled in. It wasn’t noticeable so I let Gigi keep the Gaynors.

We rolled the body into a rubber body-bag and loaded it into the van. Then we looked through all the Canadian’s other things for anything of interest I took the cash in her purse and we packed up all her ID to take with the body. There was nothing else we wanted – her new La Perla bras were too large for us - so we left her things for the Organization to use for their escorts and in their fetish and dive clubs. Since the Canadian had ID I called my contact and asked if we should bring her in to put on ice while enquiries were made or run her through the chipper. I was told to bring her into the cold storage facility. We put her along side the bodies of the French couple we found nearly two months ago.

Jack on Ballet sex: “Jill, Don't fret. It was an interesting post about the Paris Opera Ballet scene. I am hesitant to show this blog to some female dancers I know for fear they will think I am stark raving mad. But I find pointe sex a "stretch" and I would like to know if I am naive to believe it or I am naive to not believe it. Standing sex from my perspective as a man is not as comfortable as it is when the female is "supported" against the thrusts such as supine or from behind etc. Thrusting when standing is a strange movement if done by the male of going up and down and up and down... or holding the female by the waist and lifting up and down and up and down. The latter requires a petite female and a strong male to lift her 100 pounds for so many repetitions. The female might love the ride of course… but she's no longer en pointe ie supported on her toe box... I'd like to give pointe sex a try, but I don't think so in this life time as I don't know a cooperative ballerina here in NYC to give it a go (with me at least) ha-ha-ha. Perhaps you could get me a pointe sex date? OK maybe you can get some ballerina to email me about her pointe sex experiences.”

My reply: I see I wasn’t as clear as I should have been about describing dancers being taken en pointe for ballet sex. I thought with all the times I’ve described being taken from behind en pointe bending over… Well, we are standing up, feet en pointe in second position, but bent over with our backs horizontal and holding on to the barre or a table, chair, the hood of a car or whatever is available so we are penetrated while the vagina is horizontal. There can be some thrusting to lift us off our platforms if a partner is thrusting into the back wall of the vagina where the woman may be briefly suspended on the base of her partner’s shaft when our platforms are off the floor, but with a couple well matched in height there isn’t much if any of that. With a man a bit too tall to enter his partner w/o bending his knees there may be a good bit more when he straightens his legs at maximum thrust depth. Holding the woman vertical or with her legs wrapped around her partner and held against a wall doesn’t technically count as ballet sex even if she is wearing pointes, she has to be standing en pointe.

Jack, I don’t know if your dancer friends have heard of having sex on their toes or not. It depends on how experienced they are and what sorts of friends they have. Ballet sex is absolutely real, but I suspect not widely practiced in the vanilla ballet world because of the stamina and concentration it takes to be drilled w/o falling off pointe or going rubber-legged in he middle of the encounter. It’s a lot easier for the woman to be taken doggie style while on her hands and knees where she doesn’t have to worry about her ankles or knees giving out, but that way there is no clenching of the pelvic muscles to tighten the vagina which is the reason for ballet sex in the first place. It’s a pity you aren’t on intimate enough terms with your dancer friends to see if one would be interested in giving it a try, if they aren’t already familiar with it. Of course, if you are married that would pose a moral problem, but since you asked for a reference one assumes you have already thought that through or are not married.

Posting note: I’ve tweaked the code a bit to get the paragraphs to format properly until Google fixes the bug which will probably throw this entry off when the problem is corrected. I suspect I’ll regret doing that.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Ballet sex


White Freed Classics in a tight 5th position

Toe-shoes and ballet sex:
There is Ballet sex, and there is ballet boot sex and the two are sometimes confused both being considered ballet sex (reaching orgasm while standing en pointe) by those unfamiliar with the minutiae of ballet history. Ballet boot sex is fetish sex pure and simple and its origin may date from the time of the Viennese fetish boot (circa 1900). However, ballet boots only began gaining in popularity in the 1980s and seem to be used primarily as a fetish fantasy to pose in while a very few can stand in them long enough to reach orgasm from penile-vaginal intercourse. In the case of true ballet sex the woman wears pointe shoes which make the encounter part of a long tradition the origin of which is lost in the mists of time, but probably evolved in the Foyer de la Danse of the Opera house in the Rue Le Peletier, in Paris in the late 1850s when in the evolution of the pointe shoe it had developed enough structure to allow the shoes to help support the dancer’s weight rather that just padding her toes and having to use her muscles w/o much support to stand en pointe. The Foyer de la Danse was a location for rendezvous between male ballet supporters and their favorite dancers. Edgar Degas immortalized the location in his painting ‘The Foyer de la Danse at the Opéra in the Rue Le Peletier’ now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, which says this about the area: “The Foyer de la Danse was a phenomenon exclusively related to the Paris Opera house. The Foyer de la Danse, initially in Opera house in the Rue Le Peletier [burned in 1873], and then in the Palais Garnier, was one of the most cherished places of Paris. An institution, the Foyer de la Danse in the opera house was the privileged meeting point between subscribers and dancers. It had its golden age in the decades 1820-1880. The painters Eugène Lami, Edgar Degas and Jean-Louis Forain, illustrated it during its heyday, rendering this legendary place and its inhabitants in their diverse truths which wavered between the ephemeral glory of theatre and everyday sordidness.”

The origin of ballet sex:
The use of pointe shoes for ballet sex undoubtedly came about when it was found – from the high heels worn in Paris brothels of the time – that women’s vaginas were much tighter when their heels were elevated which caused their pelvic muscles to clench. So for ballet dancers being taken in in heelless shoes it became desirable to stand en pointe to increase a lover’s pleasure by tightening his penetration experience, a natural extension of high heel sex, and an indication of the ballerina’s skill and strength in being able to be penetrated to orgasm in heelless shoes. But no one knows which dancer used it first. Additionally, since most dancers were tiny being on their toes made it easier for a man to enter them from the rear w/o having to appear to need help by standing on a small box in so grand a location or in one of the encounter sallies associated with the Foyer de la Danse. So proper ‘ballet sex’ I believe is at least 150 years old and requires a dancer with the skill to be penetrated while en pointe in toe shoes. In recent years the advent of nearly unbreakable polymer toe boxes and shanks by Gaynor Minden and it’s imitators have made it far easier for today’s skilled dancers to be taken while en pointe, but they still need the strength and stamina and ability to concentrate to prevent their ankles and knees from buckling during orgasm.

Ballet boot sex:
Ballet boots as they have come to be known since the 1980s are fetishwear used for bondage ‘training’ by locking a person, usually a submissive woman, into the boots as punishment for committing some ‘offense’ against her master or Dom. Or, used by club entertainers for walking or dancing, but only by a few who have the skill and determination to persevere in learning to wear ballet boots confidently. The great majority of ballet boot wearers only pose seated or on their backs with their pointed, booted feet in the air with only a handful of dedicated amateurs learning to walk around in them. Therefore, most sex in ballet boot is had by women on their backs or on their hands and knees taken doggie style so it is not true ballet boot sex which requires the woman to be penetrated while standing in her boots. As uncomfortable as they are to wear for prolonged lengths of time ballet boots take less skill and training to use correctly than do pointe shoes because in a correctly made pair of ballet boots most of the wearer’s weight is taken on her heels and the weight of a ballet boot wearer is never centered over her toes (over the boxes) as it should be when pointe shoes are worn correctly. The other thing about ballet boots that make them much easier to wear than pointes is that the tight leather shafts covering the boot wearer’s ankles provide a great deal of support to prevent wobbling and falling off pointe that doesn’t exist for a woman wearing pointes.

Jack on ‘the highest reaches of society’:
“The highest reaches of society presume that the best reside up there. This, of course, is not only a myth, but in the best case only partially true. While money provides people with the material trappings associated with success, there are things which money can't buy and which are often not found in the upper reaches of society - beauty, creativity, physical strength, spirituality, character all have absolutely nothing to do with the upper reaches of society. If one looks at most of the great and notable achievements throughout human history most were created by the "common folks" not the upper crust. It's only recently that creativity and arts have been rewarded with material wealth. The upper level may influence society with their wealth and power, but most of them are incapable of actually doing much aside from "giving orders". Of course, if one seeks the comforts and power associated with that elite turning oneself into a commodity of currency to this class would make sense. But there is "comfort" and there is comfort... and therein lies the differences... which most intelligent, grounded, ethical people understand... and conduct their lives accordingly.”

“The highest reaches of society presume that the best reside up there.”

