Creeping Bondage Issues

If you have not encountered xkcd.com before, it's a real treat!

It's Idiot Smuggler Girl!

”No, Mr. TSA man, that's not a suitcase, it's my hat! Really! Say, want to do a pat-down?”
From the bizarre and often silly land of Japanese fanservice statuettes, we have the incredible Suitcase Girl. You'd think the suitcase on her head would make getting around difficult, but the statue is probably based on some Japanese anime heroine who's really a robot in the shape of a ludicrously luscious young hottie. She can probably see through her bellybutton and can level whole city blocks with her underboobage. (It's an explanation that probably makes about as much sense as the real explanation does.)

It's Beg Week On National Public Radio

Mara Liasson naked, bound, gagged and in the hands of a slaver. National Public Radio has fallen on hard times, indeed! Those Republicans can be so cruel!
It's beg week on NPR (National Public Radio) and as usual that means that the local NPR affiliate is pretty much useless unless you enjoy being relentlessly guilt-tripped. However I did happen to tune in yesterday and I discovered that Ira Glass, normally one of the most annoying of the guilt-trippers, has actually come up with a pretty good shtick.

Glass calls people who have pledged to NPR in the past and tries to persuade them that they should personally pledge enough money to cover the funds needed to cover the pledge drive's goal.

This is generally a ridiculously high pledge, like $46 million. Then he lets them bargain him down to actual pledge amounts, like 27 cents, a stick of chewing gum and some pocket lint, to show that it's important to pledge so a few people don't have to carry everybody else.

It made me wonder what might happen if Ira Glass were to try that on me. It might go something like this ...

ME: Hello?

IRA: Hello, this is Ira Glass of National Public Radio. Am I speaking to Pat Powers?

ME: Ira Glass? Really? I guess you're ready to do that Firsts in Bondage History thing I proposed for NPR a while back. Huzzah!

IRA: What? Firsts in Bondage History? I'm not ...

ME: Yeah, you know, a special program for NPR on the first appearances of bondage imagery in mainstream movies and TV shows -- ballgags, bitgags, hogties, shibari bondage -- all the things you never see in STANDARD television histories. Of course, there are a few technical issues to deal with, radio being such a relentlessly not visual medium, but I'm sure we can work things out.

IRA: Mr. Powers ...

ME: Of course, it's been quite a while since I sent in that story proposal. I guess it got misfiled, eh?

IRA: Well the truth is, I'm not ... I don't have anything with evaluating new programming for NPR. I'm calling you about an entirely different matter.

ME (disappointed): Oh. I see. Still misfiled, I guess. Well, why are you calling then?

IRA: I'm calling, Mr. Powers to give you a great opportunity. The opportunity to pledge enough money to end our spring fund drive!

ME: I have to tell you, Ira, when people call me on the phone offering great opportunities, my first instinct is to hide my wallet and change the password on my bank account. How much money do you want me to pledge?

IRA: Just 46 million dollars should do it!

ME: 46 million? Damn, that's got to have one HELL of a premium attached to it. I mean, a monogrammed drink cozy just won't cut it for that much.

IRA: It would be a wonderful premium, certainly!

ME: All righty then, how about this: I pledge $46 million, I get Mara Liasson as my personal slave.

IRA: What? I can't, I don't ...

ME: C'mon, Ira, we're talking 46 million big ones here! Doesn't the prospect of getting a $46 million pledge get that can-do spirit going in you?

IRA: (suddenly realizing that auctioning off people as "slaves" is an old fund raising technique in charities and schools and so forth, and thinking this is probably what is being referred to): Well, for how long would you want her? A day? A week?

ME: Ira! I'm not pledging 46 million smackers for a RENTAL! If I make that pledge, Mara Liasson is MINE! I OWN her! Like I own my cell phone, or my computer. And she'll have just about much say as my computer as far as what I plug into which port, if you know what I mean.

IRA: I'm pretty sure I DON'T know what you mean, and that I don't WANT to know what you mean!

ME: Works for me! As long as I get Mara delivered to my place bound and gagged and ready for use, I don't much care if you know what I mean. So we got a deal?

IRA: Mr. Powers, I just don't think we can accept your pledge under those circumstances.

ME: I see. So first you're pimping Mara out big time but if you get a taker, you're not interested! The old bait and switch! What are you actually peddling? Cokie Roberts in a maid's uniform? Don't expect any 46 million dollar pledges with that kind of goods offered as a premium!

Sorry, just not worth 46 million dollars.
IRA: This is not a bait and switch! I did NOT offer Mara Liasson to you to be your ... anything!

