Playing Hard

From the very start, I've been a hard player. I don't apologize for that. Light play has rarely done anything for me. I've always needed hard play; the kind that leaves bruises and welts and occasionally, blood. It's not because I'm out to prove something to people nor do I want any kind of accolades for how hard I play. A good friend once told me "They don't give you the keys to the city for playing hard." That's certainly true. Back in my newbie days, it seemed like a lot of people played hard. This could just have been my perception being skewed, but it really did seem like most tops spanked harder and most bottoms wanted it that way.

But even then, I was a bit of an oddity. Although it seemed we all played harder back then, my reason was different than most. Most of the ladies I knew were submissives and they took those hard spankings because the person they were playing with wanted them to. I did it because I loved the pain and I loved having a bruised bottom the next day. I've had to come to terms with my masochism. Yesterday, I did something quite a bit different than anything I've ever done before. I did a quasi-disciplinary scene with a top friend that I trust completely. We set up the camera and tripod and figured out how, in the limited space we had, we were going to set this up. I explained to him the kind of scene I wanted--a 30-stroke caning with my medium Smoked Dragon cane while I was bent over a chair and made to stay in position. Usually, when I'm caned, I'm lying on a nice comfortable bed with some pillows under me and I can just relax into it. But standing up is a whole other matter. I wanted to see if I could still take a hard caning with my head space altered. 

I have long maintained that I don't do real discipline of any kind, whether it's a spanking or lines or having soap in my mouth (yuck! what a horrid experience!). But I've done those things during what we call "funishment" (except for the mouth soaping...I don't see myself ever doing that). I had a switch taken to me during one funishment scene and the marks were there for almost a month. I also enjoy having the fronts (or backs) of my thighs caned. These scenes usually leave the most dramatic marks.

For me, if it doesn't leave me marked and sore, it's not worth it. Of course, a red bottom is nice. I love to get photos of it when it's been spanked red. But aside from the pretty color, I usually come away disappointed in a scene like that. Unless my bottom is throbbing sore, I can't say I fully enjoyed it. Yesterday's scene was so severe that just pulling up my pants was painful. 

The thing about yesterday's caning was that we had to film it twice, so instead of taking 30 stokes, I actually took 60 (and we had played with an assortment of straps, too between filming). The first time we did it, the video failed to load for some reason. I was disappointed because I thought it was just about perfect. When we made the decision to re-shoot the caning, Clayton (the top I was playing with) asked if I was sure. I told him not to hold back just because I was sore. The result left me bruised and bloodied, but happy to have "proven" to myself that I could take it.

The thing about playing hard is this: people who don't play hard nearly always think we do it to shock people or to get attention. That's not true, at least, it's not in my own case. Like any kind of play, there's usually a deep seated reason why a person would willingly choose to put herself (or himself if you roll that way) through a scene that would leave most people feeling traumatized. After I play really hard, I always come away feeling focused and re-centered. For me, pain is a purifier and only spanking gives me the kind of pain I love. Even within the realm of a masochist, I don't consider myself extreme. There are people who go way beyond anything I would enjoy. I'm talking about hook suspension (where meat hooks, like they use for hanging sides of beef, are put into the back and the person is lifted up by them) and studded paddles and bullwhips. I'm actually pretty tame compared to those folks who enjoy that kind of stuff. I'm OK with the occasional drop or two of blood, but I would never want to be covered in it. I know people who enjoy that. I say do whatever blows your hair back. 

I got the fronts of my thighs properly caned in Atlantic City this past spring by a real Englishman. I have already described the scene in another entry so I won't elaborate here. Anyway, when the scene was done, I went into the bathroom to get a look at the damage.

The scene had been a public one, with a mostly appreciative audience. When I went into the bathroom, a lady who had witnessed the scene asked me "How can you like that?" She was incredulous. "We all like what we like," I told her. I was absolutely flying and to be honest, that lady's judgmental comment was ruining my high. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those hard players that goes around belittling people because they don't play as hard as I do. If I see a scene where someone takes a spanking that, for me, would have been nothing but a warm up, I'm not going to yell "Amateur!" at them. Pain is a lot like beauty. It's in the eye of the beholder. If that person thinks they took something that challenged them, then they have the right to feel proud about what they took. It's not mine or anyone else's place to tell them what "hard really is." To them, it was hard and so that's valid.

I get kind of impatient with people who tell others "You don't know what a hard spanking is!" My pain tolerance is very high and it takes a lot to get me to saturation point. So yes, I need a harder spanking to get me to my "happy place". But not everyone is like that. For some, just a hard hand spanking gets them to the saturation point, where they begin to exhibit avoidance behavior, like putting their hands behind them or wriggling or squirming. When we did that 30-stroke caning yesterday, I was so proud of myself for staying (mostly) in position. I know there are people out there who could have taken more or taken it more stoically than I did, but this was my scene so I was happy. What other people do or what they take is their business. Which leads me to comments on photos. I have seen it repeatedly on Fetlife where someone will post a photo of their bottom with a caption like "Wow, was that intense!" or something like that. And at least one person will say something stupid like "Now that you're warmed up, I'll break out the barbed wire flogger!" or something just as stupid. Even I have posted photos of my bottom and had someone comment that it could be "a lot redder".

Take this photo, for example. I actually had someone post a comment saying "I could do a much better job!" So I explained to this person that this was my first spanking during a three-day party and that on the first night, most of us admittedly play much lighter than we do on the last night. I explained to him that we do that because each of us only has one bottom and if it gets bruised up on the first night, then we might as well go home because no one is going to spank on fresh bruises. I don't think he bought it.

I also dislike the implication that really hard players are unsafe, that they just want their thrill without worrying about the consequences. While there are people out there who do play unsafely, most of us, even edge players, play with every safety precaution in place. Yes, I've been injured. Twice, I had to go to the ER because a spanking went wrong. But for the most part, I usually only end up needing arnica and not a doctor. Do accidents happen? Absolutely. But accidents can happen anytime, anywhere. Accidents can happen crossing the street or having sex or cooking your holiday turkey. Just because an activity carries risk is no reason not to do it. Not every person who crosses the street gets hit by a bus. Not every person cooking their holiday turkey burns their house down. And not every person that has sex has a heart attack. These things can and do happen, but is that any reason not to engage in an activity you enjoy? Weigh the odds of something bad happening and then make up your own mind. That's what SSC (Safe, Sane and Consensual) and RACK (Risk-Aware Consensual Kink) are all about. Know what you're getting yourself into before you agree to do it. Even then, if the scene goes wrong, you can safe word out. I know there are hard players out there who play without a safe word (because, you know, it's all about trust and if you have a safe word, you must not trust me...blah blah blah). But even a safe word isn't a guarantee. Because a safe word is only good if it's respected. There are no guarantees in the BDSM world that nothing will go wrong.

I won't deny that being a hard player has its pitfalls. But I wouldn't give up how I play for anything. The physical and emotional rewards are just too precious to me to even consider it. I'll continue to be cautious and to play with people I know and trust, whose reputations precede them. I won't be shamed or called a "freak". We all have to do what makes us happy. Another person may not understand my need for pain the same way I don't understand their need to have a bedtime forced on them or being made to stand in the corner. But we all live in this "community" of kinky folks and while we may not understand each other, we should make an effort to tolerate each other.

