after Sieff

I think I need to formally cut back on the number of entries I'm posting in this blog. I barely have time to post more than a couple of times a week at the moment, and if I'm still trying to post Mon-Fri (not that I ever maintained that consistently!) then I'll only feel bad about not managing it. So please consider this a formal announcement: Pandora's Blog will be updating twice weekly from now on. I just don't have time to commit to a higher post rate with the new job. If I manage more than that, consider it a bonus.

This is is just a quick one - I want to show you the polished, final version of the polaroid by Owen Gruyffed that I posted last week. We spent some time perfecting the lighting and the pose, and then Owen processed the image in Photoshop and sent me a digital copy. I hope he doesn't mind my reposting it.

Lady Sonia

I went up to the midlands to shoot again with Punishment Bitch this week. I'm seriously enjoying the chemistry that's developing between Sonia and I. They've invited me back in November and I can't wait.

The preview page for Punishment Bitch isn't very promising at the moment, but the site contains more content than is first apparent. It's a subsite of Lady Sonia, a very popular fetish site specialising in stockings, stilettos, MILF, equestrian and mild F/m, all with a very genteel English aesthetic. Not my kind of porn, really, but the couple who run the site are lovely, and I've learned a lot from talking to them. They started Punishment Bitch a few months ago and let it slide due to lack of interest, but have recently started updating it regularly again by request.

So far there are high-def videos of me, Leia-Ann Woods, Wynter Skye and Sascha Harvey being spanked and tormented by the formidable Sonia, which isn't a bad tally by anyone's standards. I've been recommending other UK spanking models to them as well, and they seem keen to develop this side of their work. For me, it's fascinating working in the cross-section between spanking and more mainstream porn. Most CP material isn't explicitly erotic, and Sonia's films are all extremely sensual. Straightforward, po-faced punishment wouldn't have been appropriate, so instead we flirted with humiliation roleplay, blackmail and other situations of compromised consent, with Sonia outwardly delighting in her sadism and my characters responding despite themselves.

I couldn't do sexy scenes like this with just anyone. Trust and professionalism are paramount. Sonia makes it easy in every respect, and I'm definitely looking forward to working with her again.

the bare necessities

When the credit crunch first started to make the news, I felt myself to be fairly isolated from it - as a self-employed person I wasn't at risk of losing my job, I'm not a homeowner, and I don't have a fortune invested in stocks or shares. I said to D. at the time that I could imagine it affecting my career as an artist, but not as a model. After all, original paintings are a luxury that people might not stretch to during a recession - but porn is a necessity. There will always be a market for porn.

Well, it looks like America agrees with me. And I might have got a job, but I'm certainly still shooting.

On which note, don't worry if I'm somewhat absent at the moment. I'm run off my feet trying to keep up with modelling, the new job, art projects and everything else all at once. I'm barely spending any time at home and I can't blog here from the office. But I'll try to check in whenever I can.

shake it like a polaroid picture

A photographer called Owen Gruyffed contacted me recently asking if I was interested in a shoot in the style of Jeanloup Sieff. Who? I asked, not recognising the name even though I'd posted one of his works only recently. Owen took pity on my ignorance, and sent me the link to Sieff's website. I was instantly converted.

The "nude" section of the site gallery is an instant testimony to the fact that as well as being one of photography's great talents, Sieff was clearly a bottom man. His official portfolio is a small selection, but a quick search on google images reveals a broader selection of his glorious nude photography. I was hooked, and instantly downloaded all my favourite images to show you all. Except I liked so many that I can't decide which ones to post. This photo of the perfect pose for receiving the belt? This poignant shot of a lady lost in thought - or, perhaps, a subdued naughty girl? This dreamlike image of a woman walking up lonely stairs, where who knows what fate awaits her? Frankly, I'm spoiled for choice.

Anyway, I said to Owen that that sounded like fun, and we met up in town on Thursday night, after my second day at my new job. Note to self: modelling after work is exhausting but rewarding, with much the same effect as an evening yoga class after a day at a desk.

