Hmmm, where to start?

By saying that I don’t find very glamorous bondage photographs very convincing, I didn’t mean that they don’t serve their market well.

Indeed, they are gorgeous and I have no problem believing that mainstream kinky males just love them and would pay for them.

I think it is precisely because they are so gorgeous that they ring a little hollow to me, a far-from-glamorous female bottom

In rather the same way that fashion photography does not make me spend money!

If they show me a frock (which might be a nice frock) on a dazzling thin-as-a-slat young tall model, I doubt the dress: sure, it looks great on her – because, let’s face it, a paper bag would look great on her – but how would it look on ME? And if they refuse to show me, my considerable spending power stays firmly in my purse. The dress is probably unsuccessful on any normal person. Advertising fail.

There again, I’m probably not the target market in that field either LOL

I call this the Pirelli Effect

If a good recipe for Simpson’s Spicy Sausages is published with an illustration of a naked girl limply holding a frying pan and a spoon, I immediately “know” that it’s not a real recipe: it’s only a pretext for the naked-girl pic and a way of parting men from their money.

Well, with bondage, the things that make bondage inviting to me are NOT the naked-girl pictures, (pretty though they are, and appealing to a mass market, as mentioned above).

No, it is the internal qualities of bondage that appeal: things that would be present even if the model were plain, chubby, mature etc:

Her loss of control: her subjugation to the will of the rigger: her immobility, which she can either melt into or struggle against: her endurance of the discomfort, great or small, as an expression of obedience or submission – or alternatively, her struggle to escape, a little metaphor of human life in the middle of challenge and restriction –

If she is naked, it is her exposure – either willing or unwilling – a revelation of private, vulnerable places – which takes courage, or loss of power – or both together –

If she is suspended, I see a loss of simple freedoms, the choice to move about or gaze at will. Instead she responds only to the hands of the rigger, being pushed, pulled, or ignored – while remaining safe – even though uncomfortably! And her patience, too: or his deliberate tempting OF her patience…

All these things make bondage photography riveting and edgy for me: I like looking at those photos on fetlife and so on. Except the fetlife ones that satisfy my criteria for “real-ness” are often amateurish and poorly lit, or too graphic in a pornographic sense, or have other defects.

While the professional ones – once they go past a certain Plimsoll Line of prettiness and perfection – begin to lack conviction, to my cynical and demanding old eyes. See Sausage allusion, Pirelli effect, etc.

So thank you, deliciously elegant restrainers, for noticing my comment and hearing me out.
Your point is well made and well taken, too: it’s far more constructive to go and get, or make, what you like rather than whine that it’s not available. And I love it when I find a picture that pushes my buttons and make me catch my breath at the beauty and intensity of the moment.
And find so often that the ropers, models, designers, photographers and publishers have tried so hard that…suddenly I am again looking at a dress that isn’t for the likes of me.