The "No-Sex" Class: Whip It Good
Photo by Flickr user massdistraction. Used under a Creative Commons license.
Holly of The Pervocracy raises an excellent point about a recent, highly... uh... stylized Psychology Today cover photo on "seven taboos that are perfectly natural."
By using a model so conventionally sexy, they dodge the question of why the kink itself is sexy. Everyone already knows why a slinky blonde in vinyl with a whip is hot; it's a lot more provocative to explore why a short pudgy dude in cotton underwear with a whip is hot.
She said it here.
I mean think about it. In the "no-sex" class world a stereotyped hottie with a whip is just a slightly different verse of the same old "prove yourself worthy or I say no" song we straight men teach ourselves to believe every partner sings.
The erotic appeal of pudgy boy in y-fronts and a whip, though, cuts right to the heart of actual, you know, kink.
I haven't seen the image in question, but I'll throw in my opinion anyway. For a "normal" person, the sexy part would be the woman - the whip is largely decorative, something that helps it stand out as different than a typical sexy image, but is hardly necessary. For a masochist, and perhaps even some sadists, the sexy part would be the whip - it almost doesn't matter who's holding it, and the woman is just a bit of bonus eye candy.
I would say that this kind of image exists to appeal to both groups while not really acknowledging the existence of the latter.