It was a great shoot, and I loved the preview images Owen showed me as we went. We started with an attempt to recapture the pose in the French postcard I'd posted. Before starting each set, he took a single polaroid, to establish the effect of composition and lighting. It's not a technique I've seen before in these days of digital image viewers, and I liked the results very much. There's something so ephemeral and evocative about a polaroid, even ones of poor quality, and these were anything but. After I oohed and aahed over them, Owen was kind enough to give me the first one. I love it so much I got him to sign it. What do you think?

Introducing Irelynn

Since I started blogging a couple of years ago, the number of spanking models who blog has shot up. I entirely approve of this. Recently, though, a couple of people have started coming at it from the other direction. Abby Williams was probably the first spanking blogger whom I watched turn her hand to modelling. And another brave soul has just taken the plunge from producing kinky prose to kinky pictures.

Freshly Spanked is a new spanking blog written by Irelynn and Smudge, two spankees who have just matriculated at university. I recognise a lot of myself in these two young ladies, and their blog is funny, thoughtful and fascinating. And Irelynn has just posted an exclusive preview of some shots from her first shoot with Northern Spanking.

I am impressed. Very impressed. Not only does she look good (which she really, really does) but she's managed to infuse even this small selection of pics with huge amounts of personality, and an infectious sense of fun. I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for her debut on Northern Spanking, and I strongly advise you to do the same.

shoot aftercare

Adele Haze has picked up on my post last week about the ups and downs I experience during and after a shoot, and her response has reassured me that I'm not alone.

It's easy sometimes to slip into the habit of presenting an ideal view of my spanking relationships on this blog. I mean, you guys don't want to hear about the bad stuff, right? You want to hear about the spanking. And if I don't have any exciting scenes to relate, I feel like I should find other spanking-related things to talk about.

But Adele's post, and your comments, have encouraged me to continue to talk honestly. So I'll tell you how my evening went after the shoot last Wednesday.

Tom arrived at mine while I was writing the last paragraph of my entry. I very nearly ended the post by mentioning that I wasn't sure how to communicate to him what I needed, but that I'd just shown him what I'd written, and that hopefully that would be enough.

It was a good start. After my earlier fragility I was kind of hyper; we talked a while and drank tea before he initiated a scene. I went over his knee compliantly, although I was still a little manic and inclined to be smart-mouthed, which didn't really help me get into a submissive mindset.

The spanking hurt. And he was doing it really gently - I could tell. But it hurt, and I whimpered and whinged my way through the hurt, and then it kept on hurting. He even slowed down and started rubbing and stroking my bottom between each smack, which is normally guaranteed to get me writhing in pleasure, but the strokes were a blessed relief between what was, frankly, painful, and not in an interesting way.

I endured it, but it wasn't much fun for either of us. I think he tried a hairbrush on me next, and I complained about that so much he almost stopped the scene. Which would have been fair enough, because frankly I wasn't in any frame of mind to be truly submissive. I wanted physical sensation but I didn't want anything challenging. I wanted it to be about me. To be about what I wanted. Which is the opposite of what Tom expects of me during a scene.

Eventually we found an implement that suited my mood, and I got a very yummy tawsing, although Tom said afterward that it wasn't really working for him. When we talked it over we came to two conclusions.

Firstly, a shoot is a physical and emotional rollercoaster. Whatever it is that alchemically translates pain into pleasure for me - dopamine, endorphines, adrenaline, some other hormone, I don't know - it peaks sharply during a shoot and dips down low afterwards. The up and the down; the euphoria and the crash afterwards. We're all familiar with it. What I hadn't quite realised was that after you've already experienced this process once during a day, triggering it a second time is much, much harder. Once I've got high off the pain, come down, had my crash, then I can't start the whole process all over again a few hours later and expect my body to respond the way it did first time round. I think I might need to sleep inbetween to reset my body's balance.

