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| Paragon Illusions - Acquiescence |
A young man prepares for his first fetish experience. His hands are clasped behind his back, submissively anticipating restraint, but his teacher has decided that first he must learn unquestioning obedience and so, symbolically, he gags him. No questioning now, no answering back.
Great image!
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| Paragon Illusions - Weekend Play Toy |
On a lonely road at night an expensive car draws up. A man gets out and stands, looking around. Then he begins to take off his expensive clothes - his jacket and tie, his trousers and shirt, carefully folding them all and storing them in the boot of the car (the trunk). After a second or two of hesitation, he takes off his underpants too and drops them on top of the pile.
Next he opens the box that was delivered to him that morning. He takes from it a length of chain, winds it tightly round his ankles, as instructed, and secures it with a padlock, making very sure that the chains are tight, because he doesn't have the key to release them for a second attempt. He takes a second length of chain from the box and winds it round his wrists, which is more difficult, he has to use his mouth as well for this, but he practiced it (as instructed) before he left home. This time though he has to finish by closing the padlock, After that there will be no going back.
His decision made, he closes the boot-lid and hobbles round to the front of the car to wait, standing between the headlights. It's a cold, cloudless night and he shivers. He arrived a little early, wanting to be sure he had time to do everything just right. The man who is collecting him is probably watching him right now, but he won't show himself before the pre-arranged time. He may even turn up late, that is his prerogative. They have the whole weekend in front of them.
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| Paragon Illusions - Fantasy Fulfilled |
In the first two fantasies, the subs offered themselves up completely naked. Clubland pick-ups usually come ready-packed in leather gear so it's a rare luxury for the top to be able to clothe a new acolyte to suit himself, in his own taste. For the newcomer, spread naked and waiting in the dungeon chains for the scene to begin, the buckling of someone else's harness tight across his chest, entrusting him to wear it, is an exciting expression of acceptance. The securing of the top's chastity device between nervous legs is an unsubtle assertion of his total control. These introductions complete, he is free to assess the man at his disposal for what is about to unfold.
There's an inter-generational element to this image which changes a conventional 'training' scenario into something more interesting, with genuine mentorship and learning.
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| Paragon Illusions - Board Bound |
The training of mature men is no less exciting than instructing the uninitiated young. In fact, maturity and bulk in a sub add a suggestion of humbled pride to his act of unforced submission. This top seems to be making the most of it, pausing to observe the sub's reactions before securing the fourth and final limb in the fetters. He's clad his student in a bulky steel collar and mounted him on an uncomfortable, crude but strong open frame in symbolic containment of his superior, physical size.
Now he can start to assess his inner strength and devise his training strategy.
Beards on young and older men have become more favoured in recent years and this artists work reflects that with a pleasing spread of ages and nice balance between realism and ideals in body types. His participants all look different and, in their own way, desirable.
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| Paragon Illusions - Dare Taken |
A strikingly attractive man bends his partner over a leather horse to make him pay a hot bottom forfeit. Somehow the artist has managed to capture a good sense of his forcefulness and their struggle.
The playful title here implies an equality of status that isn't evident in the imagery, with the shaving of a man's head being a classic degradation technique. Some subs do it for themselves which seems to miss the point and undermines a top's control. Perhaps that is the 'dare' at the heart of this piece.
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| Paragon Illusions - Disappointment |
This misty image is a beautiful statement of forced submission. It owes a great deal of course to the imagery of captured agents and interrogation chairs in spy thrillers where the audience is split between those who fear their hunky hero is about to experience unpleasantness and those who desperately hope he will. That source does not detract from this artist's interpretation, the muscular captive's bowed head here is particularly expressive. However, it does make the adaptation to a leather/biker scenario a little confusing.
You can interpret this as a biker gang boss rebuking an underling for a mission failure, but a studded paddle would be an unlikely interrogation tool for such a man, particularly when faced with a seated captive. In the fetish world, folding chairs like this are more likely to be found in the wrestling ring than a dungeon.
The artist's title is typical of his work, suggesting a deeply involved, consensual but strictly hierarchical power relationship between these two men. It seems to have gone off-script here with the dominant partner left nursing a bruised lip having been obliged to reassert his control. The remedy seems to be to sit the cowed offender down for a dose of Daddy talk (laced with emotional blackmail) after which he will agree to lower his thick leather pants for a spanking he'll never forget.
Whether you buy that or not, it's still a great picture.
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| Paragon Illusions - Factory Fantasy |
The mysterious imagery of abandoned factories has a special place in the world of fetish where the vast, enclosed but neglected spaces and their trappings of chains, machines, furnaces and mobile cranes provide a wealth of intimidating atmosphere and kit for any would-be dominator. The setting was memorably featured in the Zeus 'Steel Dungeon' videos (1995) while 'Shooting the Past' by Priapus (2017) provides a gentler, more recent example.
Paragon's take on the theme captures the spooky essence of the setting rather well, with the dark, misty lighting and invading undergrowth creating up a great sense of remoteness and isolation, that guarantees privacy for the protagonists or, if you prefer, eliminates any chance of rescue. His title cleverly damps down any suggestion of impropriety in what is about to happen whilst leaving the story of how this man came to be here naked and chained and his relationship (if any) with his 'captor' cloaked in ambiguity.
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| Paragon Illusions - Lesson in the Rain |
The natural world in this piece becomes an even more active participant in the fetish experience, with a sub forced to stand outside, naked in (sleety-looking) rain. His top watches him from the warmth of their sitting room, able to enjoy his discomfort but also the embellishing effect of the gleaming water on his skin tones. It's very reminiscent of the work of Okawa and other Japanese fetish artists who put their subs out in the snow. I'm glad to say Paragon's victim looks a a good deal older and more than able to look after himself. This is one of my favourite images by this artist.
The artist's commentaries visualise a consensual contract that permits this sort of humiliation as a honourable, character-enhancing experience for the sub, much as Military Training does. Amalaric by contrast is rather good at thinking up other, thoroughly disreputable ways to persuade strong men to do want they wouldn't do otherwise.
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More Paragon next time