Opinions

Author's Note: Today's entry is me venting my spleen on a subject I should have addressed a long time ago. It has the ability to turn into a rant. So this is fair warning. If you can't bear the thought of a person saying what they really think on a subject, go read something else.


There's a saying: "Opinions are like arseholes. Everyone has one and they all stink." Yesterday, I was taken solidly to task by someone I considered a friend simply for voicing an opinion. I have been told before, actually, that my opinions aren't welcome on Fetlife, which is why I post the majority of them here. I thought that the scene was supposed to be all about acceptance? I thought people welcomed and tolerated differing opinions? Well, here's the truth in black and white. It doesn't. The scene is as cliquish as a middle school and as gossipy as a hair salon. And if you have an opinion that differs from the majority (no matter how trivial the subject) you run the very real risk of being silenced, as I have been. People really don't want your feedback on their posts unless you're goose stepping with them. Granted, I've seen a few that can and do offer civilized debate with people who have a dissenting view. I pride myself on being one of them. But the majority of the people who post on Fetlife might as well preface their journal entries and notes with "I only want people who agree with me 100% to respond." That way, there's never any "drama" from those of us whose opinions are diametrically opposed to theirs. 

I have stated here before that I was bullied as a child. It took me many years to learn to stand up for myself and I'm not about to go back to being that scared little girl who was afraid to open her mouth for fear of reprisal. My father used to say "Cheryl wouldn't say 'shit' if she had a mouthful of it." And he was right. I would rather have borne the worst injustice imaginable than speak up in outrage. When I was raped at 16 by a family friend, I told no one except my mother and I only told her because she was a nurse and I had a head injury. At 16, I kept a violent, humiliating rape to myself. And people wondered why I became an alcoholic? I knew if I reported the rape, it would cause trouble; not just for my family but for his as well. I learned to keep my mouth shut about things that annoyed or bothered me because it wasn't worth the blow back I always seem to experience. 

So here's what I have learned from almost six years on Fetlife:

1) I'm a "negative" person. Apparently, if you voice an opinion that differs from the majority, you're bringing your negativity to the group. I guess we're all supposed to march in line.

2) If you're having a bad day and you reach out to friends, you're throwing yourself a pity party.

3) If you have a falling out with a friend and you tell your side of the story, you're "playing the victim".

4) If there's disagreement between two people who are friends of yours, you will be expected to choose sides.

5) Never, ever under any circumstances should you ever mention, no matter how casually, that you're not into something that other people are into. Again, this is construed as negativity. Gone are the days of "your kink is not my kink". Apparently, we all have to not only like what others like, but we have to embrace it as well.

6) The "if-you're-friends-with-him/her-you-can't-be-friends-with-me" mentality is alive and well on Fetlife. I haven't seen this kind of behavior since grade school. And I thought Fetlife was an adult site.

7) "Conflict resolution" on Fetlife is accomplished by unfriending and blocking.

8) If you aren't "in" with the popular crowd, expect to be invisible to them. If you cross them, expect a massive helping of public humiliation.

9) It's OK to have Christian or conservative beliefs. Just don't voice them, especially when it comes to opposing same-sex marriage. For God's sake, don't ever mention that.

10) If you hold unpopular opinions on subjects held dear in the so-called kink "community" it's OK for people to call you names, flame you on threads and judge you for your views. You just can't turn around and do the same to them.

11) LOL or :) doesn't always fix things. I've learned that putting these at the end of a sentence doesn't always convey that I'm joking or that there are no hard feelings. I've been absolutely crispy fried by people who only saw my words and not the intent behind them.

12) I'm a lot stronger than I thought. When I first joined Fetlife, the thought of someone disagreeing with me mortified me. Now, my first thought is usually "meh". 

13) A lot of the friendships formed on Fetlife are superficial. Everything will be great as long as you're convenient. Ask a favor or need a shoulder and you can forget about it. Of course, some very close friendships have been formed, too. But the majority are the going-to-parties or going-out-drinking type of friendships.

So in the sea of humanity that is Fetlife, if you don't know how to swim against the tide, you better learn how or develop a thick skin. Thankfully, I've been swimming against the tide for most of my life. But don't be looking on Fetlife if you want to know my opinion on something. Just look here. This blog is now the only place I feel safe enough to voice my opinions. 

Random Memories

Yesterday's blog entry, in which I discuss the old-fashioned punishments I received as a child has me thinking now about other times when I was punished. Usually, the punishments were deserved, but sometimes they weren't (at least in my eyes).

My twin sister, Carol and I came into the world during the bleak winter of 1960. My father was 29 and now the father of four children. My mother was 26 and beginning to show the effects of all that childbearing. At his most exacerbated moments, he would ask my mother "Donna, why did we have so many kids?" My mother grew up Catholic and Catholics were supposed to have large families, preferably with lots of sons. My mother was an only child, as I've said before, and I think my grandmother was horribly disappointed by this. Her own mother had had six children, three boys (Noel, David and Carroll) and three girls (Velda, who was my grandmother, Viola and Ruth, the baby of the family). My Aunt Ruth was married to my Uncle Clyde, a cattle farmer from Corpus Christi, Texas. One of his neighbors were the Fawcetts, whose daughter, Mary Farrah, my mother sometimes babysat for. Later, when Farrah Fawcett-Majors was on the wall of every pubescent male in the country, my mother would describe her as the "prettiest baby she'd ever seen". Anyway, getting back on track, my mother dressed Carol and I alike and my dad couldn't tell us apart to save his life. Carol was by far the more outgoing of the two of us, a trait that never changed during our lives together. My father's sisters, Esther and Mary Ellen, both married brothers named Worden. When Carol and I were born, both Aunt Esther and Aunt Mary had their own births eminent. My Aunt Mary gave birth to our cousin, David, on January 15th and Aunt Esther had her son, Paul (called Punkin by the family, even when he was an adult) on January 31st. So in one months' time, my grandparents welcomed four new grandchildren.

This is Carol and I on Christmas morning, 1993 with three of our cousins. On the left is Denise, then Paul and David, Denise's older brother. I can't even begin to recount all the mischief the five of us got up to together. We were all so close in age, with Denise being David's "Irish twin", as she was only 19 months younger than him. We were thick as thieves and partners in crime, but we were never hateful or malicious. We were just rambunctious kids. 

