el tercer ojo

Limits

Some of the discussions here and elsewhere recently made me wonder about my limits. It can be a hard thing talking about playing with someone for the first time, especially someone who I don't know and who doesn't know me or only knows me via my spanking fiction. Anyway, this got me wondering.  What do I do? What are my limits these days?

In the past I've broken them up into lists for people when we talk about playing. These do vary, even within the stuff on the YES list depending on how I'm feeling and whom I'm planning to play with.

And yes, it was kind of hot making the lists. 

The YES List

• school uniforms
• scolding
• roleplay (just talk to me about what sort -- CP is definitely my thing)
• spanking
• paddling
• strapping
• caning
• marks (bruises or welts)
• tears
• bottom
• thighs face
• slapping
• touching toes or holding ankles
• cornertime
• blindfold
• earplugs

The MAYBE List

• breaks in skin and bleeding (don't try for it, but it's okay if it happens)
• molestation roleplay
• hand punishments
• enemas
• plugs
• kneeling
• whipping
• mouth soaping
• photographs
• restraints

The PROBABLY NO List

• gags
• nudity
• sexual toys
• frat paddles (I'm really really afraid of them and not in a good way -- make me understand why they work for you and convince me you won't hit my back)
• erotic / sexual play
• electricity

The NO List

• permanent marks (you shouldn't be trying to scar me)
• verbal humiliation (don't call me mean names)
• scat
• urine
• sex / masturbation (outside of molestation rp scene)
• breath play
• hoods
• smoking
• hot/cold creams
• nettles
• nipple / genital clamps

Information about me

• asthmatic with eczema
• mild claustrophobia
• hearing problem if there's background noise
• don't bruise or mark easily

Severely allergic to:

• tobacco smoke
• cats
• wool
• dust mites and lots of other stuff...

Safeword: My safeword is SAFE.  I don't use it lightly.  If I use it, I would expect the scene to stop immediately and to be released from any and all restraints BEFORE any questions are asked.  If we're going to do roleplay where I resist (verbally or physically), I'd like you to have a safeword or "dial it back" signal -- something that basically tells me if I'm resisting too hard or you're starting to feel bad about the scene in some fashion.  

About Partners: What I want to know is about the other person's experiences, the good and bad and their fantasies. What are their limits as a top?

What I definitely don't want to hear are answers like "I'm into everything" or "Whatever works for you will work for me" or "everything you've said sounds just great, perfect." Aside from not giving me any good information (which is scary and makes me mistrustful), that sort of non-information is a total turnoff. 

Playing with someone is an intimate act for me only if I know about the person I'm playing with. I don't want to play with someone if the scene is all about them "pleasing me" and me knowing nothing about them. Anyway, these are just some thoughts -- I'm sure I've missed a lot of things. What I find is that my limits move over time and depending on partner.

There are a few people who I'd trust to do pretty much anything. But only a few and that trust has been earned over time. Not just by a succession of good scenes, but by the fact they opened up to me and were honest. I know them and feel like they know me.

Hand Punishments

No, this isn't about being spanked by hands.  This is about being spanked / strapped on hands.

I've written about this other places, but actually was planning a lengthier discussion on my blog as soon as I found the time. I know it's interesting to others because both on the Punishment Book and el tercer ojo I probably get more Google hits based on searches for "hand tawsing" than any others.

I believe I've mentioned here that hand punishments (caning, rulering and tawsing) are something I do sometimes, even knowing that being struck on the hands is more dangerous than being struck on the bottom.

(The pictures at the link above are ones of me having my hands tawsed at the February 2006 SL party by Niki Flynn's partner HH. He's the person I've done almost all my hand tawsing scenes with over the last 8 years although I did have my hands strapped in a very different sort of way by davo at the last SL party.)

So, what frequently Why do I do it?

• Purity: Being tawsed on the hands is purely painful with no explicitly sexual or erotic overtones. People into topping for hand punishments tend to be the sort who are into CP at least in part for the sake of inflicting punishment style pain, not simply erotic pleasure. They're the sort of people I like to play with. In addition to that, hand tawsing has a powerful punishment head space.

• Authenticity: This isn't a surprise probably.  I've got a serious bent toward the school scene and the more authentic a school role play can be, the better. Especially as a school *girl*, the idea of a male headmaster hand tawsing isn't anywhere near the leap of imagination that a bare bottom caning would be.

