New theme, same old ritual fascination

Well, we all need a shakeup from time to time.  I’ve gone for a new look. It will be, I fear, a bit of “old wine in new bottles”, but sometimes old wine is the best. I’ve also been – how can I put it – nurturing my creative juices for a while, in other words neglecting this blog. Yes, over-busy at work, but also trying to decide what to do with it, that is, thinking through whether I want to write and place fiction here or just keep this as an ideas sandbox. I’ve decided to write. That’s the new wine.

I’ve also been thinking about whether to allow other people’s fiction to appear here – I’m thinking of someone who has been sending me the most amazing stories and is happy for them to appear on this site, specifically choosing me as an “ideal dom”. I’m very humbled by this, er, award, and if only she didn’t live in New Zealand! But anyway… on the one hand, this would allow a “submissive” perspective in — there are many other, better, forums for this. But on the other it would also showcase the kind of highly articulate feminist submissive perspective that is very attractive to, well, me. To repost it would say something about the thinking dominant and what it likes…

The ‘other side of the cane’ beautifully described on ‘Bend over Jessica’

As a reflective dom — a state of mind I’ve taken to calling ‘evolved, but unreconstructed’ –  I’ve been meaning for a while to give a warm nod to this text, below, that I found really helpful in giving me insight into the experience of the spanked (caned in this case) submissive. As a dominant one can go through life never knowing. Never really, really, knowing. But this filled a gap in my knowledge, and is beautifully written, proving that a few choice words are actually worth more than 1,000 pictures. Definitely worth quoting at length. Thanks Jessica! Oh, also, the intensity of the authority seems to have been exactly right too – undeniable, thorough, respect-inducing, but ultimately caring and non-abusive.

http://www.bendoverjessica.co.uk/wordpress/?p=566

‘When it began, the first thought was that the cane really bit. Each stroke seemed to sear a red hot brand across my backside, making me suck in my breath sharply from each stroke and the initial sharp line of pain was followed by a wash of sensation as the burning brand spread and rippled across the surface of my bottom.

‘After six strokes, the pain was more constant – there was no longer any relief between strokes, because the itchy burning pain was there the whole time. Now each stroke cranked up the level a little bit more, another step up the pain ladder. At almost the same time, I felt my endorphins start to crowd my body, to speed down my veins and race round my blood.

‘My breathing grew faster, my skin prickled all over, sweat broke out on my upper lip and forehead and I jerked, jerked my body in pain away from the punishing cane but my hips developed a rounded rhythmic dance of pain – a circular motion as cringed away from the stroke, absorbed it and then eagerly thrust my bottom out to meet the kiss of the next stroke. My legs drifted apart and I could feel the hot pulse of lust between my legs and I wanted some relief. But first, I had to take my punishment.

‘The final set of strokes hurt so much that I had to focus madly to stop myself from leaping up and begging. When this happens, my line of vision narrows until I can’t really see or process anything – just the relentless lash of the punishment implement and the body’s reaction as I deal with the burst of agony and tense myself for the next. It’s like tunnel vision and the world shrinks until all you are aware of is the rhythm of hurt and all you can do is wait until it stops.

‘But at the same time, those treacherous endorphins are getting you through it, forcing you to embrace it, your mind willing to take far more than your physical body can. This is where it sometimes gets dangerous as a less experienced or less caring top will take you out and beyond that, not caring if blood starts to run down your skin. But my playmates aren’t like that and sure enough, just when I thought I’d had nearly too much, the caning stopped.

‘Shakily I stood, body wired with pain and pleasure. Uncle Edmund sat me on his knee and I cuddled him, only aware of my blazing bottom. It felt good.’

How to get the spanking you want: talking taboo

I’m delighted to do a bit of promo for one of the most intelligent, insightful bloggers around – Vivian at The Disciplined Feminist – who has written a 2-part spanking book “How to Get the Spanking You Want: The Complete Guide to Asking for it, Getting It & Making It Better,” available through this link.

Explaining the book on her blog she says: “Of all the emails I get asking for advice, well over half of them are from women (and some men) who want their husband or boyfriend to spank them, but don’t know how to ask, and this question seems to pop up a lot on spanking and DD forums, too.”