Because we were all so close in age, we got up to a lot of no good together. It started at a young age, too. My Aunt Mary had five children--two sons and three daughters--so her hands were always full. My Uncle Dale had left her by the time Denise, the youngest was about three or four years old. My Aunt Esther was still married to Dale's brother, Dave and they had three sons together. I was petrified of Uncle Dave. He had a metal brace on his ankle from an undisclosed injury (which many in the family said was caused by a self-inflicted gunshot wound to keep from having to go to Korea) and it clanked when he walked. He was a strict disciplinarian, too. I recall an incident when I couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old. David, Paul, Carol and I had been visiting with Aunt Esther and Uncle Dave, who lived in a duplex in a somewhat seedy part of town. There was a vacant lot across the street where we were expressly forbidden to play because it was unsafe. Neighborhood rumor had it that a boy had been found dead there a few years previously. More recently, a couple of boys, out looking for bottle caps, had found a loaded gun in that lot and now all the parents were forbidding their kids to play there. Unfortunately, we were caught because the vacant lot was right across the street from the house and when Aunt Esther came out to hang some laundry on the line, she saw us. Or rather, she saw asses and elbows as we tried to hide. She called us in the house, where Uncle Dave was waiting, belt in hand for his sons and a house slipper for us girls and the other boy in this group,David. I thought it grossly unfair that my cousin, Mike, by far the oldest at seventeen, was going to get a thrashing when he wasn't even there. Apparently, he was supposed to be watching us. 
"I told you to watch these kids!" Uncle Dave said. "What were you doing instead? Tinkering with that dirt bike?"
Mike looked at his feet.
"Yes, sir," he mumbled because, when you addressed Uncle Dave, there was no other response acceptable.
"Bend over that chair," Uncle Dave ordered, "and show these kids how to take a whipping. The only reason those jeans aren't coming down is because there's girls here. Otherwise, they would be hitting the floor."
Mike's face was covered in acne, for which he was profoundly mortified, and when his face blushed red it stood out. I still can picture his lanky frame bending over the chair and Uncle Dave wailing on him. He bore the blows solidly. He had always been a favorite cousin of mine because he could always be counted on for piggy back rides and trips to the ice cream shop. But now my admiration for him really grew. When Uncle Dave was done, he beckoned his other son, Paul to take his big brother's place. The middle son, Jimmy had been smart enough not to be with us that day. Paul was a wuss and took his licking badly. I bet even I could have taken it better than he did. 
Since my other cousin, David, wasn't his child, he opted not to belt him. Instead, he sat on the chair and beckoned David.
"Come here, David," he said taking up the house slipper.
"No way," David said shaking his head.
"You want the belt instead?" he asked.
"No, sir," David replied.
"Then get over here," Uncle Dave said.
So David walked over to him. Uncle Dave was a tall man and he had no problem putting David across his knee. I was embarrassed for him. His face bore an expression of sorrow and defiance. Uncle Dave took that slipper to the seat of his pants with gusto. For his part, David took it pretty stoically, despite the fact that Uncle Dave really wore him out. Then he beckoned me.
"You next," he said.
I walked over to him, my head held proudly.
"I'm tellin' my daddy about this," I said as he bent me across his knee.
"Oh you are?" Uncle Dave said. "Well, I'm glad. Tell him what you did to get this."
As I was just a little girl (and small for my age) he took it pretty easy on me. When it was all over, there was a group of very sorry kids rubbing their sore bottoms. Such was life back then; when a kid had to decide if what he was about to do was worth the spanking he was going to get. And, as I've shown time and time again on this blog, girls weren't immune. I said before that Aunt Esther and Uncle Dave lived in a duplex. At the time, no one was living in the upstairs apartment so we kids used to play up there. I remember one night when the adults (my parents, Uncle Dave and Aunt Esther, and my Uncle Bob and his second wife, my Aunt Julie, whom I hated) were sitting in the kitchen playing cards. I think it was gin rummy. There were kids running all over the place, even though we had been instructed to stay upstairs. Someone dared my cousin Darla, who was the third of my Aunt Mary Ellen's kids, to sneak down and shut the light off. Darla, who had a thing for Tom Jones, was light on her feet and was the best person for the job in my estimation. Her older siblings, Butch and Debbie (who had been the flower girl at my parents' wedding) were both old enough to date and were out for the night. I knew Butch well enough to know that if he had been there, Darla would have had to face the ire of her big brother, who wasn't above taking them over his knee if the situation called for it. With his father out of the picture, he was the man of the house and he took his responsibilities seriously. Like my cousin Mike, Butch (or Dale, Jr.which was his real name...but no one ever called him that) was lanky and had acne. They could have passed for brothers and not cousins. Anyway, Darla was about to chicken out when David held up the bait, a Zagnut candy bar. It was right after Halloween so there was a lot of candy around. Darla loved Zagnut bars and couldn't resist them. So the decision was made. Darla would sneak downstairs and flick the light switch. She was superb. All the grown ups thought that a fuse had blown and my Uncle Bob, being a fireman, was sent down to investigate. I guess it never dawned on them to try the light switch. Anyway, eventually someone did because the lights went back on and the game resumed. Having gotten away with it once, of course, we couldn't leave well enough alone and another kid was soon recruited, my older brother, Ray. Unlike Darla, he didn't need to be bribed. He would do it just to be able to say he had done it. So off he went, the rest of us stifling our giggles as best we could.
"Listen, you guys," Paul said, "we gotta be quiet. If my dad ever knows we're doin' this, we might as well dig graves and crawl in. Now be quiet!"
My brother was well practiced in tomfoolery. He slid down the narrow staircase sideways and hit the light switch, then covering his mouth so he wouldn't laugh, darted back upstairs. The adults were onto the game now, however.
"Knock that off, whoever's doing that!" came Uncle Dave's voice.
We just giggled in response and sent Uncle Bob's older daughter, Gretchen (who goes by Greta now for some reason) to do it next. Uncle Bob always referred to her as "Hurricane Gretchen" because destruction usually followed in her wake. She broke more things and broke them faster than any person I've ever known. She was scared, no doubt about it. I had been treated to one of her father's hard spankings, so I knew her fear was well founded. But she proved to be a natural and again, the trick was pulled off.
"The next kid who does that will be the sorriest kid alive!" came the usual threat from Uncle Dave.
Not being the kind of kids who would let a mere threat deter them, we had to do it again. We decided to send Denise, who was only about 5 or 6 at the time, because if she was caught, Uncle Dave would take it easy on her. She was his favorite niece and everyone knew it. Even though she was barely tall enough to reach the light switch, she did manage to do it and ran back up the stairs as fast as her legs would carry her.
We heard the familiar sound of Uncle Dave's belt being unbuckled as he charged up the stairs to confront us.
"Who did that? he demanded. 
Since no one 'fessed up, you can imagine the scene that followed. There were kids being chased in every direction and even though we all got thorough spankings, it remains a fond memory of mine because I was so close with all of my cousins. I remember my father managed to snag Gretchen and gave her bottom a series of smacks that probably wouldn't have hurt me, but made her burst into tears. Her dad, my Uncle Bob, was the one who caught me. Believe me, I got the short end of that stick because Uncle Bob spanked hard, even harder than Uncle Dave. My cousin Darla had the misfortune to get caught by Uncle Dave. I don't know to this day how that happened because Darla was quick on her feet (the result of years of dance and gymnastics classes) and Uncle Dave had a brace on his ankle. Boy, did he wallop her! He only used his hand on her, while my unlucky big brother got the belt. When it was all over, the room was filled with crying, sorry kids. 
Uncle Dave put his belt back on.
"Now stay up here and behave!" he said as all the adults headed back downstairs and the gin rummy game continued. 
It was a strange experience for me because I had never seen my father spank any kid who wasn't his. We had dried our tears, but we all stood around rubbing our bottoms. 
"Whose idea was this?" Cousin David asked.
"Yours!" we all shot back.
My mother, who had the kindest heart of anyone I ever knew, popped her head around the corner. She had heard the round of spankings from downstairs.
"Is everyone alright?" she asked.
We all said we were, but my brother needed lotion on his bottom.
My last two blog entries have been odd to say the least. But I have a ton of memories of growing up in an era when spanking was a cure-all for whatever ailed a kid. Even when we played "house" or "school", someone invariably ended up over someone's knee. This happened because that's simply how things were done. 

