I'm aware that my last two blog entries have come across as somewhat negative. I call my blog "Positively Spanking" because I wanted to showcase and concentrate on the positive aspects of spanking and the spanking scene. But every so often (usually right before a big spanking party) I have to get a few things off my chest so that my head space can be right for the party. Believe me when I say that there are few things more disappointing than going to all the trouble to plan to attend a big blow out and have your head space be all wrong. It's happened to me and it was horrible. So I use this blog to vent a bit before parties. Unfortunately, because my entry titled "Games People Play" was listed on Chross's blog in his "Spankings of the Week", it got a lot of attention. I saw less than 12 hours after posting it that over 1500 people had already looked at it. Now believe me, I would much rather post about positive things. But in order to get things off my chest, I use my blog rather than Fetlife because I know my views are unpopular and I would be absolutely excoriated if I posted some of my ramblings there. It would turn into a useless exercise in wagon circling, where people would form factions and pick sides and no one needs that right before a party. As I said, I know my views are unpopular. I know that I rub a lot of people (some of them very well placed) the wrong way. But many of those people have their positions in the scene based solely one who they're friends with or who they're sleeping with. I wish this wasn't true, but it is. I also wish it wasn't true that dissenters are often silenced on Fetlife, but it's true. We're told that if we don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything. I can see this applying to people who just want to be rude or who love to attack people. But telling people who disagree with you to, basically, shut the hell up, that's inexcusable to me.
But I'm going to leave all of that behind. There's a party coming up in ten days. Even a bout of bronchitis hasn't been able to dull my excitement. Even after all these years, I still love the anticipation that builds up before a party. I didn't get to go to the October Crimson Moon party, so it's been a year since I've seen some of the people I'm going to see. I saw many more of them more recently in Atlantic City. And some I'll be meeting for the first time. And it's those people that I'm super excited about. My top will be with me again this year, as well as a new friend who'll be attending her first party.
Parties, for me, have always been a kind of escape from everyday life. I can go off to a different city and just immerse myself in the spanking world, surrounded by people who felt as strongly as I did about it, even if in different ways. Our differences need not tear us apart. Even if I choose not to participate in certain behavior or I don't understand it, doesn't mean that I'm disrespecting it. It just means it's not my cup of tea. I have no interest in a lot of things that people do in the spanking scene. I have tried to understand a lot of the thoughts behind it, but apparently I'm way off target. I call the behavior "game playing" because, in truth, I don't know what else to call it. I have known for years that a lot of people need certain things for a scene to really work for them. So do I. I'm no different in that regard. What I don't see are people trying to understand me. This is a door that I feel swings both ways. I have to preface my posts with disclaimers such as "this is just me" or "I'm not attempting to speak for anyone but myself". But I see people denigrating me with impunity. No one says "If you don't have anything nice to say, then just don't comment" when people offend me. Usually, I'm on my own except for a few faithful friends, most of whom are scene outcasts like I am. It used to be that a person's individuality was what endeared them to others in the scene. Now you have to look and behave the way the "cool kids" do or you'll find yourself ostracized pretty quickly. Especially on Fetlife. If someone makes a journal entry and the "cool kids" respond positively (Breadcrumbs!", "Can't love this enough!", etc.) then the rest feel it's OK to comment. But they MUST comment in a way that agrees. If someone else (me for instance) comments in a way that disagrees, no matter how politely, or even sounds the least bit questioning, it'll be Katie bar the door. I have been told to "keep your negativity off the boards" and "throw your pity party in private". It all depends on what side of that all-important fence you're on. As long as you go along and everyone agrees publicly, then the feel-good stuff keeps rolling through the feed and no one needs to ever deal with someone who disagrees with them.
Now I called this entry "On A More Positive Note" for a reason. I'm declaring right now that I will continue to do things that make me happy and that keep me emotionally fulfilled despite what others may try to do to silence me. I have the right to my opinion, even if it is only an opinion. I'm going to remain upbeat, no matter what people say or do. I'm not going to use venom against venom because it doesn't work. I love the spanking scene and I love spanking parties. Fetlife? Not so much anymore.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Games People Play Part II
We've all heard of reverse psychology.Most of us are well versed in how it works. And it permeates the spanking scene. The more a bottom talks about not liking something, the more that big, bad dom she has her eyes on wants to give it to her. Unfortunately, it also works the other way. The more a bottom talks about liking something, the less that big, bad dom she has her eyes on wants to give it to her. This is the dilemma I keep finding myself in. If I'm on Fetlife and I see a photo of a toy I love feeling or one that I enthusiastically say I would love to try, the doms and tops ignore me in favor of responding to the bottoms who are protesting how much they would hate to have it used on them. This is true even if the bottom loves it too, but for some reason known only to her, she has to act like she doesn't.
