Sunday, November 30, 2008

Movie Review: Sweet Revenge


Producer:
Mood Pictures (released in 2008)

Entire Story In Fewer Words Than Are In This Sentence:
Lady Jessica serves cold and painful dishes

Victim Appeal:
Like most recent films from the Magyar severity freaks, this one features a fairly large cast of victims. Six different girls make the acquaintance of the whip, cane or paddle. The most prominent one is the beautiful Victoria Young, who has become something of a Mood regular this year - she has done four films for them at the time of this writing, including the previously reviewed South American Vacation. All of the models are pleasant to look at and take one hell of a beating, while the acting is usually rather dull. In other words, everything is as we have come to expect from Mood Pictures.

Gratuitous Sadism:
Lady Jessica, another Mood regular, plays the part of Evelyn Drake, a vengeful wife who discovers that her good-looking and wealthy husband regularly cheats on her during his business trips - he has a different girl in every city he travels to around the world. Heartbroken and brimming with cold rage, Evelyn decides that, instead of confronting her unfaithful husband, what she really wants to do more than anything else is punish the women he screwed around with. She enlists the help of a local mafia boss who gets her all the data on the culprits and lends her two of his female enforcers (one of them is "special guest star" Princess Donna from the US). Together, they travel from country to country and hunt the promiscuous "bitches" down one by one.

The first woman, Yvette, is a nurse. She is dark-haired and pretty. Evelyn visits her at work and gives her 50 searing cane strokes while her assistants hold Yvette down on a hospital bed. Donna counts the numbers aloud in English. Afterwards, they order the girl to walk down the corridor naked before everyone's eyes to complete her atonement. I guess they aren't afraid that someone will call security! The next one to get her comeuppance is Pandora, a platinum blonde drug trafficker currently doing time in Santiago Prison (which fans will remember as the location of a previous Mood film). Evelyn's mafia contacts give her access to the prison and she watches with sadistic glee while Donna whips the girl with the riding crop (10 strokes) and cane (45 strokes).

In segment number three, Evelyn takes revenge on a brunette antiques dealer who seduced her man (the role is simply and charmingly listed as "3rd Chick" in the credits). Evelyn overpowers the nameless merchant and ties her to a punishment bench she brought disguised as a sales item. A particularly vigorous 50 stroke caning follows, leaving the girl with bleeding welts. The next stop is an S&M studio which Evelyn's husband visited at some time (he's kinky, too!). Head dominatrix Esther receives 50 hard whacks with a wooden paddle from The Bride... errr, from The Wife. The final victim is a "luxury whore" by the name of Vionna Santoro, played by Victoria Young. She is the one who insulted Evelyn the most, taunting her during a phone call, so they saved her up for last. After a nice introductory chat at gunpoint, Vionna and her lesbian lover Erica get a single tail back whipping of, you guessed it, 50 lashes each.

As is the norm with this producer, the CP action is very severe, especially the third caning scene. Dark purple marks, contorted faces and screams of agony from start to finish. Sadists will have a good time.

Best Reactions:
I liked the second segment, set in Santiago Prison, most of all. Pandora the drug trafficker is played by porn star Avril. She is bent over a whipping bench and thrashed by Donna while Evelyn leisurely sits in front of her and watches her suffer. It's a great, intense face to face confrontation - Lady Jessica gives a nicely sadistic peformance, oozing with cruel delight as she makes eye contact with the victim, holds the girl's head up by her hair, pats her cheek and taunts her with lines like: "What's that little teardrop in your eye? How sorry I am!"

What makes the scene quite wonderful to watch is how Avril reacts, and her interaction with Lady Jessica. She takes her cropping and caning, which is hard enough to draw blood in a few places, with remarkable grit (especially for a vanilla porn girl). Half of her resilience comes from natural toughness, I suppose, but the other half is obvious refusal to give in to Jessica's taunting. The really interesting question is how much of her defiance required acting and how much of it is Avril "herself", out of character. In any case, their battle of wills makes for great viewing. The tension is palpable throughout.

In the beginning, during the cropping, Avril glares at Lady Jessica with a cheeky grin while calmly counting the strokes. When Donna starts using the cane, the smile transforms into clenched teeth and the counting becomes strained. Jessica's turn to smile now while she watches the girl's resolve slowly crumbling away. Avril's reactions get louder and more distressed with every lash, every new welt on her bottom, until she is howling and gasping in pain. Jessica eggs her on: "Scream, bitch!" When Avril lets out an agonised wail after the next, especially vicious stroke, the lady replies with a satisfied: "That's it!"

Best Line:
In the fourth segment, the one set in the S&M studio, Evelyn and her mute female assistant Tiana surprise the soon-to-be-thrashed dominatrix while she plays with another girl. The domme is indignant and wonders what happened to her security guy: "How the fuck did you get in here? I told Popey not to let anyone in." Lady Jessica retorts: "Poor Popey is just recovering from the pain Tiana's punches caused him."

Alright, not exactly stellar, but I thought it was a funny line. All the more so because Tiana keeps the same expressionless, thuggish look on her face that she has during the entire film. Gave me a chuckle, that one.

Nice Psychological Touch:
I must confess that I was never a huge Lady Jessica fan. She is beautiful, an enthusiastic (albeit at times inaccurate) caner and a passable actress, qualities that have made her Mood's main domme in recent years. But I always found her somewhat contrived, somewhat artificial, and just not all that interesting as a top. However, her cool detachment and mannerisms work really well in this film, where she plays the slighted wife going on a petty revenge spree. The role seemed to bring something out in her and I quite liked her in it.

What helped, I suppose, is that her character's motivation is pure sadism, which is something I liked as a psychological touch in itself. The aim is not to uphold discipline in a school or to enforce the draconian anti-smuggling laws of some banana republic. No, in this story, the protagonist just wants "cruel, humiliating raw revenge", as she puts it. The suffering of the victims is not a means to an end, it is the end. There is a certain purity in that, which I enjoy as a sadistic viewer, and it suited Lady Jessica well, too.

