Why Blogging Is A Good Thing For Models
Rants, Raves and Reviews, Scenology — By Adele on 30 January, 2008 7:33 pmYou know how last week we discussed whether blogging by models was going to advance the cause of feminism?
Just a few days after that I read this post by the writer Elizabeth Bear (read her books!), and I’m going to usefully quote it for you. She writes:
The internet is not just going to change the nature of entertainment. It’s already changed it. … But the internets are interactive and remixive and discursive, and moreover, you can walk right up to me and talk to me on them. … If I really needed to, for any reason, I know where to find musicians, television producers, actors, writers, game designers, programmers, essayists, artists, graphic designers, architects–and talk to them in person.
The reason that works, of course, is because the celebrities (loosely so termed) that one knows on the internet are suddenly real people.
You can see how this works for the spanking industry if you compare the experience of watching your old tapes (say, my personal favourite Room 2D) to what it’s like to watch films by the people you can chat to online.
You can go onto a forum and talk to Tony and Eve of Shadow Lane, or even the Lupus people, who try their hardest to speak English to you. If you can’t contact the producers, who may have way too much correspondence to deal with, you can read their responses to other people, their interviews, reports of the people who’d met them at parties and exhibitions.
This concerns, of course, the models as well. In this regard, it doesn’t make any difference whether a spanking model’s blog is personal or strictly commercial: even if she posts nothing but pictures and rates, you still have somewhere to talk to her. The woman behind the blog is suddenly alive.
Bear continues:
…Fame, the kind of fame that separates famous people from the hoi polloi, as it were, is a funny thing. Not only does it turn the famous person into a construct, it turns them into a slate that the fan can project all sorts of things into. How often have you gotten disappointed at a celebrity because her political views weren’t what you thought they should be? I know I have. And damn, you know. Why do I think I get to do that? I don’t pay Claudia Black to have her politics match mine. I pay her to kick ass in tight pants. Let’s be honest here.
But that’s the thing: that’s this weird psychological trick of displacement and transference, where you take somebody you don’t know and you attach all this emotion to them. And it’s harder to do that with somebody who’s just this guy you know on the internets than somebody who is a princess in a tower.
And voila. To return to last week’s discussion and Pandora’s point: it’s much harder to make a case for spanking videos being abusive, when you have the writing by kinky models, saying how much they enjoy being tied to a bench and whipped, while pretending they don’t want to be there. It’s also much harder to keep thinking that fetish is all about the male participant, when there are women everywhere writing about their own kinks and turn-ons.
If you happen to catch a spanking model, chain her up in your cellar and make her blog. ‘Cause that’s what a real feminist would do.
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14 Comments
Getting to know the real persona of a spanking model (from an interview, a blog or simply behind-the-scenes footage) is a wonderful thing. It adds a whole new dimension to her work.
Contrary to some misguided views, men do not want pretty, but vacuous bimbos – at least I don’t. I’ve always been attracted to intelligent, imaginative women who have something to say and a sense of humour. Eye candy does play a part, of course (we’re talking about erotic movies here), but it’s not the only sexy thing in a model. Personality is very sexy, too.
I’ve had the following development several times: maybe there is a spanking model out there who is not really my “type”, in purely physical terms. But then I read an interview somewhere or see some interesting glimpse of her personality behind the scenes, and she becomes highly desirable. All of a sudden, she becomes my type – even in purely physical terms! Then I look at her and think, isn’t she gorgeous.
So, blogs and forums do not only help to create some good discussions which are interesting in their own right, they also make the actual work of the model even more arousing and erotic to watch.
“It’s much harder to make a case for spanking videos being abusive, when you have the writing by kinky models.”
As far as that point is concerned, yes and no. Some people will always find fault with BDSM, simply because they want to. Radical feminists will claim (and have claimed) that the models are either fake or disturbed “collaborators” with the purely “male, violent” world that is BDSM. I’ve used the comparison before: it’s like talking to a creationist. All evidence which goes against their case will simply be ignored.
But yes, such blogs will make it much harder for those radicals to convince the “normal” vanillas out there that BDSM is a bad thing or that women can’t really like it.
As a footnote: one of the ironies of the feminism and spanking discussion is that pretty much all the “stars” are female. No gender equality in that regard, is there? I can’t think of a single male model who is blogging or who is even known to a wider movie audience. I’m sure some exist, but they are at best a tiny minority.