Now, I'm not saying that if that's how you roll, you're doing it wrong. A person has to do what makes them happy. What I AM saying is all these mind games make it very tough for someone like me to get an actual slice of the spanking pie. A few days ago, a young man in one of the Fetlife spanking groups opened a thread asking how to find out if a woman is open to spanking. He lives in one of the larger cities in California so I did the sensible thing and advised him to attend a local munch, where there would be no pressure to play and where he might also find an experienced top to mentor him. The rest of the responses were fantasy-driven; things such as "Just spank her. You'll find out." Yeah, you might find out, but you might also find yourself behind bars. Then I got an inbox full of messages from people telling me to stop being a "wet blanket" all the time. Yeah, how dare I try to actually be helpful. This is another thing about the scene I'm getting tired of. When people open threads asking for advice about something scene related, I take it as a given that that person actually wants real advice, not a bunch of idiotic responses that have nothing to do with reality. Somehow, being the voice of reason in a spanking discussion thread isn't welcome. When I see someone giving absolutely terrible advice (that someone who's new might act on out of ignorance) I'm going to call them on it, no matter how many times I'm told to "keep my negativity off the boards" (which I've been told to do more than once). Many of the responses I've seen would land someone in jail or the hospital or quite possibly, the morgue. But hey, this is Fetlife, where everything is cool all the time and bad things never happen. And if you believe that, I have a bridge I can sell you.
Unfortunately, I don't see the game playing going away anytime soon. So, the question becomes how to deal with it. I guess, I've become pretty good at spotting the game playing. And I'm not saying that, at times, it's not funny or entertaining. I used to do some of it myself. In fact, I was doing it when many of the young ladies who engage in it were in training bras. And some were still in undershirts. But I did it because I was new and I wanted to fit in. I hadn't yet found my identity. I wanted people to like me, so I learned how to play the game. I knew, even as a newbie, that if I ran around shouting "I'm a total masochist, hit me with anything you want" the tops would have run away in droves. And in fact, quite a few did. I actually did have one top tell me "You'll get more play if you stop acting like you like it so much." What? I was supposed to pay a party fee, ask for time off from work, secure transportation, pay for two nights in a hotel and find someone to house sit my cats so I can attend a spanking party and act like I don't like being spanked? It made no sense to me and I told that top so. Still, he told me, it was true. "It's the way a dom's mind works," he told me. "We always want the bottom to be willing, but act like she's not. It's what gets most of us going. The ones who play for fun, who give the bottoms only what they want, they get laughed at a bit in the scene. Very few doms take them seriously." I was stunned. Surely, he was kidding. But I put my powers of observation to good use, keeping my eyes and ears open and sure enough, it was true. I saw it played out again and again, both in person at parties and on the Yahoo groups (there was no Fetlife back then). The women who responded with "Oh please, kind Sir, you wouldn't spank sweet, innocent little ol' me, would you?" got flooded with replies, while someone like me who wrote "My sister and I will be arriving on Friday afternoon and would love a chance to play" got guess what? Completely ignored. In fact, Carol and I conducted an informal experiment before a party. On the Yahoo group, the pre-party bratting would begin about a month before a party. As I said before, I engaged in this behavior in the beginning. I saw it as a fun way to let certain tops know I was interested in playing with them. But when I simply responded that I would love to play with him, I was glossed over time after time while the tops responded to the ladies that did the most bratting. In fact, the sillier it got, the more they responded. Even tops who claimed they didn't like bratting passed me over in order to deal with the bratting. Even today on Fetlife, I get passed over and my comments ignored in favor of the bratting.
In fact, I would call bratting a "Geisha skill"...something done mostly to make the top's experience better. I don't doubt for a second that there are ladies out there who love bratting and do it because they enjoy it. But much of their enjoyment comes from pleasing the doms and tops. I know this sounds like a generalization, but I've seen it with my own eyes. I had one sub tell me back in my newbie days "Like it or not, you have to do what the tops like if you wanna get played with." I actually walked into one of the public suites, where a small group of tops were having a conversation and I heard him say "Does anyone else think this new batch (of bottoms) is less than fun? I miss the old days where we could do practically anything we wanted to these girls and they took it." Another chimed in "It's that damn internet. They're telling women now (imitating female voice) "Oh honey, if it doesn't feel right, then don't do it. You have all the control in a scene." Still another said "There are just too many damn feminazis in the scene these days." I wasn't surprised to be hearing this because I had already come to the conclusion that this was true anyway.
So, while I can appreciate that many female bottoms and subs (and probably male ones too) love to brat, that doesn't help me any. I always thought that that kind of thinking would die out when the younger people started coming into the scene. But, no it's still alive and well. If you look at some peoples' fetish lists, both tops and bottoms, you're likely to see fetishes like "saying no until he can make me say yes" and "you can't make me...oh wait, yes you can" listed. If a person likes that dynamic, more power to them. But again, what does someone like me do, who isn't interested in being "made to obey"? And worse, what about the young tops coming into the scene who might assume that all women subscribe to this attitude? Back when I first started, nudity was a hard limit for me. I know that's hard to believe now, but it was. There were some tops in the group back then who thought that, because the last lady got naked for him, all of them would. It took awhile for these guys to be disabused of that notion. I began to feel that tops were coming away from their scenes with me disappointed because I didn't get naked, I didn't get tied up and I wasn't going to cry and beg (something a lot of them really enjoyed). Of course, no one was classless enough to say anything. They just never asked me to play again. And I hated then and still hate to disappoint people. I value my good reputation in the scene, as does anyone who wants to be vetted for parties. Walking away from a scene disappointed because you couldn't do or be what the top wanted is one of the worst feelings I've ever felt. But, despite that, I can't be what I'm not.
