Headspace movie review

It's been awhile since I wandered over into the "sex" section of my local video store, so I decided to pick something up and decided on Headspace, a documentary about a group of friends both lifestyle and professional in the BDSM scene.

I warn you now, this doc is not for the faint of heart, vanilla or not. It very quickly goes into intense CBT, blade play, needle play and a torture scene on deck with documented war time interrogation techniques. There is a lot of blood letting.

Beyond that, it centered around Los Angeles clubs and playspaces, that to my knowledge no longer exist as this was shot in the early 90s. It interspersed interviews with scenes in private play spaces or clubs. Overall, it was somewhat disappointing.

There was almost no continuity and no cohesiveness to the whole thing. It was just a couple of scenesters and scenes. I think it would have been better if each person had more of an introduction about who they were and what scene they were into--it was a little hard hitting for the first scenes to be almost all about blood letting with religious and vampiric undertones. If the point was about how people get into headspace, get the people watching the film to finish it! I very nearly turned it off and I, hardly a weathered, middle-of-the-road Woman, am still a pro-Domme that has seen or done some pretty intense kinky work.

The actual interviews with people were pretty great, talking about reservations people have about BDSM, and how there is longevity in the scene (although where are they now? I wonder). I loved that someone made the point to say people in this scene are intelligent and educated. I loved that someone said yes, this is extreme, but I'm doing it with someone I trust.

The scene that was absolutely disturbing to me was a public performance between a Dom and sub where he wrapped her head in wire, pulled her fingernails with pliers, used clamps to restrain her hands, violently stuck a pole in her vagina, thrashed in around and hammered it in, cut her head, and all around violently and indiscriminately beat her about. After the scene, their friends tell them outside the club that it was inappropriate for public play. The sub defends herself and says, He didn't cross my limits. Not at all. I asked him to cut me again. Cut to a scene of her bound up wire head maniacally asking for more blade play--duly noted. Someone said that was a dangerous scene and someone could have been seriously hurt and we have a responsibility to people that see it. She said that someone can get hurt with a flogger. I see really fucked up stuff in movies all the time.

Does anyone think she's talking too much for a sub? First of all, regardless if you asked for it or not, you were in subspace, ahem, headspace, and the Dom should be controlling the scene because he should be aware of what you can and can't take. Of course a Dom should be listening to his sub for check-ins, but her asking to be cut more is not an argument for the safety and responsibility of this violent scene. Second, yes, it is true, you can hurt someone with a flogger. But you know what you weren't using? A flogger. You were using the contents of a carpenter's tool box for your scene; your Dom was sticking a pole into your vagina and violently thrashing it around--someone could have lost an ovary! Third, I've seen really fucked up stuff in movies too. Do you know what the difference is between a movie and your scene? The movie is a carefully rehearsed, often digitally aided acted scene, whereas your blades were real because you were really bleeding.

However, I think it did well to illustrate the arguments that arise in the BDSM scene. We are intelligent and educated, we are also overdramatic and (consensually) violent. On a side note, if this is what they did in public, what the hell do they do in private? But I think that they did this scene to override the limits of not just the audience but their kinky peers. They were asking to get spanked for it. And they got it.

A better, intense scene was one unfortunately left out but included on the deleted scenes section. A woman is restrained on a cross, a horse bit in her mouth while her Domme slowly and artfully puts intense clips on her nipples, arms and stomach. When its time to take them off, the sub is laying on the floor. The Domme rips the string of clips off her arm and caressed the red skin, she moves this way until all the clips are gone, the horse bit is taken out and the scene ends in a hug.

Maybe worth a quick view for some good, but intense scenes or if you were involved in the club scene then and would like to reminisce. But I'm not sure who the audience is supposed to be. The interviews seem geared more toward vanilla people to explain the lifestyle; the scenes were of an intensity that made this Domme a little queasy.