I know this blog has been pretty quiet for a while but in the last few days there have been a few things I've felt moved to post about so I'm going to give it another go. Hope everyone who read it before has been keeping well - welcome back if you've found me again and welcome to any new readers.
What particularly prompted this post was that while I've been back home with my family over Christmas I thought it was time to get out my old laptop and delete all the videos I'd had saved on there. I don't ever use the computer any more - I don't even have it in my new house - so there's not much point keeping them. The computer is so desperately old, tired and slow that it takes 15 minutes just to boot up and has severe difficulty managing to play a video now anyway, and I took the decision when moving across to my new laptop a year or two ago that in this day and age, with so many spanking clips being posted on so many websites all of the time, it really isn't necessary to have one's own private collection, so I didn't migrate them across with the rest of my data. Plus, of course, the changes in the law which makes certain types of video illegal were scheduled (last I heard) to be commenced this January, and I don't know whether any corners of my collection might have fallen foul of prying eyes. I would hope not, but I'd rather not take any chances.
Of course, I couldn't delete them all before having a flick through some of them - which I was very much enjoying until my poor computer gave up on the videos and I, probably for the last time, gave up on it. The collection had been building up over probably the last 7 or 8 years and looking through old favourites really took me back - there were videos in there which were my staple diet back in the days when real spanking was a dream I never thought I'd experience and finding a free clip was like stumbling across water in the desert. (This is how conversations are going to go when my generation has grandchildren. 'You don't have any idea what it was like, son. Back then we knew the value of things. When we found a sexy video we didn't just look at it once and throw it away, we saved it on our hard drive and watched it again and again. You kids these days have no idea.')
The real shock was when I saw a 'copyright 2001' line at the bottom of one of the videos and it struck me all of a sudden that the girl who made that video is now at least 25, and in a few years she'll be 30. I've no doubt she'll be just as attractive and able to make a career out of making porn videos as she ever was; that isn't what I'm getting at. It was just, somehow, an extraordinary thought - perhaps mainly because it reminded me that I am also 8 or 9 years older than I was when I first started looking round the web for porn. It's a bit like the moment you realise that all the famous Premiership footballers are now younger than you. (For any football fans reading this: isn't it an extraordinary thought that Theo Walcott doesn't remember there not being a Premier League?) It is just so strange to think that the models who were marketed, with all the subtlety and good taste of the porn industry, as 'barely legal' when I first saw them, are now probably grappling with mortgages, tax returns and school catchment areas. I thought I felt old when I left university and the first time I went to a friend's wedding, but that 'copyright 2001' line really hit a new level.
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label musings. Show all posts
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Friday, 2 May 2008
Criminal Justice Bill, Section 63
The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill yesterday had its third reading in the House of Lords, and by the end of next week it will have received Royal Assent and passed into English law, making it a criminal offence to possess extreme pornographic images.
I won't go into the detail of what the Bill says or how people are interpreting it here, as that has been amply done elsewhere (see for example Backlash, the group that has led the campaign against the law). I just have a couple of thoughts to offer.
Lord Hunt, Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, said the following last night:
I won't go into the detail of what the Bill says or how people are interpreting it here, as that has been amply done elsewhere (see for example Backlash, the group that has led the campaign against the law). I just have a couple of thoughts to offer.
Lord Hunt, Parliamentary Under-Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, said the following last night:
This is not, I suggest, a case of policing the bedroom. It is intended to target only the most extreme pornography. We believe that the number of prosecutions will be relatively small, but my understanding—from advice that I have received—is that the offence will be a valuable additional resource for officers already working on protecting the public in this area. I also give an assurance that this offence will not be commenced before a full explanation of it is given to the police and to the courts.
The trouble is that new legislation is very often subject to the Law of Unintended Consequences. In 2003, the Government fast-tracked the Extradition Act, allowing the USA (and various other countries) to extradite UK citizens more quickly and easily than under previous arrangements. The motivation given at the time was that the change in law was required in order to assist in the fight against terrorism. Three years later, the Natwest Three - a trio of English businessmen whose alleged crimes were thought by American prosecutors to have contributed to the collapse of Enron - were extradited on charges of wire fraud. Each was jailed for 37 months after a plea-bargain that saw them plead guilty to one of the charges against them; had they been convicted of all charges, they faced 35 years in prison.
What I believe worries a lot of people is not that the Government is trying to criminalise anyone who likes looking at the occasional saucy picture or video, or even that many people really will be criminalised - in the sense that they can be prosecuted and convicted. The point is rather that a lot of people might have material on their computers, or in their Internet history (which the police can compel an ISP to provide), that could arouse suspicion. Even if they don't, it only takes an allegation from one person bent on making some mischief and the police are duty-bound to investigate. It doesn't need a conviction to ruin someone's career, reputation, relationships and ultimately their life, as some of the more egregious failures of Operation Ore have shown. Arrest and investigation will do just fine and there is no standard of proof required for that.
The police have better things to do than go after every kinky adult in the UK, and the minister is probably right that the number of prosecutions will be small. But we should be fair to the police in what we ask them to do. It is not their job to tease out the likely meaning of ambiguous phrasing (in which this particular Bill is especially rich); neither is it their responsibility to enforce the law with reference to the intentions of the Government that drafted it. It will not be the police's fault if the lives of people who have committed no crime, harmed nobody and never harboured any intention of doing either are ruined. Parliament has enacted a bad law*, despite the best efforts of several courageous and eloquent dissenters in the House of Lords to temper its worst excesses (see particularly the remarks made by Baroness Miller, Lord McIntosh and Baroness Howe at the report stage and third reading - you can link to the relevant text here) . I fear that their failure will cost a few unlucky people very dearly.