How Good Is It Really?
This is one of Mood's most interesting efforts in recent memory, probably their best movie of 2008. As usual, the CP action dominates, and it is not for he faint of heart. Two of the scenes stand out in particular, the second caning because of the chemistry between the players, and the third one because of the sheer ferocity and graphic results. But "Sweet Revenge" is also built around an intriguing little idea and executes it well. Like many good ideas, the "globe-trotting angel of vengeance" theme is fairly simple, but I haven't seen it in a spanking film before and Mood's treatment is a lot of fun to watch.

The brief but effective opening scenes, Evelyn's melodramatic tearful discovery, her meeting with the crime boss, her constant voiceover narration that moves the story along, the pair of "female mafia interrogators", the Tarantino-esque use of music - this is delightfully cheesy CP pop art. Entertaining, at times even absorbing. And as I said before, the beatings are good. I really liked the tension in the second scene...

Lest I forget, the DVD also includes a bonus "cheating scene" with Avril giving a blowjob to Evelyn's husband (another "special guest star", German porn stud Steve Holmes), and an 8-minute "behind the scenes" segment with a lot of goofing off from the cast and crew. Silly people, these Hungarians!

What You Learned:
Pedro, the director and producer of Mood Pictures, is a major fan of Kill Bill. Actually, I didn't really learn this from the movie - he told me himself. But it should be obvious to anyone who sees "Sweet Revenge".

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Good Riddance to Bad Pseudo-Feminism

Do you know Bidisha? Just "Bidisha" - like me, she is too pretentious for a surname. It's one of the things we actually agree on. Bidisha is a novelist and a frequent contributor to he Guardian and the Observer. I enjoy her angry, hyperbolic columns a lot. They are a flashback to dogmatic 1970's style feminism, but written with all the vitriol and the fanaticism of youth. I think society needs people like Bidisha. For entertainment value, and to kick dumb, disrespectful, chauvinistic males in the face until they squeal like the craven pigs they are. There are still way too many of those leering neanderthals around, and they annoy me almost as much as they do women.

Unfortunately, Bidisha on her part doesn't think that society needs people like me - kinky people, that is, who are into corporal punishment and BDSM. Never mind that it's between consenting adults, never mind that roles in BDSM aren't really fixed to gender, but to personal preference. I can claim all I want that I respect women. In her eyes, being a CP fetishist makes me a dumb, chauvinistic pig myself, someone who propagates exploitation and abuse. No different from a sexist creep who harasses female colleagues in the workplace, really. And what about the women in our community? Well, they are nutcases who have conveniently internalised male oppression and misogyny. See, I told you, Bidisha is a lot of fun. And the frightening thing is, she's dead serious.

In a recent column titled Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish, she fervently supports the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 that will make the possession of so-called "extreme pornography" a criminal offense. I have read some ill-conceived endorsements of this equally ill-conceived piece of thought police legislation, but this one really takes the cake. Coming from an obviously gifted young writer, it's rather tragic, actually. To see a mind so consumed by ossified ideology that she ends up welcoming the erosion of the very values that make her two chosen professions possible in the first place - the independent artist and the journalist.

Mind you, Bidisha doesn't believe that the law could have any such ramifications. After all, it only affects perverts and pornographers, right? As a self-described feminist, she is all in favour of that:

"Bad artists of Britain, beware... [I]t seems that we will no longer get to see any marvellous hipster pics of objectified female meat in danger. What a loss for the world of culture."

No loss for Bidisha, that's for sure. She doesn't like these pics, anyway. Consequently she doesn't think that putting people in jail for the mere possession of images - material that was produced by consenting adults, staged acts where no one was actually harmed - is problematic in any way. No, banning this crap is just fine with her. Surely, no sane person can claim that such sexist rubbish is art! The world of culture will be better off without it!

I confess that I admire Bidisha's ability to judge, I really do. I've studied the history of art in some detail - mostly film, literature and music, but other forms like theater and painting as well, from the ancient Greeks to the 20th century. I've also done a number of seminars on aesthetics and art theory. And still, I feel less comfortable making definite statements about what constitutes "good art" and "bad art" than she apparently does.

But Bidisha, the internationally celebrated author and astute socio-cultural commentator, has an infallible sense for what is legitimate art and what is no-good filth. Unlike the rest of us, who apparently need the nanny state to tell us what we should and should not see. My suggestion: in light of her massive scholarly qualificiations and her ardent desire to purge our culture of worthless drivel, Bidisha should help the government along. It's a perfect match. Let her chair a newly appointed "art regulatory committee" so she can simply outlaw all the bad art for us - in other words, all the stuff she doesn't like, with the rationale that a) it's bad art precisely because she doesn't like it, and b) bad art shouldn't exist. This pretty much sums up the gist of her article, by the way.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Bidisha's main beef is with "pseudo-artist" Ben Westwood:

"Westwood has said that 'Jack Straw and the home secretary Jacqui Smith need to be bound up together and gagged' – just the kind of act that the act opposes, of course."

Err, not exactly. Perhaps she should inform herself a little bit about the legislation she endorses. It defines "extreme pornography" as the portrayal of (a) an act which threatens a person’s life, (b) an act which results, or is likely to result, in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals, (c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse, (d) a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal (whether dead or alive).

The law certainly wouldn't target bondage pictures of Mr. Straw and Mrs. Smith being tied together and gagged. Assuming, of course, that they consent to such treatment. If they don't consent, it's assault / illegal restraint, and we already have laws against that. But you see, Bidisha doesn't want to make such subtle distinctions, anyway. Whether it's consensual or not, it's all the same garbage to her:

"The fetishisation of female pain is misogynistic regardless of its trappings, regardless of whether it was styled by a couture house, regardless of whether it comes with a poppin' soundtrack and shot by a cool guy director or some coercing creep with a videocam."