In a female submissive video, the damsel in distress is the star. In a male submissive video, the domme is the star – the males are usually faceless sacks of meat being flogged while all attention rests on the lady. They are usually not even credited with any fake name. The only place where I have seen male submissives mentioned by name are MM sites (which aren’t quite my cup of tea, as a hetero).
Of course, you could say that this is because both MF and FM videos are usually produced with a male audience in mind. And you’d have a point. But it’s still a very one-sided affair, and a bit sad, really. There are bound to be some female readers out there who would enjoy hearing a bit more about the guys (even though it doesn’t advance the oh so noble cause of feminism).
In my view, it’s actually the men who are under-represented in the spanking video world. Faceless punishers or objects of punishment is all we are. Stardom is reserved for the likes of Pandora, Niki or you.
Maybe it’s time to chain some men up in that cellar as well. How about it, Adele?
I’m with Ludwig (no– not trying to kill you with the shock, Ludwig LOL) about the desirability of hearing from some of the guys, too. I mean, really hear from them, about what they’re thinking and what they get out of a scene, top or bottom. I prefer videos in which there is some interaction between top and bottom. A dull, faceless spanker or spankee is pretty boring, unless there’s some political statement to be made that way.
Ludwig and Indiana, you both have an excellent point about the male element being under-represented. I did a session with Realspankings for their Women Spanking Men site, and it was an experience I not only enjoyed for obvious reasons but got a great big kick out of for the doing of it. Yes, there is a story to tell, and yet …
Most men, myself included, are antsy as hell about the general public knowing their particular kink, and especially having friends, co-workers, etc., find out. Sure, a person with a career in the industry could blog the intimate details of their life with the same risk, but all their cards are on the table (along with other certain things), unlike the fellow in the customer service or manufacturing industry. It is also a problem for some women in the same position, as I recall Bailey mentioning in her blog having lost a job after being recognised by a co-worker.
I also think it’s more of a problem for men because of societys’ traditional roles of the genders, which seem to have actually changed very little in spite of some noticeable progress. A guy who gets spanked, whipped, and caned is in for a lot more derision, and has more to risk in being ‘found out’. Hence the silence from the boys.
Some may disagree, and I respect that completely. What I have stated comes from my own experiences and observations, and of course others have their own perspective from their own lives.
Yep! You hit the nail on the head with that one, Gary. I think by the time most men are mature enough not to give a tinkers cuss what anyone thinks, they are too old to make a believable bottom. Of course they would make a believable top. Personally, I don’t like to see any guys in the scenes at all, just F/f, but thats just the way I’m bent.
Gary makes an excellent point indeed.
The whole feminism debate is a two-edged sword. It’s a good thing because it promotes gender equality and the right of women to explore their erotic fantasies in the way they choose. I’m all in favour of that and I will defend any woman against others (men or other women) who presume to tell her that “she can’t do that”.
On the other hand, as with any other “-ism” debate, there is a danger for it to become self-absorbed and locked into its own ivory tower. All of a sudden, you are only talking about purely female concerns and lose sight of the fact that men who are into BDSM often face quite similar problems.
I think that, because of the very same stereotypical gender roles, being a submissive man can be just as difficult and just as prone to misconceptions as being a submissive woman. And there aren’t even any blogs really addressing the issue.
My fear of being “found out” isn’t quite as big. BDSM is somewhat more accepted, in a general way, in Germany than it is in the US, I think. As well as that, I think it’s important to stand by what I do. I have good vanilla friends who know I’m into BDSM and don’t have a problem with it (if anything, there is curiosity). And if someone shuns you just because of that kink, then he really wasn’t a friend in the first place.
The main problem I face is a much more practical one. I’m mostly dominant, but I also enjoy the occasional submissive scene and I would love to make a video of one. The variety and quality of FM producers isn’t nearly as big as the variety and quality of MF or FF, though. If there is a really good opportunity (in terms of quality and promise), it usually turns out that I’d have to pay for it – and a substantial sum, too.
Female submissives *get paid*. On the other hand, I do not only *not* get paid, I have to pay myself! In its way, I think this is more expoitative and unjust than a lot of the issues faced by women in our community.
Mind you, it’s not about the money. Actually I don’t care about the money at all – I’d be happy to do a submissive video for free and even pay my own travel expenses.
A small symbolic payment would be nice simply for the following reason. Like Bob Ross, the painter, said: “It’s not about the happy buck. But if someone is willing to pay money, for something you made, then it simply means, ‘You did a good job!’”