This is why I'm having a problem; because I can't pretend to like something I hate or hate something I like. So, I go on in the scene...playing with people who will play with me and regretting the ones who won't play with me. Still, when it comes to the online bratting, I just can't participate. I don't want to bring negativity to the fun threads on Fetlife, but I have to be myself. With the big Crimson Moon July party coming up in just ten days, I really needed to vent what was going through my mind and getting my headspace back where it should be. Hopefully, I'll have a ton of really positive things to write about.
Now, I'm not saying that if that's how you roll, you're doing it wrong. A person has to do what makes them happy. What I AM saying is all these mind games make it very tough for someone like me to get an actual slice of the spanking pie. A few days ago, a young man in one of the Fetlife spanking groups opened a thread asking how to find out if a woman is open to spanking. He lives in one of the larger cities in California so I did the sensible thing and advised him to attend a local munch, where there would be no pressure to play and where he might also find an experienced top to mentor him. The rest of the responses were fantasy-driven; things such as "Just spank her. You'll find out." Yeah, you might find out, but you might also find yourself behind bars. Then I got an inbox full of messages from people telling me to stop being a "wet blanket" all the time. Yeah, how dare I try to actually be helpful. This is another thing about the scene I'm getting tired of. When people open threads asking for advice about something scene related, I take it as a given that that person actually wants real advice, not a bunch of idiotic responses that have nothing to do with reality. Somehow, being the voice of reason in a spanking discussion thread isn't welcome. When I see someone giving absolutely terrible advice (that someone who's new might act on out of ignorance) I'm going to call them on it, no matter how many times I'm told to "keep my negativity off the boards" (which I've been told to do more than once). Many of the responses I've seen would land someone in jail or the hospital or quite possibly, the morgue. But hey, this is Fetlife, where everything is cool all the time and bad things never happen. And if you believe that, I have a bridge I can sell you.
Unfortunately, I don't see the game playing going away anytime soon. So, the question becomes how to deal with it. I guess, I've become pretty good at spotting the game playing. And I'm not saying that, at times, it's not funny or entertaining. I used to do some of it myself. In fact, I was doing it when many of the young ladies who engage in it were in training bras. And some were still in undershirts. But I did it because I was new and I wanted to fit in. I hadn't yet found my identity. I wanted people to like me, so I learned how to play the game. I knew, even as a newbie, that if I ran around shouting "I'm a total masochist, hit me with anything you want" the tops would have run away in droves. And in fact, quite a few did. I actually did have one top tell me "You'll get more play if you stop acting like you like it so much." What? I was supposed to pay a party fee, ask for time off from work, secure transportation, pay for two nights in a hotel and find someone to house sit my cats so I can attend a spanking party and act like I don't like being spanked? It made no sense to me and I told that top so. Still, he told me, it was true. "It's the way a dom's mind works," he told me. "We always want the bottom to be willing, but act like she's not. It's what gets most of us going. The ones who play for fun, who give the bottoms only what they want, they get laughed at a bit in the scene. Very few doms take them seriously." I was stunned. Surely, he was kidding. But I put my powers of observation to good use, keeping my eyes and ears open and sure enough, it was true. I saw it played out again and again, both in person at parties and on the Yahoo groups (there was no Fetlife back then). The women who responded with "Oh please, kind Sir, you wouldn't spank sweet, innocent little ol' me, would you?" got flooded with replies, while someone like me who wrote "My sister and I will be arriving on Friday afternoon and would love a chance to play" got guess what? Completely ignored. In fact, Carol and I conducted an informal experiment before a party. On the Yahoo group, the pre-party bratting would begin about a month before a party. As I said before, I engaged in this behavior in the beginning. I saw it as a fun way to let certain tops know I was interested in playing with them. But when I simply responded that I would love to play with him, I was glossed over time after time while the tops responded to the ladies that did the most bratting. In fact, the sillier it got, the more they responded. Even tops who claimed they didn't like bratting passed me over in order to deal with the bratting. Even today on Fetlife, I get passed over and my comments ignored in favor of the bratting.
In fact, I would call bratting a "Geisha skill"...something done mostly to make the top's experience better. I don't doubt for a second that there are ladies out there who love bratting and do it because they enjoy it. But much of their enjoyment comes from pleasing the doms and tops. I know this sounds like a generalization, but I've seen it with my own eyes. I had one sub tell me back in my newbie days "Like it or not, you have to do what the tops like if you wanna get played with." I actually walked into one of the public suites, where a small group of tops were having a conversation and I heard him say "Does anyone else think this new batch (of bottoms) is less than fun? I miss the old days where we could do practically anything we wanted to these girls and they took it." Another chimed in "It's that damn internet. They're telling women now (imitating female voice) "Oh honey, if it doesn't feel right, then don't do it. You have all the control in a scene." Still another said "There are just too many damn feminazis in the scene these days." I wasn't surprised to be hearing this because I had already come to the conclusion that this was true anyway.
