el tercer ojo

Windows, Prisms and Lenses

Thinking about blogging and being on-line, much as I haven't been lately, I wrote in response to something stumblingtaoest wrote about being judged on what he and his partner have been writing recently in their blogs as part of their poly-family breaks up and they're trying to pick up the pieces. Here's what I wrote, cleaned up a bit because I can:

I think I understand the point you’re making and try and bear it in mind where ever I read. There’s a tendency, especially via medium like a blog, to believe we know a person just from having read their daily writings. But even if they’re writing their true self, it’s at best only true for that moment.

P and I have experienced the other side of the looking glass of what you and Bridget are going through — neither one of us writes very much about problems our relationship has had over the course of its 12 years. And yet there have been problems its just we’re both quite introverted and when unhappy retreat into our own heads. But because the problems haven’t been written down though, they don’t exist on-line and we’re seen sometimes as having a frighteningly idealized existence and relationship. That’s a lot of pressure.

This was brought home rather starkly to me 6 or 7 years ago during a bad patch when I confided in a friend that I thought P and I might have reached the end (as it turned out we obviously hadn't reached the end, but rather an end) and they responded with "you can't. your relationship is the only thing giving me hope that I'll ever find someone."  

She meant well.  But ouch.  No pressure there.  Some fallout was that neither of us have felt great about writing real life stories for The Treehouse ever since, partly because we're both now conscious that it creates a falsely utopian view of our relationship.  The other reason being the site needs a redesign and there's just been too much going on for P to find the time or energy for that project. 

A good rule for life, I think, is to remember that no one knows what's going on in someone else's marriage (or sometimes even their own, come to think of it).  And likewise, knowing someone via their writing is a long way from knowing everything about them. 

Anyway, that's me on a soapbox. 

A Christmas Meme

A Christmas edition of a getting to know your friends meme.  :) 

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper with ribbons except where the gift makes it impossible.

2. Real tree or artificial? Can be either depending on the year.  Real the years we're at home, fake for the years we're traveling.

3. When do you put up the tree? Early to mid - December.

4. When do you take the tree down? Twelvth Night.

5. Do you like eggnog? Yes, but only the commercial kind, over ice and without booze.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? A Spirograph when I was 9.  I've never wanted anything so much before or since.  It was the most perfect gift ever.

7. Hardest person to buy for? Paul, not because he's difficult but because I want the gift to be just right and that rarely happens.

8. Easiest person to buy for? My father.  He loves getting presents and is thrilled by everything he gets.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes -- a creche which passed to me when my grandparents died.  I love it in all its chipped and glued-back-together glory.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?  Mail -- about once every 5 years or so.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? You know, I'm so spoiled that I don't think I've ever gotten a bad present.  Or maybe I just love presents!

12. Favorite Christmas Movie? Ooo... so many.  In order: "The Thin Man," "Love Actually," "Nightmare Before Christmas," "A Christmas Story."

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? The week before Christmas, finishing on Christmas Eve because  I love shopping on Christmas Eve (seriously). I can't shop early because as soon as I have a present for someone I have to give it to them.  The idea of shopping a month or more ahead of time sounds like torture.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? See's chocolate a few times.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Tamales and homemade Christmas cookies.  

16. Lights on the tree; colored or white? Colored

17. Favorite Christmas song? "The Christmas Song," "Baby It's Cold Outside" "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" and "River" But I like almost all Christmas songs / carols.  Except "The Little Drummer Boy" -- that one makes me want kill myself.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? I don't care, so long as we get to be with lots of family and friends.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Yes, though I need to sing the song in my head to do it.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Depends on the year.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas Eve, after Midnight Mass.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color? Red is a favorite color, but my favorite ornaments are the ones Paul's bought for me over the years.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner? Roast Beef and Yorkshire puddings with chocolate yule cake for dessert.

