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.

On A More Positive Note

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.

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.

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.

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.

My mother was what was known in that era as a "good girl". This means that despite the fact that she dated a lot and had quite a few boyfriends, she remained a virgin and saved herself for her marriage. I asked my dad years later, when my mother was ill with cancer and Alzheimer's, if he could remember anything about his wedding day and he told me "I wanted it to be the happiest day of her life." The young couple in the wedding photo (he was 23, she was just 20) had no idea what life was going to throw at them on that glorious April day almost 60 years ago. But I'm extremely grateful that both had personal faith in Jesus Christ because they would need it. 

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.

This heavily damaged photo is the only one I have of my mother pregnant with me. That 's my grandmother (her mother) and my older brother, Ray with her. He's barely standing so he must be about a year old here, which means Mom has three months to go. We were premature, as twins usually are. In fact, Mom's labor was induced due to toxemia. Her kidneys were failing and her obstetrician was sure at least one of her babies had it as well. The prevailing medical wisdom of that era was to save the mother, which is why her labor was induced. She had two other children who needed her. If these babies didn't survive, then she could always get pregnant again. In the late afternoon of December 30th, my mother's labor was induced and Carol and I were born in the late morning of the 31st. We were a natural birth, as were all of her children (although she herself had been born by Cesarean section) and I can only imagine how hard it had to have been for her to push two babies (one of whom was breech) out. But we did make it out and into the world. Our world was an artificial one in those first days. We were placed together in an incubator and the doctor, nurses and my terrified parents held their breath as we struggled for life like newborn chicks. January 4th was my mother's 26th birthday and she was still in the hospital, miserably sick and wanting her babies. That morning, Dr. Brandis, the brilliant obstetrician who had delivered us, came into her room and gave her what she later called the best gift she had ever been given. He told her "Donna, your girls are fighters. I think they're both going to be just fine." It had still not been determined what kind of twins we were, identical or fraternal. The doctor examined the placenta in those days before ultrasound, to determine if we shared one placenta or if we each had our own. It was determined that we had shared on placenta and were therefore identical. My mother said later that my sister and I had been the answer to a prayer. But she never had anymore children.

Her family now complete, she set about raising us the best she possibly could. She concerned herself completely with the education and salvation of her children. We were my father's pride and joy, as this photo makes evident. He was a strict but loving father, who took us with him when he picked up his check. While his friends went out on the weekends to drink in the bars and play basketball at the Y, my father was content to spend time with us--going to the movies, swimming in our backyard pool, barbecuing or picnicking or camping. But the biggest thing we did on the weekend was go to church on Sunday. The Presbyterian church that my father had grown up in became the center of our family's spiritual life. My parents led us by example. We ate together, prayed together and did everything together, always as a family. I saw how some of my friends' fathers treated them--some like property and some like an afterthought. My father answered to Someone higher than himself and I always sensed his humility and the seriousness with which he took his role as head of our home. My mother was his unflagging, unfailing partner. They both agreed and were united in two things: that their children would be educated and that they would know and love the Lord. The idyll couldn't and wouldn't last. The warm and cozy family life that my parents made for us, which had been my safe haven from bullies, began to stifle me when I reached my teens. Slowly but surely, I began to rebel. When it came to discipline, he had a hard hand. But we always knew, even after a spanking (maybe especially then) that he loved us and would give or do anything for us. He would speak to us about God the Father, how he disciplines His children because He loves them and how it was the same with earthly fathers. "If I didn't love you, I'd let you act any way you wanted," he used to tell us during the family times we had together, which often included studying the Bible. And if there was one thing my father knew, besides how to make cottage cheese, it was the Bible. The dairy where he worked had given him the skills to make a living for his family, but it was the Bible that taught and instructed us at home. I had given my life to Christ as an 11-year-old. I joined Youth For Christ when I entered high school. But, soon other things influenced me more than the Bible or the God I couldn't see. I began to smoke, drink and party, forgetting the loving attention that my mother and father had always given me and seeing their rules as unfair attempts to control me. Once, when I was in eighth grade, I talked back to him in a particularly bad way. He left the room without a word and I stood there, savoring what I thought was a victory until he returned bearing a switch in his hand. He used it to tear up the backs of my legs, an act that caused me to weep bitter tears as I came to the realization that he still held control and mastery over me. A week later, he did something that it took me a very long time to forgive. He broke the lock on my diary and read it. He suspected I was seeing a boy he disapproved of and he needed proof. My diary provided it. I was furious with him and left to go stay with friends for three days. When things cooled down and my father apologized, I returned home. 

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