So, while I can appreciate that many female bottoms and subs (and probably male ones too) love to brat, that doesn't help me any. I always thought that that kind of thinking would die out when the younger people started coming into the scene. But, no it's still alive and well. If you look at some peoples' fetish lists, both tops and bottoms, you're likely to see fetishes like "saying no until he can make me say yes" and "you can't make me...oh wait, yes you can" listed. If a person likes that dynamic, more power to them. But again, what does someone like me do, who isn't interested in being "made to obey"? And worse, what about the young tops coming into the scene who might assume that all women subscribe to this attitude? Back when I first started, nudity was a hard limit for me. I know that's hard to believe now, but it was. There were some tops in the group back then who thought that, because the last lady got naked for him, all of them would. It took awhile for these guys to be disabused of that notion. I began to feel that tops were coming away from their scenes with me disappointed because I didn't get naked, I didn't get tied up and I wasn't going to cry and beg (something a lot of them really enjoyed). Of course, no one was classless enough to say anything. They just never asked me to play again. And I hated then and still hate to disappoint people. I value my good reputation in the scene, as does anyone who wants to be vetted for parties. Walking away from a scene disappointed because you couldn't do or be what the top wanted is one of the worst feelings I've ever felt. But, despite that, I can't be what I'm not.
This is why I'm having a problem; because I can't pretend to like something I hate or hate something I like. So, I go on in the scene...playing with people who will play with me and regretting the ones who won't play with me. Still, when it comes to the online bratting, I just can't participate. I don't want to bring negativity to the fun threads on Fetlife, but I have to be myself. With the big Crimson Moon July party coming up in just ten days, I really needed to vent what was going through my mind and getting my headspace back where it should be. Hopefully, I'll have a ton of really positive things to write about.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Games People Play
I've been in the spanking scene for more than a decade now. I've seen a lot of changes over the years, some good and some not so good. I've seen the Internet open up new possibilities of people actually meeting each other and forging friendships and relationships. I've also seen the Internet bring the term "stranger danger" into everyday usage. I've seen so-called "social media" help people stay connected non-stop. I've also seen that same social media make darlings out of attention seekers who really aren't worth our time.
But one thing hasn't changed. The game playing has always been with us here in the scene and I'm afraid it always will be. Some of it is harmless. Like, right now on Fetlife, there are factions playing out whether corner time is OK or should be "outlawed." They go to great lengths to discuss why they should never be put in a corner and that there should be rules that a person can evoke to get out of it. On one of those threads I simply wrote "Just say you don't do corners. Problem solved." My suggestion, while simplistic, is effective. No one has ever attempted to put me in a corner. I have posed for photos in them, but I was never held there against my will.
But since the debate is raging on, and tops are now answering with threads of their own, I have to assume that it's not as simple as all that. These girls claim to hate corners, be "allergic" to wood implements, and have an aversion for writing sentences, yet they do it. Why? If you hate corners so much, make it a hard limit and there's the end of it. One reason is, I assume, because no matter how much these girls claim to dislike something, the DO like it. They just can't come right out and say so. Heavens no. That would be like admitting to something forbidden and taboo in our culture. I've seen people on the boards discussing how much they hate hairbrushes. OK, if you hate them so much, make them a hard limit. "Oh no. I can't do that. It would be taking too much control and that can't happen." And that's really what all of this game playing boils down to-- the bottom or sub or whatever can't appear to be in control of the situation, whether it's what toys get used on her, whether she gets corner time or whether she gets bound and/or gagged. It's the illusion of control around which our whole scene revolves. It's like the ladies are saying "I can't admit out loud that I like something. That would make it look like I enjoy it. And I simply have to act like I don't for the game to work."
This particular game actually has a name. We call it "consensual non-consent". For these ladies and the men who top them (or vise verse if you roll that way) the scene is only enjoyable if it appears non-consensual. I'm sure there are deep psychological reasons for this. For some, it's simply fun to be told that something is going to be done to you whether you like it or not. For others, it fulfills some kind of emotional need. Something happened to them in their childhood and looking back, they enjoyed it and so they want to relive it. I can understand that. But I have no tolerance for it. I simply can't "play the game". Maybe I'm too practical and unimaginative to be in the spanking scene? I mean, after all, I don't like the costuming that's so prevalent; that a woman has to be dressed a certain way for the spanking to seem more "real". Outfits like cheerleader or schoolgirl are common and have been done to death. Also, I've seen men who claim emphatically that they aren't into age play getting more and more into girls in frilly little girl-type dresses and frilly panties. I myself love ruffled panties and make no secret of it. But the ruffled panties I'm seeing on a lot of female bottoms and subs have a distinctive babyish look to them, as if they belong over a diaper. And please don't get me started on diapers. I'm not trying to knock what people are into, but I just have a hard time with it. Look on Fetlife at the K&P page and you will find lots and lots of photos of people of both genders wearing diapers. However, the subject of today's entry is game playing so I'll veer back on course here.