*Note that only sections 63 and 64 of the Bill deal with this issue. I am not conversant with the rest of the Bill; perhaps it is otherwise magnificent.
Wednesday, 23 January 2008
I think my friend is a spanko...
I was with some friends on Saturday evening watching Match of the Day when Fulham's 3-0 defeat to Arsenal came on. 'I'm glad I'm not going out with George any more,' remarked Felicity - 'he used to get into a foul mood when Fulham lost. Watching this I'd probably have been a victim of domestic d- violence.'
My radar went up immediately. Reader, is there any explanation for her stutter other than that she started to say 'domestic discipline'? I can't think of another phrase beginning 'domestic ___' where the second word begins with d - and even if so, I certainly can't think of one that would have fit there. Or that she would have stopped herself from saying just as she realised she was about to. I reckon it's got to be 100 to 1 she's one of us.
But then... do I dare risk mentioning it? Well, of course not; one never knows about the 1%. There are subtler ways, of course; next time I see her I won't miss an opportunity to use a word or phrase that she'll recognise if she is, and I'll be poised ready to spot her double-take/ raised eyebrow/ momentary loss of composure/ sudden impassioned plea to be spanked immediately/ whatever. Unfortunately I don't see her that often, and only ever in a group of mutual friends. It's going to be tricky.
It also raises the interesting question of how much difference it makes when somebody shares that interest. I've known this girl for many years and never been attracted to her; she's pretty and I like her but she isn't particularly my type and it's never really crossed my mind. But I have to say, I think it would make a difference. Of course it makes some - any attraction is based, at some level, on certain attributes that a person does or does not have, and an interest in spanking is just one more thing to throw into the equation (you can tell I'm a romantic) - but I'm interested to know how much. There are certainly plenty of people I'd never be interested in however closely our kinks matched.
It's definitely better to discover a mutual interest with someone you're already attracted to than to realise your attraction because of / after you find out about the kinky interest, though. I remember one relationship - a relatively serious one - where I couldn't get the thought out of my head that the girl wouldn't have been interested in me if we hadn't had the kink in common, and it preyed on my mind. I think it must be similar for extremely beautiful girls - you want men to appreciate your looks, of course, but don't want to be valued only/primarily for them, and it can be a major cause of insecurity.
I think to some extent this is a fundamental problem with internet dating, not only on spanking-related sites but in general - usually (when you meet in 'real-life' situations) you find out about shared interests after you discover your physical attraction to someone, and the excitement of discovering them is often what propels and deepens the attraction. Online, you select for shared interests first, then find out more about them through messages, then exchange photos - and even then you can't really tell if you're attracted to someone until you meet them. It almost makes you think 'I really hope I'm going to find this person attractive, it would be such a shame to waste a fellow [mountain-biking / Picasso / wooden hairbrushes] enthusiast'.
The internet situation is an extreme, though. In the case of Felicity, if I confirmed my hypothesis and decided I did find her more attractive than I used to, I'd still have the excitement of discovering something about somebody you know. In a way, that's what you lose from a dating site - something that would be thrilling becomes normal. A bit like what I was saying in my last post about the difference between googling 'spanking story prefect detention' or stumbling across a scene in a mainstream book. I still do the googling, and sometimes I'm very glad I did, but the fortuitous finds are what we all really hope for.
My radar went up immediately. Reader, is there any explanation for her stutter other than that she started to say 'domestic discipline'? I can't think of another phrase beginning 'domestic ___' where the second word begins with d - and even if so, I certainly can't think of one that would have fit there. Or that she would have stopped herself from saying just as she realised she was about to. I reckon it's got to be 100 to 1 she's one of us.
But then... do I dare risk mentioning it? Well, of course not; one never knows about the 1%. There are subtler ways, of course; next time I see her I won't miss an opportunity to use a word or phrase that she'll recognise if she is, and I'll be poised ready to spot her double-take/ raised eyebrow/ momentary loss of composure/ sudden impassioned plea to be spanked immediately/ whatever. Unfortunately I don't see her that often, and only ever in a group of mutual friends. It's going to be tricky.
It also raises the interesting question of how much difference it makes when somebody shares that interest. I've known this girl for many years and never been attracted to her; she's pretty and I like her but she isn't particularly my type and it's never really crossed my mind. But I have to say, I think it would make a difference. Of course it makes some - any attraction is based, at some level, on certain attributes that a person does or does not have, and an interest in spanking is just one more thing to throw into the equation (you can tell I'm a romantic) - but I'm interested to know how much. There are certainly plenty of people I'd never be interested in however closely our kinks matched.
It's definitely better to discover a mutual interest with someone you're already attracted to than to realise your attraction because of / after you find out about the kinky interest, though. I remember one relationship - a relatively serious one - where I couldn't get the thought out of my head that the girl wouldn't have been interested in me if we hadn't had the kink in common, and it preyed on my mind. I think it must be similar for extremely beautiful girls - you want men to appreciate your looks, of course, but don't want to be valued only/primarily for them, and it can be a major cause of insecurity.
I think to some extent this is a fundamental problem with internet dating, not only on spanking-related sites but in general - usually (when you meet in 'real-life' situations) you find out about shared interests after you discover your physical attraction to someone, and the excitement of discovering them is often what propels and deepens the attraction. Online, you select for shared interests first, then find out more about them through messages, then exchange photos - and even then you can't really tell if you're attracted to someone until you meet them. It almost makes you think 'I really hope I'm going to find this person attractive, it would be such a shame to waste a fellow [mountain-biking / Picasso / wooden hairbrushes] enthusiast'.
