Memory Lane

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.

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:

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.

Back in town... but still quiet

It's nearly the end of March, and as promised I'm back in town and able to post again. The curious thing is that I don't really feel that much of a burning desire to post about anything. It's funny how these things can fluctuate - throughout January and February I was on the internet looking at my favourite sites, reading stories and checking out blogs every evening, and even if I was only posting here once or twice a week I was constantly having ideas about things I wanted to write about. After six weeks cold turkey when I've had no access to any of this (and would have had no time for it even if I had), I'm surprised to find that I've kind of got used to it and my blogging enthusiasm has slightly dried up.

I'm not declaring this blog closed, but I think it's only fair to let you know that I don't expect to post regularly for the time being. It may well be that now that I have a bit more time I'll soon get sucked into it all again and I will resume a more regular posting schedule but I'm not going to rush into it - I'd rather wait until I feel the need to write about something than try to rack my brains for something to write about. My interest in all the things you know I'm interested in is as lively as ever - the only difference is that I don't currently have all that much appetite for writing about it. Drop back in a while and see if I've changed my mind again!

The 1000 Club

On logging into my blogcounter account just now I was pleased to find that a short time ago this blog passed 1,000 hits. A good start, I think! I know I ought to be doing a bit more to get myself known like ask other bloggers to add me to their links - and I should add a few more myself. If you have a spanking blog and enjoy reading this one, please do link to me and I will try to add your link asap. And to everyone else, do leave a comment if you drop by! I enjoy all your messages, though of course I'm delighted to have a lurker following as well - so long as you're getting something out of reading I'm happy you're here.

Because of a particularly frantic few weeks of work, with very little time at home, there probably won't be many posts for a little while. I'll try to drop by every now and again, but in the meantime, if you get bored by the lack of activity, please check back towards the end of March.

Hope those around London are enjoying the beautiful early spring weather! I'm stuck inside working all day and all I want is to go for a lovely walk...

A new hairbrush

I went into Boots today to buy a new hairbrush. Sadly the motivation was entirely vanilla; after years of cultivating the wild unkempt look (cultivating may be the wrong word), I've decided there's no shame in a little bit of hair care. It's the kind of hair that still looks fairly wild and unkempt whatever you do to it so I'm not sure how worthwhile an investment it will be.

Anyway, there I was in a fairly large branch of Boots, thinking I would just grab the first and cheapest brush that came to hand and be out again, and I found myself racked with indecision. Of course, my eyes went to the wooden ones first - though idiotically, in the end, I bought a plastic one because it was cheaper and I didn't think I was likely to be using it for anything other than brushing my hair any time soon. How short-sighted can you get? I'll kick myself one day when I do have an opportunity.

Still, I couldn't believe the choices - fat ones, skinny ones, tall ones, short ones... and I couldn't resist trying a few out on my hand to see what the impact was like. I wonder how many shoppers saw me and knew what I was thinking...

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.

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.

Happy New Year!

Just a quick post to wish you all the very best for 2008. My New Year's resolutions:

1) Do something proactive to meet like-minded people (any creative suggestions for what that might be are welcome)
2) Keep this blog going
3) Find a living situation conducive to playing when I want to
4) Devise ingenious clandestine tactics for finding out which of my friends are also secret spankophiles (again, if you're ahead of me, let me know)
5) Do some spanking.

Hope you had a great New Year's Eve and that you have a happy, kinky year.

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...

Spanking and privacy

Around this time of year the spanking blogs tend to be filled with forlorn comments like 'we're off to _____'s parents' house in the morning, so no play until next weekend'. Those of us who don't live on our own in spanking-friendly domestic situations for the rest of the year might be forgiven a wry smile at those for whom a week without perfect spanking privacy is a privation of epic proportions.


To restore a little festive cheer I thought I might try to assemble some thoughts on how I've managed this particular problem in the past.


The biggest problem is probably that if you are not with a fairly serious-minded co-enthusiast you may be limited to using your hand, which is definitely the noisiest of methods. In this case, the only possibility - if waiting for an empty flat/house is not an option - is underscoring your spanking with loud music. Rhythmic smacks in time with the beat can be used to mask the sound with good effect, though you have to know the music well enough to foresee any irregularities in the song accompaniment.

This is the safest way of making sure you can't be heard, in my experience, but it does rather invade the atmosphere, so you want to be sure that the volume level is as low as peace of mind will permit. Using a quieter mode of punishment can be helpful, though of course if it is also a harsher one, you may also need to think about a gag for the spankee to prevent embarrassing yelps. Do be careful with this and read up on how to do it safely. As for quieter methods, I reckon the ideal for this is a wooden hairbrush; leather belts/straps can also be wielded relatively noiselessly, though at some cost to their effectiveness.