What it boils down to is people pretending not to be into something they ARE into, or pretending to be into something they aren't into or pretending in some way that makes it very unclear what's real and what's not. Because people play games, things aren't so cut and dried. If a woman says "no" to something, does she really mean it? Or is it all part of the game? We know that safe words are in place for times like that, but given the amount of make believe we do, can we even accept the safe word as sacred? There have been times when safe words have been abused by the bottom and ignored by the top. And I think a lot of the problem is that it's all so staged and costumed and scripted. It takes all of the spontaneity and realism out of the scene. Yes, I realize that what we do is fantasy driven. BUT surely, there's room for realism and practicality, too? I don't need the costuming. I don't need the power exchange dynamic. I don't need the psychological trappings. I don't need the things that make spanking about punishment--things like corner time, mouth soaping or writing sentences, all of which I experienced in my childhood and hated with a passion. And I think that may be where some of it comes from. We have young people entering the scene who were never spanked as children, let alone stood in a corner or had their mouths washed out with soap. So, for them, this is all behavior that they never had to experience non-consensually like so many in my generation did. For them, it doesn't conjure up bad memories of being drug to sink and made to "bite the bar" (as we ruefully described it as kids) or being made to go outside and cut your own switch (although I think many of them have experienced having to write sentences because, once corporal punishment went out of the schools, what was left?). For these young people, it's all part of re-enacting a bygone era they simply were never a part of. They may have their young, liberal, hip ideologies, but deep inside, they wonder what it would have been like to be spanked over a plaid skirt by a nun with a yardstick, even though they would probably have recoiled with horror if ever presented the real thing. That's one of the things the spanking scene really does give us: the chance to play out in a safe environment things we would be uncomfortable with in real life. I really do get that. But do we really have to have games? Do we really have to pretend that we hate something that's actually an activity that we find extremely rewarding? Why not just say "I love corners and a spanking, for me, isn't complete without it." For many, corner time is like aftercare. Why do people have to act like what they love is something they hate? I'll probably never understand this. It does get me some heat occasionally. But I can't help it. The game playing is one of my least favorite things about the scene.
But one thing hasn't changed. The game playing has always been with us here in the scene and I'm afraid it always will be. Some of it is harmless. Like, right now on Fetlife, there are factions playing out whether corner time is OK or should be "outlawed." They go to great lengths to discuss why they should never be put in a corner and that there should be rules that a person can evoke to get out of it. On one of those threads I simply wrote "Just say you don't do corners. Problem solved." My suggestion, while simplistic, is effective. No one has ever attempted to put me in a corner. I have posed for photos in them, but I was never held there against my will.
But since the debate is raging on, and tops are now answering with threads of their own, I have to assume that it's not as simple as all that. These girls claim to hate corners, be "allergic" to wood implements, and have an aversion for writing sentences, yet they do it. Why? If you hate corners so much, make it a hard limit and there's the end of it. One reason is, I assume, because no matter how much these girls claim to dislike something, the DO like it. They just can't come right out and say so. Heavens no. That would be like admitting to something forbidden and taboo in our culture. I've seen people on the boards discussing how much they hate hairbrushes. OK, if you hate them so much, make them a hard limit. "Oh no. I can't do that. It would be taking too much control and that can't happen." And that's really what all of this game playing boils down to-- the bottom or sub or whatever can't appear to be in control of the situation, whether it's what toys get used on her, whether she gets corner time or whether she gets bound and/or gagged. It's the illusion of control around which our whole scene revolves. It's like the ladies are saying "I can't admit out loud that I like something. That would make it look like I enjoy it. And I simply have to act like I don't for the game to work."
This particular game actually has a name. We call it "consensual non-consent". For these ladies and the men who top them (or vise verse if you roll that way) the scene is only enjoyable if it appears non-consensual. I'm sure there are deep psychological reasons for this. For some, it's simply fun to be told that something is going to be done to you whether you like it or not. For others, it fulfills some kind of emotional need. Something happened to them in their childhood and looking back, they enjoyed it and so they want to relive it. I can understand that. But I have no tolerance for it. I simply can't "play the game". Maybe I'm too practical and unimaginative to be in the spanking scene? I mean, after all, I don't like the costuming that's so prevalent; that a woman has to be dressed a certain way for the spanking to seem more "real". Outfits like cheerleader or schoolgirl are common and have been done to death. Also, I've seen men who claim emphatically that they aren't into age play getting more and more into girls in frilly little girl-type dresses and frilly panties. I myself love ruffled panties and make no secret of it. But the ruffled panties I'm seeing on a lot of female bottoms and subs have a distinctive babyish look to them, as if they belong over a diaper. And please don't get me started on diapers. I'm not trying to knock what people are into, but I just have a hard time with it. Look on Fetlife at the K&P page and you will find lots and lots of photos of people of both genders wearing diapers. However, the subject of today's entry is game playing so I'll veer back on course here.