Playing after a shoot is not going to scratch my masochistic itch because the itch isn't there any more. I'm responding to the memory of the itch, the emotional echo of it. My mind is stuck in the past, and I want to re-enact the euphoria of the shoot with my lover, but my body is in the present and just wants an easy ride.

Secondly, however much I want to play, I'm very rarely in a fit state to submit after a shoot. I want to re-create the dynamic I experienced during the shoot. I don't want to be responsive and flexible and attentive to my Dom's wants. My body is craving a very specific thing, and that's not the point of submission at all. Unless I can focus on my Dom's wants and be not just obedient, but genuinely responsive - unless I can take pleasure from following his lead regardless of my own preferences - I should not be trying to submit, and I shouldn't be trying to scene with my Doms if I'm not able to submit. If I'm in a self-indulgent, fussy place, where only one particular style of play will give me pleasure, it's foolish (and dishonest) to start calling anyone Sir that evening.

So, as Adele has already concluded, a scene is not the correct response to the evening after a shoot, no matter how kinky and giddy I'm feeling. And demanding submission of myself when I'm that drained and my body is that messed up is just silly. Subs and spanking models need aftercare after shoots just as much as we do after private play sessions.

Hopefully I'll remember this next time I have a shoot. Snuggles are the way forward ... and save further play til I've had some sleep.

Lego spanking

D. sent me this link the other day:



I'm slightly concerned by the fact that I'm finding those two red stick-on lego circles ... kind of hot. And I love the little lego toys and butt plugs :)

But ... the robot heads. Why?

ups and downs

Coming above ground at Kings Cross this morning, I took the steps two at a time, wincing as my rucksack bounced against my back. No matter how carefully I pack my bag, somehow a spike heel always ends up digging into the small of my back. Never mind the spanking - when I get home from a shoot I'm much more likely to be bruised by shoes.

The shoot is with Punishment Bitch, one of the Lady Sonia group of sites. Sonia herself is a slender and self-possessed woman in her prime, with eyes that are impossible to look away from. We drive to the studio and talk shop.

Studios are odd places, never inhabited but constantly striving to seem real. And yet real things have happened here, real conversations, real spankings, real sex. It doesn't count when the cameras are rolling but the ghost of it lingers; studios have a feel similar to school playgrounds, clamouring with the echos of the humans that fleetingly spent their time here.

This one takes up the top floor of an old building. Mouldy sofas and dry, rusty washbasins punctuate the long climb to the top floor. The walls of the stairway are peeling. Inside, a space that could be a glorious loft apartment is messy and thrown-together, mismatched rooms chopped in amongst each other. Inflatable sofas compete with disembodied enamel bathtubs; an Edwardian parlour is tucked away beside a stable reeking of two-year-old hay bales; graffitied walls float from the ceiling, connected to nothing. You don't ever want to lie on the beds.

I make tea, we joke and laugh about the studio, Sonia and I get ready. I relax. Once I'm working it's easy, I know what I'm doing. There's something scintillating about shooting that never gets old no matter how many times you do it. The silk stockings and the fetish heels make me feel sexy, and I'm working with a woman who is effortlessly glamorous. The director doesn't need a story for the spanking but we, the actors, the women, do: we come up with one between us, and enjoy the sarcastic, erotic banter even if none of the viewers do. Our characters are competing for power over each other and it becomes a game of wits, culminating in a punchline. At this stage it's mostly "sensual" pattycake spanking and the improvisation is more exhilirating.

Soon, though, our minds and my bottom are warmed up, and we start to connect, the dialogue becomes more convincing and our body language starts to sync. She whips me with a riding crop and I hiss between my teeth at the sudden panic of hurt. Breathe through it, remember you can do this, remember this is what you're being paid for, don't you dare wimp out now. Whimper, remember that crying out helps, let myself squeal at the next cutting stroke. Sonia mocks me for that - "you felt that one, didn't you?" - and that helps too. I muster my courage and struggle my way through two more strokes before my body finally catches up and a slow wave of endorphines settles over me like a blanket. Mellow now. I arc to meet each stroke. When she stops, I don't want her to.

