The Bonobo Way at DomCon LA 2016. Photo: Unscene Abe. Dr. Suzy’s Dress  Renee Masoomian

WATCH the VIDEO: The BONOBO WAY: A NEW FEMDOM PARADIGM for HUMANITY at DOMCON LA 2016

by Dr. Susan Block

We had such a deliciously good time at last year’s DomCon, we just had to come back for seconds. This year was even yummier and more intense, since I gave a talk on The Bonobo Way, FemDom-Style and oh my Goddess, what a fantastic, enthusiastic audience. It’s always a pleasure when most of my crowd is dressed up sluttier than me, gets my kinky jokes and goes bonobos for bonobos. Plus I was deeply honored to spot several VIPs in my little “class,” including DomCon’s commanding “Headmistress,” whip-cracking pony rider and bonoboësque founder, Mistress Cyan Herself. A glittering class of stellar students seeking knowledge in the FemDom ways of the bonobo.

DomCon Opening at the Hilton

But first, I had to strut the Red Carpet with Capt’n Max and my Bonoboville crew, into the grand opening ceremonies of DomCon LA 2016. Just in case you are 50 shades of out-of-the-loop and don’t know DomCon from a wonton, it’s the world’s largest, most lavish gathering of lifestyle and commercial FemDoms, Men Doms, contract “slaves,” pain sluts, consensual submissives, *transparent* revelers, latex designers, flogger-makers and kinky cosplayers. Founded in 2004 (the year I met Mistress Cyan), well before the best-seller-list-crashing popularity of 50 Shades, this year’s DomCon attendance has skyrocketed exponentially!

What a sight to behold all these glorious, latex-clad Dominas dressed like Wonder Woman and the Queen of Hearts, paddling their groveling slaves as they sashayed and crawled across the crimson rug of kinky celebrity at the Hilton LAX. It was especially impressive for Max and me, having been in and around the BDSM and fetish scene since the 1980s (Max since the 1970s as publisher of Finger and The LA Star), when it was underground, and you couldn’t even do this stuff (legally) in your own home, let alone a Hilton hotel. 

Though I’m pretty sure Conrad Hilton would have, or maybe should have enjoyed DomCon (research his turbulent marriage to Zsa Zsa Gabor to get get a sense of why), and I’m very sure Paris Hilton does. And Amor Hilton is a regular on our show where we’ve been exploring and documenting the amazing BDSM lifestyle—from Bettie Page to Bettie Bondage—for over 25 wild and loving years.

Broadcasting live from Bonoboville every Saturday night keeps us pretty busy on the home front most weekends. But when DomCon asked me to give a talk about the Bonobo Way as a new FemDom Great Ape Paradigm for our evolving FemDom times, well, I just had to say, “Yes, Mistress.”

Latex Generation

So there we were, glamming and hamming it up from the Bonoboville balcony to the red carpet bar. It was like an Emmys party, except instead of tuxedos and sequined evening gowns, we were in platform boots and latex dresses.

Last year, I couldn’t help but notice that latex was the material of choice for most of the top DomConners, whether dominant, submissive, switch or confused, but especially if exhibitionistic. Last year, as a newbie, I got away with black lace and PVC, but this year, I felt the urge to join the Latex Generation. The problem was that the closest thing to latex in my closet was a pair of hospital gloves from Capt’n Max’s Big C Battle and an old bathmat.

Book-Spanking Dayton on the DomCon Red Carpet in my Baby Loves Latex dress. Photo: Unscene Abe

So our PR team put the word out that “Dr. Suzy needs latex for DomCon,” and next thing I knew, I was powdering, peeling and lubing up a small, sticky, skintight storm. I choose a couple of fabulous dresses by two of America’s top latex designers: Abigail Greydanus of LA for The Bonobo Way talk and New Yorker Reneé Masoomian of Baby Loves Latex for the Opening Night red carpet gala. Reneé’s super-slinky leopard and turquoise, halter mini frock certainly released my inner leopard through latex on DomCon Opening Night.

It also helped that my awesome hairdresser Mark Brown decided to go with extra high and low lights that day, giving me a tiger-stripe-ish mane to match Reneé’s second-skin leopard latex.