I have mentioned my friends Trudy, Julie and Sally on my blog before, but that was quite a while ago so I'm going to relay a story I've never told anyone before. It's a story of heartache and revenge. OK, not really heartache, but definitely revenge. Sally's mother dated my Uncle Bob for a while after he and Aunt Julie divorced. It shames me a little bit to say that we made Sally "prove" herself before we would accept her into our little circle. To be perfectly frank, Sally was a wimp. She was afraid to break rules or get dirty. Because of the latter, she was useless on our baseball team. And because of the former, she was useless when it came to pranks. But in one regard, she outshone us all: she could charm the birds out the trees. This talent alone was sufficient to get her out of some pretty serious scrapes. Trudy, Julie, Carol and I spent one entire rainy afternoon trying to come up with something sufficiently daring but not too dangerous that would prove once and for all that Sally was worthy of inclusion. This still shames me when I think about it because I know how bad it feels to be excluded. We should have just taken her in without the silly "initiation". 
"We could make her go to SuperX and steal make up for us," Trudy suggested.
"She'd get caught," Julie said dismissively.
"How about making her ride no-handed down Suicide Hill?" I asked.
"We don't wanna kill her," Trudy said. 
"That's what you guys made me do," I reminded her.
"You're a better bike rider than she is," Julie replied, "and you almost broke your neck."
While my friends were busy discussing among themselves what should be done about Sally, my devious mind was at work. I had been trying to get revenge on Doyle Collins since February, when he knocked me down and washed my face in the snow. Doyle was a bully and rarely went anywhere without his right hand man, John Ufen. These two all by themselves could make a person's life miserable. A year later, these two boys would do something to me that I've never forgotten. But I already blogged about that. Doyle, however, needed to be dealt with. It had to be embarrassing, it had to be memorable, and most importantly, it had to be done by a girl. Doyle lived on the next block over from me with a divorced mother and a younger brother. I think it's possible that Doyle had been held back at least one grade, maybe two because he seemed a bit older than we were. 
"Hey, you guys what about Doyle?" I asked.
"He's an idiot," Trudy replied. "What about him?"
"We could have Sally do something to his bike," I said.
"Are you still mad about what he did to you in February? Julie asked. "Give it a rest already. You survived."
"Maybe I did," I replied, "but there's pride involved here."
"I don't know about you," Trudy said, "but I'm not going anywhere near Doyle's bike."
So we opted for a "girl's revenge". It was childish and immature, but it got Doyle back good. Because I value my good name and I'm still ashamed of myself for coming up with this idea, I won't say what we had Sally do. But suffice to say it was underhanded and wicked and we all knew it was wrong. Sally, to her credit, pulled it off without a hitch and her incredible charm kept her from getting into too much trouble.

That's how life was though; a series of misadventures and punishments. But we managed to laugh through most of it. We lived by the motto "Laugh now, cry later." The problem was with the way the system worked back then. In those days, any adult had the right to discipline you if you were a kid. So the deck was almost always stacked against you. But I still say we had more fun in those days than kids today have, even with all the electronic gadgetry that they have now that we didn't have. It was a way more innocent time. I miss it badly.

Old-Fashioned Punishments

A little earlier on, I touched on a subject that I  want to expound on here. In one of my earlier blog postings leading up to the Crimson Moon party, I mentioned that there were a lot of young people in the spanking scene who enjoy role play; role plays that include punishments they never had to face in real life. I'm talking about school paddling, getting spanked at home for getting in trouble at school, writing sentences or having your mouth washed out with soap. These are viewed by many as very old-fashioned punishments, with no place in our modern, more civilized world. If you listen to the liberal rhetoric, we're a much kinder and gentler world now and such barbaric punishments that hurt and/or humiliate children have no place here. Even Great Britain, that lover of corporal punishment, took the cane out of its public (state) schools thirty years ago. The result of all this coddling is that on both sides of the pond, we now have a generation that has grown up without rules or consequences for breaking them. Young 20-somethings then come into the spanking scene having never (or rarely) experienced such things firsthand. So to them, it's all fun and games. To those of us who grew up with the threat of such horrible punishments, these are not laughing matters and even forty years after the fact, I still shudder at some of the punishments I either received or witnessed. 

Let me give you an example. The infraction I'm about to relate to you was a serious one back in the day and the punishment the perpetrators received was severe. You can debate with yourself whether or not this was abuse. To me, it was justice. Even as a child, I understood that, though a kid might rebel, in the end, the adults would win. They always won and it was right that they won. I was 11-years-old and in only my second year in public school (I'd gone to Catholic school before that). My  teacher was a very tall (6'6") Irishman named Jack Donnelly. He was the kind of teacher that most kids liked. He was friendly, always willing to help a student who was lagging behind and took the job of educating us seriously. However, he brooked no challenges to his authority. Because of his size, he intimidated all of us. Even the toughest boys in the class, the ones who could easily beat older boys in a fight, were afraid to push him too far. Now, Mr. Donnelly wasn't the sort who enjoyed spanking children. He saw it as a necessary tool for controlling his large class. One thing he hated was a bully. It was one thing for the toughs in our class to fight with older boys, but he hated bullies who preyed on the weaker and smaller. And, as hard as it may seem to believe now, back then I was the weaker and smaller. I have related before that I was bullied as a child. Most of the bullying came from the other girls in my class, but every so often one of the boys would get it into his head to try his hand at it. School had only just started, which meant it was the time of year (late summer) when we always experienced a drought. Because of how dry it was, the grasshoppers were out in droves. You could hardly walk anywhere without stepping on one. I had and still have a fear of bugs. Things that fly are especially scary to me. So as you can imagine, I hated grasshoppers with a passion One day, I was walking past the field on the playground because the bell was imminent and you didn't want to be late coming back from recess for any reason. A couple of boys who were in my class (and who had terrorized me and others in the past) came and sidled up to me. They spent about a minute making small talk with me before I realized that they had steered me back to the field. 
"The bell's gonna ring," I said trying to get around them, but they had my path blocked. One of the boys held my arms while the other one put a grasshopper down the front of my dress. I shrieked like I'd been shot. I can still remember it to this day. Then they pushed me down and walked off, laughing like it was the funniest thing they had ever seen. I jumped around trying get it out, not realizing it meant me no harm and was probably just as afraid of me as I was of him. I finally worked the hated bug out of my undershirt (I wasn't wearing a bra just yet) and walked back to class shaking like a leaf. I never told anyone what those boys did to me. Instead, I set about planning my revenge. I was a quick thinker and I had a somewhat devious mind for such a docile, well-behaved child. I didn't quite know what my plan was, but I knew something had to be done. Four days later, contrary to our normal weather patterns for that time of year, we had a bad rainstorm, which turned the field into a sinkhole of mud. The announcement went out that all students to stay off the field during recess that day. That morning, as I ate my breakfast, I thought of the perfect revenge. I knew before I ever got to school or heard the announcement that it was going to be an "off the field" day. I grabbed a plastic bag from my mother's pantry and set off for my bus stop. I hid the bag in one of my school books and no one was the wiser. That morning, when the announcements were read and, sure enough, we were being told not to go on the field, I knew I had the perfect way to get them back. At first morning's recess, I took my bag and filled it with mud (making sure not to be seen). Then before the bell rang, I snuck back inside and smeared mud on the boots of the boys who had bullied me. I knew whose boots were whose. I also smeared some in the hallway leading directly into Room 6A. Then I ran to the rest room across the hall and washed my hands. Sure enough, Mr. Donnelly spotted the mess and asked whose boots those were. The two bullies readily confessed that those were their boots, but had no idea how the mud got on them. Of course, Mr. Donnelly wasn't fooled for a moment. He had the boys on their hands and knees cleaning up "their" mess. All the while, I sat there with a shit eating grin on my face. They now knew who the culprit was and they lost no time in telling Mr. Donnelly just who had done the deed. He was aghast. I was supposed to be a young lady. I then relayed the tragic tale of how they had put a disgusting bug down the front of my dress and how much distress this had caused me. Mr. Donnelly lost no time in getting the boys in front of the class. He loved taking kids who thought they were tough guys "down a couple of pegs" as he put it. He put each boy over his knee in front of the whole class and worked the seats of their jeans over with his enormous right hand. Those boys, who thought it had been just hilarious to watch me jump around tearing at my clothes were now getting a taste of what it meant to be in an uncomfortable position. Then he stood them up and ordered them to apologize to me. Standing there rubbing their no doubt stinging bottoms, they mumbled their pathetic "sorries" to me.