The internet situation is an extreme, though. In the case of Felicity, if I confirmed my hypothesis and decided I did find her more attractive than I used to, I'd still have the excitement of discovering something about somebody you know. In a way, that's what you lose from a dating site - something that would be thrilling becomes normal. A bit like what I was saying in my last post about the difference between googling 'spanking story prefect detention' or stumbling across a scene in a mainstream book. I still do the googling, and sometimes I'm very glad I did, but the fortuitous finds are what we all really hope for.
Saturday, 12 January 2008
Mixed feelings
Most of us with an interest in spanking have memories of early encounters with literary, anecdotal or other references to punishments that excited our young minds. For me it was Roald Dahl's autobiography, first, then Tom Sawyer being whipped by that mean teacher in the film version of the story, and also a scene in 'Whale Adventure', by Willard Price, where one of the characters on board a whaling ship is beaten with a cat 'o' nine tails. There were probably others, but those are the ones that stick in the mind.
What is curious about this for me - and this is still true now - is that the sensation when I read or see a scene of that sort is not pure excitement. There is certainly a kind of fascination, the strange mix of wanting to read it slowly to dwell on a rare moment of titillation - so much greater for being unexpected, and probably unintended by the author - and wanting to give in to the thrill of reading it quickly. And then the desire to read it again, of course, and the slight feeling of disappointment that there isn't more detail, and that it isn't as good the second time.
But that's not all I feel. Especially - as in all of the three instances I mentioned - when there is a strong sense of injustice, and of sympathy with the victim, I feel the kind of indignation and sympathy that I might if an actual friend of mine were undeservingly subjected to a similar punishment. I've always had a strong, visceral hatred of injustice - often quite out of proportion to the suffering caused to the object of my compassion. I remember once lying awake unable to get to sleep after somebody in my class - not even someone I knew particularly well - was given a 30-minute detention after school for talking in class. It was the first detention given to anyone in my class and I remember experiencing a kind of wounded shock on his behalf that he could be treated so brutally.
Excessive? Well, I was a sensitive kid. I also wasn't a very childish child; people always found me very serious. I hated that I couldn't be taken seriously by adults (other than my parents), and I think the manifestation of any kind of authority served as a very unwelcome reminder that my classmates and I were children, powerless to defend ourselves as equals. We were, as the Americans say, 'the one-legged guy in an ass-kicking contest'. Nobody likes that.
My flesh still creeps when I hear the word 'punish'. It's horrible. Even the idea of me 'punishing' someone else is uncomfortable (with that specific word involved - the notion is otherwise quite attractive). If I ever heard my friends talk about a 'punishment' meted out by their parents I felt a twinge of revulsion. And I think my particular horror at that word is all to do with the connotation of a completely one-way relationship. With most punishments visited on children, the person doing the punishing gets to decide whether it's deserved; the child being punished doesn't get much say in the matter. There are parents and teachers who work in a slightly different way and give the child a chance to defend themselves, and then it's not quite so alarming, but having that power effectively puts the authority figure beyond accountability. And for me that's the awful thing: the idea that people could be punished wrongly and have no chance to defend themselves. Also, those parents/teachers who will say: 'I think that was wrong. Do you agree? What ought your punishment to be?' are no better; any complicity from the child here is reached under duress. In fact the pretence of 'consensual punishment' makes it even worse. Only those who genuinely want to hear the case for the defence are tolerable; but still, they can never get away from the fact that, owing to their position, they must sit in judgment of their own 'case for the prosecution'. I'm not really criticising it - of course this is an unavoidable situation, and I am not some kind of anti-discipline hippy 'progressive'. But I think a bit of discomfort at the monopolistic nature of one's power over another individual is a healthy thing to have - and as this post suggests, this extends to adult D/s relationships as well as those involving kids.
It's funny thinking through the various strands suggested by this contemplation - most of which hadn't occured to me before I started writing. Weirdly, I think the slight feeling of discomfort (which at its worst can actually go so far as to make me feel quite sick) can't be completely dissociated from the thrill. (What would the worst be, incidentally? Probably if I saw/read of a really harsh punishment of a character I really sympathised with who definitely didn't deserve it, compounded by their being particularly submissive - say in order to protect someone else. Awful. Anyone want to write the story?) When I go online and trawl for stories and videos they don't tug the same strings - partly because they don't have the advantages I mentioned above of being unexpected or unintended, but partly because there is no sympathy for the spankee. If it's a story, she (I don't really read stories involving male bottoms) is a character I haven't invested anything in, who I know perfectly well only exists for my titillation, and frankly where's the fun in that? If it's a video, I know perfectly well she's a model who chose to be there and is doing very nicely out of it. (If I thought there were any possibility that might not be the case, I wouldn't watch the video.) And I think that's why it's never as 'good' as coming across it unexpectedly in a novel, period drama, etc. Witnessing a spanking in real life would be the most exciting and also the most distressing - I would be completely captivated, and probably sickened.
