Your Daily Lashes - Sept. 20, 2024
The 1925 Japanese book that stands to this day as a masochist's fantasy.
I started this feature to share my thoughts and show how one can live a fun and kinky life every day. Being kinky means living life to the fullest and discovering new things that excite you in every aspect of your life—sex, food, music, movies, outdoors, and more—hence the diversity of topics I explore.
After one week, I am pleased with it, but I wonder if publishing it every day (every weekday) is too much? I posted to Notes that I might change this to “Your Weekly Lashes.”
What do you think? Send a reply by email, DM, on Notes, or as a comment.
What I’m Reading on Substack
A series exploring leathersex, sadomasochism, and leather culture. Takes place in New York City and on Zoom. Includes talks and performances by KING COBRA, Ariane Cruz, Mama Vi Johnson, Yin Q, Ze R., Ignacio Rivera, Avgi Saketopoulou, Kassandra Sparks, Susan Stryker, Laura Westengard, and Empress Wu.
”I like a man who sends me a text at work saying something like, “What time are you getting off, because I can’t wait for you to come?”
That is just laced with all kinds of profanity and yet if my boss saw it, it’s entirely G rated.”
No amount of data will give you a good life by
“Klein was talking about parenting specifically, but I feel this in almost every realm of modern life. We feel like we have to know what all of the research says before we can make a decision. We need to see the evidence. We need Emily Oster to tell us right from wrong. We don’t even know what our values are. And so, we hope science will tell us.”
Sexual Lubricants—Not Just for Women by
“Young men often rush into intercourse before women feel ready. Men should ask women if they feel sufficiently aroused for intercourse, but few do. Lube helps in two ways. When women apply it to the penis and give men lubricated handjobs, the pace of sex slows, which allows women more time to warm up to intercourse.”
What I’m Listening To
As I write this, I am listening to a chill mix that includes lo-fi, sexy indie, dreamy punk, and Italo disco. One highlight is “Cherry” by Chromatics. Chromatics was founded by Adam Miller in Portland, Oregon in 2001 and arrived at its regular lineup in 2005. They covered a lot of musical territory in their two decades (broke up in 2021), most of which can be broadly put into the indie space.
What I Read
Recently, I read an interesting and influential Japanese ero-guro novel by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki called Naomi (A Fool’s Love) (1925) about a Japanese man, Joji, who meets an underaged "Western-looking" waitress named Naomi and grooms her to marry him only to have her grow up to cuck him, dominate him, and tease him seductively. It was a deeply psychological depiction of a kind of bratty, manipulative (and deservingly so) character who seems kind of like an archetype.
The more I think she is unfaithful and selfish, the more adorable she becomes, and I fall into her trap.
There are a couple of translations available. The translations appear to be relatively different in terms of the wording—but not the meaning. I chose the translation that is available on Kindle Unlimited. (Based on the age of the book, it should be available in the public domain.)
Lovers of dominant, arrogant, bratty women may be able to relate to how Joji feels about Naomi in the end:
“You’re so silly. So you don’t want to be friends?”
…
“If you don’t want to, I’ll seduce you. I’ll trample on your determination and mess you up. … I’m blackmailing you tonight.”
…
The more I think she is unfaithful and selfish, the more adorable she becomes, and I fall into her trap.
Throughout the book, even before Naomi reaches the height of her powers, Joji and Naomi engage in soft femdom play, including foot worship and pony play.
“My, what a small, wobbling horse! Be more steady! Giddyup, giddyup!” She gleefully squeezed my belly with her legs and yanked on the reins. I struggled with all my might not to be crushed by her, going around the room sweating. And she wouldn’t stop this mischief until I was worn out.
The author, Tanizaki, would be the inspiration for a character in the magna and anime Bungo No Stray Dog. I’ll have to look more into this, but it looks like it could be good.
Another Naomi
You might have heard of Naomi Asano. She is the founder of Yapoo’s Market, one of the sexiest and most extreme (sometimes too extreme even for my tastes) femdom AV video producers. 11Dutch wrote about Naomi and her philosophy on his blog.
I did wonder, after reading Naomi, if Mistress Asano wasn’t inspired to take her name from the book. The name “Yapoo” comes from the serialized novel The Domestic Yapoo (late 1960s), a kinky story that centers around a Japanese man and his Western girlfriend being taken by a spaceship from a female supremacist future, where they become initiated into the society.
Both Naomi and The Domestic Yapoo reflect aspects of Japanese society that were changing, either being modernized towards Western-style militaristic colonialism (in the 1920s) or emerging from the shadow of occupation and industrializing (in the 60s).
Nellie Feather has been publishing an on-going English translation of The Domestic Yapoo. It’s a sensual work and thought-provoking to read. For me, the early chapters have some sexy scenes, but when, in the early-middle chapters, it goes beyond worship, beyond quote-mark “slavery” and into real slavery, it’s too much for me. What about you? Read it for yourself, and leave a comment.
My Best-selling Books of November
The Thai Mistresses: Femdom Stories of Men Being Dominated by Bar Girls, Mistresses, and Thai Ghosts (5 book bundle) has been doing well this month. In this compilation, you will get access to Real Life Femdom: Learning to Love My Leash, Punished By the Bangkok Bar Girls, Kinky Road Trip on the Haunted Highway, Buying Her New Boots, and A Wild and Wet Water Party: The Songkran Slave.
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