The one other problem with using music is that as well as hiding the sounds within the room, it makes it hard for those inside to hear sounds from without, so you can't necessarily tell if people are walking around outside (or, possibly, even if they are knocking).

Sadly, the only really satisfactory way to spank in private is to do it in an empty place with no neighbours. One day...

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!

Pascale, pt 3 (the good bit!)

‘Mmmm,’ I gurgled, stretching back in my seat. ‘That was delicious. I can see why he’s marrying you.’

‘Glad you enjoyed it,’ she smiled back. ‘How about some dessert?’

‘Mm, yes, I’m sure I could manage a little something more, if you hang on for about six months. What are you offering me?’

She got up and moved closer, then leaned over and kissed me fully on the mouth. ‘I’m afraid I just didn’t have time to buy dessert,’ she said softly, ‘so I hope you don’t mind home-made.’

I pulled her on to my lap and wrapped my arms around her neck, moving in for a longer kiss. As it went on I started to run one hand down her back, keeping one where it was to support her, but moving the other one all over her body, inside her top, so as to be in direct contact with her skin, then towards her full, inviting breasts, but not underneath her bra – not yet – then down to her waist and hips, and along her thighs… first outside her skirt, then inside it and back the other way… Each new uncharted area I explored brought forth a little moan of acquiescence, and slowly she started to explore my body with her hands as well. She pulled away from my lips and towards my ear. ‘Shall we go up to the bedroom?’ she whispered. I nodded and took her hand, and she led me up the stairs.

Once in the bedroom she pulled off her top, revealing a skin-coloured bra, which she glanced down at as if to invite me. I moved towards her, then before she had time to realise what I was doing, sat down on the edge of the bed and flipped her over my lap. ‘Hey!’ she squealed. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m not doing anything yet,’ I retorted, holding her firmly in position.

‘What do you mean? Let me go!’ She was giggling a bit, but half nervously.

‘I’ll let you go in a minute if you really want me to,’ I said, tracing a path with my hand along the inside of her thighs towards her deliciously curvaceous bottom.

‘Oh, that feels nice,’ she purred.

‘Well, there you go.’ I carried on stroking her. ‘Now, Pascale, you remember what I said earlier?’

‘What about?’

‘About what I thought you needed.’

‘No. What are you talking about?’

‘I told you before dinner that you needed a spanking. Have you forgotten already? Maybe you shouldn’t have had all that wine.’

‘Shut up, Jon. I haven’t had too much wine and I don’t need a spanking. I don’t think this is funny.’ She wasn’t giggling any more. I stopped stroking.

‘Pascale, listen to me. You’ve just got engaged and the first thing you did was start looking around for some sort of distraction. Then you want to tell your fiancé all about it, which will no doubt upset him a great deal. You’re trying to have the best of all worlds and you’ll end up regretting telling him, which you only want to do to alleviate your own sense of guilt. You’d be much better off finding another way to do that that spares his feelings, and I’m telling you from experience that a spanking can be a very cathartic and effective method of dealing with situations like this. I’m not proposing some kind of sex game, I’m proposing a punishment, with your consent, for something you shouldn’t have done. Not for whatever happens and has happened with me, because that would be hypocritical of me, but I think what you’ve done with me you would have done with somebody else if I’d said no. You need to be punished for what you are really feeling guilty about, which is saying yes to something as a big as a proposal without giving yourself time to think it through, discussing all the issues it raises, or being sure you’re ready for it, and taking that kind of a risk with another person’s feelings. Now look, it’s up to you. If you think I’m being unfair, say so.’

‘Do you think we could talk about this with me sitting up in a normal position?’

‘Yes, all right.’ I let her go. She got up slowly and gave me a slightly odd look. ‘When did you decide you were going to do that?’ she asked me.

‘Just as we were coming up the stairs,’ I replied. ‘But I didn’t just decide to put you over my knee, I decided to give you the spanking you deserve, and I haven’t done that yet.’

‘Look, Jon, are you really serious about this?’ The way she said it, I could see she had got over the shock of being unceremoniously pulled into position and was beginning to give it some thought. ‘I mean – it’s not exactly a very conventional way to atone for marital misdemeanours, is it?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘the conventional way is to have a huge fight about it and develop severe trust problems that in many cases will end up ruining the relationship. Do you think that’s a better approach?’

I looked hard at her. There were tears starting. ‘No, I don’t,’ she said quietly. ‘Will it… be hard?’

‘It won’t be trivial,’ I said. ‘There would be no point. If it doesn’t hurt you won’t feel like it’s achieved anything. It’s nothing you won’t get over. It depends whether you think it’s worth going through a bit of discomfort for.’

She thought about that. ‘OK,’ she said slowly, ‘fine. Suppose I say yes. What happens then?’