Now the above photo is from a website I mentioned in another post called "Straight Lads Spanked". The young man getting spanked here is named Ben and he's ended up in this position (across the knee of "community spanker". Mr. X) because he's a bully. He picked on a boy who was smaller than him by, according the the write up for the video, lacing his drink with Viagra and locking him in the bathroom during an awards banquet (the reason the boy is wearing a suit). Karl, the boy that Ben bullied, has no way out and his frantic parents have called the police. But instead of going to jail, young Ben is given a choice. He can choose to report to Mr. X for a proper spanking. Of course, Ben chooses the spanking and thinks it's a small price to pay. What the photo doesn't show is that Mr. X has invited Karl to come by and watch his tormentor's humiliation. Mr. Donnelly would have approved, bless him.

Unfortunately, we now live in an age where such punishments are seen as the products of a different era. Humiliating a student because he's a bully is seen as revenge and not discipline. Who in their right mind would prescribe such a punishment? More than likely, the little bully would be sat down and asked if everything was OK at home. My father taught me that the way to handle a bully is to give them a taste of their own medicine, which I did every chance I got. This time, I got off Scot free. I wasn't always so lucky. But who among us doesn't savor the sight of a bully getting the tables turned on him (or her)? I know I did.

Now about writing sentences...this was a popular punishment when I was in school. Teachers who believed more in busy work than sting backsides as a deterrent to mischief often prescribed 100 lines for students who misbehaved. I had one those, too and she made me wish I was back in Mr. Donnelly's class. Believe me when I tell you that the pain from a few swats is nothing compared to a writer's cramp. This is exactly the reason that teachers gave out sentences; because they knew how bad writer's cramp hurt. Kids would do almost anything to get out of having to write sentences. I remember a teacher who made me write the same sentence 200 times and then, when I turned in my neatly written lines, ripped the papers in half and tossed them into the trash can without even looking at them. It was probably at that moment (or a similar one) where I realized why people kill other people. Everyone hated sentences and almost every kid I know would rather have taken a paddling in front of the whole class than write them. 

Mouth soaping is something I have a little experience with, too. Parents in my mom and dad's generation swore by this remedy for "potty mouth" the same way some parents do hot saucing today, although it was way less controversial. My Uncle Carroll gave me a mouth soaping I'll never forget when I was about eight years old. I can't imagine it was because I swore. I don't even think I knew any swear words back then. I think it's more likely I was "soaped" (as we kids called it) for the alternate reason: lying. My Uncle Carroll was actually my mother's uncle. He was the older brother of my grandmother. Since my mother was an only child, all of my aunts, uncles and cousins were actually her aunts, uncles and cousins. Anyway, Uncle Carroll lived with my Aunt Helen about four blocks away from us. I loved going over there, especially in the fall when their apple trees were full of ripe fruit and I knew a pie was in the oven. She was quite an astounding cook, as were all the women on my mother's side of the family. Anyway, on this day, I had just popped down to ask Aunt Helen if she and Uncle Carroll wanted to come over and play bridge with Mom and Dad that evening. She asked me to wait in the living room while she spoke to my uncle. While I was waiting, I occupied myself with my new Duncan yo yo, which I had purchased only a few days previously with money earned at a highly successful lemonade stand. I wasn't very good at yo yoing at that time. In fact, my older brother had just shown me my first trick the day before and I was eager to practice. While I was occupied, I underestimated the length on my string and the yo yo slammed down on a souvenir ashtray on the coffee table. It was one of those big ceramic ones that had some destination stamped on it. It was so heavy that instead of smashing to pieces, it broke clean in half. I held my breath, waiting for one of them to come see what had caused the crash, but no one did. So I just pushed the pieces back together and it looked like nothing had happened. My aunt reported they would be over right after dinner and did my mother want to borrow her punch bowl for a baby shower they were throwing the next day? I figured she probably did because I had never seen a punch bowl at our house. That evening, after my older sister and I had done the supper dishes, the four adults played bridge. We had to stay out of the way and entertain ourselves the best we could. It's a good thing we were imaginative children because we were often left to our own devises like this when our parents had company. The three of us girls were in our room playing Mystery Date (who remembers that game?) when there was a smart rapping on our bedroom door then it flew open. My dad stormed into the room the way he only did when someone was in trouble. 
"Cheryl Kay, come out here," he said pointing to the door.
Now, in our house, when you got called by your first and middle name, you were in deep trouble and it was best to just obey and not ask any questions. I followed him out to the living room where the card table was set up and the punch bowl Aunt Helen had bought was sitting on the bar in our dining room. 
"Uncle Carroll has something to ask you," my father said.
"What?" I asked.
He stood there with hands on hips.
"Did you break something while you were over at our house earlier?" he asked, fixing me in a stern gaze made all the more menacing by the fact that he had a glass eye.
I put on my best innocent expression.
"No," said, lying through my teeth.
Now, I was raised by saved parents and we studied the Bible together so I was well aware of how bad it was to lie. 
"Well, that's funny," Uncle Carroll replied, "because that ash tray was fine when you got there and cracked in half when you left."
"Maybe you broke it?" I said.
My father stayed out of it. I think he was just waiting to see how deep I was planning to dig this particular hole? 
"I didn't break it," my uncle said.
"Well, I don't even smoke," I said in a smart ass tone of voice that caused my father to raise an eyebrow, a warning to tread lightly.
"No, but you yo yo," Uncle Carroll said. "Your aunt said you had one with you when you came over."
"I'm not supposed to play with it indoors," I said. 
"That doesn't mean you didn't!" Uncle Carroll replied, getting his Applegate blood up.
The Applegates were well known for their short fuses and even as a kid I realized that I had probably taken this confrontation past the point of no return. Unfortunately for me, there was also French blood on their mother's side (my great-grandmother's side) as the Vaniers were also known to have a few hotheads among their number. 
"I did no such thing!" I said, proving that I could get just as angry as my grown up relatives.
"You're lying, young lady," Uncle Carroll said. "That ash tray was from a trip your aunt and I took out west the year before Lee was born."
My mother's cousin, Lee was the older of the two sons from this marriage. Kim was the younger. They had also had a daughter, Nyla who was the youngest and quite spoiled. I found her totally glamorous because she had her ears pierced and wore make up. 
"I didn't break it," I lied again.
Before I knew what was what, my uncle grabbed me and carried me under his arm to the kitchen sink. My mother was going to nursing school at the time and had developed a mania about soap from which I have never really recovered. She kept a large bar of Lifebuoy soap at the sink for hand washing. My uncle hoisted me up and turned on the water. Then he picked up the beige colored bar of soap and ran it under the faucet. Meanwhile, I can clearly see what's coming so I tried to wrestle out of his grip. I was a skinny kid then, nothing to pick up and nothing to cart around. He brought the soap to my mouth and forced it between my teeth, where the bar hit ever uneven crevice of every tooth in my mouth. I recall I was barefoot, but that didn't stop me from giving his exposed ribs a couple of solid kicks. He put the bar down and sat on one of the nearby bar stools, where he put me over his knee, pulled down my pants and gave me such a hard spanking that now, 45 years later, I can still remember how bad it hurt. My parents, seeing that I got what I had coming to me, didn't protest this indignity to one of their offspring. 
"Now you can burn at one end and bubble at the other," Uncle Carroll said, giving my bare bottom a couple of parting whacks and setting me on my feet.
I was wretched, you can believe that. I ran to the bathroom sobbing and slammed the door. The commotion, meanwhile had brought my siblings from every corner of the house to see what was left of the floor show. 