As does Jack, I don’t believe that is necessarily the case nor are they more successful, depending on how an individual defines success. However, it also depends on how “best” is defined and what sort of a man a woman is seeking. The upper reaches of society are made up of the great and the good and among the great are some very unpleasant people as is the case in all levels of society. But in this moralizing I sense an unspoken - but profound - unease with a woman’s innate power to beguile men and with that power better her economic position. I think that unease is because intelligent men realize – perhaps subconsciously – that regardless of how physically or economically powerful they are they are still vulnerable to a woman’s charms and the danger that vulnerability can sometimes put them in. This battle of the sexes has gone on ever since humans began inhabiting the earth. It’s just when intimate feminine skills are taught and that fact is brought to the attention of the public that some people become uncomfortable with it and fall back on ethics and morality as reasons for a woman not to use all the skills she possesses to secure her future and that of her offspring with a willing mate.

Rave from a reader: While he felt there was room for improvement in my blog ‘The Mysterious J’ wrote: “…it certainly links the whole ballet boot fetish thing to the real world of ballet, perfection, fetish and training with the latter three being staples of the world of kink. Actually the main themes of Jill's world are an interesting mix of fetishes and Brava for that. Rubber, diving, ballet boots, bondage, plugs, "sex as a paid service", D/s, breast milk, and contraception, WOW!”

Thank you Jack!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

A tempest in Toe-Shoes, more Black Swan Pt II

Natalie Portman and Benjamin Millepied in Black Swan

I’m indebted to ‘the Mysterious J’ for bringing the article below to my attention. And the tempest continues…

Entertainment Weekly
EW.com March 25, 2011
by Adam Markovitz

'Black Swan' double claims Natalie Portman only did '5 percent' of full-body dance shots in the movie

The ballerina who served as a dancing double for Natalie Portman’s Oscar-winning role in Black Swan tells EW she has been the victim of a “cover-up” to mislead the public about how much dancing Portman actually did in the film. “Of the full body shots, I would say 5 percent are Natalie,” says Sarah Lane, 27, an American Ballet Theatre soloist who performed many of the film’s complicated dance sequences, allowing Portman’s face to be digitally grafted onto her body. “All the other shots are me.”

Lane’s claim follows a March 23 L.A. Times article in which Portman’s fiancé and Black Swan choreographer Benjamin Millepied said Lane’s work in the film was far less significant. “There are articles now talking about her dance double [American Ballet Theatre dancer Sarah Lane] that are making it sound like [Lane] did a lot of the work, but really, she just did the footwork, and the fouettés, and one diagonal [phrase] in the studio,” he said. “Honestly, 85 percent of that movie is Natalie.”

Lane disagrees. “The shots that are just her face with arms, those shots are definitely Natalie,” she says. “But that doesn’t show the actual dancing.” Lane admits that she was never promised a particular title for her six weeks of work on the film, though she was disappointed to see that she is credited only as “Hand Model,” “Stunt Double,” and “Lady in the Lane” (a brief walk-on role).

Lane also says that Black Swan producer Ari Handel specifically told her not to talk about her work to the press, even though she claims there was no such stipulation in her contract. “They wanted to create this idea in people’s minds that Natalie was some kind of prodigy or so gifted in dance and really worked so hard to make herself a ballerina in a year and a half for the movie, basically because of the Oscar,” says Lane. “It is demeaning to the profession and not just to me. I’ve been doing this for 22 years…. Can you become a concert pianist in a year and a half, even if you’re a movie star?”

Reps for Portman, Fox Searchlight, and Handel have yet to provide comments on the matter.

Lane is barely seen in promotional materials for the movie, including a VFX reel posted by studio Fox Searchlight that appears to show all the digital alterations made to key dance sequences. An unverified version [now deleted from YouTube] of that reel, leaked to YouTube, seems to shows how digital face replacement was used to put Portman’s head on Lane’s body. (The clip was included in a blog post by Dance Magazine‘s Wendy Perron, who wrote about Lane’s story earlier this month.)

According to Lane, Portman’s dramatic transformation into a ballerina — a narrative firmly at the center of her successful Oscar campaign — wasn’t as impressive as the public was led to believe. “I mean, from a professional dancer’s standpoint, she doesn’t look like a professional ballet dancer at all and she can’t dance in pointe shoes. And she can’t move her body; she’s very stiff,” says Lane. “I do give her a lot of credit because in a year and a half she lost a lot of weight and she really tried to go method and get into a dancers head and really feel like a ballet dancer.”

In interviews, Portman didn’t hide the fact that she had used a body double for key sequences in the film, though Lane’s name, and the extent of her work, were played down. “I do have a double for the complicated turning stuff,” Portman told EW last November. “It was not anything I ever could have done in a year, nothing I could’ve caught up with. But I think it was just better for all of us if I did as much as possible.”

Lane insists she isn’t speaking out of jealousy over Portman’s acclaim. “[Natalie] is an amazing actress, for sure,” she says. “I know that it’s not a personal thing against me. I know that it’s just a political thing. It’s just unfortunate that I kind of lost credit.”

Personal comment: Readers should note the carefully chosen quotations used:

Sarah Lane: “Of the full body shots, I would say 5 percent are Natalie all the other shots are me.”

Benjamin Millepied: “There are articles now talking about her dance double [American Ballet Theatre dancer Sarah Lane] that are making it sound like [Lane] did a lot of the work, but really, she just did the footwork, and the fouettés, and one diagonal [phrase] in the studio,” he said. “Honestly, 85 percent of that movie is Natalie.”

Sarah Lane: “I mean, from a professional dancer’s standpoint, she doesn’t look like a professional ballet dancer at all and she can’t dance in pointe shoes. And she can’t move her body; she’s very stiff,”

Sarah Lane: “I know that it’s not a personal thing against me. I know that it’s just a political thing. It’s just unfortunate that I kind of lost credit.”

There is nothing in conflict between: “Of the full body shots, I would say 5 percent are Natalie” and “85 percent of that movie is Natalie.” And Sarah is right when she says, ‘from a professional dancer’s standpoint she doesn’t look like a professional dancer.’ Natalie doesn’t, certainly her legs, but that’s what body doubles/stunt persons are for and the film wasn’t made for the professional dance community. Sarah got as much credit as any other body/stunt double gets in a film. With this tempest I’m not so sure that ‘Any publicity is good publicity’ if the person comes off as a whiner.

As I’ve written before I think the unfortunate part of this whole thing is the naiveté of Wendy Perron the editor of Dance Magazine who added her prestige to the notion that Sarah Lane was ‘thrown under the bus’ by the studio PR machine because she was “exploited” thinking – erroneously – that body doubles get more credit in films than they do and the celebrity chasing media pounced on this as a catfight to generate magazine sales and website hits. And, it worked.

A tempest in Toe-Shoes, more Black Swan

Sarah Lane and Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman Slammed by Her Black Swan Dance Double

US Magazine
Yahoo March 25, 2011

Black Swan blackout!

“Sarah Lane, the American Ballet Theater dancer who acted as Natalie Portman's dance double in the hit film, has a gripe with the Oscar-winning star and the film's execs.

Lane alleges she was told by executives at Fox Searchlight to stop speaking publicly about her work in the movie so that Portman could take the credit for the amazing dance moves herself.

"They were trying to create this facade that she had become a ballerina in a year-and-a-half," she told Dance Magazine in December. "So I knew they didn't want to publicize anything about me."

In interviews, Portman talked frequently about how grueling it was to master ballet techniques for the intense psychological drama. Yet when she won her Academy Award for the acclaimed performance, the actress failed to acknowledge Lane during her acceptance speech. Lane was also apparently deleted from a DVD extra showing Black Swan's special effects.

Rising up in Portman's defense? Benjamin Millepied, "Black Swan’s choreographer and now Portman's fiancé (and father to the pregnant star's unborn child). Lane "just did the footwork and the fouettes and one diagonal in the studio," Millepied, 33, recently told the L.A. Times. "Honestly, 85% of that movie is Natalie."

Personal Comment: Celebrity Rags like US Magazine love controversy and stretching the facts to create something out of nothing. Unfortunately in this instance they were aided and abetted by the Editor of Dance Magazine who should have known better than to put in print [see the articles below] her fears w/o checking the facts and the normal Hollywood studio publicity pecking order before strongly suggesting that Sarah Lane, as Natalie Portman’s body double, was overlooked. When Lane said: “I knew they didn’t want to publicize anything about me” she was absolutely right. As excited as I was to have Sarah Lane dancing in the film I understand the body double isn’t the one that (most) movie goers are paying to see, it’s the star! And I’m sure Sarah recognized that!


Is There a Blackout on Black Swan’s Dancing?

Dance Magazine on-line
Posted by Wendy Perron on Thursday, Mar 03, 2011

“Do people really believe that it takes only one year to make a ballerina? We know that Natalie Portman studied ballet as a kid and had a year of intensive training for the film, but that doesn’t add up to being a ballerina. However, it seems that many people believe that Portman did her own dancing in Black Swan.