In other words, BDSM porn produced by consenting adults is equivalent to an act of sexual assault by a "coercing creep with a videocam". Because after all, as Bidisha asserts, both acts are equally "misogynistic". Simple, isn't it? This claim, that the fetishisation of female pain is inherently "anti-woman", is of course a favourite tenet of orthodox feminism. Note that Bidisha doesn't even bother to supply an argument for it in her article. To her, it is simply self-evident and irrefutable. Why even talk about it?

Because it is a shallow, narrow-minded dogma that ignores decades of sociological and psychological research on the subjects of pornography and BDSM, that's why. There isn't a single, serious study to substantiate the old radical feminist fairy tale that porn ("extreme" or otherwise) leads to violence against women or to a general brutalisation of society. On the contrary: societies where pornography is legal and freely available (such as most of Europe or the US) usually have a more enlightened view towards gender equality and human rights than those where porn is outlawed (China, most of the Arab world etc.). And when you come to think of it, that makes perfect sense: gender equality and the freedom of artistic expression (including porn / erotic art) are both hallmarks of a free society, while the kind of state censorship that Bidisha supports is more characteristic of authoritarian regimes.

What contemporary psychology and cultural studies tell us is that art and the human mind are a lot more complicated than Bidisha believes. Especially when it comes to kinky sexuality. We members of the BDSM community know this from personal experience. To say that the fetishisation of female pain is inherently misogynistic is a grossly simplistic view. Generally speaking, the fetishisation of pain (regardless of gender) isn't inherently degrading to the "victim" at all. Depending on your point of view, fetishisation and objectification can be empowering, cathartic, profound, sexy, fun or all of the above. The kinky people who willingly engage in these acts certainly seem to think so! Otherwise, we wouldn't do it, would we?

Speaking of which, I think Bidisha should visit a kinky video shoot sometime. Where the "bad rubbish" she disapproves of is produced. To see with her own eyes how sick, how horribly misogynistic our subculture is, to enlighten us about the errors of our ways. As for me, I used to be under the impression that we have more mutual respect and understanding between women and men here in the BDSM community than what is the norm among vanillas. Closer and more loving friendships than most of the people I see "out there". But I guess I've been wrong all along.

"In seeing how many projects are theoretically affected by the act, we see just how anti-woman contemporary culture really is, how ubiquitous the images of exposed, objecitified women – and how accepted this is."

It is accepted because the vast majority of people - women and men, BDSM and vanilla - doesn't subscribe to the sophomoric view that "kinky porn = anti-woman". Even within the feminist movement, that dogma has increasingly come under attack ever since the early 1980's. Did Bidisha ever hear about "sex positive feminism"? You know, traitors like Gayle Rubin, Wendy McElroy, Nadine Strossen, Rachel Kramer Bussel... All those chauvinistic female pigs who have internalised the patriarchal oppression. At least according to the orthodox view.

But seriously, most of us grownups do accept that our lifestyle choices and our personal preferences are not the only valid ones - that there are different people in the world with vastly different tastes and interests. In the absence of any evidence that "extreme porn" actually leads to violent behaviour or to the discrimination of women, that is what the whole thing boils down to: a matter of taste, not morals. In other words, if you disapprove of these pictures, you may choose not to look at them. It's easy, they are not nearly as "ubiquitous" as Bidisha claims. But you have no grounds to ban them, much less to put people in jail for looking at them.

"Thus Westwood can angrily bellow that his 'human rights' are being violated, ignoring the endemic exploitation of women in the fashion and beauty industries as a whole."

There is exploitation of women (and men) in the fashion and beauty industries as a whole - much more, actually, than in the BDSM subculture where most of the so-called "extreme porn" originates. However, I don't think Westwood is in any way "ignoring" this by pointing out that his freedom of speech is being curtailed by a censorious piece of legislation. Let's not conflate two very different issues here, okay? By the way, freedom of speech is commonly recognised as part of our human rights - no need for "inverted commas".

Again, Bidisha muddles the waters by equating real violence with staged, artistic depictions of violence. But of course, the "extreme porn" law will do nothing to prevent cases of exploitation in the mainstream fashion industry. Nor will it reduce violent crimes against women in any way. What it will do is criminalise kinky, but perfectly harmless people of both sexes, scare them into self-censorship and into an unhealthy suppression of their sexuality, and contribute to the erosion of individual freedom in our society.

"I feel feminist contempt for those pseudo-artists who think that sexy glossy naughty photos of near death experiences are in any way interesting."

What about liberal contempt for pseudo-intellectuals who pass off their ignorance and their personal prejudices as a contribution to the cause of feminism?

Feminism used to be about the promotion of equal rights, equal opportunity and equal freedom for women. In its very essence, it used to be a liberal and egalitarian philosophy. Before parts of the movement transformed into the anti-liberal dogmatism exemplifed by latecomers like Bidisha today: she arrogantly tells other women how to run their lives, attacks their sexual desires as "anti-feminist" simply because they are different from hers, and pontificates about which forms of sexuality and artistic expression are acceptable and which ones are not. That has nothing to do with real feminism. It's the opposite, actually - to paraphrase Clausewitz, it is the continuation of the patriarchy by other means.

"The legislation seeks to confront the violence of certain types of pornography, but it also shows us how far the pornification of general culture has progressed. Both, of course, are anti-woman."

Of course. And hooray to all those pro-woman cultures that haven't been "pornified" yet (like Iran).

"If sexist male artists and anti-feminist female artists are penalised for brainlessly fetishing female pain, then that's all to the good. Let them squirm."

"Anti-feminist female artists" like Pandora Blake, Niki Flynn or Adele Haze? I must say that I do not find their work or their writing "brainless" at all. On the contrary, I consider it to be infinitely more witty, ingenious and mature than Bidisha's clueless screech. More emancipated, too. Then again, I'm just a dumb sexist creep with a videocam, so what do I know...