Kudos also to Dayton Rains—award-winning porn star, DrSuzy.Tv associate producer, Block Institute therapist and limo chauffeur, now a budding milliner—who decorated my leopard-print hat from the Tip Top Store with glittering turquoise flourishes, making it look like a jungle-cat UFO landed (or pounced) on my head.

The DomCon LA 2016 leopard-print flying saucer has landed!

Red Carpet Restrooms

So I purred like a cat, communing with the galaxies of dazzling Dominas, spinning across the strawberry field of carpet past towering feline Amazons, crop-wielding Mistresses and fetish paparazzi (including an all-business Slave Boy Julia as official DomCon photographer), posing, preening, socializing and book-spanking Dayton and fellow Institute therapist Chelsea Demoiselle with The Bonobo Way

And what galaxies of stars there were: DomCon Headmistress Cyan, Goddess Fae Black, Queen Rox and  Lady D Royal of the Femdom 4, Madam RavenRae, Snow Mercy, Mistress Nicolette, Goddess Suzina, Mistress Molly, Mistress Gabrielle, Mistress Sadie Hawkins, Simon Blaise, Ken Marcus, Hudsy Hahn, Orpheus & Indigo Black, Serenity Smith, Selina Minx, Kinky Gaga, Natassia Dreams and U.S. Presidential Candidate Mistress Tara Indiana (appearing this Saturday on DrSuzy.Tv!) to name a few. Our line dance down the crimson carpet climaxed with greeting our Opening Night hostess, the glamorous and gracious Goddess Phoenix.

Interestingly, this Red Carpet didn’t have the typical logo background, just a plain white wall punctuated by the men’s and women’s rooms. Could it be that the Hilton was game to host DomCon, but drew the line at posting branding that involved actual (human flesh) branding, not to mention whips and chains, on its plain white Middle American walls?

Well, at least the Hollywood-style spotlight on the restrooms made it fun for the golden shower fetishists.

FemDom Honors, Italian Tv & Medical Play

We had a great time checking out other people’s latex, drinking dirty martinis, feeding each other fruit kabobs, reconnecting with old friends, meeting a few new ones and watching the FemDoms honor each other like great bonobo females.

During a break, we hooked up with an Italian journalist named Andrea Diprè. I know, that sounds like a French girl, but he’s an Italian guy (I think). A couple martinis into the night, Andrea and *his* cameraman persuaded us to be interviewed in their hotel room for their TV show. Max spoke Italian with him, Dayton flashed her boobs, Chelsea rubbed up against Andrea and I yapped about bonobos and FemDoms. Then we all piled into bed together and took a picture.

On our way back to the party, we did manage to find some logos over a red carpet, but being as they said “Centinela Hospital,” they probably had nothing to do with DomCon, unless real medical centers are now sponsoring “medical play” booths on the vendor floor. Nah… but who knows, maybe next year!

Mistress Cyan Rides in to the Rescue

The morning of my talk found my bleary-eyed Bonoboville team attempting to explain who we were to a very nice, yet harried and understandably confused volunteer DomCon receptionist, as a long and winding line of heavily corseted humans waited somewhat impatiently behind us. At least I felt chic cooling my peep-toe red-bottom heels in my elegant Abigail Greydanus shiny black latex halter dress, topped off by a vintage Dream Dresser black patent jacket with red accents and, of course, a big hat. But what to do? We couldn’t hang around the reception line all day, at least not at the front of it.

Then suddenly, as if out of a FemDom Equine Fantasy, a beatific vision of the Savior Goddess riding in on a White Horse (though in this case, the horse wore black), the Empress of All that is DomCon, Mistress Cyan Herself appeared before us.

With a quick flick of Her snaketail-whip (the silver tongue, not the riding crop), the “Headmistress of All” got us badged up properly and into the marketplace of consensual torture and commercial tease that is the DomCon vendor hall. Then with a friendly nod and a magisterial flourish, She directed Her valiant steed (Lady Remedy Ann) back to the Pony Show.

Release Your Inner Animal

Many submissives release their Inner Equus at Mistress Ellen’s famed DomCon Pony Shows. Others release their Inner Dog, Gerbil, Cat or Canary at the Pet Shows.  It’s great to get in touch with the vibrant, primal parts of ourselves that connect with non-human animals. But what about the non-human animal that is closest to human, in terms of DNA and everything else, including that ineffable “missing link” feeling? I am speaking, of course, of our kissing cousins, the bonobos, which is what I was there to speak about at DomCon.

