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Interview with The Dark Arts

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Witchy Pixie – https://www.instagram.com/witchy_pixie/
The Dark Arts-https://darkestarts.com/

How did you get your start in the lifestyle?

I was working on a production job a while back and met some people who were into the kink world and learned some stuff from them, mostly how different the actual kink world is than how it’s presented in movies and TV. I filed that information away in my mental memory banks and years later decided to start trying out some rope stuff with a few models. It ended up being fun and making for photos that were so much different than what I was doing up til then, so I kept learning, exploring and experimenting and things kinda snowballed.

What draws you to rope and bondage?

People standing around in clothing, underwear or naked is all fine and dandy, but rope is a less travelled road in terms of “something to put on a body to increase the aesthetic appeal” and it presents not only interesting things to look at from a decorative standpoint, but using the ropes to restrain or contort a body presents a whole new suite of visual options. Of course the tabooness of bondage is a factor too. There’s always something appealing about things that are seen as “forbidden” or “deviant” so that plays into it. Bondage or kink shouldn’t be taboo, and it would be great to live in a world where all forms of consensual art and/or sexuality are normalized, but for now there is that little extra spice in working with a medium that is seen this way.

Can you please describe your artistic process? What do you feel makes it unique?

There are a lot of people out there who do bondage photography, and I really make an effort to make my work stand out as unique in that genre. I think a hallmark of my style is that I really try to focus my images on the full body. I rarely crop out legs or shoot angles that obscure portions of a person. I tend to stand back and get the entire person in there with as blank of a background as possible. Obviously sometimes it’s impossible to have a solid color background when I am not in the studio, but I do my best to clear everything that’s not bolted down out of the frame. The other thing I try to make a signature is the use of lighting and color. I’m always thinking of new flash techniques or color combinations to make things look weird, alien or really pop off the screen.

What do you hope to accomplish with your work?

I’d love to be able to make a living off this, but photography is a tough racket anyway, and bondage photography is even harder. As with most things it boils down to who you know and who among the small number of companies or individuals who can pay for content want to pay you. I pull in a little money from my Patreon, and the book may end up turning a small profit when it’s all said and done, but it would be awesome to be hired to do this.

What does your book Light/Shadow/Color hope to show its viewers? Is there an

underlying message?

I suppose the main message is that bondage is beautiful and all bodies are beautiful. So much of bondage is contained to images of thin, young white and asian women and that alienates so many people of different genders, sizes, ages and colors. I do my best to shoot all kinds of people and show all kinds of bodies. Of course the vast majority of people who model are younger, thinner women, and a lot of men who contact me to shoot come across as really creepy or weird (asking me to find female models to shoot them with, etc…) so my body of work is not as diverse at I’d like it to be, but I try!

Is there a link between your work and your personal life? If so, what is it?

I keep my personal life pretty separate from my kink persona, but I will say that I absolutely incorporate kink into my private life. I am by no means a lifestyle kinkster or anything, and wouldn’t want to be, but I absolutely use my rope and kink skills in my personal relationships.

Can you give some photography Do’s and Don’ts?

Shoot a ton! I always go into a shoot with the expectation that I’ll only get a small number of good finished shots but I shoot a ton of each tie. The more you shoot of a setup, the higher the chances you’ll get a few that look amazing. It’s also important to make the model feel comfortable. If your intentions are to get some ass from a shoot, the model will smell that like stink on shit, so just… don’t. Be up front about everything from the get-go and be chill and easy going. Don’t make sexual jokes, don’t touch models in weird ways, don’t use pet names or compliment their boobs or butt. Use your damn head! Literally every shoot I do eventually gets to the point where we talk about all the creepy photographers they’ve shot with. Don’t be in those conversations! If a model is comfortable they will give you amazing photos even if they are not pros. Just being relaxed allows them to move more freely, make eye contact, not come across tense. Lastly, ease up on the damn skin filters! I know that a lot of people are self conscious about their appearance, but some photographers really overdo it on the filters and make people like like plastic.

What is the most challenging thing about your work?
For some reason it’s shooting in LA. I don’t know why, but I have had so many flakes and no-shows there. Must be something in the water. Beyond that it’s trying to not get burned out by shooting or getting bored. Sometimes it feels like I’m shooting the same stuff over and over, but that doesn’t last long. I do scale back shooting sometimes to get other things done in life, but usually shoot with some kind of regularity.

What do you feel your work reveals about you as a person?

I keep kind of mysterious as a person, but I imagine that people see my work and imagine a person who is very creative and principled with technique and style. THey may also see me as kind of a smartass if they follow my Instagram stories where I mess with all the dumbasses who message me thinking I am the models in my photos.