Another thing that occurs to me is that my nascent dominant tendencies probably had a lot to do with the extreme revulsion I always felt, as a child, at being subject to authority, or patronised. Of course all kids hate that to a certain extent, but I wonder whether my particular sensitivity to it - God, I hated being told off - might have had something to do with the lack of a submissive streak. In fact I wonder whether, in general, the kids who seem sensitive and disinclined to do things that will get them in trouble - basically those who seem excessively, even unnaturally resistant to being told off - are often those with dominant tendencies. It would fit, wouldn't it, with the fact that a lot of dominant types (sexually) tend to be quiet, even sometimes a bit moody - generally speaking, sensitive rather than aggressive. Whereas the stereotype of alpha male masculinity - the kids who ran around doing everything, got told off all the time, and grew up into burly rugby players who drink nine pints and then get into fights with anyone they don't like the look of - is surprisingly often associated with secret desires to be forced to wear a nappy then stamped on by leather-clad women wearing stilettos.
That might be a bit facile and maybe it's too hard to generalise about something as complex as the roots of people's sexuality, but I think there's a grain of truth - in a few cases at least, even if it doesn't work as a 'general model'. And now? I'm off to find some pitifully inadequate stories and videos.
What is curious about this for me - and this is still true now - is that the sensation when I read or see a scene of that sort is not pure excitement. There is certainly a kind of fascination, the strange mix of wanting to read it slowly to dwell on a rare moment of titillation - so much greater for being unexpected, and probably unintended by the author - and wanting to give in to the thrill of reading it quickly. And then the desire to read it again, of course, and the slight feeling of disappointment that there isn't more detail, and that it isn't as good the second time.
But that's not all I feel. Especially - as in all of the three instances I mentioned - when there is a strong sense of injustice, and of sympathy with the victim, I feel the kind of indignation and sympathy that I might if an actual friend of mine were undeservingly subjected to a similar punishment. I've always had a strong, visceral hatred of injustice - often quite out of proportion to the suffering caused to the object of my compassion. I remember once lying awake unable to get to sleep after somebody in my class - not even someone I knew particularly well - was given a 30-minute detention after school for talking in class. It was the first detention given to anyone in my class and I remember experiencing a kind of wounded shock on his behalf that he could be treated so brutally.
Excessive? Well, I was a sensitive kid. I also wasn't a very childish child; people always found me very serious. I hated that I couldn't be taken seriously by adults (other than my parents), and I think the manifestation of any kind of authority served as a very unwelcome reminder that my classmates and I were children, powerless to defend ourselves as equals. We were, as the Americans say, 'the one-legged guy in an ass-kicking contest'. Nobody likes that.
My flesh still creeps when I hear the word 'punish'. It's horrible. Even the idea of me 'punishing' someone else is uncomfortable (with that specific word involved - the notion is otherwise quite attractive). If I ever heard my friends talk about a 'punishment' meted out by their parents I felt a twinge of revulsion. And I think my particular horror at that word is all to do with the connotation of a completely one-way relationship. With most punishments visited on children, the person doing the punishing gets to decide whether it's deserved; the child being punished doesn't get much say in the matter. There are parents and teachers who work in a slightly different way and give the child a chance to defend themselves, and then it's not quite so alarming, but having that power effectively puts the authority figure beyond accountability. And for me that's the awful thing: the idea that people could be punished wrongly and have no chance to defend themselves. Also, those parents/teachers who will say: 'I think that was wrong. Do you agree? What ought your punishment to be?' are no better; any complicity from the child here is reached under duress. In fact the pretence of 'consensual punishment' makes it even worse. Only those who genuinely want to hear the case for the defence are tolerable; but still, they can never get away from the fact that, owing to their position, they must sit in judgment of their own 'case for the prosecution'. I'm not really criticising it - of course this is an unavoidable situation, and I am not some kind of anti-discipline hippy 'progressive'. But I think a bit of discomfort at the monopolistic nature of one's power over another individual is a healthy thing to have - and as this post suggests, this extends to adult D/s relationships as well as those involving kids.
It's funny thinking through the various strands suggested by this contemplation - most of which hadn't occured to me before I started writing. Weirdly, I think the slight feeling of discomfort (which at its worst can actually go so far as to make me feel quite sick) can't be completely dissociated from the thrill. (What would the worst be, incidentally? Probably if I saw/read of a really harsh punishment of a character I really sympathised with who definitely didn't deserve it, compounded by their being particularly submissive - say in order to protect someone else. Awful. Anyone want to write the story?) When I go online and trawl for stories and videos they don't tug the same strings - partly because they don't have the advantages I mentioned above of being unexpected or unintended, but partly because there is no sympathy for the spankee. If it's a story, she (I don't really read stories involving male bottoms) is a character I haven't invested anything in, who I know perfectly well only exists for my titillation, and frankly where's the fun in that? If it's a video, I know perfectly well she's a model who chose to be there and is doing very nicely out of it. (If I thought there were any possibility that might not be the case, I wouldn't watch the video.) And I think that's why it's never as 'good' as coming across it unexpectedly in a novel, period drama, etc. Witnessing a spanking in real life would be the most exciting and also the most distressing - I would be completely captivated, and probably sickened.
Another thing that occurs to me is that my nascent dominant tendencies probably had a lot to do with the extreme revulsion I always felt, as a child, at being subject to authority, or patronised. Of course all kids hate that to a certain extent, but I wonder whether my particular sensitivity to it - God, I hated being told off - might have had something to do with the lack of a submissive streak. In fact I wonder whether, in general, the kids who seem sensitive and disinclined to do things that will get them in trouble - basically those who seem excessively, even unnaturally resistant to being told off - are often those with dominant tendencies. It would fit, wouldn't it, with the fact that a lot of dominant types (sexually) tend to be quiet, even sometimes a bit moody - generally speaking, sensitive rather than aggressive. Whereas the stereotype of alpha male masculinity - the kids who ran around doing everything, got told off all the time, and grew up into burly rugby players who drink nine pints and then get into fights with anyone they don't like the look of - is surprisingly often associated with secret desires to be forced to wear a nappy then stamped on by leather-clad women wearing stilettos.
