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Monday, March 12, 2012

The Struggle

For the past few months, I've been working on a particular skill within the realm of submitting to spankings. I'm very, very good at taking hard spankings with the right atmosphere. The atmosphere, however, has always been highly important for my success with these things. I generally experience these things as if I am being "guided" to a particular headspace and then kept there. I think this is partially because my early spanking experiences were highly directed and I never learned how to create a headspace for myself and partly because when it comes to physical things, I'm far better at passive submission than active submission. Recently, we've been working on my ability to give myself over to a hard spanking without direct assistance.

It is way, way more difficult than it sounded to me in the beginning.

No atmosphere means no phrases of comfort or reaffirmation, no "good girl"s, no questions that focus my mind on submission like "to whom does your body belong?" or "do you want this spanking?" It turns out those things go an extremely long way towards creating a submissive headspace for me.

It also means no warmup. This is the biggest difference between the kinds of non-punitive spankings I was used to getting and the kind that I've been getting recently. A warmup eases me into a scene both physically and mentally. The mental side of it is what's the most important for me. It gives me time to accept the fact that I'm being spanked and slowly start giving myself over to the spanking, suspending my sense of self preservation and surrendering my free will for the time being. It's like slowly inching forward to get wet in a lake before going swimming (this analogy is particularly effective for me because I have a strong fear of water so preparing to submerge myself is far more mental than physical, but I'm sure that it will make at least some sense to others). You take one step, then another step, then another and at first every step makes you gasp from the cold but eventually, you put your head entirely under the water and then you're ready and can swim for however long you want.

Without a warmup and with few words of guidance or correction, I'm more like a cat who has just been dropped into a full tub for her bath than a swimmer slowly preparing to enjoy the water. The first smack hits my bottom and I pretty much immediately start crying out, rolling back and forth on Malignus' lap, yelling in the style that Naomi would call "like a dying monster" and being entirely incapable of keeping position. This is relative to my normal ability to be extremely still: I've seen other girls who simply have to be held down and pinned in place to take a spanking, and recently, I saw one of my friends climb over a couch when her arms were being held down and she was trying to escape swats. The logistics of that maneuver still befuddle me. To my own credit, I will add that I've never put my hand back during a spanking, that I've never gotten off the Top's lap, that I've only kicked a Top in the face twice and that it's been over three years since that time that I broke a lamp. Basically, I'm not horrible, but I try to cling to my resistance as much as possible and relaxing and giving myself over to being spanked isn't the first thing on my mind. In fact, instead of thinking about how much I want to be spanked and how I never want it to end, I find myself latching onto thoughts of how it's too hard, it hurts too much, I can't be still for it and I want it to be over. Not very productive.

That's my brain, basically, when I'm not doing things right.


I've been working on this for a long time, and that's not to say that every spanking I receive is done in this method and intended to work on this. Malignus had told me that I'd been making progress but I personally was getting frustrated with myself: I knew what things I should be doing during a spanking and I just never brought myself to do them.

Last week, we obtained a new implement. Peachy Keane sent it to me as part of a gift box. I've talked about Jenny before: the wooden spatula that Malignus loves and most girls hate. Here's a photo of Jenny, in case anyone wasn't sure what it looked like:


This is Ben, the new implement that scotchgrove had Peachy send us:

At first, I thought it was another Jenny in a different color. They do look the same!


From that angle, they look exactly the same aside from the color difference and the fact that Jenny is well worn. From other angles, the difference is far more noticeable:


Ben is about 1.5 - 1.75 times as thick as Jenny. This was EXTREMELY noticeable the first time I was spanked with it. Jenny was my "warm up" (this was quick and very firm) and then he started to hit me with Ben. I kicked and bucked around and screamed and could barely be kept under basic control. I'm pretty sure that the spanking ended earlier than intended because I was taking it with so little grace and dignity. But geeze! That thing is HORRIBLE. It's the epitome of an awful spoon (you can tell because scotchgrove calls his "the perfect spoon." )

The other day, I got into a mood and I started having a really awful attitude while Malignus and I were trying to get things done in a limited amount of time. I'm really ashamed of the way I acted. I was scolded about my attitude and just a minute later, he asked me something and I responded rudely and immaturely. He then started to scold me very, very harshly. I snapped out of my funk immediately and began to cry guiltily. I was suddenly aware of just how badly I'd been behaving. A minute or so later, he called me into the bedroom. He was sitting on the edge of the bed holding Ben. I felt a mix of terror and relief-- despite my extreme dislike of that implement, I knew that I deserved to be disciplined for my behavior and I wanted him to spank me very hard. Once I had bared my bottom and gotten over his lap, he gave me another stern scolding and then did just that. It felt as though he really laid into me with it (I say this in non-concrete terms because the way that I experience pain during a disciplinary spanking is different than usual and often much more severe). There was no denying the fact that he spanked me very thoroughly, but because of my mindset at the time, I lay quite still and did nothing but cry submissively into my pillow. The spanking finished with corner time followed by a long, comforting hug and a chance for me to behave better. I spent the rest of the afternoon focusing on being cheerful and getting things done, and I was successful at both.