• Intimacy:  When doing a hand tawsing scene, I see the person doing it through every moment of the scene.  I can see what he's feeling -- his both silent approval of my bravado and his pleasure at the knowledge I will eventually break.  I can meet his eyes, not in a mirror but face to face.  I can see my hands trembling, watch the strap rise and slash down.  It definitely creates a powerful connection. 

• Bravery: Having to look the tawser in the eye and hold my hands up to be punished requires a level of bravado it's really not possible to feel when I'm having my bottom punished, even in a caning scene. Since I know the top in the scene is generally looking for the pain reaction, I can try and withhold it for as long as possible. It feels very defiant at the same moment that holding my hands out is a submissive gesture acknowledging their authority and power over me. I feel rather heroic, especially when the scene is done in front of others. For me, there's nothing humiliating about it.

• Public: I don't generally like doing bare bottom scenes in public -- I've got all sorts of body image and modesty hang-ups. I do like doing hand tawsing ones. It feels like a performance. That the one in the photographs at the above link gave such pleasure to some of the English men at the party (especially Ian -- The London Tanner who had made the strap HH used) was fun to know. 

• Physical: Okay, I know that there is more risk of lasting injury to having my hands tawsed then there is in having my bottom caned. However, one of the problems I suffer from is severe eczema. Sometimes my skin is so delicate there's no way I can do heavy play on my bottom or legs -- my skin is just too fragile. My palms, on the other hand, are able, literally, to take quite a beating without any damage beyond swelling and bruising.

For me, I'm not a masochist and I'm not into sensual spanking. Spanking for me is purely CP in the sense that it's about punishment -- either "real", roleplay, or punishments done as form play. Hand tawsing isn't somehow less erotic for me than spanking is given that I don't find being spanked erotic at the moment it's done either. The memory of having been punished and how I either broke or endured -- that's where the erotic element lies for me.

As to the risk -- well, yes.  As stated above I know there's a danger every time I do a hand strapping scene.  But I've risked my hands for things that give me pleasure / satisfaction in the past -- in fact I've broken fingers playing volleyball and, when in high school and played competitively, bruised my hands black and purple.  I don't have any musical talent -- at worst my slow typing might become slower.  So far I've done about 5 heavy hand punishment scenes spread out over a period of at least 8 years.  It's not something I want to do every weekend (a fortunate thing since my preferred tawser lives thousands of miles away) but the thrill of doing it every so often definitely makes it worth the risk.

Mija's Vagina Monologue

On the The Spanking Writers blog, Abel wrote a cute-ish post about the reaction to the Vagina Monologues suspensions at  John Jay High School in Cross River, New York, a public school.  The principal in question, Richard Leprine, had told the girls their performance of excerpts from the piece could not include the word "vagina" because he deemed the term was "inappopriate."  The line the three opted to read in defiance of the order was

My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women's army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina's country.

The girls were initally suspended for one day by the school's principal for having disobeyed his order. Their suspension was overturned, despite the girls not having appealed it, by the president of the school board, apparently after it was pointed out that a male student had been allowed to say the word "fuck" in his performance without his being sanctioned.

One of the questions I had when I first started thinking about this issue is how could the author and work even have been cited as the performance source if the word "vagina" wasn't allowed to be spoken?  Would the students have to have had to say "this selection is taken from a play with a title this school's principal deems too obscene even to be uttered"?  I suspect that wouldn't have gone over very well either.

As part of his reply to some of our comments in support of the students, Abel (who's from the UK) made the point that (edited to add the entire passage for context)

I’m not sure even the most ardent fans of the play would necessarily argue that it’s written for consumption “by all the family”, though. So the performers - apparently - pledged to steer clear of certain passages given the age of some of the audience. This isn’t censorship: it’s more akin to TV programmers avoiding more sensitive material until after the 9pm ‘watershed’.

I could understand Abel's "watershed" comment if the word used had been one of the FCC "bad words" or of the passage the girls were forbidden to quote from was the the section on rape or the play's exploration of the usage of the word "cunt."  In fact, when I first started reading about this case, I had expected that the word they'd said after being forbidden not to was "cunt" which would have made the principal's objections more understandable.  But the word "vagina" is one that can be said on TV at any hour.  It's the correct medical term for that part of the body.  And it's actually part of the title of the play.  There isn't another word that could be put in its place to somehow be less obscene because the word itself isn't any sort of an obscenity.

