Porn is a bit of a weird thing. On the one hand it is one of our most open and honest artistic ventures, because there's no attempt to hide the fact that it's all about sexual fantasies being realised on camera. We show a hell of a lot of things that Hollywood only hints at, and embrace them in the full flowing of fetish. For example, a Hollywood film might dabble in bondage but usually not in a pleasurable context, and definitely not dwelling on a BDSM scene the way we do in real life.
On the other hand, the conventions of what we show on camera in porn are equally arbitrary. Most filmed BDSM scenes are intense, straight into the action, with perfect mind-reading doms and endlessly compliant subs (even if they are playing damsels). When we actually do BDSM for real with a partner there is a whole ladder of consent and negotiation and good practice that is simply omitted from most BDSM porn films. MAYBE you top-and-tail the scene with performer interviews where awkward actors say "Yeh it was great" (not because they didn't enjoy it, but because the after interview is such an awkward and artificial way of covering that part of the story).
This has never sat quite right with me. I can see that the average BDSM pron film gets you right into the intense action, but it can be a bit dehumanising towards the performers AND towards the characters they are playing. For me BDSM is part of romance, and the negotiation and "consent dance" leading in to the scene is an integral part of what makes an actual real-life scene with another human being hot. It's also frequently funny, tender, cute, a bit awkward as you establish connection and amazing when you click. So for the last year or two I've been trying to make films which incorporate this element, to show how BDSM is actually practiced by people in the scene and because I find it more interesting, more romantic and hotter to have all the parts of the scene on film, not just the 15 minute section where the most intense action happens.
These "pro dom session" films are another way in to covering that for films. The idea is simple- a professional BDSM model comes along to film a scene, but rather than me just writing out a script, we construct the script together based around our shared preferences. The pitch is "Suppose someone has treated you to an all-expenses paid day with a pro dom, who will construct a bespoke BDSM session for you and with you. What would you ask them to include?"
I pitched this very idea to Faerie Willow, who had just contacted me wanting to shoot. She was keen to give it a try. It was an interesting one for me as we'd never even met before, and it usually takes me a long time to get comfortable enough with people to properly dom or top them on camera. Could we fast forward it enough to be able to do it on our first shoot? We started by exchanging emails, then we did a long video chat. There seemed to be a lot of common ground - both of us were very interested in bastinado as the focus of the scene. Seemed promising. But still, I wasn't going to go into a full blown session on the very first day working with someone. So Faerie Willow came over for a two day shoot. We shot stills on day one so we could get comfortable in each other's personal space for bondage rigging. It was rather quiet and reserved and professional, but pleasant enough. So day two we agreed that we were brave enough to plunge in.
So we started by chatting some more about what we were going to do. Were we going to be roleplaying as characters? No, seemed simpler just to be ourselves. Was bastinado still going to be the focus? Definitely, for both of us. You can see we are still fairly reserved with each other at this point, although keen to try we didn't know how the dynamic was going to work out when the scene started.
Like dynamite, it turned out. Or, especially in later parts, "like two chaos goblins giggling" to paraphrase Faerie Willow. I've known for a while that my most comfortable domming style can probably best be described as "jolly dominant sadist". This fitted in very well with Willow's bratty back-chat and we soon have a really good scene dynamic going as I tied her up from head to toe and started throwing her around in the ropes.
Tied to the bed, we did a run-down of some of my favourite bastinado implements. A riding crop, a cane, a wicked rubber strap (courtesy of Scarlett Foxett's last trip to BBB), a PVC strap, an a couple of slappers/tawses, one two-layer and one three-layer. Willow takes a hard set of strokes from each and is soon wriggling and squirming in her bonds, unable to escape the punishment on her delightful wrinkled soles. She ranked the implements from best to worst... and it was time for a challenge.
I blindfolded her, then told her I was going to use each of the implements on her feet - ten HARD strokes. At the end of the ten, I would ask her which implement it was. If she got it wrong, she was going to get two more EXTRA HARD strokes. How will she do in her bastinado interrogation? One thing for sure, her feet end up super warm and super stingy. Just imagine if she was made to stand up and hop around the room on her stinging soles, still in her bondage? Wouldn't that just be AWFUL? And imagine what else might be in store for her pretty feet now they have been properly sensitised?
