Personal Pet Peeves

When I first decided to create this blog and to call it Positively Spanking, I wanted to convey two thoughts with one handy phrase. First of all, I obviously wanted people who found it and decided to drop by to know that this was, indeed, a real blog by a real spanko. Secondly, I wanted the language of my blog to be positive. That is, show the scene and its inhabitants in a positive light just in case they were curious about joining us or had questions about what the average spanko is like. I didn't want to scare anyone off with the negativity that you sometimes see in other peoples' blogs.
Now, having said all that, I feel it only fair to warn you who are reading this that you'll encounter a small amount of negativity in this entry because it happens to deal with the things that rile me about the scene. These are just things I feel the need to get off my chest and aren't the result of any one thing that has happened to me.
I got active in the scene in early 2003, over five years ago. At that time, my experience was limited to videos and a few websites. I had no idea of the diversity of the scene at that time. I thought everyone I would meet would be a spanko like me. After I began attending parties and meeting different people, I discovered that I was wrong. There were people who were into things I'd never even heard of (and I wasn't some young babe in the woods, but a 42- year-old woman who had been around a while). It was then that I discovered my first scene pet peeve. At my very first party, I was asked if I wanted to try something I always said I would never try. When the gentleman made the offer, I gave him a polite "no thanks". This wasn't good enough for him. He wanted a reason. When I said 'Because I said no thank you' he called me uptight and said I was closed-minded. At the time, my feelings were hurt because I had been assured that no one would try to pressure me into anything. Today, I would tell that "gentleman" that I'm not closed-minded, I just know what I like and what I don't like. He has never asked me to play again.
My second pet peeve has to do with the attitudes of some Doms (and this includes a few Tops, too). It's the generalization that all women or men who get spanked are submissive. This couldn't be more false. I have had men who've spanked me that have tried to Dom me and I have repeatedly told them I'm not submissive. I don't respond well to being ordered around. They pooh-pooh this and say I'm just in denial. No, buddy, YOU are in denial. You want all women to be submissive to you and it just isn't going to happen. Get over it.
My third pet peeve centers on my fellow females in the scene. These are the ones who, even at a party, can't let themselves enjoy a good spanking session without feeling guilty about it. Talk about a downer. A few years ago, I was at a party and one lady (a submissive with a new Dom who couldn't attend with her) said she'd had such a good time with one Top that she felt the need to apologize to him for "liking it too much". Excuse me, but isn't that the point of the whole thing? When I asked her 'Why did you apologize for liking it?' she rolled her eyes and didn't say anything. Her response (or lack of it) told me all about her attitude towards non-submissive women. 'You're not a sub. You wouldn't understand'. Thank God! The day I have to apologize to someone because I enjoyed the spanking they gave me is the day I quit the scene altogether.
My next pet peeve is aimed squarely at Tops (and some Doms) who insist on speaking about spanking in purely punitive terms. Usually, on the Crimson Moon list, when a party is approaching, the bratting picks up. Brat do what they do best (brat) and Tops do what they do best (threaten said brat with a spanking). OK, I can live with being told I'm going to get spanked for my bratting. After all, it's just the reward for all of my hard work. But some guys just don't get it. They don't understand that this thing is supposed to be FUN. They post a message to the group telling me that I will find myself over his knee getting a spanking I'll never forget for such bratty behavior. I had one tell me I should consider staying home because what he had in store for me was too horrible to contemplate. I wrote him a private email telling him that, for me, spanking was fun and that I didn't go to the trouble of asking for time off from work, paying a party fee, paying for two (sometimes three) nights in a hotel and paying for the gas for a 200 mile trip just so I can get out of getting spanked. I told him I played a lot at parties and had no qualms about playing with him. He did watch me play with another Top and I guess he decided that I wasn't his type or something because he never asked me to play. Now I was a very hard player at that time and the Top I was playing with was whipping me with a strap made out of an old firehose. Perhaps my level of play (and my total enjoyment of our scene) turned him off? It didn't occure to me at the time that there were some Tops and Doms who didn't like it if you liked it too much. They would much rather fantasize that they're giving you something you hate (preferably against your will) than to listen to you laugh and see the smile on your face while you play.
As you can see, there are several things about being in the scene that just get under my skin and bug the heck out of me. Will any of them make me leave the scene in disgust? Probably not. I love getting spanked way too much. But I have learned to be tolerant of people who have a different attitude about the scene and its place in their lives than I do. We're all members of the same kinky family, after all. But, like a real family, even though we like each other, that doesn't mean that every now and then one doesn't do something that drives another member crazy. Most of my pet peeves don't bother me the way they used to. Some, which were major when I first discovered them, have been relegated to minor status. The fact is, all of us have pet peeves when it comes to some aspect of the scene. The trick is to keep them in their proper place and not let them interfere with your enjoyment of this thing we do.