Speaking of videos, here is an interesting footnote to conclude my rant: about a year before her condemnation of "bad misogynistic rubbish", Bidisha wrote a glowing review of The Brave One, a vigilante flick starring Jodie Foster. "Violence that transforms - The latest addition to the vengeance movie genre shows us the radiant power of female rage".

In other words, artistic depictions of violence against women are sexist, offensive and disgusting, while artistic depictions of violence against men are cool, empowering and a lot of fun. Bidisha endorses banning the former while raving about the latter ("uplifting", "liberating", "enjoyable", "even addictive"). I'm glad that we got this sorted out, then.

I suppose it's simply because she found herself entertained by "The Brave One" (as I did, by the way, even though I ultimately prefer Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45). Not like the "bad rubbish" of extreme porn, which she doesn't like. Naturally, Bidisha is entitled to her opinions on what she considers artful or interesting. That is not the issue here. But what she fails to understand is that, to be truly free, a society has to grant its citizens the freedom not only to look at great and uplifting art, but also at bad rubbish. And the citizens have to decide for themselves which is which. As soon as you install a "good taste police", you undermine the concept of individual freedom. Because freedom really begins with the freedom of those who have different views than you do.

In a free and fair society, we penalise bad (immoral) behaviour, not "bad taste". That is why so many people - including legal experts, members of parliament and human rights activists - are speaking out against the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008. I believe that their well-documented and well-worded concerns, even if you disagree with them, deserve respect and a reasoned debate among adults. To dismiss the critics of the legislation as a bunch of brainless, sexist "pseudo-artists" who are afraid to lose their porn collection is flippant, lazy and unworthy of a reputable newspaper like The Guardian.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

His Majesty King Football


Unlike most of my German countrymen, I'm not a major football fan. I go along with the mania every two years during the big international tournaments, which is when I tune in once or twice. But I don't usually follow the sport and I've probably seen fewer matches in my lifetime than any of my friends. Except for Niki Flynn, the one person I can think of who is even more clueless about football than I am. The two of us are without a doubt the most unlikely candidates you could think of to make a spanking video about the subject.

But that is exactly what we did when Niki came to Germany to shoot with Loge Cologne. They specialise in interrogation / torture sessions, so if you are into that, check out their movie section (also featuring Amelia-Jane Rutherford aka Ariel Anderssen). In between the electric shocks and candle wax, we also used the opportunity to film a freebie CP clip for our blogs. When the director (and leader of the Loge) Prior Ritze suggested the English-German football rivalry theme, Niki and I were pretty amused - the two of us, of all people, arguing about who has the better team! Between us, we probably know less than five of the current players by name...

But I had never whacked anyone with a flag before, so I was all in favour of the idea. As it turns out, it's a very awkward implement to use because of the air resistance of the cloth. And we didn't have a proper England flag, anyway, only a Union Jack. So I proceeded to a more traditional instrument before long, the cane, which was less cumbersome and elicited a much livelier reaction from Niki, too. I remember the sadistic glee from Amelia-Jane Rutherford and Prior Ritze while they were watching our "match" from the sidelines - their grins got wider with every yelp from Niki. Pity that it's not in the video! But it was an honour to hear Amelia-Jane enthuse about the lovely cane stripes afterwards. I must say, I quite liked them myself.

But don't pity poor little Nikita too much, she wasn't the only one who suffered. Before the scene, I toiled for about 45 minutes, inflating the football beanbag chair with a crappy little bicycle pump that was much too low for my height. I had back pains for the rest of the day. Ah, the sacrifices I make to bring free CP videos to the people... You can watch the result of our team effort in streaming format or you can download it here [Edit: The streaming format is no longer online, but the downloads are]:

MP4 format, 170 MB:
Uploaded.net link

(Click on "'Free Download", wait for the counter to count down, then solve the captcha and download the file.)

Now, if you think that my exploits in Cologne have transformed me into a football fan after all, I have to disappoint you. In light of recent events, I remain ambivalent. See, when I learned that Germany and England would be playing each other on November 19th, I suggsted to Niki that we not only use the occasion to release the clip, but also make a wager on the outcome of the match. To settle the "Who has the best football team?" question once and for all. The loser would be soundly whipped and caned. And moreover, we'd let the blog readers get involved with their own bets, resulting in additional strokes! Great idea, no?

Well, in light of my usual rotten gambling luck, I really should have known better - hey, I'm the guy who lost Amelia-Jane Rutherford in a game of dice, remember? I didn't lose to her, I lost her! How degenerate is that... Not surprisingly, then, the Germans promptly lost Wednesday's match 1:2, and deservedly so (I may not be much of a football expert, but I know weak and uninspired playing when I see it). Which means that Niki will get to exact her revenge for Cologne with a martinet and a cane. Grrr!

I sympathise with the M/F supporters among you who wanted Niki to be thrashed again. If it's any consolation, she is still getting 6 strokes with the martinet for the German goal. Peanuts, I know... Believe me, as a sadist who feels much more at home on the topping side, I would have preferred a different outcome myself! But betting debts are debts of honour, so there is nothing I can do (blame the ruddy German footballers). As well as that, there also seems to be a sizeable F/M fan bloc, and at least they are happy now (bastards).

Here are the lucky winners who bet on England on Niki's blog. The rules were that the loser will get 2 strokes extra with the martinet for each one:

Indy
Keith
Myrr
Niki (yeah, go on and gloat, you snake...)
Pallidbust
RPT
Sandy
The Guv
Tigerbutt

So that is 9 times 2, and together with 6 strokes for each of the 2 goals scored by England, the result is 30 lashes with the martinet. The bet also stipulates that the loser will get 12 proper strokes with the cane, and 2 extra for every reader who successfully predicted the exact final score. Our resident clairvoyants Indy and Sandy both bet on England 2 : Germany 1, which brings the cane strokes to 16. One other comment that somehow got my attention was this one by RPT:

"I so want England to win. Not because I support England or have any interest in football, but I want to see Ludwig caned again. I have no idea why I am so sadistically minded against him, I just am."