Later, when we were driving in the car to go out to eat, Malignus noted that I had been very still for my spanking. It hadn't even registered to me that I had: I had been focusing on other things. This was important for me because it had reminded me just what I was capable of. When I want to, I can endure anything. This had stopped being a reality for me when I had continuously failed at my earlier attempts to fully submit. That night, Malignus gave me a bedtime spanking with a different spoon. My bottom was still sore from my discipline earlier that day, but I know he didn't spank me as hard or with as fast a pace as he usually does. Still, I was able to channel the same feeling of wanting to be spanked and I successfully gave over to the spanking. I was very proud of myself, indeed, and Malignus told me that he was proud as well.

This post has too many words in it! It needs one of these!

Since then, I've only had one other spanking, which was also with Ben. I took that one similarly well. It's exciting to feel like I'm on a roll and finally mastering something and making real, measurable progress.

15 comments:

  1. Wow, your post was enlightening! I have a hard time holding still for hard spankings no matter how badly I want them! Your idea about focusing fully on wanting to submit despite the pain might do the trick. I get so caught up in the pain and do not really think at all! Will try soon I am quite sure. Thanks!

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    1. I am really glad that this post was helpful for you. It's sort of my goal to be able to write in a way that makes the things that I experience useful to others. Your comment made my night.

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  2. Very impressive post. Love the pics for it as well. :-)

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  3. "This post has too many words in it!" - So I say, "Boobs!" Which is not a way of saying I wish for boobs, just a way of screaming BOOBS as I am sometimes wont to do.

    It's 4 am and I'm awaiting a flight after a trip to Texas that had so many mishaps in it, it's like Murphy's Law was my travel buddy. Bear with me.

    As usual, I love your writing style, and always feel like I am standing right next to you as you tell the story. I am also, however, quite glad I am not. :) I'm pretty awful at hearing friends cry. You'd think I'd have figured that particular one out by now, but no.

    Packing beckons...

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    1. I'm getting there with being okay with watching my friends get spanked/cry. It's actually easier for me to watch it than to over hear it. When it gets left to my imagination, I just feel sad all over for them.

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  4. Both those spoons look wickedly evil! I think this post shows just how hard you're trying, so that's awesome :)

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  5. First of all, what kind of friends do you associate with? They send you such awful things!

    Before I was ever spanked, I always imagined that I would struggle a bit but was surprised that I never really do. I'm certainly not the type to lie there stoically and take it, but I can't say I've ever kicked a top in the face. Hilarious, btw. ;-)

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    1. Most of those awful things come from the same pair of friends: including the guy who made the "Men who *heart* making Alex sad" group on fetlife.

      What can I say? I like the terribly sadistic ones. :P

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  6. This made me laugh out loud, but especially the first paragraph. I am also right with you on the difficulty of taking a beating without appropriate soothing/encouragement. It's easiest in roleplay, because then you have all that psychological structure and also you're allowed to be angry with your spanker without it meaning you're failing at submission, which definitely helps. But if it's just the two of you and you aren't in a big horny I-want-a-spanking-now mood, or if you don't get enough warmup, it can be intolerable.

    I think that's okay.

    Tops make decisions, they should take responsibility for them. That's what being a top is about. If they choose not to give you a warm up or not to say helpful toppy things to make you more co-operative, then that's their own lookout. In fact if you think about it, it was entirely his OWN fault that he got kicked in the face. Why should you have to make up the shortfall and top yourself if he can't be bothered to do it for you? Keep up the dying monster routine, he'll get the message eventually. ;)

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    1. Fifth paragraph. Not first. The first was interesting, but it was the lamp that made me cackle.

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    2. Thanks for adding your thoughts. I REALLY appreciate it. I think it's a very fine line between what's the responsibility of the Top and the bottom during a scene. For example, I know that no one but myself can truly *make* me feel something. That said, on practical, functioning levels, the Top is the one who has by far the most power (and therefore one could say responsibility) for creating an atmosphere for the scene.
      The dying monster seems to help. :D

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    3. Yeah, I've heard the "if you were a good submissive then simply knowing that it was what I wanted would make you brave and obedient and stoic!" routine before but I think it's kind of BS. Or maybe I'm not a good submissive, whatever.

      I like being obedient and I like being spanked hard though, but those only tend to work/feel right with either one of atmosphere, ritual, horniness or warmup. Which is LOADS of options in my opinion. If a top wants to spank me hard and not do any of those things, they can put up with me yelling and trying to escape.

      It's physical, right? It's like, a top might say "if you were a good submissive you would be able to come on command!" but that doesn't make it true. If they want to make you come they have to do the right physical/mental/emotional stuff to make it happen. Likewise if they want you to take a hard beating from cold. I think if you want to play really hard both of you need to co-operate and work together towards it: it doesn't work so well if the bottom is full-on resisting, but it doesn't work so well if the top is deliberately not doing anything to help, either.

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