What it boils down to is people pretending not to be into something they ARE into, or pretending to be into something they aren't into or pretending in some way that makes it very unclear what's real and what's not. Because people play games, things aren't so cut and dried. If a woman says "no" to something, does she really mean it? Or is it all part of the game? We know that safe words are in place for times like that, but given the amount of make believe we do, can we even accept the safe word as sacred? There have been times when safe words have been abused by the bottom and ignored by the top. And I think a lot of the problem is that it's all so staged and costumed and scripted. It takes all of the spontaneity and realism out of the scene. Yes, I realize that what we do is fantasy driven. BUT surely, there's room for realism and practicality, too? I don't need the costuming. I don't need the power exchange dynamic. I don't need the psychological trappings. I don't need the things that make spanking about punishment--things like corner time, mouth soaping or writing sentences, all of which I experienced in my childhood and hated with a passion. And I think that may be where some of it comes from. We have young people entering the scene who were never spanked as children, let alone stood in a corner or had their mouths washed out with soap. So, for them, this is all behavior that they never had to experience non-consensually like so many in my generation did. For them, it doesn't conjure up bad memories of being drug to sink and made to "bite the bar" (as we ruefully described it as kids) or being made to go outside and cut your own switch (although I think many of them have experienced having to write sentences because, once corporal punishment went out of the schools, what was left?). For these young people, it's all part of re-enacting a bygone era they simply were never a part of. They may have their young, liberal, hip ideologies, but deep inside, they wonder what it would have been like to be spanked over a plaid skirt by a nun with a yardstick, even though they would probably have recoiled with horror if ever presented the real thing. That's one of the things the spanking scene really does give us: the chance to play out in a safe environment things we would be uncomfortable with in real life. I really do get that. But do we really have to have games? Do we really have to pretend that we hate something that's actually an activity that we find extremely rewarding? Why not just say "I love corners and a spanking, for me, isn't complete without it." For many, corner time is like aftercare. Why do people have to act like what they love is something they hate? I'll probably never understand this. It does get me some heat occasionally. But I can't help it. The game playing is one of my least favorite things about the scene.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
GOD
Author's Note: This entry deals with how I came to be saved and some family history. So if God, Jesus Christ or the Cross offends you, please feel free to move on. But for those brave enough to read on, I hope that you're challenged or inspired to seek God for yourself. There's nothing about kinkiness in this entry.
I don't really know where to start with this entry. I guess I should start at the beginning, but that would take way too long. So I guess I'll start with saying a few things about myself. First of all, I always knew I was different...different than the other people in my family, different than other kids, different than most of the people I have worked with and lived with over the years. That revelation came fairly early in my life. Being a twin certainly made me stand out. My sister and I were bullied by other kids at school, for reasons I've never fully understood. I always just figured that some kids were mean. It never occurred to me that maybe they came from broken homes or were being abused or had anger issues. None of that was known in the days when it was happening to me. Even though my parents were good parents, they subscribed to the belief that kids should fight their own battles or they would never make it in the world.
I was raised by saved parents. By "saved" I mean born again. I still have a letter that my father's father wrote to him when he was a young Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton going through his basic training. The letter is an instructive one, in which Grandpa warns my father, Edward, against carousing and card playing. He tells him that, instead of drinking and womanizing, he should stay in and read his Bible. He should do this even if the other guys make fun of him. My father was 19 years old and had never been away from home before. He also had the specter of being shipped off to Korea looming over him. My mother, Donna, came from a well-off family and was an only child. Her mother had been abandoned by her mother and raised in an orphanage. Her father's parents had come over to America from Germany sometime at the turn of the century. Religion played a huge role in both their lives. So my parents lived the Christian life even before they married in April, 1955.
Like most couples in that era, they started their family almost right away. In July, 1956, just a few months after their first anniversary, my mother discovered she was pregnant. Neither set of in-laws, so the family story goes, were overjoyed at the news. My mother's parents were concerned that they didn't earn enough money to support a family. My father's parents were worried that my mother was too small and frail to bring a healthy child into the world. But in February, 1957 my older sister, Kathy, was brought safely into the world. She was small and not very pretty and she would stay that way throughout her life. Of course, there was the disappointment that the first child had been a girl (though my parents were secretly thrilled that their first child had been female). Two and a half years later, a son and heir did arrive. My older brother, Ray was named after my mother's father. I guess their was some debate about whether the family really needed another Edward (my father and his father bore the name, after all). So my parents compromised and gave him the middle name Edward, just to keep the name in the family. When my brother finally had a son of his own, he also gave him the middle name Edward. Fifteen months later, my twin sister Carol and I arrived. My mother discovered just six weeks before our birth that twins were coming. I don't know what was going through their minds, but they had to be scared, knowing that carrying more than one baby puts a tremendous strain on the mother.
In high school, I began to see that the kids I hung around with had a lot more freedom than I did. Most of them didn't even have curfews. They were allowed to go to parties where there was no adult supervision.My parents were aghast at some of the things my friends were allowed to do. My twin and I badly wanted our ears pierced because most of our classmates did. I wanted to wear the pretty earrings I saw them wearing. My father was absolutely adamant--no pierced ears until we were sixteen. But one day, a few weeks shy of our 14th birthday, Carol and I suck off to the mall and got our ears pierced. There was nothing he could do after the fact, we reasoned. Most of my girlfriends were allowed to date boys who drove. My parents absolutely forbade it until we were sixteen ourselves. Looking back now, I can certainly see that they had only imposed the rules to protect us from the consequences of making bad decisions. One of the worst decisions I ever made was losing my virginity at 15 to a boy I barely knew. It happened on the spur of the moment and we'd used to protection. I knew the risk I was taking, but I was willing to pay the price to know the mysteries of sex. When I had asked my mother "What's the big deal about sex?" when I was 13, she had replied "Wait until you're married." I told her that I was never getting married or having children. I had seen how my mother had gone without while we were growing up. I had seen her wear the same winter coat for fourteen years. I had seen her go without fashionable clothes (and she had been such a pretty and smart dresser as a young woman). And if that was what a woman had to do when she became a wife and mother, then I was having none of it.