The comment that he made initally that the reason the word wasn't to be allowed was that there were members of the audience who were very young.  This objection turned out to be false -- apparently the youngest audience members anyone can confirm were there were 13.  The original statements out of the principal were that the girls had defied their teachers, a statement which was denounced as false by the teachers themselves, who were apparently supportive throughout.  My feeling is that respect isn't some sort of default -- it has to be earned.  I haven't seen much regarding the principals actions in this case that would be worthy of respect.  Aside from everything else, he was apparently verbally outsmarted by three sixteen year olds, assuming because they didn't say they disagreed with him that he had their agreement not to use the term.  As the child of a retired high school vice principal and someone who themselves works with teens and twenty somethings, I don't find this impressive for a school administrator.  By contrast the girls made a good choice and were willing to take the fallout from it.  What more could one want from 16 year olds?

Also, the girls in question didn't request that their suspensions be overturned -- their original comments after the fact were that they expected to be suspended but decided leaving the play's language intact was worth taking whatever punishment the school might give.   The overturning of their suspension was a decision made by the school board president.   He decided that the decision to suspend them was incorrect because the orginal order to remove the material was not a correct one, especially given that, as stated above, a male student's use of the word "fuck" hadn't been questioned. 

School, especially public (or "state" for my UK friends) schools  are in an interesting position.  School attendence is required -- school is not a freely-made association that a club or even a place of employment might be.   Yet students remain part of a free society with free speech rights.  It is therefore important that schools not abridge the free speech of students unless doing so is absolutely necessary.  This clearly wasn't the case here -- another alternative could have been presented rather than attemption to restrict student speech.  If they issue was concern over audience sensibilities, the school could have included a mention in the program that selections from "The Vagina Monologues" were being performed.  One would guess an audience member, reading that, would realize that the word "vagina" might be used and could opt to leave if they didn't want to be exposed to the "v-word" word.  Instead, the restriction would seem to speak more to the principal's discomfort with normal medical terms for parts of the female body rather than anything to do with the content of the play itself. 

What bothers me most about this is not even the issue of censorship, but the fact that by is actions (which I have to think were done without a lot of thought) this principal went a long way toward inappropriately shaming and sexualizing the female students.  I don't have children, but I know from friends with teenage daughters that one of the hardest tasks they undertake is keeping their teens from developing shame about their bodies.

Shadow Lane: Party Questions

A couple weeks ago someone wrote me with some questions about Shadow Lane's parties.  They're considering going to one of them and wanted to know what to expect.  I was really flattered to be asked my opinion and happy to recommend attending.  But as I wrote answers, I started thinking that someone else might be wondering too, especially given that the tickets are already on sale.  Here are my answers.  Note that they're more directed to women planning to attend than to men. 

Not prejudiced toward females (well, not much anyway), but rather, I'm writing from my own experiences.

I am relatively brave and feel OK about going alone but are people friendly?

Most people are quite friendly.  However, it does help to get to know a few people ahead of time.  There's usually a couple hundred people at a Shadow Lane party so it can be easy to get lost, especially for someone that isn't very outgoing.  On the other hand, as I said above, most people are friendly and it's generally easier for women who are there alone to meet people then it is for men (or even couples). 

Something I would recommend, if you decide you want to go, is to join one of the spanking discussion groups -- either Shadow Lane's own member site or somewhere like HappyTails, a few months before the party.   Post that you're going and a bit about yourself (only as much as you're comfortable doing of course).  By doing that, it's really likely that you'll connect with a few people and that's really all you need.

Everyone seems to be in their groups already, what is it like?

Hmm... Shadow Lane is sort of like a spanko convention.  And prom.  All the events feels very normal, strange though that may sound.  Tony and Eve work pretty hard at that.

Friday night is the first big event right, is it just like a big party?  Would i just go and try to talk to people like at a party?

Friday is the vendor fair.  There's not a lot of food (just snacks), so usually people arrange to meet at some different places beforehand for dinner (trust me, there will be information up on various boards about that).  At the fair, people walk around and look at spanking stuff and try various items out, meeting new people and greeting old friends.  That can be a pretty good icebreaker.  And yes, looking for people who look friendly and chatting with them is definitely welcomed.  As in any group a few people may not be as friendly as others and some others may be focused on old friends rather than on meeting new ones (in some ways this is a lot like a reunion for some of us), but there's always people interested in meeting other spankos.