That's alright, I always say that sadism needs neither explanation nor justification. It just is. As a fellow unapologetic sadist, I appreciate this kind of twisted affection (which is what cruelty really is, in my view). And so, because I'm jolly well in for it already, I've decided that I'm going to reward this magnificent, honest display of vileness by taking 2 extra strokes with the cane. What the hell. For RPT's personal amusement, and to bring the total to 18, which is a "triple six of the best" and a much more harmonious number, anyway (I really don't like 16 and I obviously can't reduce it, so this is the only option).

Final score: 30 with the martinet, 18 with the cane. More harmony as it all adds up to 48 = four dozen. The bottom line is, I'll never bet on a bloody football match again. Or any other sport, for that matter. But there are some occasions when even the mad ruler of Rohrstock-Palast has to defer to his fellow royal majesty, King Football (and to his gleeful executioner).

You'll have to be patient, though, because Niki and I probably won't get together again until next spring. But obviously, the England vs. Germany match was too good an occasion to pass up, even if it means that the readers have to wait a while to see the aftermath. In the meantime, you can enjoy this clip here of the American brat getting a caning of her own. I certainly had a good time giving it to her. Mm-hmm, gorgeous little stripes (actually, in light of how hard it is to mark that girl, they're really not bad at all). Must be tough for her to have to wait all winter until she finally gets her revenge.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Movie Review: Wild Party 2


Producer:
Rigid East (released in 2002)

Entire Story In Fewer Words Than Are In This Sentence:
Music teacher thrashes five noisy girls

Victim Appeal:
As in the original Wild Party, five different girls are in line to be severely caned. All of them are new faces and quite lovely ones, too. I'll spare you the fake Czech names given for the actresses in the credits. Their characters are called Anna, Dana, Hana, Jana and Tana. That's alright, then! I'm not quite sure who is who, though, so I'll refer to them by physical description if I need to pick out one.

Speaking of which, there is enjoyable variety here: a cute light haired brunette, a tall and lanky dirty blonde, a dark-haired girl with a somewhat detached look, a dyed redhead and a petite wide-eyed blonde. All have a girl-next-door look I find quite enticing. Pretty, attractive girls next door. And in contrast to the first film, where the victims kept some of their clothes on, we get to see them stark naked this time. So in terms of eye candy, I like the sequel better, actually. The girls also put an effort into their acting, especially the small blonde. Numbers, looks, performance - the victim appeal is substantial on all counts.

Gratuitous Sadism:
The film is set in an art school. The girls play theater students practicing with two young male actors and the director. Their rehearsal is a tad too loud for the sensibilities of a music teacher nearby (Jan Zlatousty, the father from the first video). When the man angrily storms into the room, the director calms him down and promises that there will be no more disturbances. Teacher goes away, rehearsal continues. Then the director has to leave, and in his absence the boys and gals turn the practice session into a "wild party". Wine is served, and the party game of choice is a hybrid of "spin the bottle" and "strip poker". Before long, the girls are all tipsy, naked and even noisier than before. Tsk tsk.

When the boys go out to get more booze, the young ladies take it to the next level with some lesbian kissing and caressing. I'm not really into that, but it's a cute little scene. There's also some heavy tickling with accompanying screams and giggles, which alerts the music teacher again. The guy is really pissed off now and hammering on the door (the girls had locked it in an uncharacteristic fit of modesty). Thinking it's their male companions with the wine, they open up. Oops! You can imagine where this is going now (it's a CP video, after all...).

To cut a long story short, the teacher is outraged to find five naked, half-drunken students, he's going to have them thrown out of the school, but one girl who knows him from her music lessons remembers that he has an alternative method to deal with misbehaving pupils. This, of course, turns out to be a nice and proper caning. After some reluctance and a nervous, agitated chat, the ladies all agree that it's better to be chastised than expelled. What follows are five very hard thrashings, werewolf-style, 30 vicious cane strokes for each girl. The teacher lines them up kneeling on the floor and then deals with them one after the other. While one naughty student bends over a table to take her punishment, the others have to count the lashes.

Best Reactions:
The beatings are severe even by RGE / Lupus standards, and just like in the first "Wild Party", the victims show the kind of intense, agonised reactions which the true sadists among the viewers will find highly satisfying. They get lovely, dark welts, too. Four of the girls are quite vocal, with subtle differences. While the tall dirty blonde and the dyed redhead just scream like banshees for the most part, the dark-haired beauty in the middle of the pack lets out tortured moans and goes into hyperventilation. The little blonde, who is the last one to be caned, is already crying before the first stroke (not surprisingly perhaps, given the prolonged buildup she had to sit through, or rather kneel through). She howls and wails loudly during her ordeal and is a tearful heap by the end. Fun stuff.

However, I liked the brunette best of all. She is the first in line and endures her torment in a positively restrained manner compared to the others. Part of the reason is that it isn't quite as hard - the teacher still seems to be warming up a bit in the beginning. But it's still a considerably violent caning and he fires off some impressive strokes later on. Still, the girl never breaks down, and I find her toughness immensely attractive.

She is in visible pain, grimacing, biting her lip, even crying out and squirming strongly after some of the lashes. But she takes it like a trooper and with an air of brave resilience that makes her "loud moments" all the more satisfying. She even breaks into a defiant out-of-character chuckle from time to time, which is saying: "I can't believe what I'm doing here today!" She still has that grin afterwards, prompting the teacher to ask if she wants to go over the table again. By that time, it's a grin of relief, though, so she declines, rubs her well-striped bottom and politely thanks him for the correction she just received. Good girl, that brunette, and very enjoyable to watch. Even though I think that she should have received a dozen extra for cheekiness (and to test the limits of her defiance a bit more...).

Best Line:
The music teacher sarcastically compliments one of the more vocal, screaming girls on her nice singing voice. That was quite funny, albeit not too inventive - I think most tops have used the old "You have a good soprano!" line at some point. I certainly have and got some amusing, angry reactions, which of course merits more and even harder strokes (hence more "music").