All the while we grew up and did our own thing, forgetting the tender and loving raising we'd had. My older sister went on to marry a man who brought sadness and misery to her and to their children in the name of not being an Old Maid. My brother married as well and his wife went on to make her own brand of misery for our family. I dated a string of men who were all wrong for me, despite warnings from friends and family. In 1986, I started dating a man who would profoundly change the course of my life. He told me with a completely straight face that he only dated women who could match him drink for drink. I didn't know as we drank that first drink together, that I was going to become the author of my own undoing. As I looked into his eyes, I should have hated him. Instead, I spent the next five years matching him drink for drink and trying to stay in his good graces, as though I had never been loved before. The more I drank and worked at keeping this man, the more I distanced myself from the mother and father who sacrificed for me. The touching love story of the young girl who wrote to her soldier boyfriend everyday and who waited patiently for him to return from the war became embarrassingly old fashioned to me. So did their talk of the loving God from my childhood. In 1987, the last year my mother was healthy, she gave me a birthday card with a bouquet of roses on the front and "To My Wonderful Daughter" etched in pink. Inside, under the Hallmark blurb called "What Is A Daughter?" my mother had written in her immaculate handwriting "You don't know how much you're loved." But it also contained something else; something I wanted even more than a card--a one hundred dollar bill. I filed the card away as sentimental tripe and spent the $100 on a jacket I'd wanted. But later, when I looked at the world through booze soaked eyes and the men in my life never stayed more than one night, I would take that card out and read the loving words of my mother, who was dying now--"You don't know how much you're loved."
In 1989, my twin got sober after years of alcoholism and an abusive relationship. She began to talk to me about God. I remember the first time like it was yesterday. We were sitting in the smoking lounge of the hospital, where our father laid in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit following a heart attack. "Don't tell me you believe that crap they fed us?" I said dismissively. "If God cares so much, why did this happen? Why did Mom get cancer and now Alzheimer's and why is Dad laid up with a heart attack? What kind of God does that to people?" She nodded her head patiently, as though she had asked herself the same questions. "He's always been there, waiting for you to stop being stupid and reach out to Him," she told me. "We've run our lives our own way and what has it gotten us? Nothing but pain and misery and unhappiness. Do you ever think what our lives might have been like if we had stayed with the teaching they gave us growing up? We might be married to good men right now and raising Godly children. Or working in the mission fields. Not drunks with black eyes." She was probably right but what good was all of that now? It was too late to get the train wreck of my life back on the tracks and moving in the right direction. I had never really thought about how much it must have hurt my parents to see the lives their children were leading...the unfulfilled promise, the untapped potential...all squandered in bad relationships and bad decisions. As children, they had tended us like rare and costly plants only to see us sprout as weeds. "Sis, I got saved," Carol told me. "I gave my life to the Lord." "I thought we did that as kids?" I asked her. "No, I mean I've fully surrendered my life to Him. I have more peace and more joy than I ever thought I could have. I've given up drinking. I'm going to meetings now. I've already talked with Dad. I'm gonna quit my job and take care of him and Mom." I was shocked. "Do you know how hard that'll be?" I asked her. "She has Alzheimer's and a colostomy. She cries all day without stopping. She won't eat or take a bath unless you make her. You're going to end up killing her or yourself." She looked at me calmly. "God will help me. But I need your help, too." I knew why she couldn't ask our other sister or brother. They both had small children and full time jobs. They had no time or energy for what needed to be done.
So we moved back home, into the house we'd grown up in. It felt strange, like we didn't really belong there. But Dad was grateful for the help. The stress of dealing with Mom had almost certainly caused his heart attack. But Carol was as good as her word. Every day she did their laundry and grocery shopping. He gave her blank checks to buy whatever she wanted for the house and herself. It was a great show of trust on Dad's part, to hand a blank check to a drunk. But everyday I watched her tenderly and patiently dress Mom and comb her hair, all the while reading the Bible to her. It seemed like everything in her mind was gone. She now no longer recognized us or Dad, but she still knew her Bible.