In that respect going to Shadow Lane parties is a lot like joining / belonging to any community.  You do have to put yourself out there and bring a friendly face and good manners.  And things will work out.

Usually at the parties on Friday and Saturday, information is passed on what suite parties are going on in what rooms.  Some of those will be open to anyone coming to SL.  Others will only be by invitation.

Are the spankings all considered public?  Is the public part of the spankings presumed?

No.  Only spankings in the main room are public and most of those are playful.  Some people arrange dates in private and other semi-public spankings go on in room parties in the suites.

Getting spanked or spanking isn't required.  I know a number of people who either don't get spanked at all or only get spanked by their partners.  Most everyone is very polite about taking "no, I'm not playing" for an answer.

Spankings at Shadow Lane are only public if you choose to spank or be spanked where there are other people!  In my case, except for occasional swats and my infamous hand tawsings, spankings have generally been private.

Are there really 7 men to every woman? I read that on the SL site!

Good lord!  No way!  There are slightly more men then women but I'd be surprised if the split were even 60/40 and I swear sometimes that 10% of the men do 90% of the spanking but then word about skill gets around.  I think SL is pretty close to a 50/50 gender split these days.

How does meeting people work in practice as opposed to theory? it does seem like everyone is already friends....

It's like school that way.  There are people there who already know each other.  But there are a lot more that are coming to meet people for the first time.  It's a mix.

I am very shy and at my first few parties I didn't really mix at all except with a very few friends I knew well and who were kind enough to look after me.  Last year I made an effort not to just hang in my comfort zone but to meet some new people.  It wasn't hard.

The other thing of course is that there seems to be so many young pretty girls who go to these parties.

There are a lot of beautiful women and men who go to these parties.  I think most of the spanking models in the US try and come to Shadow Lane.  They're into the scene and they're lots of fun.  In addition, there's some stunning spankos.

It totally intimidated me at first because of my own body image insecurities.  But there aren't as many models as you'd think from the party pictures.  I mean, if you think about it, of course spanking models are likely to be in the most spanking pictures seen on the web after a party because they're willing to be seen in public and on camera. 

Whereas I am a middle aged slightly overweight regular woman.  Will I be okay?

In a weird way, being a little older also makes it easier to attend the party, at least in my opinion.  This is hard to write because I feel bad about it, but some of the younger 20 somethings have commented that it can be hard for them to connect with some of the women my age (okay, they didn't put it that way, but I knew what they meant) at parties -- that not all of us are very welcoming.  Personally I've never experienced that, maybe because I've never attended as a sweet young thing that might somehow been seen as a threat.

By the next SL party I'll be 40.  I'm Chicana and wear size 10 or 12 jeans and fill out every bit of space they give me.  I do my best, but gravity does take its toll.  Yes, there are men out there who only want to spank the young and the pretty.  But in my experience, they don't make up the 10% who do most of the spanking.  The worst of them spend their time stalking around a few feet behind their favorite models and actually get spank no one.

There are also a few men every party who really really want to meet people and play but lack the social skills to actually connect.  It's okay to make it clear they need to leave you alone and if they don't to ask Tony or Butch to tell them to back off.  But this is a worse case minority and thankfully rare.

My experience is that the group we'll call the "10%" -- the male and female tops who do much spanking-- know that spankees come in all shapes and ages and are able to appreciate and make those of us who don't look like Bailey, Niki or Sierra feel beautiful too.  Of course there is a real thrill at watching some of the spanking film stars get spanked live and in person, but that's another story.

Honestly, also, the parties are expensive.  Not that many college aged kids or even young twenty-somethings, male or female can afford to come.  The average age has to be somewhere between 30 and 50 and I'd tip the balance more toward the 40-50 range.  Personally I feel like I'm just coming into my SL prime party years.  ::happy grin::

This is my big question though, you are a very professional woman and yet very public about this.   Has anyone from your work life ever asked you about this part of you, the spanking part.?

No.  I don't think they know.  My close friends know but that's it.  The thing is, even though it feels very public, we in spanking are actually a pretty small subset even of BDSM subculture.  I'm only well-known as a spanko within that subset.

No one vanilla has ever asked.  If they did, well, I'd be dismayed, but I'd suck it up. It was the risk I took when I decided I wanted to try and be more public.  Paul (that's Pablo) and I are more public than most -- most of the people we know in the scene and at SL parties have a lower public profile and we'd walk over glass to protect them.