That might be a bit facile and maybe it's too hard to generalise about something as complex as the roots of people's sexuality, but I think there's a grain of truth - in a few cases at least, even if it doesn't work as a 'general model'. And now? I'm off to find some pitifully inadequate stories and videos.
Sunday, 30 December 2007
Arguments in a D/s relationship
A recent thread on Informed Consent asked: 'does that fact that you're a sub deter you from arguing?' The poster explained that she specifically meant to ask about circumstances in which an argument/disagreement has nothing to do with 'the D/s dynamic'.
With some experience of a relationship that did have a general D/s flavour in all its facets, and some of relationships where it has been a purely sexual thing that didn't impinge on life outside the bedroom, I am absolutely decided that the former setup does not work for me at all. I appreciate that for many couples it's a very successful arrangement, but I think it has huge problems. I want in this post to explore what a few of those problems are. I'm interested to hear from anyone who's come up against these issues: did they change the way you behaved? Did you avoid them by being careful to in the first place? Do you think they're surmountable?
Suppose that I am in a relationship with a girl - call her Kitty. Kitty finds it a huge turn-on being spanked, but doesn't like it to be trivial and finds it corresponds far more closely to her fantasies if she is being spanked for something - preferably something real. Role play is out, giggly play is out, and anything that would imply she had a choice in the matter and it wasn't really a genuine disciplinary punishment (e.g. her asking for a spanking) is out.
So it follows that I need to find reasons to spank Kitty - they wouldn't have to be ultra-serious things, like cheating on me or having six double vodkas then driving my car home (obviously this would be considerably more serious than having six double vodkas then driving her own car home). They might be little things like leaving the lights on in the bathroom, not calling when she said she would, or snapping at me. They could also be things with more of a 'for your own good' emphasis - losing her bank statements, forgetting her brother's birthday, not flossing.
Those seem a bit preposterous? A grown woman being spanked for not flossing? What business is it of mine? You might well ask. The thing is, who exactly is doing whom a favour? Am I really spanking her because I care about her dental hygiene? Am I benefiting from her (deliberate?) forgetfulness by getting to give a spanking, which I enjoy doing? And the resultant question: do I wish she had flossed, or am I glad she didn't? From her point of view, similar questions apply. She probably tells me to sod off and leave her alone and she'll let me know if she wants help enforcing her dentist's advice. Does she mean it? Or did she mean to get herself a spanking? It gets worse: does she want me to be giving the spanking because I really do care about it, not because it turns me on? Do I feel I ought to give her a spanking and a lecture that will elicit genuine remorse for her negligence? Is this whole business more about spanking or flossing?
I've picked the most ridiculous of the examples I gave above, of course, because I want to highlight the point. I find this a real problem. Effectively, it's Orwellian 'Doublethink': I have to want two contradictory things at once, and so does she, or at least one of the following undesirable consequences must obtain:
(1) I am giving a genuine punishment for something I don't care about
(2) I am enjoying getting turned on by a situation that I would rather not be in
(3) Kitty has deliberately done something that puts her in a situation she would rather not be in
(4) Kitty is being spanked against her consent.
At this point many people might say that I am over-intellectualising something that is not such a big deal. I have to disagree: when you have a whole relationship based around these sorts of situations, it becomes a big deal. I might start to feel that Kitty's behaviour in general is my responsibility as much as (or instead of) hers. This encourages her not to behave like a mature and responsible adult herself and can go way beyond little things like the scenario described above. Also, after a while, Kitty will know what sort of things I am likely to pick on. This means that if she keeps on with the same 'infringements' I am apt to find it genuinely irritating that I am being ignored, which could erode the erotic pleasure of the spanking - if she avoids them, then the means we have found of incorporating spanking into our relationship has gone, unless she finds new ways of winding me up. But in either case, if there is an understanding that spankings should be real and it's hypocritical for me to punish her if I'm not really annoyed, then I have to accept that I can't ever have that erotic pleasure without concomitant irritation. And it means that each spanking involves a mini-argument - some sort of criticism of her by me, probably some sort of protest by her that I'm being unfair - the sort of exchange that most couples would probably try to avoid, and certainly not the sort of exchange that I enjoy or want actively to seek out.
Then, of course, what if something really serious like cheating or drink-driving does happen? A more serious punishment, I suppose. But that might mean a more extreme turn-on, for both of us. Many D/s couples differentiate between play/sex spankings and punishment/discipline spankings, but if a genuine punishment situation is precisely what turns you on the most, that's not much help. So all the questions that I put above come back but now it's much more problematic: of course I wish she hadn't gone off and slept with my best friend! But on the other hand, what follows is the most erotic thing that's happened to either of us in the course of the whole relationship. Can that be bad? Does the punishment really deter her from doing something like that again? Maybe she won't straight away, but if after a while she thinks back to the excitement of it and is tempted to try to repeat it - or better it, God help us - who knows what she might do?
