O'Connell / DefyAuthority: Shirt-cocking / Friday, September 3rd, 2010

Shirt-cocking art at Burning Flipside 2010. Photo by Stash.

I am off to Orfunner for the weekend with a couple hundred of my Burner tribe. I’m really glad to be going away to clear my head, join the sacred revelry, and set some shit on fire. I am going to be burning some stuff at the effigy fire that is from a recent break-up; this will help finish the process of putting closure on that experience. I also anticipate having a hell of a good time in what may end up shaping up to be a muddy weekend (but that’s never stopped us before).

Before I go, here is the latest entry in my Burner Lexicon on DefyAuthority.NET: Shirt-cocking.

O'Connell / DefyAuthority: Orphan / Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

One of the things Lauren suggested when she asked me to guestblog on DefyAuthority.NET was that I would create a glossary of Burner words and slang. I think this is a great idea, not just for its educational or anthropological purposes, but also because it gives me the opportunity to make the occasional snarky aside. I’ve always been a big fan of the Devil’s Dictionary, after all. In my first entry, I define a word that applies to myself and probably most other Burners who are reading these words this week: Orphan.

Update: I went ahead and posted my second entry already: Regional.

As an aside, the site had a bad crash but the rest of my posts should be restored soon.

O'Connell / Pleasurists #93 / Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

My Pink Plush Cuffs review was included in the latest issue of Pleasurists

The Goddess Aphrodite by DarkAlchemyStudios

Welcome to Pleasurists, a round-up of the adult product and sex toy reviews that came out in the last seven days. For updates and information follow our RSS Feed and Twitter.

Continued reading >

O'Connell / Good things / Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

M. Christian's Very Bloody Marys

There are things I can complain about, but I won’t do that here — I have plenty to be amused by. Life has brought such delights as watching spankings performed with giant clown shoes, a long visit from my “pet,” eating tasty little Mexican chocolate bars, and discovering the varied pleasures of San Marcos, a sweet little college town. The mail has brought good things too: a box full of sex toys to review for sextoy.com and some books from my friend M. Christian. He sent along The Circus of Dr. Lao, which is research for a secret project, and a copy of one of his own books, The Very Bloody Marys (one of the few by him I haven’t read yet). Speaking of M. Christian, if you remember my announcement about the The Bachelor Machinethe new edition (featuring my introduction) is now available on Kindle.

I haven’t been making very much progress on my own writing, but I have a couple ideas I am working on. I woke up the other day with an interesting idea, and some brainstorming with new writer friend Autumn Christian — no relation, but I am also looking forward to reading more of the unpublished novel she emailed me — helped me figure out the gender of my protagonist, which turns out to be especially important in this case. I also got some good news about one of my stories; it isn’t the kind of thing I am comfortable announcing here, but it’s a positive ego boost that will hopefully encourage me to make more words.

Last night I watched Paprika, which is one of the films by recently deceased Japanese auteur Satoshi Kon. I always feel a little weird when I do that thing where you only investigate an artist’s work because you hear they’ve died, but here I am anyway. I’m glad though because I was blown away. I don’t agree with any of the nerdy speculation that’s popped up around the Internet that Christopher Nolan ripped off this movie for Inception — there is simply too much shared mythology around dreams to make any meaningful statements about that, but I do feel like maybe they are cousins — with Paprika being the cousin who got really into the good drugs.

In closing, clown shoe spankings are fucking hilarious.

O'Connell / Review: Pink Plushy Handcuffs / Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

Pink Plushy Handcuffs from the Adult Toy Shoppe

I am now reviewing sex toys for The Adult Toy Shoppe. I am not being paid for these reviews, but I do receive free toys. You can find the Pink Plushy Handcuffs and other bondage toys on their site.

Bondage cuffs are amongst the most basic of kinky sex toys, yet they come in all manner of variations from pretend police handcuffs covered in leopard-print faux fur to the fanciest custom leather. They can be used like silk scarves in the lightest of bondage play, or they can be what holds your submissive to the St. Andrew’s Cross during a lengthy flogging.

I’ve had my own pair that I have used off and on for some time — a simple set in black leather which work wonderfully for most of my uses. They are lockable and remain comfortable even when the sub puts some of her weight in them. The only problem with them is they were bought for a lover with very small wrists, and as a result they only fit on some of the people I might like to use them with.

I was hoping these cuffs, the Pink Plush Wrist Cuffs from Topco’s grrltoyz, would offer me a little more range, as well as being fairly stylish. Pink is a funny color — my lovers seem to love it or hate it, with the haters seeming to be mostly women who were force fed too much of it as children. Since I don’t seem to have any haters in my life currently — and my pet adores the color — I thought this would be a good addition to my collection.

Unfortunately they aren’t quite versatile enough to meet all my needs. Though the fake fur was very comfortable to the submissives I have tried them on, the pleather coating seems to breathe a little less than actual leather making them a bit hotter for long-term wear. They do accommodate larger wrists, but not in the way I anticipated — the cuff itself is actually smaller than the ones I already owned, but the belt and buckle are very long and will fit wrists the cuff itself does not fully encompass. However this added range comes at the expense of security. It was comfortable enough on everyone who wore it, but I suspect many wearers could slip out of them if they tried and it wasn’t as comfortable if any pressure was placed on the parts of the wrist that weren’t covered. And though you can lock the two d-rings together with a padlock, there’s no way to lock the cuffs themselves.

None of this really means that this is a bad toy. The cuffs come with a chain for linking them together which is simple fun, great for yanking your playthings around, and it stands up well to this sort of moderately rough use. The fur lining keeps the ends of the cuffs from pinching even when they don’t meet all the way. The pleather is soft but solidly stitched, the D-rings securely attached, and the faux fur lining comfortable to the wrists.

Most of all, it’s important not to underestimate the potent symbolic power of this kind of bondage. I’ve known submissives who could doze peacefully to sleep with their wrists bound thanks to the feelings of security it brought.  When I recently put these cuffs on a friend who’s only just getting back into kink, she positively melted the moment she felt the pressure on her wrists, and asked me to put them back on her later that night for a repeat performance. Though they probably won’t appeal to advanced kinksters, the grrltoyz Pink Plush Wrist Cuffs are a good set of cuffs for basic play.