Domination Art by Russ 3 Cops and Leathermen

Read this series from Part 1

Russ - Cop Search

This scene is a perennial, favourite opening for a porn story, a cop searching a motorist whom he has just pulled over for some violation or another. His fingers go looking for incriminating evidence (or something) up between the suspect's legs. Cops in this era are Tom in Finland country, but for me this image has a sniff of Etienne about it, blended into Russ's eclectic but unique style. 

There's a classic video that opens like this with the subject dressed in sexy, khaki shorts which somehow make his search all the more invasive. Having established the suspect's suitability, the two men adjourn to a barn where the cop administers a fierce belting before... well, you know! I know it as The Barn but I don't know what the correct title is or who made it. Anyone know?

Russ - Cop Probe

When a cop's got you on the rack in a remote lay-by, things can happen that aren't supposed to happen - whether you like it or not. There's a trade-off in this story, just as there is in  Night Patrol by Etienne - sex in exchange for tearing up a ticket. In Night Patrol it's an act of appreciation (or a cruel joke) after the cops have had what they wanted, here it's an up-front deal, but the cop's clenched fist is a tell-tale sign that the suspect doesn't really have much choice. 

It's tempting to see the influence of Tom of Finland here, in the content and composition if not the style. His 'Highway Patrol' (Kake 22) was also published in 1980, and has a similar scene to this in it, except that it's the cop that gets some cum-uppance in Tom's story. 

It's also interesting to compare this scene with the climax of Night Patrol by Etienne. In that story the shafting of the suspect over the bonnet (hood) of the Police Car is spectacular but doesn't look quite 'right'. Russ adopts a less ambitious approach to depicting what is essentially the same scenario and while it doesn't capture the same sense of excitement, it's more convincing anatomically and sexually it's more intense. Penetration imagery in this era didn't usually show significant shaft length between the two men like this picture does. 

Russ - Cop Probe

After reneging on the ticket deal, the cop discovers his two victims are leather guys and have got teeth. Here he suffers the humiliation of being taken captive himself and having his uniform ripped open. More painful retribution will follow, but that's not all. It seems he has a evil, murderous reputation and the leather community decide to exact their own justice by taking him out of circulation. The eagle badge in this image represents their adoption of him and is a prelude to his new life of indefinite captivity and painful servitude.

Cops differ from other gay sex-icons like the Sailor, the Cowboy and the Superhero, in that they are not just figures of lust in their uniforms but threatening, all-powerful and unpredictable men to be feared. Gay porn usually provides a psychological palliative to that fear with the fantasy that they are (only) out for sex, but there's a greater satisfaction to be had in turning the tables on the truly nasty ones.

There's another of Russ's mouth-stuffing gags in this image. The moments he has chosen to illustrate for this story do not have the same energy as the earlier images in this series of mitchmen posts, but there is greater erotic intensity. He understandably uses solid black shading for the cop's uniform in these pictures and it produces marvellous effects in the cop's leather pants and boots, but is less successful elsewhere where it replaces subtle line shading and disturbs the visual balance.

Russ - Jones Beach 1

In 'Jones Beach' a young surfer becomes besotted by a vision in cut-offs and shades. This very 80's object of desire reacts aggressively to his attention, pouring homophobic abuse on the young man. However, that doesn't stop him from lingering with his admirer and coercing him into a sequence of humiliating and subservient acts that suggest a very different agenda.

Russ uses his softer, more realistic style here, capturing the open space of the beach with it's constant, lurking danger of discovery, not least by Police patrols. That threat makes the victim's predicament seem both frightening and exciting at the same time.

Russ - Jones Beach 2

Eventually, the surfer/swimmer is taken into the trees for an even more painful test of his admiration, out of sight of passers-by. It's already clear that his hero's homophobia is a front and having punished the hapless beach boy, he demonstrates that the gay ways he professes to despise are not entirely alien territory to him.

After he's taken his pleasure he leaves the surfer in the bushes, still tied up and bent over a bough. There he's visited and taken advantage of by those who haunt such places, including a cop. Eventually though, his new-found master does return to claim him in a happy ending with a twist.

Some of the detailing in this picture is quite remarkable - for example the bully's boots and the bough over which the victim is bent are graphic art of the highest quality. Notice the return also of the dangling gag.