I think there has been a propaganda of omissions in the media that has reinforced that belief. Here are what I consider two glaring examples:

First, in the video of special effects that was going around the internet, a certain crucial three seconds has been deleted. When the video was first released a couple weeks ago, it showed, among its many techno-alterations (mirror double takes, gore enhancement, adding skin rash, puppet legs, etc.) a more unusual special effect: face replacement. Toward the end of the video, the Black Swan starts a manège of piqué turns from a distance. When she gets close enough to see her face, you could see a dancer’s face being swiped over by Natalie Portman’s face. If you paused the video, you could recognize the first face as Sarah Lane’s. This swiping moment was identified in the video as “face replacement.” Then, with Portman’s face, the dancer finishes her piqués, goes into fouettés, and by this time has big black wings that she swoops up and back in her final, triumphant arch back.

The day before the Oscars, I looked at this video on several sites so that I could show this moment of face replacement to my son, who’s a film guy. And it wasn’t there. It had been deleted. When I tweeted about this, someone tweeted back that it had only been there for one day before it was pulled.

(Click here to see the Black Swan special effects video minus face replacement.)

Second, at the Oscars, Natalie Portman thanked about 20 people (including Mary Helen Bowers, the former NYCB dancer who trained her for that year). But Sarah Lane’s name was not among them. I wonder, was this Portman’s forgetfulness in the heat of the moment? Or was this omission, and the deletion from the video, planned by the studio's publicity machine?

Sarah Lane is not just a dancer who happened to be the right size. She’s a real ballerina at ABT who was our cover story in June, 2007. Last December, we interviewed her about her hard work for Black Swan and she told us about face replacement. But was she prepared for credit replacement?

We hear rumors that people are calling the box office of ballet companies asking if they can see Natalie Portman in Swan Lake. I don’t know if this is true, if audiences are really that clueless about ballet training. I wish they were asking if Sarah Lane will dance Odette/Odile (and I hope she does soon).

It seems to be far more accepted that your run-of the-mill movie star needs help singing rather than dancing. When Natalie Wood starred in West Side Story in 1961, I think it was common knowledge that her singing was done by soprano Marni Nixon. But maybe I’m wrong. Did the studio try to hide this fact? Does anyone know?”

Personal Comment: the Special effects video in the above post is fascinating!

Putting the Black Swan Blackout in Context

Dance Magazine on line
Posted by Wendy Perron on Friday, Mar 11, 2011

“Sarah Lane, whose heavenly dancing helped make Natalie Portman believable as the ballerina Nina Sayers—thanks to face replacement—was not acknowledged by Portman at the Oscars. Not only that, but Lane was suddenly deleted from a video showing Black Swan’s special effects that was circulating on the web. In my blog last week I called it a blackout.

Sarah Lane calls it a more polite word: a façade. I asked her if she was expecting to be thanked when she heard Portman reel off 10 or 20 other names during her acceptance speech. Lane said no, because a Fox Searchlight producer had already called to ask her to stop giving interviews until after the Oscars. “They were trying to create this façade that she had become a ballerina in a year and a half," she said. "So I knew they didn’t want to publicize anything about me.”

As she said in Dance Magazine's December interview, she felt good about her work—though it was exhausting and frustrating—on the set. “It was a great experience to see the whole process of making a movie,” she told me. But she didn’t realize until just before the Oscars just how exploited she was. All the pirouettes, the full-body shots, and just-the-legs shots were her. (She also said that fellow ABT soloist Maria Riccetto doubled for Mila Kunis in one long shot.) The publicity campaign from the studio, however, spread the word that Portman did 90 percent of her own dancing.

Is it unusual for real dancers to get shoved under the rug in Hollywood? From the responses I got to my previous blog, no. John Rockwell reminded me that Savion Glover, whose tap dancing and choreography were the heart of the animated movie Happy Feet in 2006, was barely acknowledged. In a very funny take on this (“Penguin, Shmenguin! Those Are Savion Glover's Happy Feet!”), Rockwell tells us that Happy Feet director/producer George Miller claimed the movie would have been impossible without Savion—and yet the tapper's name appears way down in the credits.

Likewise, on IMDB, Sarah Lane’s name appears way down the line for Black Swan, not as a double but as “Lady in the Lane,” which she explained to me was a split-second scene where she appears as an incidental, non-dancing figure. Obviously she was not as crucial to the film as Glover to Happy Feet; Darren Aronofsky could have hired a lesser ballerina. But the idea is the same. Get a real virtuoso to make it believable, but pour all your publicity into the studio’s star—even if they are only audible and not visible as in Happy Feet.

It seems that when a movie star needs a singer to double for her voice, that’s common knowledge. No one is surprised to learn that Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood didn’t do their own singing when a trained voice was required. But people seem to believe that Natalie Portman did her own dancing. Of course to most people, Portman was entirely believable. (I myself found her upper body fairly convincing.) But for dancers, the idea that you can turn someone into a ballerina in one year is ludicrous.

Sarah says she was more offended by that myth than any slight to her as a dancer who worked “painstaking” hours on the set. She says she's talked to her colleagues about “how unfortunate it is that, as professional dancers, we work so hard, but people can actually believe that it’s easy enough to do it in a year. That’s the thing that bothered me the most.”

(Addendum: A reader foraged on the web and found the one instance of the original special effects video that still shows face replacement. Click here. [Removed from YouTube due to copyright claim by Fox Searchlight.] to see Sarah Lane's face, during piqué turns, swiped over by Portman’s.)

(One fun tidbit I learned from reader Jeff Nelson: Olivia Newton-John had a dance double for a scene in the “Hand Jive” number of the movie Grease. For an alley-oop, a member of the ensemble, Antonia Franceschi, was her dance double. Franceschi went on to dance in Fame and join New York City Ballet.)”

Personal comment: “But she didn’t realize until just before the Oscars just how exploited she was. All the pirouettes, the full-body shots, and just-the-legs shots were her.”

Well, yes, that’s what the job of a body double is! I’m glad to see the word ‘exploited’ wasn’t in quotes in Perron’s article. As far as I’m concerned Perron has lost her credibility on this subject because in this article Perron is trying to recover from an editorial error and refocus attention elsewhere by claiming Lane was exploited. I’m sorry Sarah has been put in this position.

Here is Sarah Lane’s interview that appeared in Dance Magazine on-line for December 2010

Quick Q&A: Sarah Lane
By Kina Poon

An eerie drama set in the world of a fictional New York City ballet company, the film Black Swan opens in select theaters on December 1. Actress Natalie Portman portrays Nina, a principal who must find her darker, Odile side—with harrowing consequences. Last winter, the captivating Sarah Lane was tapped to be Portman’s dance double. An American Ballet Theatre soloist since 2007 (when she also graced DM’s cover), Lane spoke with assistant editor Kina Poon about what it was like to work with Portman and which is harder: dancing for film or in performance.

Were you nervous to work with Natalie and director Darren Aronofsky? I wasn’t nervous. Everyone was great—the crew, the corps girls, Natalie, Mila Kunis, Winona Ryder, and Vince Cassel as well. I really enjoyed working with the director. He was demanding but encouraging. It was sort of like working with a choreographer—he knew what he wanted, but he would get inspired by something in the moment or change something that didn’t work.

Anything technically challenging? I had to do the black swan coda—16 piqué turns following tracking marks on the floor pulling into 16 fouettés onstage at Purchase College. The lighting setup was really bright. And the floor was so soft, it was like trying to turn on a yoga mat. I couldn’t push out of the floor. And I had these little foam balls stuck to my skin, my arms, and my face for face replacement. I probably did it 40 times. I was almost crying I was so frustrated.

What about faking special effects? There’s a part where the director wanted to do a close-up of my feet with blood dropping onto the floor and hitting my shoes and my tights. So they gave me this dropper filled with fake blood and I had to slowly squeeze it onto the floor as I’m doing the choreography. To say the least, it was a little hard to coordinate. And I needed like a million pairs of pointe shoes because I had to change my shoes and tights after every shot. It was pretty funny!

What did you find surprising about the shoot? Kevin McKenzie, ABT’s artistic director, and Victor Barbee, the company’s artistic associate, told me that it would take a long time, but I was still surprised by how agonizingly long the days were. There’s a lot of waiting around and not knowing what or when the next shot is going to be. And then once you get to your shot, they decide in a split second, and you may not be warm. It was a lot of hours, a lot of patience, a lot of waiting to get the conditions ideal for the look of the shot.

That must be difficult, because I know that you’re a very thoughtful dancer who likes to be prepared. Sometimes I would be doing shots at 4:00 in the morning. I can’t imagine doing a whole movie. At least as ballet dancers, we can appreciate scheduled rehearsals and a scheduled performance time. You can’t be prepared for a movie.

What did you do to try? I had to find time for myself when I first got there. Even if it was 5:00 in the morning, I would give myself barre and do my Pilates exercises.

Are you excited to see yourself on film? I’m really curious to see what shots they ended up using, and the digital effects. It’s exciting for me to be in a movie that’s not the normal dance movie. It’s kind of a horror film. It’s very psychological.