25. What do you want for Christmas this year? My mom's total recovery from her surgery on December 8th.

26. Who is most likely to respond to this? Sentimental sorts like me.

Countdown to London

After a weekend spent caretaking an elderly friend so his wife could have a bit of a break (they have a pool so it's been fun as well as a bit challenging), Paul and I are off tomorrow for a trip to Britain. We're leaving in less than 24 hours and I'm not even packed.  Though we're only going to be their two weeks, the time seems packed with an almost disorienting combination of visits with relatives, scene friends and a trip to the Edinburgh festival.

It will be important not to mix the scene friends and the relatives up -- I had a dream last night where in a jet lagged blur I absent-mindedly wore my new gymslip to a dinner with my inlaws. This  couldn't really happen only because I'm not taking my gymslip. (It's with me after all at the request of my beloved -- so the danger persists.)  Otherwise I'm completely capable of such a mistake.  The only bright spot in the nightmare was the knowledge that Paul would be even more
embarrassed than me.  Trust me, that doesn't happen very often.

I'm not planning on bringing my laptop -- my mac powerbook is a creaky 10 this year and I can't justify the 8 pounds of excess weight (maybe Santa will bring me a macbook air) so my internet access will be only as frequent as I can pry Paul's laptop out of his selfish, hard and large hands.

It's been a great weekend though.  My birthday present finally came. It's a new bike -- a hot pink Hello Kitty beach cruiser (picture here -- you can click for a larger version).  This very special gift, even cooler in person  and speaks to my Hello Kitty desires which I will try and remember to write to you about another time.   

Sadly, I've barely had a chance to actually ride it yet and only just around the block, but whenever he's missing me, Paul goes into our friend's garage and finds me stroking it in a loving yet slightly disturbing fashion.

Anyway, we're about to leave for London as I write this.  I'm bringing a journal so with any luck I'll be able to write some dispatches as computer and 'net access allows.  In any case, if I go silent for a few weeks, you now know where I am.  If you miss me, tell Paul to share his computer.  (Note: he's not selfish.  We share everything else.  But our computers seem to be a share too far.

When we get back it will be almost time for Shadow Lane in Vegas.  I'm looking forward to getting together with some of PB authors (Iris, sparkle and Bridget will be there) and (hopefully) getting to call the others at the same time so we can all wish Iris much happiness in her coming (and happily spanko) marriage.

August looks to be a very good month. 

Talking With the Doctor

Even though I live in a big city, I used to have a lot of worries about talking to my doctors about my kink activities. How self-conscious was I? Enough that I even made sure to schedule pelvic exams around brazil waxes in case the lack of hair caused questions.

What changed all that was a bad scene that required me to seek medical treatment. I had to explain everything. As I was doing so, I realized that all any of these doctors and nurses wanted was to help take care of my body and get well. There was no judgement (at least none that I could see which is all that really matters), no embarrassment (from them, I was certainly embarrassed enough for three people), just care.

As time has gone on I've learned to take a deep breath and ask / talk about my kinks with frankness as though I don't expect judgement or surprise. Thus far, there's been none.

It's helped to read about other people doing the same thing. Natty, a fellow Punishment Book poster with her own blog, has an especially good account of a conversation on her blog here.

As well as an entry with a great deal of information on what she's learned about spanking and anticoagulants.

Yet another PB writer with her own blog, Dykk Grrl, and her wife W have had conversation about What It Is We Do with their therapists and have written about it here.

So all that said, what happened yesterday?

Yesterday I had my first appointment with a new psychiatrist. New to me anyway -- the doctor himself is probably in his 70s. For the first 15 or 20 minutes, the questions were mostly medical (trying to see what medications I can and can't take). Then they became personal.

But not too personal. Until suddenly, he asked:

"Do you experience hyper-sexuality or "inappropriate" sexual urges?"

Dead stop from me. Sexual urges? Since I don't do vanilla sex, I don't generally think of myself as even having sexual urges.

The doctor misunderstood my shock.

"That sounded like a value or moral judgement, didn't it? I don't mean it that way. Just answer as best you can."