Russ - White Water Run 1

These illustrations were provided for a story about a leather clubs motorcycle 'run' and they are focussed on the induction processes of that world. In this image a young, blonde acolyte is being trained in submission with some boot-licking practice. This is a similar scenario to the surfer training in Etienne's Road Kings. This trainee's "Gates of Hell" cock strap was a much advertised accessory in the 80's but they don't turn up in art very often, probably because they require a raging erection, but at least this cock is pointing downwards! 

The artist's depiction of the muscular, leather man here is a striking success, creating the impression of a firm, but benevolent master. There's some similarity to Tom of Finland's creations but this is a totally original and very perceptive image. The on-looker in the doorway is an existing slave in the story but you can imagine other scenarios, e.g. a buddy awaiting his turn to be trained (willingly or otherwise).

Russ - White Water Run 2

This domination image owes a lot to Macbeth with a more forceful boot worshiping scenario being enhanced by a variety of exaggerations of scale and drama. The big boots that typified Macbeth's work are given an extra cruel twist by Russ who adds pointed studs to the soles but he doesn't use the same crazy perspectives. His more conventional viewpoint produces a result that is less wild, less energetically aggressive but more intense. The heightened sexual flavouring (including the giant cock) is all his own work.

Russ - White Water Run 3

In this spit-roasting image Russ pays homage to another great artist of the 80's, the Hun. He's extracted one of that artist's typical scenarios and replicated the facial expression of the victim too, but the resemblance ends there. Russ has translated the scenario to the world of leather clubs rather than the Hun's preferred hunting ground of prisons and sleazy truckstops. Russ makes the man in the middle here more mature than the Hun's innocents too. He has used his own, more realistic figures and drawing style to recreate the erotic essence of The Hun's imagination.

Russ - Leather Man (cover for 'The Leather Journal')

This striking cover illustration is a decade on from the imagery Russ did for Larry Townsend and it's a more mature, accomplished style. I'm not 100% sure it's the same man but if it is, it shows considerable artistic growth. 

The spiky cartouche framing the subject is a modernistic, vaguely satanic expression of the fiery, hard passion (bordering on anger) that lurks within the Leather Man's soul. It's scarcely subtle but expressed  much less directly than the flailing belts and harsh domination that mark out the action pictures in this collection. There's an interesting construct where you might expect a motto to be that brackets, almost nudges, the sexual centre of gravity, depicted as a latent source of great erotic power, but temporarily restrained. This slightly mystical interpretation of the leather religion is contrasted with a meticulous depiction of his elaborate leather outfit and carefully trimmed hair, showing the more worldly, conforming, sometimes vulnerable dandy that is also part of this tribe's character. 

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Russ has a unique style that draws heavily on the inspiration of the artists of his day, but the drama and passion that infuses his best images is probably better executed than any of them. There are glimpses of extremely accomplished draughtsmanship alongside more mundane imagery, but it's not easy to identify a recognisable, unifying style in an era which was rich in artists with unique signatures - The Hun, Macbeth, Sean, Cavelo, Etienne and Tom of Finland. This is perhaps why Russ has received less recognition than he deserves over the years since then.

There's no site for him as far as I know.

Read this series from Part 1

Milking Factories 15

Sarander - Milk Farm 2

Sarander actually calls this a Milk Farm but it meets all the requirements for inclusion in the mitchmen Milking Factory series. There are multiple milk producers being extracted by machines in a uniform manner. If you look closely, it even has orderly production lines, which isn't  always the case. Some of the men have their heads encased in helmets which may be punishment devices, but if this is a more enlightened employer*, they could be providing sensory experiences for males who don't get excited by watching other men being pumped out. (*I use the word employer in the sense of using, as in 'employing a tool', I don't suppose for a minute that these men are being paid!)

At the back a couple of new arrivals are being manoeuvred into their places on the line by robots, an admirable investment in keeping the line clinically free from contamination. It also avoids unseemly struggles with operatives within sight of the other beasts while connecting them up. Judging by the look on the face of the nearest one it's a sensible precaution. Another robot (right foreground) seems to be carrying out a quality control check, or it could be an on-the-spot pasteurisation using heat treatment.

These owners have obviously chosen to extract from both mature and younger plums. If they have perfected the ancient art of blending juices then a refined and complex palate pleaser may await us in the tasting room after our tour of the shop floor. Of course you may prefer to avoid sampling their produce on the premises, there's a rumour going round that likely lads are sometimes 'recruited' that way by adding a little extra to their glasses - and it looks like age is not a bar to serving either.