What do bonobos know that we don’t know?

Not only are bonobos 1) very close to us, 2) very sexually active and 3) very peaceful (though sometime violent, bonobos have never been seen killing each other in the wild or captivity); they are also what I call 4) “the Most FemDom Apes on Earth.” 

It’s amazing! Here we have a remarkably effective, matriarchal great ape culture in which the females gently but firmly rule the roost… keeping the males gentle and firm

PHOTOS: JUX LII

In many ways, the female supremacist’s dream society is alive and well in what I call “Bonoboville.” What is Bonoboville? Where is Bonoboville? That depends. There’s the wild Bonoboville in the African rainforest, native habitat of the highly endangered real bonobos. I also call the primate centers and zoos that contain captive bonobos “Bonobovilles,” such as the San Diego Zoo. Yes, San Diego is the proud home of one of the world’s best bonobo exhibits, as well as Goddess Fae & the FemDom 4, recently featured on DrSuzy.Tv, and all in glittering attendance at DomCon 2016.

Which brings me to human Bonobovilles, where bonoboësque folks, aka bonobo sapiens, do their thing. For instance, we call our community Bonoboville, online and off. And DomCon is also a human Bonoboville, a community where we are free to explore our sexual identities in a relatively free, as in “not oppressed” manner, although very often with shackles are involved– after all, freedom is the greatest aphrodisiac, but restraint is a close second… if it’s done right.

Ready to deliver the Bonobo Way to DomCon LA in my Abigail Greydanus latex dress. Photo: Dayton Rains

I must say I felt erotically restrained by my skintight Abigail Greydanus latex dress and shiny corset-laced PVC gauntlets, the latter given to me by the fabulous Goddess Soma Snakeoil and her sweet genius hubby, Fat Mike of NOFX, who hosted me, Max and the Bonobo Way so generously at DomCon 2015, inspiring me to pick up a teaching cane and present the FemDom aspects of the Bonobo Way to the Dom/mes of DomCon. Unfortunately for me (and many more), Soma and Mike sat this DomCon out, but I kept them close to my heart (well, elbows) by wearing their gauntlets.

Talking the Walk at DomCon!

We didn’t have much time before the talk to set up our film projector, video, PA and recording systems. One recorder went into the back of my dress, sticking to my spine thanks to the latex, making me part robot, in addition to part bonobo.

Dayton and Chelsea lubed up my latex with Astroglide until it was shiny as the Bonoboville limo in the rain. Then for some fetish-fashionista reason, they suddenly pulled up my skirt—clear above my stocking tops and Yale thong panties—much to my surprise. Later, we discovered another mishap that might have been due to this sudden, somewhat sexy, but tech-hazardous move, though at the moment, I was only aware of a breeze caressing my latex-fresh butt cheeks as the ladies attended to my frock. Ah, latex problems!

The talk went great. Well, it was good for me! The audience was sensational, and not just because it was liberally seeded with beautiful cheering bonobo sapiens, and the radiant healing presence of Headmistress Cyan, who not only whips the behinds of Her grateful submissives, but just whipped cancer from Her body, at least for now, which is all any human can do when it comes to bargaining with the great Dom/me of Life: Death. But in this special moment, my whole class rejoiced at being able to share more precious time with our beloved Mistress Cyan, and for that, we sing hallelujah, praise the Goddesses. Amen and Awomen.

What an auspicious and delicious moment to introduce the most FemDom Apes to DomCon.

From Puerto Rico to UC Berkeley to the Dungeons of LAX:

In January, we took the Bonobo Way to the Island of Enchantment for the first Ecosexuality Symposium at an academic institution, convened by University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez Humanities Professor SerenaGaia Anderlini D’Onofrio, on the UPRM campus, where I gave the keynote address to an amazing packed auditorium of undergrads. On Valentine’s Day, we brought it to UC Berkeley for the 5^th International Conference on the Future of Monogamy and Nonmonogamy. Bonobos have an extremely high “ESQ” (Ecosexual Intelligence), and they are certainly nonmonogamous, so both crowds resonated to the message of bonobo peace through pleasure, shaped somewhat to suit their personal interests.