On the train home I squeeze my legs together, remembering my wetness at the end of that last scene, grateful that they were professional enough to spare my blushes and not comment. There's a sharp line between my exhibitionist self on camera, willing to be exposed and shamed, willing to be seen to enjoy it, and my professional self off camera, laughing and wry and determinedly disengaged. Ironically, the closer the trust and connection with the models I'm working with, the more inclined I am to keep my two selves separate. I can flirt as much as I like on camera, be as aroused and helpless as I like, because I can trust them to not think it's real. Which liberates me enough to make it real, but not in a way I'm prepared to share. This is my own enjoyment, and it's a blessing and a curse.

Lust torments me all the way home. By the time I reach my front door I'm drained and exhausted. My phone has run out of battery and Tom's meant to be coming round tonight but I don't know when and maybe he won't. The endorphine crash leaves me listless and melancholy. I spend a little time relieving the ache that has been building since that session with the crop, and afterwards I weep at stupid things and mope around the house getting nothing done.

Then I pull myself together, make some tea, and give myself a stern telling-off for (yet again) not predicting the endorphine crash and looking after myself properly. I should know by now to have chocolate in the house after a shoot. Lust gives way to exhaustion, and when Tom arrives I won't know whether to tear my clothes off and throw myself at him, or curl up in his arms and demand cuddles. I want to be whipped again, I want to share some of the spark and energy from today's shoot with my beloved, I want to offer some of that energy to him. But I'm physically drained, and connecting with my real boyfriend when half my head is still being whipped by Sonia is always difficult to navigate.

I've done this so many times, and I'm still not used to it.

underneath my suit

Last week I went to a job interview in the City. It was cold, and I couldn't find any tights, so I ended up putting my thickest pair of opaque black stockings on under my smart office skirt, simply to keep me warm. These stockings, as it happens, aren't hold-ups, and so I had the delightful experience of walking through one of London's richest districts knowing that I was wearing stockings and suspenders underneath my suit. However prosaic my reasons for wearing them, there's something delightfully kinky about this.

My secondary school didn't have a uniform for sixth form - instead, we had a "professional" dresscode. The older I get, the more sensible I realise this was - several of items of my office wardrobe were bought while I was in sixth form, and it gave us two years to work out the boundaries of what was acceptable dress for most workplaces. And yes, I was one of the students who had letters sent home complaining about my clothing choices. I had a habit of wearing studded collars and too much eyeliner along with my respectable suit. What can I say, I was a sixteen-year-old baby goth.

Once it became clear that gothic jewellery and makeup was out, I started pushing the boundaries in subtler ways. On more than one occasion I wore a corset under my shirt and suit, and the secret knowledge that I was wearing something restrictive, glamorous, seductive which no-one else could see made boring lessons a lot more interesting. Plus, the line of a suit becomes killer if your waist is taken in.

Anyway, I've just found out I've got the part-time job I interviewed for last week. I'm glad - it seems interesting, busy and is well-paid enough to hopefully see me through the credit crunch. I'll still be freelancing two days a week, and I'll try to keep the blog updated, although I won't be able to access it from work so there'll probably be some changes in my posting schedule.

I'm a little nervous about being smart enough for the City - I've never worked anywhere this well-dressed before. But I'm looking forward to spicing up the corporate dresscode by wearing kinky lingerie underneath, knowing that my colleagues have no idea. I'll know, and so will my boys. And so will you.

I start next week, and I was about to call up one of my Doms to ask if they wanted to see me the night before, and give me some marks to wear underneath my suit on my first day. But I've just realised I'm meeting up with the lovely Adele Haze the evening before I start work. So I guess going into work marked will have to wait until another day. I don't think it would be fair to ask Ms Haze to do the honours unless I was prepared to return the favour, and I'm a very reluctant top when I'm not on camera ...

showing off my curves

I can't remember if I've posted this photo already, so excuse me if you've seen it before. It's one of my favourites of me, and I thought of it during the thread about 40-inch plus bottoms last week.



