I understand how this show is loosely based on a personal experience but it does cast a bad shadow and stigma on professional domination. Would you be open to interviewing professional FemDoms to more accurately represent the community? The inaccuracies feed the stigma of bdsm & it doesn’t really show what the life of a dominatrix is like at all. Why is she a bitch 24/7? Why is she wearing a collar with an O ring? Why does her corset not fit her right? She doesn’t screen her clients? Her lifestyle slave causes problems? Why can’t he just be great & not obsessive? She has zero sensual clients? The lack of negotiation & consent? Come on, even loosely based there should be a better representation of bdsm in here.<doc-sep>Netflix’s new S&M comedy “Bonding” is not getting much tender love from real-life dominatrixes. It seems members of the dominatrix community are not entirely thrilled with how the dark comedy television series portrays the sex work. The show was created by Rightor Doyle and is loosely based on his experiences as an assistant to a dominatrix. RELATED: Dr. Ruth Says ‘Fifty Shades’ Can Help Couples In The Bedroom “As a young gay man still struggling with my own sexuality, guarding a door while one of my best friends tied a naked man to a four poster bed and whipped him was jarring, to say the least,” he wrote in an Instagram post on Wednesday. “But to my surprise, it eventually freed me of many of my own sexual hangups.” The show received a nod of approval from star D’arcy Carden, as well as “Girls” creator Lena Dunham. Members of the BDSM community did not unanimously agree with the praise. One user called “Bonding” a “horrible show” that “didn’t accurately portray BDSM or sex work.” RELATED: Michelle Obama Breaks ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ Record Just watched Bonding on Netflix. What a horrible show. It didn't accurately portray BDSM or sex work. — 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈Sw-Falcon94🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈 (@SwFalcon94) April 26, 2019 Another argued that “in spite of good intentions,” the series “missed the mark on realistic portrayals of ProDommes and their clients.” It appears the show, in spite of good intentions, has missed the mark on realistic portrayals of ProDommes & their clients, not to mention some of the more technical aspects of the job (rope, e.g.). There are so many qualified folx in LA who could've provided affordable guidance. — PrincessMarx ☭ Ballbusting Queen #LosAngeles (@PrincessMarxxx) April 25, 2019 “Bonding”’s creator Rightor Doyle has since responded to the criticism, telling the Daily Beast, “I am very much listening to what the community has to say. The discourse happening on Twitter is important and I receive it fully.” He continued, “I am glad that these many differing opinions are being heard in an impactful way. They have certainly impacted me. Though it is based on a small chapter in my life and I did consult people in the community prior to filming if given the opportunity to make more, I would be thrilled to invite a wide array of people into the conversation to deepen and enrich our knowledge of the world. The reach of Netflix is vast and hopefully ‘Bonding,’ with its bright colours and comedic flourishes helps change certain preconceived notions of this line of work. Tiff and Pete are not perfect, and I am certainly not perfect. But we can all learn and grow together.” See more negative reaction from the dominatrix community below. The problem I see is that this is not for sexworkers. None of us are the target audience, nor does it seem we were considered during the production process. This is for college age civvie women who want to dip their toe into SW for lols without ever taking on any of the risks. — Tess McGill (@randomsexworker) April 25, 2019 please don’t get me started on the show Bonding, how it’s a ridiculous satire of sex work, or why the domme in the show is wearing a sub collar, or the million other things that’s wrong with it. It was also directed by a man. @netflix what the fuck are you doing. — bing bong (@korbellacroix) April 26, 2019 Started watching BONDING on Netflix. So far the pro domme has stated she's "not a prostitute" and the other main character has laughed at every kink he's been exposed to Getting the impression that no one in kink or sex work was actually involved in the making of this show — Crafty Lindsey (@CraftyLindsey) April 24, 2019 This is in such bad taste. Operating this account like an actual domme account when real dommes are shut down and shadowbanned all the time. Yuck. Throw the whole concept away. Ew. — Sabina Magic (@sab_magic) April 24, 2019<doc-sep>Shorter is not always better. In the era of smartphones and YouTube, there is a perception that when it comes to comedy, the shorter the run time, the stronger the series. As dramas have ballooned in length, comedies have continually condensed. Netflix has championed this new trend, with The End of the F***ing World episodes running 20 minutes, and some episodes of Special running as short as 15. Bonding, a new Netflix