Just to further prove that you can’t please everyone all the time, I have to say I’m not particularly fond of either the reverse prayer or hammerlock positions; they just look too painful.

I go most for the standard hands-cuffed/tied-behind-the-back position, palms together and wrists as close together as possible. I know from experience that this is both very confining and reasonably comfortable. Attaching the cuffs/rope to a waist chain or rope makes it even more confining and secure without being any less comfortable. The “JenniC Kitchen Chores” set was a perfect example of what I like.

I guess the only thing Restrained Elegance can do is to continue providing a lot of variety. That way you’re sure to please at least some of us some of the time!

I especially like two of Bob20’s ideas: self-bondage while in a trance, and the forced orgasm while bound. You could even do one and then the other in the same scene!

The “oh no, anything but that!” routine, in which the bound submissive pretends that an orgasm is unspeakable torture, is an oldie but goodie. Dunno why it always seems to work so well, but it does. The pretense is not very convincing to start with, and it gets steadily less so as her excitement mounts…

When doing a forced orgasm, concentrate on her face. That’s where the payoff occurs. A lot of sites seem to think we mainly want to see the vibrator and what it’s doing, but aside from the occasional establishing shot that gets a bit old.

Hmm, an erotic cake shop, eh?

The only mention of one on TV that I can remember is an old classic Halloween episode of The Simpsons. After passing into a computer-generated 3D universe Homer ends up in ours, somewhere in the greater Los Angeles Basin. All his fears and apprehensions are erased when he happens across a store advertising “Erotic Cakes” and goes in…

I agree, it’s a clever and intriguing effect.

I can think of several ways. An obvious one is a pair of identical twin models, with the “mirror” being transparent glass. Another is blue/green screen. A third is essentially the same as the second with the selection of the mirror done by hand in Photoshop, simplified by most of the mask being the straight lines of the mirror frame.

There’s a small smudge in the upper left-hand corner of the mirror that adds to the realism. Perhaps it is actually there.

I have never been at a BDSM event that “forced” participation. In fact, voluntary consent is the most fundamental rule there is. I’ve never known anyone to be pressured to participate, and anyone who would do so would be asked to leave.

At most of the events I attend, more people are generally socializing than playing. This may be because we’re a little older and tend to know each other.

I certainly didn’t. I’m sure everyone still remembers the episode when they all went “undercover” in a women’s prison and wore chains for most of the episode.

Then there was Baywatch, another show no one watched for the plot. It too had the female stars getting tied up and handcuffed on a regular basis. It was such a cliche that when the Baywatch spoof “Son of the Beach” ran for a couple of seasons in the early 2000s, it had its own share of kidnap plots.

I know what diffraction is, and that it’s a limiting factor in every radio antenna and in many telescopes. But I hadn’t really realized that it can be such an issue with photographic lenses stopped down beyond f/8 or so. I guess that’s true; it’s something I’ll have to watch for.

I guess it should go without saying that before you start throwing light away, you should decrease your sensor sensitivity to its minimum. Problem is, I don’t think it goes below ISO 100 on our Canon DSLR cameras. In the old days I’d shoot the slowest film I could in outdoor shots, usually Kodachrome 64 and sometimes Kodachrome 25.

Why not just stop your lens down further (assuming you can)? Does that give you unwanted depth of field?

What exactly do you mean by “bondage party”? My wife and I have certainly been to many local BDSM “play parties”; in fact, that’s how we met 13 years ago. The activities are quite varied. Occasionally someone will do an elaborate Japanese-style rope bondage scene for its own sake, but usually the bondage is incidental to more S&M-type activities like flogging and paddling. It’s often just a couple of buckled leather cuffs and carabiners and far from strict (i.e., inescapable). This can be a little frustrating for someone like me who’s mostly into the “B” end of BDSM.

I’ve encountered and played with several spanking enthusiasts but here they seem to have their own subculture. Some even hotly maintain they’re not kinky BDSMers — as though spanking were not obviously one of the very many variations within BDSM, or as though everyone else were into everything that does qualify as BDSM. That just isn’t true; most kinky people I know definitely tend to specialize.

I don’t quite understand your concern here. I have seen sets in which the straps are crossed in front as you suggest, and that seems to bring them awfully close to the front of the throat. That’s “stay out” territory as far as I’m concerned. (I also get nervous at the sight of those very large handcuffs on the neck that have become popular in recent years.)

The straps do cross behind her neck so I don’t see how the armbinder could slip off her shoulders too easily and cause her to fall in a strappado position. But I suppose some extra straps behind the neck could make it safer.

I’ve never really cared for generic titles like “Master” or “Mistress” either, except maybe as part of a role-playing scene. Otherwise they just seem more than a little pretentious. In the local scene people generally know each other, so everybody just uses first names or nicknames. They work fine!

Handcuffs are available in a wide variety of finishes, but only nickel plating gives you that shiny look you’re after. Are you sure yours were even nickel plated to begin with? If so, could the plating have worn off?

There are commercial electroplating outfits that will nickel-plate almost anything you want, but I don’t know if you could plate handcuffs without damaging the internal mechanism.

You can even get color-coded handcuffs these days. http://www.handcuffwarehouse.com carries CTS Thompson cuffs in nine colors. Including pink, which I’d bet is the most popular color by far.

And how about some more bondage tutorials?

Yes, bondage tutorials are always welcome, especially on safety. You’ve already done a pretty good general tutorial on the subject; how about one specifically about safety with metal restraints?

Metal restraints have some marvelous features. Shiny stainless steel always looks great (to me at least). Handcuffs are especially quick and easy to apply and they’re utterly inescapable when used properly. But unlike rope and leather, metal is completely unyielding, so you do have to be careful. And you must always know where your keys are, if only to keep them safely out of reach of your captive.

You could demonstrate the difference between chain-linked and hinged handcuffs and show how the hinged type requires extra care to avoid pressure on the wrists. (Beginners should probably avoid hinged cuffs altogether and use the classic chain-linked kind.)

Some cuffs are wider than others. That can make them heavy, but they also distribute their forces over more of the wrist or ankle, increasing comfort and minimizing problems. (We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t find bound women highly appealing, but even complete helplessness need not and should not be painful or even uncomfortable.)

Point out that nearly all modern handcuffs have a double lock. Show how to use it to keep the cuffs from accidentally tightening.

Stress the importance of testing everything before you use it. Although most handcuffs open with a standard key, sometimes accumulated tolerances can keep a “standard” key from opening a “standard” pair of handcuffs. I recently had one of those “standard” keys jam in the lock of a “standard” handcuff; I couldn’t open the cuff nor remove the key from the lock. Fortunately I was just a test and I wasn’t trying to remove them from someone’s wrists.

I think there’s a lot you could cover in a tutorial devoted to metal bondage safety. I am partial to handcuffs but I see many other kinds of metal restraints in Restrained Elegance shoots and it would be useful to see what you’ve learned about using each of them safely.

Thanks to Hywel and Lurker both for their informative comments!

I see what you mean about white balance. CFLs are normally very warm (or is it cool – you know what I mean, they have a low color temperature) to match the incandescent bulbs they often replace.

We (my wife and I) have been puzzled about how DSLRs handle white balance. If you shoot in raw mode, does changing the white balance actually change the pixels stored in the file? Or does it just go into the metadata so the display program knows how to render it? I’ve heard that it’s much easier to correct all sorts of exposure and color balance mistakes if you shoot raw, primarily because they can store the full number of bits per pixel that most modern cameras have rather than being limited to only the 8 bits/pixel of JPEG.