So I had a choice. I could either go into detail about my fetish or just answer the questions basically replacing in my head the spanking fetish for sex. It was tempting, but the problem with being cagey is that eventually truth always comes out and it only gets harder.

I took a deep breath, answered the question and then replied further that I have an alternative sort of sexuality.

He looked up from the notes he'd been writing. I swallowed hard.

"My husband and I met on a sexually oriented internet group."

Pause. In retrospect it was easier telling him than it had been telling our immigration attorney. In both cases though, I sure was glad about the whole confidentiality thing.

"What sort of alternative sexuality?"

The word "spanking" suddenly regained the magical power it had had 11 plus years ago when I first de-lurked. Far too late, I tried to be vague.

"Um, BDSM, S/M sorts of things. Impact play based."

The doctor nodded.

"And what are you?"

"Oh, um, I guess one would call it me a "spanking fetishist."

One? Did I really refer to myself as "one" out loud for goodness sake?

"Yes, I understood," he replied. "I meant, do you spank or get spanked?"

Oh.

"I'm, I'm a bottom, that is, I get spanked. I've had fantasies about it since early childhood."

"And your husband's interests?"

Oh. My. God.

"Okay. Well, he has fantasies about it being done to him but didn't like the reality,. He spanks me."

It's odd, but I find it harder to talk about Paul's interests than my own. Like I'm being disloyal or talking about him behind his back. Crazy, I know. But then that's why I'm here in the first place.

"Does he enjoy spanking you?"

"He says he does," I reply, trying for humor.

"What do you think?"

"I think he enjoys it too."

And that was it. The subject changed, we went on with an equally embarrassing but not kinky line of questions. The interview ended and I walked to the shuttle stop to head back to Union Station.

I'm glad I told the truth. This doctor too just wants to keep me healthy and happy. That being the case, he's not going to be down on me being spanked, right?

And finally, if you have the luxury of being able to choose a doctor and it matters for them to be kink aware, this is where the list is: Kink Aware Professionals.

Yes, I'm Back

I know, I've been gone forever with no word, nothing. I'm sorry.

But now forever is over. What's been going on will probably emerge as the blog turns. Or not. Suffice to say the past 6 months has sucked, that they're over now and the future looks bright.

Yes, I've missed a lot. Including anyone and everyone still reading here.

What do I feel?

This should be an entry to remind myself that at 40 I should know better than to try and set between friends who are either disagreeing or don't like each other.  Especially when I don't know what's going on.  The only thing both people could end up agreeing on is that I should mind my own business.

Why I apparently don't know better and keep making the mistakes the got me in trouble in junior high, why I need everyone around me to get along and to love me are questions that will probably take the next 40 years to resolve. 

I can't muse on my crazy insecurities today. 

Today I'm at work, working in bursts because the mindlessness of my job makes it an easy place to hide..

Today I've turned off my phones and am ignoring my email.

Today I'm trying to find the courage to walk into my boss's office and tell her about the call I just got from my mom.  But I can't do it.  That call which I should have been expecting has somehow ripped a hole in me.   

My grandmother is dying.  She's been going by inches for the past year, but her inches are running out.  At 101 her life is terrible -- even the smallest acts of independence are being stripped away while her mind has stayed horribly alert and aware of every loss.  Over the past year, as it's become clear my nana can never get well, can only decline, I've hoped and prayed for her to pass peacefully.  Dying peacefully is the right thing for me to want here and the kindest and most merciful outcome.  I know this.

But I don't want it and so maybe I haven't really prayed for either.  I'm selfish and I don't want to let her go.  At the worst moments of my life, childhood and adulthood, she's been there for me, making me feel loved as unconditionally as it would be possible for anyone to be.  Her very existence and love for me saved my life, not just once but repeatedly, including one time when I was 10 years old and she confronted my parents about their abuse of me and threatened to take me away from them. 