The other thing I kind of count on a bit, especially with regard to being in the background of spanking pictures is that people DO frequently look like other people.  I suspect someone who didn't know me well might well see my blurred picture and think "wow, that looks like..." but not actually think it was really me.  If that makes sense.

This is what has always stopped me from going for it. What if people found out! what would I do then?  I'm a known professional in my field and it would be weird for someone to ask me about it.

It would be weird.  And you do have to decide how you feel about it, because I won't lie, there's always a risk (though the story I hear most -- and it's rare -- is someone running into someone they know at the party.  But if they're there, well, they're into it too).

At the parties  people ask before taking pictures right?  I am afraid to end up as background in some group shot and then someone I work with will see that.

Yes, I've always seen people ask before they take pictures.  And crop out people that they don't know or know wouldn't want to be in.  Other times when pictures are only shared between friends there's an understanding they'll go no further. But, if you see someone with a camera and think you may have gotten in a shot, it's okay to just ask them to crop you or hide your face.  They probably would anyway, but different needs for privacy are understood.

That was kind of fun.  Please let me know if there's anything else.  I really like being able to answer questions about Shadow Lane.

Darling Niki

I find myself continuing to wonder how our lives might be different if we were not constantly subjected to the fear and contempt of being sexually different, sexually dangerous, sexually endangered. What kind of women might we be if we did not have to worry about being too sexual, or not sexual enough, or the wrong kind of sexual for the company we keep, the convictions we hold? -- Dorothy Allison, Skin

A couple of days ago, over on her Not-Blog, actress and model (she does all her own stunts you know) Niki Flynn wrote

Controversy has become my new stalker. It always finds me, no matter what. My new film "The Spy" has kicked up quite a fuss over on the Happy Tails forum. Most of the posters there were supportive, but the topic sparked a fascinating debate.

The setting is 1940s occupied France. An English translator working for the German army falls under suspicion and a sadistic officer interrogates her to get the truth. I won't spoil the ending, but the photos and preview hint at something very dark indeed. 

[there's more, you should go read it]

And then mi amiga (yeah, I'm very lucky in my friends) invited discussion by concluding with the statement

I’d really like to hear your thoughts on this. You can disagree as stringently as you like, but please – no abusive comments. I’m hoping to hear some considered opinions, like those expressed on Happy Tails.

I replied at length there.  But with so much length that I realized I'd like to blog about it here where I have such the ability to run a spell check and edit and things like that.  Of course this is taking me longer than I should so I may add to this as time goes on.  It's a topic rather dear to my heart.

The other day I started a blog post talking about the accusation / concern about misogyny that you (and Adele on her blog) mentioned in an earlier entry. As you might guess, my take is slightly different than yours but not by much.  But this is a better topic and lets me cover a lot of the same ground.  Plus, well, who knows when I'll finish that one.

First, I don't agree with the idea that there are "good" and "bad" fantasies any more than I think it's possible to commit a thought crime. As Janet Hardy once wrote on soc.sexuality.spanking when people were objecting to child spanking stories "mental health professionals have a word for people who can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality. They call them crazy." 

There are good and bad videos in terms of quality and there are good and bad scenes in terms of the consent of the participants.  Actions are what matter, not symbols and not fantasies. 

Clearly you, Niki, consented to make this film without being coerced on any level. Further, the film is an expression of a fantasy, and one in which you are the heroine by means of your enduring torture without breaking. To me, it wouldn't matter whether or not nazi uniforms were worn or not -- the fascists aren't being valorized here. The point of the film, at least as far as I can tell (I haven't actually watched it) seems to be a fantasy based on resistance to fascism and about heroism and martyrdom.

But this issue of fantasies about fascism (or anything else) being "good" or "bad" is very interesting topic for me, maybe because it deals with ideas at the heart of my own fantasy life -- or at least at its early orgins -- and then the expression of it. I spent a good portion of my childhood reading about WW2, torture and death camps. The fixation was partly due to a fascination with history in general, but also because to me there was something so deeply heroic in suffering and in the endurance.   

What struck me most as I skimmed through the Happytails discussion was the way some seemed to see the Father / daughter fantasy as a polar opposite to the spy story you filmed. That seemed ironic, especially given the wonderful Spanish language film this year, 'El Labirinto del Fauno' (or 'Pan's Labyrinth') where the link between political fascism and the abuse of women and children in the home, was made so beautifully explicit.