Sarander often shows aliens in images like this, beam me up, Scotty! None are visible here but it's certainly an unconventional, psychedelic sort of environment. Of course that may just be highly sophisticated form of conditioning, perhaps to convince the subjects that they are in a nightclub with the man of their dreams lurking somewhere in the crowd.

Sarander - Milk Farm 1

This earlier variant of the image seems only to differ in the lack of an extraction device for the young man at the front and also in the overall colour treatment.

 I have featured a Sarander milking picture here briefly before in an end of year Hit Survey. He 's done a lot of images in this vein and this is one of the best I have seen. 

I can't locate a site for him, info from you via comments is welcome

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Read The Milking Factory series from the start

Go to Milking Factory 16

click on the 'milking' label below for more milking situations

Domination Art by Russ 2 - Rustlers & Hustlers

 Read Part 1 of this article

Russ - Round Up 1, Over the Horse

This marvellous domination and bondage image was used as an illustration for a story about a novice cop who is abducted by the local leather group. It's his bewildered, outraged and attractive face that makes this image so striking and draws us in. Surrounded by leather boots and giant cocks the enormity of his predicament is more apparent to us than it is to him. Russ contrasts the muscularity of the leather men with the captive's leaner physique, showing he's out of his depth, but he also gives him generous stubble to show he doesn't lack masculinity - even in this fix. Like the jogger in Part 1, we can't see the faces of the men who are dominating him but you can almost smell their leather. 

Russ - Round Up 2, Cowboy Captured

The prelude to the cop's abduction involves the annual pageant of a small town, the highlight of which recreates the hanging of a celebrated rustler, who miraculously survived his sentence, only to be hanged another day instead. The cop volunteers to play the part of the condemned outlaw and is kidnapped afterwards, still in his cowboy kit (see above). Russ captures a cute clumsiness in the unfortunate captive. That's a gag in his mouth by the way, not a 'manifestation'.

In this image the 'outlaw' is being led away by a noose round his neck while his arms are being pulled backwards and upwards by a second escort behind him.   Unfortunately the image cropping here (presumably to accommodate the magazine layout) dilutes that fetish element considerably - almost to the point of invisibility. The mock hanging isn't illustrated at all and the leather men take him to their club and strip him so, sadly, the cowboy theme, so promisingly broached above doesn't have any sequels.

The attractive shading of these images seems to owe something to the technical style of Bill Ward who was a contemporary of Russ and then at the height of his fame in the US and the UK.

Russ - Round Up 2

Naturally the leather initiation begins with a spanking and this occupies a considerable amount of time in the story. Luckily the cop realises he likes being dominated and used by the leather men (Phew!). 

His new master proves to be butch-looking with muscles and a pugnacious face, a look that's more athletic and mainstream than the likes of Val Martin and Brian Dawson (below) who were the leather pin-ups of this era and cultivated a more mature, sometimes sinister aura. Russ captures the dom's sadistic determination here and the impression of a short arm whiplash. The slap of the leather is understated but you can sense the contraction of  buttock muscles in response.

The story eventually resolves with the happily-inducted captive discovering that his selection was not entirely a random consequence of his volunteering role.

Brian Dawson

Russ - Hustler Slave 1

In this amazing image Russ adopts a more conventional drawing style complete with background detail and shadowing that looks back towards the academic. But he still incorporates cartoon-like exaggeration and clever distortion, this time to produce sweeping, stretching body shapes which convey the drama and dynamic tension as the captive hustler desperately struggles to resist his captor even though his fate is already comprehensively sealed. There's a sort of Ying and Yang balance between them at this moment that foreshadows the sexual conjunction that will ultimately follow with the captive unwittingly angling himself towards his captor's improbably bulging jeans.

Russ - Hustler Slave 2

But before sex, the hustler must first prove his mettle and comprehensively submit. His face here has lapsed into a youthful version of Round Up 2 above but that's not reflective of the story it illustrates where the street experience and toughness of the hitchhiker-hustler is crucial to surviving his unsought taming and training regime. It also leads to an ultimate willingness to serve, having been bested but not crushed. 

The leather man is not depicted as  a run-of-the-mill representative of his class either but exhibits impressive solidity and power. This 'Macbeth-ian' stance set against the willowy, suppleness of his captive produces another memorable depiction of domination and demonstrates the essence of training with the sub's arching body being inexorably drawn against his will into that special place between his master's legs, unsubtly delegated here to a dildo.