Are you currently working on any new projects? If so, what are they?

The book was just launched, so that’s the big project right now. There’s nothing else planned for a while other than more shooting and trying to think of new things to do!

Where can individuals view/purchase your work?

My website is the place to buy my book. I post all my work on Patreon, every photo! So if you want to see everything I do, Patreon is the place to do it for a very small monthly pledge. I also sell prints through email. I tried to make a self-service print site once and literally NOBODY ordered one after like two months so I closed it. It cost money to maintain and was not worth it. So now if anybody wants a print all they have to do is email me!

What is your overall goal as an artist? How do you plan to accomplish this?

My only real goal is to stay interested. If I lose interest I will stop doing it. If I can make some actual money with this then awesome, but that’s not necessarily a goal given how difficult that is.

 Any closing thoughts?

Not really. I’m just happy to have the fans I do and like providing something fun and cool for people to enjoy in this otherwise trash fire of a world we live in!

About The Dark Arts

The Dark Arts is a Washington State based rope bondage rigger and photographer. They got into the art of shibari five years ago after being hired to shoot some people at a local kink club, began experimenting with the art form and soon was creating bondage imagery not seen very much from other people working in the bondage scene. The Dark Arts is constantly pushing the envelope of visual style, trying to incorporate bold colors and lighting and seeking diverse models that one generally doesn’t see in shibari photography. They strive to show all genders and bodies in rope, bucking the tradition of only putting petite white and Asian women in rope. LIGHT/SHADOW/COLOR is their first book and compilation of work.

Links:
https://darkestarts.com
https://www.patreon.com/thedarkarts
https://instagram.com/darkartsphoto/

Interview with Shay

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How did you get your start in the Kink Community? What drew you to this lifestyle?

I came into the kink community in 2003, when my partner Stefanos and I were living in Minnesota. Prior to that, Stefanos had been involved in fetish event production, and we’d both done kinky bedroom play for pretty much as long as we’d been having sex. We were also both Live Action Role Players (LARPers), which is how we met, and that’s pretty damned kinky in our books! We started to go to Minnesota munches and play events, and met our mentor Koroban. That was very much the beginning of my time in the kink community.

Can you elaborate on your work in the community? What projects are you currently working on?

I recently finished getting selfsuspend.com up and running, and my biggest project right now is working on writing a book on self-suspension… which is incredibly time-consuming! I’m very inspired by “creating the work I want to see in the world” – when I first started with self-suspension, there were very few online resources, and no classes or mentors in my area. I ended up taking content from a partnered suspension context and adapting it myself, and basically being self-taught in a lot of areas. I try to think about what content would have been helpful for me when I was a curious beginner, and working on getting that information out there in a more accessible way.

You teach a wide range of subjects – can you talk about your process for developing classes?

Most of my classes are co-taught with my partner Stefanos, and our class list has developed slowly over the years. We were first inspired to present when we came back from Shibaricon (a large rope convention in Chicago). At the time we were part of a small Minnesota community that didn’t have much by way of formal classes available. Members of the youth group we were part of asked us to share our bondage knowledge, and our Remedial Ropes classes were born. Many of our classes have come about this way – a friend will tell us that they love watching us do cutting, or playful BDSM scenes, or pick-up play, and will ask “hey, can you teach me how to do that?” Due to my professional knowledge, I’m asked to present on medical and safety topics pretty frequently.

Generally our process has been that we start with broader classes, and then divide them into more focused classes as we hone the content. We presented locally, first in Minnesota and then in San Francisco, starting in 2005. We didn’t travel to present at our first convention until 2011, so we really took our time presenting and developing our classes on the local level before taking the “show on the road” as it were!

What is your favorite class to present, and why?

I’ve been super into presenting self-suspension, especially when I can make an afternoon intensive of it. I’ve worked really hard to make the content as accessible as possible – my goal is for everyone in the class to self-suspend and feel really good and accomplished having had that successful experience. My first exposures to shibari-style rope suspension made me feel really crappy and inadequate, like I wasn’t a worthy rope human, and I’m trying to give folks and experience of success and fun in their own ropes!

When I’m presenting with my partner Stefanos, our favorite class is It’s a Trap: Playful Scenes and Non-Bondage Predicaments. It’s a very demo-heavy class, and we usually have at least three stunt bottoms working with us, which always creates a fun and unique energy.

Do you structure your classes or just go off the cuff?

Our classes are ridiculously structured! I have detailed, pages long outlines that I print off and work from, which even includes the amount of time to spend on each subject. Of course, within that there is still quite a bit of space and each class is still unique and different – it’s an outline, not a script! For example, the outline might list that we have ten minutes to demo and discuss a toy ordering game as a negotiation tool, so that’s the broad strokes, but the exact execution of that will vary each time.