But there was something about my own personal connection with FemDoms and the DomCon crowd that lept up above the two before. Maybe this was due to it being my third bonobo talk this year, or just the *home team* effect, what with my Bonoboville peeps bursting with bonobo pride. Even DomConners who only took a seat at the talk because latex shopping therapy was pinching their high-heeled toes, seemed to catch our #GoBonobos Spring Fever.

And then again, maybe the FemDom-supportive message really struck home with these DomConners, like a good book hitting the sweet spot of a spankable butt.

Book-Spanking Mistresses of the Bonobo Way at DomCon LA. Photo: Unscene Abe

The Most FemDom Apes on Earth

Bonobo FemDom Empowerment is a cornerstone of the Bonobo Way, and not just for the young and fertile. MILFs rule Bonoboville, often practicing a kind of BDSM, bonobo-style, to keep things sexy, yet disciplined and relatively balanced.

This fairly equitable balance of power stands in stark contrast to the winner-trumps-all culture of common chimps where the bigger, stronger alpha males and their buddies get the best food and have the most sex, often by force, as they routinely batter, rape and harass the females. Sound familiar? As in the history of human civilization?  That’s also Common Chimpville.

But on the other side of the simian tracks (actually, the Congolese River), in Bonoboville, the guys are sweet as cherries and very well-behaved, even though they are bigger and stronger than the females, and they have fangs which the females lack. So what happened to the so-called law of the jungle in Bonoboville? Why do these big boys submit when, physically speaking, they have the upper hand?

For starters, see #2: They have a lot of sex. Bonobo males get laid—a lot—by confident females as well as by each other. We humans have all sorts of issues with confidence and low self-esteem. Doms or subs, vanilla or kinky, confidence is often elusive. It’s also an aphrodisiac.

What’s the secret to bonobo girl confidence? In a word: Solidarity. Female bonobos cultivate strong gal pal relationships. From there, it’s a numbers game: a single female bonobo might be overpowered by one male, but two gals usually prevail over one guy, and with three, it’s Ladies’ Night (!), and the females win, which ultimately means that everybody wins.

Thanks to their food-rich rainforest habitat, bonobo females hang out together, foraging, eating, raising their kids and having sex (hoka-hoka). And the guys like to hang around the girls.  After all, the girls know how to have fun, and there’s a lot of sex going on, and if they’re good boys, maybe they’ll get rewarded. So in many key ways, life in Bonoboville resembles life in Sanctuary and countless other FemDom dungeons, gatherings, playgroups and communities sprouting up all over the world. In every human society, even the most outwardly female-repressive, from Southern California to Saudi Arabia, FemDoms and their fans are getting together, whether they meet “underground” and out of sight of the “morality police” or right out in the open at the Hilton ballroom.

With the colorful DomCon marketplace of vendors and BDSM entrepreneurs just outside our classroom door, I described how powerful bonobo females often “pay” for the kind of sex they desire with the partners of their choice, bartering extra edibles for erotic favors, like: “How about a mango for a muff-dive, you big ape?” or “I’ll trade you my coconuts for your kola nuts.” So if you think no self-respecting female would ever pay for sex, take a look at bonobos. Bonobo gals pick up the check, and it’s mainly because they’ve got the cash—or coconuts—enhancing their FemDom status and power.

BDSM, Bonobo-Style

Does it seem odd to connect cane-cracking FemDoms with peace-loving apes? On the surface, they seem to go together like a butt-plug in a ball-gag drawer (with a hat tip to Del Rey). However, both BDSM and the Bonobo Way transform violent, potentially destructive urges into consensual, non-lethal erotic play and a kind of “discipline.” After all, bonobos don’t kill each other. Now that’s discipline.

For more about how they do that, and how you might be able to do it too, read the book or see the talk (coming soon to my Youtube channel). Our recent discovery of bonobos and current research into bonobo culture is leading to the *gentle but firm* overthrow of our “Killer Ape” mentality with an exciting new FemDom Great Ape paradigm for humanity. This is extremely good news for FemDoms and all who love them, and it’s a sign of hope for the peace-through-pleasure future of our world. And the congregation sang Amen, Awomen and Abonobos. Well, they didn’t literally sing, but they responded with bonoboësque passion that embraced me with love, along with the latex.

