D/S, BDSM,Fetish references in popular culture (5)

But what i want to talk about is the Mort Sif.

Ok standard blurb - a tyrant called Darken Ral is trying to subjugate the land - the legendary Seeker has risen to fulfil the phrophesy to destroy him and save everyone blah dee blah.

In the midst of all this, our main characters get captured by what is essentially a warrior subsect of Mistress types called the Mort Sif. Uber sexy women dressed in tight leather led by the ultra sexy Mistress Denna. The Mort Sif are taken as children and trained in combat and magic. They weild devices that look like billy clubs/batons which wnen pressed to a persons flesh gives the victim unimaginable pain.

The Mort Sif use these clubs to 'dominate' their victims and bend them to their will. After a short while the victim will do anything to please his mistress - their will is essentially broken and they are enslaved. I believe there was also a hint that use of the clubs give a backlash of pain to the Mort Sif but they've been trained to withstand the full effect.

In personality, they are very much the stern, strict 'you will obey without question' types.

In episode 16 we see Denna again for the first time since she 'failed' Lord Ral. In this scene she is in skimpies with her usually single braided and tight slicked backed blonde hair loose and suspended by chains in the air.

This time round she's the victim and Ral is using the baton against her while she begs his forgiveness and calls him My Lord and offers him 'unimaginable pleasure' so he may forgive her, her failure.

Essentially the situation for the head of the Mort Sif has been reversed and i somehow found this highly erotic!

To return to my original point - this show is not fetish based - its a standard but deeper than you'd imagine, sword n sorcery epic - yet the writer has created the Mort Sif and given them enough appearances and time to give depth to the concept. More of so called sub cultural referencing seeping in to the mainstream? hmmm

I'm sure if i looked i could find dozens more accidental references in the most unlikely places!

We all like a bit of the good life. Some the money, some the drugs ..others the sex game, the glamour, the fame ... but a rocknrolla ... oh he's different. Why? Because a real rocknrolla ... wants the fuckin lot!

Keep in mind that people usually see/hear what they want to, and often minor mentions of a word or phrase can bring to mind the listener's own interests and hobbies. Most BDSM terms are modified from the normal English language (the rest seem to be medical), so a word here or there may not be as suggestive as you think.

That said, the dominatrix is a mainstream cliche (sorry, ladies), and is generally a comedic view of sex, and so is much more likely to appear in the media.

Unless BDSM practices are mentioned by the term most prevalently used among BDSM practitioners (as it was in one of your examples), it is doubtful that the reference is any more than 1) coincidence or 2) general sex reference/joke.

Personally, I'm very much interested in references to BDSM which are not comedic in intent and/or which look at M/f style play.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

It's quite common for people who are just starting to participate in BDSM to question where it came from and whether it was always there or if it was a new thing. (Note the prolifieration of "first BDSM" threads.) Often people look back over their childhood or whatever and say "I did BDSM as a child but I didn't know it."

Personally, I think all that sort of rationalisation is bollocks. What you did as a child was done with complete innocence, and to assign a subconscious kinky motive is unnatural. More than likely, the event formed the sexuality, not the other way round. I'm less sure of adult activities, but I still feel that to assign a motive other than what you were thinking/feeling at the time is manipulation of history to show how "real" BDSM you are.

I don't mean to come off harsh or anything, but I'll just ask you,

If you were anyone other than who you are, would you have done, do, or will do anything differently? Things are as they are, and we do not need to justify them. In the end, all things pass away. So be happy and comfortable with your present self, it's the one that matters to people you meet. You were who you were, you are who you are, and you will be who you will be. And that's enough.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Ah well, my point is that theres limitless references if you care to look for them - i wasn't considering this from my individual POV or ascribing it to any individual, just pondering that some aspects of whats generally known as sub culture often seem to seep in to the mainstream conciousness.

To give a very broad and non context example of something we 'know' that we never used to know - if you go back three or four decades and ask the man/woman in the street in the UK what pizza is, chances are most wouldn't have heard the reference unless they'd travelled to Italy. Sometime in the 70's (i guesstimate)pizza resteraunts became common in the UK and now everybody knows what it is - but not because of food appreciation classes taught in schools, but because society opened up to allow everyone to have heard of something in the mainstream that previously wasn't.

Now the terms Dom/Sub/BDSM etc are still a little bit less common in usage but i'd wager more people have heard of them than regional chavesque terms like Sket, Boyed or Peng.

We all like a bit of the good life. Some the money, some the drugs ..others the sex game, the glamour, the fame ... but a rocknrolla ... oh he's different. Why? Because a real rocknrolla ... wants the fuckin lot!

Edited 25 May 09, 2:42 PM by Darkhorse2009

I wrote about 60% of the sketches but none of the episode blurbs which contain the most 'fetishesque' references. Offhand i can't recall any fetish stuff in my sketches - sex-like stuff, yes and in some of the non sketch ad libbed talking theres a few references but now i come to think of it most came from my brother who is not a member of this board or any other similar site i know of.

Again i'll reiterate - i'm considering myself strictly in an observer role here - not questioning the roots of my own behaviour/interest - just pondering how so many references sneak into society.

For example the sword n sorcery series i mentioned - i'd lay odds the writer didn't deliberately sit down and think how he could get a fetish reference in when creating the Mort Sif but that knowedge had to come from somewhere - but i don't think it was somewhere specific which is the crux of my point.

I very much agree with you that people are as they are and do as they do which is as it should be. Assigning motive to your actions is too much akin to labelling and i don't like labelling so i won't do that.

Cheers for provoking my thoughts with your response!

We all like a bit of the good life. Some the money, some the drugs ..others the sex game, the glamour, the fame ... but a rocknrolla ... oh he's different. Why? Because a real rocknrolla ... wants the fuckin lot!