Did you learn about acting from watching the director work with the actors? Watching Natalie and the other actors made me think about how different it is when you’re seeing something up close. When you’re onstage, the audience is so far away. But it did make me think about how I could use my face more. And also just being more of a real person when you’re acting onstage, rather than over dramatizing something.

What could the ballet world learn from Hollywood? I think the audience would love it if we added more special effects to our productions. My little brother, who is 18, saw the trailer for Black Swan, and he said, “I might actually want to see this movie!”

And how does it feel to be part of a performance that some critics are giving Natalie Portman rave reviews for? I’m not really looking for any sort of recognition. The process was a huge learning experience and I got everything I wanted out of it. But she deserves the recognition. She worked really hard.

Would you do it again? Only if it wouldn’t interfere with my roles at ABT. I love what I do, so it would have to be a special circumstance. But I definitely would love to play around with acting more. If I couldn’t dance, I would consider pursuing it.

Personal comment: That was a great interview and she said all the right things to support the star and the film. I’m afraid the other articles by Perron and US Magazine show the naiveté of Wendy Perron and (possibly) Sarah Lane. This tempest in toe-shoes certainly didn’t do Sarah Lane any good; I just hope it didn’t hurt her. Readers can’t see Lane’s body language, facial expression and tone of voice during the interview, but I personally think her comments were correct and misunderstood by the interviewer and editor.

I love Sarah Lane’s dancing and her, having risen through the hierarchy of a professional ballet company I can’t believe she didn’t recognize as normal the operation of a performing arts organization PR machine to make the star of a production (ballet or film) invincible, or at least walk on water. Perhaps she shouldn’t have mentioned the studio not wanting her to talk about her filming experience during the run-up to the Oscars when they were trying to add even more luster to Natalie Portman’s image, but in the role of body double I don’t think she was overlooked or exploited.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

A warning to the curious



Escorts during dive encounter training

The Photo: An escort using a snorkel during training has just clamped shut the mp-hose between the first and second stages of her ‘rival’s’ twin-hose reg cutting off her air. Wearing a deflated Avon drysuit her ‘rival’ is trapped below the surface with out the buoyancy to reach the surface. Sucking her inhalation hose dry moments later she expelled her mouthpiece and her hoses floated above her head. If she doesn’t act quickly she will drown. The purpose of this training is to teach an escort trainee diver how to get out of her scuba set and turn her air back on - or in this case remove the vice-grips clamping her mp-hose shut - while encumbered by a deflated drysuit squeezing her body making it difficult to move.

I can’t imagine that having chronicled all the fatal accidents from vomiting into gas masks or suffocating from inattention to ones air supply or from seizures brought on by intense muscular contractions and high BP during orgasm and a few fetish related murders that I would need to warn readers that fetish sex could be harmful to their health. Or about the dangers of various ways to immobilize one’s rivals or enemies, especially while in diving gear. I think people reading my blog are more interested in fanaticizing while reading about women getting offed or accidentally killing themselves in a fetish situation than trying it on their own. But I suppose you never know. There are people who believe we only went to the moon on the back lot of MGM or that they saw Elvis in the grocery last week, so there are some delusional people in the world and the fetish community certainly has its share.

The bit about clamping a rival’s mp-hose shut for a diver using a twin-hose reg is extremely dangerous if the diver who has her reg clamped isn’t familiar with the recovery procedure and panics, which is why we spend as much time as we do teaching our escorts how to recover from air supply failures. We also recommend escort divers carry a pony bottle of air and a lift bag on each dive so if she loses her buoyancy or runs out of air she can reach the surface on her own. We also recommend testing weight belt buckles and integrated weight pouch fasteners before diving to be certain the diver knows how to release her weights and that the weights will actually release if the need arises. Twin-hose regulators are fairly rare in the vanilla diving community these days since most of the twin-hose units are vintage equipment, but they are in demand for fetish diving. So I have taught Anya, Cyndi and Gigi how to recover from having a twin-hose clamped, but that isn’t part of the syllabus at St Lucy’s. As returning readers know I prefer to wear a FFM for fetish diving (dive-sex) since with an FFM there is no possibility of expelling the mouthpiece during orgasm and it is more comfortable for long duration dives and naps underwater as there is no tiring of the jaw from gripping the mouthpiece and you can talk to your dive partner while wearing an FFM.

As I said, with human nature you never know, so if there are some adventuresome readers - who believe “that can’t happen to me” - who are such thrill-seekers that they want to try to see if they can survive some of the incidents I have written about; if there is anyone like that reading this please get proper training for the equipment you use and don’t try the dangerous things I write about. Attempting those sorts of things could be hazardous to your health!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Fox News Fair and Balanced


Fair and Balanced

CNN correspondent slams Fox over ‘human shields’ report

By Michael Calderone
Tue Mar 22, 10:10 am ET

“CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson blasted Fox News on Monday for its report that Libyan authorities used him and other journalists as "human shields" in order to prevent an attack on Muammar Gadhafi's compound in Tripoli the night before. Robertson said Fox News' "allegation is outrageous and it's absolutely hypocritical."

"You know, when you come to somewhere like Libya, you expect lies and deceit from the dictatorship here," Robertson said. "You don't expect it from the other journalists." You can watch Robertson's reply on CNN's "The Situation Room" below:

For weeks, the Gadhafi government has brought foreign journalists invited to Tripoli to government-approved sites (while detaining and even beating foreign journalists who report from non-sanctioned areas in Libya).

"When we go on these government trips, it's for a very simple reason—because we don't want government officials to film it themselves, edit it themselves and then hand it off to us," Robertson said. "We want to go for ourselves. We want to go and see, is it a command and control system?"

Robertson said Fox News was being "hypocritical" because the network sent a non-editorial staffer with a camera on the trip, along with about 40 other journalists.

Fox News correspondent Jennifer Griffin called in to "On the Record" Monday night to defend her report, which was based off information she received from British sources. "They felt that the civilians and journalists had effectively been used as human shields and that was frustrating to them," Griffin said, according to TVNewser. "It was a very close call. In fact one official told me that there was a Reuters crew literally on a spot where they were going to drop a missile."

While Griffin is sticking by her reporting, she acknowledged that Fox News correspondent Steve Harrigan sent a security guard with a camera on the government-organized trip. "I did not know about that earlier today," she said. "I became aware of that this evening. That was my mistake and I apologize for that."

Personal Comment: Fox News commitment to combat reporting in Libya from the comfort of a hotel bar reminds me of the Doonesbury character and intrepid combat reporter Roland Hedley who reports about the front from the rear.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Chips & Chicks; RFID & vaginal rubber

75 mm Milex with chip implanted in dome extrusion nub.

It’s Spring again: For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere today is the Spring equinox, the first day of Spring! Happy spring everyone!

The RFID chip at Naughty’s: I’ve written about the use of RFID chips - at St Lucy’s and also with our escort trainees - placed in the domes of diaphragms and used to tell who isn’t wearing their gas-guard for dive-sex class and for identity checks when everyone is in rubber catsuits and hoods with only openings for eyes and body cavities. At St Lucy’s we have gone to exclusive use of Milex Omniflex diaphragms for training. Students can still wear other maker’s barriers and Semina (the Barbie Barrier) is popular for social encounters, but Semina doesn’t easily take a chip and the dome isn’t as rugged as Milex. So students must have their Omniflex with its chip inserted to be able to enter the venues for ballet and dive training. Our casino’s female entertainers and wait-staff who have contact with the public at all venues in the casino also have the chips in their barriers worn to provide an extra level of protection from lusty customers and to get quickly through security checkpoints. And recently we began conducting a limited trial of the chips at our cabaret, Naughty Pleasures, to allow women customers who register and have provided results of a current STI panel showing they are free of infections, to have unimpeded access to the lounge and encounter areas. Confidential employee information is encrypted so it can’t be read by off-the-shelf scanners, but the wearer can have unencrypted information that might interest a man put on her chip to increase her chances of a hookup, if not with Mr. Right, then with Mr. Right Now.

Coming soon - ‘There’s an App for that’: Women can also list fetish interests and men with RFID scanners can check them out just strolling by their table (cruising for cunt) w/o saying a word. But that’s a bit TMI so far and no club patron has given our tech anything other than her basic info to input. There is also the fact that person with the reader has to be careful he knows which woman’s chip he’s reading as the directionality of readers isn’t as good as with barcode scanners where the reader is pointed directly at the barcode. I understand Apple’s 4G iPhone should have an RFID reader app shortly. I think it’s already being field tested because I’ve seen a guy in Naughty’s with an Apple device, but when I tried to get a closer look he put it away. In an era of Facebook and Twitter I suppose reading a woman’s ID chip inserted deep in her vagina could give a man an extra thrill, if he knows where she is wearing it, but it also cuts down on the give and take banter of getting to know a person before hooking up with him and gives him an advantage. But it is another step in personal advertising.