series from actor, writer, and director Rightor Doyle, continues the pattern, averaging a breezy 17 minutes per episode. But while The End of the F***king World’s edgy, angsty, and hilarious stories have a relentless drive that made its first season one of 2018’s great surprises, Bonding feels underwritten, under-planned, and ultimately underwhelming. Bonding RELEASE DATE: 4/24/2019 DIRECTOR: Rightor Doyle STREAMING: Netflix Averaging 17 minutes per episode, the sex comedy feels too brief to deliver on its compelling premise. Bonding sounds like a sitcom that could work. Tiff (Zoe Levin) is paying her way through graduate school by working as a dominatrix. She recruits her gay best friend Peter (Brendan Scannell) to serve as an assistant, bodyguard, and general accomplice on her journey as “Mistress May.” Hijinks ensue, and the two grow sexually and emotionally as they get in touch with their kinky side. This does lead to some fun premises. In the pilot, Tiff and Peter kidnap a customer (at his behest) and Peter is introduced to a whole new world. In episode 2, Peter tests himself: Can he bring himself to pee on a client? Episode 3 explores the distinction between sex and sexuality. But with their short run times and not particularly sharp joke writing, the episodes rarely deliver much beyond the promise of their premises. The already-short run time is further limited by standup bits that break up the show (yes, this is another show featuring an spiring standup comedian set in New York), often leaving less than 15 minutes per episode for actual plot development. Sitcom episodes historically run 22-23 minutes because of network commercial requirements and half-hour time slots. This length has worked for sitcom writers for decades because the resulting 30-page scripts fit nicely into two- or three-act structures with A plots (lead character), B plots (co-lead character), and C plots (runners). Of course, you can play with this structure: End of the F**king World focuses solely on the two leads, creating a darkly comic Bonnie & Clyde with no excess fat. Barry often mixes drama structure (three to five acts with action set pieces as breaks) with traditional sitcom structure, resulting in high intensity and surprising laughs. But if you don’t have an idea for how to reinvent the wheel, an experimental structure can just feel messy or aimless, as it does here. It’s fine that Bonding isn’t playing by the rules, but it doesn’t seem to have settled on its own rules. Episodes of Bonding feel more like a web series than a fully formed TV show. There isn’t time to fully develop Tiff and Peter’s points of view, resulting in muddy plotting and incomplete character arcs. In the pilot, Tiff offers Peter a job, and he is clearly uncomfortable. But he needs money, so he takes the job. That’s a fine sitcom plot, but with the shortened run time, we don’t see much of a change in Peter, as he accepts the gig without much resistance. Meanwhile, Tiff doesn’t change at all; that’s not how pilots are supposed to work. It’s a shame that the structure of Bonding is so weak, because there’s a lot of potential here. Sex work is a fresh and interesting topic for a comedy, especially with issues like SESTA-FOSTA in the public eye. Tiff and Peter’s work gives rise to some nice bits, and there are good jokes about piss play, BDSM, foot fetishes, and all manner of kinks. But when a good joke gets rolling, the bit often feels unfinished, the writing peters out, or the scene leads to a dead end. When these gags are couched in tired plots like “student/teacher sexual tension” or “struggling standup has stage fright,” the uneven gives way to the bland. Netflix’s goal for both its standup specials and sitcoms seems to be churning out a lot of cheap content by as many creators as possible. While this offers a lot of new opportunities for fresh voices (this is Doyle’s third writing credit and directorial debut), shows like Bonding leave you wondering if greater support for fewer projects would produce better results. Why churn out shows every week if the majority of them will be forgotten by the time the next crop arrives on subscribers’ homepages? Just as Bonding’s writing feels rushed, so do the technical elements. The show looks like it was shot quickly; it is often poorly lit and the production design feels phoned-in at best. The actors often feel undirected, not demonstrating clear motivations and losing jokes to mumbling and poor emphasis. The show often has the character of a strong student film or festival submission: There is potential, but not strong enough execution for a series meant to compete with the offerings of HBO, FX, or Comedy Central. Bonding mostly squanders the potential of its charming leads and the fresh voice of its creator. The disappointing thing is that these issues seem easily fixable: A few more minutes, a few more revisions, and a little more money would have gone a long way. But we might not have the opportunity to figure out what might have been, as there are many shows telling stories about twenty-somethings navigating the fringes of the big city. Bonding