In 1993, both of them left us. My mother died on February 15th and Dad on June 1st. I was still drinking away my pain and had even added pain pills to the mix. I was profoundly angry that summer. On August 3rd, I had my uterus removed. I laid in the hospital with a morphine pump and tried not to think about what I was going to do with the rest of my life, however long that was. Carol was working two jobs to pay the bills. But everyday between jobs she would come home and cook me something and make sure I had had my nap and wasn't overdoing it. I felt like I was losing my mind. I was having panic attacks and couldn't sleep. I went back to work when my doctor cleared me and that helped a bit. Having a routine helped me cope. I knew in my heart of hearts that I couldn't go on the way I was. I was seeing a counselor, but it wasn't helping; mostly because I wasn't being honest with him. "Cheryl, you need Jesus in your life. Please come to Bible study with me tonight," Carol begged. I told her what she could do with Jesus. I didn't need Him. About a week later, during one of those nights when my insomnia made it impossible to close my eyes, I was flipping through the channels when I saw something that made me stop dead in my tracks. It was a preacher, dressed in a suit with his Bible held over his head. "If you've just flipped your TV to this station, then God is talking to you, my friend. You're not watching me by accident. God is waiting on you. If you're hearing the radio broadcast in your car and you need to pull your car over, just do it. God has waited for you this long. He'll give you a minute to get off the road. This is too important to miss. You have a divine appointment and you can't dodge it anymore. God loves you, my friends. He loves you. The man who can't pay his bills, the lady watching tonight who can't sleep..." It was then that I knew that God really must know and see everything. "You are His precious child, my friend. He has counted your tears and held them in his hand. His heart has ached for you as you rejected him, just as He was rejected on the Cross. That Cross was for you. It was for me. But He took it. Took all the pain so you wouldn't have to. Just wherever you are tonight, whether sitting in your living room or in your car or in your hospital room, just receive Him. Just open the door and let Him come in. He's waiting and He loves you and He's here to take your pain away. He'll dry all those tears and give you beauty for the ashes of the things you've destroyed in your life." In that moment, I fell to the floor. I felt so convicted and ashamed. But I went ahead and prayed that Sinner's Prayer that that preacher led us in. And in that moment, a tidal wave of peace swept over me. I felt so loved and cared for. It must have been how it felt to be in the protective womb of my mother. I must have cried for an hour. "If you prayed that prayer, friend, then you and God are reconciled. There's no need to be sad or ashamed. He's washed it all away. You've been made righteous and holy. All of your sins have been cast away. Your old man has died and you have been given a new birth. Everything old is gone and you've been made new. You might have felt it, you might not. But the Holy Spirit, the Third Person in the Trinity, has just come to line in you and the angels in Heaven are singing because someone got saved tonight. Praise God!"
I realized in that moment that it hadn't been Jesus I was rejecting. It was the Cross. The Cross made me feel guilty and condemned. The Cross, I had always been taught, was what Christ had to go through because I was a sinner. But I never really grasped that he did it out of love. I thought He did it because He was obedient. Well, He was obedient; obedient unto death the Scriptures tell us. But the whole underlying reason was love. But how could God love me, a filthy drunk? I had never seen my parents drunk. My father might drink a beer or two while the baseball game was on or drink a little Jack Daniels. My mother's idea of cutting loose was having a glass of Mogan David on Thanksgiving or Cold Duck on Christmas. I wasn't "taught" to self-medicate. Someone else had done that. The only thing my parents taught me was that God loved me. I chose to ignore that or believe it wasn't true. But God's love is tangible to those of us who have felt it. The Cross was a gift, not a curse. The Old Testament says "cursed is every man who hangs on a tree." It was a shameful, criminal's death. But for Christians who believe that Christ's death wasn't the end, but the beginning, the Cross is beautiful. The Cross means so many things. It accuses us and confronts us and comforts us and uplifts us. It was what we deserved, but Christ took it in our place.
On May 4, 1994 I made the decision to get sober. I went to my first AA meeting. Carol volunteered to take me, but I went alone. I knew if she was in the room I wouldn't be able to tell my story honestly. I was afraid to tell people that in the moment when God saved me, every desire to drink was taken from me. But I felt I still had to "work my program." I wrote letters to the people I'd hurt, even my parents, who were both dead. But the life I was living in Christ was happier than anything I'd ever known. I'd had the pain and shame removed from my heart and I don't ever want to go there again.
Oddly enough, taking care of Carol after her cancer was diagnosed grew my faith. Carol had way more peace than I did. I remember her taking my hands and saying "Whether God heals me or I die, I'm gonna be fine." I prayed relentlessly for her to be healed. I knew there was no way I could live without her. I was with her when her hair fell out. I was with her for surgeries. I was with her for radiation. And I was with her when she took her last breath on May 28, 2010. I was holding her and felt her last breath. Immediately afterward, I felt something rush through me. It felt like getting hit with a sledge hammer. Jesus was in that room, of that I have no doubt. I prayed for her to be healed and now she was. Maybe not in the way I had wanted, but where she is there are no needle sticks, no PET scans and no cancer. She's with my mother and father. And though I miss her physical body, I rejoice that she's with her Heavenly Father and He's loving on her and she's praising him through all eternity.You know, if I had gone to God and he would have said "Get out of my sight forever", that would have been right and just. But He didn't. He opened His arms to me and offered me Eternal Life. Now, after all these years, I know why my parent took such pains for me to know Him. Because they loved me and wanted me to know about our loving Heavenly Father. It doesn't cost anything, even though Jesus gave up everything.
I guess, what I want people to know is that no matter what circumstances you're in or what sins you've committed, God is there waiting by the door of your heart. He's waiting for you to open the door and let Him in. There's no sin that's too awful for God to forgive. There's no pit of despair too deep that He can't reach down and pull you out. There's no addiction that He can't cure you of. If you're lonely, angry, suicidal, in financial trouble or hanging on to life by a thread, God can heal you of everything that's wrong. He take your mess and turn it in to a message that can bless someone else.The last 20 years that I've been living without alcohol and with Christ have been my best. I'm not saying that I haven't been through bad things or that I haven't ever been afraid or in need. But I know that whatever I go through, I won't go through it alone.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."
Galatians 2:20
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