So my favourite line of the movie was one spoken in between the canings, when the teacher calls another girl forward and growls: "The next one of you simulants!" I thought that was great, especially as the shrieks of agony from the young ladies weren't simulated at all, obviously. And the teacher knows that, too. Good line! I haven't used it myself yet, but I will someday, in a session with multiple victims.

Nice Psychological Touch:
There are two scenes I liked a lot on a psychological level. The first is when the girls discuss whether they should agree to the caning. The teacher actually leaves the room for this, saying that he will be back shortly and that they have five minutes to make up their minds. That was a nice touch, to grant them privacy - it's both courteous and threatening and it enhances the next scene considerably, the lively (and fearful) debate among the girls.

The other scene that adds an interesting element is at the very end, after the girls have been thrashed and get their clothes back on. They leave the school with hanging heads and find their two male colleagues outside, waiting for them. The boys, of course, had been on their way with the wine when they heard the enraged music teacher approaching, so they ran away and escaped punishment - they just took off to save their own skins, basically, without trying to warn their friends. To see all of the students reunited now adds a stong feeling of injustice to everything that has happened, but also a hint of heroism - we pity the girls because they were the unfortunate ones who got caught, and at the same time we admire the courage they showed by taking the caning. This ending on a sympathetic note is typical of many RGE / Lupus films.

How Good Is It Really?
"Wild Party" was excellent already, and the second film is one of those cases where a sequel is arguably better than the original. It didn't totally blow me away like part one did, but that is simply down to the fact that when I watched part one for the first time, I hadn't really seen anything like it before. By the time "Wild Party 2" came out, I was already a die-hard RGE / Lupus fan and knew pretty much all of their stuff. But in terms of severity, there isn't any difference - the sequel easily equals the first film and even surpasses it a bit.

As well as that, it is more professionally produced, with all the technical craftsmanship the werewolves are now known for. It also has a more interesting story and location (I love music teacher scenarios!), the action scenes are better filmed, and the girls are all naked this time. So while "Wild Party 2" doesn't quite have the legendary status or the impact the original had on me (and undoubtedly on many other viewers), it is objectively an even better film, and a classic in its own right.

What You Learned:
Now I know what the father from "Wild Party" does for a day job - he is a music teacher. Or is he? While the actor is the same, it is never confirmed that this is the same character and the same universe. Somehow, I'd like to think it is, but we can't say for sure. What does it matter, anyway? Well, it matters to me. It's interesting. These are the kinds of questions I ponder when I'm sitting home alone and the power goes out.

Friday, November 14, 2008

More Memetics

"Love Our Lurkers Day" on November 11th (or the "Global Day of Delurk", as I called it here) was a fun success for most of the kinky blogs involved. I received a high number of comments by my standards - thank you to everyone who took the time to write.

Some of them came from other bloggers like Bonnie, who organised LOL day (a special thanks for that as well), or Dr. Ken of Spanking Minnesota, or Todd and Suzy of the American Spanking Society. On an occasion like this, we are a bit like talk show hosts who trade trips to each others' shows. It's always nice to be appreciated by one's fellow writers. But I'm happier still about seeing some thoroughbred (ex-) lurkers come out into the open, like Rachel or K'Ehleyr, who said that this was the first comment they ever left on a spanking blog. That is what Delurk Day is all about.

In any case, it was fun to take part in the event. Hell, I even changed my usual "every four days" posting routine to do so! To repair the ensuing glitches in the matrix, you are getting this post a little early, restoring the original sequence. I'm going to tell you a little bit about myself this time - I figure now that I've heard from so many of you, it's your turn to learn some new tidbits about me.

Spanked Hortic aka Prefectdt has tagged me with a new internet meme. I did one before in Seven Vices and a Survey. This time, the number seven is involved again, even though the task at hand isn't quite so extensive. The rules are:

- link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog
- share seven facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird
- tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog
- let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

That sounds easy enough. Here are seven weird and random clues to the identity of the man known as Ludwig:

1. Even though I grew up in Munich, Germany, I was not born here. I'm also told that my moment of conception happened when my parents were vacationing in South America.

2. I've always had a passion for history. The first real book I ever read in my life (discounting childrens picture books) was the biography of a famous German explorer.

3. I got my first personal computer at the age of 10 and learned English entirely from computer games - mostly text adventures and fantasy RPG's. By the time we got the subject in school, I was already fluent.

4. In Gymnasium (the German equivalent of high school), I had long hair and dressed in lumberjack shirts and other grunge fashion. It was the 1990's, "Generation X" and all that...

5. I have travelled all five continents. Well, except for the sixth one, Antarctica, but I fully intend to do that one day. And I'll travel into space, too.

6. During my final university year, I smoked two packs of cigarettes per day, then quit abruptly - one of the 3-5% of people who manage to do so through willpower alone. The first week was utter hell, though.

7. I always score INFJ on the Jung Typology Test. The type is usually called "The Counselor" (or "The Conspiracy Theorist" in the comedic version).

I'm tagging these seven other bloggers with the meme: Michal "Altair" Valášek of Lupus Pictures, Amelia-Jane Rutherford, Apple of Marks and Stripes, Irelynn and Smudge of Freshly Spanked, Jenni of My Dirty Little Secret, and Tom of Punished Butts.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Global Day of Delurk 2008

Bonnie of My Bottom Smarts has declared November 11th the third annual "Love Our Lurkers Day". It's a tradition she started two years ago, with considerable success. The idea is for all us spanking bloggers to get together and invite our silent readers to leave a comment and introduce themselves. Many lurkers came out of the shadows in 2006 and 2007, some of them have been regular commenters and active members of our virtual community ever since. This year, more bloggers than ever before have been asked to join in the effort. Including me - having started my blog in January, this is my first opportunity to be part of this annual event, and I'm happy to take Bonnie up on her invitation.