Obviously what I'm talking about here is a fairly specific situation: the problems are largely created by what I've said about the fictional girl, Kitty, viz. she only likes 'real' spankings and isn't interested in spanking as play. But most people's sexuality is, I think, not completely fixed or determined - it evolves according to who you're with, what you explore and how your relationships develop. So I think it's both true that people without those limitations might find themselves encountering some of these problems and that people who do have similar sorts of interest might be able to avoid them. Personally I find real domestic discipline a huge turn-on when I'm actually doing it, but not enough to weigh against the burden I find it the rest of the time, and I don't seem myself going down that road again in the near future. Of course, with a girl like Kitty, it might be hard to resist...
With some experience of a relationship that did have a general D/s flavour in all its facets, and some of relationships where it has been a purely sexual thing that didn't impinge on life outside the bedroom, I am absolutely decided that the former setup does not work for me at all. I appreciate that for many couples it's a very successful arrangement, but I think it has huge problems. I want in this post to explore what a few of those problems are. I'm interested to hear from anyone who's come up against these issues: did they change the way you behaved? Did you avoid them by being careful to in the first place? Do you think they're surmountable?
Suppose that I am in a relationship with a girl - call her Kitty. Kitty finds it a huge turn-on being spanked, but doesn't like it to be trivial and finds it corresponds far more closely to her fantasies if she is being spanked for something - preferably something real. Role play is out, giggly play is out, and anything that would imply she had a choice in the matter and it wasn't really a genuine disciplinary punishment (e.g. her asking for a spanking) is out.
So it follows that I need to find reasons to spank Kitty - they wouldn't have to be ultra-serious things, like cheating on me or having six double vodkas then driving my car home (obviously this would be considerably more serious than having six double vodkas then driving her own car home). They might be little things like leaving the lights on in the bathroom, not calling when she said she would, or snapping at me. They could also be things with more of a 'for your own good' emphasis - losing her bank statements, forgetting her brother's birthday, not flossing.
Those seem a bit preposterous? A grown woman being spanked for not flossing? What business is it of mine? You might well ask. The thing is, who exactly is doing whom a favour? Am I really spanking her because I care about her dental hygiene? Am I benefiting from her (deliberate?) forgetfulness by getting to give a spanking, which I enjoy doing? And the resultant question: do I wish she had flossed, or am I glad she didn't? From her point of view, similar questions apply. She probably tells me to sod off and leave her alone and she'll let me know if she wants help enforcing her dentist's advice. Does she mean it? Or did she mean to get herself a spanking? It gets worse: does she want me to be giving the spanking because I really do care about it, not because it turns me on? Do I feel I ought to give her a spanking and a lecture that will elicit genuine remorse for her negligence? Is this whole business more about spanking or flossing?
I've picked the most ridiculous of the examples I gave above, of course, because I want to highlight the point. I find this a real problem. Effectively, it's Orwellian 'Doublethink': I have to want two contradictory things at once, and so does she, or at least one of the following undesirable consequences must obtain:
(1) I am giving a genuine punishment for something I don't care about
(2) I am enjoying getting turned on by a situation that I would rather not be in
(3) Kitty has deliberately done something that puts her in a situation she would rather not be in
(4) Kitty is being spanked against her consent.
At this point many people might say that I am over-intellectualising something that is not such a big deal. I have to disagree: when you have a whole relationship based around these sorts of situations, it becomes a big deal. I might start to feel that Kitty's behaviour in general is my responsibility as much as (or instead of) hers. This encourages her not to behave like a mature and responsible adult herself and can go way beyond little things like the scenario described above. Also, after a while, Kitty will know what sort of things I am likely to pick on. This means that if she keeps on with the same 'infringements' I am apt to find it genuinely irritating that I am being ignored, which could erode the erotic pleasure of the spanking - if she avoids them, then the means we have found of incorporating spanking into our relationship has gone, unless she finds new ways of winding me up. But in either case, if there is an understanding that spankings should be real and it's hypocritical for me to punish her if I'm not really annoyed, then I have to accept that I can't ever have that erotic pleasure without concomitant irritation. And it means that each spanking involves a mini-argument - some sort of criticism of her by me, probably some sort of protest by her that I'm being unfair - the sort of exchange that most couples would probably try to avoid, and certainly not the sort of exchange that I enjoy or want actively to seek out.
Then, of course, what if something really serious like cheating or drink-driving does happen? A more serious punishment, I suppose. But that might mean a more extreme turn-on, for both of us. Many D/s couples differentiate between play/sex spankings and punishment/discipline spankings, but if a genuine punishment situation is precisely what turns you on the most, that's not much help. So all the questions that I put above come back but now it's much more problematic: of course I wish she hadn't gone off and slept with my best friend! But on the other hand, what follows is the most erotic thing that's happened to either of us in the course of the whole relationship. Can that be bad? Does the punishment really deter her from doing something like that again? Maybe she won't straight away, but if after a while she thinks back to the excitement of it and is tempted to try to repeat it - or better it, God help us - who knows what she might do?
Obviously what I'm talking about here is a fairly specific situation: the problems are largely created by what I've said about the fictional girl, Kitty, viz. she only likes 'real' spankings and isn't interested in spanking as play. But most people's sexuality is, I think, not completely fixed or determined - it evolves according to who you're with, what you explore and how your relationships develop. So I think it's both true that people without those limitations might find themselves encountering some of these problems and that people who do have similar sorts of interest might be able to avoid them. Personally I find real domestic discipline a huge turn-on when I'm actually doing it, but not enough to weigh against the burden I find it the rest of the time, and I don't seem myself going down that road again in the near future. Of course, with a girl like Kitty, it might be hard to resist...