So what does it mean if you have to pay to be in a video? What does that tell me? Not only does it imply that the job I do is literally worthless, and undeserving of thanks. It also implies that *I* should be thankful for the good ladies to even give me the time of day, I suppose. Never mind that I make no money from the sale of the video, someone else does! But still I have to be grateful that I get to be there the first place. Why, thank you very much!
Maybe that is why I downplayed the importance of the feminism issue in my first posts and actually had a somehat hostile reaction to it. My first gut feeling was: gosh, that is what you call a luxury problem! I would love to have that problem! Can we trade, please?
Then I’d have a much easier time of realizing my dream to do a good, professional submissive video, I’d even get paid for it (which is not about the money, it just gives me a good feeling because what I do is appreciated). And then I could blog about how hard it is to be a female submissive and a feminist at the same time…
Just to clear things up, I didn’t lose the job due to being outed. I had already decided to leave and put in my notice before anything came to light in a more public way. I can’t say what would have happened if I’d been wanting to stay, but I highly doubt I would have been outright fired. Such a thing would not affect my ability to do the job properly. Probably I would have just been that really weird girl for however long I stayed!
Some interesting points here. I agree that the gender stereotypes in our society make it hard for men to talk about either topping or bottoming. I wish it weren’t the case, as most of the male switches or tops who have talked about these issues seem like much nicer and more trustworthy guys than you see posting ads on even fairly classy CP personals sites. Male bottoms do seem to have more revealing blogs than male tops, from what I’ve seen. I wonder why that is.
I also agree that so-called radical feminists get much more than their share of attention. It is not only a divide-and-conquer strategy (and I use this term loosely, as I suspect it’s unconscious for most of society) to keep feminists fighting among themselves about silly issues, but it also keeps both women and men from embracing the feminist label and working on the core feminist issues, like equal pay and healthier expectations for all of us. If society defined feminism the way I do, there would be a lot more feminists. That’s why I react so strongly to attacks on feminism that seem to find the anti-porn fringe to be at the center of the cause.
I’m also sympathetic to the view that men in spanking videos should be paid, too. Well, at least if they’re doing something more interesting than saying, “Bend over for the board, young lady” and whaling away. For that, a robot would be more interesting and kinkier. This is clearly a supply-and-demand issue. I think part of it stems from the fact, on average, men are more visually stimulated than women. I don’t know to what extent this is due to socialization, but my intuition is that there’s something biological there. So if men are the primary consumers (not the only consumers, just the majority) of spanking porn, their preferences will dictate who gets paid.
Having said that, societal expectations seem to skew what people want in their porn or erotica, compared to their RL play. For example, a Shadow Lane reader survey (see Stand Corrected Jr #3 on the Members site) found that 100% of submissive women prefer M/F, while submissive males were equally divided among M/F, F/F, and F/M. Similarly, females who switch had a clear preference for F/F over F/M, while males who switch were more evenly divided among M/F, F/F, and F/M, with a slight preference for M/F. Obviously, this isn’t a totally representative sample of the CP population, as it seems for example, to have few or no gay men. Does it seem like a reasonable representation of heterosexual players’ tastes to you guys?
After reading that, I decided to give F/M films another shot. Razor Ryan is one of the few who does talk about his roles, and I’m always interested in what he has to say. So I watched one of his bottoming clips on the SL site. I thought he was great in the Peeping Tom film, but the beating was just too brutal for my tastes. I almost wanted to block out his ass to enjoy his reactions, but it would be a shame to do that to such a cute bottom. :-) So maybe it’s not all gender bias. What do the rest of you think?
Interesting discussion!
I do like seeing all the blogs by women working as spanking models. As said above, it gives a great deal of insight into the industry. Plus you all are delightfully kinky people having some great adventures.
In the pay category, I think men who act in videos should be paid. There are some stars out there, though I don’t think as of this morning (because how much more can we be sure of?) they have blogs. Keith Jones, Steve Fuller and Arthur Sire leap to mind. My understanding from Tony Elka is that their male and female actors get paid the same rates and they’re as selective about casting the men as they are the women for their videos. And for good reason — I know at least 10 women who buy any video Keith is in! Maybe this is Eve’s influence — it’s nice when the spanker is as attractive as the spankee.
An aside: one of the things I’ve always liked about SL parties is that the ticket cost for women is the same as it is for men. Cheap as I am, I’d rather pay the extra money then feel like my ticket is being subsidized by the male attendees.