‘Well, in general, I would put you over my knee, as I did before – ’

‘In general?’ she interrupted. ‘Do you do this often?’

‘A few times,’ I answered evasively. ‘Stop interrupting or I’ll add extra punishement.’ I let her see a little twinkle in my eye as I said it and she smiled back, though she was still a little red-eyed. Likely to get more so, I feared. ‘So, you go over my knee, unless you have extreme objections to that and want to try a different position. I will lift your skirt up and spank you on the bottom for a certain amount of time — ’

‘What sort of amount?’

‘I’d usually judge that as I went along. Probably not less than 3 minutes. Probably not more than 5.’ She drew in her breath. ‘And then — ’

‘There’s MORE?’ she asked, wide-eyed.

‘Just to finish off the punishment,’ I assured her. ‘Do you have a hairbrush?’

She looked puzzled, obviously not having any idea what I was getting at. ‘Er – yes, sure. How does that…’

‘Could you get it?’

She got up and left the room to go and retrieve the brush from her bathroom. She was gone a couple of minutes, then came back in. She’d washed her face and tied back her hair, and she was holding a wooden-handled hairbrush.

‘Perfect,’ I said, taking it from her and smacking the handle lightly against my hand a few times so she would see what I meant. Her expression was pleasingly scandalised. ‘You can’t be serious!’ she exclaimed.

‘You may find that the difference between my hand and this thing is not as extreme as you imagine,’ I told her, not sure whether she would interpret that as reassurance or warning. ‘Just six smacks with the brush to finish off, once I’m satisfied you’ve had enough of a hand-spanking. It will all be over in a few minutes and I really think you’ll feel a lot better.’

She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but, hell, why not. OK, so how do I…’ She looked awkwardly at my lap, suddenly self-conscious. I took her hand and guided her across. She looked beautiful, lying meekly in position, a conspirator in her own punishment.

‘Pascale,’ I said firmly, ‘in a minute, I’m going to start spanking you. In order to do that properly, I need to raise your skirt. I’m going to do that now.’ I began to do it; she wriggled helpfully. ‘From now until I tell you, you are not to move from this position. Please don’t try to fend off spanks with your hands, move to avoid them, or try any other kind of obstruction. All you have to do is lie there quietly and take your punishment. I’d like you to think about what I said to you before and the feelings you’ve been having recently, and try to view this as a way of dealing with all of that. OK?’

She nodded and gave a tiny ‘mm’. She was wearing a skin-coloured G-string that matched her bra – better than it would match her skin in a few minutes, I reflected. As for protection, it afforded her absolutely none. I had no thought of removing it. For her first spanking, the humiliation was already quite enough. Anyway, underwear – even if it provides no physical barrier at all – can provide a useful source of threats with an uncooperative spankee. That said, I didn’t think Pascale was likely to be that, once we got started. She was already giving me the impression that she had made a conscious decision to take her punishmnet as stoically as she could.

‘OK. I’m starting now.’ I placed my hand on her bottom and moved it around a few times, just so that the contact wouldn’t be a shock. Then I raised my hand in the air and brought it down, fairly smartly, on her buttock. She stayed impressively impassive. I rubbed the spot I’d just smacked, and moved over to the other side and rubbed there a little, too. Then I raised my hand again and brought it down on the other side. This time she flinched a little.

Noticing that she was shivering a bit, I put my other hand on her back, bare (but for her bra) ever since she removed her top on entering the room, and rubbed it a little to warm her up. She seemed grateful. I raised my spanking hand again and brought it down, harder this time. ‘Uh.’ And again. ‘Uuuh.’ I started to spank more rhythmically, generally alternating sides but occasionally repeating one, so as not to become too predictable. I was spanking at intervals of about three seconds – far enough apart to have time to register each smack and anticipate the next one, and to give me time to swing back for a fairly hard impact each time.

Pascale has a gorgeous bottom that just cries out for this sort of treatment, a notion that had occurred to me many times in the past before I’d ever had any idea I might ever get the chance. Her fleshy cheeks quivered with each smack just as I’d imagined they would, and her milky-white skin was starting to blush a colourful pink. After the first 40 seconds of spanking or so, I paused to admire the effect – not yet anywhere near fully reddenned, but just beginning to turn nicely pink. I rubbed her bottom a little. ‘OK?’ She gave an almost inaudible noise of assent. She seemed to be concentrating quite hard – whether on resisting an undignified reaction, blotting out the pain or contemplating her situation, I couldn’t be sure.