I haven’t read the book yet, but the topic has me thinking: why is spanking hard to ask for? (I strongly suspect that Tops want to ask for it as much as Bottoms want to, but the Top mindset is less likely to be actively advice-seeking.) More particularly, why is it hard to ask for in a world where it has become relatively easy to ask for many kinds of kink? Egged on by Cosmo and others, it is quite fashionable to ask to be corseted or tied up, or to use various toys and costumes all under the banner of “spicing things up”.

But spanking (real, hard, non-nonsense spanking, not the pat & giggle stuff) is a much harder thing to raise. I think it is because Spanking Is Violence.

As a man, one experiences very heavy socialisation from an early age to constrain violent impulses. Agression is channeled out of us in every way (other than on the sports field) which is absolutely correct of course. Anyone who hits another person is a criminal. And all the more so with regards to girls – you never, ever hit girls.

To me this is key to why spanking is hard to ask for – because it runs heavily against our socialisation. For him, asking the uninitiated, he is breaking this heavy social taboo. Psychopath! For her, asking the uninitiated may be mistaken for the equivalent submissive pathology: the desire to be hit, hurt …

In fact, spanking is okay (great!) because it is highly ritualised, that is, has associated codes and rules which define actions and limits (the key ones are bottom only + consensuality). It is okay exactly in the sense that other code-constrained violence, notably contact sports and martial arts are okay. These also allow and imply consent to violence-within-the-rules. The rules make the violence productive rather than destructive.

This suggests a way to approach the how-to-ask conundrum. Whether you are a Top or a Bottom, the key to overcoming the taboo is to stress that spanking is rule-based violence, that is, “productive” violence. It produces such things as discipline, intimacy, mentoring, nurturing, eroticism, couple harmony and so on. (It is deeply significant that sex is codified violence too – it is precisely the *rules* surrounding the practice of taking a woman, overpowering and penetrating her, that make it socially acceptable and delightful. Without the rules, it’s rape.)

Well, that’s my 2c. I’m looking forward to reading what Viv has to say, and have little doubt that she has sorted out this question better than I have.

So many different types of spanking, so, a few preferences…

The Internet has been the most fabulous transition in every way, most of all for disparate communities that are not easy to connect, or communities and identities not easy to have in public. No surprise that sexuality led the Internet more than a decade ago, and spanking sites and forums have always been a big part of that. It has released us to be able to say what we are thinking, and (perhaps even more importantly) know what others are thinking. The benefit is – I have had this and have read many many with the same sentiment – is we suddenly feel so Normal and Sane, after having grown up thinking we were weird.

That’s the upside. The downside of all this connectivity, for me, is that it connects me to some stuff that I find pretty gruesome. Here we get into personal preference and assuming it’s all consensual there’s no judgment, but my preference is for “real” spanking, that means hard, but not damaging. For example I find a lot of the Eastern European stuff just too heavy. And much of the hard caning – where is it going? Nowhere that I want to go. For me it’s about authority and clear roles and limits. But it’s not about pain. Sure, forcefulness and pain is necessary to achieve the goal (to make the dominance-submission real.) But it is not the goal itself. A bit of brusque otk with skirt up and panties down, to me achieves more authority than any amount of whaling away.

Also, I want to lay down a marker for intelligence and literacy. Call me elitist, perhaps, but dumb brutality, whacking away at another persons behind … well it does nothing for me. The interest is in the dance of authority and submission, what he says, what she says. Before, during, and after. The brain is the most important sex organ, and ideas and words are the real bearers of the erotic.

Just another spanking blog?

One of the things that blogging allows, encourages in fact, is to put one’s private journal online. So here goes. What get’s me journaling, primarily, is the need to reflect on adult spanking and consider my role and preferences. Many things are obvious in life. But this topic is not. So I find myself thinking about what I find interesting, and erotic, and difficult, and incompatible with me. And I think better when I write, or at least writing it down forces me to think it through.

Having said that, this blog will be about everything I muse on. As I say in my “About,” I don’t believe in erotic divorced from the rest of one’s life and existence. In fact the point of blogging, to me, is to work on integration. I have a life of many interests and passions, and spanking-discipline is just a part.

The other thing is, I want to get blogging, finally, to do my bit and show my appreciation for the many wonderful, thoughtful people in the spanking community (there are many who are not so wonderful, but more of that later.) However, on the whole, over many Web sites and b-boards and blogs, I’ve come to regard the people I come into contact with as something special, a community with a particular earnestness, integrity, and reflectiveness that one doesn’t see everywhere in the “sex” world. Many write very well too. So I want to acknowledge and be part of that. That motivates me.