As you can see, lying and destruction of property were frowned on back when I was a kid. For a parent, the only thing that came close was forcing a teacher to stop the lesson and deal with you. The old rule about "spanked at school, spanked at home" was adhered to in our home, at least in the circumstances that my dad discovered it. 

The young man over the knee of his "dad" in this picture is Karl. And yes, this is another one from the Straight Lads Spanked website (in the interest of having some kind of pictorial accompaniment to my awesome words). Karl got the cane at school and so his father is doing what my father would have done in that situation. To show how much they strive for realism on this website, Karl was indeed given the cane (spanking models often shoot more than one film a day) so that the cane marks are clearly visible on his bottom. When he's not making spanking videos, Karl is a scrappy amateur boxer. Clearly, this kid has a thing for pain. Anyway, he gets a hard spanking from his dad because he "copped the cane" at school for skipping class and also getting caught kissing a girl behind the bicycle sheds. Two punishments in one day seems awfully unfair but Karl endures both a very hard caning and then a slippering from his old man, poor kid.

I suffered just such an indignity when I was in eighth grade. Well, except that I wasn't naked, but you get the idea. I hated my homeroom teacher, Mr. Jorgenson with a passion. I can put his name up here now because he died last year. He was my worst nightmare--a person in authority who loved to torture people. If you had a weakness of any sort, he would exploit it. When he discovered that I was hard of hearing, he deliberately seated me as far in the back of the room as he could. When I complained I couldn't hear him, he said he would get me an ear horn for Christmas. What a lovely guy he was. Anyway, we had just returned from Christmas break and you could feel the melancholy in the air. We knew there wouldn't be another break until Easter. I'd had minor surgery about a week earlier (right before my birthday) and I was still feeling a bit tired and out of sorts. I was in no mood to take crap from anyone. But, unfortunately, my bullies were still at it. The PTA was meeting in the gym that particular day (where we normally ate lunch) so we would be eating at our desks. Mr. Jorgenson, as always, would be eating in the teacher's lounge. One of the lunchroom monitors was sent to keep an eye on our class. That day's meal included a chocolate chip cookie (and not good ones), which most of used as Frisbee's or hand grenades. A girl in my class, Debbie Hale, chose to crumble hers over my head. 
"That's the way the cookie crumbles," she said as her sycophants laughed. 
I wanted to deck her, but I didn't. The lunchroom lady was no help. I walked right up to her with crumbs falling off of my hair and she acted like nothing had happened. Well, OK, I guess I'm on my own here. I managed to get most of the crumbs out of my hair, but not all of them so I was met with "You have dandruff!" by several kids in my class. I thought to myself how Mr. Donnelly would have settled their hash. But Mr. Jorgenson was a bully himself and so not likely to find my plight all that compelling. So of course, being somewhat cagey, I waited for my chance to avenge myself. When lunch was over (but the bell hadn't yet rung for recess) Debbie lifted her desk top to get something out of her desk and I saw my chance. I made like I was going to the pencil sharpener and as I walked past her, I closed the desk on her head. It's not like I slammed it really hard or knocked her out or anything. I just gave her a headache. When Mr. Jorgeson returned, he was immediately told by the lunchroom lady what had happened. But she conveniently left out the part where Debbie smashed her cookie over my head. Mr. Jorgenson appeared shocked. Now he had seen some of the bullying I had been subjected to firsthand, but for some reason he acted like this was the first time he'd heard anything about it. Both Debbie and I were walked briskly out into the hallway and paddled. Being accustomed to physical punishment, I took the four swats pretty well, despite how hard he paddled me. Debbie, being a spoiled rich girl made a big fuss about it. He took it considerably easier on Debbie than he did me. 
"The next time there's any kind of physical altercation in my class room involving either of you, you'll regret the day you were born," he said angrily. "I went easy on both of you, remember that."
Oh yeah, buddy, it sure felt like it. The worst part was that he gave me a note to give to my parents, telling them that he had had to punish me for "assaulting" another student. I wonder to this day if Debbie got a similar note. Anyway, I knew better than to not hand it over. He instructed me to have one of them sign the note to prove that I had showed it to them, so there was no way I could just drop it in the trash and forget about it. If I had done that, I could forget about ever sitting down comfortably again.I spent the rest of the day in misery, both physically and emotionally. My stomach churned from the stress of having to face my parents. I didn't think my father would be particularly mad because was the one who had told me "Don't ever start a fight, but make sure you finish it." But my mother would be mortified. I was a young lady now and I was expected to act like one.

When I got home that afternoon, my mother had just woken up. She worked third shift and so the time we were at school was her time to sleep. Dutifully, I handed her the note.
"What's this?" she asked, taking it.
"Read it for yourself," I told her.
She did and looked at me like I wasn't her daughter, but some devil spawn that had been swapped for her daughter.
"It wasn't as bad as he made it out to be," I said.
"You slammed a wooden desktop down on a girl's head because she crumbled a cookie over your head?" she asked. "You could have seriously hurt her."
"It was the last straw," I replied. "It wasn't about the cookie. It was about a lot of stuff."
"When your father sees this, he won't be happy," she told me.
"You could just sign it," I said. "He doesn't have to see it."
"Oh he's seeing it, young lady," my mother assured me. "You can just go to your room and wait for him."
Normally, my mother wasn't a "wait till your father gets home" kind of mom. She normally handled the small brush fires that occurred during the day. But this was serious. So I went to my room and I waited for my dad to come home from work. I knew he would be tired and would just want his dinner and some peace and quiet. My sisters sat in the room with me (we shared it, after all) and gave me moral support. When we heard Dad's car pull into the driveway, my sisters ran for the hills. I couldn't hear distinct words, but I heard my parents having a conversation. I heard my dad's footsteps and he jingle of his belt being unbuckled. Oh man, was I ever in for it.