I stopped rubbing and smacked down, hard, on the cheek nearest to me. ‘Ah!’ she almost cried out, stifling it as if she felt she wasn’t complying properly by making a noise. It occurred to me that I might have suggested this with my instruction to ‘lie there quietly’. ‘It’s OK if you make a bit of noise, Pascale,’ I said. ‘Whatever you feel you need to do. Up to you.’ I could see her determinedly shaking her head. I smacked again, and now began to build up a faster rhythm, still not peppering her bottom with indiscriminate fast spanks, but not consciously pausing in between each one either, so I was going about one every second. I noticed she was timing her breathing to the rhythm of her punishment. Every now and again she gave a kind of feminine grunt, but it always seemed very much under control.

I paused again after another minute and a half. Her bottom felt very warm, as it might well. My hand was beginning to tire slightly. It was her first time, but I hadn’t done this for a while either. I decided the time had come for some slower, harder spanks. I rubbed her a little in anticipation. She tensed, obviously sensing that something was about to happen. The next thing she was aware of was my hand crashing into her now scarlet cheek. ‘Aaahhh!’ I drew back my hand, waited, and then resolutely walloped her again, on the other side. ‘Oh!’ And – eventuallly – again. ‘Uhhh!’ Now I was properly taking my time, letting her sense that each one was on its way, and really laying into her, maybe ten seconds apart, giving her the full force of my once well-practised arm. Like riding a bike, I thought with some satisfaction. She was becoming more vocal, in spite of herself. I looked at the skin, beginning to turn patchily purple. Hope the fiancé is away for a while, I suddenly thought. Oh well… too late for that now. She’ll think of something. And again, I brought down my hard hand, enjoying the reaction the punishment was eliciting. I was starting to wonder how much longer to spank for. It had been about four minutes, by now, since I’d started. I decided on four more, and delivered each one as if it were the last. Pascale’s increasingly noisy moans were starting to fill more of the gap between smacks, rather than just being an immediate aftershock, so I decided to wait for the noise to die down each time to ensure her full focus.

As I reached the climax of my assault on her buttocks, she let out a plaintive sigh of suffering that sounded like a plea for mercy, and her voice caught, suggesting that tears were not far off. Perfect, I thought. I hadn’t been sure whether she would resist the temptation to cry or not – I was sure she had been trying – but I knew I preferred it if she gave in to it. She would feel better.

‘Pascale, I’ve now finished spanking you by hand,’ I told her. She didn’t react. ‘In a minute I’m going to give you your six smacks with the hairbrush. Then your punishment will be over. Would you like a minute before the second part of your punishment starts?’

She gave a short shake of the head and muttered something that might have been ‘just get on with it’. I decided this wasn’t the time to insist on a respectful attitude and just indicated that I would take her at word. I picked up the hairbrush from where I had left it on the side of the bed, just next to where I was sitting, and rubbed it on her backside. She breathed out as she felt the cool wood. Then I raised the brush, drawing a little anticipatory flinch from her.

SMACK. She had been concentrating hard and managed not to make any noise, though the impact of the implement obviously shocked her. I didn’t rub, or leave the brush in contact with her skin after the stroke. This was the most serious part of the punishment and just for a minute I wanted to let her feel that sense of abandonment that a spankee feels when the contact of a sensual spanking – even a punishment one – is withdrawn.

SMACK. I repeated the same side, contrary to her expectation. She let out a low moan and her tensed body relaxed, giving itself up to the pain.

SMACK. On the other side now, so she would know she was probably getting another one there straight away. It might have been that thought that did it, but at last I saw her shoulders shake as she began, silently, to sob.

SMACK. Probably the hardest stroke yet, and right on top of the previous one. A welt was appearing. Pascale seemed now to have abandoned herself completely to her punishment and the resilience she had shown at the start of it had gone.

SMACK. Perhaps a little meanly, I placed that one on the same side as well. ‘Aaaahhhhh,’ she moaned sorrowfully. ‘Last one coming up,’ I said gently. ‘Are you ready?’ She nodded, and through her choked voice I heard something like a ‘yy’. I paused, realising that it was about to be over. I had no idea what she would be like afterwards. Would it have helped? Would she realise straight away if it had? Would she feel angry? Would she have forgotten any thought of wanting to make love to me, or would she need it more than ever?

Only one way to find out, I thought.

SMACK. That really was hard. Now she sobbed without trying to hide it, feeling perhaps that with the end of the punishment came the end of any attempt to control her reaction. I put my hand on her well-punished bottom and rubbed, gently, for which she seemed grateful. After a few seconds I spoke to her. ‘You can get up any time you like. If you want to stay there for a moment, that’s fine. Take your time.’