The Lorelei insemination getaway package: Adolph is offering an escape package for a niche market, elite young European aristocrats who have specific fertility problems with their spouses. That seems to be a much larger problem with aristocratic European men that one might think, possibly because of inbreeding. Another cause is certainly the age of aristocratic males wedding and bedding much younger women and wanting children by them. What ever the reason there is a market for discrete in person sperm donation among European women of reproductive age and Adolph, working with an upmarket European travel service is offering conception vacations themed to the woman’s impregnation fantasies (rape, dive-sex, rubber encasement and gasmasks and breathplay to name the most popular) and planned around the fertile days of the client’s cycle.

Jacques - whose business and hobby is impregnating minor European nobility - thinks that the availability and luxury of The Lorelei’s six day insemination getaway package will simplify his travel needs, at least for a while by bringing some of his clients to Vegas rather than him having to travel to them. It is expensive, with rates starting at $25,000 USD but that includes round trip transportation by private jet as well as the six day all inclusive stay at The Lorelei and $1,000 worth of chips at our casino.

RFID chips at Splash & Lorelei: Our success with identity chips at St Lucy’s and with escort trainees caused Adolph to embrace use of RFID chips in cervical barriers for female employees at Splash and The Lorelei as well as guests at Lorelei. That way management knows who and where employees are, which can be particularly helpful when they are in encasement suits and otherwise unidentifiable. Returning readers will remember that Adolph had a problem at Splash with an imposter taking a Towel-Girl's diaphragm with her ID chip in it to get past security so chipping vaginal rubber isn’t foolproof, but he hasn’t seen the need to go to biometric scans yet.

I thought requiring guests at The Lorelei to wear diaphragms would meet strong resistance. However, Tanaquil said that aristocratic European women are far more familiar with diaphragms than their American counterparts and are skilled at using them for recreational sex to avoid hormonal contraceptives, and that proved to be the case. Clients identity chips give intimate services personnel the client’s profile, needs and preferences as well as medical information. At check in guests are fitted with a cervical barrier containing a chip with their encrypted information on it. So it’s just a matter of checking the guests fit and sizing accordingly depending on if she has come for an insemination getaway or a few days of all-you-can-take all-the-time recreational sex.

Conception vs. contraception: The fittings for conception vs. contraception are very different since for non-stop recreational sex the largest size the guest can comfortably wear in a flat spring latex Reflexions diaphragm is what she needs to prevent under-thrusting and leakage. A diaphragm fitting for a guest on an insemination getaway is far different requiring that the woman be fitted with an All-Flex – which is the easiest rim to under-thrust - that is at least one size smaller than if it was to be used for contraception and it will be worn ‘dry’, w/o spermicide. That way her insemination partner can easily under-thrust the rim and deposit his semen in the dome. The dome will then hold the semen pool against the tip of her cervix for at least 6 hours. And since these getaways are scheduled for the guest’s fertile days her inseminator’s sperm mix with her fertile cervical mucus and reach her tubes very quickly to await the release of her egg. For All-Flex and Reflexions diaphragms the chip is glued to the inside of the rim where it can’t damage the dome.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Pointe shoe quiz March 19, 2011

What maker’s pointes is this dancer wearing?

She is modeling a new tutu designed for her performance in the Black Swan Pas de Deux

Returning readers will remember that there has been considerable angst in some parts of the ballet community over (in their view) the ‘exploitation’ of the art by the film Black Swan. What is undeniable however is the side effect of the film in interesting the general public in seeing ballet companies perform Swan Lake.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Training diaphragms & Libertines

A Milex diaphragm showing the extrusion nub

Training diaphragms at St Lucy’s: The Milex Arcing diaphragm with its ‘G-spot button’ in the center of the dome has become the choice for young women learning to identify their G-spots through a gas-guard. Both the Omniflex (coil spring) and the Arcing have extrusion nubs in the center of the inside of the dome but the Arcing diaphragm is preferred to train new users because the Arcing folds into a crescent making it easier to slip beneath and behind the cervix to place correctly. Some few women can actually feel the center nub press on their G-spots during penile thrusting (though most can’t) which is how the ‘G-spot button’ got its name. Milex has a deeper dome than the Semina (Barbie Barrier) of pink transparent silicone that is a fave of St Lucy’s students but a Milex is a more rugged device and better suited for use during rough or dive-sex.

Fluids in the dome: One of the first things students are taught about diaphragms, if they are using one for contraception, is immediately upon its removal to analyze the fluids collected in the dome. Depending on where a woman is in her cycle and if she has had sexual intercourse with a man the possible fluids that could be collected in the dome of a cervical barrier are: fertile cervical mucus (FCM), ovulation spotting, menstrual flow, naturally produced arousal lube, spermicide and if there is a leak, semen.

Reading the fluids in the dome of a diaphragm isn’t quite like reading tea leaves, but it isn’t an exact science either and it takes practice to do it well.

• FCM or egg white cervical fluid is (for most women) clear (though for some it can be yellowish), thick, slippery, bioadhesive and very stretchy. It occurs a few days before a woman ovulates and if sperm reaches a woman’s FCM it can swim up into her tubes more easily and live for as long as 5 days awaiting the release of her egg.

• Ovulation spotting occurs from the woman’s peaking estrogen destabilizing her endometrium at ovulation and is usually seen as a brown (oxidized blood) stain coloring any other fluids in the dome.

• Menstrual flow, collected in a diaphragm is a fluid colored from bright red to black (depending how long it has been collecting in the dome) or with clots if her endometrium is coming away from the walls of her uterus in chunks rather than dissolving into a thick fluid.

• Spermicide will liquefy ay body temperature and as a clear gel looks very much like FCM except that it is not stretchy.

• Semen a few minutes after it is released by the man turns clear and is bioadhesive and often not mix with other fluids so if there is a lot it can be easily seen if the woman knows what she is looking for. Spermicide will take care of the little that might get past the rim due to dynamic flexing of the walls and rim. If the diaphragm has displaced or if there appears to be a lot of semen in the dome taking EC is advised if the woman knows she is not in the luteal phase of her cycle or if she doesn’t know where in her cycle she is.

Jack on encounter sex: “Virtually all of the sex you write about is what I would term "encounter" sex... as opposed to relationship sex. Encounter sex is of course selfish as noted... and has nothing to do with establishing or holding on to a man in an enduring relationship. Of course, if both partners see sex as encounter sex, fidelity and relationship sex are not even a consideration. Sex, become a sport, a competition and we can see how BDSM and fetish fit so well into this paradigm with their strong emphasis on rules and roles. Sure when folks are single they go hunting for encounter sex to bars, parties and clubs where people are advertising their wares (attire). Most people, who are into encounter sex, want to have many conquests and variety. They wear these conquests like a resume… the more the merrier. So it might make sense if one approaches sex with the encounter paradigm that equipping oneself with all the skills and kit would make one more competitive and desirable in the "meat/meet" market. After all who would want as a partner for sex...some naive virgin or a kinky rubber BDSM chick who looked like she had a PhD in perversity? We all know men like women who look and act like whores in the "bed"? But we know that bed has nothing to do with fetish sex... I'm sure for singles class in perversity would be possible if one is trying to get a competitive edge in the dating mating encounter game. I don't see that moms and dads find this something to have their daughters educated in however. While to some they might become elite sexual performers and achievers, it hardly seems to be something one would proudly announce to grannie or the neighbors at a dinner party. I'll take that all with a bit of deep sea salt.”

Assertiveness & the mate market: “If both partners see sex as encounter sex, fidelity and relationship sex are not even a consideration.”

Not so, since from a woman’s perspective the market for the best mates is very competitive and assertiveness using all a woman’s skills is often necessary to participate successfully in the highest reaches of society today. Soft skin, lovely smiles, gloriously long satiny hair, Jimmy Choo stilettos and $1,500 Dior frocks in public tend to hide the ‘accidental’ sharp elbows and knees often used in women’s gyms and dance studios to move a competitor out of the way even in the most seemingly polite circles. This is why a competitor will often change classes, gyms or studios to escape training with a rival.

Coaching by Grannie: “I don't see that moms and dads find this something to have their daughters educated in however. While to some they might become elite sexual performers and achievers, it hardly seems to be something one would proudly announce to grannie…”

That’s an understandable, but incorrect, view from an outsider. St Lucy’s has been around long enough that we have a large percentage of legacy students whose grandmothers attended St Lucy’s themselves and not infrequently underwrite their granddaughters tuition. We have a very supportive alumnae organization that has enhanced the gene pool of a great many prominent families in North America and Europe while guiding female offspring toward an exceptional education of the mind and body at St Lucy’s.