For me, the idea of fascism, the notion of extreme control exercised in opposition to extreme powerlessness, connects very closely and directly with my father / daughter fantasies. For me, sometimes family abuse (which is how I see them) fantasies are all about the oppression of the powerless by the powerful where their only salvation (if such can even be had) is via a refusal to submit, even though they know that their body can be overcome and forced.

This connection probably speaks to my own suffering fetish more than something that's widely universal.  But this desire to be abused and endure is very much at the core of my fantasy life and has been for as long as I can remember. I can't, as Niki does, put the face of fascism on it via role play, or at least haven't yet. But I certainly can imagine doing it. It's similar to something feminist writer Dorthy Allison touches on in both "Skin" and her book Bastard Out of Carolina, connecting kink, abuse and sexual fantasy.

The passage from Allison that I'm thinking of here is this one:

...I imagined people watching while Daddy Glen beat me, though only when it was not happening. [...] But sometimes when I was safe and alone, I would imagine the ones who watched. Someone had to watch -- some girl I admired who barely knew I existed, some girl from church or down the street, or one of my cousins, or even someone I had seen on television. Sometimes a whole group of them would be trapped into watching. They couldn't help or get away. They had to watch. In my imagination I was proud and defiant. I'd stare back at him with my teeth set, making no sound at all, no shameful scream, no begging. Those who watched admired me and hated him. I pictured it that way and put my hands between my legs. It was scary, but it was thrilling too. Those who watched me, loved me. It was as if I was being beaten for them. I was wonderful in their eyes.

My fantasies got more violent and complicated as Daddy Glen continued to beat me with the same two or three belts he'd set aside for me. 

Yet it was only in my fantasies with people watching me that I was able to defy Daddy Glen. Only there that I had any pride. I loved those fantasies, even though I was sure they were a terrible thing. They had to be; they were self-centered and they made me have shuddering orgasms. In them, I was very special. I was triumphant, important. I was not ashamed.  There was no heroism possible in the real beatings. There was just being beaten until I was covered with snot and misery.

I've reproduced almost all of it because the author's words are so powerful and I hate chopping up good text.

That passage from Allison's book is probably more responsible then anything else for me finding the newsgroup (and hence the kink) when I started graduate school ten years ago.  Reading it literally took my breath away, it was so close to my own experience, right down to the importance of the audience.

Something that Niki's written about in the past is the importance of audience to her fantasy play -- sort of the dimension added by the virtue her suffering is being filmed. When I read this, I started thinking of Allison's fantasy of the audience (though of course we're not captive except in the most willing sense).  In the film The Spy, unless we're into identifying with with the nazi officer, we watch Niki's suffering and feel for her.

There's such an assumption in the fetish that viewers are always identifying with the abuser.  But I think it's just as likely we're identifying (at least on some level) with the abused, somehow admiring their ability to endure.

All the photos above were taken from the gallery pages on Niki's site --lots more there, go see-- and are used with Niki's kind permission.  Contact her if you'd like to reproduce them.  As ever, click for a larger version.

Mojo?

As I mentioned below, my spanking mojo is back.

That doesn't just mean getting spanked for me.  It means an interest in all things spanking too.  The trigger that made me realize the interest was back?  Well, actually there were triggers, as in plural.

The first was when I got the first announcement / invite sent last month for the Shadow Lane 2007 Fall party.   After taking in, happily, that it didn't fall on the same weekend as my brother's wedding (whew!), reading it made me realize that there wasn't going to be another spanking party (at least not for me) until then. 

I'm so excited when I think about SL.  I hope the time from now until then goes fast, though I've got a lot I want to do (like finish a draft of my dissertation) between now and then.  The party will be, almost to the day one month after my 40th birthday.  I really want to celebrate that birthday  -- turning 40 means a lot of different things to me, something I'll write about here another time. 

The picture* to the left is Paul's record of my first very happy adventure with a single tale, used expertly by Davo at the August SL 2006 party.  I was reminded of it by this post of Adele's where she mentions that this is a favorite position.  I was pretty into the scene, but more for my ability to hold the position then the experience of being whipped over my jeans.  Mostly I was impressed that I got my legs up over my head.  By the time he finished I was so into the position that my feet were touching the pillow -- thank you yoga!