To start with she didn’t move, so I kept on rubbing. It felt very tranquil and natural, sitting there, her still over my lap, me rubbing her bottom, all punishment meted out, all wrongdoing atoned for. After what seemed like ten minutes but was probably only two or three, she gingerly raised herself up, still sobbing a little. As she got upright I put my arms round her and drew her in, and to my relief she didn’t resist – she let herself be held, as if it was exactly what she had wanted, and I wrapped myself around her. ‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, terrific,’ she answered, smiling weakly. ‘I’m cold though. Let’s get into bed.’ I let her go and clamber under the covers while I took off my shoes and socks, and – after a moment’s deliberation – my top. I kept my jeans on. I don’t usually get into bed wearing jeans, but she might have been getting more than she bargained for if I took them off at that particular moment. I got in and took her into my arms again. ‘You were very impressive,’ I told her. ‘That was pretty hard.’

‘Glad you thought so,’ she said. ‘It certainly felt like it to me. Doesn’t it hurt your hand?’

‘Not really,’ I said, just a tad disingenuously. ‘Well, after a while, perhaps.’

‘So am I supposed to feel cleansed and purified now? All sins washed away?’

‘Something like that. Actually, you’re mainly supposed to feel an access of immense gratitude to the person who has been kind enough to give you the discipline you need, such as would induce you to offer to perform wild sex acts for the next 16 hours.’

‘A bit like hostages falling in love with their captors, do you think?’

‘Just like that, yes. If you like I can call up your parents anonymously and demand an enormous ransom, lest their daughter be subjected to a thrashing of medieval proportions.’

‘Make sure you tell them which daughter, then. I think if it was my sister they’d probably think it was a splendid idea.’

‘But not you?’

‘If it was me they’d probably take the view that Will is supposed to be my protector these days. They’d probably offer to give you his email address and suggest you get back in touch if you have any difficulty finding him.’

‘Very helpful.’ I moved closer to her and went towards her for a kiss. She was more receptive to the approach than I had dared imagine. Soon she was reaching down beneath the covers. ‘Jeans in bed. Good idea. Must try it. Are you trying to protect your chastity? Or mine?’

‘Well, I tried protecting our chastity by subjecting you to a vicious physical attack and hoping that would put you off the idea, but luckily you seem to have been positively charmed by it.’

‘Oh yes,’ she nodded, ‘you know the way to a girl’s heart all right. Well, can I suggest you take them off?’

I complied. ‘Mmm, what have we here?’ she cooed. ‘Were you like this when you were – you know – before?’

For some reason talking about being spanked is almost more embarrassing for girls than the event itself – even with the keen ones it’s always hint after euphemism after half-finished sentence when you’ve just done it.

‘Afraid so.’

‘You sicko.’

I raised my eyebrows in acknowledgement. She gave a little shake of her head, in a ‘whatever will I do with you’ sort of way, but she seemed to know exactly what the answer to that question was. She felt me through my boxer shorts, pressing down with the flat of her hand and then taking me between two fingers. ‘I think these might have to come off,’ she murmured, and before she’d even finished saying it, she was on her knees, tugging them down and pulling them off, and no sooner was I out of my boxers than I was in her mouth. She closed her eyes, as if lost in the moment, and I leaned back into the pillows in incredulous satisfaction. I could feel her hand cupping me underneath, her thumb straying slightly to stroke my groin, while her other hand moved lightly across the inside of my thigh. She was an absolute expert at what she was doing and I had the glorious sense of abdication that comes with the attentions of such an adept partner. No worrying about things happening too quickly, or too slowly for that matter, or wondering when would be the right time to suggest something else – just complete confidence that she would go at exactly the pace she wanted, and all I had to do was let her do it. I had done quite enough domination for that evening and if she wanted to take control of things from here, that was just fine.

Pascale, pt 2

‘Hellooooooo!’ She answered the door with characteristic enthusiasm, wearing a pale green top that was just on the conservative side of revealing, and a light summery skirt.

‘Hi! This is for you,’ giving her a nice robust bottle of Rioja that I’d been meaning to get around to drinking. ‘I wasn’t sure what you were making so I took a shot with red.’

‘Perfect! I’m making lamb tagine.’

Nice hearty meal – I was pleased. I knew it would be, somehow. Pascale just wasn’t the sort of girl to be faffing about with stuffed vineleaves and mushroom risotto. Would go well with the wine, too.

‘Come in - let’s have a glass of white. I’ve got some open.’

She ushered me into the house, which was pretty impressive. Whatever one said about her other half, he was obviously doing all right.

‘Pascale, this place is amazing. Are you sure you haven’t already been married for four years and had two kids?’

‘Hmm, good question. KIIIIIIIDS!’ No reply. ‘Nope, doesn’t seem like it. I can see why you’d wonder, though. I have moments myself. It is rather domestic, isn’t it… Would you like to see our conservatory?’

I looked at her in astonishment. ‘You have a conservatory? In the middle of London?’

She burst into peals of laughter – ‘of course not! You’re too easy… you should see your face.’