Sunday, 16 December 2007
Sunday night musings
Having complained that none of the stories out there do it for me (well, not quite none) I've now had a go at writing one myself - see below. I make no great claims for it - bits of it I like, but it's too long and a bit rambling, and it's also pretty transparently a male fantasy - I can't imagine that girls who read it will find the female characterisation particularly convincing. (I suspect men will be less bothered about this particular weakness.) It's just somewhere to start, and if I go on and write some more it will serve as an interesting benchmark for comparison. Please do have a read if you're so inclined.
This Sunday evening finds me in a reflective sort of mood - the sort of mood in which, when I didn't have a blog, I would have thought to myself, 'if I had a blog, this is the sort of time I might write it'. So now I feel I ought to test the theory.
One of the great things the Internet has done for us (I mean that in the widest possible sense of 'us') is provide a resoundingly negative answer to the question: 'is it just me?' - for millions of people with all sorts of interests, weirdnesses, predilections. All those people have been able to arrange themselves into online 'communities', disspelling their fears that it might be 'just them'.
But what do we mean by that? The word 'community' gets bandied about a lot these days - it has a reassuringly tight-knit sound about it that is attractive to spankophiles*, politicians, companies and anyone wanting to give the impression that a disparate collection of people with distinct interests can be viewed as a cohesive group. What do we imply by viewing ourselves as a community? Probably that we see ourselves as having certain characteristics or interests in common with the other members. What is the advantage of that? Mainly that those characteristics/interests which might be viewed as deviant or negative in another community can become normal, valid and positive.
Like all groups, the online spanking community, insofar as it can be considered as a united corpus, has developed its own norms of valid behaviour, valid opinions, positive attributes etc. Obviously this is not something so simplistic as a reversal of 'vanilla' norms, whereby people with a spanking fetish are considered normal and people without one deviant. After all, it isn't the lack of a spanking fetish in other people that we find objectionable; it is their narrow-mindedness towards ours. So we tend to define permissiveness and open-mindedness as positive. That's just an example, and one that largely makes sense.
The reason I'm going on about this is that I think that we may have come full circle, with people surfing the spanking web, looking at what is on offer, at the comments left on blogs and the messages posted in public forums, and thinking - 'is it just me?' This is a natural and indeed inevitable situation, but I think it's worth pointing out. So what I want to do here is mention a few personal inclinations that seem to get a bit less airtime than others - if you sympathise, please shout.
1. Posting online involves a fairly significant compromise of privacy - even when not revealing personal details - that I don't find comes easily. Maybe that's being a buttoned-up Brit for you! It always seems to me - irrationally I know - that everyone else posts a comment on a website, switches off their computer, goes off to a dinner party where they make frivolous small talk about their current play partners and recent spanking party experiences, then gets up the next morning and goes off to a Kink Pride march, probably wearing some kind of cute little 'rosy cheeks' lapel badge. I have never hankered after a world in which case I could share my interest with all my 'real-life' friends, any more than I tell them about any of my other sexual interests and activities, and I think there's something nice about keeping certain things private. Paradoxically sharing it with the whole world on a blog is less of a problem than telling my closest friends.
2. As I've mentioned in my first post and in the footnote below, my interests do not by any means stretch to all aspects of BDSM activity. When I filled out a profile on Informed Consent I didn't even know what half of the checkboxes meant. I know this applies to loads of other people too. The only reason I mention it is that I think one of the dangers of thinking of ourselves as the 'spanking community' or even the 'BDSM community' is that we focus attention on our similarities, at the expense of our differences. This is a danger whenever one talks about the '____ community', whatever that blank might represent. When I look at that IC profile it seems awfully bare. But I'm just not that interested in leather, ropes, cutting, electricity (!) or feet.
Threesomes, on the other hand, are another matter.
3. Thrilled as I am that I can switch on my laptop and instantly watch videos, see pictures and read stories depicting girls being spanked in 19,372 different ways, it sure isn't a patch on the real thing. Now that I'm sure is a view that almost everyone would concur with, but what beats me is how many websites there are maintained by people whose life contains such a healthy amount of spanking! If I were in a relationship with a girl who liked being spanked I wouldn't be doing this; hell, I'd hardly have time to check my email, I'd be so busy. For those with a commercial/professional interest in spanking, it's another thing entirely, but otherwise - well, I'm very glad they do and I've nothing but admiration for their dedication. I'm just confessing right now that if there were a girl across my lap, I don't think there'd be room for a computer as well.
4. The idea of meeting other spankophiles is great in principle, but any way of doing so that involves a real-life event fills me with horror. It's not even a matter of anonymity, so much, and it's certainly not about social embarrassment. I've never been quite sure what it's about, though actually writing this post I being to have an inkling that it's actually to do with this whole issue that I'm discussing ('there's an issue he's discussing?', I hear you cry, 'I thought this was just an incoherent ramble'), that of the nebulous and many-headed monster that is the Community. I've never been to a 'munch', but my guess is that at your typical London munch, everyone's extraordinarily friendly and welcoming, the atmosphere is totally unthreatening and it's basically just a way of meeting people that happen to have one particular thing in common. All I can say is - if you don't understand how dreadful that sounds, I'm not sure I can explain, but I'm sure somebody must.
Anyway, I think that's enough wittering and provocation for now, except to say how great it is to see that Pandora has started posting again - I've been lurking there for a long time and it's principally her blog that inspired me start writing one of my own. Whether she's to be thanked or blamed for that, it may be too early to say.