The young man getting the belt across his bottom is Wayne. Straight Lads Spanked does a series called "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home", which is really popular with fans who like domestic scenes. I like Wayne because he has a tattoo on his bottom. But, at any rate, Wayne has been a very naughty boy. He was caught smoking pot at school. Very, very stupid as I could have told him from experience. At least his "dad" positioned him nice and comfy with a pillow under his hips (I have a feeling that this was done more for the fans, since putting a pillow under the spankee's hips raises them up and creates a very nice visual, as we see here). My dad charged into the room like a bull elephant.
"Tell me what happened," he said.
As calmly as I could, I told him about how this girl had been picking on me all year and I had just had enough. He seemed to soften a little. Well, as much as a Marine with a belt in his hand can soften. 
"I don't think she'll bother me again," I said.
"But your teacher had to paddle you," he said, "so you know what that means."
"He didn't have to," I said. "He wanted to. And she didn't get near what I got."
"Her butt's probably not as tough as yours," Dad said. "You know what to do."
"It really wasn't fair," I said, trying any way I could to get out of the agony that was coming.
"Turn over," he said.
"I'm still sore," I told him.
Now, keep in mind I had just turned 14 years old. I thought the time when my father would spank me was past, but I guess not.
"I'll count to five and you'd better be turned over," he said, beginning to count.
Knowing this was a lose-lose situation for me, I turned over. Without a word, my dad gave me a dozen or so licks with that awful belt of his and then put it back on.
"I went easy on you because you already got it once today," he said.
That was the second time in one day someone had told me they had taken it easy on me. 
"Your mom signed the note, so we're square," he said. "Now come eat dinner."

I guess, in a role play scenario, any of the above scenes would be good, as they were in the spanking videos I cited. But getting any of them non-consensually as I did as a child, well, that's another matter entirely.

Men Spanking Men

Yesterday's posts on Fetlife about whether being old and/or fat affects your play at spanking parties has spawned several other posts about "accepting diversity" in the at-large scene. One of the most persistent pleas is that M/M spanking (whether straight or gay) should be allowed at spanking parties. Right now, most groups frown on it. A few completely forbid it. And a few, like Crimson Moon, are somewhat OK with it as long as it's private. I rather enjoy a good M/M scene myself (as long as there's no sex...but even if it was M/f, I don't like sex and spanking to mix). I have long enjoyed male on male spanking. But until recently, I didn't even know there were websites in existence where I can watch straight men getting spanked by other men. Completely by accident, I found a website called Straight Lads Spanked. On this English site, all the "lads" are straight and most of extremely easy on the eyes. The site has a large female following, along with both gay and straight men. The man who runs the site appears to have a warm, somewhat paternal relationship with the models he employs. Because he tries to keep the stories as close the the models' real lives a possible, it easy for the viewers to pull for these guys. I'm not a member (yet) but there's enough free content that you get the gist of how things are done.

The premise involves a character called Mr. X. Mr. X is a man with a job to do, apparently. He's what's known as a "community spanker", someone who's job is to discipline the young men who get sent to him. The young men are usually sent by a parent (who can no longer handle them) or employers or girlfriends. The owner of the site plays the part of Mr. X from under a ski mask. The black mask reminds me somewhat of an executioner's mask. The boys report, somewhat like one would report to the headmaster, with the papers explaining what they did to get sent to the community spanker. Some have only the vaguest idea of what's in store for them. Before the spanking commences, there's the lecture/scolding phase of the punishment. Most of the lads dislike this part every bit as much as the spanking that follows. Some of the boys are contrite from the start. Others are cheeky and arrogant in the face of severe punishment. All are extremely spankable. This site has a loyal and vocal network of fans. Even though I'm not a member, there is a way to get free content. Some of the post-spanking interviews that Dave, the owner of Straight Lads Spanked, have been downloaded to YouTube, which is where I first heard of this site. I watched a pre-spanking interview with an Irish lad named Patrick. Then, when the punishment was concluded (in this case a belting, which Patrick was NOT looking forward to) the interview resumed, with Patrick showing us his red bottom. When that interview was over, I saw another one, with a muscled and tattooed guy named Andy. Andy just so happens to be Patrick's real-life older brother. There's something very appealing about watching a strong, muscled man writhing over the knee of an older man. Watching Andy brought down a peg is always fun. He also quite a spanker in his own right, as little brother Patrick discovered. 

Not only do the lads get spanked by Mr. X and an assortment of other characters, but they also spank each other, gleefully. A few of the boys admit to spanking their girlfriends, which intrigues me. There are games of Jenga and Twister that end in spankings. The penalties, which they call "defaults" are worked out ahead of time. Hopefully, they'll do this again as these films look very entertaining. The films seem at least a little more plausible than most of the scenarios we get treated to in spanking movies (at least ones that aren't M/f). I adore the interviews, as they're peepholes into these guys' real lives. Aside from the fact that the guys are attractive, you "pull" for them to succeed. I should mention the spankings almost always end up with the boys naked and occasionally (OK, more than occasionally) some dick is scene. The guys are never erect though and it's made abundantly clear by the boys themselves that they don't really enjoy the spankings. Most are only doing the films for the money. 

To me, straight men spanking other straight men is becoming more and more acceptable. The appearance of websites (which are pay sites) is a testament to that. I think it would serve the national spanking groups to get with the program here and welcome M/M scenes the same way F/F scenes are welcome. I'm as straight as they come and I play with women. No one has ever called me gay for playing with women. Men should have the same freedom. They should be able to admit that they enjoy spanking men and be free from ridicule for it. 

Anyone who thinks that there's no place for M/M spanking in the scene needs a trip to see Mr. X.

What Age And Weight Have To Do With Popularity

Right now on Fetlife, there is a battle raging about whether or not age is a hindrance to play. Since the big Crimson Moon summer party just took place last weekend, it has been reported by several that they were either ignored or turned down for play because of their age and/or weight. Let me just say before I put my two penny's worth in that this is not a new debate. It has been going on for as long as the spanking scene has existed. 

I was 42 years old in early 2003 when my sister and I made the momentous decision to get active in the spanking scene. This was before Fetlife brought all the young, hip technically savvy folks into the scene. I remember emailing one of the board members of Crimson Moon to ask the serious question "Will I get played with if I decide to attend a party?" I thought it a fair question at the time. My only experience with spanking was with Shadow Lane, whose videos always featured sleek, young babes dressed to the nines in heels and garter belts. I didn't look like any of those ladies nor could I afford to dress like them. Now, the gentleman that I emailed that question to had never seen me before in his life. How was he supposed to answer that question? He was tactful in that he said as long as I was friendly, approachable and didn't smell bad I would get played with. When I arrived at the hotel, I did what I have always done in moments when my anxiety or fear has gotten the best of me--I threw up my guts. Carol, my twin sister, was already a veteran of the party scene (she had attended a party just two months earlier) and did her best to assure me that I would be fine. Well, to make a long story short, I was fine. I got spanked so much that my bottom was black and blue for two months afterward. I also made some connections and was able to acquire a play partner.

As you can see, I haven't changed all that much since then. I'm a bit heavier and I have some tattoos, other than that, same ol' Cheryl. Carol and I were two of the younger ladies in the group back then and, being twins, we were popular. What can I say? Being popular was important to me back then. In those early days in the scene, most of the men who spanked us (I was not into getting spanked by women yet...that would come later) were our age or older. At that first party, I did get spanked by a 24-year-old Chinese guy named Lee. It was a wonderful experience, even though we were both super nervous. Unfortunately, Lee didn't return for the second day of the party. At the time, I put it down to him probably being overwhelmed by being at his first spanking party. It never occurred to me that, being the older group it was then, someone may have made him feel unwelcome because he was so young. I refused to believe that the ageism I so feared at the time might actually go in the other direction, too. 