Book-Spankings!

At universities, I do book-signings. But this was DomCon, baby, so I also did a few book-spankings.

As we often demonstrate on the show on the many lush and perky behinds of our beloved guests, books make great spanking paddles. And they have such a nice, nerdy, schoolyard flair. Be well-read or get, well… red!

Real bonobos spank each other too, though not over the knee (OTK). Purists might call it more of a swat or a smack than a spank, but it’s definitely part of their repertoire of erotic play, mixing pleasure with pain, as BDSM players so often do.  

Technical Difficulties!

Life can be beyond wonderful, especially surrounded by such an amazing group of kinky, loving bonobo sapiens. But there is no such thing as perfection, not even the much ballyhooed “perfect moment.” I knew this in my latex-coated bones, and yet, when the applause died down, and I heard my tech team muttering, “Looks like the tape stopped recording two minutes into the talk” as they were unsticking the damn recorder from between my back and latex dress, I felt the steam rising up in my throat and coming out of my ears, nose and possibly my eyeballs.

I know, I should have known: That’s what happens when you don’t hit the “hold” button and two strong bonobo gals pull your dress up and down, disturbing the recorder-in-your-dress’ delicate workings along the way. Or whatever it was that mis-happened.

Fortunately, we were smart enough to know how dumb we can be. So we had a back-up recorder in front of the PA, and though the quality is not as pristine as my body mic, the magical moment of giving The Bonobo Way at DomCon, and the message of the new FemDom paradigm can be heard through the static.

Unfortunately, checking the tapes and several self-indulgent minutes of useless moping conspired to make us miss the big DomCon “Mistress Photo,” which was such fun last year. However, the main photographers, DomCon’s official shutterbug Slave Boy Julia and AVN’s Chris King, were gracious enough to shoot some Bonoboville “family” photos that make us look like a Cosa Nostra without the guns.

PHOTOS by & of CHRIS KING, REEL SEDUCTION

Book-spankings galore and more (including a whiff of discreet herb for medicinal purposes) made it an awesome after-party for the Bonobo Way at DomCon LA. Many thanks to everyone on the Bonoboville crew: Abe, Miss Ono Bo, Dayton, Del Rey, Roberto aka Me$$ed Up, Chelsea, Bambi, Gonzo, Jux Li, Hollywood Jake, Mar, Jack Nice, L’Erotique, Sky, Ikkor. I couldn’t do it without you!

Goddess Fae & the Bonoboville 5, Photo: Unscene Abe

Blue Moon Over DomCon

As the grey dusk turned black, the “Blue Moon” rose, bright and full as a coconut, pregnant with hope for a peace-through-pleasure FemDom future, over the denizens of DomCon. Of course, that same lusty coconut blue moon also rose over everyone else in the Pacific Time Zone, including Star Trek conventioneers and the other poor perplexed hotel guests trying to figure out how to react to this race of rubber aliens seemingly spawned by Trekkies mixing with DomConners.

Funny how both the wild FemDoms and the conservative Christians at the Hilton wore crucifixes around their necks. Though FemDom-favored crosses tend to be bigger and more gothic, they’re still the same phallic symbol of male suffering and divine redempton. Maybe our seemingly divided society has more in common than we realize, and with a little bonoboësque tolerance and understanding, we can all get along… or at least, improve our sex lives.

We ate a little dinner in the executive suite, since we are now “honored” members of the Hilton hotel. Then some of the team went to the Sanctuary after-party for late-night debauchery, while others went back to Bonoboville to crash and/or hold down the fort. Yes indeed, rain or shine, sun or moon, DomCon or wanton Wonton soup, the “Therapists Without Borders” of the Dr. Susan Block Institute are here for you, 24/7, to (privately) help you with your questions, kinks, fetishes and fantasies. Not everyone can go to DomCon, but most of us have kinky feelings we need to talk about. So give us a call anytime. If you’re in LA and looking for a good in-person spanking or other FemDom disciplinary treat, go to Sanctuary LAX.