*In reading this and all posts, please note that I am not particularly interested in BDSM in general, only in those aspects of it that relate to my interest in spanking. There is obviously a certain amount of overlap but when I talk about the online spanking community I have in mind websites and users whose interests relate to mine, and if my focus seems narrow, please be aware that I am not trying to speak for every kinky websurfer out there!
This Sunday evening finds me in a reflective sort of mood - the sort of mood in which, when I didn't have a blog, I would have thought to myself, 'if I had a blog, this is the sort of time I might write it'. So now I feel I ought to test the theory.
One of the great things the Internet has done for us (I mean that in the widest possible sense of 'us') is provide a resoundingly negative answer to the question: 'is it just me?' - for millions of people with all sorts of interests, weirdnesses, predilections. All those people have been able to arrange themselves into online 'communities', disspelling their fears that it might be 'just them'.
But what do we mean by that? The word 'community' gets bandied about a lot these days - it has a reassuringly tight-knit sound about it that is attractive to spankophiles*, politicians, companies and anyone wanting to give the impression that a disparate collection of people with distinct interests can be viewed as a cohesive group. What do we imply by viewing ourselves as a community? Probably that we see ourselves as having certain characteristics or interests in common with the other members. What is the advantage of that? Mainly that those characteristics/interests which might be viewed as deviant or negative in another community can become normal, valid and positive.
Like all groups, the online spanking community, insofar as it can be considered as a united corpus, has developed its own norms of valid behaviour, valid opinions, positive attributes etc. Obviously this is not something so simplistic as a reversal of 'vanilla' norms, whereby people with a spanking fetish are considered normal and people without one deviant. After all, it isn't the lack of a spanking fetish in other people that we find objectionable; it is their narrow-mindedness towards ours. So we tend to define permissiveness and open-mindedness as positive. That's just an example, and one that largely makes sense.
The reason I'm going on about this is that I think that we may have come full circle, with people surfing the spanking web, looking at what is on offer, at the comments left on blogs and the messages posted in public forums, and thinking - 'is it just me?' This is a natural and indeed inevitable situation, but I think it's worth pointing out. So what I want to do here is mention a few personal inclinations that seem to get a bit less airtime than others - if you sympathise, please shout.
1. Posting online involves a fairly significant compromise of privacy - even when not revealing personal details - that I don't find comes easily. Maybe that's being a buttoned-up Brit for you! It always seems to me - irrationally I know - that everyone else posts a comment on a website, switches off their computer, goes off to a dinner party where they make frivolous small talk about their current play partners and recent spanking party experiences, then gets up the next morning and goes off to a Kink Pride march, probably wearing some kind of cute little 'rosy cheeks' lapel badge. I have never hankered after a world in which case I could share my interest with all my 'real-life' friends, any more than I tell them about any of my other sexual interests and activities, and I think there's something nice about keeping certain things private. Paradoxically sharing it with the whole world on a blog is less of a problem than telling my closest friends.
2. As I've mentioned in my first post and in the footnote below, my interests do not by any means stretch to all aspects of BDSM activity. When I filled out a profile on Informed Consent I didn't even know what half of the checkboxes meant. I know this applies to loads of other people too. The only reason I mention it is that I think one of the dangers of thinking of ourselves as the 'spanking community' or even the 'BDSM community' is that we focus attention on our similarities, at the expense of our differences. This is a danger whenever one talks about the '____ community', whatever that blank might represent. When I look at that IC profile it seems awfully bare. But I'm just not that interested in leather, ropes, cutting, electricity (!) or feet.
Threesomes, on the other hand, are another matter.
3. Thrilled as I am that I can switch on my laptop and instantly watch videos, see pictures and read stories depicting girls being spanked in 19,372 different ways, it sure isn't a patch on the real thing. Now that I'm sure is a view that almost everyone would concur with, but what beats me is how many websites there are maintained by people whose life contains such a healthy amount of spanking! If I were in a relationship with a girl who liked being spanked I wouldn't be doing this; hell, I'd hardly have time to check my email, I'd be so busy. For those with a commercial/professional interest in spanking, it's another thing entirely, but otherwise - well, I'm very glad they do and I've nothing but admiration for their dedication. I'm just confessing right now that if there were a girl across my lap, I don't think there'd be room for a computer as well.
4. The idea of meeting other spankophiles is great in principle, but any way of doing so that involves a real-life event fills me with horror. It's not even a matter of anonymity, so much, and it's certainly not about social embarrassment. I've never been quite sure what it's about, though actually writing this post I being to have an inkling that it's actually to do with this whole issue that I'm discussing ('there's an issue he's discussing?', I hear you cry, 'I thought this was just an incoherent ramble'), that of the nebulous and many-headed monster that is the Community. I've never been to a 'munch', but my guess is that at your typical London munch, everyone's extraordinarily friendly and welcoming, the atmosphere is totally unthreatening and it's basically just a way of meeting people that happen to have one particular thing in common. All I can say is - if you don't understand how dreadful that sounds, I'm not sure I can explain, but I'm sure somebody must.
Anyway, I think that's enough wittering and provocation for now, except to say how great it is to see that Pandora has started posting again - I've been lurking there for a long time and it's principally her blog that inspired me start writing one of my own. Whether she's to be thanked or blamed for that, it may be too early to say.
*In reading this and all posts, please note that I am not particularly interested in BDSM in general, only in those aspects of it that relate to my interest in spanking. There is obviously a certain amount of overlap but when I talk about the online spanking community I have in mind websites and users whose interests relate to mine, and if my focus seems narrow, please be aware that I am not trying to speak for every kinky websurfer out there!
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