One of the things I love about working with Nimue is that she always opens my mind to new kinks. She is, hands down, the most interestingly filthiest person I know, which given the company I keep is quite an accolade. I love her mind, her acceptance of the darkest facets of her kinky psyche, and the way her fetishes and play personas combine strength and vulnerability in such fascinating ways.
On our most recent shoot she wanted to shoot a scene that was new to me - a point of view humiliation scene with me providing instructions and verbal abuse from behind the camera. This wasn't something I would normally consider, but I always feel very open to new ideas when I'm working with Nimue. She showed me the props she'd brought - a cheap blonde wig, make-up, high heels - and we discussed what she wanted, particularly the language.
Nimue is one of the few people I know who fetishises abusive language relating to her size. "Piggy" is her pet name from her top, and she enjoys "fat pig" humiliation play that criticises her body. As a submissive, this is a huge no for me - just as food control and starvation is another hard limit, another thing Nimue enjoys toying with. I admire the strength of character in someone who can choose to reclaim fatphobic slurs as a form of kinky play, thereby stripping them of their real-world power to hurt. Nimue described the mentality to me as follows - "I know I'm fat, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Call me fat, and you aren't insulting me, just stating a fact." She is no more immune to insecurity about her looks than the rest of us, and it takes a real strength of mind to resist and subvert the body-shaming messages we are bombarded with in media and advertising by turning them on their head, and using them as tools for kinky head games of her own devising.
I said I wasn't sure I was comfortable using body-shaming language, but in the end, I did. When I started to insult Nimue, she held her head up and calmly returned my gaze. I verbally abused her, and I could see a smile playing on her lips as she absorbed the insults, claimed them as her own, and responded with nothing but pride. If she had reacted with shame or fear, I would have held back, but her self-acceptance made me feel safe. I ended up being far nastier and more insulting than I had expected to be - and she loved it.
The language we had negotiated I would use - insulting her for being a slut, a whore, telling her she was disgusting to be sexual and to enjoy kinky play - represented the opposite of my own point of view. My role was not to express my own opinions but to hold up a mirror, to play the part of the worst sort of conservative, whorephobic, misogynistic, slut-shaming, body-shaming prude so that Nimue could rise above it. I was fascinated by the power these words held to make me feel so uncomfortable - and even more fascinated to discover how aroused they made her.
Verbal abuse is now illegal to show in porn in the UK, even consensually, which I think is a remarkable example of the ways in which the lawmakers do not understand the sophistication and complexity of kink psychology. Kink is where we explore our shadow. It's when the things that frighten us, or make us uncomfortable, anxious or angry, turn us on. To mindfully explore our kinks is to turn to our shadow and accept it - to understand that being turned on by something is not the same as morally condoning it. Consensually enacting, roleplaying or mimicking abuse with a trusted friend in a safe space is not the same thing as really abusing someone or being abused. But the power of these actions and words comes from their taboo nature - from our fear of them, our anger about them, the negative associations they hold. If you have been called a slut, or a whore, or a freak, in real life - if you have been told you are fat, and fat is bad and ugly and undesirable - then these words have power. It's up to us how we respond to that power. Kinky people respond by subverting it; turning the power to hurt us into the power to please us. Perhaps it's a defence mechanism or a coping strategy. Perhaps it's a way of healing. Perhaps it's just an involuntary physical response to something uncomfortable, like laughing or crying. Whatever it is, it's incredibly powerful.
I got into the scene way more than I expected. The abuse was a role, a performance - I didn't relate to the character I was playing, I just wanted to be a foil for Nimue, to provide the ugliness that would show, by contrast, how beautiful she is. When she looked straight down the lens and repeated the words I told her to, with a demeanour of such gentle pride, such comfortable self-acceptance, I felt ridiculously proud to be her friend.
Once I got into the swing of it, my sadistic impulse kicked in. I found myself wanting to deviate from the script, to surprise her. Her unflappable calm became a challenge. I wanted to push at it, to see what it would take to make her react. "Freak" was the first word we hadn't negotiated, and she took that in her stride. Then I had the idea of making her slap herself in the face, and hold the vibrator in her mouth, and talk with her mouth full. That definitely got a reaction. I've never enjoyed humiliation before as a top - it was a rush.
One new kink I discovered during this scene was how she looked in the cheap wig, the bad, trashy makeup, with cheeks flushed from being freshly slapped, and lipstick smeared across her face. She looked like someone had smacked her mouth and then fucked it, and I was astonished to find myself getting aroused by the image. It's funny how even once we think we know our fetishes inside out, new ones can reveal themselves.
When I'm being fucked and feeling submissive I love to be told I'm a slut. It doesn't make me feel ashamed - it just makes me feel horny. I know there's nothing wrong with being a slut, and having the word thrown at me doesn't make me feel bad. But the word has power, and what might make us feel angry or frustrated in a truly non-consensual situation can just as easily make us feel horny in a consensual one.
We can be advocates for slut pride, for sex worker rights, for body positivity and kink acceptance - and we can play with those taboos in private, in the safe container of a scene space. There's no paradox there. It's our genuine hatred of real-world abuse that gives play abuse its power.
The other favourite moment in this scene was giving Nimue masturbation instructions. I loved zooming close in on her cunt, visibly glistening with wetness, and telling her exactly how to touch herself. It was an intimate, relateable moment - me, a cunt-owner, telling her how to touch her cunt, wanting to build up the anticipation and erotic energy before I let her come, and knowing exactly how to drive her wild with frustration. There wasn't any humiliation in that part of the scene - just cunt love, teasing and desire.
After shooting this scene Nimue was so worked up she had to have a second orgasm after the camera stopped rolling - and when I was masturbating on my own later, I summoned the image of her make-up smeared face, and imagined smearing her lipstick more with my cock while she looked up at me with shining, unashamed eyes. I loved Nimue's strength in this scene, the way the humiliation illuminated the stability of her self-esteem. It was so powerful to witness the way she absorbed each insult as erotic energy, and emerged aroused, empowered and completely unhurt.
You can watch "What are you?" at Nimue's World, under the "body writing" tag. When I saw it just now, it was a two-wank watch. I never expected to enjoy participating in this sort of verbal humiliation scene so much - or for the resulting video to be porn for me. But you learn something new every day - particularly when you're shooting with Nimue.
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