When I was a child and she was taking care of me, I worried often that she would die.  Back then, 70 seemed very old and she used to play a bit with guilt, telling me when I rolled my eyes at being told to push my bangs out of my face when I read or not to bite my nails that I wouldn't have her to bother me much longer.  One summer when I was 11, the thought of losing her made me burst into tears and in comforting me she swore she would be here with me as long as I needed her. 

That's right.  She loved me me so much and was so distressed at having hurt me by her teasing she swore not to leave until I was sure I could let her go. 

My nana is in Portland -- more than a 1000 miles away from me.  Her weight down to 65 pounds.  She has cancer that's spread throughout her body and for which there is no treatment.  Her younger sister and older brother are both dead now.  Last summer my grandfather, her husband of 70 years, died and left her alone to mourn him.  My mom told me today Nana can't hold down food or water.

She has always been safety and home to me and soon  I have to travel north to say goodbye.  Somehow very soon I have to let her know it's okay for her to go, that I'll be fine.

But I don't believe it.  And selfishly, in my heart, I don't want her to leave me.

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.

2007

Here's mine.  What about you?

In the year 2007 I resolve to: Not strip for free anymore. Get your resolution here.

I'm Not Mom

Adele Haze recently wrote an entry about a PlayStation2 game called "Rule of Rose." It's apparently stirring up controversy in Europe for having adult content (dark and sadomasochistic images as well as lesbian overtones).  There have been moves in Europe to ban it there because it's not the sort of subject matter children should be exposed to, Sony US decided not to release it here for fear of controversy -- it's being distributed here by another, smaller game company.

I don't want to get into reviewing the game or its content except to say that, despite reviews saying the actual play is a bit slow / clunky, it sounds like something I'd enjoy.  But whether I would or not is beside the point.   What the point, for me, is that by expecting that every game released be suitable for children, other adults like myself are being forced by parents into living in their child-safe bubble.   This, in my opinion, isn't right.  There are books, films, places and, yes, games that are intended for adults.  They are not appropriate for children nor should they have to be.  It's the responsibility of parents to keep their own children away from them. Not to rid the world of the item, but to decide what is and isn't appropriate within their own households and those they allow their children to frequent.

In other words, leave me out of it.  I don't have children and I don't plan to.  I don't tend to frequent places with children -- my interests and tastes are largely adult.   The students I work with are already adults .  If my husband and I wanted to live in a child-safe world we would.  Parents need to just say no to games you don't think are appropriate for their families and not expect this to be done by passing laws the effect adults.  PS2 games are about $30 - $50.  Where would kids get that kind of cash if not from their parents? 

This is an old issue for me, but one that keeps coming up.  A couple of years ago I wrote a review of Grand Theft Auto: San Andres.  In it I commented on the this very topic writing

In getting links and pictures together for this blog entry, I came across a lot of [writing by] mothers and educators worrying about the effect playing this game (the cite it specifically) would have on their 11 year olds. Excuse me? Why would you let your 11 year old play with this? The game costs $50 -- they can't buy it with their lunch money. This is an old rant for me, but it bothers me when parents think the world needs to be made kid-proof. My mom and dad decided I wouldn't see any R rated movies, even on cable, until I was 13. Even then, until I was 16 I had to check with them and they usually prescreened them or watched them with me. GTA isn't written to target 11 year-olds. The game is written for those of us who were teens in the 1980s and early 1990s -- people who are now in their twenties and thirties. I'm basing this the music and sense of humor. Please, parents, I beg you to keep track of what games your kids are playing. Me? I'd like to see adult movies, books and games safe from the daycare crowd.

It's true that when my parents bought our family's first Atari system the games were all intended for children.  But times and technology have changed.  Further, there's a whole generation now in their 30s and even 40s who've been playing computer and video games since their teens.  It only makes sense that game makers now write games for an adult market in addition to the child one. 

Personally I'm going to try and get a copy of "Rule of  Rose" to play while I'm recovering after my surgery next month.  I promise that after I finish with the game, when I pass it along afterwards it will be to another adult.  Now if only I could get parents to promise not to try and take toys away from other grown-ups.