Jack on Jill and Libertines: “ Eric, You are confusing the word liberal with libertine: A libertine is one devoid of most moral restraints, which are seen as unnecessary or undesirable, especially one who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behavior sanctioned by the larger society. The philosophy gained new-found adherents in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, particularly in France and Britain. Notable among these were John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, and the Marquis de Sade. ""Libertine" is defined today as "a dissolute person; usually a person who is morally unrestrained".[1] Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand wrote that Joseph Bonaparte "sought only life's pleasures and easy access to libertinism" while on the throne of Naples.[2]" That sounds like Jill, but I hardly believe any learning institution would subscribe to advancing a libertine philosophy. And then there's Jill's spiritual master: Marquis de Sade (2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814) (French pronunciation: [maʁki də sad] Audio) was a French aristocrat, revolutionary, politician and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle. His works include novels, short stories, plays, dialogues, and political tracts; in his lifetime some were published under his own name, while others appeared anonymously and Sade denied being their author. He is best known for his erotic works, which combined philosophical discourse with pornography, depicting bizarre sexual fantasies with an emphasis on violence, criminality, and blasphemy against the Catholic Church. He was a proponent of extreme freedom, unrestrained by morality, religion or law.”

I rather like being thought of, by men anyway, as a Libertine. Being thought of that way lets me know that my actions and teachings are being understood and appreciated for their usefulness and not just as social constructs. In class I don’t espouse any beliefs. I just teach the methods available, their pleasures, risks and possible consequences making sure the students understand the safest way to use – or not use - the devices or perform the activity. And I do stress that assertive sexual tendencies should be carefully limited to personal social relationships since one does have to blend in to polite society.

Pointe shoe quiz March 15, 2011

Who is the maker of these shoes?

And, for extra credit: What are two obvious characteristics of this style?

Monday, March 14, 2011

Perfect bodies & Summer ballet intensive


A ballerina with her perfect body on display

The Photo: A dancer exercising her nearly perfect unadorned Balanchine body during a private class. I’m indebted to Paul D for the photo.

Jack on perfect bodies: “Perfect Bodies While there are obviously different concepts of what a perfect human body form is there is more consensus then divergence on the matter. The ideal female form seems to evolve over time at least the Caucasian female whose ideal form is memorialize in art and sculpture handed down through the ages. Male form seems to have evolved less over time as we can see from the Elgin marbles right through to the Renaissance in Michelangelo's David. We can certainly see a series of rapid changes in the ideal female in from the 19th century to the present when some of the great choreographers such as Petipa emerged and reinvigorated interest in ballet. There appears to be a divergence in the artistic form of the dancer from the common vernacular of pop culture and the cartoon like form of pornography and erotica. These may each represent a different ideal forms and appeal to different sensibilities and lifestyles. Cosmetic surgery has presented the opportunity to literally resculpt the body into almost any form desired. And then there are the adornments which are used to enhance the female form. Clothing, of course comes to mind as the most obvious means to change, amplify, de emphasize parts of the form. And then there is hair which becomes part of the form and that is a whole other discussion. Jewelry, makeup and now tattoos are very much connected to and part of the female form. For something like ballet aside from story ballet with costuming jewelry, body mods, tattoos would be considered "blasphemy" as the pure unadorned form is an ideal which can only be lessened by such things. The body mod aesthetic and sensibility is so randomized and chaotic it defies the notion of a perfect form. Some women place symmetrical patterns of ink in their bodies which others use their skin for a canvas to portray an image or even write a message in text. Piercings and implants are placed in an almost defiant manner as if to challenge the very nature of conventional thinking about beauty. And much of this stuff is seen on some of the most stunning natural beauties. Is this an attempt to separate themselves from some sort of iconic mold and provide their own identity? Is it an attempt to demand that we see beauty as deeper than the surface of the skin or the shape of it? Is it an effort to engage our own skin and bodies and senses in a more expansive manner then a blank canvas? All the bod mods and tats certainly do destroy the notion of what an ideal female form would be. Personally I find the development off putting and jarring to my aesthetic sensibilities. Yet the fetish community which seems so body conscious incorporates bod mods almost as a fetish to be celebrated. It's a mad, mad, mad world. Ain't it?”

I totally agree with the Jack when he wrote: “For something like ballet aside from story ballet with costuming jewelry, body mods, tattoos would be considered "blasphemy" as the pure unadorned form is an ideal which can only be lessened by such things.”

The worst technical and esthetic error in the film Black Swan was the tattoo of wings on Lily’s back! No mainstream ballet company, much less a major one, would stand for tattoos where they can be easily seen in revealing costumes. ADs even hate tan lines from sunning in swimsuits so tats are a huge no-no! To my mind beautiful soft unblemished skin is one of our most glorious assets.

Auditions for places in St Lucy’s ballet program: It’s time again for auditions for St Lucy’s ballet Summer Intensive. We will accept videos, but prefer the prospective student to appear in front of the judges in person. A reader asked why parents would want to have their daughters take ballet at St Lucy’s when they could (possibly) attend ABT’s JKO School or NYCB’s SAB. The answer of course is that the goal of St Lucy’s ballet training is far different than turning out superbly trained professional dancers.

Our Summer Intensive is intended to assess and increase the skill and stamina of aspiring St Lucy’s students and is the primary source from which new students are invited to enter our ballet program. At St Lucy’s a solid background in classical ballet technique and a well toned ballet body is the foundation necessary for a student to successfully master the more advanced sexual techniques and skills for which St Lucy’s graduates are coveted as wives and mistresses. Training a student’s intellect is a primary goal at St Lucy’s so she can move confidently up through the business and social world and many students enter with just that as their goal. But a significant percentage recognize the ability to successfully compete for and retain the best mates is extremely important as well and our ballet and ancillary programs are designed to meet that need; to allow a graduate to so mesmerize a chosen male with her body, guile and erotic skills that he will stay bonded to her for as long as she wants him.

Given the importance of ballet in the development of a St. Lucy’s girl it’s understandable that there is intense competition for spots in the program. We have increased the size of the program this year, but not the size of the classes. We had been turning away so many well qualified girls that there will be no reduction in the skill levels of graduates successfully completing what has come to be thought of as the ‘Giulietta’ suite of courses, named for the courtesan of that name played by Ludmilla Tchérina in the 1951 film The Tales of Hoffmann.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Death Rubber & Spring Break

Rubber Sub inserting a motorized sleep aid at bedtime

Motorized dildos & encasement suits: The photo above shows a Rubber Sub inserting a motorized pelvic plug (the female escort candidates call them joysticks) as a sleep aid. The good ones have anti-expulsion ridges that fit behind the pubic bone to prevent accidental expulsion from vaginal muscle contractions during orgasm. The remote control allows adjusting the vibi to the exact stimulation the user wants or needs for her circumstances. The continuous or pulsed stimulation focuses the wearer’s mind on something pleasant and can be used to exhaust her to the extent that she sleeps and dream erotically for hours and hours. For female rubber fetishists who enjoy sleeping in an encasement suit a well lubed motorized dildo with a G-spot vibi on its lowest setting is ideal for nights when sleeping alone.

Or, for a Sub, if her Dom is traveling and she has been ordered to sleep encased it can take a girl’s mind off the pooling sweat between her breasts, under arms and the service zip open (for the power cord) will allow some drainage of vaginal discharge because having an operating joystick inserted keeps a woman very, very wet. The distraction provided by an operating joystick is especially helpful for girls new to and being trained in the role of a Rubber Sub. To ensure long duration encounter reliability for bondage Subs strapped to a bed or table where they can’t help themselves the small AC motor driving the vibi head eliminates the problem of batteries dying in the middle of an hours long encounter leaving her encased but un-stimulated to marinate in her own fluids as she contemplates life bound to please as a rubber sub.

‘Death Rubber’ as a fetish: For anyone new to reading this blog I’ve coined the term ‘Death Rubber’ for tight rubber clothing of any kind; sportswear such as SCUBA wetsuits or drysuits or fetishwear such as latex lingerie, catsuits or encasement suits in which another woman was encased when she died while having sex. Wearing rubber that another woman died in while being penetrated by a man is a huge turn-on for me and I’m fortunate to have access to some of this type rubber gear through one of the jobs I’m called on to perform from time to time. Sex for me while wearing death rubber is not only intensely physical but a profound psychological experience.

A reader recently took me to task for writing about that aspect of my life, commenting that “you are too cavalier about it with your supposed fetish for "death rubber". That's one I can't even begin to understand.” Since from his other comments he seems to be broadminded and have rather sophisticated tastes I was a bit taken aback by his comment about my being too cavalier about other women’s deaths during fetishist sexual encounters when in fact I do everything possible to hide their identities if they had been involved with something questionable or where family is available, which is seldom the case, help return the body to them with respect.