‘You’ll be telling me about your builder troubles with your loft conversion next,’ I told her, recovering.

‘Actually, funnily enough, we do have a loft conversion – ‘

‘No WA – oh.’ I caught myself just in time and laughed. ‘Well, this is all very amusing. Was offering me a glass of wine a joke as well?’

She grinned and found a couple of glasses, and retrieved the bottle from the fridge.

‘Can I help with anything? This all looks wonderful.’

‘No, I think it’s under control, thanks. Let me just stick this in the oven and then we can go and sit down. I want to talk to you about something.’

Sounds intriguing, I thought. I tasted the wine, which was nice – just off-dry and lots of character, perfect for an aperitif, probably Alsatian Riesling or similar – and waited for her to put the finishing touches to her culinary creation. A couple of minutes later we were sitting down on her extremely comfortable sofas.

‘So, Pascale, what’s the burning issue? I’m on the edge of my seat.’

‘You’re hiding it well,’ she replied, with a glance at my sprawling form, sinking into her luxurious furniture. ‘Weeeell. Hmm, where do I start? This is probably going to sound pretty weird.’

Whatever it was, I definitely wanted to hear it. It was unusual to see her stuck for the right words. Had to be something a bit out of the ordinary. ‘Don’t worry about that,’ I reassured her. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing I can’t handle.’

‘I hope not,’ she said, half in earnest. ‘Well, look, I’ll come to the point. You remember I said I’d just got engaged?’

‘I certainly do.’

‘Well, after Will proposed – and I accepted him straight away, of course – well, it was completely out of the blue. We’ve not been together all that long and I thought it was definitely going somewhere, but I didn’t think he would want to jump into getting married quite so quickly and I guess I never bothered to think about what I’d say because I was sure it would take at least another year or two. So there we were, and all of a sudden we’re getting married. Which is great! I’m so excited about it, don’t get me wrong. But… this sounds dreadfully clichéd, doesn’t it, but when you realise that’s it, forever, committing to just one person, you just start asking yourself… I mean, I wasn’t completely sure if I was really ready. I think I am, and I reckon everyone feels like this – ’

‘Definitely,’ I interjected.

‘ – sure, but it made me really want to sort of test it, just to see – I found myself really wanting to put myself in a position where I knew I’d be tempted to, you know, do something I shouldn’t, to see whether I did really want to. Isn’t that silly?’

‘No, not at all,’ I said, with a ‘why not?’ gesture. ‘It’s a natural enough thing to want to do. So what then?’

‘Well… oh God, I hope this isn’t the weirdest thing ever, but when I came round to your place last week, that was sort of it. I knew seeing you again would bring back… well, did you know I always thought you were quite tasty?’

I laughed, in a half-bashful sort of way. ‘Erm… well, that’s very sweet! I did wonder, yes. I wasn’t sure. Perfectly honestly, I always thought the same. I still do. I am quite tasty.’ She laughed. ‘No seriously,’ I went on, ‘I always had a bit of a crush. But I can’t tell you that! You’re engaged! You’re off the market!’

‘I know,’ she nodded, ‘that’s just the trouble. And I do feel a bit of a cow. Will’s such a sweetie and I’m sure he thinks I haven’t had a second’s doubt. And I mean I haven’t! Like I said… but, well, you know. But, Jon…’

I looked quizzically at her. It was pretty clear by now what she was getting at but I wanted to tread carefully. If she wanted to do this, I thought, much better let her take the initiative. Not let her feel later that she was talked round.

‘I mean, if you did feel the same way…’ She leaned towards me and put her hand on my thigh. ‘No pressure, of course.’ She smiled coquettishly. That was invitation enough. I leaned across and touched her lips with mine. She pushed back into my lips and parted hers slightly. It was a lovely, early evening kiss. When you’re just a tiny bit loosened up by the first few sips of wine, not wanting things to get too wild when there’s the whole evening ahead, savouring that first moment when everything changes – not heated, not urgent, just unhurried and gentle. After a couple of minutes I broke off for a second to put my wine down on the table, then pulled her into me and kissed her a bit more solidly. It felt just right. I could feel her relaxing into my arms, letting go of herself, feeling like if she was going to do this, she was at least doing it with someone she could trust.

Some minutes later the kiss dissolved into an embrace and she rested her head on my shoulder. ‘Jon?’ she murmured. ‘Mmm?’

‘Do you think I’m an awful person?’

‘Despicable.’

‘Jon, seriously. It’s not very nice, is it? Would you leave me if it was you?’

‘Not if I didn’t find out I wouldn’t.’

‘But I have to tell him, of course – how can I start a life with him and not tell him something like this?’