You’re known for your self-suspension performances, as well as curating shows that include kink and bondage performance. In your opinion, what makes for a great performer?

The biggest thing I’m always pushing performers to do is to create shorter acts. Less really is more! It’s hard to do a short performance, because it makes you really hone down your presentation, but putting in the work makes you really polished and focused. I always think about this quote from Woodrow Wilson, when he was asked how long it takes him to prepare a speech: “It depends. If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.” I’m interested in the TED-talks of bondage performances, and it takes a different level of preparation. If you’re doing a scene on stage and want to take 45 minutes, that’s fine (and some folks certainly prefer that type of performance, I’m not here to Twue Way on this), but that’s a very different type of performance than the acts I do, curate, and enjoy as an audience member. IMHO, there is a difference between “scene rope” and “performance rope” and I enjoy pushing the boundaries of that distinction.

What keeps you coming back to perform within the community?

There’s something so satisfying about coming up with a concept, music, costumes, and routine for a performance, just creating all that out of nothing at all and then getting to execute it on a stage is just incredible. When I first started doing rope performance, the vast majority of what I saw in terms of bondage on stage was shibari-style, men topping women… and I wanted to represent something outside of that. I’ve been performing (and creating performances) since childhood dance classes, so it’s something that’s always been part of my life. In addition, I’ve come to embrace that my “core kink” is exhibitionism. I don’t do much private play at all – I love being watched, so being on stage also feeds that!

How would you recommend that newcomers get started with learning bondage?

For folks just starting with rope, we do think that you can get a lot of basic safety information online, including sites like RemedialRopes.com. Mentoring and taking in-person classes is optimal, once you start to actually tie – many areas have rope classes, munches, or peer-led events. To supplement your in-person instruction, consider sites like KinkAcademy.com, which is a great place for tons of videos. Many instructors offer private lessons, as well, which is a great option if that is affordable for you. Get references on specific instructors and classes if you can – not all bondage instructors teach or tie in a style that will be a match with your bondage and/or learning preferences. I really recommend self-tying as a way to start – it teaches you about both rope topping and rope bottoming, and is a wonderful way to learn!

Can you give advice for individuals that want to learn new hard and soft skills? Dos and don’ts?

Don’t be afraid to learn online and from videos. I got most of my early suspension bondage education from YouTube – don’t let the rope snobs tell you that’s not a valid resource! I always recommend in-person instruction, but it’s not possible or accessible for everyone all the time, so videos can be a great way to supplement that. Also along those lines: DO get your information from multiple sources! Having someone mentor you in person, and also taking a few classes, and also reading some books, and also watching videos is optimal IMHO. You want to get a variety of perspectives and approaches!

What events are next on your schedule?

I’m producing the bondage and kink performance event Twisted Windows on the Friday of Folsom weekend (9/28) here in San Francisco, as well as numerous other local events (BENT, Self-Suspension Open Space, Master’s Den, etc). I help with programming for Dark Odyssey: Surrender, which is a weekend hotel kink conference in San Francisco, and am getting geared up for that event, as well as starting to plan 2019 travel!

About Shay and Stefanos

Stefanos & Shay are a vivacious, unconventional D/s couple whose entertaining, information-packed classes have been called “better than a Vegas act.” They identify as pansexual polyamorous playsluts, purveyors of perversion, and alliteration fetishists! They are based in San Francisco, where they host over 60 events a year (including BENT, Twisted Windows, Master’s Den, Self-Suspension Open Space, & Bondage-a-Go-Go) and were named King & Queen of Pervert’s Prom in 2006!

Shay is a medical professional by day, education director for Dark Odyssey: Surrender and writer/creator of bondage safety repositoryRemedialRopes.com by night, as well as a prominent self-suspender known for unique, dynamic rigs and prodigious performances. Stefanos is all kink all the time as DM & CEO of Bondage-a-Go-Go, event manager at the SF Citadel, and former Producer/Steward of The Upper Floor on Kink.com.

Stefanos & Shay have performed, presented, and hosted around the country and internationally, including at Dark Odyssey (Winter Fire, Surrender, & Fusion), Rome BDSM Conference, Thunder in the Mountains, KinkFest, RopeCraft, Northwest Leather Celebration, Westcoast Bound, San Francisco State University, Stanford University, OpenSF, Kinky Kollege, Beyond Leather, the SF Citadel, Mission Control, Center for Sex and Culture, the Exotic Erotic Ball, International Ms Leather, BayCon, COPE, Mischief in May, Folsom Fringe, and Cum & Glitter. They’ve also been featured on KinkAcademy.com, PassionateU.com, BehindKink, Discovery Channel’s Oddities, Skin Two, KinkUniversity, and in over half a dozen documentaries across the world.