could grow into something more, but by then a lot of its potential audience may have changed the channel (or streaming platform). Still not sure what to watch tonight? Here are our guides for the absolute best movies on Netflix, must-see Netflix original series, documentaries, docuseries, and movies. Looking for something more specific? Here are our Netflix guides for the best war movies, documentaries, anime, indie flicks, true crime, food shows, rom-coms, LGBT movies, alien movies, gangster movies, Westerns, film noir, and movies based on true stories streaming right now. There are also sad movies guaranteed to make you cry, weird movies to melt your brain, old movies when you need something classic, and standup specials when you really need to laugh. Or check out Flixable, a search engine for Netflix.<doc-sep>
Not being a paid-up member of the BDSM community myself – my application was rejected because I wanted to be one of those dominatrices who has men round to shout at them while they clean her kitchen – I’ve often wondered how annoyed they are that EL James’s risible Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele are their avatars in pop culture. They might be happier with Bonding, the new short-form series just released on Netflix (its seven episodes are between 15 and 18 minutes long), about semi-estranged high-school friends Tiff and Peter reconnecting in New York. Peter is a waiter by day and a would-be standup comedian by night, if he could only pluck up the courage to actually get on a stage, and behind with his rent 24/7. Tiff is a psychiatry student fending off unwanted advances from a fellow grad and a lecherous professor by day, and one of the city’s most sought-after dominatrices by night. Tiff inveigles Peter, who is gay but has sexual high-school history with her, into becoming her assistant, and the meat of every episode – extended vignette, really – is him learning the tricks of her trade and gradually being liberated by his enforced exposure to other people’s peckers and peccadillos. “You tell your friends about this?” he says in surprise, when a client who likes to be bound and peed on implies that he does. “Yeah,” says the client, equally surprised. “I’m not hurting anybody.” I don’t know if the mood of Bonding is perfect for the length or the length is perfect for the mood, but whichever came first, the overall effect is graceful and charming. Everything is fleet and light, nothing outstays its welcome and the audience is left to be swayed – should they need it – towards the message of tolerance by the joyful insouciance of the whole thing, rather than any heavy-handed lectures or rigid point of view. In Bonding, you are free to decide – as Peter’s roommate-landlord does – to ask your roommate-tenant to stick his finger up your bum in exchange for a free month’s rent, and your tenant is free to decide whether it is worth it or not. And your roommate-landlord’s girlfriend is free to punch someone in the face if she walks in on the pair of you. It is not a series, in short, for people who get het up about what people do to each other’s bums. Never outstays its welcome ... Bonding. Photograph: Netflix Formally, this is one of the first major instances of the freedom Netflix offers to play around with running times rather than having to fit an idea, a mood or a season into a predetermined hour, half-hour, or six-eight-10 episode format. This liberation is long overdue – instances of shows that have been shrunk or stretched to fit what are basically advertisers’ needs have abounded throughout televisual history – and I look forward to what it will bring. Bonding is created, written, directed and loosely based on the personal experiences of Rightor Doyle, which may explain why the character of Tiff – as central to everything as Peter – is comparatively underwritten and under-finessed. You do not notice for a while because of such a strong, consistent performance from Zoe Levin. She portrays a young woman with the genuinely deep-rooted confidence that makes her choice of profession seem reasonable rather than far-fetched, and saves us all from having to watch another of those strained Sexy-with-a-capital-S performances that generally bedevil such representations. The sex in Bonding is explicit, non-gratuitous, usually written for laughs and played straight; the man in the penguin suit trying to get a kiss from Peter (also in a penguin suit) is worthy of a bespoke award. But it also occasionally delivers a piercing insight. When, for instance, the brittle Stepford wife Daphne (a fantastic turn from D’Arcy Carden – Janet in The Good Place) reveals that she tried to indulge her husband’s tickling fetish – but he gave “such a weird moan … I didn’t recognise that voice, or know if it was someone I wanted to meet” – while most people may not identify with these specific circumstances, who hasn’t encountered that moment when someone reveals a hidden face to you and you suddenly realise you have a decision to make that you never expected? The first series can be binge-watched in under three hours. More, again, harder please.