I'm calling it the "Global Day of Delurk" here, though, to emphasise the world-spanning range and the historical significance of the occasion. Besides, love really depends on the individual, doesn't it? I mean, I have no doubt that most of my readers are perfectly likeable people. Regardless of strong sadistic tendencies, compulsive despotic behaviour, savage narcissism and other common, harmless kinky quirks (all of which this author shares). But until you poke your head up and give me a chance to get to know you, I can't really say if I love you or not.

The blog usually gets somewhere between 800 and 1100 unique visitors per day, with growing tendencies. Not all of them stay around for long, but a pleasingly large number do and keep coming back. So in theory, there are certainly enough of you around for a lively de-masquerade ball on this beautiful day.

I know that it's enjoyable to be a lurker. There are quite a few places where I'm one myself, actually. My dictionary defines "to lurk" as "to lie or wait in concealment, as a person in ambush" or "to remain in or around a place secretly or furtively". Naturally, twisted people like us love that kind of activity. But when you come to think of it, an ambush or voyeur's concealment is only half the fun until you eventually make your presence known to the unsuspecting victim. That's sort of the point, isn't it?

So if you've been lurking around Rohrstock-Palast, no matter for how long, eight months or eight days, and if you have never left a comment before, let me invite you to introduce yourself. No strings attached, no obligation to ever write anything else, no compromising of your privacy of any kind. I'll just add your profile to my mad scientist's database for... research purposes, that's all.

Off with the masks! Off with the masks!
(Pietro Longhi, "The Ridotto in Venice", ca. 1750)

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Movie Review: Bordello Patrol


Producer:
Pain4Fem (released in 2005)

Entire Story In Fewer Words Than Are In This Sentence:
Prostitutes are blackmailed and caned by the police

Victim Appeal:
This title marks the beginning of Pain4Fem's "police stories", a series of films "that lays bare the darker side of authority". It chronicles the exploits of Austrian policeman Karl Schwenk and his female assistant. Here, on their first mission in the seedy underworld of Vienna, they conduct an ID check in a brothel. Before long, two of the employees there find themselves receiving a dose of extrajudicial punishment.

Appropriately enough, the two young prostitutes are played by vanilla pornstars Paris and Jenifer aka Rachel Evans. Paris has dark brown hair with reddish tips and is pleasant to look at. Jenifer is visually spectacular, with a long mane of light brown / blonde curls, a gorgeous, slender figure and a most spankable little ass. Extremely easy on the eyes, that girl. They don't get a whole lot of acting to do, but when a movie has eye candy of this magnitude to offer, that is a tolerable loss...

Gratuitous Sadism:
The police soon determine that Paris and Jenifer are in the country illegally. But instead of alerting the immigration office and having them deported, Schwenk makes the ladies an offer they can't refuse: if they perform in a couple of quickie sex videos that he will film and sell over the internet, he will let them go. Needless to say, the girls agree. The brothel's madam knows that she is in trouble herself for employing illegal immigrants, so she happily provides a room for the impromptu porn shoot.

The room turns out to be an "S&M suite" with a whipping bench in the middle of it, a big bed and various spanking implements hanging on the wall. The police officers are somewhat surprised, but start using the gear right away. Schwenk ties Jenifer up with some leather restraints and orders her to lie on her back on the bed. While his assistant films the action, he then instructs the other girl to use a vibrator on Jenifer. After two minutes of that, Schwenk has a "sweet idea" (as he calls it) and starts whipping Jenifer's pussy with a strap. That goes on for a while. Satisfied, the policeman removes her fetters and tells the young woman to put her clothes back on. Paris is supposed to be next. But while Schwenk is contemplating his next move (examining a cane with studied curiosity), Jenifer manages to grab his handgun and threatens to shoot him. She forgets to move the safety switch, though, and is quickly subdued.

"That was a big mistake!" growls the policeman and proceeds to turn the video shoot into a full-blown CP session. For starters, he ties Jenifer to a wooden beam and whips her back for a couple of minutes. After that, she is made to strip fully naked and fastened to the bed to get her bottom caned. It's a fairly long scene and most of the strokes are repeated from different camera angles. By my counting, Jenifer takes 33 individual lashes in total. Then it's the other girl's turn to taste the cane. Schwenk orders Paris to bend over the bed, but she keeps flinching and he ties her down on the whipping bench for the rest of the punishment. This time, fewer strokes are repeated from different angles. I believe Paris gets 35 in total. The canings are moderately severe and produce fairly vivid marks because the two vanilla models are obviously not used to this kind of treatment. Both of them have some lovely welts by the end.

Best Reactions:
Both girls are in genuine discomfort and give enjoyable reactions. Paris even cries a bit. However, my inner sadist would have to pick Jenifer's caning as his favourite part of the film. It's a very sexy scene, about 18 minutes long and with a good rhythm, measured and unhurried, but not too slow. She is tied to the four corners of the bed so that her arms and legs form an X, showing off her near-perfect body and her slightly raised, beautiful ass. Moreover, Jenifer's pained reactions are great, just the right mixture of vocal distress and struggle for composure. She moans, yelps, breathes heavily, flinches, wiggles her bottom, bites the pillow... A lot of things to see and hear in this excellent CP scene.

Best Line:
There isn't a lot of memorable dialogue in this movie, but one politically incorrect line towards the beginning had me snorting with suppressed laughter. The policeman determines that the first of the illegal immigrant prostitutes is Czech. He asks the other one for her passport, looks at it and remarks: "Ah, a Slovak... That's the same thing, anyway, isn't it?"

Tsk tsk. I wonder if this is supposed to be a portrayal of the arrogance and ignorance of the Austrian police or a tongue-in-cheek statement by the filmmakers. Maybe a little of both. Obviously, Czechs and Slovaks will disagree strongly to being lumped together like that. But the line shouldn't be taken too seriously, I think. It's rather funny with Schwenk's casual, mumbling delivery, and the joke is really on him. Besides, a bit of gross over-generalisation never hurt anybody. When you come to think of it, aren't Germans and Austrians the same thing, too?