Good point by Indiana, again. “So-called radical feminists get much more than their share of attention.” I think that was my main mistake at the beginning of the discussion, that I automatically equated “feminism” with “radical feminism”. True, those feminists who I see having an actual problem with BDSM are usually from the radical anti-porn camp. So it seemed a natural equation to make in the context. But I should have been clearer about the fact that it’s the “radical” part I oppose, not the “feminism” part. I should have cautioned my statements somewhat to that extent.
Indiana also made a good point at Niki’s blog where she wrote that the issue starts with us as individuals, examining our own (often unconscious) gender biases. The more I think about it, the more this seems to be the center of the issue, really. For instance, women shouldn’t automatically assume that all porn or BDSM is inherently “male-oriented” or “exploitative”. It’s not even “problematic” per se. What matters is what kind of situation we are talking about here, so we have to distinguish and look at it on a more individual level.
At the same time, we as men shouldn’t assume that whenever the term “feminist” comes up, we are talking about man-hating dykes and censorious prudes. That is certainly not the case. Radical feminists are only a small part of a much larger, wider movement, and some of their fiercest critics are actually other, more liberal-minded feminists.
So maybe the real question to ask ourselves is not, how do / should I feel “as a feminist” or “as a man”, but how do *I* feel about this or that, as an individual. And why do I feel that way? Is it rational, or could it be because I have an unconscious bias somewhere.
I don’t have personal experience of the scenario that Ludwig describes above, and I may be misinterpreting things, but I would say there is a difference between paying for pleasure, and paying for the privilege of taking part. (I would have thought that most professional doms do not think of their paying clients as worthless individuals – far from it.)
Paying to appear in a video, however, reminds me of a practice that I believe went on around the London area back in the 1980s, which was called ‘pay to play’. This was where bands had to actually pay money to the landlords of pubs, bars and so on, in return for the chance to play live. It was described in music circles at the time as ‘an abomination’. The inference is that because there are so many like you, as an individual you are worth little or nothing to us. In the context of male subs I actually find this attitude baffling, bearing in mind how few of them seem prepared to go public.
I’d also like to draw a parallel between those who seek the opportunity to appear on video, and others – amateur writers, for example, who would like to have their stories or ideas made into a video. In both cases the motivation may well be for kudos rather than the money, but even a nominal payment (such as a copy of the finished DVD) is an acknowledgement that their contribution is valued.
The two companies I worked for — Shadow Lane and Spanking Epics — paid the men the same as the women. In their videos, the men are featured strongly, given equal time and work hard, whether on top or on the bottom; they deserve every penny.
And as Mija mentioned, they are easy on the eyes, too. My first scene “crush” was on Keith Jones. In my not so humble opinion, more video companies should recognize that women buy these things too, and probably even more would if the men weren’t simply “faceless punishers” or “faceless sacks of meat.” (well said, Ludwig — I like your style)
I agree that there are some who will always think BDSM/spanking is bad. (It’s hitting! It’s violence against women! It makes men look like brutes! blah blah blah) They can’t compute the idea that it’s consensual, that we choose it and crave it. But still, the more we speak up about our own experiences with it, the better informed people will be. They’ll still choose to believe what they want to believe, but the information will be out there for those who are open-minded enough to seek it out.
Is it true that there are spanking video companies where a man who desires to be filmed would actually have to pay to do this? I’ve never heard of that, so I’m curious to know just exactly how that works.
What a strange concept.
I’ve shot for four different spanking video companies and each one has always payed me with a check. This also includes sending me home with a bunch of their DVDs and free memberships to their sites regardless if I’m topping or bottoming for them.
Indiana where do you live? I’m coming to get you…LOL…just kidding.
Thank You for the compliments.
Bailey, I’m sorry you lost a job. I hope you’re doing ok.
“Is it true that there are spanking video companies where a man who desires to be filmed would actually have to pay to do this? I’ve never heard of that, so I’m curious to know just exactly how that works.
What a strange concept.”
It is true for two I’ve contacted in continental Europe – one in Germany, one elsewhere. I don’t want to name names, because this is not really the point here. They are not very well-known, anyway.
I realize that there are FM producers out there who do things differently. Maybe I’ll be able to travel there and do something with them one day, it would be great.
My point was that the fact that such a concept (paying to be in a video) exists in the first place is a sign of in imbalance between the FM side of things on the one hand and MF / FF on the other. I believe that, with female submissive models, no one in his right mind would ever dare to ask them to pay for a shoot, no matter where – they’ll welcome you with open arms just about everywhere!
Razor,
don’t worry about me. I didn’t lose a job, I quit one. :)