"The Thin End of the Whip" OMG. Vanity Fair article in this month's issue.

[ElisabethWhispers]

So I'm taking a short break this morning and my new Vanity Fair arrived last week in the mail. It's the February issue with Jimmy Fallon on the cover.

One of the articles is written by Toni Bentley (The Surrender) and is about the world's oldest Domme in France, Catherine Robbe-Grillet.

I haven't read the full article yet but I got so excited about it that I wanted to start a topic about it.

Enjoy!!!

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/20...nch-dominatrix

[Zhivago52]

Further out into the mainstream......but it's been headed in this direction for the past couple decades.....

[ElisabethWhispers]

The following is the end portion of the article:

A young woman is led to Catherine by Christian. She is beautiful with a great mound of curling dark hair clipped up on top of her head—Madame likes necks—and she is tightly wrapped, mummified from chest to knees in layers of black translucent chiffon held in place by a great length of pearls looped around her neck, crossed above her breasts, and tied around her waist, with pearls trailing down to her feet behind her. She is naked under the chiffon.

She is laid on the carpet and tied down at each wrist and ankle. A long cut with a small silver switchblade is made down the center of the chiffon, and the fabric is peeled back, leaving her bosom and belly exposed. Only the pearls remain on her skin. Christian kneels between her legs, bending over her lower body, caressing her gently while Madame sits on a low stool beside her and administers to her, less gently, with small unidentifiable instruments.

The woman emits low sounds, pain and pleasure mixed.

She is eventually untied, lifted to her knees by Christian, and Madame steps in close to her, above her, whispers to her, and as she cradles the young woman in her arms L’Image leaps to life. In this Pietà, this embracing of a young woman by an old one, I see the entire arc of 60 years of Catherine Robbe-Grillet’s brave life from Alain’s submissive wife to Mistress of herself.

The woman, whose face is wet with tears, is radiant. She is placed on the prayer stool, head bowed, elbows extended across the high shelf, palms up. The ceremony is not yet over.

There is a unique rhythm to the music of the whip: the great crack that slices the air just before the leather finds its surface and unleashes its great length around the pale softness of naked hips. An immediate moan, the woman’s, follows the whip’s final snap. As the last vibrations taper into silence, Madame passes the whip to Beverly and continues the incantation: “Un autre coup” (Another lash). Precision is all.

The quartet plays on, whip and woman escalating in ever heightening crescendos and cries. Suffering made beautiful. The Mistress who is Master plays her instruments into a clear and present ecstasy.

No wonder she allows no photographs: they would be but frozen shadows of a mystical passing.
###

[Zhivago52]

Elizabeth: I LOVE well written literature like that. Imagine a scenario where you are all dolled up leaning over a table and reading that aloud, whilst your hobbyist/lover is behind you enjoying greek.

[Willen]

Prose and great photography (or any visual art) have in common, IMHO, their capacity to draw us into the scenario. This is especially true for pornography.

I LOVE receiving pain. But like almost everyone, I suspect, too much is WAY too much. You, as a dom, want to gauge and push your sub's limits. As a sub (and occasional dom), I need to communicate, while at the same time giving myself to you. That's why this realm is so exquisite.

And of course pain is only one avenue. Degradation is another, and those paths often intersect.

Etc.,etc.

[houston_switch]

Read several pages...very interesting, will finish tonight. Thanks for sharing!
h_s

[Guest032514-1]

This is a well written story by an intelligent writer. I love that it's mainstreamed etc and that it's so well written.

Now I can get gossippy...Remember Mistress Lucreza? The death in Belgium a couple of years ago? There is (supposedly) a connection there.

Alain was known as a heavy sadist thru & thru and a Dom of unconventional tastes within that bracket.

I found the contract he drew up - and that Madame never signed the most interesting part of the story. Remember this was beatnik days & Paris was at the forefront. Avant garde is French for a reason. Even in those free wheeling days BDSM was waaayyy out there and Alain was waayy out beyond that. The stories rumors and gossip surrounding him are freakin legendary.
BUT....alot of what is now generally considered requirements for the "Grand" in Grand Master were influenced by Alain (and thus from Madame as well I suppose).

Alain enjoyed the pain (modern day de Sade ...without the sex part a lil startling that Madame was so forthcoming on that aspect ..but it was/is well known). There was alot of conjecture on whether one led to the other. Lifers said No, mainstream charged that Alain's physical limitations were caused by mental illness & His sadism was caused by mental/emotional issues.

So while Alain was a contributing factor in "modernizing" BDSM - He was also a factor in vanilla mainstream demonizing the scene.

Odd isn't it? The difference in the vanilla perception between (a) Sir & Madame?

[Ms. Athena]

Such a fine line between pain and pleasure..............
Thanks for sharing a very erotic story