But it’s not just wearing death rubber. There is also being taken to orgasm wearing DR, while having penetrative sex with an unprotected man who is doing his best (biologically) to impregnate me which is another important part of the allure of death rubber for me. My circle of stallions have very high quality sperm so I know when they plant their seed in my belly they are giving it their very best shot. My being able to do what the previous owner was unable to - to enjoy the reproductive act as recreation - while wearing her rubber protection gives me a feeling of power over death and a bond with the original owner’s spirit, from the tiny bit of her life force still left in her rubber clothing or equipment.

Spring Break in Vegas: It’s that time again and while many college students head for warm beaches some want a bit edgier experience and come to Vegas. It’s usually the 4th year under-grads and grad-students who can legally drink and play the tables and who want to sample the kinky side of Sin City. The singles bar (the Meat Market) and the lounge shows at Naughty Pleasures at our casino, help provide a good introduction to the kinky side of Vegas.

Unfortunately we are already seeing young women on spring break come in to our 24/7 clinic for emergency contraception because they forgot their pills or the condom tore. So far this year condoms tearing on zipper tracks of rubber catsuits seem to be the most common accidents, but then we run a fetish friendly clinic so perhaps that’s why so much rubber walks through the door. I can relate, about the scramble to get him reinserted when he slips out just as she is approaching orgasm so no attention is paid when the tip of his protection snags on the track of her service zipper. This year male grad-students from UNLV - who are hunting unescorted Co-eds from Eastern colleges like grizzlies standing in a spawning stream waiting for salmon – seem to be the ones with the torn condoms. The service zippers on the rental-rubber catsuits the chicks wear aren’t well protected when open so can be a hazard to a man if he isn’t careful. In the men’s favor they usually bring the inseminated chicks in for EC. Some opt for Ella, the new EC pill, others for having a copper IUD inserted. I’d like to think it’s because a guy wants to do the right thing by a sexual partner, but a major motivator is that a paternity suit can complicate a guy’s life especially if he’s in med or law school.

Bad actors: Occasionally there will be a belligerent woman who is under the influence of alcohol or drugs. I had one of those during my shift as duty manager several nights ago. She was a grad-student with money in a well fitting high quality rubber catsuit, open face hood with long blonde hair pulled through the hair tube and gloves. The suit fit so well I was pretty sure it was hers and not rental-rubber. She wore a pair of good quality leather ballet-boots and she had enough talent and practice to actually walk in them rather well, before she became obnoxious. I knew she was an amateur when I saw the hair tube. No serious fetishist wears a hood with a hair tube in a new venue because it’s a physical and identity liability.

She had been snorting coke and had w/o warning attacked another woman breaking her arm with a kick aimed for her breasts, but her victim managed to turn and take the blow with her forearm resulting in a compound fracture. I tried reason but miss agression wouldn’t calm down and I could see that the quieter I got the madder she got and that there was going to be another confrontation. She was tall, 5’8” (6’5” in ballet boots) with long legs while I’m 5’4” (6’1” in BBs) so she had the reach on me. I had security guys available, but it was a matter of minimizing the disruption while letting the customers see that a woman manager can take care of a problem so I decided to handle her myself.

I knew she was going to kick at my breasts. In a woman-woman bar fight women in ballet boots almost always try to kick an opponent in her breasts which can be painful, but not disabling. Even so, it was time for me to pump my breasts and I really didn’t want to have a boot platform, mash an engorged breast or worse the 7 inch spike of a heel puncture one. I’ll try to use reason to defuse a tense situation, but if it comes to blows my policy is to use whatever force necessary to end the fight as quickly as possible. So I was ready and stepped back when she kicked, then stepped closer as the momentum of her kick opened her pelvis to attack and I brought my boot up with a kick calculated to put her down w/o doing too much damage by putting the leather sheathed titanium vamp of the toe-box hard into her crotch. It hit with a solid thump and enough force to lift her off her standing leg. She gasped couldn’t get her breath and couldn’t get her working leg back under her before the platform of the boot on her standing leg hit the floor and her knee buckled as she doubled over at the waist. As her head came within range I kneed her in the face and she toppled over on her side moaning and clutching her groin. It was over in less than 5 seconds.

Perineal trauma: With her down I rolled her on to her back with the platform of my boot. The first thing I looked for was to see if her thighs were still correctly aligned and that she could move her legs. I was relieved that she could, a good indication that I hadn’t fractured her pelvis, but had produced perineal straddle trauma which is exactly what I had intended. Before I struck I could tell that she wasn’t wearing a Jill pad and as often as I’ve hit opponents with that kick during KP Boot fighting they were all wearing pelvic protection. So estimating the force necessary to create tissue injury w/o major damage is always tricky. She seemed to have good bone structure, but you can never be sure how solid a woman’s pelvic bone mass is and that sort of blow with too much energy behind it can shatter an unprotected pelvis. When the EMTs slit the crotch of her suit to check the extent of the damage they found her pelvis bloody, her labia majora split and her clitoris seemed badly mashed. I was pleased that it wasn’t worse and was something that will have her avoiding pelvic masturbation and penetrative sex for at least several months after reconstructive surgery.

Breast relief: By the time I had filled out an incident report security had the police there the EMTs had treated both women and taken them to the private hospital where we treat casino related injuries. My breasts were so full and throbbing that I couldn’t wait to get back to my office and get into my Medela breast pump rig. I needed immediate relief so went back stage to the male dancer’s dressing rooms opened my front zip with the top pull and had two of my male dancers who were on break between shows milk me, one at each breast. I was afraid that my boobs were so engorged they would develop stretch marks! I’m delighted to say that didn’t happen. Probably because of the special lanolin moisturizing cream I rub into them every evening at bedtime. While I was with the guys I asked one of them to satisfy me sexually as well because breastfeeding is an extremely erotic activity for the woman being milked. So Andy – who has amazing manual dexterity – used the bottom pull to open my crotch, inserted two fingers and caressed the ring of nerves just behind my Introitus while manipulating my clit with his thumb. He knew exactly what I like and got me off while emptying my left breast. It was marvelous! Until I began lactating myself I had no idea and wondered why some women don’t wean their infants until they are 18 months or 2 years old. Now I know how pleasurable breast feeding can be, I understand. But breasts of lactating women take continuing maintenance and clogged milk ducts and chapped nipples are no fun at all!

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Pointe shoe quiz March 12, 2011

Who is the maker of these shoes?

This should be an easy one.

Friday, March 11, 2011

‘J’ on body hair & the penis

British testicular cancer awareness poster
In the U.S testicular cancer awareness week is April 1-7, 2011

About the photo:
While we are discussing male genitalia I thought it would be timely to mention that in the U.S. Testicular cancer awareness week is April 1-7, 2011 and I’m encouraging all Pirate’s male escorts, and my male escort candidates along with the stallions in my circle as well as my male readers to be checked for TC. And on the subject of body hair, the man in the poster is unshaved.

Body hair: J “Women have much less hair to begin with... usually. Some have little or no hair on the legs or arms and certainly none on the backs, bellies, chests and ass. So an overall hairless body actually looks more consistent and visually "organized" and attractive. However, there are men who are covered in/with hair, and some with a moderate amount and a few with very little on their bodies. Their heads is another matter as male pattern baldness is quite common even for males whose body is carpeted with hair. Thankfully my own torso is almost hairless. We are more accustomed to the hairless male swimmer, body builder and I suppose dancer (ballet and modern). Being hairless in those activities seems to be either or both a performance and an aesthetic issue. Hairless bods seem to be the idealized presentation of the human form - look at art from as far back as the Greeks. But perhaps there are people who like and even fetishize body hair below the neck. I'm not one of them! Removing hair for men for the above reasons - performance and aesthetics is a much larger "maintenance" issue for the typical male than for the typical female as they begin from "different" starting points. Aesthetically a shaved cock and balls / pubic area can actually look a bit odd attached to an otherwise hairy body. And considering how much real estate a male has to cover when maintaining a hairless body I suspect few have the time or the patience or the money for such a high maintenance regimen. And literally hair removal of some parts of the body can't even be done by a person to themselves... such as the back... I would think. So here one needs a partner or regular visit to a waxing salon for hair removal. I suppose hormones also influence hair growth. But this has other down side risks and affects associated with it. I suppose from an appearance POV a catsuit provides a short cut means of achieving the look and somewhat the feel of a hairless body...though the wearer compressed hair covered skin will not experience the same thing as latex or whatever the textiles is over hairless skin or naked flesh for sure. I find both hairless males and females more attractive (especially pubic regions) and certainly when they have well toned bodies... no confusion with age play attraction issues. I've always demanded my SOs shave their pubic region.”

