Japanese “manga” has many subcategories. There’s a wide variety of mainstream manga, but it can also veer off to darker places. Loli and shota illustrate underage characters, guro and vore are extremely violent and can include snuff, and hentai quite often shows consensual and non-consensual BDSM. It’s not hard to find any of those varieties…
How Japanese Rope Bondage Culture Developed Outside of Western BDSM
Santa left a Taiwanese rope bondage book by 小林绳雾 under the Christmas tree for Master. Amongst the step-by-step illustrations, the author spends some time to understand the subtle difference between Western BDSM culture and Asia’s SM Culture. The book is in Chinese, but it’s a very interesting look at that topic, so I thought it…
Happy Holidays!
I know it’s something of a cliché to thank readers at this time of the year, but we’re feeling it, and so… thank you. It wouldn’t be any fun writing if no-one was reading. In this 140-character world we live in, I think it’s quite a lot to ask of someone to read something longer,…
Looking Into (and away from) the Mirror of Our D/s
When D/s is not just limited to that one moment of kneeling, but plays out every moment of the day when two individuals are together, that D/s magic becomes integrated and can find healthy expression in work, social life and family moments. – The Inner Selves of D/s relationship The D/s dynamic never happens in…
What’s the Buzz about Barbershop Scenes and Head Shaving?
“Hi. My name is Keith, and I cruise barbershops. This is one form of legal nudity. Shaving is sexy. The vibration of the razor’s teeth [on my head] is sexy, plus Dad likes it. It makes me look so fucking good.” There are many reasons for getting, giving, or having a buzz cut. There is…
7 Tips For Healthy Poly Relationships That Won’t Help You Get A Decent Hotel Room
Around this time last year, yangpup, boydenon and I pulled in to Hoi Ann in Vietnam. We’d been on an overnight train from Hanoi so we were a little crumpled, but ready for new adventures. The leather tailors in Hoi Ann are fantastic by the way, should you ever get there. It was our first…
Dressing Up Isn’t Just For Children
My personal world of BDSM is coloured by gay leather traditions, and within that subculture there are lots of protocols relating role to appearance. Dominants and submissives don’t dress in the same way, and there are some items (caps and boots in particular) where it would be a faux-pas to be wearing the wrong thing….
Keeping the Passion in BDSM Relationships
What we do in BDSM is linked to desire. We can call it servitude, or dominance, or sadism or masochism, or sceneing or sessions, or any of the other many words we use, but ultimately it never fails to come down to desire. We do it because it fulfils this deep need in us, and…
White Light, Black Leather – Balancing the Light and Dark in BDSM
Societal rules are complex and we begin learning them at a very young age. Your family might not have told you that masturbation would make you grow up weak and sickly (or that you’d grow hair on your palms), but you’ll have learnt all kinds of other mistruths from society. Perhaps you heard: • asking…
Top Drop and Easing Back the Throttle
Our terms for things can be a bit clumsy, and there are actually two ways you could use the term “Top Drop” or “Dom Drop”. There’s no right or wrong way, and both would work within their context. IS THERE REALLY SUCH A THING AS TOP SPACE OR DOMSPACE? One way to talk about Top…