The next was something I blogged about on PB.  Last month marked 10 years since I delurked on alt.sex.spanking.  That also makes it 10 years since I first started emailing with Paul.  These are really happy thoughts for me -- the past 10 years have been wonderful. 

Another was hearing from Bailey (who has her own site now -- it's pay but definitely worth a read) as she flew back from the Florida Moonshine Party.  When she first started talking, I realized I wasn't just interested in hearing about her adventures and those of other friends like Niki (who also has a website / not blog now -- which is free and ALSO definitely worth a look / read) -- I wanted to hear about the spankings.  Fortunately the lovely Bailey told me about her adventures in a lot of detail, much of which was repeated in Niki's post to her (not)blog -- though with the blame spread in slightly different ways.  It made me wish I'd felt up to going and, of course, miss them all the more.

Getting spanked on Valentine's Day, the first time since early December when I had surgery, was part of it too.  At the base, spanking for me is caught up in my relationship with Paul.  When we can have that element, the discipline, play and punishment of the scene, I feel more connected to him and the scene itself.

Mojo.  It  may not always be here, but while it is, I'm going to celebrate it!

---

*The picture gets larger if you click it.   

Returning to Normal

This blog is going to be about kink for a while.  That's where my head is at the moment and I'm pretty happy about it.  As the delightfully sweet Natty would say, after three months off, I've got my spanking mojo back. 

Yesterday on the PB, I wrote about how my life is heading back toward normal.  Or at least that we're trying to push it there.  I'm going to try and log the month to see how it goes.  In some ways these entries probably belong on the PB, but I'd hate for that blog to become all about me.  Well, mostly I'd hate it. 

So how did the first day go? 

Not perfectly.  The day involved some financial stress which understandably (even in P's opinion) kept me from being able to start immersing myself in my work.  So the two pages I'd planned to write yesterday got tabled until Saturday.  I don't really like having to work on the weekends, but that was the deal we made and I plan to stick to it.  What I didn't do was pretend to work for a few hours before giving up.  Instead I went into the study and talked to him about it.  That sounds so grown up!

I did, mostly, wear my uniform.

I did write to a friend I've falled out of touch with and apologize (the breaking of contact in this case was totally my fault).  Whatever happens there, I feel better for having done it rather than just feeling guilty about not doing it.

I did track my food / eating on Fitday.

I didn't get to bed until 1:30 AM even though I'm supposed to be in bed by 11 on weekdays.  The stress of the day and heat definitely contributed to this later bedtime.   P was understanding about that too. 

I did get spanked at bedtime.  Unexpectedly spanked, it turns out.  One of the reasons I stayed up kind of late was in what turned out to be a mistaken belief that if I did, I wouldn't get a bedtime spanking as P's energy for such things tends to fade as the night goes on.  Plus he'd had a long and stress filled day too.  But no, he made time for the spanking. 

How was the spanking you ask?  It wasn't hard and I didn't cry.  But it did sting enough for me to put both of my hands back and cover my bottom.  Rather than pinning them in the small of my back, something he usually does, P asked me in a far too amused voice, how long I intended to stay like that.  The answer I felt like giving "a long long time" reminded me of holding your breath moment in Creep Show. 

As I curled up in bed, listening to BBC radio,  I was surprised that the soreness stopped being painful and instead became a warm glow.  I haven't felt that in a long time.

Time to refill my coffee cup.

Memories of the Mean Girls

There's a thread on soc.sexuality.spanking prompted by this news story.  The discussion has tended toward annoyance and a general feeling that this may be "political correctness" (god how I hate that term) gone mad.  To me, it seems like the article doesn't report more than it does.

Anyway, it reminded me of something that happened to me when we moved to Los Angeles when I was 12.  Here's a copy of what I posted:

I've been reading this thread this weekend and have mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I definitely played spanking games with friends as a small child and young teen (and now as an adult, but that's another story). If what was going on was just consensual spanking, yes, I think the adults should tell them not to do it at school and then butt out.

But on the other hand I'm really reluctant to judge the school and locals without knowing all the details which clearly aren't being written about in this article.  Why?  Because at 12 I experienced a level of sexual abuse at the hands of my fellow 12 year olds that has definitely been unequaled in my adult experience.  It wasn't a gang rape, but it was a "gang molest." I don't at all believe the notion that sexual abuse is somehow less traumatic when the person doing it is a child then it would be if they were an adult.