For more from Stefanos & Shay, check out their bondage safety web site and the site for Twisted Windows, their kink performance event in San Francisco!

Shay also created a self-suspension web site! If you’d like to learn self-suspension, you can check out articles, video tutorials, and much more. Contact Shay for more information about self-suspension.

You can watch a video of one of our performances here

Stefanos was interviewed by Vice regarding Bondage-a-Go-Go and the SF kink scene — watch the interview here.

Interested in booking Stefanos & Shay to present or perform at your event? Contact us!

Be sure to check out their website too!

https://www.stefanosandshay.com/

Sensual Bondage

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twinz-2-16x24www.voxart9.com

When discussing BDSM play techniques, we frequently talk about floggers, canes and whips. But, there is a softer, and equally important, part of BDSM that is often overlooked. And that is the art of sensual bondage. It might not be as dramatic, but it is sexy, beautiful and often just as thrilling as the most edgy of edge play.

For many submissives, just the touch of the rope is exhilarating; the simple act of being tied up by rope is a rush. It does not have to be tight; it does not have to be complex; it does not have to be escape-proof. The beauty of sensual bondage is that it offers yet another a way of experiencing the adrenaline rush that often is at the heart of a BDSM scene.

Since most BDSM play is based on a negotiated power exchange, there is no need to expertly tie the submissive Shibari-style. Basic rope work can serve a scene just as effectively as the most complex rope techniques serve its scene.

Wrist and leg ties are perhaps the most popular ties in erotic bondage. Once immobilized, the Top can (remember, we are talking about erotic bondage) stroke and play with the submissive.

Breast bondage is also relatively uncomplicated and does not have to involve pain. I am sure you have seen pictures of extreme breast bondage, wherein the breast can turn colors. (I do not recommend this for beginners!) But, simple, almost pain-free breast bondage can be just as exhilarating. When performing sensual rope bondage, don’t neglect the esthetics of the scene; it is part of its appeal.

Finally, when you wish to get to a more advanced style of sensual rope bondage, the rope dress is usually part of the program. Obviously more complex, it still has none of the pain or restraint aspects of total immobilization.

The beauty of sensual bondage is that you can experiment and invent new ways to use rope virtually risk-free. Since the ties are loose, there is little chance of injury.

I would be remiss if I didn’t stress safety – even in sensual play. What might be light play for most, can be heavy play for others. Being tied up, no matter how loosely, can be frightening for some bottoms – especially in public play in front of an audience.  Even in light rope bondage, one should always follow these basic safety rules, which are:

Always discuss, and agree to beforehand, your safe words.

If you see the bottom in mental pain, end the scene. Even if he/she does not safe.

Don’t cut off circulation. Check to see that one finger fits between the bonds and the skin.

If you see skin discoloration, or other signs of severe discomfort, stop the scene whether the submissive is safe or not.

Don’t put rope around the neck, ever.

Have bandage scissors at the ready.

As I have stressed at nausea, “you can never be too safe.”

Now, as an added bonus, it is time for the rope tip of the day! Don’t use cotton rope. It frays and snags very easily and can lock too tight. And never use clothesline or nylon-synthetic blends. The best all-purpose rope is 3/8th’s to 5/8th’s inch nylon rope. And, as an added bonus, nylon rope is readily available in an array of colors. (The more advanced riggers use, in addition to the nylon we discussed, three other different types of rope: hemp, jute and multi-fiber polypropylene. But that is for another article!)

As I have stressed here at kinkweekly.com, there is no one way to do BDSM. To paraphrase, “Different strokes, or non-strokes, for different folks!”

So, if this type of bondage turns you on, simply follow the safety rules and, as the Nike ads say, “Just do it!”

About the Author:

After a ten year run as head writer for the legendary bondage.com, and an equally long run as the host of the hit internet show “Baadmaster’s Dungeon,” we are pleased to welcome the one and only Baadmaster to KinkWeekly. His thoughts about all things BDSM will now appear regularly on these pages. From the mental aspects of D/s to the nuts and bolts of S&M play, Baadmaster will cover every facet of this ever expanding lifestyle.

 

Easy – Son Lux

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We recently stumbled across this music video while listening to music and researching awesome content for our photography and videography section. Had to share as the rigging and rope play in this video is just spectacular.

Directed by: David Terry Fine.

From the LP “Lanterns” by Son Lux.

Rigging and Bondage by: Mack & Seraphine

Youtube Channel: Joyful Noise Productions