Stereotypes

In some of the debates about femdom stereotypes I find myself on middle ground. Clichés are usually bad, especially if they become fixations you requires others match. But it would be wicked of me to fib and say there aren’t aspects of fetish attire that I don’t enjoy.

Where do they come from? Peter Tuper probably has some good ideas. I could easily manufacture something out of tissues of weak history plausible guesswork. Really the only question I’m competent to answer is how did I come to stock my own private library.

In elementary school I was fascinated by a girl with bright red hair. But don’t know if my admiration was even faintly erotic. Or even if she left me with a taste for red hair or merely marked my first conscious moment of enjoyment. (Whereas the silver suited David Bowie on the cover of Space Oddity assured its place in my sexual aesthetics.)

By Junior High I was keenly aware of physical beauty. I’ve never forgotten the golden haired boy on whom I had on of my first sexual crushes. And all the pretty girls. Unsurprisingly it was the girls whose biological clock operated in an earlier time zone that captured my eye.

Actually the boots are irrelevant for once. This reminds me of a time when I was innocent.

In popular culture - meaning TV mostly - there was Barbara Bain (glamor), Diana Rigg (perfection) and young Richard Chamberlain. And anything that smacked of Mod, Carnaby Street: the fashions of the time. Girls in miniskirts and boys with long hair.

My earliest BDSM fantasies were exclusively of guys. Guys in the neighborhood. No one in particular. Just the boys who were around me. The one specific fantasy I remember featured a guy who didn’t resemble anybody I knew. I was reading lots of comic books back then: he was probably assembled from generic illustrations. He was cruel: maybe a super-villain.

My sexual fantasy life then and since has mostly been populated by people seen on the street. My initial response to men dressed in leather was “Ugh!” All that macho paraphernalia did nothing for me. Jeans and a t-shirt seemed plenty sexy.

On discovering the attraction of female sadists I didn’t picture them in outfits from Dominatrix Deluxe. Aside from a proud bearing they were probably fashionably dressed. Pop culture at work again: fashion equals power.

Before that I do remember a drawing of a young women with a vest, whip and barbed wire for a belt. While the belt was clearly an insane idea it certainly suggested some sort of power. I like vests on women. A whip speaks for itself. While I felt a tingle I didn’t give that a thought and forgot about it

Eventually I discovered the femdom usenet binaries newsgroup and gather countless images of female sadists. Eventually - in a manner of speaking - I entered the Other World Kingdom.

And for a time I was greatly fascinated by one of the OWK women. She wasn’t pretty. Not at all. But she looked like a heartless demon. Not sure what she wore.

To heck with the women. It is the appliances that count.

And I was far more interested in the OWK furniture and implements than what the women were wearing.

Since then I’ve seen lots and lots of stereotypic images of dominant women. I do like some of the garb. Thigh high boots? Sure. But, really, I like all sorts of stylized clothing. On women. On guys. No kink required.

And in fantasies I’ve never given much thought to what a dominant would be wearing. Ok, they always wear boots. In BDSM fantasies it is their attitude: arrogant, selfish, cruel - the usual shtick.

If I absorbed anything it would be stereotypes about behavior. Impossible torments. Really I brought those with me. Makers of porn don’t normally forge new tastes. They are corporations whose success is built on satisfying the urges their customers already have.

All the childish, cartoonish images that I had about BDSM can’t be blamed on anybody. Whether archetypes or stereotypes there were within me very early on.

Simpleminded images of sexuality are something many of us begin with. With maturity, experience a little thinking we scale them down and integrate them into ourselves more sensibly.

Earlier:

• Femdom Porn
• Femdom Erotica and Emotional Health
• Evil Dom Women!