ME: Let's not quibble about who offered who to whom! The fact is that SOMEONE pimped Mara Liasson to me in exchange for a 46 million dollar pledge, and I'm pretty sure it was you! And the only HONORABLE thing you can do now is come through on the deal.

IRA: I am NOT a PIMP!!!!!

ME: Well, obviously, not full time -- you've got that American Experience thingie going as your main gig, which is a good thing, because you are a TERRIBLE pimp. We all know you public radio guys have to wear a lot of hats to make ends meet. Now who do I make the check out to, and how long before Mara shows up at my door all bound and gagged? And don't give me any of that "must wait four to six weeks for delivery" crap! If 46 million doesn't include rush shipping, nothing does!

IRA (trying another tack): Mr. Powers, do you even HAVE 46 million dollars to back your pledge?

ME: Of course I do. I'm a big-time bondage porn blogger and website owner. And everybody knows that Internet porn is a multi-billion dollar business. So, by extension, I must be worth millions, right?

IRA: I ... don't know ...

ME: Well, it's kinda like the actual unemployment figures or the relative value of anything in the federal budget, kinda hard to figure.

IRA: Ah. I know about those numbers. You are saying you are dead broke.

ME: Well, let's just say I am as likely to write a non-bouncy check for $46 million as Mara Liasson is to come through if I DID write such a check.

IRA: I see. Good day, Mr. Powers.

ME: Good day to you, Ira. Say, would a $30 donation get me a blow …

click.

Princess of Mars Attempt Fizzles: For Good Reason

"I do not believe we have been formally introduced, Earthman."
Sometimes you just know. This is Traci Lords posing as Deja Thoris for a SyFy Channel cheapie version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "A Princess of Mars." Burroughs' Mars books have been in development hell in Hollywood since the early Cretaceous. (Disney/Pixar has a more, shall we say, funded version in post production and due for a 2012 release.)

Anyway, this ain't that one, this is one that totally fizzled, and the costume alone tells the tale. It's a clumsily done copy of the Star Wars Slave Leia outfit. Just check the original out, taking note of the patterned metal bra, the metal bikini bottom and the purple mud flaps:


The one, the only, the original Slave Leia!

If they couldn't do any better than a clumsy copy of the Slave Leia outfit for the incomparable Dejah Thoris (she ran about virtually naked in the novels, making her a favorite for illustrators (see my article on that topic here) there's NO WAY the rest of the movie could have been worth a flip. And truly, it was not.

Coming Soon: A New Book By Pat Powers

Just the cover art for now.

Great-Great-Great-Grandaddy Hiram Powers

Nice butt on that statue!
I'm not one to brag on my long and proud lineage as a bondage artiste, but there it is: I have one. One of my most famous ancestors that no one has ever heard of is Hiram Powers, a sculptor. And the sculpture that earned him his place in the art world was a little piece called "The Greek Slave," an image of a naked, chained woman looking a uncertain and defensive, being naked and chained and all.

Here's how one of my favorite authors, James Burke (best known for his "Connections" TV series on the history of technology)
describes the work in his book American Connections in the chapter on Declaration of Independence signer John Morton:

Frances Trollope (author Anthony's mother) ... wrote "Domestic Manners of the Americans" (Brits loved it, Americans didn't) and set up a money-making wax-museum project entitled "Infernal Regions" featuring dummies, mechanical figures and electric shocks. Most of the show's figure-modeling work was done by young sculptor Hiram Powers. Who eventually made it to D.C., where he sculpted the president and other luminaries, then headed for Florence, Italy. In 1843 he produced his blockbuster (possibly the most influential American statue ever) Greek Slave. The statue of a nude, shackled slave girl, her pose evoking the thought of terrible Turkish perversions, toured the United States for two years to standing-room-only prurience.

Heady company, you betcha! The most inflential American statue ever! A naked slavegirl in chains! In short, the most influential American statue ever was SEXUAL BONDAGE PORN! The more you learn about history, the weirder it gets! And I'm part of it! You, too ... probably.

A Rare Ring Gag in A Mainstream Film

"Say AAAAAH? How can I NOT say Aaaaaaah?"
Seen here an image from "The Unborn" by all reports a mediocre 1990 horror flick about giving birth to the devil's child, or something like it. Odette Yustman's character voluntarily submits to bondage and gaggage for exorcism-related reasons. Gags like these show up in Japanese bondage imagery a lot, much more than in US bondage imagery. Guess this is an example of cross-cultural influence at work. Huzzah!