Nice Psychological Touch:
It is implied that Jenifer works at the brothel as a professional domme. Schwenk asks her about it and jokingly addresses the girl as "Miss Dominatrix". She never replies a word to that - I don't think the actress understands much of what he is saying, to be honest. But let's assume that her character is a pro domme. Let us also assume, for the sake of the argument, that she is vanilla and only doing the whips and chains thing for profit. In an establishment like that, it's not a very far-fetched idea. And it's obvious that she didn't like the pussy whipping one bit. Grabbing the police officer's handgun afterwards, she angrily exclaims: "You really hurt me, you pig!"

I think it adds a bit of spice to the story. It's an interesting little twist, a mercenary "I'm only in it for the money!" dominatrix, who has presumably never been whipped or caned, forced to take a taste of her own medicine. Schwenk clearly delights in the task: "Now you can experience what you're always doing to others!" A very strange psychology is at work here. After all, there is nothing wrong with being an honest mercenary - the girl earns some money, her kinky clients are happy, everyone gets something out of it. But still, it is hard not to feel a vague sense of "justice" while you watch her ordeal at the hands of the police. Even though that is non-consensual and therefore an entirely different thing! Maybe it's because I wish that all pro dommes would take a good thrashing at least once, so they know what they are doing.

How Good Is It Really?
"Bordello Patrol" is a pretty inspired effort by Pain4Fem and I enjoyed it a lot. The "police story" plot is silly but fun. There are some neat little touches. During the opening credits, a synthesised version of Mozart's "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" morphs into cheesy spy thriller music. Officer Schwenk provides a deadpan English voiceover with his heavy Austrian accent. As with most P4F movies, the main strengths are technical craftsmanship, good-looking models and solid CP action. There are two extended, hot and well-filmed caning scenes. I liked the girls' positions in particular, one tied to the bed and the other over the bench. Jenifer is stunning to behold, pity that this is her only full-length CP movie to date (she has a couple of scenes on Spanking Server).

What You Learned:
Cops are normal people, too. They like spanking gorgeous girls, shooting porn videos and making a few extra bucks by selling the clips online. Breaking the law enforcement code of professional conduct can be so much fun!

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Spanking for Votes



Alright, another YouTube clip. A lame one, but the idea has kinky potential. Let's take a leap from the 16th century to the 21st century. If you are a cynic (and most of us historians are), you can say that politics haven't changed all that much - it's still all about intrigue, opportunism, manipulation and back-stabbing (back-slapping?).

But we shouldn't complain too much. As my favourite political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli pointed out in his Discourses on Livy: "Let not princes complain of the faults committed by the people subjected to their authority, for they result entirely from their own negligence or bad example." Well, in the age of democracy, the reverse is true as well - that is, we the people get the politicians we deserve. Actually, that was probably true in the old days already, when rulers came into power by inheritance or force instead of elections. As above, so below.

Speaking of elections, I'm glad that November 4th is finally around the corner. The US presidential race has been one of the political hot topics of 2008, of course. The international media are saturated with it, the blogosphere is saturated with it, and I'm saturated with it, too. For months now, there has been so much coverage in the German papers and news channels, you'd think it was the election of our own head of government. Which it almost is, in a way, because of the tremendous political, economic and cultural influence the United States wield around the globe. Anyway, as my good American penpal Indy tells me, she is getting a bit tired of the subject herself: enough buildup, time to vote and get it over with.

But whatever you may think about the glitzy (and fantastically expensive) machinery of US presidential campaigns, they certainly know how to stage politics as grand opera, which can be fairly entertaining and leaves ample room for parody. I sometimes wonder if the real TV pundits lampooned in the attached video clip are more accurately described as political analysts or theater critics. Probably theater critics, and bad ones at that. Most of their oh-so-insightful soundbites aren't any smarter than what is being said here.

I don't think the clip is all that funny or inventive. It's pretty dull, actually, but there is a lot you could do with the basic concept of "spanking for votes". I mean, think about it. The question I ask myself is, why didn't they get Michelle Obama and Sarah Palin in there? With paddles! Now that would have been fun. Michelle could have lectured about the pain of underprivileged minorities and Sarah about the importance of traditional values in school, while they whack the living daylights out of each other. That's what I'd call change in the political culture (can't write a column about the elections without the big C-word somewhere). And as the opening act, they could have staged a "MILF spanking contest" between Hillary Clinton and Cindy McCain. Also with paddles, of course.

Mind you, I would prefer canes myself, but that would be too European. Definitely not patriotic enough for Palin. Maybe Michelle Obama would go for it. Hey, she is a Harvard graduate and we all know how erudite and open-minded she is. Not one of the unenlightened plebeian peons who "cling to guns and religion" (what a success that remark was, for the Republicans). On the other hand, we shouldn't forget that hockey mom Palin is fairly cosmopolitan, too. As she keeps reminding us, Alaska is right next door to Russia, and that ought to count for something. With a bit of luck, we could persuade her to use the birch in addition to the paddle. It's a good weapon of choice for someone who likes hunting and outdoor fun.

What a pity that we will never get to see it. When it comes to porn, all that the American campaign of 2008 leaves us with are fake promises of an Obama sex video (used by cyber-criminals to spread malware) and Larry "The Maverick" Flynt's spoof Who's Nailin' Paylin? (haven't seen it, but I hear it contains a lot of deep drilling). Neither of which is kinky.

In a few days, it will all be over, anyway. To the Americans reading this blog, I hope you are planning to vote on Tuesday. If not, let me add my voice to the ones asking you to do so. I'm not going to make an endorsement. I certainly know who I'd vote for if I was an American citizen, but this is a spanking blog and I don't want to go into US party politics. I'm European and it's not really my job, anyway. What matters is that you vote for one of the candidates, that you exercise your democratic right and make your voice heard.