‘Pascale, you do whatever seems right to you, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. He hasn’t done anything wrong, so why should he be the one to get hurt? I think if you do something like that it’s fine so long as you keep it to yourself, but it’s a bit unfair on him if you tell him.’

‘That’s an odd way of looking at it,’ she said. ‘So you think cheating on your partner is less immoral if you lie about it?’

‘Basically, yes. Protect the innocent.’

She mulled that over silently for a second. ‘But I’ll feel so guilty. Do I have to live it with that as a secret for the rest of my life? That’s quite a punishment.’

‘Surely fairer than punishing him for something he didn’t do. But maybe you’d feel better about it later if you did something to atone for it.’

‘What, like give some money to charity? 10 quid for a kiss, 20 if I get my tits out… 50 quid a shag?’

‘Pascale! I can tell you right now that a shag with me would be worth much more than that.’

She hit me lazily on the arm. ‘Jon, you are impossible. All right, so what penitence should I do for my sins? 700 Hail Marys?’

‘Goodness, that sounds rather extreme. I’m not sure I’m worth that. No, much simpler. A good old-fashioned spanking would do the trick.’

She looked round at me slowly, eyebrows raised so high they seemed to be leaping off her forehead. ‘A spanking?’

‘Sure,’ I answered her confidently. ‘I’m not actually joking. I think it’s exactly what you need.’

‘Well, I think you’re crazy. That tagine will be ready, though. Let’s go and eat.’

She got up and walked into the kitchen, taking her still-half full glass of wine with her. I followed slowly, wondering what to make of the exchange we’d just had. She had been dismissive of the idea, on the face of it, and yet I felt that there was a little part of her that didn’t think it was completely crazy… or even if it was, maybe it was oh-god-well-go-on-then crazy rather than get-out-you-freak crazy… or at least you’ll-have-to-convince-me crazy. The latter I would settle for.

Pascale - pt 1

Having complained in my previous post that very few of the stories I read hit the spot, I started to think that perhaps if I was going to moan about all the other writers out there I ought to have a go myself. So I'm working on it, but it's looking like developing into a multipart story. I'm going to post what I've written so far, in two parts, and I'm warning you right now that I still haven't got to 'the good bit', so if that's what you're looking for, you may be disappointed. And if you're finding this months after I've written it and the later parts have now been posted, you may want to start at pt 3 if you don't like long preambles.



I had only been in for five minutes when there was a knock on the door. I wasn’t expecting anyone. What I was expecting was a cup of tea, a quick email check, then a couple of hours of work before I had to go out again. Whoever it was, I hoped I wouldn’t be disturbed for long. ‘One second,’ I called out, more brusquely than I had meant to.

‘Pascale! Hi - what a nice surprise!’
‘Hiya, Jon, how’re you doing? Am I disturbing you?’
‘Not at all – come in. I was just about to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?’
‘Oh, that sounds amazing – yes please.’

I took her coat and ushered her into the living room, excusing myself to go and put the kettle on. My pleasure in seeing her had been quite genuine; Pascale is an old university friend I don’t see nearly often enough and she would have been the last person I’d expect to see at my door. I didn’t even know she knew where I lived. We’ve never been close, exactly – it’s the sort of friendship where I think we both always felt we’d like to know each other better, but for no particular reason never quite made the effort.

‘Normal tea? Earl Grey? I’ve got some weird ones as well…’
‘Just normal is great, thanks.’
‘Milk/sugar?’
‘Just milk. Cheers.’

I brought in the cups and sat down opposite her. ‘So – how are things? And to what do I owe the pleasure?’

‘Oh, nothing in particular,’ she replied with a breezy smile, ‘just thought I’d drop by. I’m really well! How have you been?’

‘Yeah, great… busy, but that’s good, I guess. I’m in the middle of a big job at the moment and it’s just trying to fit everything else in…’

We carried on with pleasantries and chat for a while. As she was talking to me I was thinking back to our occasional chats when we were at college – I’d only run into her a couple of times since and never really stopped to notice her, but now I paid some attention I saw that there was a real change since then. What I’d always liked about Pascale was how at ease she always seemed, but talking to her now, I realised that in a way that’s what she’d always wanted people to think – maybe it hadn’t been quite as natural as I’d thought. But now I saw her really relaxed, totally comfortable with herself and chattering away as if we’d seen each other every day for the last five years, the difference was palpable. She’d grown up physically as well – from pretty girl to attractive woman, really full-figured but not at all too big, just the perfect size for her. The pronounced curves she now had suited her beautifully.

‘…but the really big news,’ she carried on, as I tuned back in from my musings, ‘is that I just got engaged!’

‘Wow! Pascale, that’s incredible! Congratulations – who’s the lucky man?’
‘Well, his name’s Will – you’d love him, he’s gorgeous. We met a few years ago but really got to know each other last summer, on holiday with mutual friends, and we’ve been together since then.’

