I have filmed a good handful of blackmail clips, and see many clip creators who have a huge collection of blackmail clips themselves! What is it about blackmail fantasy that makes it so popular? And is it just fantasy, or does it become reality too? Where is the line drawn?
Blackmail Fantasy Is A Popular Fetish, Indeed
“Goddess, I want you to blackmail me. Take everything. Ruin me.”
“My wife would divorce me if she knew about this. I want you to tell her if I don’t pay.”
“Is your blackmail real? Or are you just pretending?”
Blackmail seems to be one of the most popular fetishes among the femdom clip creation scene, with no intentions of slowing down any time soon! And it definitely seems to attract a large audience of blackmail fantasy junkies, in a sense.
What is it that attracts so many people to this fetish?
Some speculate that it’s merely the thrill. A thrill just like many others: skydiving, voyeurism, or even auto erotic asphyxiation. The thrill that if the blackmail really happens, and if you don’t do what you’ve supposed to, your life will more or less be ruined.
Blackmail can provide encouragement for some to push their limits, when maybe they would have chickened out otherwise. I’ve used blackmail with submissives myself to help them suck cock for the first time, send larger tributes, or become a proper anal slut!
Blackmail Fantasy, or Blackmail Reality?
Some clip creators specifically say that it is all fantasy. Others specifically say that it is not just a fantasy, such as in my own clip, “Blackmail is not just a fantasy”.
Miss Faith Rae has a wonderful article about this as well, going a bit more into the ethics and legalities of blackmail. Since she did such a great job of covering those, I won’t attempt to top that!
Instead, I will discuss a little bit more about how I handle blackmail in my own play, and I’ll let you decide if it’s reality, or blackmail fantasy.
Required information from new blackmail slaves
In order to blackmail someone, I need information to blackmail them with. So I initially require all blackmail slaves to send the contact information for a wife, boss, business partner, or similar. Someone who makes this a high stakes game. I also will get their legal name, of course.
Many slaves lie about this information, of course. For them it really is blackmail fantasy only, and they don’t want to give out their legal information. And that is fair. That’s what they were looking for all along, so they’re just playing safely!
However, if someone is being… Problematic, in a sense… I have been known to discreetly verify contact information and demand a copy of ID. Take that as you will.
That being said, I also ask for a safe word.
BDSM play often works with one of two tenets: Safe, Sane, and Consensual (SSC), or Risk Aware Consensual Kink (RACK). Blackmail fantasy usually practices RACK, because giving out real information might not be considered safe and sane! So it’s necessary to be aware of the risks, while still always keeping it consensual. A safe word helps ensure that consent is never violated, even when situations and play becomes very intense.
Very cool blog post. It’s heartening to see reflection on this fetish. Blackmail-fantasy is very much edge-play, and it’s important for participants (Dommes as well as subs) to take a moment to think it through.
There are two points that I would add to this discussion:
The first is that many subs enjoy the interactivity that is often part of clips in this fetish. Blackmail-fantasy clips frequently hold out the promise of interacting directly with a Domme, through email, messages, and call-outs in future videos, which isn’t really the case in other kinds of femdom-themed videos. Furthermore, the process of following along with a set of instructions, or being ‘seduced’ into sending emails, also adds an additional layer of interactivity. The process of simply following along with instructions and tasks, and receiving feedback from the dominant, can be the main attraction for some participants.
The process of sharing information about oneself can also be part of this. Blackmail fantasy play can potentially be about more than someone simply having your wife’s phone number. The idea of sharing details with a Domme – especially personal details that the sub might not have disclosed to anyone else, can also be part of the appeal of this fetish. Some subs draw pleasure from knowing (or imagining) that the Domme knows them personally, and is playing with, manipulating and tormenting them as an individual.
Accordingly, playing with the ‘Blackmail-Fantasy’ fetish should not necessarily be taken as evidence that a sub is interested in ‘ruination’ or exposure. Some players just want to feel like they are in the dominant’s power, without taking real risks. It’s little like with in-person BDSM sessions: a sub might want to be ‘tortured’ – to be spanked, caned or whipped by a pro-domme – without actually wanting real torture or physical injury.
The other point relates to the problem of including third-parties in this kind of play. While a sub might be super turned on by the idea of being ‘exposed’ to someone like his wife or boss, those people did not consent to being involved in the scene. Its important to keep in mind that being suddenly drawn into fetish play like this can be deeply disconcerting, even if its only in a secondary role. A manager might not want to know the details of their employee’s personal sex life, and disclosing it to them, as part of ‘exposing’ a sub, without their permission, is a serious ethical problem.
There are a few potential ways to mitigate this issue. One is to limit ‘exposure’ to passive measures, like featuring a sub on your website, in your twitter feed / social media, or in clips in your store. This at least means that if any third-parties come across the information, they do so because they were actively searching for it, instead of having it show up on in their email / on their doorstep entirely without their consent.
Another way is keep problematic information out of communications. I knew of a Domme from some years back, who would send sissy subs to visit a lingerie shop with a note that she had written, to be given to the salesperson on duty. The note itself was actually quite innocuous, and didn’t make any reference at all to the sub’s fetishes, but the sub didn’t know that; as far as they knew, it could have included all sorts of humiliating details. This allowed the Domme to really mind-fuck the sub, without actually risking the possibility of bringing third-parties into the play without their consent. In a similar vein, you can mess with subs, psychologically, without exchanging any real or sensitive information with third-parties.