Ballet boots training and latex vs. silicone barriers

An old heavily used latex All-Flex diaphragm

Latex diaphragm aging: All the students at St Lucy’s have been switched to silicone cervical barriers. However, there are a lot of casino entertainers and escorts who still use the latex diaphragms they were last fitted with which, if taken care of, should last for at least two years. Latex is wonderful as far as heat transfer and stretchiness is concerned, but can deteriorate quickly when oily lubes and medicines come in contact with the thin rubber dome. Additionally, latex is porous to an extent and can absorb vaginal secretions which stain the rubber and make it more likely to develop a funky odor if worn continuously for more than 24 hours. Signs that the rubber is aging and deteriorating are: cracks along the interface where the dome joins the rim when the dome is turned inside out and stretched, pin holes or thin spots developing or hardening or puckering of the rubber dome. It’s a good idea to carefully check a diaphragm each time before it is inserted to be sure it shows no signs of aging indicating the likelihood of a dome failure that would allow sperm to reach the cervix.

Silicone diaphragms and caps: Silicone cervical barriers do not transfer heat as effectively nor are they quite as stretchy as latex. However, because the silicone is more inert than latex they are less likely to contribute to yeast infections, take longer to stain from vaginal secretions and are more impervious to oily lubes and medicines. The only problem we have had with a silicone diaphragm is with the Semina whose dome is so thin that it can be easily torn or punctured by a sharp fingernail.

An AST student’s pregnancy: Returning readers will remember in my October 14, 2009 entry entitled ‘Wet Wednesday and sperm’ a St Lucy’s student found during show-and-tell in my Advanced Sexual Techniques class that she had been deceived into not using contraception by a new lover who said he had had a vasectomy. This past weekend she missed her period and tested positive for hCG, the pregnancy hormone. I went with her to our clinic Monday morning where she had a Menstrual Extraction. She shouldn’t have sex w/o using a barrier for a few days and is on doxycycline for 8 days. Emotionally she is fine and relieved that the experience is over and says she has learned a lesson about trusting men. There really is no simple way a woman can test a man to check his fertility before a sexual encounter. There are male fertility test kits but they are expensive and require time to use and of course a sample of his semen so there is no immediate and clandestine way a woman can check for herself, other than to rely on a screening service sexual health status (STI) card which lists his sperm count along with his STI status. Certainly the thing for a woman who is seriously avoiding pregnancy to do is be certain an effective method of contraception is always used. If the woman has stable cycles and is experienced enough with Fertility Awareness so she knows when she is fertile then she may be able to safely take a lover while neither of them is using birth control, but FAM can be tricky to use and is unforgiving of mistakes and just-this-once rule bending.

AST this week: This week in class we started one of the most anticipated parts of the course, an introduction to sadism and masochism. The students are using their own latex encasement suits, pointe shoes, ballet boots and ball-gags, but the other bondage equipment; vaginal hooks, butt plugs, nipple clamps, chastity belts, steel boned leather lace-up corsets, handcuffs and steel chain as well as lidocaine (a topical anesthetic) gel for the lab exercises is being supplied by Fasteners, our casino’s bondage boutique. I teach it dressed as a latex Domme using a riding crop as a ‘motivator’.

Encasement trainers & ballet boots: The AST students latex encasement suits are ‘trainers’ made by Gepetto’s latex shop and they all have custom fitted ballistic polycarbonate breast and pelvic shields so the girls won’t be injured by my cracking a riding crop tip across a breast or against their crotch, but it scares the dickens out of them when I do it if they don’t follow my orders. One or two were scared so badly that they lost control of their bladders. That really gets the rest of the class’s attention because the urine runs down their legs inside the rubber suits and pools in their ballet heels. And, before someone asks, no the student is not excused from class to dry off. It’s an object lesson in discipline, in doing what I tell them to do when I tell them to do it! The breast and crotch areas of encasement trainers are made of thicker latex so my crop won’t peel back the rubber right down to the polymer shields. The girls are quite safe but most of them have never been under the crop of a Rubber Domme. A very few love it. Most use it as a learning experience and one or two ask to be transferred out of the class.

How to stride in 7” heels: This class is where the girls get their first lessons in striding confidently in ballet boots, rather than the tentative bent-kneed mincing steps used by almost all amateur ballet heel wearers. Being able to stride confidently in 7+ inch heels requires a pair of perfectly fitting boots. There were several girls who needed to be refitted before we began this part of their training because their feet and ankles strengthened and slimmed down so much during initial ballet heels conditioning that boots that fit them perfectly when they arrived at St Lucy’s in late August was much too loose for confident striding by the first of November. One of the nice things about Gepetto’s Pleasure boots is that only the insert had to be resized so that it gripped the heel and supported the ankle perfectly, and of course they have to be laced very tightly. Posture is crucial for proper striding requiring shoulders back, chest out, stomach in and pelvis vertical. While striding in ballet boots a woman is effectively balancing on the 7+ inch spike heel and only briefly passing through the platform as a stability reference on the way to her next step so the spike must be an extension of her heel and the wearer has to be confident that her heels are gripped securely by her boots so they won’t slip to one side or the other. The small ankle wobble that makes s woman walking in stilettos so erotic is greatly magnified in 7 inch spikes. That much wobble in ballet boots would cause her balance problems so the fit of her boots must be perfect to allow confident striding with just the tiniest ankle wobble that allows her hips to sway seductively. Once a student has the walk down and can practice it correctly on her own the sense of accomplishment she feels almost makes the pain of walking in her ballet boots disappear, at least for a while. If she wears her ballet heels enough her toes will toughen and her boots will become more comfortable over time.