Fifty Shades of Yoga

There's a fascinating Facebook page called 50 Shades of Yoga which makes an interesting connection between sexual bondage and yoga. Now let me start by making this very clear: I know very little about yoga, I'm not speaking as an expert on yoga.

Still, there's a certain superficial visual similarity between yoga and some of the more extreme bondage poses. The 50 Shades of Yoga page seeks to establish some greater similarity, but I'm not informed enough on the subject to make any judgements along those lines. Read the page and decide for yourself.

I found the 50 Shades of Yoga through a post on a the Elephant Journal blog that completely condemned it. The Elephant Journal post is by someone who teaches and practices yoga, and she's cheesed about it because she feels it's wrong to conflate bondage and yoga, or most forms of sexiness and yoga. She says, "This is the shit that makes men wiggle their eyebrows and make inappropriate comments and passes at me simply because I teach yoga. I’m a yoga teacher, not a whore."

I completely missed the meme about yoga instructors being whores, or whore-like. I had more a picture of them as spiritual, new-Agey, sometimes ditzy folks, generally focused on being healthy mentally and physically, in a sexy sort of way. Frankly, the contortions yoga practitioners go through look too difficult and uncomfortable to make me think of sex. (I honestly have the same problem with extreme bondage poses, they look so uncomfortable I have trouble thinking them sexy, even though the women are naked and tied up, though I realize that the women who are thusly bound are probably either flexible enough to handle them readily, or kind of enjoying the pain, or both).

Sure, the women who practice yoga are sexy and slinky and bendy and probably very good in bed, but it never struck me as what yoga is ABOUT, I mean, most forms of physical exercise and sports that women engage in make them slinky and sexy and are also venues for male fantasies, but that's not what they're ABOUT.

Still the visual similarity is intriguing, and fun to think about in an entirely salacious way. Check out the my post on this topic on my Politically Sexy blog for a thoroughly NSFW illustrated version.

Domestic Bondage On SMBC Theater

First published on 2/17/2013

A Youtube channel called SMBC Theater has come up with an actually funny bit about sexual bondage play. They called it 50 Shades of Domestic Gray but I think that's just to attract visitors, the skit actually has little or nothing to do with the book Fifty Shades of Grey. Point is: it's actually funny. Lighthearted and fun. Enjoy!

Celebrity Bondage Safety Tips

First published on 12/2/2012

The Celebrity Cafe, a big fan of Fifty Shades of Grey, or at least publishing posts about it, is doing what is very much the right thing by publishing a set of celebrity bondage safety tips by practicing submissive and erotica author Joey Hill. We're passing the tips along to you. A lot of the imagery of bondage you'll find online is very complex tie ups by the folks like those at Kink.com. They know what they are doing, both tier-uppers and tie-ees, so don't try this stuff at home unless you've had some training. Emergency room visits will suck the fun right out of any bondage session.

The other reason we're posting about it is, more evidence of a sea-change brought about by Fifty Shades, when a blog entitled "The Celebrity Cafe" is publishing BDSM safety tips. How long before we have celebrities giving bondage safety tips? Oh, about as long as it takes for the Fifty Shades of Grey movie to hit the theaters, and the cast to be doing publicity tours. Will they be as good as Hill's? Doubtful in the extreme.

By the way, the post's opening line is worth quoting:

There is a growing interest in bondage in the bedroom, and many of my readers are giving it a try in an effort to spice up their sex lives. It’s fun and feels a little bit dangerous, like a roller coaster, right? But you know why a roller coaster is so thrilling? Because deep down you – the rider – know you’re safe, and the designer and operator intend to keep you that way from beginning to end.

Good BDSM practices are the same.

Fifty Shades of Good Communication

First published on 10/31/2012

Scanning through the stuff my flying monkeys bring in from the Interwebs, particularly about "50 Shades of Grey," is a task not for the weak of heart. Most of the stories are complete fluff, or are completely stupid, thus suitable only for mocking (see previous post).

So when I come across a SMART story about 50 Shades of Gray, I gotta share. This one's from the Psychology Today website, and it is head and tails above the rest because it appears to have been written by someone who has actually read the books with an open mind, instead of having them described to them by a junior high school boy forced to read Fifty Shades of Grey against his will.

The key point of the article is that Fifty Shades is a book where the characters go to a great deal of trouble to communicate their sexual feelings. It's a key point of the book, and the focus on feelings is a hallmark of romance novels. The author notes that people may be attracted to each other purely physically, which are triggered by reading stuff like the sex scenes in Fifty Shades of Grey, but it's the play/joy circuit involved in communicating your feelings (as often occurs in sexual roleplay) which combined with trust, can lead to deeper feelings, like love. As the story says:

In 50 Shades, Ana (the main character) constantly battles with the competing urges of approach-and-avoidance, emotions that are controlled by the most ancient parts of the mammalian brain. But Christian Grey (the wealthy male character who fears close intimacy and attachment) tries his best to be gentle and kind. These genuine displays of affection stimulate the caring circuits of the brain which allow the couple to slowly build a mutually loving relationship.

Hell, yes! It's interesting that professionals like the sex educator cited in a previous article and the psychologist cited here tend to like Fifty Shades of Gray, whereas most critics are generally run of the mill bloggers, such as this bit of drivel on something called Cognescenti.com ... though it's nice to see readers giving the author a few well-deserved non-consensual kicks in the ass for confusing BDSM power play with abusive relationships.