She was beaming as she was telling me, and I hope I was beaming back. It was quite a surprise. It’s not as if I had any good reason to be shocked; after all, twenty minutes earlier I’d hardly thought of her for the last four years. But even with a girl you sort of know and sort of find attractive, it’s never especially welcome news to find that she’s off the market for good – just a mild, shoulder-shrugging, ‘should have got a move on with that one a bit sooner’ sort of feeling. I was pleased for her, of course. We probably wouldn’t have ever got together anyway.

‘So when are you doing it? Is it going to be soon?’
‘Next year, probably – his family’s huge, it will take an age to organise. Luckily he has a very bossy little sister who is going to be our unofficial wedding planner. She doesn’t know it yet, but it’s what she was born to do.’
‘How about that – he even comes with a PA. He sounds perfect.’
‘He is! How sickening.’

You’re not kidding, I thought, but only half meant it. She stayed for another half an hour and we reminisced about university days, lecturers we’d liked, pubs we’d hung out in, people we were still in touch with… it was really nice. Then she said she’d better be going and asked what I was doing next Tuesday evening.

‘I think I’m free. What’s the plan?’

‘Well, I thought – dinner at mine? I’m loving having a kitchen all to myself. So nice to be able to cook whenever I want and not worry about which pans are mine!’ She had been saying that she had recently moved in with her fiancé after sharing with a couple of friends for the last couple of years.

‘That sounds lovely! Does this mean I get to meet your fella?’

‘Sadly not – he’s going to be away. You’ll have to keep me entertained in his stead!’

‘I’ll see what I can do. Cool, well that sounds great – I’ll have to meet him another time,’ I said, silently promising myself it wouldn’t be any time too soon.

‘Cool! See you next week then. I’ll email you my address and how to get there.’

I saw her out and got back to work, still just a little bit off-balance after hearing her news. Pascale about to be married… the idea was so strange. But not that surprising really, I admitted to myself. What else was she going to do? Pretty girl, a year or so older than me, probably starting to think about having a family – the chap was a few years older than her, she’d said – she wasn’t by any means the first of my friends to get hitched. I wondered if I’d get an invitation to the wedding.

Hello, and welcome

The notion that I might start a blog has been idly swimming around in my head for as long as I can remember, and now that I find myself doing just that, it's surprisingly difficult knowing what to write. So, since this is the first post, let me start by giving you a little bit of information about myself, why I've started this page and what I hope to achieve with it.

I'm in my mid-twenties, living in north London and working in the arts. I spend far too much time on the Internet even though I have far too little time for everything else, and figure that if all I end up doing is redistributing some of the time I waste reading news stories I've already seen and looking people up on Facebook, writing the occasional blog post can't do too much harm. Famous last words. I'm straight, possessed of a fairly standard set of limbs and faculties, very turned on by spanking, and as far as my kinky interests go, firmly in the closet (hence the absence of much identifying personal information, or any photos - sorry to disappoint). More detail on my kinky interests will no doubt emerge in the fullness of time, but to summarise briefly: I am a top, much more interested in spanking than bondage, alternative forms of sadism or other BDSM-related pursuits, and with fantasies leaning towards school scenarios but also including workplace, domestic/erotic and various others.

Why start this page? I think the answer to that will become clearer to me as time goes on; at the moment, my motivation is somewhat vague. Essentially I guess I wanted some way to communicate with sympathetic souls, and perhaps an outlet for observations and gripes on the internet spanking world. For instance: why do so few of the stories I read really hit the spot? What is it about the ones that do? The same questions apply to the videos. Why do I feel so disinclined to turn up to the munches, fetish club events and other real-life meet-ups I see advertised on places like Informed Consent, even though I'd like to meet people who share my interest? What actually are my interests, exactly? How best does one approach the subject with new partners, and can devanillification really work? Do I like the idea of domestic discipline as a reality or only as a fantasy? And so on.

I'm aware that many of these questions - the more generic ones at least - have been addressed at length by other writers, but I guess we all have our own take on most of them. I find that I have the outlines of an idea what I feel about all of them as I write them down, but often it's hazy and contradictory, and I think a bit of diarising might shed some light. There is then of course the question of why do it in such a public way - if the point is self-analysis, wouldn't a good old-fashioned diary make more sense? - and perhaps that's true, but then again, maybe the comments of readers (if I have any) will offer insights I miss myself.

I've no idea how often I'll post, or how long the blog will last. I might delete it tomorrow, or I might post three times a week for years. For as long as it does stay open, I'm sure I'll very much enjoy reading any comments you care to leave, and if you want to communicate more privately, my email address is displayed above.

Thanks for dropping by -

Jon