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More Russ in Part 3

Read Part 1 of this article

101 Uses for a Belt - No 20 Posture Training

 Unlike some masters, Riefer demands that his slaves walk erect and look him in the eye.

They are not his equal, but they must never forget that they are still men.

That is part of their training and this young man will thank him for it.

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For more Uses for Belts, click on the label below

Royale's 'Escape' Storyette Joins the Archive

 The process of listing Royale's 'Escape' storyette at the Archive Gallery is now complete. 

You can read the background and introduction to the set at the 'Escape' index page.

'Escapers' by Mitchell (mitchmen) after Royale Studio

A cartooniser's interpretation of Royale's classic 'Escape' image . 

The software doesn't seem to know the difference between a torso's front and rear

But showing one of the men with dropped pants, revealing his under-shorts, is an interesting improvement!

Domination Art by Russ - The Jogger

Russ - The Jogger (1)

It looks like someone butch followed this jogger home

But he doesn't look too worried about it! 

Embarrassed perhaps, about what he was watching on the telly.

The jogger's split-sided shorts were an 80's athletic fashion which allowed freedom (supposedly) for athletes in their sporting endeavours. For spectators it revealed chunky, upper thighs and sometimes more. It was a style that imprinted itself permanently into the erotic psyche of many impressionable young men at that time. These shorts can occasionally be spotted on tracks today and are still turning heads. 

Russ - The Jogger (2)

The cuffs go on, but we can relax, this rough domination is clearly as much a turn-on for him as it is for the faceless intruder. His face transforms, showing an altogether more pugnacious side.

The 80's was the era of Drummer when leather culture burst into the open, championed by the likes of Larry Townsend and Tom of Finland. S&M fetish art suddenly acquired a vividness and exuberance that pushed hard at the boundaries of  acceptability. Bud's 'Smithy', featuring a branding is a good example and the best work of Sean has the same wild characteristics. These all share a cartoon style that cloaks the fetish happenings in boyish fun, but exaggerates the drama to a level that sweeps aside any reservations about the depictions. The characteristion of the intruder here, with massive boots and slightly bowed legs, references the dark style of Macbeth who was also a contemporary. 

Russ - The Jogger (3)

When he asks for a drink of water, the defenceless jogger is subjected to a double humiliation. 

Thanks to the cuffs he has no choice but to drink it out of a bowl like a dog and as he does so, his upended ass is spanked, his flimsy, silky shorts offering minimal protection. 

The contrast between the clothing of the two characters here is a key erotic ingredient.

The plot rationale for this development is obscure, but the imagery is unforgettable.

The face-splashing in the bowl is brilliantly realised.

Russ - The Jogger (4)

The intruder does not allow his captive to rise to his feet.

The chastised jogger submits to paying his respects in the usual way.

Take your pick of the 3 options in this position*.

After being set up by image 3 this outcome seems a bit humdrum. However, Russ makes a good job of expressing the submissiveness of the jogger who is planted between the intruders legs and slightly leaning back creating an arching, vulnerable body shape. Retaining the cuffs in this more explicit image is daring. The similar (and very sexy) submission scene in Etienne's Night Patrol is completely hands-free.  You'd expect that there would be another more probing, pants dropping to follow, but if there is I haven't found it. 

*the options are: suck, shoot, drench

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More fetish art by Russ next time

see labels below for similar topics

Beautifully Bound

 Clean, economical bondage is key to this series, that and beautiful male subjects.

This man has a beautiful, lean body, which is highlighted by the overhead restraint

and enhanced (IMHP) by the shaving of his crotch.

'Russian Captured Boys' videos are sometimes quite comical with the fumbles of the bondage 'master' (and the puzzling failure to edit them out). Fortunately, all he has left to do here is give the captive a rosy glow and stalk around looking menacing. The shades are a bit OTT but still count as sinister when you can't get away. Would you like this man to shave your groin for you? 

The captive helps out by looking suitably worried - as well he might with his torso already showing evidence of serious beating. I suspect the tops in these videos occasionally throw in a real stinger, just to keep the slave on his toes and promote convincing apprehension. 

More Russian Captured Boys

click on the labels below for other mitchmen posts on shaving and beautiful bondage