The Capt’n and I elected to stay in the Hilton in our “honored” guestroom where we peeled off my second skin and oh, how good it felt to just be in my first skin, naked next to my beloved Captain—and “butler”—of more than 24 years. That’s another great thing about latex (or almost any kind of bondage); it feels so good to be freed from it. After a couple of awesome orgasms and artichokes (not in that order), reveling in the sensation of cloud-soft 600 thread-count Egyptian cotton and each other, we fell asleep in the blue moonlight.

Sunday Funday

I couldn’t bear to bare my skin to latex again. Actually, I wanted to, but my inexperienced epidermis was so irritated from wearing two different (awesome) skintight latex outfits for dozens of hours that Max said “no,” so I didn’t. After all, my skin is his skin, and vice versa. I think it’s in our our marriage contract.

So I put on a cotton Bonobo Way T-shirt—printed, cut up and tied in the back by Gonzo Bonobo (who also did the Bonoboville crew’s shirts)—along with fishnets, a fresh pair of Yale thong panties, big black hat and platform stiletto boots, and went down to check out the wonderful, whack-filled world of DomCon in a leisurely fashion, now that I didn’t have to worry about giving a talk or recording it.

With Reneé Massoumian & my DomCon leopard latex Opening Night dress hanging behind us.

Max and Chelsea grabbed breakfast mimosas while I gave myself a dose of shopping therapy. I was most impressed with the Baby Loves Latex booth featuring the eye-catching original designs of Reneé Massoumian, creator of my fabulous leopard latex Opening Night dress.

Then Max, Chelsea and I elevatored over to the much-tweeted-about Whiplr Lounge. Having just downloaded the app but not yet explored it, I had no idea what we were in for. But thanks to the elegant and bonoboësque Mistress Simone Justice, the delightful Goddess Carole, the congenial Max Candy, cute little Brooke, the congenial butler who dropped to his knees when he presented our drinks, and the rest of the Whiplr Team, it was one of the nicest, warmest places to chill at DomCon.

Plus they had cookies, champagne, shrimp cocktail, gift bags and a logo wall!

Just before departing the hospitable Hilton, we stopped for a quick kissie-kissie/hoka-hoka/selfie-selfie at the Mistress Tea. As soon as I saw the Earl Grey and krumpets, I wished I had worn a white hat, pearls and chantilly lace, like DomCon Pony and Pet Show Mistress Ellen.

Nevertheless, Chelsea and I enjoyed a small Duchess-of-Bedford-style whirlwind of fun greeting and snapping selfies with various Mistresses, Dominas and Goddesses, including the radiant and resilient Headmistress of All, Mistress Cyan, who graciously invited me to give a FemDom Bonobo Way talk at Sanctuary, as well as to return to next year’s DomCon as a “Guest of Honor.”

With DomCon Headmistress Cyan at the Mistress Tea

Thank You, Mistress. Looking forward to DomCon LA 2017!

Bonoboville Sweet Home

Upon our return to Bonoboville, I found an unfamiliar oblong object wrapped in tissue paper stuck into the top part of our suitcase. At first, I thought I had accidentally packed some kinkster’s heavy metal dildo. Then I opened it up to find an Oscar-like statuette emblazoned with the title “World’s Greatest Person,” purchased by Max at the Hilton souvenir shop while I was Tea-ing off with the Mistresses, proving once again that he is, without a doubt, the “World’s Greatest Husband,” the consummate bonobo sapien, Arlecchino trickster, shrewd captain, wonderful butler and so much more.

And so we recover from the World’s Greatest Gathering of FemDoms and fans. Thank you DomCon for one of the World’s Greatest Weekends and a fabulous day for the Bonobo Way!

Coming up this Saturday: DomCon AfterParty with Mistress Tara Indiana (running for President 2016!), Goddess LeeAnn and Jacquie Blu.

Coming up in June: Back to the Island of Enchantment for The Bonobo Way of Erotic Inclusivity at AASECT 2016  in San Juan!

© May 25, 2016. Susan Block, Ph.D., a.k.a. “Dr. Suzy,” is a world renowned LA sex therapist, author of The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace through Pleasure and horny housewife, occasionally seen on HBO and other channels. For speaking engagements, call 310-568-0066.