It’s official. I’m a water nymph.

I spent a rather marvellous day at the Luxe Femdom party in Leicestershire, much of which involved a jacuzzi. I bought two gentlemen at a slave auction, then instructed them to partake in an oily, homoerotic, Greco-Roman wrestling match together for the entertainment of my fellow ladies. They went at it with surprising gusto.

The rest of the afternoon was spent luxuriating in the tub with Ms Tytania and Theda Vamp while boys provided us with wine. Bare breasted, chatting and laughing with my wet, slippery, powerful female companions, I felt like one of the nymphs from John William Waterhouse’s famous painting. Men bowed their heads in nervous reverence at the sight of us.

There’s something particularly thrilling about the combination of water and women. A couple of years ago, I wrote a blog post about the deadly allure of mermaids, nymphs and sirens, as well as a number of posts on my lingering preoccupation with erotic water torture. As elements go, water’s connotations are refreshingly female. When I was younger, I wondered why so many of my dreams and fantasies, especially the more – ahem – Sapphic ones, involved water. Often, water didn’t feature directly, but the settings for these imaginary erotic encounters would range from hot springs and seascapes to spa baths and communal showers. I can only assume that my libido works on a level that is more symbolic than practical.

Anyway, here’s my favourite painting: Hylas and the Nymphs by John William Waterhouse:

(By the way, all proceeds of the slave auction went to Cats Protection. Not only did I make some chaps strip naked and grapple with each other, but I also helped some cats. A good day all round.)

Thanks to a lovely gent called Caspar for sending me this.

If you’re a fan of hypnotic domination, or if you’re a lobster, you might enjoy this enlightening article from New Zealand’s Ashburton Guardian, dated 11th March 1921 (via BoingBoing.net):

Click here for the full, mildly NSFW, article.

There is power in the taboo of the naked female form. For centuries, our unclad bodies have been used as symbols to shock, to arouse and to protest, and often in art, a nude is more than just a nude.

Sotheby’s is about to auction a collection of paintings by an Egyptian artist Mahmoud Said (1897-1964). ArtDaily.org state that his work “came to epitomise the complexity of dealing with his own individual desires and the values of his society”.

Here’s their commentary on the image pictured below:

“Highlighting the collection is Mahmoud Said’s oil on canvas Untitled (Nude), dated 1951-1957. This example, which is estimated at £80,000-120,000 is typical of Said’s paintings of relaxed beauties with full breasts and wide hips, in which the artist relishes every curve of her body, revering her nudity. Said celebrates the woman’s sensuality, encapsulating the zeitgeist of the period with the liberation of women and the shift in social structure. Inspired by an Egyptian woman, this painting is steeped in the essence of 20th century Egypt. Said’s nudes are not immediately associated with power and politics, but rather seem to be simply celebrations of Egyptian life. However, it must be noted that the nude was a fierce political statement. Until Said’s time, the female form was taboo, most especially the nude figure. Said, however was the uncle of Queen Farida, wife of King Farouk of Egypt, and was therefore able to push thee boundaries of artistic practice commonly seen in his country. A number of political factors relating to 20th-century Egypt also had a profound effect on the work of the Egyptian pioneers in art, including Said and Mahmoud Mokhtar (1883-1934), as it was a time of enormous upheaval with Britain declaring Egyptian independence, which was preceded by a great nationalist movement largely driven by women and the lower classes.”

Read the entire article here.