(Although I'm afraid to confess, I re-took my measurements recently for a spanking shoot I'm doing on Wednesday, and I must have lost a couple of kilos - because I've lost a couple of inches!! I'm going to have to eat some more pies or I'll be kicked out of the club :(

On which note, excuse me while I go and cook dinner...)

pain relief

Natty has been writing some excellent posts lately on kink, sexuality, and chronic pain or illness. This is an issue that is very close to my heart, as both of my partners have chronic pain, and one of them also has a chronic illness. I've wondered in the past the extent to which my choosing two dominant men who aren't fully able-bodied had something to do with my submission. Nursing has certainly become a consciously submissive act in one of my relationships, and I find caring for my partner when they're suffering almost as rewarding as I find sexual submission. It also makes the power imbalance feel more natural - we are dependent on each other, it's not all one way. They look after me as my Dom, and I look after them as their sub. We care for each other.

I don't write much about the sexual consequences of my partners' physical health, and I don't think I ever could - it's far too private, and not my secrets to share. But I do want to tell you two stories about pain and kink which I think follows on from what Natty has to say.

I have a switch friend who I'll call X. X enjoys exploring both facets of their sexuality, and find that their submission and dominance tend to arise in very different circumstances, with very different types of people. One day, their life is changed by an awful accident. They are bedridden for months, and suffer from chronic pain and impaired movement to this day. Since the accident, they have not felt able to explore their submissive side, and instead have focussed increasingly on their dominance. Being forced to lie still for so long, being forced to endure pain they did not want, having control of their life and their body taken away from them, removed any desire they had to play with those things. Now, they are determined to be as fully in control of their life as possible. Their body, their environment - these are things they are not willing to surrender to anyone else. They don't know if they'll learn to switch again in the future, but even if they do, their personality has been deeply affected by the accident, and they'll never enjoy submission and pain in the way they used to.

I have another friend who we'll call Y. Y has a condition which means they've suffered from chronic pain all their life. Like X, they were a switch, and enjoyed playing both roles in power games with lovers. They enjoyed giving and receiving pain. Eventually, they started receiving surgical treatment to correct some of the symptoms of their condition. They spent a considerable amount of time in hospital, and then bedridden, in pain unable to fully care for themselves. The medication they were prescribed for the pain had unfortunate side effects, and they preferred to avoid it. Instead, their switch relationship shifted while they were recovering from the surgery. They started submitting to their partner much more consistently than they ever had before. They sought out sexual pain because it was empowering. By surrendering control of their body to their partner, they wrested it away from their illness, from the doctors. Pain became translated for them, became something with positive associations. By choosing an affirming, intimate, conscious pain experience, the pain experience they had no choice about became easier to bear.

I don't really have anything to add to the story, except to say that Y still mostly identifies as submissive, and that I don't really know of any outside factors that might explain why X went one way and Y went the other. I just think it's fascinating, the way the human mind and body is capable of responding to these experiences. And I defy anyone to talk to X and Y and then try to argue that kink is damaging and unhealthy.

There are more people out there with invisible disabilities than you might think. If it wasn't so widely misunderstood and stigmatised, I wonder how many more of them might find solace and empowerment through a sexual exploration of pain.

spanking movies wanted

My friends over at Roué are currently working on a new shiny website, and they're hoping to include lots of free and downloadable content to draw traffic and supplement their DVD sales. David was asking me the other day if I knew of anyone who might have any unused spanking films that they weren't able to use and might be interested in selling. They're offering good rates, and are interested in edited and unedited footage.

I'm probably going to put together a few clips for him, and I might even chase up some of the companies who have shot full-length DVDs with me in the last two years, but who have shown no sign of ever being ready to edit the film. Mostly because I want to see those films, damnit ;)

So if any of you have any unused film that you don't have time to edit, or fancy filming some new material to sell on, let me know and I'll put you in touch.