Because it was the 1980s, when my parents reported it to the school there was a sort of "kids will be kids" attitude, right up until my parents called the police.  I'm sure they wouldn't have involved the cops (because they said so) if the school hadn't made it so clear that what happened was just kids playing and being kids.  After the police got involved, some male students were suspended.  The irony, imo, was the female students involved were at least as responsible.

What Happened:  There's no spanking, but as a sexual fantasy this could be seen as hot -- heck, I would probably see it as such if it hadn't actually been happening to me.

Background: When I was 12 my family moved from San Diego to Studio City.  Not a huge move, but I had to leave the school and friends I'd been with since first grade and start over again in the seventh grade of another Catholic school.  Yup, I was the new girl.  I was also short, dark and wore glasses.  While this was a Catholic school, it was also filled with children of the film industry (some of the students were actors themselves) who were socially a lot more sophisticated than I was. There were three girls (Angela, Michelle and Michelle) who basically controlled the class by a combination of being rather funny and really mean. And when I say "the class," I mean a significant number of the male as well as female students.

For a number of reasons the kids in my class were kind of fucked up.  I didn't make it any easier by spending most of my free time hiding from them in the library.  The kids who weren't under the thrall of the three mean girls were glad to see me too -- I'd definitely taken the heat off of them.

At the same time, Peter, one of the popular boys, started sending me notes telling me how pretty I was.  But the notes were sent in secret. Or so I thought.

The story:
One day, toward the end of the spring term, the popular kids caught up with me.  One of the boys named Peter, egged on by the girls as I later found out, led me to a somewhat "private" part of the playground and asked me if I had a boyfriend.  I told him no, I didn't.  He asked if I would be his girl friend.

Not knowing I was being set up, I asked what that would mean.  He said it meant I would have to kiss him.  He was cute and popular and I was pretty close to agreeing when he told me it would need to be a "French kiss" with my tongue.  This was something that I'd practiced with a female friend back in San Diego but had never been able to imagine doing with a boy.

I said no, that I couldn't do that.  He gently took my wrist and kissed me on the forehead before trying, less gently, to kiss my mouth.  I started struggling.

At that point it became clear he wasn't alone in this -- all of this had been watched by another four boys and, of course, the three mean girls. In fact, as I later found out, the "private notes" we'd exchanged had also been read by the whole gang.  As soon as I started struggling, the other boys, under the direction of the mean girls, held me down by my arms and legs.

Peter kissed me, pushing his tongue into my mouth.  At that point I became totally passive, I guess with fear.  My shirt and bra (such as it was) was stripped off and my uniform skirt was pulled up. Peter was directed to fondle my breasts (and did so). Angela, the worst of the worst of the mean girls, suggested that I'd been lying about the kiss and probably wasn't even a virgin (this was based on the fact I used tampons, something that the urban mythology of our class believed impossible of virgins).  Peter was directed to "check" me.

At this point I did freak out and start struggling.  My memory stops there, though I do remember someone's hands pulling off my shorts and under pants.  I think Peter was a little freaked by too.  Fortunately, at that moment my sister (three years younger, but taller and stronger) came over and started pushing at the people who were holding me.  She'd brought with her Chris, the son of some friends my parents had made.  He was in my class, something of an outcast too and became a dear friend.

The two of them made the others stop, which they did, after tossing both Chris and me into the dumpster.  My sister gathered up my scattered uniform and helped me out of the trash.  She was the one who "told" my parents what had happened.  I remember that I was angry with her about that, mostly because I felt like she was exposing how socially inept I was.

As this all came crashing down, only Chris and my sister supported my claim that I wasn't a happy participant in what happened.  It was only a five or so years later, when I was actually sexually exploring, that I realized how terrible all this had been and that it had been part of my nightmares for years.

The belief of the parents of the other students was that I only said I didn't want to "play along" after the fact because my parents would be angry with me otherwise.  I understand that now. To believe otherwise would be to believe that they were party to raising a 12 or 13 year old who could participate in a borderline gang rape.

And that's the story.  Sorry for making it so long, but you know how it is once you start writing. I'm telling it mostly because I think we tend to make children out to be much more innocent and kind then they actually are.  Part of what school should be teaching is what sort of behavior is and isn't appropriate in work situations.  Sexual touching at school, even if it is consensual, isn't appropriate behavior.

That said, I don't think children who behave inappropriately should be treated the same as adults.  But it should be treated seriously.  Trust me, for the person on the receiving end, it feels pretty serious.