So, fast forward five years to 2008. John Baku and friends introduce a new kind of social networking site--Fetlife, made for kinksters and run by kinksters. It didn't happen overnight, but within a year I would say, Crimson Moon was beginning to be transformed into a much younger group. The problem was that the group was getting younger, but I was getting older. I never thought I would have a problem getting men to play with me. It was unheard of and had never happened in five years. I literally never heard the word "no" in response to asking someone to play. I remember that first "no" like it was yesterday. I had asked a guy who was new to the group to play because I wanted to make him feel welcome. He looked like he wasn't getting much attention (being a new top attending alone, that can be a problem) so I asked him if he wanted to play. His words stung and I still remember them to this day. "Look," he said, "I've been married for 27 years. I have an old lady at home. It's HER I wanna play with." With that, he pointed to a young (meaning under 30) woman sitting at a table with some friends. I tried to hide how rejected I felt. "Well, good luck with that," I told him and went off to lick my wounds. It was the first time I'd ever been rejected and it was because of my age. The girl he'd wanted to play with had been young enough to be his daughter. Nowadays, an older man like that approaching a young woman at a party would be considered "creepy" but back then, kinky social media was brand new so it's possible that Pops got the young girl to play with him. By 2009, I was 48-years-old and the "no's" were beginning to pile up as, party by party our members became younger and younger. Not only were they young, but they were aggressive, too. The would swarm into the party room in small groups chattering, flirting and bratting and turning all the tops' heads. Suddenly, I wasn't very interesting anymore.

Fast forward another five years, to 2013. I was a 52-year-old heart attack survivor attending parties without my twin (who had passed away three years earlier). I had been reduced to being the one doing the asking at parties now. When I was a newbie, one of our older members always said I "had a line out the door" of men wanting to play with me. Now, there was no line. I was the one who had to get in line. It's funny but, even though I still get told "yes" more than I get told "no", it's the "no's" that I remember. I can't be expected to remember every guy who has smiled and took my hand after I asked them to play. But the ones who rebuffed me? Yeah, they stick with me. I've had guys tell me "I'm not playing right now. I'm resting my arm." But then a miracle happens. A cute young girl walks into the room and suddenly, his arm doesn't hurt anymore. And if you think that's bad, wait til you hear this one. In 2012, I was at a party and I was sitting in one of the hospitality suites. It was me and five other guys, just sitting and chewing the fat together. This guy comes in with a paddle in his hand and asks "Who wants a spanking?" I raised my hand and said "I do" and do you know what he said? "Anyone else?" That guy spanked another man, right there in front of me. Of course, the guy who got spanked was an adorable male bottom. I would have spanked him. But still, getting rejected in favor of a guy when this man's dynamic was clearly M/f hurt a lot. I stayed around and watched the spanking though because I do love M/M spanking scenes. 

The people who know me well know that I'm clearly a masochist. But I'm not into humiliation. I've blogged before about competing with the younger, thinner girls. It's a loser's game for women like me. When I first started in the spanking scene all it took to assure a bottom's popularity was to be a hard player. Luckily, I'm a really hard player or I would have probably been put out to pasture a long time ago. Nowadays, that hard playing bottom needs to come with the ideal body as well. I blame the Internet, with its huge menu of spanking porn, which all feature beautiful women of young age and toned body. There are a few companies that will occasionally feature a larger size woman as the bottom, but she still has to be under 30 or look like she could pass for a young girl. My friend, Sherri has worked as a spanking model for a couple of producers and she says she was told that there's a niche in the video market for older women being spanked. Really? I'd like to see just one video producer have the guts to put a woman who looks like me in a spanking video. Not gonna happen, folks.

As a bigger woman who also happens to not exactly be in fighting trim, I think it's disingenuous to say that there isn't ageism or sizeism in the spanking scene. I've seen it and experienced it firsthand. A person could say "That's not why he told you no" but how would they know if they weren't there? All of the tops whose arms are no longer sore or tired when the latest cutie waltzes into the room in her plaid skirt kind of give it away. I don't mean to sound bitter. I have loved my time in the spanking scene for the most part. But I'm a person who deals in realities. The reality is that being older and heavier and "less cool" does hinder who I play with. I know there are people who are willing to play with me privately but not publicly because they're afraid that their "cool" friends would laugh at them for playing with  the fat girl. Or how about the girls who get played with privately and photos get taken? We all look forward to the post-party photo dumps that take place, where everyone (myself included) posts all their party pics. However, I have found more than once that photos of me don't always get posted on other peoples' profiles. This, I believe, is due to the peer pressure I described (about people not wanting their "cool" friends to know that they played with me). 

For people who think it's "not a big deal unless you make it a big deal"...let me tell you that being humiliated publicly is a very big deal. Watching a guy go off with a cute young girl immediately after he just told you he was resting or not playing or had a sore arm is humiliating in the extreme. I would never do that to a person because it's a crappy thing to do to someone. People who are older and/or fat also have feelings the same as anyone else. OK, we're not the "beautiful people", but you know, I don't exactly have a hunchback or live in a bell tower. I'm a human being and I have eyes to see with. Just because a person refuses to acknowledge that my age or weight or non-cool status isn't the reason they didn't want to play with me doesn't make it not true. And if you chose not to play with me because I'm friends with someone you don't like, that's about as middle school as you can get. 

So if you're one those ultra-cool, ultra-popular tops and you choose not to play with me because, no matter how many tattoos I get I'll never be cool enough to play with you, just tell me the truth. You would be doing me and a lot of other people a huge favor. As I said before, I deal in realities. If your reality is that fat girls don't "do it" for you so we're persona non grata in your universe, then say so. Don't give us some hogwash about how age is just a number or how you play with anyone, regardless of size or age if you have a profile full of nothing but you playing with spanking models. I'm fat and old, not blind and stupid. I've seen enough of you guys make a beeline for the door when I come into a room to know what's going on. I've seen people that started in the scene when I did no longer coming to parties because they don't feel like they fit in among the younger crowd. It used to be that spanking parties were leisurely affairs, where people sat and conversed and took their time. Now, because most young people have short attention spans and a low tolerance for things that move slowly, everything at a spanking party is now scheduled and regimented. And there's always something happening because, God forbid, we wouldn't want anyone to have to use their own devises to come up with something to do. That kind of fast paced party atmosphere is what drives a lot of the older members of the scene away. Many of the big national parties (like BBW) don't open up the suite parties until midnight. For most of us older folks, that's pretty late. Some of us take medication for different ailments and need to be in bed by a certain time. For some of us, midnight is the middle of the night. Waiting until that late to start a suite party is, in my mind, tantamount to telling older folks "If you can't keep up, stay out of our way!" It's a subtle form of exclusion. 

I apologize that so many of my recent posts have been rants. But I don't really like the direction the scene is going because, quite frankly, I don't see a place for myself in the scene in the next three or four years unless someone does something to convince me otherwise. This is a sad realization because I had planned to stay active in the scene until my bones were too brittle to risk it. I already feel like I've been put into that phase-out stage. It didn't happen overnight, but eventually I began to feel that I'm becoming irrelevant. And that's one of the worst feelings in the world, believe me.