Dance belts & Penises J “The dance belt we've read about and even see the camel toe which clearly suggests the opening into the vagina. Obviously displaying a camel toe is deemed provocative and usually avoided by showing a smooth mound of the vulva. Males however do not display the actual shape of their genitals even in dance where it is packaged into a "dance belt" worn under tights. This is for at least two purposes: one to protect the male external equipment which could be subject to damage from some "moves" and interaction in dance... and the other is to provide a smooth line and not interfere with the shape of the male body. The cock is truly an appendage which seems to be not part of the "body aesthetic". Yet there are those who find the (erect) cock has aesthetic appeal. Obviously some specimens being more appealing and suggestive of a perfect form, much like a Balanchine body does for the female dancer. So virtually all dance "discards" the phallus presenting it as a smooth mound or basket as the vernacular goes. This does present "issues" for the male sex player fetishist on some levels. The female form can be completely displayed or hidden (except for erect nipples) an aroused state. Not so for the male whose cock will become engorged with blood and offer up an erection. An erect penis is a very different animal from a flaccid one for any number of reasons. There are fetish garments which encase the erect cock, not unlike a condom encases the erect shaft. But wearing a garment which anatomically encases and therefore displays an erect cock is certainly considered inappropriate except for sexual purposes. Some fetish clubs even suggest such displays are inappropriate. Ironic isn't it? Whipping, bondage, masks and other outlier displays and behavior are deemed acceptable, but an aroused male is sometimes seen as threatening and inappropriate. And certainly displaying the male genitals would be considered bad form. Of course in some fetish settings and certainly in erotica, displays of erect males are often expected... regardless of the "scene". Cocks and bounds...”

Males with a dancewear fetish: “Cocks and bounds” indeed! There are a lot of males with dancewear fetishes who claim not to wear anything under tights or a leotard to support or protect their genitalia while taking ballet class. I understand a man who gets off by wearing tights wanting to hang loose, but he would disrupt any ballet class of amateurs with women in it and wouldn’t be allowed to participate by the school for esthetic as well as insurance purposes because aside from being a disruption in class of the likelihood that in time he would hurt himself or be injured by someone else. So as far as I can tell men who say they take ballet classes w/o wearing a dance belt or at least a Speedo slingshot are fantasizing. As a British choreographer once said (well before Celia Franca who is listed as saying it by Google) “There are certain parts of the human anatomy that simply can’t be choreographed,” and male genitalia are one.

The Cock Conundrum: J “Transactional sex between a male and female for coital sex will require that the parties be sexually aroused for each to enjoy the experience. An aroused female vagina is naturally lubricated and a woman who controls her vaginal muscles can experience a more powerful orgasm and have more control with respect to the stimuli provided by and to a phallus. A women can of course, as we have recently read in Jill’s World, use a mechanical device to provide the stimulation which can even “out perform” a human phallus. Some women prefer their dildos and fucking machines to live partners. Of course one problem with coital sex, is that the male and female performances are very different. A male who passes the arousal phase, passes the point of no return, will then experience orgasm and ejaculate and usually lose his erection. This is followed by a period of relaxation accompanying the loss of erection associated with the release of semen. This may quench the male’s need, driven by the itch of arousal satisfied by the pleasure of orgasm, but it can and often does leave the female frustrated as she remains in the arousal phase and facing the loss of the stimulation provided by an erect thrusting cock in her receptive and demanding vagina. Does this mean a change of stim approaches? This has led to the notion of the simultaneous orgasm. When SO can be achieved presumably the parties each are satisfied, tension has flowed away and they each relax into the post orgasmic glow. (Women seem to be much more adapted to multiple orgasms directly related to the nature of the genitals. Achieving simultaneous orgasm is another one of those goals or holy grails of sexual congress… especially to the “vanillas”. Achieving SO would seem to require a level of communication and control as the parties each take a fair amount of responsibility for both their and their partner’s performance. See the article on ripple gripping. Sex works both ways! Fetish sex often dispenses with all of the complexities surrounding the SO and literally separates the sexual responses and roles of the parties. The notion of the holy grail of simultaneous orgasm is tossed out the window, in favor of the parties concentrating on the pleasure and arousal of one party at a time… sort of. Getting someone off is considered and experienced as sexually exciting, though not necessarily orgasmic. This is also a vanilla practice to be fair. So as one party is not concerned with their own orgasm or even arousal… they turn their complete focus to bringing their partner through the entire sexual response in some sort of negotiated or understood process. This may involve extending and intensifying if possible the arousal period and even amplifying the orgasm and for kinksters it might even involve denial of orgasm or creation of even “ruined orgasms” for males at least. And then there is the CB crowd who even milk males and remove the biological need for an orgasm. People do the darnedest things for sexual thrills"

The simultaneous orgasm in practice: At night when I want something to put me to sleep I will have a man give me a G-spot orgasm and as I’m reaching the tipping point I begin ripple gripping him just before he pushes me over the edge into ecstasy. At that point my involuntary muscle contractions take over, he loses control and orgasms filling me with semen and we go together! Going together is very, very satisfying to me! But one thing I insist on is that I get pleasured! So most men launch me into orgasm first, especially during the day when time is of the essence because we may be interrupted.

The erect penis & female power: J “Erect cocks can and often are perceived as erotic visual stimuli. You don’t display them in polite society. A female may and often does see her partner’s erection as an expression of her sexual appeal. Whatever she does, says, smells or looks like, her hair or make up, what she wears or how she moves or behaves can re read by her if it has a provocative effect on males as affirmation of his desire for her and the power of her sexual appeal. Nothing new here. Women have learned all the tricks of making themselves into sexual objects… subtle and in your face. This ranges from turning a head of a passing stranger, right through to a visible bulge in a man’s trousers to a raging erection in a male she is with. Women dressing for arousal and therefore their own pleasure is accepted practice… within proscribed boundaries of course. Society would not approve of librarians in rubber catsuits and stilettos… at work! Tease and denial is a key aspect of BDSM and D/s play and so holding a partner in an aroused state requires tangible evidence of arousal – hence the erection… the moist panties, erect nipples and other signs of sexual tension. The Domme will often demand and expect and exact visible signs sexual arousal from her slave and or submissive partner. Accordingly she will do what may be required to display their arousal, but of course often control and even deny the release of the sexual tension she creates. This may be seen as humiliation, or it may be perceived as her erotic power to maintain a male in a constant state of unfulfilled arousal. Males, of course, may welcome this sort of attention, reveling in being held in a state of sexual tension seems to outweigh being ignored or left without any sexual attention. This type of play is accompanied by the notion that an aroused and erect male may be helpless and mentally incapable of resisting. But he also might be aggressive and inspired to rape. All he can focus on is his state of sexual tension. Sexual arousal represents a sort of one way street. Once we turn down it, or are led down it, we can’t or certainly don’t want to reverse and feel compelled to continue.”

BDSM sex and more: J “Transactional fetish sex makes a clear separation of roles. Each partner expects the other to provide their arousal and guide their sexual response. The dominant partner is free to “use” the submissive in any way to bring about their own pleasure and this may involve training, conditioning and controlling the male erection, or even denying orgasm. The submissive sexual partner expects the dominant partner to play them as a sexual instrument. They turn over control of their body’s response including sexual to the dominant. It’s the deal they make. You get to play with me doing X, Y and Z because I (and you) find it sexually stimulating to do so. A sexual sadist will claim they require a consenting masochist, whether or not the masochist finds the experience evocative of their own sexual response. Most kinky masochists find the experience erotic and even orgasmic and at the very least sexually arousing. Presumably sadists likewise experience an aroused state when acting sadistically… although giving into an orgasm in the process is rarely if ever seen. One usually sees an erect cock in BDSM scenes indicating that whatever is going on is experienced as sexually exciting."

"Humiliation and sadism may have nothing to do with an erotic experience and there are some extreme types of BDSM play which go outside of sexual arousal and deal with a whole other set of human responses – pain, psychological humiliation and so forth. This would be extremely troubling… ie an SM experience where there is no sexual response from the parties. This sort of cock conundrum is complex and nuanced”.

My friend Adolph is one who is into very brutal sex that begins with a female partner believing the goal is mutual sexual gratification, but in fact it is gratification only for him passing almost immediately for her into pain and humiliation.

The cock ring: J “And then there are cock rings which kinda work like a one way valves keeping them flush with blood and looking all the better for it... said the actress to the bishop.”

Home Depot as a sex toy supplier: I get my supply of cock rings at Home Depot from their selection of silicone O rings. The prices and size selection are far better than from a sex toy store, though the color selection is limited. I’ve found that keeping a man engorged with a CR works wonders if time is limited and I want him to stay focused and get off frequently in a brief interval. On the other hand keeping him in a CR for a long period can simulate the natural occurring condition of Priapism and cause irreversible penile tissue damage so I cut the CR off him after no more than two hours of continuous wearing. That’s another nice thing about getting a supply of CRs from Home Depot they are so inexpensive that you don’t have to struggle getting it off intact, just snip it off with a small pair of cutters.

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Powys , Wales, United Kingdom
I'm a classically trained dancer and SAB grad. A Dance Captain and go-to girl overseeing high-roller entertainment for a major casino/resort